New York Correctly Bans Religious Exemptions for Vaccines

As long time readers know, I believe that far too much deference is given to religion in the USA despite the reality that (i) it is often divisive, (ii) most churches do little true charity work, certainly not enough to justify tax-exempt status which forces the rest of the citizenry to indirectly subsidize them, and (iii) it often encourages the embrace of ignorance that is harmful towards other citizens.  Nowhere has the latter aspect been more true than in religious exemptions to public health laws requiring children to be vaccinated prior to entering public school.  With the measles outbreak sweeping the USA, but centered in New York State, the danger of indulging the religious based idiocy of religious extremists has been made visible.  Thankfully, New York State has said "enough" and has  banned religious exemptions from vaccination requirements. One's embrace of ignorance should not be allowed to endanger the health - or civil rights - of other citizens. The New York Times looks at New York State's belated move to fight religious beliefs that harm the general public. Note how opponents of the common sense move chanted the usual "religious freedom" bullshit so popular with evangelicals who seek to put their beliefs over the rights of other citizens.  Here are article excerpts:

New York officially ended religious exemptions for school vaccines Thursday as the state grapples with its largest measles outbreak in years.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) signed the legislation into law Thursday evening after it passed in the state’s Senate and Assembly, ending years of gridlock over the issue.

“We’re putting science ahead of misinformation about vaccines and standing up for the rights of immunocompromised children and adults, pregnant women and infants who can’t be vaccinated through no fault of their own,” state Sen. Brad Hoylman (D) said in a statement.

The law gives unvaccinated students up to 30 days to show they’ve started their required immunizations.

All states have laws requiring various vaccines for students and all allow for medical exemptions. Many also grant parents the right to exempt their children from the vaccines for religious reasons, and a smaller number for philosophical reasons. But the tide of public opinion has been changing as measles cases this year have already surged to the highest levels since 1992. The cases have largely stemmed from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish population in Brooklyn, and to a lesser extent, Rockland County, which anti-vaccine groups have had some success at targeting with misinformation. Many of these activists claim that vaccines cause autism, a link disproved repeatedly by scientists and medical experts.

Measles, a highly contagious and potentially life-threatening disease, was thought to have been eliminated in 2000, due to the success of decades-long campaigns to get people vaccinated.

Opponents of the bill protested Thursday outside of New York’s capitol in Albany before the vote, [lying and] claiming the legislation is an assault on religious freedom. “I’m not aware of anything in the Torah, the Bible, the Koran or anything else that suggests you should not get vaccinated,” Bronx Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (D), the bill’s sponsor, told reporters. “If you choose to not vaccinate your child, therefore potentially endangering other children … then you’re the one choosing not to send your children to school.” New York joins states such as California, Mississippi, West Virginia and Maine by outlawing nonmedical exemptions for vaccines. Several other states are deliberating whether to eliminate religious waivers for vaccines.

“The science is crystal clear: Vaccines are safe, effective and the best way to keep our children safe,” Cuomo said in a statement. “While I understand and respect freedom of religion, our first job is to protect the public health and by signing this measure into law, we will help prevent further transmissions and stop this outbreak right in its tracks.”

The bill’s passage was coupled with the news that the New York City Health Department has closed two private schools in Williamsburg for failing to comply with a recent emergency health order. . . . The Health Department has closed 11 schools over vaccine-related issues this year.

I'd go further and make the failure to have children vaccinated a form of statutory child abuse justifying the removal of children from parents.   Children are not chattel property of parents - notwithstanding the views of many fundamentalists - and should not be endangered by their parents' embrace of ignorance and superstition. 

GOP Senators Want to Give Religious Adoption Agencies A "License to Discriminate"

The Republican Party's quest to grant special rights to Christofascists seems to never end.  And the irony is that what these pandering, self-prostituting GOP politicians is 180 degrees opposite of what was once the party's mantra, at least when it came to funding the National Endowment for the Arts.  Back then, arguments that artists' freedom of speech was limited by a move to de-fund those not complying with GOP moral standards was that these artists could do whatever they wanted, all they had to do was not take government funding.  Fast forward to today when religious affiliated adoption agencies line up like pigs at a trough for state and federal taxpayer funded money.  They want not only to gorge on taxpayer funds, but they also want to discriminate at will against various citizens they don't like, especially gays.  Otherwise, they claim their freedom of religion is being attacked.  There is, of course, an easy solution: stop taking taxpayer funds.  That, of course would not allow self-prostitution by GOP politicians.  As The Advocate reports to Republican U.S. Senators are pushing a bill that would allow religious affiliated adoption agencies to discriminate against gays.  Here are highlights:

A new piece of legislation introduced by two Republican U.S. Senators would effectively guarantee that any religiously based child-welfare services can refuse to place children with same-sex couples, without fear of losing federal funding. 

The "Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act" was introduced Wednesday by Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi and Pennsylvania Sen. Mike Kelly, both of whom are Republicans. Zack Ford at ThinkProgress keenly notes that while the bill is positioned as an effort to protect faith-based institutions that provide child welfare services from placing children with families that don't meet the organization's religious standards, what it actually does is force the federal government to continue contracting with faith-based groups that flout federal nondiscrimination policies. 

"The bill would force the government to continue to contracting with any organization that provides services to children, regardless of how their religious tenets affect the way they provide those services," explains Ford.

Regardless of a given state's nondiscrimination law, under the draft legislation, any state that denies funding to a religiously based adoption group that won't serve same-sex couples would lose 15 percent of its federal funding to support child welfare programs.

Framing the bill as intended to "ensure that organizations with religious or moral convictions are allowed to continue to provide services for children," the legislation piggybacks on a false choice frequently trotted out by religious charities that oppose marriage equality but provide welfare services, including adoption and foster home placements. Those groups — most notoriously Catholic Charities — claim that if marriage equality or civil unions are enacted in a given state, the organization will be forced to discontinue its work seeking adoptive and foster homes for children because the law would require the group to place children in homes with eligible same-sex couples, which the groups say violates their sincerely held religious beliefs. 

As LGBT legal group Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders notes, in every state where Catholic Charities has claimed to have been "forced out" of the adoption business by LGBT legal relationship recognition, the charity has voluntarily chosen to stop services rather than comply with state law. In each instance, the charity did have the option to continue providing services to children and refusing to serve same-sex couples hoping to adopt children, but the organization would lose its state funding as a result.

While Enzi and Kelly's statements in introducing the bill don't directly connect the legislation with the recent executive orders regarding employment nondiscrimination against LGBT people signed by President Obama earlier this month, the timing of this bill's introduction is curious, given that the federal government just stepped up its refusal to contract with organizations that discriminate against LGBT people in their employment practices.

The Human Rights Campaign denounced the legislation in an email sent to supporters Thursday, saying if passed, the bill's consequences would be "immediate, random, broad, and disastrous." 

"It’s increasingly clear that, post-Hobby Lobby, some in positions of power believe that religious freedom should only belong to a few,"

Call your senators and tell them to vote AGAINST this bill!

Christofascists Continue to Demand Special Rights

This blog takes the position that Christofascists feel that their rights to engage in religious fanaticism should trump the rights of all others.  A corollary is that anything that restricts their ability to inflict their beliefs on others is nothing short of persecution.  A bank teller in Kentucky who was fired for her refusal to stop proselytizing to customers is a case in point.  My News 13 has details on her firing and claims of persecution: 

A Kentucky woman claims saying the phrase "Have a blessed day" to customers got her fired from her bank teller job.

The phrase didn't appear to be an issue at first. Customers would simply thank Neace when she first began saying it.

Neace received a code of ethics violation in March 2011, claiming that several customers complained about her using the phrase.

Neace claims customers never complained, though.  But U.S. Bank said Neace took it a step further, asking customers if they accepted Jesus as their savior — an act the bank believes is unacceptable.

Neace admitted she was reprimanded and was given multiple warnings, but she continued with the phrase.

"I felt very persecuted," Neace said.

She later filed a lawsuit against U.S. Bank, claiming she was "discriminated against for exercising her religious freedoms."

"I can't back down from this," Neace said. "It's the principle behind everything."

In a statement, U.S. Bank said: "At U.S. Bank, we hold our employees to high ethical standards when interacting with customers and co-workers and take violations of these standards seriously." 

Note the mindset: Neace doesn't give a damn about the right of customers NOT to be have her beliefs rubbed in their faces.  Like most Christofascists, Neace is self-centered and wants the unrestricted freedom to trample on the rights of others.

Pennsylvania Neighborhood Watch Member Shows the Danger of "Religious Belief" Exemptions

Republicans who are selling themselves to the Christofascists in the GOP base in a manner that would embarrass even the tawdriest of whores keep pressing for "religious exemptions" from both state non-discrimination laws  and federal laws such as the version of DOMA passed by the U.S. Senate.  As I have noted many times before, these efforts are symptomatic of the Christofascists' belief that they are above the laws that govern others.  If one want to see how ridiculous such exemptions might be, look no farther than William Walters, a former member of the Tacony Town Watch in Philadelphia, who is claiming that he was removed from the watch because of his “religious belief” in the superiority of the white race.  It needs to be also noted that Walters is the Grand Dragon of Ku Klux Klan-affiliated group East Coast Knights of the True Invisible Empire.  Walters epitomizes the type of individual who now comprises the GOP base.  Here are more highlights from The Raw Story:

A former member of the Tacony Town Watch in Philadelphia is claiming that he was removed from the watch because of his “religious belief” in the superiority of the white race.

William Walters, the Grand Dragon of Ku Klux Klan-affiliated group East Coast Knights of the True Invisible Empire, told Philadelphia that the organization is “a Christian group,” and on his Facebook page, he regularly argues that his racist beliefs are religious in origin:

STOP INTERRACIAL RELATIONSHIPS; The Mixing of the Races has been forbidden by God since the beginning of time. It is in the Bible, God told Moses to choose his wives from his own tribe (race) and to keep his tribe (race) pure. Interracial partnerships were banned in most states until 1955 and should be now!!! Since laws have evolved to the terrible state they are in today: it is up to those of us to keep our races pure and to teach our children and their children!!!

“My rights were infringed upon,” he said. “I can’t believe in what I want to? This has infringed on my First Amendment rights. It’s reverse discrimination.”

He also insisted that the Klan is no longer a hate group. 

Obviously, I hold Walters and those of his ilk in contempt - I can only imagine his views on gays.  But increasingly my contempt extends to Republicans who blindly continue to support the party (usually because of their aversion to paying taxes) and as a result enable individuals like Walters and Tony Perkins, et al.   Of course, the ultimate irony is that religious belief among adults is 100% a choice unlike race, national origin or sexual orientation.  If any category of non-discrimination laws deserves to have limitations placed on them it is those that protect religious belief.