First Liberty Institute has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf 26 US Navy SEALs, 5 Navy EOD techs, and 3 Navy Divers who have religious objections to the mandated COVID vaccine, yet aren’t being granted religious exemptions. As noted at FoxNews [emphasis added]:

Fox News previously reported that for some SEALs seeking religious exemptions to the mandate, the process is nearly impossible to successfully complete to get a waiver. In addition, a series of new directives by the Navy are promising severe punishment, including court-martial (criminal) prosecution, revocation of special operator status, drastic pay cuts and a ban on travel for SEALs who do not comply with the mandate by the end of November.

After the lawsuit was filed, Stars and Stripes noted no branch of the military has granted a single religious exemption:

To date, none of the military services have disclosed granting a waiver to the vaccine mandate for religious reasons. The Navy said Wednesday that it had granted six medical exemptions, though it had not issued a religious exemption.

Mike Berry, First Liberty’s lead attorney, highlighted that total absence of religious waivers:

“The fact that the government has not granted a single religious exemption from the vaccine mandate shows that the [President Joe Biden’s] administration does not care about religious freedom,” said Mike Berry, First Liberty’s lead attorney for the lawsuit. “Instead, this appears to be an attempted ideological purge. Forcing a service member to choose between their faith and serving their country is abhorrent to the Constitution and America’s values.”

The lawsuit specifically says these members of the Navy object only to the vaccine, and not to any other relevant safety measure to protect against COVID.

As has been said here before, whether you agree with the sincerely held religious beliefs of US troops is not relevant, because religious liberty is protected regardless of someone else’s opinions about those beliefs. And again, it is not the place of the US government to analyze or evaluate those beliefs. In many news articles on these topics (including the Stars and Stripes article), the media has trotted out lines such as “The Pope says the vaccine is ok,” as if the press or the government thinks a statement by the Pope (or any other religious figure) overrides the religious liberties of an individual American citizen.

Then again, maybe the military’s goal is to “convince” the troops that their ideas about their own religion are wrong.

It’s also important to remember that the US Supreme Court has previously ruled that the US military does have some leeway in restricting the rights of its troops, as it did when the Court ruled the Air Force did not have to grant a Jewish Airman the right to wear a kippah while in uniform (Goldman v Weinberger, 1986). However, that ruling was followed by Congress – which alone has the constitutional authority to “raise an army” – passing laws requiring the military to do precisely that. That includes 10 USC Sec 774, which followed the Weinberger ruling and allowed religious accoutrements in uniform, as well as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

In fact, the US Department of Defense seems to have acknowledged that reality by saying it would allow its troops to apply for religious exemptions to the vaccine. However, in an era in which waivers are granted for everything from height and weight to wearing a Norse beard, if absolutely no waivers have been granted for religious objections to the vaccine (despite the requests), what does that say about their sincerity?

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