TUCSON, Arizona (LifeSiteNews) — A Navy commander who was recently demoted after refusing to receive one of the abortion-tainted shots against COVID-19 has said that the Navy has “violated Constitutional rights of sailors who have sincerely held religious beliefs” by dismissing them over COVID shot mandates for active personnel.
Commander Rob Green, a distinguished member of the Navy who served in high-ranking positions until recently, explained that simply refusing to receive both the COVID jab and endless COVID tests based on his sincerely held religious beliefs has led to him being discriminated against by the military.
In an interview during the Truth for Health Foundation’s latest conference covering military members being purged from the service for their refusal to comply with irrational COVID regulations, Green outlined that his Catholic faith precludes him not only from accepting any of the experimental COVID shots, but also from the Navy’s COVID testing regime, characterizing the singling out of un-jabbed servicemembers as “discriminatory.”
“The Navy is attempting to force continual asymptomatic testing on only the unvaccinated,” Green stated, adding that “for me, I find that to be discriminatory, it defies logic, and it also violates my conscience,” leading him to defy the targeted testing regimen.
“My wife and I discerned about coming forward,” the father of seven stated, adding that they have determined that they “can no longer stand by and let these things happen. We need to get out there and discuss this and make sure that the American people can join in the fight.”
In the midst of communicating with other Naval officers in a similar situation, Green acquired a document outlining the Navy’s standard operating procedure “for adjudicating religious accommodations,” discovering that administrative members of the Navy were contravening standing laws by ignoring codified religious accommodations for medical mandates.
“When I read that document, I was pretty shocked to see how it violated law,” Green recounted. “It violated regulation and it violated Constitutional rights of sailors who had sincerely held religious beliefs. It also jumped out to me that they were willing to violate their own oath to the Constitution in documenting this standard operating procedure, violations of law and regulation notwithstanding.”
Following his discovery, Green filed a complaint against Vice Admiral John Knoll, whom Green said “leads the manpower and personnel office that is responsible for this standard operating procedure.”
Green’s complaint was filed in federal court on December 23, 2021, “in support of the Navy SEALs v. Biden case,” a lawsuit that challenges the lawfulness of mandating the COVID shots while they are administered under emergency use authorization, or EUA status.
“Only a few days later, Judge [Reed] O’Connor made a ruling giving a preliminary injunction to those to the Navy SEALs and the special operators in that group of plaintiffs,” he said.
Following this development, however, Green was called into a meeting by his superiors, the outcome of which was to lose his employment as the executive officer of Maritime Exploration Security Squadron Eight.
The former officer was told that the reason for his removal was his decision to opt out of testing, but Green insists that “it’s about vaccination status.”
“Had I gone along with everything going on with the Navy, with their testing program that I feel is discriminatory, with the vaccination that violates my conscience, then I would be violating my religious beliefs. I’d be violating my conscience. It’s something that I can’t go along with,” Green determined.
“To me, it’s about ensuring 100 percent compliance, regardless of beliefs held by servicemembers, and it’s something I frankly can’t go along with,” Green said. “I struggle to see how the timing of my firing has nothing to do with my filing of the various complaints that I have made, as well as my filing to the House and the Senate Armed Services Committee.”
Appearing alongside Green was attorney Davis Younts, a military law attorney who served as a Judge Advocate General (JAG) and chief of the military justice division for the U.S. Air Force JAG School.
Younts is currently representing 50 military clients with cases of civil rights abuses perpetrated by their superiors, including Cmdr. Green.
“We are in a fight, we are in a legal battle within the military system and outside the military system in federal courts for the core, Constitutional rights of our military members,” Younts said. He added that he and all of his 50 clients are picking up this fight “because they believe that our Constitutional rights are at stake for all Americans.”
“The reality is that you don’t give up your Constitutional rights simply because you joined the military. In fact, military officers swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution,” a fact the attorney said has encouraged some 50,000 servicemembers “to take a stand based on what they see as unlawful and unconstitutional mandates.”
Younts noted that “Commander Green is only one of thousands of military members that is facing the same thing,” namely that “the religious freedom of military members would be completely ignored.”
“That a process that has been in place for years that has worked well for religious accommodations would be ignored because of the political nature of this vaccine mandate is truly unprecedented. The military has been told … by their attorneys, by JAGs that are on active duty working for the military, ‘What you’re doing is illegal.’”
Although the military’s own legal teams have informed the chain of command that encroaching the enshrined protections of religious beliefs could bring significant litigation risk, Younts said that “because of political pressure and because of military leaders that are not willing to take a stand for truth and for the Constitution, we are facing this tremendous discrimination.”
“It’s unfortunate that any military leader is willing to compromise their integrity for political reasons or to save their own career,” the attorney lamented.
The servicemembers Younts represents have said that taking a stand now against the discriminatory actions launched against them is “an extension of their oath to support and defend the Constitution.”
Without acting now, Younts said, “all Americans are going to face the potential of unlawful mandates and illegal actions. Simply saying they can’t do that, it’s illegal, isn’t enough anymore. We are having to fight this at every turn in the court system and within the military process because the law is being ignored in this case.”