A California state senate committee has passed a bill to deprive anti-vaxxers the FREEDOM! to claim their sincerely held personal beliefs trump the rights of their fellow citizens to not catch the measles. As it currently stands, SB 277 does not include an exemption for religious beliefs, which is only fair when you consider how few churches include an exemption for smallpox-carrying parishioners. The bill's co-sponsor, state Sen. Richard Pan, is a board-certified doctor, so of course he's spouting the pro-vaccine lies that Big Pharma wants you to hear.

"I've personally witnessed the suffering caused by vaccine-preventable diseases, and all children deserve to be safe at school," said Pan, who is also a pediatrician.

"The personal belief exemption is now putting other school children and people in our community in danger."

As of press time, it was unclear whether Sen. Pan was aware of how vaccines make kids "suffer retardation," or if the purported "doctor" had ever even heard of vaccinosis at all.

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Here's one of the protesters at a rally this week explaining her TOTALLY rational fears about vaccines, per NPR.

"I think that everybody should be able to make their own choice. I am afraid that [my daughter's] big, like, beautiful blue eyes will, like, not focus on me anymore, and, um, she won't be the kid that she is."

A perfectly reasonable, baseless fear, and one that is her right to hold as an American! Luckily, Republicans and Democrats are coming together to defend anti-vaxxers' rights to unilaterally nullify any laws they don't like, because Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs. Here's one of the Republicans who voted against the bill in committee, displaying the lack of self-awareness common to his tribe.

Detractors of the bill, including Republican senator Jim Nielsen who voted against it on Wednesday, said it tramples on a parent's rights, the [Sacramento] Bee reported.

"I have very profound feelings about parental rights and responsibilities and great dismay in American society over the decades how much that parental right, that parental responsibility has diminished," Nielsen said, according to the newspaper.

Yr Wonket presumes that some pro-vaxxers out there would agree with Sen. Nielsen's assessment about some parents shirking their responsibilities. Thankfully, he assures us that the free market will efficiently allocate communicable diseases only to those children dumb enough to be born to the truly stupid, so no need for government intervention.

Reaching across the derp aisle to link arms with Sen. Nielsen is none other than Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., son of Bobby Kennedy and husband of Cheryl from "Curb Your Enthusiasm," who went from zero to Hitler faster than a chemtrail-spewing 747, showing off the Do-As-I-Say-Not-As-I-Vaccinate hypocrisy that keeps food on the tables of Boston Herald opinion columnists.

"They get the shot, that night they have a fever of a hundred and three, they go to sleep, and three months later their brain is gone," Kennedy said. "This is a holocaust, what this is doing to our country."

At a rally ahead of Wednesday's legislative hearing, Kennedy said he had all six of his children vaccinated, but he remains concerned the pharmaceutical industry profits immensely when governments make vaccines mandatory.

Hey, you know who else's people suffered after a patriarchal figure forged an unholy alliance between government and private industry? You're absolutely right, the Kennedys have seen a lot of tragedy since Joe Kennedy, Sr. left Wall Street to head up the SEC.

Your move, "science."

[Reuters / NPR / Sacramento Bee]

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