Anthony_Hugo98 wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 5:03 pm
phuqueue wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 4:21 pm
flyingember wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 10:20 am
NYC saw the police union claim 10,000 cops would walk out over the vaccine mandate
The local court upheld the requirement
The initial number: 34
Supposedly that stat is
a little misleading, as 6500 cops still have pending applications for exemptions, so it remains to be seen how many might still walk out when their bullshit applications are inevitably rejected.
Most of them being submitted as religious exemptions, I’m interested to see if anyone has the gall to take up that fight, it’ll devolve into a 1st amendment constitutional fight for sure.
I imagine that the "religious" exemption requests are going to be rejected for anybody who can't show that they already belonged to an anti-vax sect. If you're just some Catholic cop from Long Island, you're going to have a hard time claiming religious exemption. The Supreme Court has been pretty amenable lately to supporting any right wing position that can be framed as "religious freedom," and you'll certainly never become poor betting on this Court to lean into the culture war, but that's still a real stretch (and in any case, the Supreme Court won't be the first to speak on this, they'll be the last, if they weigh in at all). Religious freedom in this country is expansive, but it is not and never has been absolute, and the lower courts that would hear these cases first will be bound to follow existing precedent, not whatever batshit reasoning Alito or Barrett or whoever would employ to reach their preordained determination when the case eventually came to them. I'm not surprised that dumbass cops think they can just wave "religion" around as a pretext, but courts have repeatedly sided against people who held
sincere beliefs in cases where the public interest in enforcing a law outweighed the individual interest in exercising the particular belief, so it's hard to see someone getting very far arguing from a position that is clearly bullshit.
earthling wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 5:15 pm
^There was a hospital in Arkansas that took an amusing approach for employees refusing vax that if your'e going to use the religious card based on stem cell research, then you are not allowed to take the couple dozen+ other common over counter drugs that came about due to stem cell research - most likely already do.
OTOH the White House is taking wrong approach with the 'mandate' terminology and could widely lose next mid-term and Pres spot due to approach. The White House should promote this as 'options', the option to take either vaccine or weekly testing. Not wise to use mandate term. If literally being required to shoot your body up with a drug with no options, that would imply the govt owns your body. But that' wasn't intent and easy to understand why the right and even indie moderates interpret it that way. The hardest pro-vaxrs would love to make it a true requirement with no options but Biden/WH are making a mistake not clearly making the optional distinction and are setting a path to lose the next two elections. And meanwhile based on WH 'mandate' term, many blue states/cities are making it a true mandate in some cases not understanding the Biden/WH intentions of 'options'. Generally, they are pushing it a bit too far with Fed employees, should be optional testing for existing Fed employees, required vax for newly hired is fine.
I think this is overthinking it. The Dems will be wiped out next year no matter what, the "mandate" doesn't really factor in. Their existing margins are too narrow, redistricting has introduced a new round of gerrymandering, the party in power usually loses seats anyway, etc, it was already set up to be a bloodbath either way. On the other hand, in 2024 they should be in decent shape if the pandemic is "over" (and depending on who the candidates are, whatever insane voting restrictions have been implemented, no new major catastrophes, etc) and they'll be annihilated if it isn't. Hard to imagine that having described the vax program as a "mandate" instead of an "option" in 2021 is still going to mean anything to anybody in 2024.