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? And in some cases, according to some reports, its even more durable than the vaccine and you dont have to get boosters and things like that. A group of lawsuit plaintiffs, including four Air Force officers and a Secret Service agent, have asked a federal court to block the Biden administration's coronavirus vaccination mandates,. 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. Yes, many of them have brought that and its a rubber stamp rejection, he said. Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek declined to comment on ongoing litigation and how it may affect how the service handles religious accommodation requests. Same thing on airplanes, right? Her work has appeared in Air Force Magazine, Inside Defense, Inside Health Policy, the Frederick News-Post (Md. I mean, all of it is just fraught with ideological purpose, and suspected purpose.. They are, theyre ignoring the law, theyre ignoring the Constitution. Copyright 2023 Military.com. Another difference is that the VICP is a no-fault compensation program. So if they work Sunday afternoon, or if theyre scheduled to work a particular Sunday afternoon, they say, Well, Im a Sabbath observer on Sundays. He spoke with a reporter last Wednesday but did . The U.S . Another plaintiff is fighting in court after trying to retire one alternative to vaccination the Air Force offered. Other plaintiffs focus not on the abortion issue, but on several Bible passages that refer to the body as a temple. The fetal cells were not used to produce either vaccine, National Geographic reported last fall. For OConnor, the violation ofthe lawwas clear: Defendants have substantially burdened Plaintiffs religious beliefs. Theres yet another lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the militarys COVID-19 vaccine mandate. While powerful, that statement isnt true. 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. Just because of the just incredibly political nature of, of all of it, from the virus to the vaccine to the mandates, Marshall Griffin, a retired Coast Guard judge advocate who now practices privately, told Military Times on Monday. Night shifts arent popular, especially on Friday night, and things like that. 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 three coronavirus vaccines currently available in the United Statesthe Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and, as of Saturday, the Johnson & Johnson versionsare approved on "emergency use. The Navy lawsuit is one of several ongoing legal challenges to the military branches' policies on religious exemptions to the DoD COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Lawyers for a group of Navy SEALS and other Navy personnel who refuse to be vaccinated for religious reasons told a 5th U.S. Under the law, theres no requirement that you adhere to a major or even recognized faith tradition, he said. 2:41 . 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. 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 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. The lawsuit also fails to mention an established precedent regarding vaccines in religious traditions. And both lawsuits include arguments that the plaintiffs prayed on the issue and came to the conclusion that vaccination would violate their principles. And yet were short, were saying that were having a hard time recruiting people. This whole thing is really unprecedented, right? On August 30, both Robert and Mulvihill asked U.S. District Court Judge Raymond Moore for a temporary restraining order regarding the vaccinations for military members who have already been. -- Thomas Novelly can be reached at thomas.novelly@military.com. Well, what if somebodys not really sincere? ", -- Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report. The lawsuit attempts to overturn Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's order that active-duty service members are required to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. From this foundation they make studied and reasonable decisions about what is good and what is not good or may not be good for their bodies.. Although certain COVID-19 vaccines are associated with a slightly increased risk of blood clotting or heart inflammation, COVID-19 itself is associated with a higher rate of these and other conditions. In December, the Air Force announced it had discharged 27 people for refusing to get the COVID . 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. Its really the same thing in the military context with this vaccine, where theyre saying, Look, teleworking or, doing a lot of these other measures, right, social distancing, masking, testing, whatever the case might be. This disparity of treatment between medical and religious exemptions was constitutionally prohibited,OConnor said: As a brief preview, the vaccine mandate fails strict scrutiny. 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Plaintiffs sincerely held religious beliefs that their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and that they are to glorify God with their bodies lays the foundation for everything they do, consume, or inject into their bodies, according to the Florida lawsuit. This piece originally appeared in The Daily Signal. 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. Then in April, the WHO warned that. 300aa-10-300aa-44). 11. Pfizer and Modernas mRNA products used cells replicated from a fetus aborted in the 1970s to make sure the vaccines worked in human cells. 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. Each week, Defense Reporter Jared Serbu speaks with the managers of the federal government's largest department. The government has recently ordered imminent punitive action against those men and women of faith who cannot in good conscience take these experimental vaccines, and this order stops the government in its tracks, Adam Hochschild, a lawyer with the Thomas More Society and lead counsel in Air Force Officer v. Austin, said in a release. We are hemorrhaging people like crazy, and were having a really hard time recruiting capable people to join our military. 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? 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. Everyone who joins the military must receive a slate of several vaccines to enter, including chickenpox, rubella and hepatitis A. While in Texas, the sailors offered descriptions of their jobs, in Florida, the biographical information goes into training, deployments and expertise, attempting to make the case that their involuntary discharges would be a huge loss. VICP provides compensation for injuries and deaths caused by In the Navy, none of more than 4,000 religious exemptions had been approved, but there were about 252 temporary and 11 permanent medical exemptions. Complainants push back on the militarys position that remaining unvaccinated endangers the force and undermines national security, since the vast majority of troops have received all of a one- or two-shot regimen. The latest lawsuit challenging DoD's COVID-19 vaccine mandate says the Air Force's process makes religious accommodations almost impossible to get. More:Dark money group targets Oklahoma Gov. Already, a soldier and Marine have filed a lawsuit arguing that service members who have already recovered from COVID-19 and therefore have natural immunity should be exempt from vaccine mandates, according to the Army Times. The Department of the Air Force, which also issues guidance for the Space Force, has detailed it will be rescinding letters of admonishment, counseling or reprimand; records of individual counseling; nonjudicial punishments; and current involuntary discharge proceedings connected to vaccine refusal. 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. And well be back week after week.. Theyre not following federal law. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area. 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. US Military To Face COVID-19 Vaccine Lawsuit February 18, 2023. Other federal court challenges to various COVID-19 vaccine mandates are ongoing. Lawyers are waiting to see if a federal court in Georgia will stop the vaccine mandate nationwide through another class-action preliminary injunction as well. 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. The Navy already denied these exemptions, but O'Connor. 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. A federal appellate judge has dealt another blow to the military's coronavirus vaccine mandate by allowing a high-profile class-action lawsuit against the Air Force to move forward. And youll see headline after headline talking about the recruiting and retention woes that plague our military right now. Dr Terry Adirim, the government bureaucrat behind the infamous and unlawful Pentagon vaccine mandate, will "leave her post in the coming days," reports FedScoop. "It hasn't done it yet. At 1,038, the Marine Corps leads the military branches for the most separations. 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. There is no military exclusion from our Constitution. In other words, its usually ill-advised to take an opinion on one subject or one issue, and then try to extrapolate and say and that and say, Well, that should apply across the board to all issues. DoD, for its part, settled its own policy with a memo from Assistant Defense Secretary for Health Affairs Terry Adirim last fall. "This vaccine mandate is unlawful and does not reflect the Land of the Free," said General O'Connor. Their lawyers have called a sham with applications being categorically denied., The Defense Department denied the process was onerous and said the Navy has a compelling interest in requiring vaccinations for personnel who often operate for long periods in confined spaces that are ripe breeding grounds for respiratory illnesses.. 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. Hes one of the attorneys representing the airmen challenging the mandate, and he spoke more to Jared Serbu on theFederal Drive with Tom Temin. When they inquired about seeking religious accommodation for the vaccine, the Navy informed many of them that they could face court-martial or involuntary separation if they refused to take the vaccine. Jared Serbu: Mike, thanks for being here. The Navy on Wednesday announced it had granted one waiver to a member of the Individual Ready Reserve, a non-drilling service member, who would have to get vaccinated should he or she come on orders. Theyre not pleasant. I know, off the top of my head, the number in the Navy is somewhere near 4,100. 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. "Former Soldiers may petition the Army Discharge Review Board and the Army Board for Correction of Military Records to request corrections to their records," the service's press release said. Also missing from the lawsuits are any new religious conversion, or simply the possibility that they were previously unaware of the role of replicated fetal stem cells in pharmaceutical development, that would explain why they never objected to any vaccines or medications before. President Joe Biden signed the. Total exemptions granted in the Air Force included about 1,500 temporary medical exemptions and 2,300 administrative waivers, which includes the nine religious approvals. 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. The new policy guidance to the services makes no mention of reinstating service members who were separated from the military for refusing the shot. A federal judge in Cincinnati has expanded a temporary exemption to a Department of Defense COVID-19 vaccine mandate to cover thousands of service members in the U.S. Air Force and Space Force,.
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