On A Dark Day, Hope Abounds

With our children's health and futures on the line, giving up isn't an option.

Earlier this morning, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its weekly order list, posted almost every Monday morning while the Court is in session. For most, this event passes without notice, with even the media ignoring most (if not all) of the contents of the list. But today was different. Today was a day we had long anticipated here at We The Patriots USA, the day that we would learn whether our lawsuit to restore religious exemptions to vaccinations for schoolchildren in Connecticut would be heard by the Supreme Court, giving hope to millions who have lost that right not only in Connecticut, but in California, New York, and Maine as well. West Virginia has never had a religious exemption for school vaccinations. Collectively, the rights of some 20 percent of the U.S. population were hanging in the balance with this one case.

But it was not to be. As my eyes scanned the list of cases for which the court granted certiorari review - seven in total this morning - I quickly noticed that our case was not on the list. Then on to the list of “Certiorari Denied”. Not since I awaited my bar exam results had I felt such an overwhelming mix of dread and hope over a list of names posted on a website. Fortunately for me, my bar exam results were cause for celebration. Now that I had moved on to the cert denial list, though, the last thing I wanted was to see our case name. There was still a chance, for a few seconds, that our case was relisted, meaning the court did not grant it, but did not deny it either. Instead, it would be relisted for a future conference in the fall, when it would once again have a chance to be put to a vote. Most cases that are granted certiorari are relisted at least once, and often multiple times.

That relist dream was quickly dispelled when I read the fourth case listed on the denial list: We The Patriots USA, et al. v. CT Early Childhood Dev., et al. For me, the loss carried with it a deeply personal blow. This case represented the cause that got me started in health freedom activism years ago, long before We The Patriots USA even existed. My son was seriously injured by a vaccine when he was only a year old (he’s 12 today), and once upon a time we claimed a religious exemption in Connecticut, for both my son and daughter. I know first-hand the feelings of fear and desperation that fell upon parents when the Connecticut legislature voted to repeal the religious exemption on April 27, 2021. This was a battle my wife and I fought at the legislative office building for years prior to that fateful day, and it was during this fight that I met my dear friend and now business partner, Dawn Jolly, who was there fighting for the same cause. When I stood on the steps of the Connecticut Supreme Court the next day, I boldly declared that we would take this case all the way the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary, and we kept that promise. After more than three years, tens of thousands of dollars, and countless hours of legal work, today we finally received a ruling in our case from the U.S. Supreme Court. It wasn’t the result we’d hoped and prayed for, of course, but we put everything we had into this case and left it all on the field, as the saying goes.

It was hard to feel anything but defeat in those first few moments after getting this news. But then I remembered why I got into this line of work in the first place. As I’ve already said, I got started in this fight because of what happened to my son. But of course, I was doing this for millions of other children as well. And no one ever promised us there wouldn’t be any setbacks or defeats. Hardly a war has been won without a single lost battle. Even organizations much larger than us, with far more resources, take their lumps. Case in point: today’s order list, which also dealt two cert denials to Children’s Health Defense (CHD), an organization we have long supported, and for which we have tremendous respect. Today the Supreme Court also denied CHD’s cert petition in its lawsuit against Rutgers University over its COVID-19 shot mandate, while also denying cert in CHD’s lawsuit against the FDA challenging its licensure of the covid shot for children.

So it’s no exaggeration to say that this is a dark day for health freedom and religious liberty in America. No matter how well-pled the facts, or how well-reasoned the legal arguments, the Court made clear today that it is unwilling to take up these issues at this time. As lawyers, we can commit to do our very best, but we cannot promise victory. That is left in the hands of judges and juries. The best lawyers in the history of the world have lost cases, and often big ones. But the best are not defined by their losses. Just as with the best athletes, the best lawyers and law firms are defined by how they respond to their losses.

And our response is this: WE WILL NOT BACK DOWN. We will not lose hope. We know that there is a Divine plan in all of this, and that "all things work together unto good" (Romans 8:28). Even in this loss, in fact, there is some good news:

1. Our case against the State of Connecticut to restore religious exemptions was not fully dismissed by the Second Circuit, which allowed one of our claims to proceed - i.e., that a child with an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) is entitled to an education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The Second Circuit sent this claim back to the district court for trial, but it has been on hold pending the outcome of our cert petition at the Supreme Court. If we are able to win this trial, children with disabilities on IEPs could receive an education and vital support services, regardless of vaccination status.

2. We recently claimed a victory in our case on behalf of Milford Christian Church and Little Eagles Preschool & Daycare. You may recall that we filed a federal lawsuit against the State of Connecticut after it attempted to shut down the school because it continued to honor religious exemptions for students. This was a direct attack on religion by the state, and earlier this month a federal judge allowed us to proceed in the lawsuit with an amended complaint. We now look forward to a trial in that case as well, which would give religious/parochial schools the ability to accept religious exemptions to vaccinations for students.

If we are ultimately victorious in these two cases, students with disabilities and students at private religious schools would be able to opt out of vaccinations and receive an education in Connecticut. A victory in either of these cases at the Second Circuit would also apply to students in New York, a state which lost its school religious exemption in 2019. Although it's not the broad, sweeping victory we were aiming for, these cases could still open the door for hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of children to receive an education in New York and Connecticut.

Does that mean we aren’t feeling the sting of this loss today? Far from it. But we aren’t going to sit here licking our wounds, either. We have a lot of fight left in us, and for us, the only option is to keep fighting. Too many children are counting on us for us to give up now. But we are only as good as our supporters. If you support our continued efforts to fight for health freedom and religious liberty, please consider making a gift to our Mid-Year Giving Campaign today, which ends in just a few days on June 30, 2024. If you’re reading this after that date, you can make a tax-deductible donation to our nonprofit organization at www.wethepatriotsusa.org/donate. With your help and God’s, anything is possible. Let’s get to work.