Here, on the Friday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day, there have been important new developments in a New York bill (Assembly Bill A2125), that seeks to end religious exemptions from college and employer vaccine mandates by partially repealing religious rights guaranteed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As usual with the most repressive public health bills in Albany, A2125 was introduced by Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz, the drug industry's most loyal toady in the Assembly, but on Monday an identical bill (S8113) was finally introduced in the Senate by State Senator James Skoufis (Orange County-D). The NY Constitution requires identical bills in both houses for bills to move forward to passage. No other state has eliminated religious exemptions for both college and employment.
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his inspiring "I Have a Dream" speech during the March on Washington in 1963 specifically to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in the United States on the basis of "race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 gives people with religious beliefs, including beliefs contrary to some or all aspects of vaccination, a right to a "reasonable accommodation" by employers, which is exactly what Dinowitz & Skoufis seeks to eliminate. How a state law will supersede a federal law is something we will leave up to Dinowitz and Skoufis to explain.
Take Action
Please use the panel to the right to send a message to your Assemblymember and State Senator letting them know you oppose this bill.
Please call your Assemblymember and State Senator and ask him or her if they support Dinowitz's A2125 and Skoufis’s S8113.
Remind them that this would require a partial repeal Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the right to a religious exemption for employment or to attend college.
You can look up their contact information here:
https://nyassembly.gov/mem/search/
https://www.nysenate.gov/find-my-senator
Skoufis is growing his stature as a pharma shill, he also has S2276 requiring all children at sleep-away camps to be fully compliant with the vaccine schedule for schools, S3373 which would require all medical exemptions for vaccine mandates to be recorded in a state database, and S6603 that would require insurance coverage for all direct and indirect costs of vaccines.
Dinowitz knows nothing about vaccines or vaccine policy and he has contempt for religious beliefs different from his own. In a video still on the New York Assembly website Dinowitz's calls religious beliefs that conflict with vaccination policy "utter garbage." You can see a video of Dinowitz making this statement on his Facebook page at 3:15 https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=441644779709395
Talking Points
The right to a religious exemption is protected by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and Title Seven of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A state law cannot supersede these fundamentals.
No other state has eliminated religious exemptions for both college and employment.
What problem does this bill claim to solve? In his memo in support of the A2125 Dinowitz wrote, “Now more than ever vaccine requirements, particularly those that combat COVID (but also other diseases), must be as robust as possible in all stings for our safety and the public health. But the CDC acknowledges that the COVID shot does not stop transmission of infection with COVID.
People are voting with their choices: the vast majority of Americans are no longer getting COVID shots for themselves or their children.
Why this ongoing hostility to the very small number of people who would use religious exemptions? Prior to the 2019 repeal of religious exemptions in schools in NY only .2% (1 in 500) students had them. Students with religious exemptions were less than 1/20 of the students enrolled in school who were not compliant with the required schedule. This measure is clearly motivated more by animus to people of faith rather than genuine concern for public health.
For Democrat legislators: One of the most passionately held values of the Democratic party Is “My body, my choice.” Yet with this bill the right to medical decisions for every employed person in New York would be given to employers! As we saw during the COVID hysteria employers & colleges were paid to require their employees and students to get the shot.
Will employers & colleges be allowed by law to sell their employees’ and students’ bodies to the highest bidder?
Will employees & students have to divulge their medical status upon demand by the employer or administrators?
Where would this new power for employers end?
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