In an age in which satire and news often overlap, it was hard to know what to make of this headline: "New York Atheists Claim Religious Exemption From Vaccine After Governor Claims That It's From God."
This was satire, care of the Babylon Bee website. But the barbed humor focused on real quotes from the governor of New York that raised eyebrows on the cultural left and right.
"We are not through this pandemic," said Gov. Kathy Hochul, at a New York City megachurch. "I prayed a lot to God during this time and you know what -- God did answer our prayers. He made the smartest men and women, the scientists, the doctors, the researchers -- he made them come up with a vaccine. That is from God to us and we must say, thank you, God. ...
"All of you, yes, I know you're vaccinated, you're the smart ones. But you know there's people out there who aren't listening to God. ... I need you to be my apostles. I need you to go out and talk about it and say, we owe this to each other. We love each other."
Clearly, the governor said, getting vaccinated was the best way to obey God in this crisis.
Writing at The Friendly Atheist website, Beth Stoneburner argued that this was not the kind of church-state sermonette that should trouble atheists and other secularists.
"Is it a speech that atheists will appreciate? Probably not," she noted. "But as far as a politician using the language of faith to reach an audience that desperately needs to get vaccinated -- but might not because other prominent Christians are feeding them lies -- it's arguably effective."
If this blast of God-talk from a Democrat "helps Christians get vaccinated when some of them might choose otherwise, then perhaps that outweighs any criticisms people may have of her speech," said Stoneburner.
At the same time, Hochul's explicitly Christian remarks on vaccines drew little or no news coverage, as opposed to the media firestorms that often greet faith-based statements by Republicans attempting to win the support of conservative Christians in similar settings.
