(The Center Square)
Lawyers representing Navy and Marine service members disciplined for not getting COVID-19 vaccines over religious objections told Center Square that the undersecretary of the Navy “misrepresented material facts” in testimony at a congressional hearing.
U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, said his testimony under oath contradicted a Defense Department inspector general’s report that said the Navy was violating the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. A federal judge last year chastised the DOD and Marine Corps for refusing to grant religious accommodation requests (RARs), a court’s responsibility to uphold the law when the generals did not.
In a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee’s Military Personnel Subcommittee, Gaetz asked Eric Raven, Under Secretary of the Navy and Chief Operating Officer and Chief Maintenance Officer, “whether the Navy has sent letters in response to people’s requests for religious exemptions” from the DOD vaccine order.
Raven replied, “I’ll have to get back to you about that.”
“It’s really important,” Gaetz said. “The law requires individual evaluation of people’s request for religious exemption, right?”
Raven replied, “The process we followed was a personal review on many levels.”
“Do you believe there is a personal review?” Gates asked.
“Yes sir,” said Raven.
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“Well the inspector general disagrees with you,” he said, referring to the report that the RARs were not reviewed individually and each was considered an average time of 12 minutes.
“Does 12 minutes seem like enough time to impersonate someone’s deeply religious grounds for immunity?” Gates asked.
Raven said the Navy has gone through multiple reviews going to Marine Corps headquarters that in many cases “resulted in a 10-hour review.”
However, the DOD-IG report found “a trend toward general evaluations rather than individual evaluations required by federal law and DoD and military service policies.”
Blanket denial memos issued to Air Force and Navy service members, the report found, “do not reflect an individualized analysis demonstrating that a senior military official considered the full range of facts and circumstances relevant to a particular religious accommodation request.” Instead, they contain “similar, if not identical, wording.” ” added.
Matt Staver, founder and president of Liberty Counsel, which represents Navy and Marine service members facing consequences for not getting vaccines, told The Center Square, “The overall lack of clarity and misrepresentation of material facts is disturbing. The evidence presented to the committee is contradicted by the Inspector General’s report and records and sworn testimony presented in our ongoing litigation.
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Last September, Judge Steven Merryday of the US District Court Middle District, Tampa Division of Florida, granted a class-wide preliminary injunction against active and reserve duty Marines denied RARs. Merriday said, “The record reveals a substantial possibility of systematic failure by the Marine Corps to meet the obligations established by RFRA.”
In an earlier ruling, Merriday had charged the Marines an additional monthly rent for noncompliance and given them two days’ notice to vacate and ordered them to vacate their military accommodations, which they said “represent retaliation and retribution.”
He maintains that military leaders must comply with RFRA, which applies to “everyone from the president to the park ranger … from the chief justice of the United States to the probation officer … from the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to military appointees — even if they don’t like it and even if they don’t agree with it. The free exercise clause and RFRA are the law of the land.” .
“Is there a plan to return the approximately 8,600 service members across active duty, reserve and guard back to their service level?” Gaetz asked Gilbert Cisneros, DOD’s deputy secretary of defense for manpower and readiness, more than once.
Cisneros replied, “The policy is always the same. Service members who are discharged and want to come back to the service can apply.
“So DOD has no active plan to proactively reach out to these individuals and get them back into the military?” Gates asked. Cisneros replied, “Our plan is the same as it’s always been,” which Gaetz took to mean “there is no plan.”
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Staver told The Center Square, “The Department of Defense and top military brass act like they are above the law. They have no concern for truth, law and dedicated service members. Arrogant, illegal and abusive practices have caused retention and recruitment to drop to alarming rates. A complete transformation of the system is needed, starting with the Secretary of Defense and the top Pentagon brass.
Because the National Defense Authorization Act only requires the DOD to cancel the vaccine order, lawsuits over alleged RFRA violations are ongoing.
Syndicated with permission from The Center Square.