Federal decide blocks the Protection Dept. from punishing Navy forces who refuse the vaccine.

A federal decide on Monday granted a preliminary injunction blocking the Division of Protection from taking “any antagonistic motion” in opposition to 35 Navy sailors who’ve refused to get vaccinated in opposition to the coronavirus, arguing that it violated their spiritual freedoms.

The service members — together with Navy SEALs and members of the Naval Particular Warfare Command — had filed go well with in opposition to the Biden administration arguing that their “sincerely held spiritual beliefs forbid every of them from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine for quite a lot of causes primarily based upon their Christian religion.” The Pentagon had mandated that each one active-duty troops obtain the vaccine.

The decide, Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas, successfully blocked the division from punishing these troops.

“Our nation asks the women and men in our navy to serve, undergo, and sacrifice. However we don’t ask them to put apart their citizenry and quit the very rights they’ve sworn to guard,” Choose O’Connor wrote in his 26-page order. He added: “The Covid-19 pandemic offers the federal government no license to abrogate these freedoms. There is no such thing as a Covid-19 exception to the First Modification. There is no such thing as a navy exclusion from our Structure.”

The group represents a small fraction of active-duty troops from america, and as of mid-December, most active-duty troopers and members of the Navy had received at least one dose of the vaccine. 1000’s have requested spiritual exemptions, and none have been granted thus far, officers stated in December.

The choice follows one other injunction by a decide in November in opposition to President Biden’s nationwide vaccine mandate for well being care employees.

Choose O’Connor, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, has reliably tossed a number of Democratic insurance policies which were challenged on the federal bench. In response to the injunction on Monday, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, wrote on Twitter, “This can be a main win!”

A spokesperson for the Pentagon couldn’t instantly be reached for remark. However on Monday night, John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, stated that protection officers had been reviewing the injunction, in response to The Washington Post.