New York State everybody Sponsors dismissed religious beliefs as “fake” and “garbage.”

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Amish families began settling in New York as early as the 1830s, drawn, like so many before them, by the promise of religious liberty. For nearly two centuries they have farmed the land, built their own schools and asked little of their neighbors. The Supreme Court once called them “good farmers and citizens.”

Today, New York is penalizing them for simply practicing their faith.

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The facts are simple. Three small Old Order Amish schools, funded solely by the Amish, located on Amish farms and attended only by Amish children, are attended by families who hold a sincere religious objection to vaccination. For more than 50 years, from 1966 to 2019, New York respected that objection through a religious accommodation in state law. Shortly after the state repealed the accommodation, for the first time in the Amish community’s long history in New York, the state charged the schools with violations and imposed $118,000 in penalties.

During debate over the repeal, the bill’s sponsors dismissed religious beliefs as “fake” and “garbage.” That is not the language of neutrality.

The U.S. Supreme Court is now the only remedy for the Amish. But history, basic decency and precedent are on their side.

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In addition, the relevant New York law is neither neutral nor generally applicable. New York allows a medical exemption that turns on the judgment of doctors and school officials. The vaccine requirement does not reach teachers, aides or administrators in public schools, yet the state has targeted Amish school children.

And, by the state’s own estimate, as many as 97,900 students in New York remain unvaccinated without any exemption — almost four times the entire Amish population of New York. When a state tolerates that much secular noncompliance but will not tolerate a religious objection, it must justify itself under strict scrutiny. Under Tandon v. Newsom, comparable secular activity cannot be treated better than religious exercise.

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A denial of religious accommodation for the Amish leaves them with only two choices — pay ruinous fines or leave New York.

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