- Joined
- Aug 8, 2021
Interesting. See if the SEALs/other special operators will get to keep the exemption. The military needs these guys more than they will publically admit.
![]()
U.S. judge blocks Pentagon from punishing Navy SEALs who refused COVID-19 vaccine
(Reuters) -A federal judge on Monday barred the U.S. Department of Defense from punishing a group of Navy SEALs and other special forces members who refused COVID-19 vaccines on religious grounds. U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor, acting in response to a lawsuit filed on behalf of 35 special...www.yahoo.com
![]()
U.S. judge blocks Pentagon from punishing Navy SEALs who refused COVI…
archived 4 Jan 2022 16:29:01 UTCarchive.ph
Hot damn, I was waiting for this one to finally drop. I attached a copy of the judge's order to the post for anyone who wants to read it.
This one's a fun one to read, the judge is pissed.
The Navy provides a religious accommodation process, but by all accounts, it is theater. The Navy has not granted a religious exemption to any vaccine in recent memory. It merely rubber stamps each denial. The Navy servicemembers in this case seek to vindicate the very freedomsthey have sacrificed so much to protect.3 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.
His rundown of the context and background of the case is excellent, and show you just how much of a farce the claim of a religious exemption existing was.
A fine example of the process is the punishment (skip to page 10 of the order if you want to see a walkthrough of the process, it's like something out of a Monty Python sketch in terms of how comedically skewed it is), and the rejections are a prewritten template. How uncharacteristically efficient.
Once again, defendants running their mouth give away that a regulation that is required to be neutral and not motivated by invidious reasons is anything but. Warms my black heart every time some idiot shoots themselves in the foot like this.
Religious exemptions to the vaccine requirement are virtually non-existent. In the past seven years, the Navy has not granted a religious exemption to any vaccine requirement.
To adjudicate a religious accommodation request, the Navy uses a six-phase, fifty-step process. See Supp. Decl. of Andrew Stephens, Ex. 1, ECF No. 62. Although “all requests for accommodation of religious practices are assessed on a case-by-case basis,” Phase 1 of the Navy guidance document instructs an administrator to update a prepared disapproval template with the requester’s name and rank. Id. Based on this boilerplate rejection, Plaintiffs believe that this process is “pre-determined” and sidesteps the individualized review required by law.
At no point in the process is the administrator given the opportunity to recommend anything other than disapproval.
A fine example of the process is the punishment (skip to page 10 of the order if you want to see a walkthrough of the process, it's like something out of a Monty Python sketch in terms of how comedically skewed it is), and the rejections are a prewritten template. How uncharacteristically efficient.
Several Plaintiffs have been directly told by their chains of command that “the senior leadership of Naval Special Warfare has no patience or tolerance for service members who refuse COVID-19 vaccination for religious reasons and wants them out of the SEAL community.”
Some Plaintiffs were told by their chains of command that if their religious accommodations were approved, they would lose their SEAL Tridents.21 Others will lose their Tridents merely for requesting the exemption.
Once again, defendants running their mouth give away that a regulation that is required to be neutral and not motivated by invidious reasons is anything but. Warms my black heart every time some idiot shoots themselves in the foot like this.
The actual reasoning and analysis that makes up the bulk of the order is clear and direct, and should be pretty friendly to any non-lawyers who'd like to get a look at how First Amendment religious freedoms function in the context of the US military. Of special interest might be the fact that one of the cases we've been following on this thread made its appearance as a source of guidance here -- it's the BST Holdings case, aka the original 5th Circuit case that really got the ball rolling against the OSHA EST mandate that is going before the Supreme Court this Friday!
As an added bonus, the judge involved here, Reed O'Connor, is one that has a long history of pissing off certain people -- he's the judge who attempted to kill the ACA, and has also tangled with the trans in bathrooms issue. Here's some MSNBC seethe for your amusement. (Archive)