The Pentagon has ended COVID vaccine mandates for U.S. servicemen and women. This comes after the Pelican Institute for Public Policy sued on behalf of two Louisiana military members who didn’t want to get the shots for religious reasons. Pelican’s General Counsel Sarah Harbison says it wasn’t only Pelican’s lawsuit that made the military change its policy…:
“There were class actions against the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, and there are just thousands of service members who applied for and were rejected. I believe 98-percent of the religious accommodation requests were denied.”
Pelican sued on behalf of Master Sergeant Robert Galey and Senior Airman Faith Crocker, who cited religious reasons for not wanting the vaccine. Harbison says their pleas fell on deaf ears…:
“They both spoke with their chaplains and they submitted requests for exemptions due to their sincerely held religious beliefs…and those requests were denied.”
Up to 8-thousand U.S. servicemen and woman have been discharged over refusing the COVID shots. Harbison says the separation process has already started for one of the clients, Sgt. Galey…:
We’ve reached out to both of our clients to find out whether the Army’s getting rid of the vaccine mandate resolves their complaints.”
Harbison says the Pentagon’s decision was not just due to the Pelican Institute’s lawsuit; there were dozens of such lawsuits filed across the nation.
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