By Steve Pomper
According to a story at FOX News, “[Mass. State Trooper Union President Patrick] McNamara said that Gov. [Charlie] Baker ‘refused to listen or work with our Association,’ saying that his administration ‘trampled’ on the fired trooper’s religious conviction.” He also “called Gov. Baker’s executive order an ‘attack on organized labor and the rights of our members.’” So, it was time to defend his members’ rights against the commonwealth’s tyranny.
He was referring to six troopers and one sergeant fired in 2021 for refusing Gov. Charlie Baker’s Executive Order 595, which a judge just ruled violated the troopers’ rights and the union contract by failing to provide “reasonable accommodations to their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
NBC News 10 reported, “Massachusetts State Police must reinstate seven troopers who refused to be vaccinated for COVID-19, an independent arbitrator has ruled. The troopers, who had a religious exemption, have been on unpaid leave, but the arbitrator’s decision means they can return to work with retroactive pay if they choose” (a total of 12 members were suspended at that time).
News 10 also said, “The arbitrator concluded State Police violated a collective bargaining agreement in the way they handled the cases of eight troopers who cited religious grounds for refusing to take the vaccine.”
While religious convictions are crucial, should any trooper have been ordered to get “vaxxed” as a condition of remaining employed—regardless of the reason? Doesn’t that seem unreasonable at best and tyrannical at worst?
Reportedly, callous state officials “summarily dismissed” the troopers without reviewing their requests for religious accommodations. This action is political elitism (we know better than you what’s good for you) even when the science on the experimental “vaccine” is not settled. How do you justify mandating troopers inject this dubious substance into their bodies as a condition of retaining employment under what’s looking increasingly like false pretenses.
These wrongful sackings are a stain on the reputations of anyone who generated, instituted, or cooperated with such a blatant violation of the troopers’ rights.
In light of the abundance of apparently politically-motivated “misinformation” spread by the federal and some state and local governments, coercing people to get “vaxxed,” the new revelations about the evidently genuine dangers posed show that sticking to their principles has proven the troopers who resisted were not only principled and prescient but also prudent.
The Mass. State Police is not nearly the only law enforcement agency to have fired, suspended without pay, or had cops resign, due to draconian and, it’s becoming more evident every day, unnecessary injection mandates.
I know police employees who were forced out by mandates, including one single mom who moved her family from the west coast to the Midwest because she would not surrender her principles to the state. An American now, ironically, she is an immigrant from a country with a history of corrupt governments that the U.S. seems to be emulating.
Let me be clear (sorry, that sounds like a politician, doesn’t it?). For people, including cops, who choose to get vaccinated, have at it. No one’s business but yours. But there should be no question that Americans’ health decisions should be theirs, right?
It’s hard to believe some people want to live in a U.S. where a child can choose his or her “gender,” but an adult cannot decline an experimental “vaccine.” One that clearly doesn’t work as promised, as when Joe Biden said, “You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.”
America’s cops deserve better than how these state troopers were treated, and we celebrate their reinstatement (if they choose to go back). For those who don’t (they should still be compensated with back pay), hopefully some other jurisdictions committed to American liberty are now benefiting from their service to their communities.
