Alberta's Human Rights Tribunal will determine whether personal interpretations of Scripture are legitimate grounds for refusing the COVID shot.
(LifeSiteNews) -- Alberta's Human Rights Tribunal ordered a hearing to determine whether a Christian's deeply held beliefs are legitimate grounds for defying a workplace vaccine mandate.
According to information obtained February 27 by Blacklock's Reporter, Alberta Human Rights Tribunal adjudicator Wilma Shim called for a hearing on whether personal interpretations of Scripture should allow a worker to refuse workplace regulations, including the COVID vaccine.
“There is a genuine issue to be resolved,” Shim wrote.
The hearing is in response to a case brought forward by Canadian Natural Resources employee Thomas Elliott. Like many other religious Canadians, Elliott, a devout Christian, was suspended without pay due to his company's COVID vaccine mandate.
"He is a Christian who follows the Bible as the one and only true word of God,” Shim wrote in her decision.
“The complainant indicated vaccines were developed and tested through the use of fetal cell lines derived from abortion," she continued. "The complainant believes abortion is murder and that to take the vaccine would be complicit with murder.”
“This is not a case where the complainant has made a bare assertion that his Christian faith requires him to refuse vaccination,” she pointed out. “He has provided what he alleges is Scriptural authority for his belief that accepting the vaccine would be a sin.”
As LifeSiteNews has previously reported, the available COVID-19 vaccines in Canada all have links to aborted fetal cell lines and are thus considered morally impermissible by many Catholics and members of other religions.
In his appeal to Canadian Natural Resources, Elliot had explained that taking the vaccine goes against the Ten Commandments, which are part of his deeply held beliefs.
However, Canadian Natural Resources argued that his letter did not specifically explain his objection, failing to mention the vaccine.
Shim dismissed this complaint, explaining that "the complainant stated adherence to Scripture is a tenet of the Christian faith and that his eternal salvation depends on obedience to God’s will as expressed in Scripture."
“God has the power to grant eternal life in heaven or cast one into hell," she continued. "The complainant provided Scriptural authority for these statements. The complainant clearly has sincere and deeply held beliefs.”
Elliot is hardly the only Christian to defend his refusal of the COVID shot. As LifeSiteNews previously reported, the Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board will be occupied for years reviewing over 350 religious-based grievances over COVID shot mandate.
Furthermore, federal managers have already paid over $500,000 in settlements to employees that were suspended under the Trudeau government’s COVID vaccine mandate.
