Request for a Religious Exemption to the Covid-19 Vaccine Requirement

I am requesting a religious exemption to the Covid-19 Vaccine Requirement, pursuant to

the guidelines provided by the EEOC. I am entitled to a religious exemption by law, protected by
the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
and Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act. I am asserting my right to a religious
accommodation under Title VII, ELCRA, and EEOC-CVG-2021-3 Section 12 on religious
discrimination, which prohibits discrimination against a sincerely held religious belief, practice,
or observance. This letter, as well as that of my attorney, will serve as the formal notice of my
request for an exemption for my deeply held religious beliefs.
I have been attending the Protestant Church since I was a child. As I came of age, I chose
to become baptized in the Protestant Church and the Christian faith. My belief in God was
awakened by the message of Genesis 1:27, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the
image he created them; male and female he created them.” I attend weekly religious services, pray
daily, and try to live my life according to the teachings of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Throughout the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, I have relied on my faith to make sense of
an uncertain world. Through private prayer and quiet meditation, I have come to feel a stronger
and more meaningful connection with God. I know that God is always present in my life and place
my trust in Him above all others.
The reason for my requested religious exemption is grounded in my Christian faith. I
believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God and is the ultimate written authority in my life. 2
Tim 3:16-17. The Christian faith teaches that the Word of God, that which is found in the Bible,
is the written authority by which a Christian must adhere and obey. The Bible sets forth the basis
of a Christian’s moral, ethical, and spiritual code, for which all Christians must follow. The
Christian faith teaches that my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit given to me by God with an
immune system that He has designed, that under God’s law, Divine Law, murder is wrong
including abortion, and that I have the sanctity of conscience, which is a tool used for one to come
closer to God and the end purpose in life.
The purpose of life is to glorify Creator-God for giving me life and saving me from
judgment. The Word of God teaches me that Christ paid the ultimate sacrifice to purchase my
freedom from eternal judgment and because I have put my faith in Christ, my body is indwelled
with the Holy Spirit to which, my life is not my own and is to be used for His glory. I also believe
that whatever I do must be to the glory of God. 1 Cor 10:31: “So, whether you eat or drink, or
whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” When it is something as mundane and repetitive as
eating a meal, I am to give God glory in eating that meal. But, if my actions are not glorifying God
and they go against Him, I sin.
It is against my faith and conscience to commit sin. I believe that as a Christian I need to
avoid sinning, and to go against my conscience is a sin. Romans 14:23 says “[f]or whatever does
not proceed from faith is sin.” Sin is anything that violates Divine Law, the Word of God and the
Will of God, and which is impressed in the heart of every believer by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
An example of sin would be partaking in any process of an abortion. God tells everyone with His
inerrant, infallible Word, that the taking of innocent life is murder. One who partakes in the
shedding of innocent blood is guilty of sinning against God and His divine law. If I were to commit
sin, I would jeopardize my relationship with God, incur His judgment, and violate my conscience.
Therefore, to violate my conscience, to commit sin, and go against God’s law is unacceptable to
me and a violation of my religious beliefs. Me being required to undertake the Covid-19 vaccine
is a violation of my conscience and my personal religious beliefs.
The Covid-19 vaccines conflict with my deeply held religious beliefs for many reasons.
Importantly, it violates the Sixth Commandment which states the “thou shall not murder”. As a
Christian, I believe that abortion is a sin equivalent to murder and if I were to take any vaccine that
has ties to aborted fetal tissue (whether in research and development or in production), it would
make me complicit in the sin of murder. It is known to me that the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen
Pharmaceuticals) required the use of fetal cell cultures derived from an abortion in order to produce
and manufacture the vaccine. It is also known that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines
utilized aborted fetal cells in testing and development of mRNA technology.1
Both instances violate the Sixth Commandment, and my conscience as a Christian. My
partaking in any vaccine either tested or developed using aborted fetus blood lines goes against
my moral conscious and thus I would be sinning against my God and in violation of God's moral
law to not murder. I believe what Psalm 127 3:5 “Children are a heritage from the LORD,
offspring a reward from him (God). Every child is a blessing and a gift from God. But, by
partaking in this vaccine would link me to the aborted fetus lines and violate my moral beliefs and
understanding of God's law.
Moreover, the currently available Covid-19 vaccines are mRNA technology which is a
synthetic unnatural vaccine technology.2 mRNA vaccine technology is an unconventional
technology that triggers an immune response, through the use of mRNA created in a laboratory to
teach our cells how to make a protein—or even just a piece of a protein—that triggers an immune
response inside our bodies. This technology is gene manipulation and unnatural and therefore
against natural law and God’s creation. The use of such synthetic technology violates my
conscience as a Christian and is considered a sin. My faith teaches that anything not done
according to God’s law is a sin, and will negatively affect my relationship with God. These Covid-
19 vaccinations are synthetic in nature and not natural to my body's God-given immune system.
As a result of this knowledge, I have come to understand and hold that vaccines are in violation of
my sincerely held religious beliefs and getting the Covid-19 vaccine would be in violation of both
my moral conscious and religious belief system (God's law). Additionally, I have never been in a
situation of being required to put something into my body that I feel is harmful and will
permanently alter my immune system in order to retain my job. I believe this recent mandate for

1
https://www.health.nd.gov/sites/www/files/documents/COVID%20Vaccine%20Page/COVID-
19_Vaccine_Fetal_Cell_Handout.pdf
2
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-
vaccines/mRNA.html?s_cid=11344:how%20mrna%20vaccines%20work:sem.ga:p:RG:GM:gen:PTN:FY21
me to be vaccinated has caused me undue personal duress with the threat of putting me on unpaid
leave of absence including up to termination.
It is my sincerely held religious belief that God created Adam and Eve and designed their
bodies with the immune systems they would need in order to live on Earth. Genesis 1:27 says,
“God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female, he
created them.” I believe that God made my body with a capable immune system that should not
be altered with such things as the Covid-19 vaccine and doing any such practice would be
intentionally sinning against my Creator-God. My religious beliefs have also taught me I am able
to control what I put into my body, which is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Thanks to my God given
immune system, designed by my Creator, I do not use any medicine when I am healthy, and my
immune system is working as God intended. I Cor 3:16-17 says “Do you not know that you are
God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will
destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.” My body belongs to the Lord and
is indwelled by the Holy Spirit. I cannot take this vaccine as it goes against my sincerely held
personal religious belief that I would be defaming God and going against His Holy Scriptures that
command me not to defile his temple which resides in my body. Injecting the vaccine into my
body would be defiling my body since I would be altering the immune system that my God created
uniquely for me and in doing so I would be sinning against God. It is my practice to avoid any
such intake of substances that may knowingly or risk what I believe may harm my body (the temple
in which the Holy Spirit resides). Ultimately, my body belongs to the Lord. It is His dwelling
place. Therefore, I have a responsibility to be watchful and careful regarding what I do with my
body, how I use my body and even what I allow into my body.
In the past, I have not officially raised an objection to a vaccination, medical treatment, or
medicine on a religious basis because I have never been required previously by Stellantis to submit
to a vaccination. This vaccine mandate is the first occasion in my career as a Stellantis employee
where I was forced to receive a vaccine or face termination. Had there been a mandate before this
Covid-19 vaccine mandate, I would have raised an objection due to my firmly held religious beliefs
as I am now. My objection is not limited to the Covid-19 vaccines, as I am a firm believer in
natural medicine and do not take the annual flu vaccine. However, the Covid-19 vaccine is the first
one that has been mandated, so I am being forced to raise an objection due to my firmly held
religious beliefs as described above.
The accommodations required for my religious exemption is reasonable and consistent
with the practices for the last 20 months of the Covid-19 pandemic. That being that I may continue
to work as I have, effectively following the guidelines put in place for masking, social distancing
and accountability reporting, to include remote work as much as practically possible.
I encourage you to grant me my right to a religious exemption to the Covid-19 vaccine
mandate and provide me with reasonable accommodations as required by law.
Sincerely,