Vox report
On Monday, a notoriously partisan federal judge in Texas thumbed his nose at decades of law and Supreme Court precedents, holding that members of the military may refuse an order to take the Covid-19 vaccination if they object to it on religious grounds. In a brief order in US Navy SEALs 1-26 v. Biden, US District Court Judge Reed O’Connor claims that a policy requiring nearly all service members to be vaccinated against Covid-19 violates both the First Amendment and a federal religious liberty statute.
The plaintiffs in the SEALs case are represented by the America First Policy Institute, a young policy shop led by former Trump administration officials and other former consiglieri to the ex-president.
O’Connor, a former Republican Capitol Hill staffer, is probably best known for his failed effort to repeal Obamacare in its entirety. Although O’Connor attempted to strike down the landmark health law in 2018, his decision was widely mocked even by prominent conservative opponents of Obamacare. He was eventually reversed by the Supreme Court in an opinion joined by four of the Court’s Republican appointees.
O’Connor’s SEALs opinion isn’t just wrong under established precedent, it is egregiously wrong. It’s also weakly argued. He spends less than six pages discussing the core issue in the case — whether the military’s vaccination policy must include exemptions for personnel with religious objections — and does not even acknowledge Supreme Court cases that directly refute his analysis, including the Goldman decision mentioned above.
Read full report at. https://www.vox.com/2022/1/4/22866839/supreme-court-covid-vaccination-navy-seals-reed-oconnor-religion-military
