Religious Accommodation

I recently read in an article online that you approve that military members that are seeking RA should not only be denied but dishonorable discharged.

Your 501 should not hold the name Military Religious Freedom Foundation. You are a fraud. You are doing the exact opposite of supporting religious freedom.

There is a huge difference in getting a Covid vaccine every 30 days because it’s efficacy is crap oppose to a flu shot once a year. You have lost your mind comparing the two. The flu shot has been around 75 years. Covid vaccines, just over a year and have such a low efficacy that you can get Covid while fully vaccinated and spread Covid while fully vaccinated, therefore there should NOT be a mandate.

Who are you to say whether our discernment is good enough for you to support?

You are not a man of God.

I will make sure to tell/show everyone I know what kind of organization this really is.

(name withheld)
Service Member of 17 years

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Response from MRFF Founder and President Mikey Weinstein

From: Mikey Weinstein
Subject: Re: Religious Accommodation
Date: February 1, 2022 at 4:02:13 PM MST
To: (name withheld)

So, just to be clear, you believe that YOUR nonpareil “scientific and medical judgment” well exceeds that of the world health organization, the centers for disease control, literally countless numbers of international physicians scientists epidemiologists virologists, including the renowned Dr. Fauci, is that correct lady?… Please google the Dunning Kruger effect and you will see yourself as a poster child of that… And what does being a “man of God“ have to do with any of this?… please try to eradicate your ignorance by getting some useful and substantive adult education… I understand that evening classes are online… All the best, Mikey W.

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Response from MRFF Board Member John Compere

On Feb 1, 2022, at 7:38 PM, John Compere wrote:

(name withheld),
First & foremost, thank you for your military service of 17 years.
Secondly, this will acknowledge receipt of your lay comments regarding this military medical matter. However, we do not agree with them. As you should know, members of our United States Armed Forces are required to obey a lawful order and not their own individual discernment.
Sincerely,Brigadier General John Compere, US Army (Retired)Disabled American Veteran (Vietnam Era)Board Member, Military Religious Freedom Foundation (composed of 85% Christians)

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Response from MRFF Advisory Board Member James Currie

Dear (name withheld):

I have been asked by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) to respond to your recent email.

You state that you served in one of the military services for seventeen years. If this is true, then no matter which service’s uniform you put on, you underwent a comprehensive physical examination and received perhaps a dozen or more vaccines and injections. You were not asked whether you had any religious or moral objections to receiving these injections. You were ordered to take them, and you did so. If you had refused them, you would have been counseled, and if you persisted in your objections, you would have been processed for discharge from your service. That’s the way it works when you raise your right hand, swear the oath, and put on the uniform.

I was in the Army for thirty years, and during all that time I do not remember anyone in any unit I was in ever refusing to be vaccinated against the diseases that the Army wanted to protect us against. I even remember being given a smallpox vaccination in 1977, though smallpox had been largely wiped out worldwide by that time. Army medical personnel had decided that there was a slight chance that we might encounter this deadly disease somewhere in the world, so we all lined up and had our shoulders pricked. It would not have occurred to any of us to refuse the vaccination, though most of us—perhaps all of us—had been vaccinated against smallpox when we were young.

Now the scourge is Covid 19. It is highly-contagious and quite deadly. Over 800,000 Americans have died of it—almost all of them people who have chosen not to get vaccinated. As you must surely admit, the whole Covid vaccination thing became politicized early on, and not getting the shots was seen as a way of demonstrating your fealty to Donald Trump. Trump, as you may recall, suggested that injections of bleach would kill the virus that causes Covid. Our military services cannot afford to have tens of thousands of men and women in uniform laid low by this disease. The leaders of the Defense Department have given the order for servicemembers to be vaccinated, and the overwhelming percentage of men and women in uniform have complied with that order.

Yes, there are some few members of the military services who have decided not to obey the lawful order they were given, and they will be dealt with according to their service’s protocols for doing so. Whether they receive an Honorable Discharge, a General Discharge, or a discharge of some other characterization is entirely up to their own service. Mr. Weinstein of the MRFF was expressing his opinion as to what should be done to a servicemember who disobeys a lawful order, but he has no influence as to the character of the discharge anyone receives. Disobeying a lawful order is a serious offense in the military, and Mr. Weinstein, as a former Judge Advocate in the Air Force, is completely aware of its significance.  MRFF exists to protect military servicemembers from those who would apply religious tests to members of the services, and that is what it will continue to do, long after Covid has faded and we are back to worrying about flu season. I urge you to go to the MRFF website and read about the work of MRFF. Once you have done so, I hope you will spread the word about this fine non-partisan, non-sectarian organization and what it does for the tens of thousands of military servicemembers who come to it for assistance.

Col. James T. Currie, USA (Ret.), Ph.D.Board of Advisors, Military Religious Freedom Foundation

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Response from MRFF Advisory Board Member Mike Farrell

On Feb 1, 2022, at 11:48 PM, Mike MFO wrote:

(name withheld),
What, in your view, qualifies someone as “a man of God”? Just checking.
FYI, the term at issue should be ‘dishonorably discharged.’ I assume the article had it right.
Also FYI, there is nothing fraudulent about the MRFF. Our mission is to protect the freedom to believe as one chooses with regard to religious or non-religious belief. And we are doing exactly that.
I’m unaware of anyone suggesting a woman or man in the military must get a Covid vaccine shot “every 30 days.” It appears to me that would certainly be excessive.
Though it “appears” to you “it’s (sic) efficacy is crap,” science disagrees with you. But I suspect science is not high on your list of priorities.

No one here has lost her/his mind. One cannot, however, comfortably say the same about you.
If, as you assert, “the flu shot has been around 75 years”, think about what would have happened 76 years ago, or 80. Someone would have had to do the scientific work and testing in order to develop what became the flu vaccine.
Further testing on Covid vaccines are going on, even as you fulminate. And, fortunately, science has come up with a vaccine that protects most people from getting Covid. However, because many are foolish enough to believe the anti-vaccine nonsense that has been circulated by fools and miscreants, many have refused vaccinations, allowing the Covid virus the opportunity to mutate into other versions, at least one of which can find a way past the protections offered by the vaccine. Happily, those who have been wise enough to get vaccinated get enough protection from the vaccine to ensure that they will not likely get a serious enough case to cause death.
The fact that mutations have been allowed to develop because of the stupidity of the anti-vaz minority is not a reason to buy into the anti-vax nonsense, it is just the reverse. It is the reason thinking people get vaccinated, to not only protect themselves, but others as well.
So when the Secretary of Defense and the officers in command order the troops to get vaccinated, they should either follow the orders or suffer the consequences.
Spread the word.
Mike Farrell MRFF Board of Advisors

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Response by MRFF Board Member John Compere

On Feb 2, 2022, at 11:08 AM, John Compere wrote:

“Government is not mere advice; it is authority, with power to enforce its laws.” – George Washington (Founder, 1st President & Commander-in-Chief).
“Everyone must submit to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. ” – Romans 13:1

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