By GAVIN McCORMICK - The Associated Press

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A bill that would allow parents to keep their children from being immunized for religious reasons stirred the passions of Senate Judiciary Committee members Tuesday.

The committee referred the bill (SB136) to a subcommittee for further study, but only after senators raised sharp questions about children’s rights, abortion, public health and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The bill was introduced for the third straight year by Sen. Andy McKenzie, R-Ohio, at the request of Wheeling resident John Grindley, who attended Tuesday’s meeting.

Grindley, who describes himself as a born-again Christian, told senators he believes God does not want him to provide his children with state-mandated immunizations against measles, chicken pox, whooping cough and other diseases.

The shots are unhealthy, he said.

West Virginia children are required to have the immunizations when they enter public schools. Home-schooled children are not required to get the shots.

State health and education officials testified against the bill. They said children with compromised immune systems, such as those receiving cancer treatments or with HIV, would be most at risk from non-inoculated children.

Only West Virginia and Mississippi provide no religious exemptions for immunizations.

Only about 1 percent of children in the other 48 states decline the shots, and none of the states has seen higher incidents of disease as a result, said Andrew Schneider, executive director of the state ACLU, which supports Grindley.

Sen. Frank Deem, R-Wood, attacked the ACLU for backing abortion rights and same-sex marriage and said he had no respect for the organization’s opinion.

Sen. Herb Snyder, D-Jefferson, an abortion rights supporter, told McKenzie, an anti-abortion proponent, that he was being inconsistent by promoting the rights of parents to decide whether to inoculate their children.

"Should that right not extend to whether parents decide to abort their children?" Snyder asked.

McKenzie, who said he was "no friend of the ACLU," described Deem’s and Snyder’s comments as "inappropriate" and not germane to the bill.

Before sending the bill to a subcommittee, Judiciary Chairman Jeffrey Kessler, D-Marshall, admonished his committee for using the debate to make personal comments about witnesses or other members.