(LifeSiteNews) – A group of over fifty faith leaders, organizations, and individual scientists has penned a strong letter to the U.S. Department of Defense demanding that the COVID jab mandate be halted.
In light of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) mandate that servicemen must take a COVID-19 injection, the religious freedom group Freedom of Religion – United Solutions (FOR-US), has released an open letter questioning its “necessity and efficacy,” and warning of Constitutional violations from the mandate.
“We question the necessity and efficacy of the Department of Defense COVID-19 vaccine mandate,” reads the letter, addressed to the Congressional Armed Services Committees.
“We request formation of a Congressional Policy Commission to conduct a thorough, publicly transparent, study of the mandate’s impact on armed forces readiness and on national security interests. We request that the Executive Office be urged to stay the mandate no later than Veterans Day, November 11, 2021, and maintain this stay until the commission concludes consideration of this matter with recommendations.”
The signatories said that the mandates were forcing servicemen who oppose the jab for religious reasons to “choose between keeping their spiritual sovereignty or serving the nation” and that this is a direct violation of “their First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution.”
The DOD has set November 28 as a deadline for compliance with its vaccine mandate. However, Army Medical Services Corp. veteran Pam Long has already noted how service member’s right to secure a religious objection to taking the injection is protected by law.
And as previously reported by The Defender, military members have the right to pursue a religious accommodation for a vaccine through a process that includes input from their commander, chaplain, medical provider and legal advisors.
However, FOR-US remarked how “regardless of their antibody status, DoD personnel who oppose the mandate for religious reasons risk separation, termination, court-martial, and even dishonorable discharge, which are permanent blots on their personal reputations.”
Noting the Nuremberg Code’s protection of informed consent to medical procedures, as well as the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, the group outlined a series of demands, asking for a “Congressional Policy Commission” to pursue those demands.
It's official: Joe Biden has announced that his Administration will be forcing COVID vaccinations on nearly 1/3rd of American citizens, blatantly disregarding the personal objections of millions of people and moving America ever closer towards a medical dictatorship.
We cannot stand for this unprecedented overreach, and we will not submit to Biden's tyrannical public coercion efforts.
Please SIGN this urgent petition informing the President that you will NOT comply with these unconstitutional vaccine mandate orders issued by the Biden Administration, and that elected officials should act in their capacity to block these intrusive demands.
On Thursday, September 9th, Joe Biden announced the latest round of federal orders meant to further coerce large swaths of the public into getting the COVID vaccine -- many against their will.
While the legal standing of these measures is, at best, dubious, the Biden Administration appears more ready than ever to gut our individual rights and practically erase medical autonomy in our country.
This latest escalation in overreach was announced via a televised speech in which Biden outlined a new "six-point plan" that includes far more than just six avenues to achieve mass medical compliance.
Among the most egregious new federal mandates are the following:
- A requirement that all private businesses employing more than 100 people mandate their workers get the Covid-19 vaccine or submit to weekly testing (to be implemented by way of a new Department of Labor rule)
- A requirement that all federal employees and federal contractors get the COVID vaccine
- A requirement that all healthcare workers in facilities that receive reimbursement from Medicare and/or Medicaid (an estimated 17 million) get the Covid-19 vaccine without an alternative testing option
- A requirement that all Head Start teachers get the COVID vaccine
- A federal effort to lobby states to implement vaccine mandates for all school employees, and require regular testing of all students and school staff
- A federal effort to lobby entertainment venues to require proof of vaccination or testing in order to grant entry to the public
- A continuation of mask mandates on all federal properties and during interstate travel (i.e. planes, trains, buses)
All in all, these new vaccine mandates, which will go into effect within the coming weeks, will affect an estimated 100 million American workers -- 2/3rds of the entire workforce!
And, according to an administration official, violations of these unconstitutional requirements could result in fines of up to $14,000.
While this is clearly a political ploy on the part of the Joe Biden and his team of power-hungry Washington insiders to shift the focus from their disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the American public knows better: After nearly a year and a half's worth of arbitrary, ever-changing, and unconstitutional government mandates in response to the COVID outbreak, it was always a given that the Biden Administration would ramp things up even further when it behooved them.
And now, it would seem that time has officially come.
"This is not about freedom or personal choice," Biden uttered in his remarks, confirming his administration's blatant dismissal of all Americans' right(s) to accept or decline the experimental Covid-19 vaccine.
This is a stunning reversal from Biden's declaration last December that "I don’t think [the vaccine] should be mandatory, I wouldn’t demand it to be mandatory."
In fact, Biden even confirmed his intention to flout states' rights in the process, warning that "If these governors won’t help us beat the pandemic I’ll use my power as president to get them out of the way."
These are not the words of an "empathetic" leader; these are the words of an aspiring dictator. And, for the time being, the only way to stop Joe Biden's tyranny is through mass noncompliance.
As we've said from the beginning, science, basic logic, and common sense should dictate policy regarding COVID and the Delta variant.
But Joe Biden and the federal government have long abandoned those principles throughout this crisis, culminating into this disturbing yet inevitable flurry of intrusive vaccine mandates that use people's jobs, individual autonomy, and livelihood as leverage.
This assault on our individual rights, private businesses, and American workers cannot be tolerated, and the easiest way to combat these unlawful orders is to just say NO.
Please SIGN and SHARE this most important petition letting Joe Biden know that you will NOT comply with the unconstitutional medical demands being made by this administration, and that action should be taken to block any intrusive action against working Americans and private employers.
Thank you!
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
'Biden announces vaccine requirements for private businesses, impacting tens of millions of Americans': https://www.
Among the requests made, FOR-US asked for a “full report on the status of all mandate exemption requests” and a “full analysis” on the precautions the DoD has taken to maintain national security in light of “increased rates of attrition and declines in retention following the mandate.”
Writing that Americans “deserve public transparency of the mandate decision process and its consequences on armed forces readiness and national security interests,” FOR-US declared that pausing the mandate was crucial to “making a judicious assessment of the safety of the Republic and its people.”
Established in 2019, FOR-US describes itself as the “first organization to preserve religious freedom through the unification of multiple religions in an effort to protect religious vaccine exemptions.”
The group, comprised of over 50 “faith leaders,” has garnered over 1,500 signatures for its letter to the DoD, as well as prominent doctors who have warned about the dangers of COVID injections, like Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Sheri Tenpenny.
Speaking to LifeSiteNews, Dr. Shannon Kroner, the executive director of FOR-US, re-iterated that the group is “dedicated to preserving individual sovereignty and giving a voice to religious minorities in military, government and civilian positions who are seeking exemptions to the COVID-19 mandate.”
As such, the group’s letter is an attempt to “highlight the need for more robust due diligence in strategic national security risk assessments and policy making and the need for accountability in leadership,” Kroner said.
The DoD’s vaccine mandate “poses an unknown, emergent threat to readiness and national security interests,” she added.
It “has and will continue to force millions of military service members, civilians, and contractors, (some of whom are working with me in this effort), to decide between a violation of their individual sovereignty, their personal religious values, and their service to our great nation,” Kroner continued.
Emphasizing the letter’s appeal for “transparency” behind the decision to mandate the injection, Kroner asked for fellow Americans to “support our armed service members, civilians and contractors who have no voice in this fight, by signing our letter and sharing it on social media in support of FOR-US’s efforts to help our military.”
U.S. servicemen are already issuing legal challenges to the mandate, and Liberty Counsel is representing 14 members of the Armed Forces – including two Navy SEALS, an Air Force Major, and an Army Colonel – in a class action lawsuit against the mandate, which they described as “illegal.” “The Biden administration has no authority to require the COVID shots for the military or for federal employees or civilian contractors,” explained Mat Staver, Liberty Counsel’s chairman.
Meanwhile reports have noted that “hundreds of thousands” of troops have yet to receive an injection or take their second dose, with the Marine Corp Reserve, Army Reserves, and the Army National Guard being among the lowest percentage in their take-up rate. All three groups are less than 40 percent fully injected, according to DoD data from October 8, though the Army National Reserve and the Army National Guard have until the end of June 2022 to comply with the mandate.
Former Navy SEAL, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) has been tweeting daily to the Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, asking if he was “really willing to allow a huge exodus of experienced service members just because they won’t take the vaccine? Honestly, Americans deserve to know how you plan on dealing with this blow to force readiness – it’s already causing serious problems.”
Question for the SECDEF: are you really willing to allow a huge exodus of experienced service members just because they won’t take the vaccine?
Honestly, Americans deserve to know how you plan on dealing with this blow to force readiness – it’s already causing serious problems.
— Rep. Dan Crenshaw (@RepDanCrenshaw) September 21, 2021
After repeating this message for a number of days, Rep. Crenshaw has since been daily asking Austin when he planned to reply.
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