HeartDoc Andrew wrote:
> 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 !
>
Thank you for noting that I have no COVID.

Michael