{"id":1653744,"date":"2022-09-22T16:07:10","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T20:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1653744"},"modified":"2022-09-22T16:07:24","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T20:07:24","slug":"pentagons-blanket-denial-of-religious-exemption-requests-to-vaccine-prompts-gop-lawmakers-to-demand-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pentagons-blanket-denial-of-religious-exemption-requests-to-vaccine-prompts-gop-lawmakers-to-demand-answers\/","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon\u2019s \u2018Blanket Denial\u2019 of Religious Exemption Requests to Vaccine Prompts GOP Lawmakers to Demand Answers"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fpentagons-blanket-denial-of-religious-exemption-requests-to-vaccine-prompts-gop-lawmakers-to-demand-answers%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1653744&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>More than a dozen Republican lawmakers have called on Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to answer questions following the circulation earlier this month of a leaked memo by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-pentagon\">Pentagon<\/a>\u2019s watchdog that found \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/pentagon-in-potential-noncompliance-with-law-in-denying-religious-exemption-requests-to-vaccine-mandate-leaked-memo_4731004.html\">potential noncompliance<\/a>\u201d with the law in the review and denial process of religious accommodation requests to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-vaccine-mandate\">vaccine mandate<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The June 2 memo by Acting Inspector General (IG) Sean W. O\u2019Donnell states that after reviewing dozens of denials of religious accommodation requests, the IG\u2019s office \u201cfound a trend of generalized assessments rather than the individualized assessment that is required by Federal law and DoD and Military Service policies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a Sept. 19 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/22672352-letter-to-congress-re-leaked-ig-memo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">letter<\/a> to Austin, 15 lawmakers pointed to the extremely low approval rates of religious exemption requests to the Department of Defence\u2019s (DoD) vaccine mandate.<\/p>\n<p>According to the most recent publicly-available data, only 196 religious accommodation requests have been approved out of more than 26,000 requests across the armed services.<\/p>\n<p>Lawmakers wrote that it was \u201cespecially concerning\u201d that most of the approved religious accommodation requests were granted to service members slated for retirement, and that \u201call branches have approved non-religious vaccine exemption requests at a far higher rate than religious exemptions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis suggests the DoD is applying different policies towards servicemembers\u2019 applications based on their religious beliefs and expected employment status,\u201d the letter stated.<\/p>\n<p>Referring to the memo, the lawmakers wrote that the \u201cblanket denial\u201d of religious accommodation requests violates DoD Instruction 1300.17 (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.esd.whs.mil\/Portals\/54\/Documents\/DD\/issuances\/dodi\/130017p.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pdf<\/a>), which requires each religious accommodation request to be reviewed individually.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn summary, according to the DoD IG\u2019s memo, the Department has engaged in unlawful religious discrimination,\u201d the lawmakers wrote.<\/p>\n<p>The findings of the IG memo did not astonish Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), who signed the letter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fact that the Department of Defense didn\u2019t seriously consider religious exemptions is no surprise,\u201d Higgins told<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More than a dozen Republican lawmakers have called on Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to answer questions following the circulation earlier this month of a leaked memo by the Pentagon\u2019s watchdog that found \u201cpotential noncompliance\u201d with the law in the review and denial process of religious accommodation requests to the vaccine mandate. The June 2 [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":758,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1653744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1653744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/758"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1653744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1653744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1653744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1653744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1653744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}