The Navy cannot force service members with religious objections to COVID-19 vaccines to take them so long as the exemption process remains "by all accounts ... theater," a federal judge ruled Monday.
"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," U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor wrote in approving a preliminary injunction against the mandate as applied to the 35 service members who sued.
"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," O'Connor said.
"The Navy has not granted a religious exemption to any vaccine in recent memory. It merely rubber stamps each denial," the judge continued. "There is no COVID-19 exception to the First Amendment. There is no military exclusion from our Constitution."