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Freedom Counsel on Broken Truth
If your state lets you claim a religious exemption to school shots, you may think this fight isn’t yours.
It is.
According to the Amish families’ petition now at the Supreme Court (more below), 45 states and D.C. allow religious exemptions to school vaccine mandates. A handful don’t. And the cases challenging those holdouts are now knocking on the Supreme Court’s door.
Attorney Brian Festa, co-founder and vice president of We The Patriots USA, has litigated them for more than five years. This week on Freedom Counsel, he told me why one win could reach every family.
“That ruling alone would be enough to restore religious exemptions in every state in the country even though it was just on an injunction motion.”
And what one court gives, the next administration can’t erase.
“The only way we’re winning this, John, is through the courts because Supreme Court decisions have staying power.”
The cases
Maine. We The Patriots USA and James Childs, a father who objects to vaccines on religious grounds, sued Maine’s education commissioner and his son’s school superintendent in July. His son, a rising eighth grader, can’t enroll without the shots.
(Complaint, We the Patriots USA, Inc. v. Makin, No. 2:26-cv-00369-SDN (D. Me. July 16, 2026), ECF No. 1)
📄 Complaint (ECF No. 1), We the Patriots USA, Inc. v. Makin, No. 2:26-cv-00369-SDN, U.S. District Court, District of Maine (filed July 16, 2026)
A federal judge twice denied emergency relief in September.
(We the Patriots USA, Inc. v. Makin, No. 2:26-cv-00369-SDN (D. Me. Sept. 8, 2026), ECF No. 37; id. (D. Me. Sept. 22, 2026), ECF No. 50)
📄 Order denying TRO and preliminary injunction (ECF No. 37), We the Patriots USA, Inc. v. Makin, No. 2:26-cv-00369-SDN, U.S. District Court, District of Maine (Sept. 8, 2026)
📄 Order denying injunction pending appeal (ECF No. 50), We the Patriots USA, Inc. v. Makin, No. 2:26-cv-00369-SDN, U.S. District Court, District of Maine (Sept. 22, 2026)
We The Patriots USA has asked the First Circuit for emergency relief. As of mid-October that request was still pending (1st Cir. No. 26-2035). Festa says it’s the case moving fastest and “could be at the supreme court literally within the next month.”
Connecticut. The state threatened to shut down Milford Christian Church’s preschool and daycare for honoring religious exemptions. We The Patriots USA argued the appeal at the Second Circuit in April. It’s still waiting on a decision (Milford Christian Church v. Bye, No. 25-1955 (2d Cir.) (argued Apr. 22, 2026)). Festa says a Supreme Court petition is ready the day it comes down.
New York. Amish families and schools were fined for honoring religious exemptions. Their case is now on petition at the Supreme Court. It isn’t a We The Patriots USA case, but Festa calls the facts identical to Milford Christian’s.
(Petition for Writ of Certiorari, Miller v. McDonald, No. 26-438 (U.S. filed Sept. 28, 2026))
West Virginia. Parents say their daughter was dropped from a state virtual school because she wasn’t fully vaccinated. Their case is also on petition at the Supreme Court.
(Petition for Writ of Certiorari, Perry v. Marteney, No. 26-319 (U.S. filed Sept. 4, 2026))
California. We The Patriots USA’s case for a student shut out of school has already been to the Supreme Court, which denied an emergency request, and to the Ninth Circuit, which dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. The case continues in the district court.
(We the Patriots USA, Inc. v. Ventura Unified Sch. Dist., No. 25A322 (U.S. Oct. 17, 2025) (application denied); id., No. 25-5239 (9th Cir. Apr. 30, 2026) (mem.))
Festa’s hope is that the justices take several of these together.
“And so, potentially, you could have all three cases, the Connecticut case, the New York, and the West Virginia, all taken together and heard on the same day, by the US Supreme Court.”
The odds
“And remember, only four justices have to vote to take it up.”
Festa has gotten three before. In 2021, in his group’s fight against New York’s COVID shot mandate for health care workers, Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch said they would have granted relief.
(We The Patriots USA, Inc. v. Hochul, No. 21A125 (U.S. Dec. 13, 2021))
In a companion case brought by other New York health care workers, Gorsuch wrote a dissent, and in 2022 all three dissented again.
(Dr. A v. Hochul, No. 21A145 (U.S. Dec. 13, 2021) (Gorsuch, J., dissenting); Dr. A. v. Hochul, No. 21-1143 (U.S. June 30, 2022) (Thomas, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari))
“We were one away.”
Where’s Washington?
One thing that moves the Court: the federal government.
“Because the supreme court, when deciding whether to take up a case, takes into serious consideration the opinion of the United States government.”
In August, President Trump’s executive order directed the Attorney General to back meritorious challenges to state exemption laws. We The Patriots USA sent the DOJ its cases. Festa showed me the reply on screen. The DOJ said it was “not in a position to participate.”
“I called their bluff.”
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Fund the courtroom
Festa’s message is simple. People pour money into elections, then say they’re tapped out. Elections get undone. Supreme Court rulings last.
So fund litigation. Not just his. He named Freedom Counsel, Pacific Justice Institute, First Liberty, Liberty Counsel and Alliance Defending Freedom.
For Warner
This was the second interview of Freedom Counsel’s new era after we lost our founder, Warner Mendenhall, in June.
“He was an excellent attorney, and he was a great human being.”
Warner believed one case, the right case, can change the world. Festa may have it on deck.
Watch the full interview
My full conversation with Brian Festa is on BrokenTruth.TV. Watch it, then decide whether you’re waiting on Washington or funding the fight.
Support Brian’s work at wethepatriotsusa.org. Support Freedom Counsel at freedomcounsel.org. Support independent reporting at MagicFeathers.org.
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John Davidson MagicFeathers.org
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