South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster has signed into law House Bill 3126, which has implications for public and private employers that continue to require employees in South Carolina to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The law prohibits public employers in the State of South Carolina from requiring that individuals be vaccinated as a condition of employment. Similarly, schools within the state cannot require attendees to be vaccinated. Private employers in the state can mandate vaccination, but they must broadly allow for religious and medical exemptions (explained below).
The law prohibits places of public accommodation (such as restaurants, hotels, theaters, and concert halls) from requiring that patrons be vaccinated or provide proof of vaccination for entry.
Federal contractors are exempt from the requirements of the law.
The law also symbolically declares any federal vaccination mandate unconstitutional and unenforceable in the State of South Carolina.
Private employers that implement a vaccine mandate are required under the law to recognize religious and medical exemptions.
To claim a religious exemption, an individual need only “provide his [or her] employer with a short, plain statement” indicating the vaccination requirement violates a tenet of their deeply held religious conviction.
Medical exemptions can include the presence of antibodies, an earlier positive COVID-19 test result, or pregnancy. The law is silent on how long prior positive test...
Civil society, for Locke, begins with a surrender. In the state of nature, anyone may punish a wrong done to the community. In society, that power passes to a common authority, and only the sovere...