The Biden administration is once again facing backlash from the religious after it released a questionnaire included in a form for federal employees who sought a religious exemption from President Joe Biden's COVID vaccine mandate.
An updated template for the form was published on the Safer Federal Workforce task force website. This form is used by the federal government when assessing whether a worker is qualified for a religious exemption to the COVID vaccine.
According to the Christian Post, some questions on the form included a request to "describe the nature of your objection to the COVID-19 vaccination requirement" and how getting vaccinated against COVID would "substantially burden your religious exercise or conflict with your sincerely held religious beliefs."
The form also posed questions such as, "How long have you held the religious belief underlying your objection?" and "Whether your religious objection is to the use of all vaccines, COVID-19 vaccines, a specific type of COVID-19 vaccine, or some other subset of vaccines."
The government also wanted to know "Whether you have received vaccines as an adult against any other diseases (such as a flu vaccine or a tetanus vaccine)." Such questions were already deemed problematic by critics even before the updated version was added to the website on Friday.
"The law does not provide a pandemic-related exception for disregarding the rights of religious employees," Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Republican commissioner Andrea R. Lucas argued in a conversation with The Federalist.
"No matter the context, intrusive questions presuming insincerity from the start, seeking to 'catch' an employee in an inconsistency, and looking for any reason to deny a religious accommodation request, are inappropriate."
Republican Senator Josh Hawley earlier this month wrote a letter to the Safer Federal Workforce Taskforce head, saying that the questions on the religious exemptions form featured a "contempt for religious liberty."
The Missouri senator added that the list of questions "evinces a skepticism and indeed a hostility to applicants who harbor sincerely held religious objections to the COVID-19 vaccine." Sen. Hawley expressed concern that it would prevent civil servants from applying for religious exemptions to COVID vaccines.
President Biden issued an executive order requiring COVID vaccinations among federal employees and its contractors, as well as private organizations with 100 or more employees. Since then, many employees across the country have opted to resign rather than comply with the vaccine mandate. Most recently, a group of U.S. labor unions met with the Biden administration to expand its vaccine mandate for private companies.
According to CNBC, the Service Employees International Union, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and AFL-CIO, and other major unions representing "teachers, service employees, meat processing plant, auto and steel workers" discussed with the Biden administration "mitigation measures" while they get their employees vaccinated against COVID. The groups were asking for "include additional protections for workers, including mask requirements and other safety measures to minimize the spread of Covid-19."
