These anti-vaxxers are becoming a bigger and bigger part of today’s Republican Party, and they aren’t only against inoculation and mask wearing; they’re also against any kind of COVID restrictions whatsoever and the existence of vaccine passports. Never mind that the only way to stop the virus is to get people vaccinated; Republicans seem not to have made this connection. Instead, they have started treating this group as a protected class—recently, they have started pushing bills that would protect against discrimination toward unvaccinated people. The irony, of course, is that a lot of these Republicans have no problem with discrimination on the basis of race or sex; many of them have argued that there is no need for an Equal Rights Amendment. Yet they want to protect their constituents from a safe, effective, free vaccine that could save their lives from a highly preventable disease.