(Book Review) Religious Exemptions

Jacqueline Lang

Religious Exemptions

Kevin Vallier and Michael Weber (eds). Religious Exemptions. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018, 328 pp. ISBN: 9780190666187

Extract
An exemption from legal requirements is a right to be excluded from specific law that, to all intents and purposes, have general application. A religious exemption broadly, is an exemption on religious or conscientious grounds. Of course, an exemption can function in any positive legal framework and at any time. . . .

Religious Exemptions, edited by Kevin Vallier and Michael Weber, contains fourteen chapters by authors analysing the concept of a religious exemption in the context of recent accretions in contemporary American positive law. The text explores a variety of issues, including vaccine refusal, commercial accommodations, exemption from equality of the sexes, same-sex marriage and trial proceedings. . . .In modem times, the laws newly introduced incur significant harm to whole sections of the community. A Muslim or Christian objector to same-sex marriage, for example, might never find employment in his field because he is automatically classified as guilty of hate and unlawful discrimination. . .


Lang J.  Book Review: Religious exemptions.  New Bioethics 2019 Sep; 25(3): 290-292, DOI:10.1080/20502877.2019.1649867