Then-Gov. Jim Justice was the first to receive a COVID-19 shot in December 2020. (Photo Courtesy/WV Governor’s Office)

CHARLESTON — The current governor of West Virginia has made religious freedom his battle cry in the fight to allow for religious exemptions to the state’s compulsory immunization law. The previous governor and current U.S. senator chooses to side with medical experts and praises vaccines and the need to protect children.

There is a clear dichotomy between Gov. Patrick Morrisey and U.S. Sen. Jim Justice on the issue of whether parents who believe – either through their own research or private religious convictions – that they should be able to opt out of vaccinations for their children for certain diseases and viruses that were nearly wiped out only a few years ago.

“I’m proud to support religious liberty and religious freedom,” Morrisey told attendees Monday at a press conference announcing the private purchase of “In God We Trust” signs for public schools and public colleges/universities. “We know that other religious freedom provisions will get upheld in the courts. We are not going to be an outlier…Religious freedom must and will be respected in West Virginia.”

Justice was asked in a telephone interview Thursday on WV MetroNews Talkline about Morrisey’s focus on religious vaccine exemptions for school-age children.

“I think it’s plain out-and-out nuts. That’s all there is to it,” Justice said. “These vaccines are proven in every way. You know where I stood when I was your governor in regards to the vaccines. President (Donald) Trump stands right with me in regard to the vaccines today…If we don’t watch out here, we’re going to turn around three or four times and we’re going to end up with a bad event.”

Gov. Patrick Morrisey told a group of supporters at the State Capitol Building on Monday that he would always stand on the side of religious liberty. (Photo Courtesy/WV Legislative Photography)

In a response on social media later Thursday afternoon, Morrisey said Justice’s position on his religious vaccine exemption executive order was a “very liberal position.”

“I recognize that some politicians want West Virginia to be a wild outlier and do things the same way as New York or California,” Morrisey said. “West Virginia shouldn’t be one of only five states that don’t respect religious liberty, and I am not going to let politicians disrespect these basic rights. Respectfully, I just don’t agree with the very liberal position being asserted by Senator Justice.”

Justice, in a phone interview Thursday afternoon, said it was not his intention to get into a debate with Morrisey, his predecessor, regarding the importance of childhood vaccination. But the issue was an important one.

“I sure didn’t want to get into a food fight with our governor. I’m very hopeful that with Patrick we can pull the rope together and get our state moving in the right direction,” Justice said. “From the standpoint of how I feel about the vaccines…I feel that we have got to listen to the medical professionals. They need to guide us. That’s all there is to it.”

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FREEDOM TO CHOOSE

Morrisey issued Executive Order 7-25 on Jan. 14, one day after taking office as West Virginia’s 37th chief executive, ordering the Bureau of Public Health within the state Department of Health to establish a process for parents and/or guardians to seek a religious exemption to the compulsory immunization law, allowing for parents to submit to the department a signed letter as sufficient proof.

He issued further guidance in May to parents, guardians, and school officials on his religious exemption executive order, how to obtain the exemption for the current school year, and what information to provide to the Bureau of Public Health.

The West Virginia Board of Education issued guidance to county school systems in June to ignore the executive order and continue to follow the existing compulsory immunization law, which requires children attending public and private school to show proof of immunization for diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella and hepatitis B unless proof of a medical exemption can be shown.

There are several lawsuits going on revolving around Morrisey’s executive order and his interpretation of the 2023 Equal Protection for Religion Act (EPRA) which Morrisey cites as his justification for his executive order. One of those cases has been appealed to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.

Thursday marked the second day of hearings in a Raleigh County courtroom to decide whether to grant a permanent injunction on behalf of two parents to prevent the Raleigh County Board of Education and the state Board of Education from ignoring religious exemptions granted by the Department of Health.

Raleigh County parent Miranda Guzman filed a lawsuit later in June against the Raleigh County Board of Education and State Board of Education after she was granted a religious exemption for her child. Another parent later joined Guzman’s lawsuit. The parents were granted a preliminary injunction in July, which is under appeal

The parents have several attorneys, including Aaron Siri, an informal advisor to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Siri’s law firm specializes in vaccine exemption and vaccine injury cases. Morrisey joined Guzman and Siri for a June press conference expressing his support for the lawsuit and denouncing the state board as unelected bureaucrats.

Morrisey also has the support of Kennedy, the cabinet secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which sent letters to the state Department of Health and local health departments at the end of August. That letter told state and local health officials it was their duty to comply with Morrisey’s religious vaccine exemption executive order and his interpretation of EPRA.

“I stand with…Patrick Morrisey,” Kennedy said in a social media post in August. “His executive order upholds West Virginians’ religious freedom and parental rights while keeping the state in full compliance with federal law.”

“We are grateful to the Trump Administration for weighing in and supporting our goal of providing a religious exemption to families who have deeply held religious beliefs and who don’t want the heavy hand of government telling them what to do,” Morrisey said in his Thursday social media post.

Morrisey has cited Kennedy’s social media post and the HHS letter as evidence that the Trump administration supports Morrisey’s religious exemption executive order.

“We have always been clear that it’s the Trump Administration position because it both came out of the Trump Administration enforcement arm (Civil rights) and Secretary Kennedy,” Morrisey said when asked whether Trump had directly expressed support for his executive order.

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THE RIGHT PRESCRIPTION

During his tenure as governor, Justice consistently supported the efficacy of vaccines, including the need for children to be vaccinated.

Justice was the first person in the state to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in December 2020 – made possible by Trump’s Operation Warp Speed to accelerate COVID-19 vaccine development during his first term – before ordering vaccines be made available to those in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. West Virginia received national praise for its COVID vaccine distribution program for older West Virginians, likely saving lives.

“(Medical experts) guided me when we were fighting COVID, and President Trump was busting his chops in every way to try to come up with the vaccine,” Justice said during Thursday’s phone interview. “He finally did, and we absolutely saved thousands of lives in our own nursing homes.”

Following the 2024 legislative session in the middle of a Republican primary election season where he was running for U.S. Senate, Justice vetoed House Bill 5105, which would have eliminated the vaccine requirements for students in public virtual schools, private schools and parochial schools. Justice vetoed the bill after immense pressure was brought to bear from doctors, hospitals, public health advocates, pharmacists, and teachers’ unions.

“Say what we want, but we have for decades proven and gotten rid of the likes of measles and polio, and on and on and on,” Justice said. “Why in the world do we just turn our backs? What are we going to say to a family that just lost a child with measles?”

Justice’s main Republican opponent in the 2024 U.S. Senate primary, now-former congressman Alex Mooney, attempted to use Justice’s veto of the vaccine bill against him. WV Real reported in April 2024 that Mooney attacked Justice in a campaign event in Greenbrier County.

“We had a bill just recently where you could decide, if you didn’t go to public school, […] there was a West Virginia bill to let you decide what vaccinations to take,” Mooney said. “Gov. Justice vetoed that bill – he vetoed it. You should decide what vaccine you put in your body and your children, not the government. That’s your decision. I’m all for healthcare freedom.”

But despite Mooney making a campaign issue out of Justice’s veto, Justice won the GOP primary with 62% of the vote compared to Mooney with 27% of the vote in a seven-person primary. When asked to rank 14 current and former governors in last month’s WV MetroNews West Virginia Poll, 32% of respondents placed Justice at the top of the best governors of West Virginia.

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TRUST THE SCIENCE

The WV MetroNews West Virginia Poll also asked respondents about their support for childhood vaccination. When asked “should states require children in grades K-12 to be vaccinated against highly contagious disease before entering school,” 71% of respondents said yes, 17% of respondents said no, and 12% said they were not sure.

When broken down by demographics, 74% of parents with school-age children support vaccinations, along with 75% of respondents older than 55, 65% of registered Republicans, 61% of conservatives, 86% of registered Democrats, 89% of liberals, and 63% of independents.

Another popular person in West Virginia, Trump also appears in conflict with Morrisey and Kennedy, a noted vaccine skeptic. When asked during a press availability on Sept. 5 about Florida’s proposal to eliminate requirements for childhood vaccinations, Trump praised immunizations.

“We have some vaccines that are so amazing,” Trump said. “You have some vaccines that are so incredible. And I think you have to be very careful when you say some people don’t have to be vaccinated…You have vaccines that work, pure and simple work, they’re not controversial at all, and I think those vaccines should be used otherwise some people are going to catch it and they endanger other people.”

“It was yesterday or the day before yesterday that President Trump came right out and said, ‘I’m for the vaccine,'” Justice said on Talkline Thursday morning. “That basically sums it up in a nutshell. And to think that the President of the United States is absolutely against the vaccines or would say, ‘do whatever you want to do’ and everything, I don’t buy that our president is in that boat. And I’m surely not in the boat.”

According to national polling conducted between August 7-11 by noted Republican polling firm Fabrizio Ward with 1,000 respondents, 86% said it was important for children to receive the MMR vaccine, with 77% of Trump voters also agreeing. When asked about the TDAP vaccine for tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis, 78% recommended it, with 67% of Trump voters recommending it.

A bill during the 2025 legislative session that would have codified a religious vaccine exemption – something that exists in one form or another in 45 other states – passed the state Senate but died in the House of Delegates. In a social media post on Aug. 25, Morrisey claimed that Trump backed his efforts towards a religious exemption.

“On interpreting the religious freedom law to provide for religious exemptions for mandatory vaccines, do WV Legislators stand with the WV School Board (a group of unelected bureaucrats) or do they stand with the Trump Administration and (HHS Secretary Kennedy),” Morrisey said. “Very straightforward question which must be resolved soon for our kids!”

But Justice referred again to Trump’s remarks in the Oval Office at the beginning of September supporting vaccinations, saying he stands with the president.

“I’m absolutely respectful in every possible way that I can be for religious freedoms and so on,” Justice said. “But these kids are all jammed in one place together all the time…I stand exactly with President Trump. I think you have to be very careful when you say some people don’t have to be vaccinated. Just pure and simple, they work. They’re not controversial at all and I think those vaccines should be used.”