A federal judge in Texas has granted a preliminary injunction stopping the Navy from acting against 35 sailors for refusing on religious grounds to comply with an order to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The injunction is a new challenge to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision to make vaccinations mandatory for all members of the military. The vaccination requirement allows for exemptions on religious and other grounds, but none of the thousands of requests for religious waivers so far have been granted.
There was no indication that the order would affect service members beyond the 35 sailors who sued Austin and the Navy. The Pentagon had no immediate response to a request for comment.
Well over 90% of the military has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, including at least 98.5% of active and reserve members of the Navy. Austin asserts that vaccines are a valid and necessary medical requirement to protect service members and their families and ensure the combat readiness of the force.
In his decision Monday, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor wrote that the Navy’s process for considering a sailor’s request for a religious exemption is flawed and amounts to “theater.”
O’Connor, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, wrote that the group of 35 sailors who sued the government in November and sought a preliminary injunction against the Navy have a right on religious and First Amendment grounds to refuse the vaccination order.
“The Navy servicemembers in this case seek to vindicate the very freedoms they have sacrificed so much to protect,” O’Connor wrote. “The COVID-19 pandemic provides the government no license to abrogate those freedoms. There is no COVID-19 exception to the First Amendment. There is no military exclusion from our Constitution.”
The O’Connor injunction was first reported by The Washington Post.
Without commenting on the case in Texas, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby last month defended the validity of the military service’s processes for considering religious exemptions.
“Each exemption asked for on religious grounds is evaluated by a chaplain, by a chain of command, by medical experts and is given quite a lot of thought, and they’re all decided case by case individually,” he said Dec. 21.
In his decision in favor of the injunction sought by the 35 Navy sailors, O’Connor wrote that they objected to being vaccinated on four grounds: “opposition to abortion and the use of aborted fetal cell lines in development of the vaccine; belief that modifying one’s body is an affront to the Creator; divine instruction not to receive the vaccine, and opposition to injecting trace amounts of animal cells into one’s body.”
“Plaintiffs’ beliefs about the vaccine are undisputedly sincere, and it is not the role of this court to determine their truthfulness or accuracy,” the judge wrote.
The sailors who sued are members of the Naval Special Warfare Command, including SEALs. The suit was filed by First Liberty Institute, a nonprofit that focuses on defending religious liberty.
In the early stages of the pandemic, the Navy struggled with one particularly critical COVID-19 outbreak. Hundreds of sailors aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier were infected, starting in late March while on a deployment to Vietnam and elsewhere in Asia. The ship was taken out of operation at Guam, its commanding officer was relieved of duty and the crisis led to the resignation of acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly.
Since then, the Navy and other services have managed to avoid major disruptions. In December, officials said about two dozen sailors on board the USS Milwaukee, or roughly 25% of the ship’s crew, had tested positive for COVID-19, keeping the vessel sidelined in port at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. On Monday, the Navy announced that the ship had returned to sea.
(AP)
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4 Responses
FINALLY. JUSTICE WILL PREVAIL.
90% of military vaccinated, surely Hayelei Hashem are even more disciplined?!
Note that thousands of military filed for religious exemption and none were approved. It means that it is official that there is no religion that approves of non-vaccinating. There are some people here who claim that it is part of their religion, please send your information to these anti-vaxxers, so that they convert to your religion and save their honor and parnosah!
AAQ, you are the Eino Yodea Lish’ol. Hashem’s soldiers are certainly disciplined, and if He would command us to take the vaccine, or to drink arsenic, or anything else, we would do it. But He hasn’t commanded that. Forging an order from a superior officer is a serious offense.
The fact that none of the applications were approved is the very proof that this whole process is fraudulent. How is it possible that each case was evaluated separately and in every single case the navy managed to determine that the person is lying about their beliefs?! It’s impossible. What it means is that they are not really evaluating the claims at all, and just rejecting them out of their own bigotry. And that is illegal.
As for your claim that “it is official that there is no religion that approves of non-vaccinating”, and your later suggestion that these people “convert” to some other religion in order to get an exemption, that just shows your utter ignorance of the constitution.
There is no such thing as an “official religion”. Religion is whatever each person believes. It makes absolutely not the slightest difference whether a billion other people share their beliefs, or nobody at all. So long as a person sincerely believes something it is their religion and the first amendment protects it. The only avenue of attack open to the government is to say that the person doesn’t really believe what he claims to; and that may be true of many people, even perhaps the majority, but how can it be true of everyone?
Milhouse, you are right that there are no official religions in USA. Still, “freedom of religion” has certain parameters, maybe lawyers here can help. For example, polygamy is not allowed despite some religions allowing it. I do not know how Navy evaluated the applications. We can suspect them, but, as of now, it is “official” declaration from Navy (and other branches) that they could not find one true believer. They usually do things by the book. They are trained to do so, and they often lose their careers and pensions when they do not.
On your other points:
– Ratzon Hashem? We have psak from multiple senior Rabbis regarding vaccines. Maybe you have some opposite ones, but nobody quoted it here. Can they be wrong? Of course, but this is our best approximation to Hashem’s will that we can layer with medical knowledge also
– I respect your private capacity to contradict the weight of gedolim and medical opinions, but I am concerned that you are not basing it on facts: you claim that vaccines are “not approved”. Pfizer is full approved, while others are emergency. This is not just US: EU has 5 vaccines approved.