Guidance reportedly crafted by military attorneys urged Coast Guard chaplains to grill service members on their religious beliefs in attempts to discover whether a service member’s religious exemption is a “ruse,”…

“It is important to provide context in the memo discussing the member’s belief,” the draft documents said. “If they come to the meeting and begin by discussing concerns about safety, politics, etc., note that in the memo.”…

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“Note any comments made by the member that make it appear they are using the religious exemption as a ruse to avoid the vaccine,” the guidance continued…

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, U.S. employers are required to accommodate their employee’s “sincerely held” religious beliefs…

“Across the entire DOD the services are requiring people who…submit a request for a religious exemption, to undergo…interviews with medical providers and chaplains,” [General Counsel Mike] Berry said in a Thursday phone interview…

“Legally, the only thing that’s required of a service member is…that they have a sincerely held religious belief and that whatever the government is doing places a…burden on that religious belief,” Berry said. “So that’s all they have to show….after that, the burden completely shifts to the government…”…

“This is one of the worst Establishment Clause violations I have seen in my lifetime,” Ethics and Public Policy Center senior fellow Roger Severino told the DCNF Thursday.

Severino, who served as the former director of the Office of Civil Rights at the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said that government bureaucrats “have no business being the arbiters of religious truth claims for any religion, let alone all religions.”

“These junior varsity inquisitors make atrocious theologians and their anti-religious freedom agenda is as clear as it is arrogant,” he added.

Under the draft guidance, chaplains are told to have members specifically describe how they “consistently keep the tenets of their faith” in their daily life…”…

The guidance…provides…a “sampling” of religious leaders condoning COVID-19 vaccination…

“If the member indicates he/she is part of one of the…faiths…discuss with them the quotes from the religious leaders cited therein,” the guidance said. “Ask how their beliefs differ from those of the religious leaders. Note their response…”

Should a service member be Catholic…the guidance suggests that the chaplain refer to the section “Catholic Christianity”…and read a Vatican statement to the service member noting that it is “morally acceptable” to receive the vaccine…

The guidance instructs chaplains to…push for more information about…if the service member worships with others, whether those who the service member worships with have been vaccinated, whether the service member wants to discuss vaccinations with his fellow vaccinated worshippers…and more.

“Ask what makes this refusal to be vaccinated against COVID-19 such an important part of their religion or their religious beliefs,” the guidance said. “If the member starts to speak about safety, political, or ethical concerns…note that in the memo…”

Thousands of Americans are seeking religious exemptions to vaccine mandates, citing reports that some of the vaccines were developed using aborted fetal cell lines. The guidance specifically mentions this…telling chaplains to ask members “if they have done research…” and provides a list of questions about the development of the vaccines and fetal cell lines.

“If seeking exemption based on use of stem or fetal cells, ask whether the member has taken any other medicine that were developed and tested using fetal cells,” the guidance said…

The guidance specifically references members who may be seeing an exemption by quoting 1 Corinthians 6:19-20…

If a service member references this…chaplains should ask “what steps they take to ensure that other foreign substances are not introduced into the body,” the guidance said.

The guidance continued: “…Ask whether their religion supports altruism and protection of others, or making sacrifices to help others…”

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidance warns that “whether or not a religious belief is sincerely held by an applicant or employee is rarely at issue in many types of Title VII religious claims.

“…[I]t is the motivation of the discriminating official, not the actual beliefs of the individual alleging discrimination, that is relevant in determining if the discrimination that occurred was because of religion.”

Neither the commission nor the courts should “be in the business of deciding whether a person holds religious beliefs for the ‘proper’ reasons,” the guidance said, but they may examine whether the individual’s motives or reasons for holding the belief…

Does this violation of privacy and of the Establishment clause concern you? Share in the comments below.

The right to refuse the vaccine should exist for ANY reason, not just religious. There are people fighting within the military to preserve the rights of service members to say no. One of them is a military physician whose letter about the dangers of the vaccine for the service members  can be read HERE.

(Excerpt from Daily Caller. Article by Mary Margaret Olohan. Photo Credit: Amy Sussman/Getty Images).