 So at this point in time, vaccines are not mandatory at the federal level. You know, there are some requirements at state levels. Private businesses might institute some requirements when it comes to vaccination status. But for the most part, it's a choice currently in the United States of America. So you would think that if Republicans actually cared about their base, they would be encouraging them to make the correct choice and to get vaccinated. But rather than doing that, rather than doing the sane and logical thing, they are playing into this anti-vax narrative and further making it seem as if people who are vaccine hesitant and anti-vax outright or actually the victims who are currently being victimized by a nonexistent government bogeyman that will be showing up to your doors, holding you down and vaccinating you. I mean, I'm being purposefully hyperbolic here, but I want you to see some of the bills that Republicans are introducing and passing around the country because the way that they are making it seem is as if discrimination against anti-vax individuals is comparable to people who have been discriminated against historically on the basis of race, gender and sexual orientation. They literally are trying to make anti-vax people a protected class in the United States. This is the state of American politics in 2021, folks. Yeah. So as Caitlyn Owens of Axios explains, state Republican lawmakers around the country are pushing bills, at least one of which has become law that would give unvaccinated people the same protections as those surrounding race, gender and religion. It's basically a parody. These bills would tie the hands of private businesses that want to protect their employees and customers, but they also show how deep into the political psyche, resistance to coronavirus vaccine requirements has become and how vaccination status has rapidly become a marker of identity. The states with restrictions on vaccine requirements tend to have lower vaccination rates than those without such laws. And cases are on the rise in several of them. Montana has made it illegal to, quote, discriminate on the basis of vaccine status with some exceptions within the health care sector. The law prohibits businesses, governmental entities and places of public accommodation like grocery stores, hotels or restaurants from refusing to serve or withholding goods from anyone based on their vaccination status or whether they have an immunity passport, employers aren't allowed to discriminate against or refuse to employ someone based on the same criteria. This is a civil rights statute. It absolutely is. Bagley said what this law is saying is that a restriction directed at the unvaccinated is prohibited in the same way as you'd be prohibited from putting up a sign saying no Irish admitted. Other state laws are generally more limited in scope, although there's a wide variance. Alabama law, for example, prevents schools and universities from requiring coronavirus vaccines, prohibits vaccination as a condition of receiving government services and bans businesses from refusing to serve someone based on their vaccination status. Now, more stringent laws like the one that we see in Montana are being introduced around the country. So this is very quickly becoming a thing because surprise, surprise, Republicans don't actually have any policies to offer their constituents. So what do they do? They just endlessly virtue signal and pander. They scream about cancel culture and critical race theory. They try to fabricate some sort of political issue. They try to come up with solutions to problems that don't exist because they don't actually offer anything that will improve the lives of their constituents in a concrete way. And now they are treating people who are not vaccinated, who are anti-vaxxers as if they're some marginalized community when, in fact, that's that's not the case. And David Pakman put it best on Twitter. It's still legal to discriminate against people based on sexual orientation and gender identity in 20 plus states, but suddenly Republicans want to protect anti-vaxxers in the same way race and religion are protected. What a country. Yeah, what a country indeed. Listen, I shouldn't have to explain this, but I'm going to explain it. We're going to play their game. And I'm going to tell you why it is not the same as being a black or a woman or gay to be an anti-vaxxer. I feel like this should be pretty self-evident for functioning adults. But I mean, in our country, you know, the Republican Party is fighting for the civil rights of anti-vaxxers, as opposed to people who are actually being discriminated against in practice. So, listen, discrimination in and of itself is not an inherently bad thing, right? It has negative connotations, but overall, discrimination is a value-neutral term. I discriminate against barbers who don't cut my hair well, right? I'm going to choose a barber based on their ability to cut my hair to my liking. I'm going to choose restaurants and discriminate against restaurants who don't make food to my liking. But the reason why, discrimination against marginalized communities, people who are black, who are women, who are transgender, who are historically disadvantaged, the reason why discrimination against them is immoral is because we're discriminating on the basis of immutable characteristics. Somebody doesn't choose to wake up in the morning and be a woman or choose to be black, but you do, however, choose to be a moron and not get vaccinated. That is a choice. So, for them to equate the struggle, the fight for civil rights for women and people of color and the LGBTQ plus community with anti-vaxxers is so deeply offensive and profoundly stupid that I don't even have the words to explain how disgusted I am with this. First and foremost, there is no issue here when it comes to discrimination against anti-vax people. Sure, I mean, in certain social circles, it might not necessarily be acceptable to be anti-vax. I mean, I think that it should be socially unacceptable to not get vaccinated. I think that we should pressure people in any way we possibly can to take a vaccine that is highly effective and safe to protect not only themselves, but people around them. But I mean, to suggest that these anti-vaxxers are like people of color what are we doing? What are we doing? Republicans know what they're doing. Republicans know that they're just playing to their base. They're throwing red meat to their base. They're trying to make it seem as if, you know, they're pro-freedom, pro-individual liberty, pro-civil rights. When in actuality, this party has been against civil rights at every step of the way throughout history. COVID-19 is a highly contagious deadly virus. So the government actually does, like it or not, have the authority to mandate certain things if your liberty infringes on other people's rights, right? Your liberty to swing your fist stops at my nose. You don't have the right to do that. Is it a restriction of freedom? Sure, you're technically losing freedom by not having the right legally to punch me in the face as much as you fuckheads might want to. But you can't legally do that. You can't, right? So if you are using your freedom in a way that is directly harmful to others during a global pandemic, then I think that the government has a right to mandate vaccines in many settings. Now, I'm not saying that we should knock on everyone's door and forcibly vaccinate them by holding them down. I think that the government should at the federal level and at the state level create incentives to want to make people do the right thing for their own good and the good of, you know, the public, right? I think that vaccine lotteries are a really great thing. That's a good incentive to make people make the right decision and to stop being stupid. I think that to suggest that, you know, private businesses should be allowed to ask for vaccination status if, you know, people who are vaccinated want to do normal things again. Like go to concerts and whatnot. I think that that's perfectly fine. And to even have this conversation to me is insufferable because this is not a real issue. And Republicans know this is not a real issue. So it's not like I'm trying to convince Republican lawmakers to stop being stupid. It's just that they're playing into the culture war. They're buying into the anti-vax hysteria and they're pandering to the worst within their base. And it's irresponsible. How many more people have to die before we realize collectively as a society that vaccines are important? And if we're not going to mandate them and forcibly vaccinate people, which nobody's advocating that, then we have to at least incentivize them. But states like Montana are saying, no, you can't do that because that's discrimination actually. It's like, you know, you're treating them as we treated historically marginalized groups. And that's bad. We don't want to, you know, repeat the same mistakes we made before, right? So let's learn and let's treat anti-vaxxers as if they are a protected class. But that's not the case. They're not marginalized. They are stupid and they're choosing to make reckless decisions that are a danger not just to themselves, but their peers. That's not the same when you're a woman or you're gay. Being gay isn't a danger to your peers. That's why these groups are not the same. The fact that I have to explain this, it makes me lose more faith in humanity. But I mean, look, Republicans will come up with anything if it means that they can distract from the serious issues that are actually really important, such as climate change. They don't want to talk about that. They don't want to talk about the healthcare crisis in America because our privatized healthcare system is exactly the way that they want it. They don't want to talk about the housing crisis because they think that housing should be commodified. They don't want to talk about money in politics because they benefit from legalized bribes. So they're going to continue to create these sort of issues that are completely not real issues because it gets people talking and their base loves it and it's an easy way for them to cultivate support. Meanwhile, what they're doing is harmful and I do think it's important that we call them out because this is just, it's wrong on so many levels.