Christian father sues Maine public school for religious vaccine exemption

Christian father James Childs is suing the Maine Department of Education and his local school district for their threats to expel his 12-year-old son if he isn’t vaccinated, allegedly violating the family’s First Amendment and religious rights.

Currently, Maine is one of just four states without religious exemptions for vaccines, making it one of the strictest in the nation.

In 2019, Democrat Gov. Janet Mills signed a bill rolling back religious or philosophical exemptions, saying, “It is my responsibility to protect the health and safety of all Maine people, and it has become clear that our current laws do not adequately protect against the risks posed to Mainers.”

She cited recent whooping cough outbreaks and Maine’s vaccine opt-out rates – one of the highest nationwide at the time – as justification for restricting parental freedoms.

“People of good will hold sincere beliefs on both sides of the issue,” Mills said, “but Maine has a vaccination opt-out rate that is three times higher than the national average for students entering Kindergarten and the state ranks seventh in the country for the rate of non-medical exemptions taken among school-age children.”

Now, students can only opt out if they have a medical exemption from a provider. However, special education students are still allowed to use religious or philosophical exemptions if they already did so before the law was changed.

Childs’ lawsuit argues the current law is unfairly burdensome to religious Mainers.

Whatever health risks there are to being unvaccinated, the suit observes, those risks are present regardless of why vaccines have been refused.

Additionally, Maine does not require its public-school employees to be immunized – only its students.

Because of his religious objections, Childs has thus far refused to vaccinate his son, resulting in “threats of expulsion and ultimatums” from the Defendants. According to the lawsuit, if Childs does not give his son the Tdap and meningococcal vaccines, he will be denied enrollment for the 2026-27 school year.

“Childs has tried repeatedly to work with them to keep his son in school while finding a compromise for his religious beliefs,” the complaint reads. “The Defendants are violating James Childs’ right to direct his son’s religious upbringing by conditioning his son’s education on the receipt of vaccinations that violate his religious beliefs.”

Childs has also filed an emergency injunction, asking for his son to be allowed to attend school while the case is pending.