Michael Ejercito wrote:
> HeartDoc Andrew, in the Holy Spirit, boldly 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.

Just please do likewise as our LORD Jesus & I have done for you,
Michael, and http://go.WDJW.net/ConvinceItForward (John 15:12) to be
https://bit.ly/Wonderfully_Hungrier more blessed by GOD right now
(Luke 6:21a).