This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Dozens of U.S. military chaplains have joined together to challenge what a report in the Federalist describes as the military's decision to "punish" their faith.

The case, Alvarado v. Austin, how is pending before U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and concerns the decision by the Department of Defense to continue defying the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act that rescinded the military's COVID shot mandate.

"The DOD continues to violate the law by failing to rescind its punishments of conscientious objectors such as denied training and deployments required for promotions," the report explains the petition charges.

"In addition, of course, denying soldiers’ religious exercise violates the First Amendment’s guarantee that all Americans can freely exercise their faith in their everyday lives," the report said.

Their problem is that the abortion component is deeply embedded in the COVID-19 shot regime.

Many are tested using cells from the kidneys of a baby girl likely aborted many years ago, but whose body parts were used to create a line of cells that scientists have maintained for decades.

Scientists call the girl HEK 293, for "human embryonic kidney" and the individual experiment in a series.

The Federalist notes that COVID-19 vaccines were tested on cells made from HEK 293's kidney, and some of the shots have HEK 203 cells inside them.

For that, among other reasons, the report explains, Capt. Rob Nelson, an Air Force chaplain, couldn’t accept those treatments despite massive pressure from the military.

He told the Federalist, "I have five [children], and it breaks my heart to think of this. This girl continues to be violated as her cells are replicated over and over again."

38 military chaplains have a petition pending that charges the DoD is violating the NDAA law rescinding shot requirements.

Army Col. Brad Lewis, part of the coalition, told the Federalist the chaplains believe military members "have a right to believe what they believe and no one can say otherwise. It’s the same reason we can’t have a religious test for federal positions. As a chaplain, my job is to make sure the free exercise of religion is allowed, that nobody infringes upon that inalienable right."

The plaintiffs charge that while there are procedures to allow for the religious rights of Norse pagans, turban-wearing Sikhs, kosher Jews, and more, the military has refused virtually all requests for shot waivers.

The Department of Defense, under the radically pro-abortion Joe Biden, told the high court it has stopped punishments imposed "solely" for conscientious objectors to vaccines, the report said.

And it claims the shot demands have stopped, so there essentially is no case.

Lewis disagreed, telling the publication, "By denying religious exemptions, what the military has done is set about the removal of people who are willing to stand on conviction."

His rejection of the experimental shots triggered a retaliation, in that the military left him with no orders on his graduation from the War College, sentencing him to 11 months in student housing without an assignment.

"My career was ended by those 11 months of unrated time," Lewis charged.

With the military's refusal to allow him to "use his high-level, taxpayer-provided War College training," he's now filed for retirement.

To the Federalist, Army spokeswoman Heather Hagan said, "The Army does not comment on ongoing litigation."

The shot objectors also have cited, besides the integral component abortion provides in the shots, concerns about "damaging human health and reproductive capacity, ignoring natural immunity, the ethics of allegedly emergency decrees, the lack of informed consent, and heavy-handed manipulation tactics that include refusing to acknowledge any potentially legitimate conscience objections to the shots whatsoever," the report said.

The report also documented how the military would pressure chaplains, claiming prominent religious leaders supported the shots and mandates.

"The Department of Defense is hostile to religion," Art Schulcz, the lawyer for the chaplains, told the Federalist.