By DEACON MIKE MANNO
If we have not realized it yet, and surely most of us do at this point, our “devout Catholic” president is on a war footing against, not enemies of the nation, but American servicemen who are deemed unfit due to their conservative Christian and pro-life beliefs.
Joe Biden, who has continued to bloody his hands with the results of his extreme abortion (anytime, anywhere) agenda, continues to pursue his vendetta against those pro-lifers in the military, as well as in federal employment, by using the old crisis excuse: COVID.
As reported earlier, Mr. Biden issued orders that all federal employees, including members of the military, must receive the COVID vaccine or be terminated from their positions. While each mandate contained religious exemption for those having strong religious reasons for not taking the vaccine, obtaining one is a near impossibility. Notably, those objections centered on the vaccine’s development using a cell line from an aborted fetus.
And, of course, it was duly noted that most objections were from conservative Christians who held strong pro-life beliefs. At the time my February column was published, the Heritage Foundation was reporting that the administration was requiring those employees seeking a religious exemption need to provide not only their names and addresses, but maiden names, length and depth of religious practice, among other things, including physical characteristics and identifiers.
Naturally it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on: The administration was creating a blacklist of employees who were devout Christian pro-lifers. As reported then, the administration refused numerous requests for a clarification as to how the list was to be used.
As it was noted at the time, of all the thousands of requests for religious accommodations from military personnel, only four had been granted. Now you would think that after the bad publicity, and adverse court decisions, the Biden administration would back off. It didn’t and it continued its anti-Christian crusade against pro-lifers in the military.
Just last week a group of nine Air Force officers filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the Air Force for its continual refusal to grant religious accommodations to the vaccine mandate. In the suit the officers claimed that 11,877 such requests have been made and only 81 have been approved; the Air Force admits that the 81 were all members leaving the service. If their request for class-action status is approved by the court, the group will be legally representing all Air Force personnel who have applied for a religious exemption and were denied.
What is interesting about this particular suit is that the circumstances of each of the nine officers have been set out in detail which indicates that the administration is treating each as if they were seeking to undermine the U.S. government, which, of course, is what the president and his military officers have repeated over and over again: The greatest threat to this nation is from extreme right-wingers and white supremacists.
For example, one of the stories from the complaint involves Lt. Col. Tyler W. Stef, who was scheduled to complete pilot instructor training and was prevented from doing so due to his unvaccinated status. He had originally applied for a religious accommodation and cited on his application his objection to the use of the aborted fetal cell line. His first such application was never processed. A couple of months later he reapplied.
While waiting for a reply, he became concerned with his family’s allergic reactions to vaccines, noting that two of his daughters had been hospitalized for severe allergic reaction to vaccines. He then sought allergy testing from a physician who had provided allergy testing services for other servicemen.
The test showed that he was allergic to two of the ingredients of the COVID vaccine. He submitted those results to the Air Force which then approved a one-year medical exception to the mandate. He then re-scheduled his flight instruction training. But he was grounded.
His commander then informed him that he was under investigation for faking an allergy to get out of taking the vaccine. He then met with a board-certified allergist who confirmed the earlier results that he had allergic reactions to the COVID drugs. He was then asked by an Air Force allergist to supply that information to the Air Force, which he did.
Almost immediately he received a heavily redacted reply from the Air Force accusing him of submitting a false “official statement,” the original allergy report from the first doctor. It also included the allegation that he was being investigated for attempting to disobey a lawful order by submitting a false report in an attempt to avoid the vaccine mandate, and that he faked his allergy without proper medical testing or approval.
He was later informed that Air Force medical personnel had confirmed his allergy testing was done according to standard allergy testing protocol. A month later he received a letter of admonishment for having seen his original physician who was now being deemed “illegitimate” by the Air Force.
His story is similar to the eight others, but of the nine his is the worst. All are threatened with separation and worse, and stand to lose their military pensions for simply asking for a religious accommodation to the mandate.
This is eerily similar to the threats made against the Navy Seals who requested religious accommodations. They were not only threatened with separation and loss of benefits, but told they could be required to repay all the costs for their training.
“At a time of instability and ever-increasing threats around the world, you’d think the Pentagon would want every service member at their post. But instead, military leaders are forcing tens of thousands of our bravest out of the service because they’ve chosen to live according to their faith,” said Mike Berry, director of Military Affairs for First Liberty Institute, which is representing the officers.
“Punishing these service members for seeking religious accommodation is illegal, vindictive, and wrong. Religious liberty is essential to national security, and our service members deserve better.”
One of the other plaintiffs, Major Danielle Runyan, a member of the Air Force Reserve, added, “Like many service members, I want to continue faithfully serving my country as I have proudly done for the past 10 years. As the Supreme Court has already recognized, ‘even in a pandemic, the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten’.”
In an attempt to promote his worldview, it appears that our “devout” commander-in-chief doesn’t really care who he hurts as long as the country is rid of those pesky conservative Christians.
(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday morning at 9:30 CT on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)
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