A group of Navy Seals filed suit over the COVID mandate. Thé suit is based upon the US Navy giving no exemptions for religious reasons.
Judge Reed O’Connor of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas issued a preliminary injunction against Biden’s military mandate prohibiting the Pentagon from forcing 35 Navy SEALs to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. The injunction only applies to the servicemen involved in the lawsuit, not to the mandate in general. O’Connor’s ruling says in part:
Our nation asks the men and women in our military to serve, suffer, and sacrifice. But we do not ask them to lay aside their citizenry and give up the very rights they have sworn to protect. Every president since the signing of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act has praised the men and women of the military for their bravery and service in protecting the freedoms this country guarantees.
In this case, members of the military seek protection under those very freedoms. Thirty-five Navy Special Warfare servicemembers allege that the military’s mandatory vaccination policy violates their religious freedoms under the First Amendment and Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The Navy provides a religious accommodation process, but by all accounts, it is theater. The Navy has not granted a religious exemption to any vaccine in recent memory. It merely rubber stamps each denial. The Navy servicemembers in this case seek to vindicate the very freedoms they have sacrificed so much to protect. 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.
Having considered the briefing, oral argument, relevant facts, and applicable law, the Court concludes that Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction should be and is hereby GRANTED.