Navy SEALs Take Court Battle to Biden Adm After Covid-19 JAB Mandate Overturned
BECKER NEWS
Navy SEALs in a court battle with the Biden administration over its alleged failure to consider their religious exemption requests to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate still suffer religious discrimination, according to a brief filed Friday.
The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) position is that now the Department of Defense (DOD) has complied with Congress’ order to rescind the mandate and servicemembers no longer face possible discharge for refusing the vaccine, courts should drop the case, Mike Berry, military affairs counsel at First Liberty Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. However, the new policy leaves the door open to continued discrimination and treating unvaccinated members like “second-class citizens,” attorneys for the class action lawsuit that includes 26 Navy SEALs said in the brief.
“It’s important to keep in mind that since the very beginning, our position was never one way in which we challenged the authority to issue the mandate or or the existence of the mandate, or its or even its lawfulness,” Berry told the DCNF. “We only challenged the way that it was being discriminatorily enforced against service members of faith.”
The case centers around 26 Navy SEALs who filed a complaint in November 2021 alleging the Navy did not follow procedures for granting religious exemptions to the vaccine mandate, thereby violating the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, court documents show. The case was granted class action status in March and the entire Navy placed under an indefinite ban against discharging unvaccinated members.
The Navy published official guidance overturning the COVID-19 vaccine mandate on Jan. 11, following the Secretary of Defense’s order on Jan. 10, meaning members of the Navy are no longer required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or subject to formal punishment for refusing the vaccine, and the court’s injunction no longer protects sailors.
“Voluntary cessation of challenged conduct, even by the government, does not deprive this Court of the power to determine its legality,” the brief states, referring to alleged violations of servicemembers’ first amendment rights.
In addition, the DOD memo and subsequent Navy guidance, NAVADMIN 005/23, offer commanders wide berth to make deployment decisions based on vaccination status, citing the need to minimize health risks to troops.
“To defend the nation, we need a healthy and ready force, this means a Navy and Marine Corps that is ready to deploy,” Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro said in a memo titled ALNAV 009/23.
“We will continue to consider medical readiness, of which vaccination plays a key role, in all appropriate settings. All commanders have the responsibility and authority to maintain military readiness, unit cohesion, good order and discipline, and the health and safety of their commands,” Del Toro continued.
However, NAVADMIN 005/23 stipulates that no additional religious accommodations will be granted.
#NavyPartnerships keep the waters safe! 💪
#USNavy, @uscoastguard, and @USArmy conducted an expertise exchange on forensics collection, combat defensive tactics, and first aid with partners during exercise #ObangameExpress23.
Read the full story here: https://t.co/X6PtKDanOD pic.twitter.com/U89yi3hYTZ
— U.S. Navy (@USNavy) January 29, 2023
Neither do they nullify other department-level rules regarding treatment of unvaccinated servicemembers, resulting in de facto opportunities for discrimination against servicemembers, the attorneys explain in Friday’s brief.
For example, Naval officer Lt. Levi Beaird filed for a religious accommodation to the vaccine that he never received, and the Navy is blocking him from deploying and completing other activities due to his unvaccinated status, Berry told the DCNF. If he doesn’t achieve certain career milestones, the Navy will require he repay a $75,000 retention bonus.
“It’s just a backdoor way for them to continue to harass, intimidate and punish servicemembers because of their faith,” Berry said.
Some of his Navy SEAL clients say their superiors are mulling the possibility of “rerating” the SEALs, or removing their Naval Special Warfare designation and placing them alongside “regular” sailors, he explained.
“Most of these guys, they joined the Navy to be Navy SEALs, and they didn’t become Navy SEALs by accident,” said Berry. Not only would the change in status rob the members of pride in serving in special operations, but it would also cut them off from financial bonuses.
The Fifth Circuit Court in New Orleans will hold oral arguments for the case on Feb. 6, First Liberty said in a press release on Monday.
“This religious discrimination must stop,” Berry said, according to the release.
DOD referred the DCNF to the DOJ. DOJ and the Navy did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
Post written by Micaela Burrow. Republished with permission from DCNF. Images via Becker News.
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(TLB) published this article from Becker News as Compiled by Kyle Becker
Header featured image (edited) credit: US Navy patch/Becker News post
Emphasis added by (TLB) editors
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Why in the world do you need a religious exemption for a dangerous and toxic agent?
Does a woman need a religious exemption for not wanting to be raped? what happened to bodily integrity?
What happened to a simple NO? human rights? where are those “freedoms” the US elites allways likes to brag about?
Injecting a million service men does NOT help in combat readiness, over a “virus’ and “emergency” that doesn’t exist .. on the contrary.
Is the Pentagon now cheerleading for Big Pharma too? is that what this is?
It’s clear now people die from all sort of misery caused by these injections, there is no debate anymore.
The Biden regime are actively destroing America (immigrants, food supply, energy, Wokeness, Ukraine, gender insanity and the list goes on), this is blatantly obvious now.
And the rumor is ‘they’ want to take on China in 2025 ? well good luck with that.
What about non-religious persons, they can’t claim an exemption? isn’t this discrimination also?
Baffled that this is even going to courts, the US has these great amendments, bill of rights, constitution but they get ignored because well, some lunatics are hell bend on injection the whole world 3 times over and then some.
Here a reminder of the Neuremberg code (which is relevant still today!)
–>> 1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion.
–>> 5. No experiment should be conducted where there is an a prior reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur.
This is a major problem with First Liberty Institute, which not only is asking for a ruling based on the right to receive a religious exemption, but apparently also for the ruling to “…nullify other department-level (military) rules regarding treatment of unvaccinated servicemembers…” That’s asking a lot, if unvaccinated servicemembers, because of their unvaccinated condition, are not as physically qualified as vaccinated servicemembers, which appears to be what the Navy would be arguing.
The Liberty Institute owes it to their Navy Seal clients to argue the physically qualified question based on the science, rather than on religious rights.
With regard to the science, the CDC now admits that the Covid-19 injections do not impart immunity from the alleged SARS-Cov-2 virus; and, once infected with the alleged SARS-Cov-2 virus, the Covid-19 injections do not prevent transmission. Thus, the Covid-19 injections cannot produce any sort of herd immunity. This is an indisputable scientific fact.
To keep the CDC’s Covid-19 injection products from being pulled from distribution to the public, the CDC then came up with the argument that people who are injected with these products are less likely to experience severe Covid-19 disease symptoms and therefore less likely to end up hospitalized, and possibly injured or dead from a severe adverse event outcome. But, it’s questionable whether the CDC knows of any published, peer reviewed, scientific proof for these claims of theirs. This question could be answered via a FOIA request to the CDC for all of the studies they have which prove their contentions of less severe symptoms and less hospitalizations/severe adverse event outcomes.
Del Bigtree’s Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) organization, via its attorney, Aaron Siri of Siri|Glimstad, has been forcing the CDC, via FOIA request lawsuits, to admit that it cannot back up many statements it has been making to the public.
Of particular interest below is 5.) CDC concedes never conducted vaccinated versus unvaccinated study. So, how could the CDC make any statement(s) that being injected with Covid-19 injection products is superior to remaining unvaccinated?
ICAN LEGAL STRATEGY PUBLISHED IN BLOOMBERG LAW
thehighwire.com/videos/ican-legal-strategy-published-in-bloomberg-law/
At time = 5:45 of the above video is a screen showing the following list of just a few of ICAN LEGAL WINS THROUGH FOIA:
1.) CDC unable to provide any support for its claim that COVID-19 vaccines “do not change or interact with your DNA in any way”
2.) CDC unable to provide any support for its claim to the public: “FACT: COVID-19 vaccines do not create or cause variants of the virus that causes COVID-19.”
3.) CDC did not have a single study showing the vaccines given during the first year of life do not cause autism.
4.) CDC concedes it lacks any proof of Hepatitis B being transmitted in school.
5.) CDC concedes never conducted vaccinated versus unvaccinated study.
news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/using-foia-to-compel-federal-agencies-to-prove-claims