How should the courts test whether a person really has a religiously based objection to vaccines or birth control coverage?

[flacaltenn]

That fluidity is exactly the problem, in my opinion. Religious freedom is no trivial matter for the government to deal with, and fluid attitudes to protecting those freedoms is tantamount to subjectivity.

I was talking about the fluidity of accepting 5 to 4 decisions as any kind of untouchable "legal monument" to truth. Maybe you're talking about the fluidity of DETERMINING a "valid religious exemption".

The latter really isn't REQUIRED at the SCOTUS level. If ya noticed, in the ruling I posted on contraceptive mandates ----

"We hold that the [Trump administration] had the authority to provide exemptions from the regulatory contraceptive requirements for employers with religious and conscientious objections," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority.

..... there is no "level of proof" required for "employers with religious and CONSCIENTIOUS objections". Because the court isn't interested in Rastafarian traditions and dogma or WHATEVER conscientious nature of the objection. Govt shouldn't be "dealing with" any standard of proof about the religious exemption. Like asking why Episcopalians feel one way and Baptists another. Or Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Siehks, ect, ect, ect.

If you want a DIVERSE, Multi-cultural, society, then the law has to accept THEIR conscientious objections to law -- OR NOT. Without a grey area or having "religious experts" involved.

Just like -- FOR NOW -- we (society as a whole) has to accept court rulings that a college male JOCK can swim for the mens team for 3 years and suddenly decide to switch to the women's team. Anyone set a level of confidence on his sexuality? Not yet.. But PROBABLY because of the very real problems those types of confrontations create -- IT WILL have to be addressed in the future.