In mid-July, Colorado Governor Jared Polis imposed a mask mandate onto all businesses. The mandate forced businesses to require window shoppers and consumers to wear masks inside their private premises. This came after he claimed mask mandates were unenforceable, and that he also preferred to let local, smaller communities decide on mask mandates.
Exemptions for Specific Disabilities & Medical Conditions
In his mask mandate, the governor offered exemptions for people who have specific disabilities and medical conditions that prevent them from wearing a mask. Good intentions pave the road to hell, so goes the proverbial saying. In this vein, the governor’s good intentions unleashed disastrous unintended consequences by essentially legalizing discrimination against people who don’t or can’t wear masks, including people with disabilities.
When the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law in 1990, it was heralded as a new era of recognizing people with disabilities as a group of humans long ignored, mistreated, and otherwise left out of society. The ADA, while imperfect, allowed people with disabilities to sue federal and other government entities into providing equal access and/or accommodations to public services and property. It also prohibited forms of employment discrimination in private businesses, among other things.
Confusion Regarding Civil Rights, ADA, and Mask Mandates
The governor’s mask mandate triggered confusion regarding civil rights, the ADA, and the governor’s own mandate in the context of enforcement. Remember: before enacting his mask mandate, the governor admitted such mandates would be difficult to enforce. Recently, a Colorado Springs disabled veteran was the focus of news stories regarding discrimination against him for not wearing a mask at both a bank and a gym. Retired Senior Master SGT Israel del Toro suffered burns while in Afghanistan and is unable to wear a mask.
What the governor’s mask mandate also did was paint something of a scarlet letter onto people who do not wear masks, especially those who are exempt from the mandate. People with medical conditions must seek, acquire, and provide a doctor’s note to a business that they cannot wear a mask, in full compliance of the governor’s mask mandate.
But this also means a person exempt from the governor’s mandate has to reveal their medical conditions and disabilities to people who would ordinarily not require such information. Confusion about the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in relation to the ADA and the mask mandate further underscores the difficulties for businesses trying to enforce the mandate and also for people with disabilities exempt from the same mandate.
Political Social Engineering or Shaming
It appears the governor’s mask mandate was mainly done for political social engineering and shaming purposes, especially given that he had called people who did not or would not wear masks as, “selfish bastards!” Would he have called Sgt. Master del Toro “a selfish bastard!”? I don’t think so. But the governor’s hyperbolic words and mandate likely caused further confusion for both people with disabilities and also businesses.
In essence, the governor has left unanswered the question of what law businesses are expected to follow. The ADA? The governor’s mask mandate? For Sgt. Master del Toro, at least he received an apology after much public fanfare and exposure. But others may not be so fortunate to receive acknowledgement of their own exemption of the mask mandate or even the ADA’s requirements for accommodations.
I am deaf and exempt from the governor’s mask mandate. The grocery store near where I live in Manitou Springs is aware of my exemption as are a few other businesses because I made it a point to educate them about the exemptions. In nearby Colorado Springs, however, two businesses refused my presence for not wearing a mask. I simply went elsewhere. Ironically, a month after the first time I was denied service at one restaurant for not wearing a mask, I went back and nobody said anything about not wearing a mask.
But I should make a distinction: I’ve long made it known I am deaf and to tell someone such information is not difficult for me, but for others, it may not be so easy to do. A person with a medical condition and exemption from the mask mandate may have more difficulty acquiring documentation revealing the medical condition and/or disability, to say nothing of providing that extremely personal information to, as one example, a young host in a restaurant.
Colorado Mask Project
Meanwhile, the governor’s Colorado Mask Project, a cute little political marketing campaign to get people to wear masks, says nothing or little about people with exemptions to his mask mandate. Nothing about how businesses can handle the exemptions, too. There’s political posturing about Black Lives Matter, and a few generic links about masks, but not much else. Some studies have shown that not all masks are equal nor do they all work equally; at least one study suggests surgical masks with ear loops may not be very effective.
As fear and loathing remain a central theme of Governor Polis’ approach to the pandemic, he may have inadvertently harmed one of the most vulnerable groups in Colorado with his edicts of economic destruction and manipulative mask mandates: people with disabilities. And businesses today may be far more terrified of someone contacting a public health department complaining of a person without a mask inside their business than being accused of discrimination by a person with a disability.
Many businesses are already openly defying the governor’s mask mandate and its exemptions, which leaves both people with disabilities and business owners doing the dirty work of a governor who seems more interested in shaming people into obedience than helping people in Colorado cope with the ongoing pandemic.
Excellent! It is exactly what you said. I got chased down by a PPLD enforcer (er librarian) for not having it on correctly though it was fine. It has given people a license to harass and be on power trips. Disgusting.
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The ADA mask exemption cards have been available for quite some time now. They inform others of the mask exemptions they have https://maskexemption.cards/product/mask-exemption-card-lanyard/
There is no ‘thinking’ in this ‘free thinking’ publication.
Can you elaborate?
The article seems to leave out that Polis can not write law because this is the legislatures job and that Marbury v Madison says laws repugnant to the US Constitution are factually void, unenforceable. Then from a religious perspective Polis can not write laws that regulate religious beliefs which is protected by the Civil Rights Act and the remedy for violations is a Title 42 Section 1983 Law Suit not failing to mention Polis is in violation of Title 18 Section 242 Deprivation of RIGHTS Under Color Of Law which is a FEDERAL CRIME therefore Polis is factually a criminal at large. It is advisable to know your RIGHTS as I do and that is how I have had several employees at local businesses terminated for attempting to violate my RIGHTS and to this day never worn a mask. This Polis mask authoritarianism was addressed at Nuremburg as a war crime and were going to address it again as such on Polis very soon.
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Stop it. Wear your mask.
It is an understatement to say that “Queen” Jared Polis Schutz has made a clusterf*** out of all of this. But he did so because his political masters told him to do so. He should be impeached and jailed for his incompetent and corruption.
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On July 26th, which is my birthday, I entered the King Soopers on leetsdale and monaco to buy myself a birthday dinner to make. a few months before that I had suffered a bilateral pulmonary embolism and partial collapse in both lungs. Sometimes I wear a mask when I can, but a lot of times I can’t breathe properly in it so I don’t wear them.
I usually only go to the King Soopers and Highlands ranch and there’s never been anybody who said anything to me about not wearing a mask inside the grocery store because you can keep the 6 ft of distance so the mask isn’t actually necessary unless you get close to someone.
I had my arms full of groceries and decided that I needed to get a basket from the front to put my food in. when I got up there a lady by the self check started yelling at me that I had to wear a mask or get out. I basically ignored her because I knew that they don’t actually force you to wear a mask in the grocery store and that they generally wouldn’t kick you out for it.
I finished my grocery shopping and went to the self check. The woman spotted me walking to the self check and she told someone else that worked there not to let me pay. By the time that she had got around to telling them to cut me off, I had already scanned all my groceries and was paying. Keep in mind that at no point did they ever tell me to leave or ask me to stop doing what I was doing, she just told the cashier to cut me off.
So the machine took my money and would not give me the receipt or finish the transaction. I told the womanif she didn’t want me to stop there that was fine but they had to give me my money back or at least give me my change and receipt and let me take my groceries.
She refused to do anything and she walked away leaving me standing there unable to get my groceries or my change. I had to scream and yell and make a scene for 15 minutes before someone actually came and gave me my change.I was yelling at the top of my lungs and I had paid for my stuff and that they were stealing my change from me after refusing to me service because I didn’t have a mask on because I’m dying! I have never in my life been so horribly discriminated against and on my birthday! in the end I didn’t even get my birthday cake because I left it in the checkout, but I did get my change.
It was probably the worst experience I’ve ever had in a business and I’ve only been in a grocery store one time since it’s happened because I just don’t want to go back and King Soopers ever again.
Latest study from Stanford and Ucla. Chances of dying from Covid 19 ages 50 to 65 is 1 in 19.1 million. Numbers from CDC confirmed that 6% died from covid while 94% died from previous health issues.
While suicide, addiction and abuse is on the rise.
It is time to push back and hold these ppl personally responsible for committing crimes against humanity.
Absolutely!
I agree with most of your well-written article, and applaud your willingness to speak truth into the body of lies surrounding this scamdemic. I only would disagree that there is, by the CDC’s own website counts of the deceased solely from covid, a pandemic any more than – Influenza A or B – and in fact is lagging in the death toll comparatively. While over 200K have died with covid – not from it – they were in the throes of death with comorbities such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity and its complications, etc. – only about 15K have actually died from it.
The following article charts 12 countries or states and shows from their own CDC’s how mask wearing may be contributing greatly to the spread of the virus by weakening the wearers’ immune systems. Very informative.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/29/these-12-graphs-show-mask-mandates-do-nothing-to-stop-covid/?fbclid=IwAR1vyQiJl5Xk6c96TVaqE-AUPLnswkq-02FRHQI8o4LM8iEu5b0YjKSUwTE
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This is makes perfect sense. Why would Colorado, and other sates for that matter, mandate something without providing rules for that mandate? I mean if you’re going to make an “order” shouldn’t there be specific instructions on how to follow that order or who is exempt, such as those disabled and can’t wear a mask? Who will hold these laws accountable?
[…] September 2020, I wrote an article about mask mandates and blatant, legalized discrimination against people with disabilities and […]