We have been covering the continuing dismissals of qualified military personnel asking for religious exemptions from obtaining the COVID vaccine required under a federal mandate.
Now a federal judge has issued a temporary injunction against the mandate for Navy SEALs, who sued President Biden because they pursued a religious exemption.
Judge Reed O’Connor, the U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of Texas, issued the stay in response to a lawsuit filed by First Liberty Institute in November on behalf of 35 active-duty SEALs and three reservists seeking a religious exemption, as first reported by Fox News Digital.”The Navy service members in this case seek to vindicate the very freedoms they have sacrificed so much to protect. The COVID-19 pandemic provides the government no license to abrogate those freedoms. There is no COVID-19 exception to the First Amendment,” O’Connor wrote in his ruling. “There is no military exclusion from our Constitution.”
The SEALS are among hundreds who have sought religious exemptions to the Defense Department mandate requiring all active-duty personnel to receive vaccination against COVID. The attorney for the military officials states the response to the mandate exemptions points to a political agenda.
First Liberty, the Texas-based public interest law firm representing what it said were “dozens of U.S. Navy SEALs and other Naval Special Warfare personnel” opposed to the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate, said the move protects the personnel from punishment for seeking a religious exemption.“The latest count is well over 1,000 medical and administrative exemptions granted, but not a single religious exemption,” Mike Berry, First Liberty’s general counsel, said in a telephone interview.He called that figure “almost impossible” to believe.“I literally have never heard of any such thing in my entire life or professional career. But I think it shows that this is really rooted in religious hostility, and in a political agenda,” he added.
Meanwhile, the double vaccinated and boosted Secretary of Defense is recovering…from a case of COVID.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has tested positive for COVID-19.”I tested positive this morning for COVID-19. I requested the test today after exhibiting symptoms while at home on leave,” Austin said in a statement late Sunday. “My symptoms are mild, and I am following my physician’s directions.””In keeping with those directions, and in accordance with CDC guidelines, I will quarantine myself at home for the next five days,” he said.Austin, 68, said that he is fully vaccinated and was boosted in October. He said that while he quarantines, he plans to continue with key meetings and discussions virtually, “to the degree possible” and that Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks would represent him as necessary.He said that his staff had begun contact tracing and testing anyone who he’d been in contact with over the last week.
Austin insists the vaccines work…because Science!
“The vaccines work and will remain a military medical requirement for our workforce. I continue to encourage everyone eligible for a booster shot to get one. This remains a readiness issue,” he added.
If Austin’s bitter clinging to the vaccine mandate is an indication of his tactics, it explains much about Afghanistan. My prayers for peace will be boosted accordingly. Hopefully, they will work, unlike the “vaccines.”
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