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By Kelsey Landis St. Louis Post-Dispatch Aug 23, 2022

ST. LOUIS — The Republican nominee aiming to take St. Louis County's top government job filed suit this week against her former employer over mask and vaccine mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming religious discrimination.

Katherine Pinner, a 55-year-old political newcomer from unincorporated St. Louis County near Affton, sued the American Association of Orthodontists on Monday. She said the association forced her to resign because she failed to comply with what she called an ultimatum to either wear a mask or get vaccinated, according to the lawsuit. Pinner, who began working for the association in October 2019, demanded $1.2 million from her ex-employer.

"The state and the employer do not hold sovereignty over my body, my internal systems, or my conscience," Pinner wrote in the lawsuit filed with the U.S. District Court of Eastern Missouri.

Neither Pinner, who is representing herself in the suit, nor the association immediately responded to requests for comment.

Pinner, little known by Republican party officials, won a surprise victory with 56% of the vote in the primary earlier this month over state Rep. Shamed Dogan. Pinner's campaign website promoted conspiracies about the COVID-19 vaccines, including that they were part of an international scheme to control people through microchips injected into their bodies.

That information was scrubbed from her website in early August shortly after the primary, a webpage archive service shows. But her lawsuit outlines her views on masks and vaccines.

Pinner, a self-described author and business consultant, wrote the suit by hand on a form submitted to the court. She believes her "unalienable, sacred rights to internal systems, respiratory system, immune system, and conscience" were violated because her employer required staff to either wear a mask or be vaccinated against COVID-19.

In March 2020, she started working remotely because of the pandemic. The following year, the association extended its work-from-home policy to January 2022 and said in policy statements that employees might be called back to the office after that. In July 2021, the association began "tagging" employees with their vaccination status, the lawsuit claims.

Pinner, the daughter of Croatian immigrants, requested an exemption from both the mask and vaccine requirements in June 2021. She claimed her religion, American Traditional Christian and Croatian Roman Catholic, as the reason for an exemption. The association denied her request, and she endured "discrimination, coercion, harassment" and other hardships as a result, Pinner claimed.

Pinner made the following additional claims:

• Getting an injection and wearing a face mask could be considered practicing medicine. She says it's illegal "under every state law to practice medicine without a license."

• Face coverings and injections have been used as torture devices. The Geneva Convention, a series of international human rights treaties established after World War II, prohibits torture.

• Wearing a mask is associated with "dehumanization and satanic ritual abuse."

• Vaccines alter humans, a form of "transhumanism," she said, which could lead to the removal of a human being from "God's graces."

• St. Louis city's mask order includes an exemption for people whose religion prohibits face coverings.

• Wearing a mask posed a risk because no scientific studies had been done on whether face coverings might cause "accumulation of bacteria in the mouth and respiratory system."

Pinner goes on to outline why her employer's mandates violated multiple U.S. laws and constitutional amendments.