Kentucky libertarian party compares vaccine passports to Holocaust badges

The Libertarian Party of Kentucky drew widespread condemnation from political officials, Jewish groups and others after comparing proposed “vaccine passports” to the yellow stars Jewish people were mandated to wear during the Holocaust. 

“Are the vaccine passports going to be yellow, shaped like a star, and sewn on our clothes?” the party tweeted on Monday.

Are the vaccine passports going to be yellow, shaped like a star, and sewn on our clothes?

— Libertarian Party of Kentucky (@lpky) March 29, 2021

Vaccine passports, like the ones launched in New York, are a digital document with a QR code placed on a cell phone that shows proof of inoculation. 

The vaccine passport could allow businesses and local governments to mandate that people show they have received a coronavirus vaccine to gain access to certain activities, buildings or events.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) called the state Libertarian Party’s comparison “shameful.” 

“There is no place for anti-Semitism in Kentucky,” Beshear added. 

Comparing vaccines to the Holocaust is shameful. This group should stop politicizing the pandemic and apologize – there is no place for anti-Semitism in Kentucky. ^ABhttps://t.co/WS7JdaD4lS

— Governor Andy Beshear (@GovAndyBeshear) March 30, 2021

The Kentucky Democratic Party said the comments were “unconscionable and unacceptable,” accusing the Libertarian Party of being “extremely hurtful to Kentucky’s Jewish community” and trying “to reverse needed progress in our combined fight against COVID-19.”

The comments from the Libertarian Party of Kentucky comparing the Covid-19 vaccine to the Holocaust is unconscionable and unacceptable. Using the Holocaust as the punchline to make a political statement only serves two purposes: to be extremely hurtful to Kentucky’s…

(1/2) https://t.co/bLtOQH2cDi

— Kentucky Democrats (@KyDems) March 30, 2021

Mike Lonergan, the communications director of the Republican Party of Kentucky, on Tuesday said that the state GOP “will always condemn this kind of hateful and extreme rhetoric.”

Good thing we beat @DeanSchamore & most of the other @KYDems last year. Furthermore, we’re grateful to President Trump and his admin. for Operation Warp Speed which resulted in the fastest creation of a vaccine in modern history. (2/2) https://t.co/eWQd24qdkD

— Mike Lonergan (@mikelonergan85) March 30, 2021

The tweet also drew criticism from Jewish organizations. Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, shared an image of the tweet on Tuesday, calling it “an ignorant and shameful comparison.”

“The Holocaust was one of the darkest periods in our history with millions of lives lost, not a word to get thrown around to fit a narrative,” he shared.

This is an ignorant and shameful comparison.
The Holocaust was one of the darkest periods in our history with millions of lives lost, not a word to get thrown around to fit a narrative.

The @lpky needs to take down this tweet and apologize for this horrible lapse of judgement. pic.twitter.com/6NCa2QKmFE

— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) March 30, 2021

Some Jewish people in areas of Europe were forced to wear the yellow Star of David badge under Nazi Germany in the early twentieth century, just years before World War II. 

The Libertarian Party of Kentucky on Tuesday claimed that their earlier message started “a conversation that needed to be had.” The party called the tweet “insensitive,” noting that Jewish people around the world are celebrating Passover, but denied that the message was anti-Semitic.

The other day we wrote a tweet that went viral and got a lot of attention. Over the past 48 hours, our party has been smeared as antisemitic.

Was it the most polished tweet? No. We even got the comparison backwards. It did however start a conversation that needed to be had. 1/5

— Libertarian Party of Kentucky (@lpky) March 31, 2021

This is a fight worth having.

Our tweet the other day, while it may have been insensitive especially, considering the timing of passover, was in no way antisemitic.

We fight hard against this because the holocaust was evil and we want to prevent atrocities like it. 3/5

— Libertarian Party of Kentucky (@lpky) March 31, 2021

Republicans across the country have also slammed the use of vaccine passports. 

Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Monday called the use of such medical documents “Biden’s mark of the beast,” after claiming that the Biden administration was seeking to require that all Americans who are vaccinated must be documented. 

However, White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesday pushed back against similar claims, stating that the Biden administration would not require the American public to be vaccinated, nor would it require people to document their vaccinations. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday vowed to take executive action against vaccine passports. 

“We always said we wanted to provide it for all but mandate it for none,” DeSantis said in Tallahassee at the time. “And that was something that, while it was advised to take particularly if you’re vulnerable, we were not going to force you to do it.”