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We believe Utah must be better than this. Even so, we condemn the use of antisemitic and other hate-filled slurs or symbols, which are causing deep pain and offense, intentional or not. Freedom of expression and the right to assemble are core American values which we cherish. To be sure, we respect and defend the right to protest. By brandishing distrust or outright disdain of research and science, they ridicule history.
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Such offensive analogies by opportunists and fringe groups are an act of moral outrage. Policies designed to save lives do not equate with policies devised to mete out death. Tying the Holocaust to anti-vaccine and anti-mask protests is as shocking as it is inaccurate and offensive. Encouraging vaccinations does not compare to schemes hastening the mass murder of millions of innocent people. Protecting public health should never be equated to the horrors committed by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. Denying, minimizing or trivializing of the Holocaust is at worst an expression of antisemitism and at best a display of the ignorance of the protester invoking the comparison. The genocide committed by the Nazis resulting in the destruction of two-thirds of European Jewry and one-third of the global Jewish population is not a subject for glib comparisons or politicization. Using a swastika or yellow star as a cheap symbol of protest against the vaccine or mask requirements is odious. Jews who refused to comply were subject to being shot on the spot. Jews in Nazi-Germany were forced to wear yellow stars visibly on their clothing so they could be identified as Jews in the aftermath of the violent pogrom Kristallnacht on Nov. We have also watched with alarm as protesters have affixed a yellow Star of David to their clothing to protest public health requirements. One of the most disgraceful and misplaced of the myriad comparisons used to decry the public health measures are Holocaust analogies and Nazi symbols.Įarlier this month, a group of protesters outside the Governor’s Mansion displayed enormous banners with swastikas formed out of the image of syringes - equating vaccination with Nazism.Ĭomparing the two makes a mockery of the scale and scope of the Holocaust and the systematic murder by the Nazis of 6 million Jews, including 1.5 million children and millions of other innocents.Įxtremists have invoked new conspiracies by using old tropes to blame Jews for the pandemic or profiting from it. Rules regarding the use of face coverings and promotion of vaccines may have created an inconvenient imposition, yet were met with vitriol directed at ethnic and religious groups and also the leaders of the public health response. Unfortunately, some used the coronavirus as a convenient catalyst to focus bigotry on Asians and others. The right to protest is a fundamental American right. Protests began early and spread nearly in sync with the pandemic. Yet, in the face of this enormous challenge, some have abandoned reason in favor of hate-fueled actions. Like the rest of the nation, Utah is working hard to keep the Beehive State safe from COVID-19.