America is seeing vaccine mandates descending upon several states, from New York requiring all public school employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine to Los Angeles proposing a strict, widespread ruling. This would be effective in uplifting vaccination rates — if religious exemptions were not being widely utilized as a way to sidestep the law.
Trevor Noah examined this “hot new trend” during Tuesday night’s Daily Show, showing news footage from across the country of church leaders proposing exemption letters, including a pastor offering “religious exemption” and a “self-described evangelist” accepting payments for exemption letters.
“The question used to be: ‘Do you have a sincere religious belief?’ And now it’s: ‘Do you have a PayPal account?'” says Noah.
“The reason that people need to work so hard to cheat the system with fake religious beliefs is that basically every actual religion has told its followers to get thine ass vaccinated,” says Noah, before going on to cite examples of religious leaders like the Pope and the Dalai Lama encouraging people to get the vaccine.
And yet, the exemptions requests are still happening across states and sectors. In Washington D.C., 1 in 5 Fire and EMS workers are requesting exemptions. Elsewhere, 2,600 members of the Los Angeles Police Department are seeking religious exemption from the vaccine.
Noah also cites NBA player Andrew Wiggins, who was recently denied an exemption, stopping him from playing for his team until he follows through with a vaccine.
“Oh man, poor Dr. Fauci,” Noah says. Indeed.
