A federal judge in Georgia has temporarily blocked the U.S. military from enforcing its COVID-19 vaccine mandate against an Air Force officer seeking a religious exemption.
The order was handed down a month after the unnamed officer, who is a Christian, filed a lawsuit alleging that the mandate violates her religious beliefs.
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The suit says the officer “sincerely believes that receiving a vaccine that was derived from or tested on aborted fetal tissue in its development would violate her conscience and is contrary to her faith.” It goes on to note that she believes that to inject her body with a “novel substance of unknown long-term effects” would violate her belief that her “body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.”
In his Tuesday ruling, U.S. District Judge Tilman E. Self III said the military did not offer much in response to the officer’s arguments that the COVID vaccination requirement substantially burdens her free exercise of religion.
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