Ever since President Joe Biden issued a mandate saying all members of the American military must be vaccinated against COVID, the order has created controversy and been tied up in the courts. The administration appeared to be dealt another blow in this battle on Tuesday when an appeals court in Ohio ruled that the Air Force had wrongly issued a nearly total blanket refusal of requests by members for religious exemptions to the mandate. As a result, the Air Force was told to continue a delay in separating any members from the service based on their noncompliance. This ruling is specific to the Air Force, but it could easily be applied to the other military branches that have adopted similar policies. (Daily Caller)

An Ohio court Tuesday upheld a legal pause on separations for airmen who have requested religious exemptions to the mandatory COVID-19 vaccine after finding that the Air Force “wrongly” relied on overly broad reasoning to turn down the waivers.

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in an ongoing class action suit prosecuted by roughly 10,000 unvaccinated active-duty, reserve and National Guard airmen who have either had their requests to avoid the vaccine on religious grounds denied or still await a decision. A circuit court in March ordered the Department of Defense (DOD), which has mandated vaccinations for all members of the military, to hold off on disciplining or separating airmen while the lawsuit progresses.

The DOD “wrongly relied on its ‘broadly formulated’ reasons for the vaccine mandate to deny specific exemptions to the Plaintiffs, especially since it has granted secular exemptions to their colleagues,” the court opinion said.

This ruling doesn’t appear to even touch on the question of whether or not the vaccines are particularly useful or even safe for the service members to receive. But it at least suggests a Freedom of Religion angle. The ruling specifically mentions that the Air Force did approve secular exemption requests in some cases while rejecting nearly all of the religious objections.

Still, it sounds as if the courts are increasingly leaning against the vaccine mandates, no matter what the reason. And that makes a lot of sense even outside of the specific complaints brought forward in this lawsuit. One major question that’s being left out of the discussion is why the military would want to kick even more people out of the service when we’re facing a significant manpower shortage. The Air Force fell short of its recruiting goals for the Reserves and the Air National Guard this year. They barely met their goal for new active-duty recruits, despite having loosened some standards. Ditching thousands of members at this point would leave us understaffed.

Sooner or later we will be forced to face the obvious question that will arise if the vaccine mandates are done away with entirely. Ending the mandates will increase opportunities for others who are willing to enlist in the future, but what about the people we’ve already lost? Significant numbers of our military members voluntarily ended their service rather than agreeing to take the injections. Will they be welcomed back to finish their careers?

Even more to the point, what will become of all of the members who didn’t want the vaccines but finally agreed to take them to avoid being ejected from the service? They can’t be “de-vaccinated” once the experimental compound is in their bloodstream. And they are likely aware of the growing body of data showing that young, healthy men are among the most likely to experience the thankfully rare instances of myocarditis or pericarditis. They are also among the least likely to die of COVID.

The number of things that the government got wrong when responding to the pandemic is becoming increasingly clear. And while the disease itself may now appear to be essentially on par with the flu, the downstream effects of those poor decisions are going to be with us for a very long time.