Faced with termination, Stennis employees protesting COVID vaccines say they rely on faith
They held signs adorned with crosses and Bible verses. They referenced a story from the Book of Daniel, of three members of an Old Testament Jewish community who cried out against demands to comply with customs against God’s will. And they prayed.
For many of the 150 employees and community members who were protesting against Stennis Space Center’s enforcement of a federal COVID-19 vaccine requirement on Tuesday, their concerns about the shot were rooted in faith.
“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (characters in the Book of Daniel) weren’t the only Jewish people taken into captivity, but they were the only three that stood up,” said Chip Ellis, who has worked at Stennis for over 30 years.
Federal contract employees at the NASA national rocket engine test site in Hancock County will face termination in December if they don’t get vaccinated.
Ellis, a husband and father of four, is prepared to be fired. He said he will lose the health benefits he relies on for his special needs son.
“God put this in my head today,” Ellis said at the Tuesday protest. “This is a major issue and I would need health insurance. This is not a joke. This is 30 years of my life thrown away and God will provide.”
Jesse Harriel, a Stennis employee and youth pastor at Crane Creek Baptist Church in the Perkinston community, led a group prayer at the rally. He said he’s unsure if he’ll get vaccinated and is consulting his doctor.
“I can see why some people from the shot side are kind of scared of that because you don’t know if this is that,” he said. “And then you look at Daniel in the lion’s den, and you got to put your faith in that end of it, that God holds back whatever this thing is and doesn’t let it hurt you if you do get the shot. If I do get the shot, I’m going to be praying to God to hold back the lions.”
Protest against COVID shots led by prayer
Stennis is the second largest Mississippi Gulf Coast federal employer to have its workforce organize a protest against the vaccination mandate, following earlier rallies from employees of Ingalls Shipbuilding, the builder of around 70% of the U.S. Navy fleet.
Ingalls’ rally was spotted with high-profile anti-vaccine advocates, politicians and objections from unions and some supervisors. The Stennis rally was different. Harriel and a few others led group prayers on Tuesday while Steve Cochran, a committee member for a union representing Stennis employees, was standing in protest.
Nyla Trumbach, an engineer at Stennis who helped plan the rally, said the atmosphere of their rally could differ from neighboring anti-vaccine demonstrations because of its religious undertone, among other reasons.
“Another reason it could be different is that we say we stand with our employers. We know that they’re going through this just like we are. It’s hard for them. They’ve been given these orders to roll out this mandate but we’re not against our employers,” Trumbach said.
Several interviewed by the Sun Herald said their supervisors within Stennis were sympathetic with their concerns.
“We know from talking to them that they agree it’s our right to do what we’re going now. Many of them agree with our views but being in their positions, they’re at a bigger risk,” Trumbach said.
Vaccine concern grounded in religion
The root of religious concern for most of those protesting vaccinations for reasons of faith is because of widely circulated rumors that aborted fetal cells are in the shots or tested with them.
“For me, that’s a significant religious violation. That’s a sin for me. God has told me clearly that abortion is equivalent to murder. Babies were made in the image of God. Partaking in [the vaccine] is partaking in that act,” Ellis said.
The vaccines do not contain any aborted fetal cells, infectious disease expert and practicing Catholic Dr. James Lawler wrote in a Nebraska Medicine article published in August.
In the research of the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines and the production of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, fetal cell lines, or lab-grown cells based on aborted fetal cells harvested during the 1970s, were used, he said. The current fetal cell lines are “thousands of generations removed” from the original tissue.
A number of other religious protesters said they didn’t want to get vaccinated because the shots are unnecessary.
“I do believe that God gave me my immune system for a reason. When I got COVID, I chose to do things the natural way. I even made my own breathing treatment (with peroxide and saline),” said Kristin Trumbach, another Stennis employee. “Why isn’t natural immunity be taken into consideration?”
Data proves that natural immunity is not sufficient to fight COVID-19. Over the fourth-wave spread fueled by the delta variant during the summer months of 2021 — the most deadly time frame from the virus that Mississippi has reported — around 98% of deaths were from unvaccinated patients.
Others said that God simply “did not want” them to take the shot.
“I do believe that it’s not right for me to put this in my body. I’ve prayed about it, and this is not something that God wants me to do,” said Kimberlee Loisel of Picayune, who has worked in Stennis’ environmental lab for 18 years.
Religious exemptions at Stennis Space Center
Sonia Ladner is a vaccinated Stennis employee who attended the rally to support her friends and coworkers who are subject to upcoming termination. She said she knows many who have filed religious exemptions.
Ellis said he filed his religious exemption before Oct. 18, the deadline he was informed of by Stennis, and said he knows “a lot” of coworkers are also filing.
Upon request from the Sun Herald last week, a Stennis spokesperson said they could not comment on the number of religious exemptions from the vaccine that have been filed at their center but said they are “continuing preparations to adhere, as required, to the president’s executive order on COVID-19.”
This article and live event is supported by the Journalism and Public Information Fund, a fund of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation.
