The Vaccine Passport Debate in Utah

Protestors descended on the Bayou Restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City to demonstrate their displeasure of the idea of the government requiring vaccine passports to enter restaurants. The Bayou was closed at the time and while the Bayou is the only restaurant in Salt Lake requiring customers to show proof of vaccination to enter, of course the owner of the Bayou does not determine the law of the land.

Likely protestors knew this, but the popular user forum Reddit, used the protestors at the butt of their jokes, and it was a little strange that one restaurant would receive the ire of the anti-vaccers group. Such is the growing divide we are witnessing due to social media and the interplanetary, filter bubbles and echo chambers of displeasure that two groups have for each other, who will not actually speak or debate each other.

Utah Stories recognized this severity of this divide when we asked representatives of both sides to come onto our program to discuss vaccine passports and when the vaccine passport advocate learned who was to be our second guest, he said that he couldn’t come onto a program or platform that offers the other side or this particular person, a voice.

This story is indicative of the new media environment we find ourselves in. One side holds an extreme view, and those who don’t also hold or maintain that same extreme view, or wish to discuss this view, advocates for this view deem the heretic to be canceled.

Vaccine passports seem to be one of the most politically-charged issues currently in Utah (where currently 35% of Utahns are refusing to be vaccinated).

Is there any sort of compromise that will appease both sides? Or will this remain as the issue that separates those who want more government control in the interest of safety, as opposed to those who wish the government to remain out of determining who is permitted to enter private establishments.

We present both sides of the vaccine passport issue in Utah. Why are LDS Church members especially afraid to get vaccinated?

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See much more on this by visiting UtahStories.com