As is so often the case, I sat down to write my Friday column only to be confronted with too many interesting Colorado Politics stories to write on and so I will have to exercise some self-discipline (ed: finally…) and only talk about one story.

Just kidding… (ed: sigh)

The first story I want to talk about is the ongoing selective outrage of the modern GOP. A CoPo cover story noted that a bipartisan legislative committee had declined, along partisan lines, to request a formal audit of Gov. Jared Polis’s personal finances. It seems a letter was sent earlier this month by GOP State Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg asking that the Office of the State Auditor take a peek into Polis’s business ventures, just in case he was signing bills that impacted stocks he owns.

There are quite a few ironies in Sonnenberg’s request. Somehow, in the weeks before an election for governor, he innocently decided to send his letter? I’m quite sure he will assert that the timing had nothing to do with the election (and Polis’s apparent lead) and he only wanted to have the auditors take a peek, just to be sure. Polis has not, according to the story, placed his business interests into a trust (which he probably should have) and so any actions taken by our governor are apparently suspicious.

Right…

If there is a governor in the United States that the GOP ought to love, it is Polis. Given that the GOP is the party of big business, they should love the gov, who has shown remarkable business acumen and as a result is really, really rich. But, since Polis made that “choice” about his lifestyle (you know, being a loving husband and father), the GOP can’t be seen liking him in any way, even if he is a great businessman.

Also, I’m willing to take Sonnenberg’s letter more seriously if he can show me where he publicly condemned former President Donald Trump for refusing to put his alleged billions of dollars in a trust. Show me where, for example, he condemned Trump’s use of his own D.C. hotel to house foreign delegations that put money directly into Trump’s pocket, while he was dealing with policies directly impacting those countries. Show me any outrage at Trump for any of these far more massive financial decisions and I’ll take another look at a partisan pre-election letter. A quick internet search for “Sonnenberg condemns Trump” returns exactly zero matches.

But I’m not going to talk about that.

Instead, I’m going to talk about a different CoPo story, wherein the 10th Circuit Court is looking at a case brought against the CU medical school over that school’s vaccine mandate. It seems a dozen or more medical students – future doctors – don’t want to get the COVID vaccine because of their religious beliefs. A few staff members are also party to the suit. They argue that the mandate would force them to violate their religious convictions.

Now, I’m sure these students are sincere. But I don’t care. They are in, let me say it again, medical school. I’m not going to get into their bizarre reasoning. The vaccines do not contain any aborted fetal cells. Please read the article for all the details, but put most fundamentally, your religious views do not entitle you to be free from any repercussions of those beliefs, when belief turns to action.

I know that if I was hospitalized with, say, cancer, and my treatments had rendered me immune-compromised, I would not want to have to also constantly worry if the med student or staff member coming into my room might be a COVID spreader. Their “religious freedom” does not overrule my right to, I dunno, stay alive.

Way back in the early 1980s, when I was in my first Air Force assignment as an ICBM launch officer (the “finger-on-the-button” guys), I would head out on alert to one of the sites, knowing that it was unlikely, but yet possible, that I would be called upon to launch my missiles that day and would therefore be directly responsible for the deaths of millions. I took that responsibility very seriously.

But one of my squadron mates came to think about things differently. He made it all the way through missile school and onto active crew status but apparently then began to have qualms about the implications of our job. He ultimately decided he could not “turn keys” (the act of actually launching) and therefore was removed from not only ICBM duty, but from the Air Force entirely. He later became a Catholic priest, and I hope he has found his peace.

The point is, of course, that his decision that he couldn’t do the most vital part of his job did not mean that the Air Force needed to alter his duty to avoid offending his religious sensibilities. He had entered the Air Force freely, and when he could not do his duty, he left. He did not demand an exception to launching missiles as part of a religious exemption.

If you want to be a doctor, it seems quite reasonable to me that you yourself not be a disease vector. And these vaccines are only part of the vaccination program medical professionals (and us in the military – let me tell you sometime how much a typhoid shot hurts) sign up for. These wannabe doctors say their religious views must be respected. I disagree. If, say, they claimed that their religious views prevented them from treating people of a particular religion, would we be OK with that? How about if they said that as an ER doc, they would not treat a rape victim because she was dressed immodestly? The examples are endless.

Look, if you want to be a truck driver, you need to learn how to safely drive a truck. If you want to be an electrician, you need to learn which wiring plans help and which could hurt people or cause a fire. And if you are an ICBM launch officer, you need to be willing to launch the darn missiles.

As someone who has been under military medicine since 1980 (and still to this day, as a retiree), I don’t want to have to worry that my doc decided some key health rule isn’t for him or her. If these students and staff members truly feel their religious beliefs render them unable to be vaccinated, so be it. There are lots and lots of open jobs out there where they can be “free.” But if you want to swing the stethoscope, you need to be vaccinated.

It is not your choice to put others at serous risk so that you can feel religiously free.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.