This is not even real… the State of New York sent a bill for $118,000 to three little Amish schools, one room schoolhouses out in Clymer, Heuvelton, and the Canajoharie settlement that do not take a single dollar of public money, because 59 of their children are not vaccinated. And that is just one day. By the state's own position in the Second Circuit case, every day an unvaccinated child walks into that schoolhouse is a fresh violation and a fresh $2,000 fine, per child. Dygert Road got billed $52,000 for 26 kids, Pleasant View $46,000 for 23, and Shady Lane $20,000 for 10. Run that out over a 180 day school year and you are looking at roughly $21 million owed by families who already said they cannot pay the first bill… and their own attorney, Aaron Siri, told the New York Post the only way they pay is if the state takes their land. Think about how we got here. These families had a religious exemption for decades. In June 2019 Albany repealed it, Andrew Cuomo signed it, and Kathy Hochul has left it sitting right there in force the entire time she has been governor. The fines came down in December 2022, the Second Circuit ruled against the families on June 30 of this year, and now Joseph Miller, Jonas Smucker, and Ezra Wengerd are asking the Supreme Court to let them live by the faith they have lived by their whole lives. Meanwhile these are the same people who spent years screaming my body, my choice… and yet when a quiet Amish father says he wants to decide what goes into his own child's body, Albany sends the collection notice. Where did that crowd go? Lara is right that money is the weapon here, because they cannot drag the Amish into court in handcuffs for praying, so they fine them until they sell the farm or leave the state, and some of those families are already talking about leaving. Ask yourself honestly… if they can do this to people who keep to themselves, farm their land, run their own schools, and ask nothing from the government, what exactly do you think they will do to you? I read those numbers and I had to read them twice. Informed consent is supposed to mean something, and religious liberty is the very first freedom in the Bill of Rights, not a favor the governor hands out when it suits her. Kathy, your sign says "Keeping New Yorkers Safe"… drop the fines, give these families their exemption back, and leave the Amish alone. But God.