Cincinnati Federal Judge Blocks Biden Administration From Enforcing COVID-19 Jab Mandate Globally on Air Force, Space Force & Air National Guard Who Requested Religious Exemptions for Foreseeable Future

“A federal judge in Cincinnati on Wednesday blocked the Biden administration for the foreseeable future from enforcing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate globally on any servicemembers in the Air Force, Space Force and Air National Guard who requested religious exemptions,” WXIX Cincinnati reported.

“U.S. District Court Judge Matthew McFarland’s preliminary injunction stops the military from discharging or disciplining servicemembers in this local lawsuit that now has an international impact on the military and class-action status as it heads toward trial.”

Cincinnati federal judge blocks Air Force, Space Force, Air National Guard globally from discharging religious vaccine refusers for the foreseeable futurehttps://t.co/KbuecbuAWP pic.twitter.com/7x2mKkEKw4

— Jennifer Edwards Baker (@jbakerohio) July 28, 2022

BREAKING: A federal judge in Cincinnati on Wednesday blocked the Biden administration for the foreseeable future from enforcing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate globally on any service members in the Air Force, Space Force and Air National Guard who requested religious exemptions.

— Election Wizard (@ElectionWiz) July 28, 2022

WXIX Cincinnati provided further details:

Judge McFarland has criticized the Air Force, writing that they sweepingly rejected each exemption request and failed to carefully consider the merits of each.

“Members face the same injury: violation of their constitutional freedom by defendants’ clear policy of discrimination religious accommodation requests,” he wrote two weeks ago when he issued the temporary injunction.

Doster v. Kendall comes down to this: Do the rights of those defending our country to exercise their religious freedom and eschew the vaccine supersede the Air Force’s insistence that allowing them to do so will irreparably harm the military’s ability to do its job?

So far, the judge has sided all the way with the servicemembers and now he has included the Air National Guard in the litigation.

The government is expected to swiftly appeal this decision, as they have previous ones in this case.

The judge’s ruling impacts 200 to 300 servicemembers stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, who filed the lawsuit against top military leaders in February.

In addition, it affects 7,000-9,000 service members nationally, according to the attorney for the local plaintiffs, Chris Wiest of northern Kentucky.

Joe Dills, a Union Township Trustee, is one of the plaintiffs in the case.

He was active duty in the Air Force for three years and has been in the reserves since 2013.

“The COVID-19 vaccine has been tested and used with aborted fetal cells so that is going against our religious beliefs,” Dills said Wednesday night.

“None of us is anti-vaccine at all, but we are against using aborted fetal cells.”

“What’s really frustrating is this fact: The Air Force has granted thousands and thousands of administrative and medical exemptions but only a handful of religious exemptions. So all of us put together very tight packages (proposals) for our religious exemptions and the commanders have basically rubber-stamped and denied all of them. It would appear they didn’t even look at our packages at all,” he added.

President Donald Trump appointed U.S. District Court Judge Matthew McFarland in late 2019 on the recommendation of a bipartisan commission created by Ohio senators Rob Portman, a Republican, and Sherrod Brown, a Democrat.

Read the ruling from Judge McFarland HERE.