'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.”
The mandate is challenged by a group of U.S. Navy SEALs and other Naval special warfare personneland they have been denied religious exemptions from receiving the vaccine.
The Navy implemented a mandate requiring all active-duty Navy service members to be fully vaccinated before Nov. 28 or face the “full range” of disciplinary action. While the Navy allows service members to apply for a religious exemption, O’Connor wrote in his order that the exemption process “by all accounts, it is theater.”
According to O’Connor, the Navy’s vaccine mandate causes a loss of religious liberties to those in the lawsuit.First Liberty Institute, a nonprofit interest law firm based in Plano, is representing the SEALs and other personnel in the lawsuit.
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