I think it's relatively important to recognize both the right of (the people who make up) a society to decide the rules for interacting in society, and the limits we have imposed on ourselves and the rules we make.
We have made up a huge number of arbitrary rules, some at a very broad scale (for instance, that you must shoes and shirts to go into most businesses), others idiosyncratic and basically between one person and another (no cats in this apartment). They all restrict our choices and our freedom and our actions.
We have also set specific limits on what sort of rules we can make up. You can say "no cats" in an apartment, fine, but you can't say "no pregnant women". You can fire someone for showing up at work one day with a face tattoo but not for changing their religion.
"Not wanting to get a vaccine" or "not wanting to wear a face mask" is not currently a recognized protected class (although not being able to because of a medical condition probably is, but hey, of the many many things I am not, I am not a lawyer). There's nothing saying it couldn't be -- we didn't used to have a concept of "protected class", we just had to make it up at some point -- but that's one way to frame this discussion.
We have made up a huge number of arbitrary rules, some at a very broad scale (for instance, that you must shoes and shirts to go into most businesses), others idiosyncratic and basically between one person and another (no cats in this apartment). They all restrict our choices and our freedom and our actions.
We have also set specific limits on what sort of rules we can make up. You can say "no cats" in an apartment, fine, but you can't say "no pregnant women". You can fire someone for showing up at work one day with a face tattoo but not for changing their religion.
"Not wanting to get a vaccine" or "not wanting to wear a face mask" is not currently a recognized protected class (although not being able to because of a medical condition probably is, but hey, of the many many things I am not, I am not a lawyer). There's nothing saying it couldn't be -- we didn't used to have a concept of "protected class", we just had to make it up at some point -- but that's one way to frame this discussion.
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