The Navy has become the third U.S. military service branch to grant a religious exemption for the coronavirus vaccine, though the approval rate for such requests remains a fraction of 1%.
One sailor in the Individual Ready Reserve had a religious exemption conditionally approved, though this person will need to get fully vaccinated if they’re called up to active-duty or reserve status, according to a Navy release. Additionally, the Marines have now granted six religious exemptions after having received 3,595 requests, which marks a 0.16% approval rate, according to a Thursday press release, though the number of approvals was three in the branch’s last update.
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Those seven service members, combined with nine airmen, make up everyone in the military who has been approved for a religious exemption so far, even though there have been more than 16,800 requests.
Each of the three branches has also begun discharging those who have refused the vaccine. 247 active-duty sailors and one reserve, 640 Marines, and 160 airmen have been discharged for not getting the vaccine, while the Army, which has not granted any religious exemptions, has said it will start separations “immediately” but has yet to release data indicating they’ve begun.
Every service member is required to get vaccinated, and those who are refusing the order make up a small population of the overall force. Each branch has a vaccination rate for active-duty troops in the mid-90% range.
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A handful of service members have filed lawsuits to prevent their discharge, to varying degrees of success.
Last month, a judge ruled in favor of roughly three dozen Navy SEALs who sued the Department of Defense alleging that their religious exemption requests were not legitimately considered before getting rejected. The lawyers for the SEALs later filed another complaint alleging the Navy had retaliated against them.
