We have noted before that the COVID-19 pandemic has turned religious-right activist Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel into a hard-line anti-vaccine activist, and every development in the fight to control the spread of the virus only seems to send Staver further off the rails.
On Monday, Staver appeared on "The Water Cooler," a program hosted by religious-right political analyst David Brody on the Real America's Voice network, where Staver likened the vaccine mandate imposed by the U.S. military to "rape" and warned that it will result in anti-vaccine soldiers taking their own lives rather than risk "sinning against God" by taking the vaccine.
Staver said that Liberty Counsel is representing a female marine who was sexually assaulted in her youth, and he fumed that President Joe Biden is requiring that she be "essentially raped again by participating in one of these COVID shots."
"What's happening in the military is unconscionable," Staver said. "We represent a chaplain, and this chaplain says he's never seen his military colleagues abused like they're being abused right now. They're being intimidated, abused, they're threatened with this dishonorable discharge—no matter how many tours of duty they serve, no matter what their rank, no matter their honors—dishonorable discharge."
"Many chaplains have told us that the rate of suicide has increased 20 to 25 percent during COVID, [and] they expect to see that the rate of suicide will exceed that because of the pressure," Staver continued. "You're telling these men and women who have sacrificed everything—put everything on the line, they've done everything for their country, they sacrificed everything—now you're telling them that they will be betrayed, they will not be remembered, and they will get the ultimate badge of dishonor: a dishonorable discharge. The pressure on that side versus the pressure of violating their conscience and sinning against God is unbearable, and there's no question, they say, people will end up taking their lives under this pressure."
