New York Loses Religious Exemption to Vaccination
LIVES IMPACTED
BRAVE DEMOCRATS
LEGAL CHALLENGES
ADULT VACCINE MANDATES
June 14, 2019 — One day after the religious exemption to vaccination was repealed in New York there are various stories of how lives have been impacted. The worst for me was of a single mother who couldn’t sleep unless she had her two children cuddled in her arms. So many moms used the word “numb” to describe the impact this has had on them.
Superintendents in the NYC DOE had no clue this was happening, while Rockland County literally kicked unvaccinated students out of school immediately. Talk of moving to Pennsylvania – a state that has both religious & philosophical exemptions to vaccination – is common today throughout our community.
As New Yorkers we never had a chance to give public comments, and the Democratic Leadership in Albany had no intention of providing any democratic process. In just 8 hours they put this bill through committee votes, floor votes, and then gave it to the Governor where he immediately signed it in an extremely sneaky, undemocratic sham.
BRAVE DEMOCRATS
Although it was the fact that Albany is controlled by Democrats that led to this horrific outcome, there were some very brave Democrats who fought for our religious and health freedoms. Assemblyman Tom Abinanti voted NO on this bill in the Health Committee as well as on the floor vote. He debated Assemblyman Dinowitz, the bill’s sponsor, on the floor of the assembly and completely dominated. When referencing the recent measles outbreak in New York Abinanti firmly stated multiple times:
“We’ve seen no evidence that anyone with a religious exemption has endangered anyone else”
Dinowitz didn’t even try to refute this. He couldn’t. No evidence exists at all!
Abinanti also made the important point that in all the schools that were shutdown for having unvaccianted children in them, none of them had any cases of measles!
Two other brave Democrats included Charles Barron and Rodneyse Bichotte, who both voted NO in the Health Committee and NO on the floor vote. Assemblyman Barron – a former member of the Black Panther Party – pulled no punches when he made it very clear that vaccines can, and do, cause injury to some people. He said people will reference studies that say this is not possible, but “you can find a study that will say anything.” He said his evidence of vaccine injury comes from his own lived experience of meeting and talking to people with vaccine injured children.
Assemblywoman Bichotte opposed the bill and said she was vaccinated with the MMR vaccine as a child and got the measles TWICE AFTER THAT! Can someone say #VACCINEFAILUE ?!? Bichotte, who is Haitian American, went on to boldly remind everyone that people had spread misinformation in the 1980’s that HIV/AIDS came from Haiti and Haitians. She was cutoff before she could finish her statement, but it was clear she was drawing a parallel to the ridiculous claims being made about unvaccinated children today.
I will be reaching out to these three Dems to thank them, and to others as well as soon as time allows. It’s of interest that the Democratic Majority Leader of the Assembly – Crystal Peoples-Spokes – voted NO to this bill. Many Dems voted NO; so much so that the New York Times reported the following:
As the Assembly vote slowly came in, the speaker, Carl E. Heastie, was forced to come to the floor and count votes, calling recalcitrant members to coax the bill toward the 76-vote threshold needed for passage. Several prominent Democrats, including the chairman of the health committee, Richard N. Gottfried, bucked Assembly leadership and voted no. In the end, it narrowly passed, 77 to 53. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/13/nyregion/measles-vaccinations-new-york.html
Two other Democrats – Assemblymen Gottfried and Sayegh – voted YES on the bill in the Health Committee and then voted NO on the floor vote. Why did they do that? Because they were the critical YES votes that allowed the bill to leave committee and go to the floor of the assembly. Had they not done so, the bill would have been dead. However, they would have likely lost their positions on the Health Committee in 2020; and Gottfried would’ve likely lost his chairmanship of that committee. Politics is a dirty game.
Here is Rita Palma’s description of exactly how the vote went in the Health Committee:
Here is what Rita Palma had to say on the floor vote:
See how your Assemblymember voted below:
*Judy Griffin chickened out and voted YES. VOTE HER OUT
*Michael Benedetto lied to us many times and voted YES. Support his PRIMARY CHALLENGER
*Vivian Cook didn’t even show up. How full of nonsense is she?
*Robert Carroll lied to us and voted YES
*Nicole Malliotakis voted YES. Staten Island- know she did this to you and VOTE HER OUT
*Michael Cusick voted YES for repeal. Staten Island- VOTE HIM OUT
Please share this info.
To find out how everyone voted, go to this link: https://nyassembly.gov/leg/?default_fld=&leg_video=&bn=A02371&term=0&Summary=Y&Floor%26nbspVotes=Y
LEGAL CHALLENGES
This law is definitely going to be challenged in the courts. Precisely how remains to be seen. When California passed similar legislation in 2015 there were court cases brought against the state. Since CA’s constitution has extremely strong language when it comes to guaranteeing a child’s right to a free and fair education, the lawsuits focused on that angle and not religious freedom. Those lawsuits were ultimately unsuccessful. Also it is important to note that CA’s repeal was nowhere near as bad as New York’s. In CA there was a grandfather clause that allowed children who currently have religious exemptions to keep them, and there was a cutout for students with disabilities. New York’s repeal has nothing like that. I am no lawyer, but to me it seems like there should be a class action lawsuit brewing for parents of children with disabilities and religious exemptions. Only time will tell, but one thing I am certain of is that some of the best legal minds in the country are discussing this right now.
ADULT VACCINE MANDATES
Any adult who works in health care, day care, or in education needs to reach out to their unions immediately and let them know they do not consent to mandatory vaccination to maintain their jobs. This is coming for sure. Dinowitz has insinuated as much on the floor of the assembly. This is not over, and can get much worse than it already is. The goal of Big Pharma is to make life-long clients of each-and-every-one of us.
God bless everyone who has fought this battle up until this point. It is not over yet, not by a long shot. There is much more to come in the battle for health and religious freedoms in New York.
Fed Up Democrat 
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