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CLYMER--In a challenge to New York law, freedom of religion is before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Among the challengers, according to court filings, are Shady Lane School in Clymer and Clymer-resident Joseph Miller, a school-board member with children attending the school.
Our neighbors in Clymer deserve enormous credit for having the courage of their convictions, which they identify as their sincerely held religious beliefs against vaccinations: The challengers assert, among other things, that New York law violates their First Amendment rights by requiring pupils attending school be vaccinated.
The challengers seek no remedy striking down the New York law entirely. Rather, they seek a remedy applying to them.
Maybe you favor vaccinations, and maybe you don't. Yet that's beyond the point here.
The federal-district court in Buffalo dismissed the challenge in 2024, and the New York City-based federal-appellate court affirmed the dismissal in 2025.
Later in 2025, however, the Supreme Court vacated the appellate court's affirmance and remanded the challenge to the appellate court for reconsideration in light of Mahmoud v. Taylor, an opinion that the Supreme Court issued in 2025 after--after--the 2025 appellate-court affirmance.
In 2026, the appellate court considered not only Mahmoud but also Mirabelli v. Bonta, a 2026 Supreme Court opinion addressing freedom of religion. The appellate court then reached the same result as in 2025: It sided with New York and affirmed the dismissal.
Now the challengers--all of them Amish--have returned to the Supreme Court and requested that it consider their challenge again.
Their challenge is called Miller v. McDonald. You'll find the most recent high-court filings at https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/26-438.html .
We can't digest the entire challenge here, yet let's look briefly at Mahmoud, Mirabelli, how the 2026 appellate decision addresses them, and the challengers' subsequent request to the high court as it relates to Mahmoud and Mirabelli.
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● Mahmoud recalls parents' First Amendment rights to direct their children's religious upbringing, and that government policies substantially interfering with children's religious development violate those rights.
Moreover, "the rights of parents to direct 'the religious upbringing' of their children … is not merely a right to teach religion in the confines of one's own home. Rather, it extends to the choices that parents wish to make for their children outside the home."
Addressing school curricula, Mahmoud holds that whether a law substantially interferes with children's religious development depends "on the specific religious beliefs and practices asserted, as well as the specific nature of the educational requirement or curricular feature at issue."
The Free Exercise Clause--the First Amendment's protection of the free exercise of religion--embodies "more than protection against compulsion or coercion to renounce or abandon one's religion."
● While Mahmoud addresses school curricula, Mirabelli is a First Amendment challenge to a state law regarding what Mirabelli calls "children's mental health."
Mirabelli quotes the Mahmoud substantial-interference language and adds: "Under long-established precedent, parents--not the (s)tate--have primary authority with respect to 'the upbringing and education of children.' The right protected by these precedents includes the right not to be shut out of participation in decisions regarding their children's mental health." Although the state cited pupils' "safety and privacy, … its … policies cut out the primary protectors of children's best interests: their parents."
● In Miller v. McDonald, one issue is whether the holdings of Mahmoud and Mirabelli extend to vaccinations. On remand, the Miller v. McDonald appellate court held in 2026 that they don't.
Please recall that the Supreme Court directed the appellate court to consider Mahmoud. Yet regardless of whether the Supreme Court--if it agrees to consider Miller v. McDonald again--affirms or reverses the appellate court's Mahmoud/Mirabelli analysis, the Mahmoud/Mirabelli analysis seems thin.
Mahmoud, the appellate court says, "does not regulate what children are taught, does not require them to affirm any belief, does not expose them to state-selected instruction contrary to their parents' faith, and does not enlist school officials to displace parental religious formation. It imposes a health-and-safety condition on in-person school attendance to reduce the spread of communicable disease."
"Mirabelli confirms that Mahmoud reaches beyond curriculum. It remains a case about school officials concealing from parents a matter central to their child's identity and upbringing, and thus displacing the parents' role in it. (The challenged New York law) does neither. It conceals nothing from parents and displaces no part of their authority over a child's religious upbringing."
● In asking the high court to consider their challenge again, the challengers--including our neighbors in Clymer--ably make many assertions.
One is this: Quoting Mahmoud, the challengers say the challenged New York law substantially interferes with their children's religious development.
Another is this: Quoting Mirabelli, the challengers assert they "have 'sincere religious beliefs' about vaccination, 'and they feel a religious obligation to raise their children in accordance with those beliefs.'"
Disagreeing with the appellate court, the challengers emphasize that New York law does indeed "'enlist school officials to displace parental religious formation' and 'authority over a child's religious upbringing.' It demands that schools and school officials require children to undergo permanent medical acts that are contrary to their parents' religious beliefs and the beliefs their parents want to instill in them. In this case, Amish school officials who themselves share the religious objection to vaccination must enforce the religious violations."
Stay tuned.
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On Oct. 27, Randy Elf will address Miller v. McDonald before the Southern Tier Tea Party Patriots at 1309 Norby Road, Stillwater. The event is free and open to the public. It begins at 7 p.m., and Dr. Elf's presentation is at 7:45 p.m. His August 2026 U.S. Supreme Court brief in Alaska Policy Forum v. Alaska Public Offices Commission is at https://ssrn.com/abstract=6556879 .
COPYRIGHT © 2026 BY RANDY ELF