- Marina Williams has filed a lawsuit against Orchard Park School District in New York after her daughters were taken out of class for not being vaccinated.
- Williams said her daughters were given religious exemptions from vaccines in the West Seneca School District, but denied the exemption when they moved to Orchard Park last October.
- Williams said she is not an anti-vaxxer, but that vaccinations go against her family's religion, the Temple of the Inner Flame.
- There is little information on the Temple of the Inner Flame available online, and INSIDER has contacted Williams' lawyer for more information.
A mother in upstate New York is suing her daughters' school district over its decision to remove them from class until they're vaccinated.
Marina Williams claims that her 13- and 15-year-old daughters have been out of school for more than two months after moving from West Seneca to Orchard Park, a suburb of Buffalo, New York, in October, according to WIVB.
Williams said her daughters were given religious exemptions to vaccination in the West Seneca School District, but were denied in the Orchard Park School District and taken out of class on November 30, according to court documents.
The mother-of-two said she is not an anti-vaxxer, but that vaccinations go against her family's religion, the Temple of the Inner Flame, a church that appears to have very little information available online.
The religion, Williams said, prohibits her and her family from putting foreign substances into the body, including alcohol, drugs, and immunizations.
"I've never had a vaccine before. My mother, my sister, my aunt, haven't either. To me, that was just a given,” she told WVIB. "I've never had to defend it before."
Read more:A state-by-state guide to vaccine exemptions in the US
INSIDER has contacted Williams' lawyer for more information about the Temple of the Inner Flame.
Williams claimed in the lawsuit that the girls have not received any alternative educational arrangements in the months since.
- Read more:
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- Parents are hosting chicken pox parties so their kids can 'get it over with,' but a pediatrician says the practice is a gamble
- From autism risks to mercury poisoning, here are 10 lies anti-vaxxers are spreading about the measles vaccine in the Pacific Northwest
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