Ingo Rademacher, a former actor on ABC’s “General Hospital,” filed a lawsuit against his previous employer on Monday regarding a COVID-19 vaccine requirement that cost him his job, according to Variety.
Rademacher, who played Jasper “Jax” Jacks on the soap opera for almost 25 years, was fired last month after refusing to get vaccinated, citing a rejected religious exemption.
The actor’s lawsuit referred to ABC’s rule as unconstitutional and said it amounted to religious discrimination.
Rademacher is represented by lawyers John W. Howard and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
“I am entitled to a religious exemption against mandatory vaccination for COVID-19 on the basis of my deeply and sincerely held moral belief that my body is endowed by my creator with natural processes to protect me and that its natural integrity cannot ethically be violated by the administration of artificially created copies of genetic material, foreign to nature and experimental,” Rademacher wrote in an Oct. 11 email to Disney’s HR department.
Rademacher then reported having an interview with the department’s lawyer, which he described in the lawsuit as “more akin to cross-examination.”
The lawsuit argues that ABC was required to honor Rademacher’s religious exemption and that questioning the sincerity of his beliefs amounted to religious discrimination. The suit also claims that the mandate violated his right to privacy.
“This should not be a political issue,” the suit states. “There is no need for everybody to get the COVID-19 shot, even if the president demands it.”
Steve Burton, another former actor on “General Hospital,” confirmed in a Nov. 23 Instagram post that he was fired from the show for refusing to comply with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Like Rademacher, Burton revealed that he had applied for religious exemptions but was denied by the network.
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