(CNN)The Biden administration filed an emergency motion with the Supreme Court on Monday, asking it to freeze an advisory opinion from a lower court calling for the Navy to deploy special forces despite refusing to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
“This motion seeks liberation from an injunction usurping the authority of the Navy to decide which service members should be deployed to carry out some of the military’s most sensitive and dangerous missions,” Attorney General Elizabeth Prelogar told judges Monday request of the administration.
She does not question any part of the injunction that protected the SEALs and other personnel from disciplinary action or dismissal for remaining unvaccinated. But she is demanding that the ruling, which forces the Navy to deploy and deploy 35 unvaccinated special forces members, be blocked during the appeals process.
The challengers — including more than two dozen Navy SEALs — say they have religious objections to the requirement and are seeking an exemption.
A district court ruled against the administration, and a federal appeals court declined to intervene, saying it failed to demonstrate “overriding interests” justifying the plaintiffs’ vaccination in violation of their religious beliefs.
Attorneys for the First Liberty Institute are representing the challengers and said in a statement Monday that the lower courts “got it right.”
“The US Supreme Court should reject this latest attempt to punish our clients and make it clear once and for all that our military members do not give up their freedom of religion because they are in the military,” said Mike Berry, First Liberty’s senior counsel.
Prelogar told judges the Navy told her it had already been forced to send one of the challengers to duty on a submarine in Hawaii “against her military judgment.”
Prelogar emphasized that SEALs and other members of the Special Warfare community may be called upon to deploy anywhere in the world at short notice to complete high-risk missions in extreme conditions. She noted that a team of SEALs flew 8,000 miles in response to the hijacking of a US-flagged ship by Somali pirates in 2009 and ultimately played a critical role in rescuing the ship’s captain, who was being held hostage.
“The Navy has an extremely compelling interest in ensuring that the Soldiers conducting these missions are as physically and medically prepared as possible,” she said, adding, “This includes vaccination against COVID-19, which the least restrictive means of achieving this is this interest.”
She said the US military has relied on mandatory vaccination since 1777, when George Washington ordered the Continental Army to be vaccinated against smallpox.
The Navy currently requires nine vaccines. It allows two types of exceptions for medical and administrative reasons, including “religious accommodation”. These exceptions are decided by Navy policy, which includes a 50-step process to submit an application for religious housing.
In the seven months since the Covid vaccine was added as a mandatory vaccination, the Navy has received more than 4,000 exemption requests. Most are still pending, and Prelogar says the Navy has only provided religious housing.
By long-standing policy, members of the Special Warfare Service who cannot be vaccinated for religious reasons are considered physically unqualified and cannot be assigned to a task force.
Prelogar said that if the Supreme Court froze the lower court’s opinion, they would not be entitled to be assigned to or assigned to missions that “their commanding officers have determined would be jeopardized by their lack of immunization.”
Add Comment