Tennessee Speaker of the House of Representatives Cameron Sexton, in a statement issued to The Tennessee Star, expressed his support for the Tennessee National Guard members who are scheduled to lose their jobs on June 30 due to their refusal to comply with a COVID-19 vaccination mandate.
Sexton additionally had sharp criticism for the Biden administration’s handling of COVID-19 policies and mandates.
“President Biden continues to politicize Covid-19 by forcing vaccinations on our guardsmen. America now has enough data from the last two years for individuals to make that decision for themselves. It is past time for the Biden administration to stop mandating and be a distributor of information to preserve personal liberty,” said Speaker Sexton.
Speaker Sexton’s statement, along with Lt. Governor Randy McNally’s and Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson’s, means that three of the four highest elected officials in the General Assembly have issued public support for the Tennessee National Guardsmen.
Governor Lee and Attorney General Slatery continue to remain silent.
Additionally, The Star spoke with State Representative Scott Cepicky (R-Culleoka) late on Monday in Columbia, at the Maury County Republican Party Reagan Dinner.
“We’ve got that issue coming up at the end of month with our national guard members being kicked out of our military here because they haven’t taken a COVID shot. I served on the insurance committee and I briefly served on the government operations committee when I questioned Dr. Piercey about targeting people who haven’t taken a shot. We thought this had all gone away. Obviously it hasn’t with our military,” he said.
These are individuals that have taken an oath to defend our freedoms and liberties. We owe them so much. For this type of thing to happen to them – people who would voluntarily die for our country – we need to keep that in mind here,” he continued.
“A bunch of the legislators that I know, we are going to ask very politely, that the governor not terminate these people because of their COVID beliefs. We were very successful when the federal government came after our healthcare workers about not granting them religious exemptions. We challenged that and got that fought back,” the state representative said.
This is another thing where we need to stand with our military to make sure that these men and women who will serve a post and if need be – get called to duty and die for our country, protecting us – that we stand with them as a legislature and let them know the we support you. We support your decisions on not to take something that really doesn’t have the proof one way or the other as if it is going to work our not to prevent COVID,” concluded Cepicky.
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Aaron Gulbransen is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]. Follow Aaron on GETTR, Twitter, Truth Social, and Parler.
Photo “Cameron Sexton” by Speaker Cameron Sexton. Background Photo “Tennessee National Guard” by Tennessee National Guard.
