American service members are under attack — not by foreign adversaries, but by their own government. Despite requiring every service member to swear an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” the Department of Defense is now engaged in an active campaign to undermine the First Amendment rights of those same service members. By imposing forced COVID-19 vaccination on every soldier, regardless of religious scruple, the DoD violates its time-honored commitment to religious exemptions for its men and women in uniform. Even worse, it’s illegal.
On August 24, 2021, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued an order requiring all U.S. military service members to get the jab, for those who already tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies. In his order, he states “I know the Department of Defense will come together to finish the job, with urgency, professionalism, and compassion.” Regrettably, Austin has shown no compassion for those service members who refuse to take the injection on account of their religious beliefs.
The DoD memo expressly provides for “exemptions established in Military Department policy.” One of the oldest exemptions, of course, is on account of sincerely-held religious beliefs. As Navy spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Patricia Kreuzberger recently stated, “Any sailor has the right to seek a waiver in accordance with Navy policy. The Navy will process and consider all requests thoroughly.” The same holds true for all other uniformed services. However, to date, not a single service member’s request for a religious exemption relative to the COVID-19 vaccine has been granted.
The DoD’s blanket refusal to protect the religious liberty of its service members is unprecedented. Furthermore, a significant number of service members refusing the COVID-19 vaccine come from special operations forces.
First Liberty Institute represents 40 U.S. Navy SEALs seeking religious exemptions from the vaccine mandate. The SEALs — who have over 100 combat deployments and 350 years of service between them — are facing harassment, threats, and intimidation from their superiors for attempting to exercise their First Amendment rights. These brave warriors, who make incredible sacrifices to protect Americans and their liberties, are now having their own liberties severely curtailed.
In one egregious example, when a SEAL informed his commander he would seek a religious exemption to the DoD mandate, the officer replied that he would have to hand over his Special Warfare pin. Known among SEALs as the “Trident,” surrendering this pin would mean dismissal from the SEAL community and personal disgrace. All for simply seeking a religious exemption.
This kind of harassment is also official Navy policy. A new Navy directive, issued on October 14, states that SEALs who refuse a vaccine for religious reasons will lose their “special warfare” pay associated with their status as special operators. Shockingly, this directive only applies for religious exemptions, not medical exemptions. To add insult to injury, the directive also mandates that religious objectors will lose their pay regardless of whether or not the exemption is granted. Such a purely punitive measure targeted directly at SEALs of faith is both vindictive and unconstitutional.
Violating religious liberty is bad enough, but the Defense Department order goes much further by retaliating against its own service members. This same directive threatens to expel from the service those SEALs who decline the vaccine and then recoup from them all the money the government has spent training them. Until now, it’s unlikely anyone has kept all the receipts, but it’s possible the DoD has spent millions of dollars on each individual SEAL. Instead of being rightly honored for their service in defense of the Constitution and its freedoms, the Biden Administration and its uniformed lackeys are conspiring to burden these warfighters with millions of dollars in debt that would effectively destroy their lives.
Navy SEALs commit their lives and risk their safety and wellbeing to serving this nation, dedicating years and millions of taxpayer dollars in training to be the most elite fighting force on the face of the earth. Yet, the Commander-in-Chief would simply kick them out of the Navy, strip them of their rights, and force them to repay the Navy for their training — all for simply declining an emergency-use and novel medical treatment.
The Navy has also targeted unvaccinated family members of SEALs’ by banning them from travel. Because a SEAL chose to exercise his time-honored right of moral conscience, both he and his family are essentially imprisoned, despite family members not being subject to military authority.
For service members to be treated in this way by an organization that is supposedly devoted to defending American liberty constitutes an unconscionable act of tyranny. Never have service members’ First Amendment rights been so flagrantly and unjustly abrogated.
America’s military has a long history of accommodating religious belief. Perhaps most famously, Desmond Doss, a pacifist who refused to carry a gun because of his religious convictions, received a religious accommodation from the military. Saving dozens of lives in World War II, Doss became one of the most highly decorated combat medics in history. His story is proof that the military can, and has, accommodated the religious beliefs of service members and has been better for it.
Removing a SEAL from the special warfare community, cutting his pay, and forcing him to repay his training, is purely vindictive and it’s illegal. The directive has nothing to do with stopping a virus.
To be threatened and harassed on every side to take a vaccine violates the DoD’s own guidelines — and constitutes an unconscionable act of cruelty. If military bureaucrats and top brass continue their ideological and vindictive crusade against our nation’s top combat troops, the results will be devastating.
The Navy cannot simply snap its fingers and generate more SEALs on demand. It takes years to recruit, train, equip, and develop the very select few who are able to earn the title SEAL. Purging our military of its elite service members is detrimental to national security. Doing so because the Commander-in-Chief refuses to accommodate their religious convictions is abhorrent to the Constitution. Their years of experience and leadership in service to our nation is immeasurable and irreplaceable.
Recently, China revealed it successfully tested a hypersonic weapon capable of delivering a nuclear payload. The U.S. military, meanwhile, just lost yet another major war. Now is not the time to threaten our well-trained and accomplished Navy SEALs for simply exercising their First Amendment rights.