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http://vaccinelaw.com/cgi-bin/bin/poutevent.cgi?../events/2001x03x08x16x17
03/08/2001 -- LEPAGE CASE STRIKES DOWN “RELIGIOUS
SINCERITY” HEARINGS
The State Health Department’s scheme to “regulate”
religious exemptions to
childhood vaccinations is illegal, according to the
Wyoming Supreme Court.
In today’s ruling in the case of LePage v. State of
Wyoming, Department of
Health, Wyoming’s high court ruled that the State
Department of Health “exceeded its legislative authority” by conducting an “inquiry
into the sincerity of Mrs. LePage’s religious beliefs.”
Mrs. LePages’s appeal, in which she was represented by The
Rutherford
Institute, was briefed by Donald J. Rissler of Central
Wyoming Law
Associates, in Riverton, Wyoming, and argued by Robert T.
Moxley. The appeal
contended that the Constitution would prohibit inquiry by
the State into the
religious basis for exemption claims. But the Wyoming
Supreme Court ruled
that the Legislature had never provided the Health
Department with such a
power. Questioning, however, the possibility of such an
enactment in the
future, Justice Marilyn Kite, writing for the Court,
stated, “If the
legislature chose to address” the regulation of religious
exemptions, it
“would call into question the constitutional prohibition
against governmental inteference with the free exercise of religion.”
Acknowledging the State’s concern with “improper evasion”
of immunization,
the Court stated, “we . . . are confident in our
presumption that parents
act in the best interest of their children’s physical, as
well as their
spiritual, health.” And in the event of legislative
action, Justice Kite’s
opinion reiterated, “it is the legislature’s
responsibility to act within
the constraints of the Wyoming and United States
Constitutions.”
The full text of the opinion will be available shortly on
the Wyoming
Supreme Court website, at the URL “http://courts.state.wy.us/newopn.htm”
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