Murrieta, CA—On Friday, August 8, 2025, Advocates for Faith and Freedom filed its opening brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of four California moms and their families fighting to restore religious exemptions to the state’s vaccination law. Since 1961, California had allowed exemptions for personal beliefs—including religious objections. But in 2016, the State nixed all personal belief exemptions, which they knew to also include any and all religious exemptions. The State’s vaccine law, SB 277, still allows exemptions for secular reasons though. The State allows students with a medical exemption, students who are over 18-years-old, students with IEPs (individualized education plans), students with certain social statuses like homelessness, military families, and in foster care, and students transferring schools to be exempt or to enjoy periods of exemption from the law’s requirements. Yet even though the State allows numerous secular exemptions, it refused to allow a religious exemption to the small number of families who seek to exempt their children based on religious reasons. Religious families who object to the vaccines required under SB 277 have to choose: follow their sincerely held religious beliefs or forego admissibility to all private and public schools for their children in the State of California.

“Advocates for Faith & Freedom’s brief highlights what is an important point of fairness but also an important principle of constitutional law: before the State is allowed to ban schoolchildren from all public and private schools in California, it must demonstrate that doing so is necessary. It is hard to prove necessity to single out religious exemptions for extinction, however, when the State allows so many secular exemptions which seemingly pose the same harm.” said Erin Mersino, Vice President of Advocates for Faith and Freedom.

“Our First Amendment liberties must be protected with vigilance,” added Robert Tyler, President and Chief Counsel of Advocates for Faith & Freedom. “We are honored to take this fight to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of our courageous clients.”

Advocates for Faith & Freedom’s Opening Brief is available here:

Read the Brief Here

August 2025 Newsletter

California’s Legislature is pushing two of the most dangerous bills we have seen in years, bills that, if passed, will radically undermine parental rights and rob families of educational freedom. These proposals are not simply misguided policy ideas. They are calculated moves to place more power in the hands of the state and less in the hands of parents.

As Christians, we know God entrusted children to their parents, not to bureaucrats, not to politicians, and not to strangers. Our duty is to guard that trust and stand firm when government tries to overstep. Today, that stand means opposing AB 495 and AB 84 with everything we have.

AB 495: A State-Sanctioned Threat to Parental Rights and Child Safety  California’s Assembly Bill 495, deceptively labeled the “Family Preparedness Plan Act of 2025,” is moving through the Legislature under the banner of compassion. Its author, Assemblywoman Celeste Rodriguez, claims the bill will protect children from the chaos of sudden parental detention or deportation. On the surface, that might sound caring. In reality, this bill is one of the most dangerous assaults on parental rights that California has ever seen.

AB 495 would allow virtually any adult, not just relatives, to present a “Caregiver’s Authorization Affidavit” to a school, daycare, or medical provider and instantly assume decision-making authority over a child. The definition of “nonrelative extended family member” is so broad it includes anyone with a “mentoring relationship” with the child or even with one of the child’s relatives. No court involvement. No parental signature. No background check. No verification. No questions asked. Once the affidavit is in hand, that adult could pick up a child from school, un-enroll them, enroll them elsewhere, and authorize medical, dental, or mental health treatment, including irreversible gender-related procedures, all without a parent’s knowledge or consent.

The loopholes are glaring.  With no safeguards in place, this law would create an open invitation for bad actors, traffickers, and predators to exploit the system. While it is framed as an emergency safety measure, it applies to any child, at any time, for any reason, not just cases involving detained immigrant parents. California already has court-approved temporary guardianship processes that protect children and respect parental rights. AB 495 bypasses those safeguards entirely, replacing them with a system wide open for abuse.

AB 495 even absolves schools, medical providers, and daycares from liability if they later discover the “caregiver” was unauthorized. This is not “family preparedness.” This is state-enabled abduction hiding under a cloak of compassion.  If the state can hand a child over to an unvetted stranger, then parental authority means nothing. Compassion without guardrails is not mercy, it is madness.

AB 84 – Gutting Educational Freedom  While AB 495 threatens to strip parents of their authority over their own children, AB 84 targets another freedom dear to families – the freedom to choose an education that works.

AB 84, championed by Sacramento lawmakers hostile to educational choice, is nothing less than a death sentence for California’s independent study charter schools. These are the schools that have given thousands of students, especially those in rural areas, students with special needs, working teens, and those who do not thrive in traditional classrooms, a pathway to success. Yet AB 84 slashes their funding by up to 30 percent. For many programs, that is a cut so severe it would mean closing their doors.

Supporters of the bill claim it is about “oversight” and “accountability.” In truth, it is about control. The state’s goal is clear: bring every child back under the same government system, no matter how poorly it fits their needs. The bill does not level the playing field between charter and traditional public schools, it tips it, ensuring that charter students are funded as second-class citizens. Even with recent amendments, the core threat remains. The so-called “compromises” are window dressing, leaving the fatal funding cuts intact.

Charter leaders have warned lawmakers that AB 84 will wipe out entire programs, force mass student transfers, and eliminate learning models that are saving children from failure in the traditional system. The irony is that these schools often cost the taxpayer less while delivering higher graduation rates and more individualized attention. For many families, they are the only alternative to a one-size-fits-all classroom.

AB 84 is not reform. It is sabotage. It punishes innovation, crushes competition, and sacrifices children’s futures on the altar of political control.

This is Our Moment to Act  The time to push back is now. We must alert our churches, our communities, and our neighbors to what is at stake. And we must pray for courage, for wisdom, and for the protection of our children.

Our office has submitted formal letters in opposition to both AB 495 and AB 84. You can review them here:

• Letter Opposing AB 495
• Letter Opposing AB 84

We are committed to standing in the gap for families in this state, defending the rights of parents and the well-being of children. But we cannot do this work without your help. Partner with us, through your voice, your influence, and your support, so that together we can draw a firm line that government cannot cross.

             In His Service,

Julianne Fleischer Senior Legal Counsel

Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed.
    Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.   Isaiah 1:17