Have the Chesapeake Conference ("CC") and SAA stood up for individual freedoms, or bowed down to government mandates? Have they demonstrated the courage to stand up for the rights of their dedicated teachers and hard-working students? Or have they quietly and dutifully laid down for government intrusion and overreach? Or worse still, has this private SDA school invaded privacy and curtailed freedoms even beyond what the government has?
Since March 2020 the whole world has watched how government at every level (federal, state, county, city) has shut down society and the economy attempting to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Whatever your opinion may be on the various steps governments have taken, no one can ignore or deny the effects of strict government measures on individual freedoms under our Constitution, such as the freedom to practice one’s religious faith, to peacefully assemble with others, or to preserve one’s bodily autonomy:
The shut-downs and other limitations imposed on religious houses of worship at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spring 2020.
Montgomery County's mandate to shut down private schools from doing in-person instruction at the beginning of the 2020-21 school year.
OSHA mandates for large employers to impose vaccine requirements on their workers as a condition of employment, which were set to take effect in January 2022.
Vaccine mandates for students in schools which have been mentioned by area elected officials in the press and already begun in other parts of the country.
Back on December 30, 2021, we wrote to the CC’s communication director, Mr. Evan Knott, about these matters asking: What has the Chesapeake Conference done to protect freedom? No response was received, and we have found no pertinent information in the CC website's news section. Therefore we conclude that CC has done nothing, absolutely nothing to protect the individual rights and freedoms of the members of its churches, absolutely nothing to protect the rights of conscience of its employees (including the teachers of CC schools, like SAA), and absolutely nothing to protect the individual rights of the students enrolled in its schools, particularly the one this blog is interested in – SAA.
Yet while the CC and/or SAA have apparently done nothing to stand against government mandates for the protection of its employees’ and/or students’ rights:
• Other churches fought the shut-down of religious houses of worship, including The Lutheran Church of Our Savior in Bryans Park, MD, which joined a lawsuit against the State of Maryland.
• Other private schools fought against Montgomery County’s mandate to shut down schools.
• Many companies employing large numbers of people fought against vaccine mandates for their workers, including religious organizations like The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Asbury Theological Seminary. And they won at the Supreme Court of the United States which disallowed the vaccine mandate against large employers, although allowing it for employees of medical facilities receiving federal payments. Subsequently another court stopped the federal employee vaccine mandate.
• Other organizations have fought against vax mandates for their students, our children.
In fact, other official SDA hierarchical organizations such as the Southwestern Union of SDA and the Washington Conference of SDA have stood up much taller and much louder to protect their employees’ rights.
We know that SDAs believe that government will one day come for our religious freedoms, a unique view of end-time events. So wouldn’t and shouldn’t organizations like the CC and/or SAA be paying microscopically close attention to things like a crackdown on the use of worship spaces, in-person operation of SDA schools, vaccine requirements of SDA employees, or vaccine requirements for SDA school children? And shouldn’t they be communicating with their members to keep them abreast of important developments? Yes of course they should, but they haven’t.
Did the CC even offer medical or religious exemptions from vaccine requirements to its employees or students? You may read our letters to SAA and the CC about their “jab or job” pressure on our children’s teachers to vaccinate or suffer penalties, and then again about relaxed CDC quarantine rules in light of the SAA Vaccine Passport Mandate. Predictably, we got no answer from them. But our best inside information is that no such exemptions were provided. In other words, were it not for the U.S. Supreme Court having struck down the vaccine mandate for large employers (thanks to employers who actually cared enough about their employees’ rights and freedoms to take legal action), then the CC would have blindly and dutifully complied to mandate teachers to “get the jab, or lose your job” – even over a sincerely held religious objection.
If we do receive a response from Mr. Knott, then we will post it on this blog. We could be wrong about this, but it appears that during this crisis of freedoms throughout 2020-2022, the CC has chosen to do nothing except perhaps watch through field glasses from a very safe distance afar, while laying down like an obedient poodle at a dog show. SAA’s Administration (and formerly*) Secret School Board has hidden behind the skirt of the CC, except to invent and impose its own arbitrary and divisive vaccine mandate. Is this silence and inaction what CC constituents should expect during the “time of trouble”, a trademark of SDA eschatology? For the “remnant church” to sit back and let someone else fight the battle?
WE STAND AGAINST A COVD-19 VACCINE PASSPORT MANDATE FOR SAA CHILDREN:
In its place, require all students to be asymptomatic and obtain a negative PCR test result for overnight field trips.
In October 2021, this blog called attention to the SAA Vaccine Passport Mandate for high school students to participate in overnight field trips. This is an arbitrary rule SAA’s administration invented behind closed doors and without any community input. SAA’s Vaccine Passport Mandate is not required by any law of this county, state, or nation, nor to our knowledge is it required by the Chesapeake Conference in its other secondary institutions, such as Highland View Academy or Atholton Adventist Academy.
The raging Omicron variant of COVID-19 has clearly proved that it readily spreads to persons regardless of their vaccination status. No further proof is needed than the past outbreaks in the SAA community among athletes [COVID Spread at SAA - December 2021] who already had been required to be vaccinated 2 months prior [Potomac Valley AC Update]. If we assume that SAA students’ vaccination rates are roughly equivalent to the very high vaccination rates in Montgomery County, then it is self-evident that vaccination is not a magic force field against Omicron. Vaccination does not equal immunity. If it did, then there would not be numerous cases around the whole entire world, including at SAA, of vaccinated persons contracting COVID-19 (“breakthrough” cases) – nor would SAA have recently needed to cancel in-person classes for several weeks at the high school level, and to a lesser extent at the elementary and middle school levels.
SO WE CALL UPON SAA’S ADMINISTRATION TO RESCIND ITS ARBITRARY AND DIVISIVE VACCINE PASSPORT MANDATE FOR ITS HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS.
In its place, require all students to be asymptomatic and obtain a negative PCR test result for overnight field trips.
According to our sources, this autocratic, ill-advised vaccine passport requirement has already robbed and short-changed SAA students of participating in a beloved and longstanding tradition – forcing Mrs. Lanning’s high school bell choir to cancel its planned appearance at the handbell choir extravaganza known as “Ring Fest” in Toledo, Ohio (in October 2021) apparently because too many of the bell ringers were disqualified from the trip due to being unvaccinated. How unfair to deprive all those hardworking students of such a unique experience. Yet many other area schools sent their bell ringers, including Highland View Academy and Shenandoah Valley Academy. Were those reckless decisions? Do those schools care so much less about the health of their students than SAA does about ours? Were there any reported cases of infection or exposure at Ring Fest? How many more such opportunity losses will SAA’s administration exact upon SAA students with its vaccine passport mandate?
There are many good and compelling reasons to get a COVID-19 vaccine, mostly the worldwide millions upon millions of deaths reported during this pandemic. But there are also legitimate reasons to be cautious and decline it, such as scientific, personal health or moral objections. While people across the globe, in America, and even here in this local community may largely be in favor of COVID-19 vaccination, there is not yet any nationwide mandate for all Americans to be vaccinated – and there is not likely to be one. Why? Because consenting to a medical procedure or treatment, including a vaccine, is a matter of personal choice and individual bodily autonomy for oneself and one’s children. Employers should not condition employment on vaccine mandates, businesses should not condition commerce on vaccine mandates – and for heaven’s sakes – neither should any school (SDA or otherwise) condition its students’ full participation in programs or activities on vaccine mandates or vaccine passports. Didn’t our children already suffer enough with nearly a full year of virtual classes between March 2020 - April 2021? Yet making students suffer further is precisely what the SAA administration has done with its SAA Vaccine Passport Mandate.
We are a Cohort of Concerned Parents, some of whom have received a vaccine, and others not. We advocate no position on your personal prerogative to vaccinate yourself, or your parental prerogative to vaccinate your children. We do not expect anyone to look to this blog for medical advice, yet we are rational, thinking adults. Intelligent people may disagree on vaccinations, but all should be convinced in their own mind as to what is best for themselves and their children – and no one should use compulsion or coercive methods to violate the bodily autonomy of another free man, woman, or child. Those of us who have been vaccinated may choose to encourage or even urge others to do likewise, but we should never impose, or even tolerate, the forcible mandating or coercion of medical treatment upon our fellow human beings or their children. This includes SAA's vaccine passport mandate. The only legitimate vaccine mandate is the one that might arise from the conscience and free will of every individual human being.
While it is very easy to find reporting on all the varied reasons to vaccinate in the news media, below are some harder to find resources showing the diversity of viewpoints on this topic, as compiled by our research team:
• Official and Unofficial websites tracking adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines, including thousands of deaths, and exponentially more cases with serious bodily harm.
• There are sincere religious objections held by over 30 million Americans
some of which have been well-argued by an independent SDA watchdog group known as Liberty & Health Alliance.
• Many in the medical field have declined the COVID-19 vaccine at great sacrifice
to their careers and financial survival, or even brought legal action against mandates.
• Church segregation by vaccination status has become its own phenomenon across the United States with congregations requiring vaccination for attendees — or effectively segregating members by establishing “vaccinated” and “unvaccinated” sections in their houses of worship. So while local governments debate policy, some religious leaders have advocated for segregation, and some churches have heeded the call by enforcing such divisive policies.
• Things are even worse outside the church in larger society: certain “Black Lives Matter” groups argue that vaccine mandates are racist, certain medical experts call for punishing the unvaccinated, school districts are firing teachers who object to being vaccinated, law enforcement vaccine mandates are causing resignations, and entire countries target unvaccinated people for inconvenient and burdensome restrictions.
Into this highly divisive atmosphere was introduced the SAA Vaccine Passport Mandate as a pre-condition for our high school children (ages 14-18) to be allowed to go on overnight field-trips and create unforgettable, lifelong memories with their friends - or to be disallowed if they haven't gotten "the jab." So if you as a parent choose not to have your child receive a COVID-19 vaccination, then SAA will "respect" your choice by preventing your child from full participation in their school's academic enrichment activities. Just explain to your teenage high-schooler that they won't be allowed to go on overnight athletic tournaments, band trips, study trips, etc. or the Senior Class Trip, all because SAA "respects" your parental rights so much.
Someone needs to remind the CC and SAA that compulsion in matters of personal conscience is completely against God’s character. Just because everyone else is doing something is not itself enough of a reason for a free, intelligent person to be forced to follow along. If there were any inherent morality in just following the majority, then all of us could easily find more popular and influential religious groups to belong to than the SDA church, itself a distinct religious minority with a historical origin often mocked and theological positions outside of the mainstream of Christianity, especially Protestantism. We could find other religious groups with more affirming positions on social issues like abortion and LGBTQIA+ rights given that official SDA beliefs are deemed antiquated and even hateful by mainstream culture, mass media and many advocacy groups. If SDAs are comfortable living, working, and evangelizing in that space of distinction from the rest of society, then why would not an SDA conference like Chesapeake oppose mandates for medical care, and ensure they find no place among its schools like SAA?
Consider this writing of vaunted SDA pioneer and prophetess, Ellen G. White:
The principles of the character of God were the foundation of the education constantly kept before the heavenly angels…Force must never come in....These principles are to be the great foundation of education in every administration on the earth. The rules given by God are to be observed and respected in every church….His government is to be moral. Nothing is to be done by compulsion…[Otherwise God] would have given a precedent for the violence of human beings that is so abundantly shown in our world in the compelling principles. The Lord's principles are not of this order. All the compelling power is to be found under Satan's government. God would not work in this line. He would not give the slightest encouragement for any human being to set himself up as God over another human being, and cause him mental or physical suffering. This principle is wholly of Satan's creation.... Manuscript 57, 1896 (Manuscript Releases 18:360, 361). https://whiteestate.org/devotional/ctr/01_07/
Now overlay the preceding passage from E.G.W. on top of SAA's Vaccine Passport requirement. What will emerge is an immoral imposition by the SAA Administration (and/or its formerly* Secret School Board) on innocent children and their parents' God-given right to decide what is in their best interests. It also sets a dangerous precedent in this school, and models for its students precisely what it looks like to use coercion to overrule the conscientious rights of others. Is this an object lesson to be learned at a Seventh-day Adventist school? No.
If you choose to vaccinate yourself or your children, then let it be your choice made freely and voluntarily after being informed to your satisfaction. Let it be free from the compulsion of the U.S. government, the state of Maryland, or Montgomery County or any other county. Let it also be free of any coercion from your employer. Let it be free of the duress of the Chesapeake Conference or SAA – free from the immoral pressure that your child will be excluded from important, meaningful activities based on your decision to exercise your parental rights to either vaccinate your children or not.
To the SAA administration – Mrs. Bowerman - rescind your arbitrary and divisive and immoral vaccine passport mandate for our high school students. In its place, require all students to be asymptomatic and obtain a negative PCR test for overnight field trips. To SAA’s (formerly*) Secret School Board - Mr. Noble & Mr. Rodriguez – stand up for the rights of our high school students – pressure Mrs. Bowerman to do the right thing and rescind the vaccine passport mandate.
Shining Light. Breaking Silence. Holding Accountable.
We’ve got Eyes On SAA.
-Lillian Hepburn-Richmond
(A Cohort of Concerned Parents)
*more on the formerly “Secret School Board” to come in our next post
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