De Blasio’s double standard is becoming equal parts tedious and obscene. The same guy who will turn a blind eye to tens of thousands crammed together in protest blocks religious gathering and welds parks shut.
Not ALL parks, mind you. Just the Jewish ones.
So THIS is perfectly acceptable to the Mayor…
Thousands gathered in front of the Brooklyn Museum in NYC for a Black Trans Lives Matter rally and march. https://t.co/QjYg7wmQH1 pic.twitter.com/pwrTY1E4Qn
— ABC News (@ABC) June 14, 2020
But city kids playing in a playground needs to be forcibly stopped…
De Blasio ordered the gates to a Jewish park welded shut to enforce social distancing just a day after he approved a mass protest for Black Trans Lives Matter. pic.twitter.com/ZFG56VidQD
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) June 15, 2020
While leaving other parks conspicuously NOT welded shut. The Mayor ultimately lost that round when the bolt cutters came out…
Jews in NYC just cut the lock @NYCMayor put on their park 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/77431im2Ge
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) June 15, 2020
…with the blessing of a State Senator.
We’ve asked nicely and waited patiently. We’ve made every logical argument. The people have spoken and they’re running out of patience. If @nycmayor won’t open ALL our playgrounds @SEichenstein @KalmanYeger and I will cut the locks open ourselves.
— Senator Simcha Felder (@NYSenatorFelder) June 15, 2020
That is but one small vignette in the larger narrative. Time and again he has thrown up roadblocks for Christian and Jewish religious gatherings, bowing instead to He-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, the Great COVID.
COVID must take a particular interest in menacing religious gatherings. You may remember how De Blasio cracked down on a Jewish funeral. Or the time he threatened to close non-compliant churches and synagogues ‘permanently’. All in service of the Great COVID.
But houses of worship and parks are strangely different than enormous crowds rioting and protesting. The Mayor hasn’t the slightest interest in things like disease vectors. He has even gone so far as telling his Contact Tracers NOT to ask questions about protesting… ultimately making their already token make-work job literally worthless.
But Heaven help anyone who dares to open a Church or a Shul, in New York City.
And that was the basis of the discrimination suit.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Attorney General Letitia James, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio are using coronavirus restrictions as a “blatant double standard” to discriminate against people of faith, using threats of fines and criminal prosecution, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.
Two Catholic priests — Steven Soos and Nicholas Stamos — and a trio of Orthodox Jewish congregants — Elchanan Perr, Daniel Schonborn, and Mayer Mayerfeld — in Brooklyn, represented by the Thomas More Society, filed the suit in the Northern District of New York after mass protests and looting occurred in the Big Apple following George Floyd’s death.
“Why is a large worship gathering deemed more dangerous than a mass protest, full of shouting, arm-waving people in close proximity to one another?” Christopher Ferrara, Thomas More Society special counsel, said in a statement to Fox News.
“These orders, both the emergency stay-home and reopening plan declarations, clearly discriminate against houses of worship,” Ferrara added. “They are illegally content-based, elaborate, arbitrary and pseudo-scientific.”
…And recently, New York theaters, which are supposed to remain closed until “Phase Four” of Cuomo’s plan, have reportedly opened their doors to protesters for rest, wi-fi use, bathrooms, and water and snacks, with instructions to keep police out of the premises. De Blasio nor Cuomo have shut that down.
The Thomas More Society lists a number of specifications for “congregate worship” and “houses of worship” in the orders “specifically regulating religion — and only religion” a number of times.
“It is time to end New York’s experiment in absolute monarchy,” said Ferrara. “We are asking the court to put an end to these unconstitutional executive orders and grant a temporary restraining order against their prejudicial enforcement.”
On June 5, Cuomo announced he “relaxed” social distancing orders to “allow” religious gatherings at 25 percent of the capacity of houses of worship in some regions. — FoxNews
Some types of bigotry might be acceptable within Democrat social circles. But the Constitution is a much different story. Eventually, that bill comes due.
