Manditory Masks and Vaccine Mandates are now against Florida Law

With the passage of Florida Senate Bill 252, a permanent blow was dealt to what the bill's author described as “the heavy hand of the biomedical security state.”  

Under the plan approved by the House Health & Human Services Committee, businesses and governmental entities would be barred from denying services to people who refuse to wear masks or take COVID-19 tests. Businesses and agencies would be prohibited from firing or refusing to hire people based on “post infection recovery status or the person's failure to take a COVID-19 test,” and could face fines up to $5,000 for each violation of the measure.

The measure also would impose similar prohibitions on educational institutions, including provisions that would bar institutions from requiring COVID-19 tests or imposing mask requirements. Under the bill, educational institutions also could face $5,000 fines for violations.

Pinellas County Rep. Lindsay Cross, D-St. Petersburg, argued that the bill “goes way too far.”
“I think that we’ve gotten to a point where we use science only when it serves our own best interest and the point that we wish to make,” Cross said.

The summary of the bill reads :

CS/SB 252: Protection from Discrimination Based on Health Care Choices
GENERAL BILL by Fiscal Policy ; Burton ; (CO-INTRODUCERS) Perry

Protection from Discrimination Based on Health Care Choices; Prohibiting business entities and governmental entities from requiring a person to provide certain documentation or requiring a COVID-19 test to gain access to, entry upon, or service from such entities or as a condition of contracting, hiring, promotion, or continued employment; prohibiting business and governmental entities from refusing to hire persons, discharging persons, depriving or attempting to deprive persons of employment opportunities, adversely affecting persons with respect to employment, or otherwise discriminating against any person based on knowledge or belief of a person’s vaccination or COVID-19 postinfection recovery status or failure to take a COVID-19 test; requiring such entities to provide exemptions and reasonable accommodations for religious and medical reasons, etc.

Effective Date: Except as otherwise provided in this act, and except for this section, which shall take effect upon this act becoming a law, this act shall take effect June 1, 2023

You can read the full bill here :  https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/252/ByCategory