South Dakota Gov. Noem Signs Order to ‘Protect’ State Employees From Biden’s Vaccine Mandate

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem connected Wednesday signed an executive order she says volition “protect” authorities employees against President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate by allowing them to easy get aesculapian and spiritual exemptions.

“South Dakota is warring backmost against the dense manus of @JoeBiden & his Administration,” the Republican politician announced connected Twitter. “Today I signed an Executive Order to support authorities employees, & those w/ national contracts who are being forced to get vaccinated against their wishes. The bid protects aesculapian & spiritual exemptions for these workers.”

“Additionally, I americium moving w/ legislators connected addressing different areas. I person ever said the determination to get vaccinated should beryllium a idiosyncratic choice-not a mandate from Joe Biden, Fauci oregon your boss,” she added.

Noem said the determination was indispensable to guarantee that employees aren’t forced to get COVID-19 vaccinations nether  Biden’s initiative, which covers not lone radical straight paid by national contracts but besides anyone who works to enactment them.

State lawmakers person said South Dakotans are being denied aesculapian and spiritual exemptions from feds and person called for a peculiar league to halt it.

Noem spokesperson Jordan Overturf said Noem’s exemptions are “explicit and connection a wide path” for authorities workers to opt-out of the shots.

In a press release from Noem’s office, the politician said that employees who privation to person a aesculapian exemption from the vaccine mandate request a enactment from a doc stating that the COVID-19 vaccination is excessively risky for wellness reasons.

Workers who privation to beryllium exempted for spiritual reasons indispensable capable retired a signifier from the Bureau of Human Resources that states that they “dissent and entity to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine connected spiritual grounds, which includes moral, ethical, and philosophical beliefs oregon principles.”

“Due to established precedent, this Executive Order does not use to work members with the South Dakota National Guard who indispensable conscionable national readiness responsibilities for deployment,” the merchandise adds.

It besides states that Noem volition enactment during adjacent year’s legislative league with South Dakota lawmakers to marque these “protections” for authorities employees permanent, and “to widen akin wellness and spiritual liberty protections” to employees of backstage businesses who adopted mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policies.

The politician earlier criticized proposals by Republican lawmakers to prohibition vaccine mandates arsenic “not conservative” due to the fact that they’re telling businesses what to bash and however to dainty their employees. This order, spokesperson Overturf said, is astir upholding rights already included successful the Constitution.

“She has repeatedly said backstage businesses should connection aesculapian and spiritual exemptions for COVID vaccine mandates,” Overturf said.

Noem earlier said connected Twitter that the authorities volition “l basal up to support freedom,” referring to the president’s vaccine mandates.

“@JoeBiden spot you successful court,” she wrote successful September, aboriginal adding that her ineligible squad is prepared to basal up to the Biden administration’s mandates.

The Epoch Times has contacted the White House for comment.