HAMPTON, Va. — As of May 23, 399 Air Force airmen have been administratively separated from the service for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccination.
"It says that the military, the Air Force, doesn't want individuals who have these religious beliefs serving their country," said Jordan Pratt, an attorney with First Liberty Institute, a nonprofit public interest law firm and the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending religious freedom.
According to Defense Department data, more than 477,000 airmen are fully vaccinated.
But, Air Force statistics show that more than 2,500 airmen have religious exemption requests still pending. Sixty-eight such requests have been approved and 6,113 religious exemption requests have been disapproved.
They have filed a federal lawsuit seeking a class-wide temporary restraining order against the Department of Defense and the Secretary of the Air Force.
The airmen object to receiving the COVID-19 vaccine based on their "sincerely held religious beliefs."
"They all have various reasons for their religious objections," said Pratt. "The most common is the fact that the vaccines were tested and developed and delivered from cell line that came from aborted fetal tissue."
In the complaint, attorneys for the airmen allege that the Department of Defense is violating the First Amendment to the Constitution, federal law, and Department of Defense regulations.
"And we remain optimistic that the court, which declared that the Navy's process was mere theater, is also going to see the same is true of the Air Force's process," said Pratt.
Service-wide, more than 622,000 troops are fully vaccinated. There have been more than 405,000 positive COVID-19 cases involving uniformed personnel. And, 95 military members have died.