A federal district court in Texas is temporarily blocking the U.S. Department of Defense from punishing nearly three dozen Navy SEALs and other special forces for refusing COVID-19 vaccines due to religious objections. The Navy required all active-duty service members to get vaccinated by Nov. 28 or face disciplinary action.
"The Navy service members in this case seek to vindicate the very freedoms they have sacrificed so much to protect," wrote U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in his preliminary injunction issued Monday.
Reed also noted the Navy had not granted exemption requests for any vaccine requirements based on religious grounds for several years.
“The COVID-19 pandemic provides the government no license to abrogate those freedoms," the judge wrote in his 26-page decision.
The lawsuit filed by the religious freedoms legal group, First Liberty Institute, alleges the service members faced a range of disciplinary actions for refusing the vaccine, including court martial and disqualification from deployment.
The institute’s general counsel Mike Berry explained the lawsuit does not challenge the vaccine mandate itself, but the federal government’s categorical denial of all requests for religious exemptions.
“While they allow for medical and administrative exemptions [to the vaccine mandate], they do not allow for any religious exemptions for the vaccine,” he said. “Our argument was that that violated the First Amendment to the Constitution and it violates the federal law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”
Berry said the religious objections raised by his clients varied, including beliefs against having cells or materials injected into their bodies that alters the intention of their divine creator.
According to the court filings, more than 99% of active-duty Navy service members have been vaccinated against COVID-19.