{"id":1757551,"date":"2022-11-30T19:33:14","date_gmt":"2022-12-01T00:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1757551"},"modified":"2022-11-30T19:33:20","modified_gmt":"2022-12-01T00:33:20","slug":"appeals-court-upholds-ruling-protecting-air-force-service-members-who-refuse-covid-19-vaccine-for-religious-reasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/appeals-court-upholds-ruling-protecting-air-force-service-members-who-refuse-covid-19-vaccine-for-religious-reasons\/","title":{"rendered":"Appeals Court Upholds Ruling Protecting Air Force Service Members Who Refuse COVID-19 Vaccine For Religious Reasons"},"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\">32<\/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%2Fappeals-court-upholds-ruling-protecting-air-force-service-members-who-refuse-covid-19-vaccine-for-religious-reasons%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=1757551&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 class=\"p1\">On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld a previous ruling and decided that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/military\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Air Force<\/a> may not punish or fire service members for not getting vaccinated against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/covid\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">COVID-19<\/a> if they have a religious objection.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The case, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov\/opinions.pdf\/22a0255p-06.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Doster v. Kendall<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/volokh\/2022\/11\/29\/sixth-circuit-upholds-injunction-barring-air-force-from-requiring-covid-vaccines-for-religious-objectors\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">involved<\/a> several Air Force service members who had rejected the COVID-19 vaccine for religious purposes. The most recent decision is part of a continuing class action lawsuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">In the opinion, U.S. Circuit Judge Eric Murphy pointed out that almost 10,000 service members have asked for a religious exemption from the Air Force\u2019s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, but the Air Force has only given around 135 of those petitions \u201cand only to those already planning to leave the service.\u201d However, the Air Force has \u201cgranted thousands of other exemptions for medical reasons [\u2026] or administrative reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Eighteen plaintiffs, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.courthousenews.com\/sixth-circuit-keeps-air-force-vaccine-mandate-on-hold\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">comprised<\/a> of both reservist and active duty service members, filed the lawsuit against Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The lawsuit stated that the mandate \u201csubstantially burdens their religious exercise in violation of the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnder RFRA, the Air Force wrongly relied on its \u2018broadly formulated\u2019 reasons for the vaccine mandate to deny specific exemptions to the Plaintiffs, especially since it has granted secular exemptions to their colleagues,\u201d the opinion noted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Judge Murphy discussed the \u201cmilitary readiness\u201d argument, saying that while the Air Force might have a \u201ccompelling interest\u201d to mandate that its 501,000 members get the vaccine, \u201c[i]t has also largely achieved this general interest, as evidenced by its ability to vaccinate over 97% of its force.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">However, under RFRA, the Air Force has to demonstrate \u201cthat it has a compelling interest in refusing a \u2018specific\u2019 exemption\u2026 And just because it might have a compelling interest in the abstract does not mean that it has one \u2018in each marginal percentage point by which\u2019 it achieves this abstract interest,\u201d the judge added.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">A lower district court had issued an injunction that prohibited the Air Force from punishing certain service members who didn\u2019t get the vaccine and \u201cthen certified a class of thousands of similar service members and extended this injunction to the class.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">The previous decision of the district court did not act entirely against the apparent interests of the Air Force. The district court \u201cnarrowed the scope of its injunction to permit the Air Force to refuse to enlist or commission new service members who refuse to take a COVID-19 vaccine,\u201d the opinion noted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">In addition, as the opinion pointed out, \u201cits injunction did not interfere with the Air Force\u2019s operational decisions over the Plaintiffs\u2019 duties.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Lawyer Chris Wiest argued the case for the service members, and said, \u201c[m]y clients are extraordinarily pleased with this decision.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">\u201dWe established, and the Court found, a substantial basis of systemic discrimination towards religious believers.\u00a0This decision will protect the liberty and livelihood of approximately 10,000 class members, all of whom have undertaken to protect our country.\u00a0The least we can do is extend to them the rights that they protect for all of us,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">Following the release of the opinion, an Air Force spokesperson <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/appeals-court-says-air-force-wrongly-relied-broad-formula-deny-religious-objections-vax-mandate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told<\/a> Fox News Digital that \u201c[t]he Department of the Air Force is complying with a court order to pause all disciplinary and adverse actions for members refusing the COVID-19 vaccine who submitted a timely religious accommodation request and fall within the definition of the court\u2019s certified class.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld a previous ruling and decided that the Air Force may not punish or fire service members for not getting vaccinated against COVID-19 if they have a religious objection. The case, Doster v. Kendall,\u00a0involved several Air Force service members who had rejected the COVID-19 &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":1757554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1757551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757551","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1757551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1757554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1757551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1757551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1757551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}