Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin continues to play hardball when it comes to mandating vaccine injections for military personnel. The Defense Department has filed an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in an attempt to stop the preliminary injunction and the order certifying class-action relief for those who currently serve in the U.S. Marine Corps and have been denied religious exemptions from the federal COVID shot mandate.
Mat Staver is founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, which filed a lawsuit seeking injunctive relief for the Marines. He points out the DOD continues to insist the COVID mandate be upheld.
"The evidence, the science, the judicial decisions – [they're] all going against Joe Biden's administration and the Department of Defense and the military branches," the attorney argues. "These shots are neither safe nor are they effective – [and] now we know it was all based on a lie."
But Staver says the administration continues to push. "And I think the reason has nothing to do with COVID [or] with protecting people's health or military readiness – but it has everything to do with using this as a reason to purge the military of people of faith," he states.
Liberty Counsel points out that of the more than 3,700 Marines who have requested a religious accommodation from the shot, the Marine Corps has granted only 11 accommodations. That fact caused a previous court to wonder: "Is it more likely than not – in nearly all 3,733 cases – that no reasonable accommodation was available?"
The Florida-based legal group has just filed a renewed motion to certify the entire class and for a class-wide preliminary injunction on behalf of those members who currently serve in the U.S. Coast Guard and have been denied religious exemptions from the DOD's mandate. (Related article)
Staver fully expects the COVID-19 military shot mandate cases to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
