A Florida newspaper last Wednesday criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis-appointed Attorney General James Uthmeier for telling the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops that their schools can’t receive taxpayer-funded vouchers if they require vaccinations.
“Apparently, Uthmeier believes he understands Catholic values better than some priests, with Pope James saying he has concluded ‘there is no religious basis’ for church-run schools to enforce this commitment to public health. Even if it’s part of their mantra of protecting human life,” The Orlando Sentinel wrote in an editorial, sarcastically referring to Uthmeier as “Pope James.”
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The editorial sidesteps the bigger-picture issue of whether Florida taxpayers should fund religious schools in the first place, but points out “the blatant and ugly inconsistency” in Uthmeier’s reasoning: namely, he’s okay when some religious schools use their faith as a pretext to refuse admission to LGBTQ+ students and students with same-sex parents, but not to oppose Uthmeier’s anti-vaccine measures.
“Florida’s current Republican leadership is fine with that discrimination,” the Sentinel’s editorial board wrote. “If parents encounter a school that refuses to serve gay students, their belief is: Tough luck. That’s school ‘choice’ for ya! If you don’t like a school’s admission policies, find another school. But that policy apparently doesn’t apply to vaccines. So schools are free to refuse gay students, but must accept all anti-vaxxers… even if it endangers other students.”
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The editorial concludes that Uthmeier and other Republicans are only committed to respecting the school’s religious values when they mirror the politicians’ own ideology.
Florida & Trump are trying to foment public distrust in vaccines
DeSantis’ opposition to mandatory vaccinations developed during the COVID-19 pandemic: he first opposed “vaccine mandates,” then questioned vaccines’ safety and efficacy, and eventually opposed federal/state health guidelines.
In 2022, DeSantis-appointed state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo sowed public distrust in the monkeypox vaccine, stating that there is “little data” on it, which is misleading. But his position was hardly surprising considering that he spent years spreading COVID-19 disinformation and echoing DeSantis’ distrust in vaccines.
In July 2020, near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ladapo appeared in a 43-minute viral video as part of a group called America’s Frontline Doctors. The group, which had no epidemiologists or immunologists qualified to speak on infectious diseases, promoted the anti-malaria medication hydroxychloroquine as a “cure” for COVID-19, even though no studies substantiated that claim. The video also featured Dr. Stella Immanuel, who believes that demons insert sperm into sleeping individuals when they have sex in their dreams.
The video received millions of views when President Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr, and other right-wing media figures shared it on social media. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter all removed the video for violating their policies on sharing COVID-19 misinformation.
At the time, Florida ranked third among states with the highest numbers of COVID-19 infections and related deaths. DeSantis had previously signed orders expanding exemptions for people who don’t want to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and preventing schools and local governments from imposing face mask mandates in Florida.
In September 2025, DeSantis announced an initiative alongside Ladapo to dismantle state vaccine requirements—including those for school enrollment (such as hepatitis B and chickenpox)—making Florida the first state to attempt a total rollback of school immunization mandates as part of DeSantis’ “medical freedom” agenda. Ladapo has called mandatory vaccines a form of bodily “slavery.”
Despite the tough talk, Florida’s Republican-led legislature hasn’t passed any bills to end mandatory vaccination, and the state’s department of health hasn’t issued any paperwork to change statewide vaccination rules. As such, DeSantis is apparently using financial threats to pressure private schools to give in.
It’s also worth noting that Trump just signed an executive order directing the government to research vaccine safety, and all states to provide religious and medical exemptions to vaccine requirements, WUSF reported. The order pushed an unproven claim, made repeatedly by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, that vaccines cause autism.
Dr. Rana Alissa, president of the state’s leading pediatric medical association, the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, blasted the order as “nonsense” and advised people against changing their vaccine schedules, saying, “We go by evidence-based science, we don’t go by politics and politicians.”
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