[Many] didnt even know that there was a religious exemption option, because they had never been informed of it, Staver said. "There are no current COVID-19 vaccine restrictions on deployments or assignments for the Marine Corps as a service," Capt. The Marine Corps confirmed to a California congressman that two of those Marines were preparing to leave the service, while another one is doing a Training With Industry assignment. Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine syringes at a vaccination clinic in the Peabody Institute Library in Peabody, Massachusetts, on Jan. 26, 2022. And well be back week after week.. The lawsuit also fails to mention an established precedent regarding vaccines in religious traditions. "This vaccine mandate is unlawful and does not reflect the Land of the Free," said General O'Connor. Here, Plaintiffs must decide whether to lose their livelihoods or violate sincerely held religious beliefs. 26 Feb 2023 11:38:25 And at least in the Starbucks is that Ive been in recently where theyve been packed in like sardines. The Texas case has smaller aspirations purposely, Berry said. 300aa-10-300aa-44). Through much prayer and reflection, Plaintiffs have sought wisdom, understanding, and guidance on the proper decisions to make concerning these COVID-19 vaccines, and Plaintiffs have been convicted by the Holy Spirit that accepting any of the three currently available vaccines is against the teachings of Scripture and would be a sin, according to a Florida lawsuit first filed in late 2021, then amended on Feb. 7 with additional plaintiffs. In a hypothetical alternate universe where it were the Navy and the Air Force, the rest of the services had an exemption process or a waiver process that did look more credible to you and to the court, do you lose these cases? And they have different ranks, different different job responsibilities in the Air Force, a number of them are actually pilots in the Air Force. ), the Washington Post, and others. As of Tuesday, the Air Force had denied about 6,800 initial religious waiver requests and 3,600 appeals, and has not ruled on nearly 3,500 more cases. Dr. Lee Merritt, a self-described Navy surgeon, stated during an . In fact, as of Dec. 17, the religious accommodation requests of at least 29 of the 35 naval plaintiffs had been flatly denied. Rachel Cohen joined Air Force Times as senior reporter in March 2021. In the filing, attorneys argue that the plaintiffs are facing criminal conviction and dishonorable discharge, which would strip them of any veterans benefits. The law says that sincerely held religious beliefs are to be taken at face value. And that is textbook discrimination, right? When you treat people who have a medical exemption for more favorably than you treat somebody who has a religious exemption, that is textbook discrimination, and thats whats happening. And yet they say, you know what, we now believe that its okay, for our employees to not be vaccinated, its okay for our customers to not be vaccinated. DoD, for its part, settled its own policy with a memo from Assistant Defense Secretary for Health Affairs Terry Adirim last fall. The plaintiffs argue that violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Theres yet another lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the militarys COVID-19 vaccine mandate. On Jan. 7,the Supreme Court is set to hear oral argumentsin a set of high-profile, consolidated cases on the Biden administrations vaccine mandates for private-sector entities with 100 or more employees, and for health care facilities that receive Medicaid and Medicare funding. A timeline of when vaccines are due was left up to the . The mandate treats comparable secular activity (e.g., medical exemptions) more favorably than religious activity. Nor do they mention the host of common medications that also use these stem cells, including Tylenol, Advil/Motrin, aspirin, Tums, Pepto Bismol, Benadryl, Sudafed and Claritin. All 16 service members joined the lawsuit anonymously, listing in the filing only their currently assigned bases and statuses in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, or reserve components. Copyright 2023 Hubbard Radio Washington DC, LLC. And now people will be able to take the analysis Supreme Court used and say, Okay, the way that they analyzed this issue, that might give us some indication of how they would analyze other issues, right. For a population accustomed to having very little power over their personal decisions where they live, what they wear, how they cut their hair, how much they weigh the opportunity to have some control over their medical decisions is an enormous discovery. Under the law, theres no requirement that you adhere to a major or even recognized faith tradition, he said. They argue that their. Jared Serbu: Mike, thanks for being here. For the Texas case, its more likely those sailors will receive religious exemptions, but that they wont necessarily change the way the military mandates vaccines or reviews exemptions. "It hasn't done it yet. The decision sets the stage for a future trial or, possibly, the case winding its way up to the Supreme Court. Adam Rawnsley. The question is, whats the bigger risk to readiness: Discharging skilled, expensively trained service members for refusing to get vaccinated, or allowing them to continue serving with the potential to become infected with COVID-19, experience serious illness and potentially long-lasting side effects? The Supreme Court is historically, they only address the legal issues that are brought before them, right. That is especially true when the government imposes a choice between ones job and ones religious belief. Plaintiffs, therefore, do not object to safety measures that reduce the transmission of COVID-19 in the workplace, it reads. The Texas lawsuit also states the plaintiffs are willing to continue to wear masks, social distance and take mandatory COVID-19 tests, rather than get vaccinated. Im very confident that this case going to the Supreme Court, Mat Staver whose Liberty Counsel represents plaintiffs in the Florida case told Military Times on Tuesday. Right? It was just a bunch of window dressing, on what was really a foregone conclusion of 100% of religious exemption requests were going to be disapproved, Berry said. Military leaders have long argued that to maintain unit health and troop readiness, troops have for decades been required to get as many as 17 vaccines, particularly those who are deploying overseas. A federal court in Ohio on Thursday blocked the Air Force from enforcing the militarys coronavirus vaccine mandate for two weeks, a short-term win for airmen fighting multiple legal battles against inoculation. They dont offer what are, in the legal speak, we call advisory opinions. On Feb. 17, the service lifted its policy of banning unvaccinated sailors from deploying. In December, the Air Force announced it had discharged 27 people for refusing to get the COVID . The Navy comes in second with a total of 469 separations, which includes 50 this past week. Quite the contrary, they view life whether their own or that of their fellow servicemembers as sacred and deserving protection.. Another lawsuit, first filed by troops attached to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, has led to temporary protections for around 10,000 active-duty, Active Reserve, reserve and National Guard members of the Air Force and Space Force who requested a religious exemption from the COVID vaccine, although only those who have been denied an exemption would face immediate action. I mean, this is quickly becoming a national security issue for our nation. All of the military services are currently reworking their policies to adjust separation and promotion records for service members who refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine, after the Pentagon. Mike Barry is senior counsel at First Liberty Institute, a nonprofit legal group that focuses on religious liberty issues. And is there somewhere else we can assign them where maybe theyre at less risk of of COVID transmission or they start looking at the data, right, the actual CDC data and the COVID day they start look kicking it around and saying, You know what? Our military, I mean, you can open any news feed that you want. That leaves around 14,400 airmen and guardians less protected in the COVID-19 pandemics third year. Subscribe to Federal Drives daily audio interviews onApple PodcastsorPodcastOne. Two Eglin Air Force base officers are among the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit challenging the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for U.S. military personnel. I dont think that the precedent is going to be that big of one, Griffin, the former Coast Guard lawyer, said. We are kicking out people by the thousands. Government lawyers argue the policy is in line with well-established principles of judicial noninterference with core military decision making, in their briefs. If you want to swap with me, and they do that through the employer, or their employer offers that. Because how do you avoid getting to the point where anyone can deny or refuse any lawful order by claiming that they have a sincerely held religious belief that would be encumbered by it? Pfizer Inc wants to intervene in a Texas federal lawsuit seeking information from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration used in licensing the company's COVID-19 vaccine, a litigation move that . Until any harm is remedied, according to Bruns, the case is still active. It is not yet clear how the various services will handle pending lawsuits that sprang up in the years following the Pentagon's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. They argue that their. The Navy has, however, granted medical exemption requests submitted by other personnel. President Biden declared "the pandemic is over," yet is still pushing to discharge thousands of religious service members for their objections to taking the COVID-19 vaccine. Were going from a 50-step process to a zero-step process? Duncan asked. The vaccine mandate divided Americans and has remained a contentious political issue. Just three days later, he issued a far more sweeping order granting 4,095 service members a religious exemption from the COVID vaccine. The Navy began issuing guidance to sailors earlier this month. Jared Serbu: Last thing, theres a lot of these vaccine cases, even just military vaccine cases floating around in various district courts and circuits the moment. A ruling in that case, issued this past November by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, upheld previous wins by attorneys representing the service members over the last year and took aim at the Air Force's process of approving religious exemptions. None of the plaintiffs clarify whether they engage in any other behavior that might be seen as a desecration of that temple, whether its alcohol, drugs, unprotected sex or in the case of the Old Testament tattoos and piercings. Each of those shots also involves cell tissue derived from fetuses, as does one version of the rabies vaccine. Im willing to go through that. And usually when somebody is willing to go through those measures, that demonstrates a degree of sincerity. The group includes 14 men and two women. Assuming, maybe Im assuming too much. All of the military services have released vaccine refusal policies, none of them involving judicial or non-judicial charges for simply staying unvaccinated. Other service members have struck out on their own to fight the mandate. Thomas Bruns, a Cincinnati-based attorney with Bruns, Connell, Vollmar & Armstrong representing the service members, told Military.com on Monday that the service members in that case are promised full relief from any harms caused by the mandate. In his order, OConnor granted an injunction against the Biden administration and the Department of Defense, preventing them from enforcing the vaccine mandate against any of the named service members who had applied for a religious exemption. Another difference is that the VICP is a no-fault compensation program. Jared Serbu: I want to go back to what you said earlier about the process being a sham, because I want to try and draw how much of an issue that actually is, in these cases. President Joe Biden signed the. DOD Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Gilbert R. Cisneros Jr., Members face the same injury: violation of their constitutional freedom by defendants clear policy of discrimination against religious accommodation requests, wrote McFarland, of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Ohio. NEW ORLEANS Federal appeals court judges closely questioned a Biden administration attorney Monday on the consequences military personnel might face for refusing COVID-19 vaccinations, even though Bidens vaccine mandate for military personnel has been rescinded. Court documents show that two plaintiffs in Doster v. Kendall took the two-dose Covaxin vaccine, created in India, to comply with the Pentagons requirement. Night shifts arent popular, especially on Friday night, and things like that. Any sailors who submitted a religious exemption for the COVID-19 vaccine can continue in the Navy under the injunction, according to NAVADMIN 102/22. Mike Barry:Well, First Liberty Institute represents nine Air Force members who are challenging the Air Forces enforcement of its vaccine mandate. The Navy granted another 500 administrative exemptions, including temporary waivers for sailors planning to leave the service or in the middle of a permanent change-of-station move, for example. 2:41 . Starbucks, for example, doesnt have a vaccine requirement. The service members sued this week to vacate a Pentagon vaccine mandate for all those in the military, arguing they face imminent harm if a court order isn't issued temporarily blocking the. Hubbard Radio Washington DC, LLC. Related: Navy Lifts COVID-19 Vaccine Requirement for Deployments. More than 8,400 troops were forced out of the military for refusing to obey a lawful order when they declined to get the vaccine. The lawsuit is one of two that have grabbed headlines in recent months, as the military has imposed mandatory vaccination deadlines that have since lapsed for all of the services and their components, save the Army National Guard and Army Reserve. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.). That means that this is quickly becoming a national security concern. For OConnor, the violation ofthe lawwas clear: Defendants have substantially burdened Plaintiffs religious beliefs. And thats why this is a sham.Jared Serbu: The Air Force case is a putative class action. And both lawsuits include arguments that the plaintiffs prayed on the issue and came to the conclusion that vaccination would violate their principles. So if you can find a way to accommodate somebodys religious beliefs, in a less burdensome way right, a way thats less obstructive or cumbersome on their religious exercise, then if the person is really sincere in their religious beliefs, theyll usually accept that. The content of this website reflects the current thinking of the United States Department of Health and Human Services on the topics addressed and does not create or confer any rights for or on any person and does not operate to bind the Department or the public. We took a very intentional approach of maintaining a laser-like focus on religious liberty, because we believe that that is the strongest legal basis, he said. The first lawsuit to garner national attention, filed in Texas late last year, made a splash because its plaintiffs include SEALs, among the most elite of the militarys special operations forces. While it allowed service members to apply for religious exemptions to the mandate, it has not granted a single one. WASHINGTON Two months after the Pentagon began requiring all troops to get the coronavirus vaccine or face dismissal, the vast majority have now had shots, in part because none . The number of exemptions has fluctuated over the last several months as some people decided to get the shots or leave the service instead of seeking accommodation. Well, the good news is the law is set up so that the government actually can win those cases, when all they have to do is demonstrate that they have a compelling interest. And so of course, that means you have to bring different lawsuits on behalf of people, depending on what branch of the military that theyre in. Similar suits have been brought throughout the country by service members across the military branches. The Pentagon formally dropped the requirement in January following a December vote in Congress to end the mandate. Lawmakers expressed frustration with the news . The military across the board is discriminating discriminating against people of faith. Biden appointee behind unlawful military vaccine mandate to step down. They become the exception and not the norm. Follow him on Twitter @TomNovelly. But there may be good reason for that. The Marine Corps had fielded 3,500 religious waiver requests, granting three, in addition to about 250 medical waivers and 400 other administrative approvals. The Navy SEALS filed their lawsuit in November of 2021, describing what they saw as a cumbersome 50-step process to obtain religious exemptions for the COVID-19 vaccine. The latest class action targets the Air Forces religious accommodation process, arguing that process is set up in such a way that getting a religious exemption to the vaccine is almost impossible. msn back to msn home news Skip To Navigation But although the Air Force has approved hundreds of medical and administrative exemptions, they have only approved a very small handful of religious exemptions and even the ones that theyve approved by their own admission, they are only for Air Force members who are basically already separating or are already on their way out. They are, theyre ignoring the law, theyre ignoring the Constitution. But it may not take a lawsuit for the issue to change the environment when it comes to mandatory vaccination. Simply put, no actual fetal cells were used in the development of any of the COVID-19 vaccines the cells in question were replicated by scientists, in labs, from tissue harvested previously. Meghann Myers is the Pentagon bureau chief at Military Times. Additionally, "promotion records will be corrected by the [Department of the Air Force] who will remove or redact all adverse actions related to vaccine refusal," according to a Friday press release. The Florida filing also spends much more time on the biographies of the complainants. The Supreme Court ruled in March 2022 that the sea service was allowed to reassign sailors who had refused the shot and filed exemption requests to nonoperational commands. Theyre not pleasant. Mike Berry, general counsel for First Liberty Institute,said: Forcing a service member to choose between their faith and serving their country is abhorrent to the Constitution and Americas values . Read Next: The Navy's Top Enlisted Sailor Is Ready for You to Ask Him Anything. The World Health Organization approved Covaxin for emergency use in late 2021, making it a viable option for airmen who object to the three main U.S. shots. Pfizer and Modernas mRNA products used cells replicated from a fetus aborted in the 1970s to make sure the vaccines worked in human cells. The problem here is that the government is simply unwilling to offer any compromises. But what we cant do is say, well, because they ruled this way, in this case, this is how theyre going to rule in all cases. Jared Serbu: Yeah, theres a ton. But in terms of the underlying legal issues that are raised, no, theyre exactly the same. WASHINGTON The Air Force has discharged 27 people for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine, making them what officials believe are the first service members to be removed for disobeying the. Sarah Parshall Perry is a senior legal fellow for the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He has criticized the Air Force for what he sees as a failure to carefully consider the merits of each exemption request and instead sweepingly reject them. All rights reserved. Kevin Stitt has pushed back on the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for the military that would apply to the Oklahoma National Guard. Johnson & Johnson uses cells replicated from a fetus aborted in 1985 to produce its vaccine, but those cells are filtered out from the final product. Only the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is manufactured using fetal cell lines. Need help accessing the FCC Public File due to a disability? The Florida case, in a 187-page complaint, takes measures much further. "This guidance is a promise of what the Air Force is saying it will do," Bruns told Military.com. In the Ohio case, 2nd Lt. Hunter Doster of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and more than a dozen other plaintiffs argue the Air Force is forcing them to lose their livelihoods or violate their religious beliefs by receiving vaccines they say are impure or have ties to abortion. The Army reported about 1,300 religious requests, none of which have been approved, as well as six medical exemptions. They will also have to make the case that vaccinating, or involuntarily discharging, every service member is the least restrictive means of keeping the force safe from COVID-19, rather than enforcing masking or social distancing or in some cases, grandfathering in troops who acquired some immunity after catching COVID-19. But the DoD is just saying Nope, we wont even recognize that we wont even consider it, even though they consider natural immunity for other communicable diseases and infections and things like that. They include the small risk of myocarditis, which has anecdotally occurred in 1,626 U.S. residents out of more than 200 million fully vaccinated, with the highest risk in men under 24. And they recognize that theres almost a presumption of belief. And youll see headline after headline talking about the recruiting and retention woes that plague our military right now. Theyre burdensome, but the person says, But you know what, at the end of the day, Im not have to inject something in my body that violates my religious beliefs. Theres a case to be made for turning these lawsuits into class action matters, Staver said, so that individual service members dont have to sue or just another case. 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