The US Navy is refusing to release a guided-missile destroyer since the ship’s Commander is unvaccinated for COVID-19 and also apparently has disobeyed orders related to COVID.
The United States military revealed a COVID-19 vaccination mandate in 2021 that entered into effect in October. The policy does enable religious, clinical, and also management exemptions. The ship’s commander at first joined a claim last October asking for relief from the mandate religious grounds. The commander after that went stepped away from the legal action and filed an additional lawsuit, together with a Marine Lieutenant Colonel, in U.S. District Court in January alleging their First Amendment Rights were violated when they were subjected to reassignment for declining to get the COVID vaccine. Neither the ship’s commander nor the ship he commands has actually been publicly identified.
A Commander Taking A Stand For Himself, His Ship And Crew
In February, the United States District Court Judge Steven Merryday issued an initial injunction preventing the Navy from requiring either plaintiff to receive the COVID-19 vaccination
Stars and Stripes reported. The order additionally prohibited armed forces commanders from taking “any punitive or retaliatory measure” versus the military officers. The military reacted on Feb. 28 by asking for an emergency remain on the injunction and condemned the court’s intervention.
“The order is an extraordinary intrusion upon the inner workings of the military that presents a direct and imminent threat to national security during a global military crisis, and it indefinitely sidelines a Navy warship,” the military claimed.
The Navy likewise declared the ship’s commander has endangered his staff as well as lost their confidence. Capt. Frank Brandon, Commodore of Destroyer Squadron 26, claimed the ship commander disregarded medical regulations after experiencing COVID-19 signs last November. Brandon supposedly ordered the commander to get tested for COVID, which caused a positive test.
Thus, the Department of Defense declared Merryday’s order”effectively places a multi-billion dollar guided-missile destroyer out of commission” because it is “forcing the Navy to keep in place a commander of a destroyer who has lost the trust of his superior officers and the Navy at large.” “If it becomes necessary to deploy an East Coast-based surface ship in response to global events in Ukraine (or elsewhere), the Navy will not deploy the Commander’s vessel,” the Pentagon said.
The Court Deals A Harsh Rebuke To The Navy
Unfortunately for the armed forces, Merryday rejected the Government’s appeal on March 3. According to the Navy Times, Merryday charged lawyers for the armed force of attempting “to evoke the frightening prospect of a dire national emergency resulting from allegedly reckless and unlawful overreaching by the district judge.” Merryday also charged the armed force of acting”as if [Religious Freedom Restoration Act] does not exist or has no application to the military or is a matter subject to the command discretion of the military.”
The question presented in this action and presented by the explicit language of RFRA is whether vaccinating Navy Commander or Lieutenant Colonel 2 over their religious objection, that is, athwart the right of each to the free exercise of religion, is “the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.” RFRA establishes that explicit test and places the burden of proof on the government.
Proving the obvious, that vaccination is best for “the force” and necessary for “the force,” fails to satisfy the “to the person” test required by RFRA. The military designs to avoid the “to the person” test, but the statute is unflinching.
Fascinatingly, Attorney Mat Staver of Liberty Advice, the company standing for the plaintiffs, said the armed forces deployed the Navy commander for training exercises just last month.
“When [the Pentagon’s response] was filed in court saying the ship is not deployable because they lost confidence in the Commander, the Commander was on board the ship out to sea for two weeks of testing and training for military readiness,” Staver told the Navy Times. “He returned to port last Friday, March 4, after the drills were completed.”
Taking into account that the commander’s ship was actually at-sea for greater than 75% of the days prior to the COVID vaccination became available, lawyers for the plaintiffs explained the Pentagon’s activities as “petty retaliation and contempt.”
H/T The Blaze
