Tuesday, September 21, 2021
Theaters clap back at NYC audience-vax mandate in new lawsuit
Reuters: A group of small-venue theater and comedy club operators in Manhattan have sued to block enforcement of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s week-old “Key to NYC” proof-of-vaccination order, claiming it unfairly and arbitrarily discriminates against them based on the content of speech and the type of the speaker.
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This case is really confusing to me because it has multiple layers of why schools and churches might be exempt from the Key to NYC mandate. In an ideal world, school and churches are not for profit institutions, so they wouldn’t have the resources to check vaccination cards at their venues. Especially for churches, we know this isn’t necessarily true. Schools and community theaters are community resources, but because they are given government aide, they should be given aid for this area as well. I think that NYC theaters are arguing for the wrong case, because the vaccine card mandate is not based on their type of performance, it seems more based on the venue and it’s resources. It also has the added layer of services not requiring vaccination cards. Many people have claimed a religious exemption from vaccination, making it legally dicey to require those people to be vaccinated to participate in services. The churches likely won’t face any change in their vaccine mandate, but schools and community theaters are up in the air for me. I honestly don’t know how this will shake out.
For New York State being my home state, I knew about the Key to NYC plan going into effect and having an exemption for religious services and schools to be exempt but I never thought how it affects religious services that are held at places other than places of worship. My hometown community theatre would have run into this problem as well as they hold a church service as well as live performances. I think this whole situation gets very dicey rather quickly because of dealing with the fact that many people who are unvaccinated are that way because of religious claims. I'm not sure where I stand on either side of this debate because I can see both sides of the coin. I'm very interested to see how this shakes out because, as the article states, it is very contradicting for a theatre to offer a religious service in the morning where people don't have to be vaccinated or even show proof but then have a performance or two in the evening where everyone does have to show proof.
Huh, well that's a tricky one. Personally, I know where I stand on the issue - I don't exactly think that religious exemptions should come ahead of public safety. While I may be somewhat ignorant on what specific religious exemptions may exist that have merit within a faith, I also understand that there is great potential for misuse in that clause.
Working with the law as written though, I find this incredibly tricky. It's awfully contradictory to require vaccination proof for certain events and not for others. Not to mention, employee safety concerns are something I didn't even think about. The harassment that employees experienced while enforcing vaccine mandates is certainly an issue, and fearing for your own wellbeing for keeping policy isn't something you should have to experience in a workplace. Knowing all of this, I think venues of a certain size should have the right to enforce their own policy, though I strongly disagree with lax covid measures.
Slightly controversial opinion: don’t give anyone an exception based on the content of the performance. Putting on a mask doesn’t stop religious speech from happening and it certainly doesn’t stop education from happening, I’m wearing one in class everyday at this institution and I am proud of it! Performing art is for our communities, and we should want to protect our communities from a virus that threatens us all. So in the case of this lawsuit, I understand why the venues are angry. It makes me upset as well that our industry and its professionals are so heavily regulated and scrutinized when schools and religious services can get away with much more because they’re deemed “more important”. But suing to strike down the vaccine mandate of a metropolis of more than 8 million people? The goal of this lawsuit is the opposite of what we need as an industry, and it’s frankly dangerous and irresponsible. American law is built on precedent, and if the venues win this suit, we might not be able to have a vaccine mandate in this country for our services ever.
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