WASHINGTON — Defense secretary Lloyd Austin asked the Supreme Court Monday to block a portion of a lower court’s order that prohibits the Navy from limiting the deployment of Navy SEALs refusing to receive a Covid vaccination.
Austin stated in an emergency court filing that the order “usurps Navy’s authority to determine when servicemembers should deploy to execute some of military’s most dangerous and sensitive missions.”
In January , a federal judge in Texas decided that the Navy must allow elite special operation community members to opt out from the vaccine requirement if there are religious objections. He also prohibited their commanders to make any changes to military assignments because they refused to be vaccinated. Austin requested the Supreme Court to stop the second section of the order.
Austin stated that the Navy must “assign and deploy them without regard for their lack of vaccines, notwithstanding the military leaders’ judgment that this poses unacceptable risks to safety and mission success.”
Austin stated that the Navy had already sent one SEAL team member to a mission aboard a submarine against orders from commanders. Austin called the order by the lower court an “extraordinary, unprecedented intrusion in core military affairs”, which has no precedent in American History.
According to court filings, Adm. William K. Lescher (vice chief of naval operations) has concluded that even one member of a small SEAL group could become ill due to Covid-19.
The order was issued by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor on Jan. 3, in a suit brought by 35 Navy Seals who claimed that the mandatory vaccination policy violated religious freedom.
O’Connor wrote that the Navy offers a religious accommodation process but it is theater. “The Navy has never granted religious exemptions to any vaccine in recent history. It simply rubber stamps every denial.
The U.S. Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit, declined to block O’Connor’s order on February 28. This led to Monday’s appeal by government.
The Supreme Court demanded a response by lawyers for the SEALs by March 14th.
