Michael Ejercito wrote:
> HeartDoc Andrew, in the Holy Spirit, boldly wrote:
>> Michael Ejercito wrote:
>>
>>> https://www.reddit.com/r/LockdownSkepticism/comments/1gi68ln/why_workers_fired_for_refusing_covid_vaccines_are/
>>>
>>> Why workers fired for refusing Covid vaccines are starting to win in court
>>> By Jenna Greene
>>> November 1, 202412:05 PM PDTUpdated 2 days ago
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Commentary
>>> Legal Action by Jenna Greene
>>> People receive their second COVID-19 boosters in Waterford, Michigan
>>> s up syringes with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccines for
>>> residents who are over 50 years old and immunocompromised and are
>>> eligible to receive their second booster shots in Waterford, Michigan,
>>> U.S., April 8, 2022. REUTERS/Emily Elconin/File photo Purchase Licensing
>>> Rights, opens new tab
>>> Nov 1 (Reuters) - Liberal San Francisco is hardly a hotbed of anti-COVID
>>> vaxxers – more than 90% of the city’s population got the shot, according
>>> to government data, opens new tab.
>>> That’s partly why I found a verdict, opens new tab by a San Francisco
>>> federal jury last week in favor of six public transit workers who were
>>> fired for refusing to comply with their employer’s COVID-19 vaccine
>>> mandate on religious grounds so unexpected.
>>> Jurors awarded the Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART, ex-employees more
>>> than $1 million each for workplace civil rights violations, for a total
>>> of $7.8 million.
>>> Advertisement · Scroll to continue
>>>
>>> As similar cases make their way through courts around the country,
>>> plaintiffs lawyers tell me they see the verdict as a sign of more big
>>> payouts to come.
>>> To misquote the Broadway tune, “If you can make it in San Francisco, you
>>> can make it anywhere,” said James Lawrence, a Raleigh-based Envisage Law
>>> partner representing three musicians allegedly fired by the North
>>> Carolina Symphony after refusing the COVID vaccination based on their
>>> religious beliefs.
>>> Advertisement · Scroll to continue
>>>
>>> The lawsuits I've reviewed, whether targeting a food conglomerate in
>>> Arkansas, opens new tab, an airline in Hawaii, opens new tab, hospitals
>>> in Oregon, opens new tab or a host of cities, opens new tab, revolve
>>> around similar claims that employers wrongly refused to accommodate
>>> devout workers who asked to be exempt from COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
>>> Alleging violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
>>> plaintiffs who self-identify as Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim,
>>> Buddhist and other faiths say they were discriminated against on the
>>> basis of religion, and that they could have masked, tested, worked
>>> remotely or taken other measures that would have allowed them to stay on
>>> the job.
>>> The employers have typically countered that exempting the workers from
>>> the vaccine would have caused undue hardship to their businesses, and
>>> that their mandates were put in place to stem the spread of the
>>> coronavirus and keep their workforce safe.
>>> In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court upped the standard, opens new tab for
>>> “undue hardship” to mean that granting an accommodation would impose a
>>> “substantial cost” on the business, Jeffrey Hirsch, a professor at the
>>> University of North Carolina School of Law who specializes in labor and
>>> employment law, told me. “That makes it easier (for plaintiffs) to bring
>>> these claims."
>>>
>>> One of the first verdicts came in June, when a federal jury in
>>> Chattanooga awarded, opens new tab a Tennessee woman $687,000 –
>>> including $500,000 in punitive damages – against Blue Cross Blue Shield
>>> of Tennessee.
>>> Tanja Benton, who identifies as a Christian, objected, opens new tab to
>>> the vaccine because she alleged cell lines from aborted fetuses were
>>> used in its research and development, which “she believed to be contrary
>>> to God’s law,” her lawyer Doug Hamill wrote.
>>> (Multiple public health authorities confirm, opens new tab that the
>>> vaccines themselves do not contain fetal stem cells.)
>>> Hamill did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Benton reply to
>>> a message sent via LinkedIn.
>>> Benton, a data scientist who rarely interacted with clients, proposed
>>> that she continue to work remotely from home unvaccinated. Blue Cross
>>> allegedly refused and gave her 30 days to look for another job with the
>>> company that didn’t require vaccination. When she didn’t find a
>>> position, she said she was fired.
>>> A Blue Cross spokesperson said the company "knows that vaccines save
>>> lives," and believes its "vaccine requirement was the best decision for
>>> our employees and members, and that our accommodation to the requirement
>>> complied with the law."
>>> The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2021 guidance, opens
>>> new tab said employers should “generally” proceed on the assumption that
>>> an employee's request for religious accommodation is based on sincerely
>>> held beliefs.
>>> Blue Cross and its outside counsel from Holland & Knight, however,
>>> suggest in a pending motion, opens new tab to set the verdict aside that
>>> Benton’s objection to the vaccine was not part of a “comprehensive
>>> belief system.” Noting for example that she’d been had flu vaccinations
>>> in the past, the defense argued her objection was a “one-off belief
>>> against COVID-19 vaccination” that doesn't merit legal protection.
>>> In the BART case, defense counsel appeared to focus less on the
>>> sincerity of the plaintiffs’ beliefs and more on the undue burden that
>>> the subway system claimed accommodation would present.
>>> According to the complaint filed in San Francisco federal court in 2022,
>>> 179 of BART’s 3,900 employees requested religious exemptions to its
>>> COVID vaccine mandate, which was put in place even though unvaccinated
>>> passengers could still freely ride the trains.
>>> About 70 of the employee requests – which included fetal stem
>>> cell-related objections as well as concerns such as “alteration of a
>>> divinely-created immune system” – were granted, but in every instance,
>>> BART found it would be an undue hardship to provide an accommodation.
>>> For workers with jobs such as station agent or police officer, I can
>>> understand how working from home wasn’t an option.
>>> But one employee had a full hazmat suit and offered to wear it while
>>> working, plaintiffs counsel Kevin Snider of the non-profit Pacific
>>> Justice Institute told me. Another cleaned empty trains at the end of
>>> the line and unsuccessfully argued she could work alone while masked.
>>> No accommodation “was ever good enough,” Snider said.
>>> A BART spokesperson declined comment.
>>> BART lawyers did manage to narrow the case when Senior U.S. District
>>> Judge William Alsup in pre-trial ruling, opens new tab nixed the
>>> plaintiffs’ claims that their First Amendment right to free exercise of
>>> religion had been violated, ruling the vaccine mandate served a
>>> legitimate public purpose in stemming the spread of COVID-19.
>>> However, a similar “free exercise” claim survived against the North
>>> Carolina Symphony in a ruling, opens new tab by U.S. District Judge
>>> James Dever in Raleigh in late September.
>>> Two French horn players, both Buddhists, objected to the taking the
>>> COVID vaccine because it was allegedly tested on animals and used fetal
>>> cell lines, while a Jewish violin player said he believes “his body is a
>>> temple” and cannot be altered or defiled by medicine.
>>> In refusing to dismiss the complaint, opens new tab, Dever wrote that
>>> the plaintiffs plausibly alleged that the symphony’s president in
>>> denying their requests wanted to promote a “vaccination ‘culture.’”
>>> A spokesperson told me via email that the symphony's “priority has been
>>> to protect the health and safety of our musicians and staff,” adding
>>> that the vaccine mandate was lifted last year.
>>
>>
>> In the interim, we are 100% prepared/protected in the "full armor of
>> GOD" (Ephesians 6:11) which we put on as soon as we use Apostle Paul's
>> secret (Philippians 4:12). Though masking is less protective, it helps
>> us avoid the appearance of doing the evil of spreading airborne
>> pathogens while there are people getting sick because of not being
>> 100% protected. It is written that we're to "abstain from **all**
>> appearance of doing evil" (1 Thessalonians 5:22 w/**emphasis**).
>>
>> Meanwhile, the only *perfect* (Matt 5:47-8 ) way to eradicate the
>> COVID-19 virus, thereby saving lives, in the UK & elsewhere is by
>> rapidly (i.e. use the "Rapid COVID-19 Test" ) finding out at any given
>> moment, including even while on-line, who among us are unwittingly
>> contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic) in order to
>> "convince it forward" (John 15:12) for them to call their doctor and
>> self-quarantine per their doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic.
>> Thus, we're hoping for the best while preparing for the worse-case
>> scenario of the Alpha lineage mutations and others like the Omicron,
>> Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota, Lambda, Mu & Delta lineage mutations
>> combining via slip-RNA-replication to form hybrids like "Deltamicron"
>> that may render current COVID vaccines/monoclonals/medicines/pills no
>> longer effective.
>>
>> Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry (
>> https://groups.google.com/g/sci.med.cardiology/c/6ZoE95d-VKc/m/14vVZoyOBgAJ
>> ) and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
>>
>> So how are you ?
>
> I am wonderfully hungry!

While wonderfully hungry in the Holy Spirit, Who causes (Deuteronomy
8:3) us to hunger, I note that you, Michael, are rapture ready (Luke
17:37 means no COVID just as eagles circling over their food have no
COVID) and pray (2 Chronicles 7:14) that our Everlasting (Isaiah 9:6)
Father in Heaven continues to give us "much more" (Luke 11:13) Holy
Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) so that we'd have much more of His Help to
always say/write that we're "wonderfully hungry" in **all** ways
including especially caring to "convince it forward" (John 15:12) with
all glory (Psalm112:1) to GOD (aka HaShem, Elohim, Abba, DEO), in
the name (John 16:23) of LORD Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen.

Laus DEO !