NY Governor slammed for saying vaccines are ‘from God,’ asking for ‘apostles’
Maria Wheeler
|
Governor Kathy Hochul came under fire for a “sermon” she made to a Brooklyn church on Sunday where she begged the congregation to be her apostles in promoting the vaccine that came “from God.”
“We are not through this pandemic. I wished we were, but 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. Thank you,'” she said from the pulpit.
“I know you’re vaccinated. You’re the smart ones,” she assures the congregation. “But you know there are people out there who aren’t listening to God and what God wants.”
“You know who they are,” she said, referring to the unvaccinated. 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.”
Hochul showed the congregation a necklace she wears that indicates that she’s vaccinated. “We have to solve this, my friends. I need every one of you.”
“Jesus taught us to love one another and how do you show that love but to care about each other enough to say, ‘Please get the vaccine because I love you and I want you to live? I want our kids to be safe when they’re in schools? I want to be safe when you go to a doctor’s office or to a hospital and are treated by somebody?’ You don’t want to get the virus from them. You’re already sick or you wouldn’t be there,” Hochul continued.
“The same government officials who closed our houses of worship early in the pandemic now appeal to religion to push their vaccine decrees,” one person tweeted.
“I don’t normally comment on stuff like this but man if a conservative governor did this at a church we’d have a hundred think pieces, special podcast episodes, and every pastor would be told to rewrite his Sunday sermon,” tweeted Daniel Darling.
“Are there people in New York who take religious advice from this woman? Because she sounds like a lunatic,” said Emerald Robinson on Twitter.
“False prophet @GovKathyHochul tells congregation “I need you to be MY apostles.” Cult much?” tweeted someone else.
“‘Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves,'” Janice Dean tweeted.
“I used to worry about going to Hell, but God is so busy with politicians that I think I’ll sneak by,” another person quipped.
Hochul assumed office in August following the resignation of Andrew Cuomo amid his sexual harassment scandal. She has been a vocal opponent of religious exemptions for the Covid vaccine.
“I’m not aware of a sanctioned religious exemption from any organized religion,” she said during a press conference. “In fact, they are encouraging the opposite. Everybody from the pope on down is encouraging people to get vaccinated.”
The CDC assures all Americans, not just healthcare workers, that COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective at decreasing serious illness and death from COVID-19, and recommends you get a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as one is available to you.