Unfortunately, this happens way less often than it should–or perhaps to put it more clearly, there are far too many states with religious exemptions from the laws against child neglect, abuse, and even homicide. State-by-state rundown here.
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We need some forceful and memorable language that shifts the debate from religious and parental rights back to public health and the fact that anti-vaxers are endangering the rest of us.
Here’s my first pass:
Parents don’t have the right to turn their children into germ-warfare suicide bombers and send them into our schools and public places.
Repeat as needed:
germ-warfare suicide bombers
That should put them on the defensive.
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No, no, no, what Christie said was he agrees with whatever the fringe checking-writing entrenched crazy idea is and then he clarified by agreeing with whatever is expedient for a current crisis he can’t ignore. How come people can’t keep that straight?
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I don’t get the “let the religious do what they want” notion.
Because we’ve now entered the full-tilt boogie era of “religion trumps EVERYTHING.”
No, scratch that: MY religion trumps everything. And my religion can be whatever I want it to be. So long as “religion” is the litmus test by which anything can be assigned to, anything and everything can be exempted to these sh*theads.
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A. Fucking. M.
It’s such a knee jerk reaction to use “religion” to justify any stupid decision people want to make.
Agreed completely. It’s not enough to shame these stupid sh*teads; they are dangerous to the public health and need to be cut off from decent society.
I can give some of the backstory here. Historically, the great majority of state laws giving religious exemptions from state-mandated health-care procedures came about due to the once-extremely-powerful lobbying efforts of the Christian Science Church. That’s right, the nice, proper Christian Science Church, with their pretty-good newspaper which has provided it a cloak of respectability for a century, is directly responsible for most of the laws that let snake-handlers and doomsday cults kill their children without consequence.
Having been raised in that religion, I can tell you why the Christian Scientists felt so strongly about this. After all, why couldn’t they just go ahead and get their shots and continue to believe that if they don’t get sick it was because of their prayer, not the shots? It’s because Mary Baker Eddy taught them that you can’t mix medicine and prayer–that if you submit to the medicine, your prayer will be ineffective. I’m not sure where other faith-healing sects stand on this, and CS isn’t as powerful as it once was, but the Christian Scientists believed quite literally that using a medical procedure would render their religion ineffective. And that’s why they mounted a full-court press in the state legislatures to get these exemptions on the books. And the exemptions only ever get challenged in the wake of some high-profile, especially grotesque case of religion-based child neglect or abuse.
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You may need to amp up for the Tea Party reader and fight crazy with crazy.
Parents don’t have the right to let their unvaccinated children mingle recklessly with undocumented “tourists” and then unleash them as germ-warfare suicide bombers on our schools.
Ultra crazy version: These parents need to realize that there are terror cells out there searching for unvaccinated children to be used as surrogate germ-warfare suicide bombers to unleash on our schools! Vaccinate or the terrorists win!
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The price of opting out should be $1000 per year, as a fee to the health department to cover the cost of an outbreak.
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I have a religious belief that Cruz should be punched in the face and his children need to be spayed and neutered.
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Now the American Public finally gets to see how batshit insane the Tea-Bagger wing of the Greedy Oligarch Party really is.
He Teddy. I have a deeply held religious conviction that I should not have to pay taxes to support the Military. Do I have to?
Sorry, no. Unless they want to home school them. They don’t belong in schools where they place other children in jeopardy.
This guy does wonders for the Democratic cause.
Now there is a GOP war on religion.
If your “reason” for allowing an exemption is based solely on religious privilege, it isn’t reason at all. It is simply hiding behind religious privilege.
But I’m sure Cruz will be OK with waiving civil laws in the case of Muslims who prefer to conduct themselves according to their sincerely held religious beliefs.
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that a woman has actually slept with the Senator (2 times) and procreated is the most disturbing fact in this report.
Why is it that science can always be trumped by “religion”???
I thought we put this shit to rest during Galileo’s time?
First climate change deniers, now this crap…
Maybe your kids got autism because of all the fast food you ate while pregnant? It’s certainly not from MMR vaccinations.
Message to Elon Musk: Please get your Mars expedition ready by next year, and give free tickets to all those who would want to destroy this planet! They can have Mars for free. Really. Set up their own little utopia. Just leave the rest of us in peace.
Close! He PERSONALLY would stop on red lights and go on green lights, but he’d be in favor of EXEMPTIONS for those with legitimate, strongly held religious objections!
‘Sir, did you even see that red light?’
- Of course, officer, but my religious beliefs require that every time I’m out driving and see a red light in front of me, God commands that I gun the accelerator and plow right thru the intersection and cause as much mayhem to other motorists and preferably pedestrians as I can!
‘Oh, right then, the Ted Cruz Amendment. So, that’s fine, sir, here’s your license back, you’re free to go on about your business and have a nice day!’
$100 says Cruz could not cite a biblical passage that forbids vaccination.
I’ve got your fucking religious beliefs.