Military rules assure spiritual freedom, however the Pentagon is defying them. More than 24,000 members throughout the branches have submitted religious-accommodation requests following Defense Secretary
Lloyd Austin’s
August 2021 vaccination order. Almost all have been rejected. These troops now face punishment and discharge.
Many spiritual personnel are Christians who object to utilizing abortion-derived cell strains to develop or check medical merchandise. That precludes them from taking any of the 4 Covid-19 vaccines the Food and Drug Administration has approved to date.
Many of those troops survived Covid-19. Before the 2021 mandate, army rules made prior an infection grounds for exemption. The Pentagon is now ignoring this provision, citing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention steering that reductions pure immunity. Yet commanders haven’t ordered booster pictures, which the CDC recommends. Requests for alternate options reminiscent of telework, masking and common testing have additionally been rejected. The army says these once-common measures are “unavailable.”
The Pentagon’s antireligious animus is clear within the knowledge on secular exemption requests. The Air Force has permitted 1,608 requests primarily based on nonreligious causes, though it hasn’t disclosed the overall variety of purposes. At the identical time, the service permitted fewer than 130 of greater than 9,000 spiritual requests submitted by airmen—and these approvals solely went to troops voluntarily leaving anyway. As of May 4, 2022, the Marines had permitted virtually 900 administrative or medical exemptions however solely seven religious-accommodation requests out of greater than 3,700 purposes.
More than 97% of active-duty troops are vaccinated. The army refuses to say what vaccination fee will fulfill its pursuits, as a substitute insisting on “maximum vaccination.” Businesses, state governments and the general public have acknowledged the boundaries of mass vaccination. Military leaders’ insistence on “maximum vaccination” does little to attain that nebulous purpose whereas making a mockery of non secular discrimination legal guidelines.
Uniformed service members are among the many lowest-risk grownup demographic. Breakthrough infections are so quite a few they’re now not tracked. Huge numbers of troops now possess infection-acquired antibodies, and the virus is diminishing in virulence.
The Pentagon might import World Health Organization-approved vaccines, reminiscent of Covaxin, that don’t have any connection to abortion-linked cell strains. The federal authorities approved an analogous resolution in January 2021, when the Department of Health and Human Services permitted the import of sure measles and rubella vaccines from Japan when the one domestically approved various was abortion-linked.
At stake are the careers and livelihoods of greater than 24,000 troops who face ejection for exercising their spiritual rights. The Defense Department’s coverage of non secular rejection reveals no indicators of slowing. Congress must act by tying protection cash to respect for the troops’ spiritual liberty.
Mr. Motz is a lawyer within the Air National Guard and a former infantry officer within the Marine Corps.
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