Navy barred from acting against religious vaccine refusers

A federal choose in Texas is barring the Navy from taking motion for now towards sailors who’ve objected to being vaccinated towards COVID-19 on spiritual grounds.

U.S. District Choose Reed O’Connor had in January issued a preliminary injunction stopping the Navy from disciplining or discharging 35 sailors who sued over the Navy’s vaccine coverage whereas their case performed out. On Monday, O’Connor agreed the case might go ahead as a category motion lawsuit and issued a preliminary injunction protecting the roughly 4,000 sailors who’ve objected on spiritual grounds to being vaccinated.

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O’Connor stated the bigger group of sailors shared frequent traits with those that had sued. That they had requested for and been denied an exemption to the vaccine requirement on spiritual grounds and had been dealing with the specter of being discharged from the Navy, O’Connor wrote.

“Although their private circumstances might factually differ in small methods, the risk is identical – get the jab or lose your job,” wrote O’Connor, who was nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush.

Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin final 12 months made vaccinations obligatory for service members. Greater than 99% of the Navy’s lively obligation power has been vaccinated towards COVID-19, and the Navy has additionally discharged 650 individuals for refusing to be vaccinated. Navy tips permit for exemptions to the vaccine requirement on spiritual and different grounds, together with medical causes and if a service member is about to go away the Navy.

Attorneys for the group of sailors who sued, most of them Navy SEALs, argue that the Navy had granted a whole lot of exemptions for medical and administrative causes however granted no spiritual exemptions for lively obligation and reserve service members. 9 inactive reserve members have been granted spiritual exemptions.

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Mike Berry, the director of army affairs for First Liberty Institute, which is representing the sailors, stated in an announcement following O’Connor’s motion that it is “time for our army to honor its constitutional obligations and grant spiritual lodging for service members with honest spiritual objections to the vaccine.”

Whereas the case remains to be at an early stage, the U.S. Supreme Court docket in a quick order Friday narrowed the influence of O’Connor’s unique injunction, saying that the Navy might nonetheless think about the vaccination standing of the sailors who sued in making deployment, project and different operational choices. O’Connor’s newest injunction permits the Navy to think about vaccination standing in making these choices about members of the bigger group as nicely.

President Joe Biden’s administration had argued that not permitting the Navy to think about vaccination standing in making assignments posed “insupportable dangers to security and mission success.”

“Navy personnel routinely function for prolonged intervals of time in confined areas which might be ripe breeding grounds for respiratory diseases, the place mitigation measures reminiscent of distancing are impractical or not possible,” Biden administration attorneys wrote. “A SEAL who falls unwell not solely can not full his or her personal mission, however dangers infecting others as nicely, notably in shut quarters, together with on submarines.”