ABC is being sued by former General Hospital star, Ingo Rademacher, as the actor argues that the company’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate is unconstitutional and even amounts to religious discrimination.
Rademacher who has played Jasper Jacks on the soap opera for over 25 years, was fired last month after refusing to get vaccinated.
According the lawsuit which was filed on Monday, Rademacher sought religious exemption from the mandate.
“I am entitled to a religious exemption against mandatory vaccination for Covid-19 on the basis of my deeply and sincerely held moral belief that my body is endowed by my creator with natural processes to protect me and that its natural integrity cannot ethically be violated by the administration of artificially created copies of genetic material, foreign to nature and experimental,” Rademacher wrote in an Oct 11 email to Disney’s human resources department.
This excuse was rejected by ABC.
The suit argues that ABC was required to honour Rademacher’s religious exemption, as questioning the sincerity of his beliefs amounts to religious discrimination.
Rademacher was not the only actor to be fired on these grounds.
Another General Hospital star, Steve Burton, confirmed on Nov 23 that he was also fired from the show for refusing to comply with the vaccine mandate, and this was after he too had applied for religious and medical exemptions, which were denied by ABC.
Rademacher’s suit also claims that the vaccine mandate violated his right to privacy.
“This should not be a political issue,” the suit states. “There is no need for everybody to get the Covid-19 shot, even if the president demands it.”
The actor is being represented by John W. Howard, an attorney that has filed several lawsuits challenging vaccine mandates, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., another lawyer and anti-vaccine advocate.
