The U.S. Navy and the Marines are moving forward with discharges related to service members refusing the COVID-19 vaccination, according to the Washington Examiner.
On Wednesday, the Navy announced 20 vaccine-related discharges and more than 8,200 sailors still unvaccinated. Additionally, almost 300 permanent or temporary medical exemptions and 74 administrative exemptions have been approved.
The Marines updated their vaccine-related discharge total from 206 to 251 on Thursday.
The news comes as District Judge Reed O'Connor ruled in favor of 35 Navy SEALs on Monday who filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense for denying religious exemptions for the vaccine mandate, according to NBC News.
"The Navy service members, in this case, seek to vindicate the very freedoms they have sacrificed so much to protect. The COVID-19 pandemic provides the government no license to abrogate those freedoms," O'Connor wrote in the decision.
Mike Berry, a lawyer with the First Liberty Institute who represented the SEALs, told the Examiner earlier this week that it is crucial the religious exemptions process is honored and "not a complete sham."
"If the Department of Defense is going to make medical and administrative exemptions available, they also have to make religious exemptions available.
"If I were the Navy, I would look at this opinion and say, 'We need to go back to the drawing board and figure out how we're going to implement this vaccine mandate in a way that doesn't violate the Constitution and doesn't violate federal law,'" he added.
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