Free
speech is enshrined in the First Amendment of the United States
Constitution as well as Article I, Section 8 of the New York State
Constitution. US Citizens have exercised this right from the Boston Tea
Party to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and from the Anti-Nazi Boycott of
German goods in 1933 to the Boycott of Apartheid South Africa in the
1980s.
Since
2016 however, 28 states have passed anti-boycott laws, affecting
everyone from substitute teachers to construction workers. In these
states there are anti-boycott statements that must be signed by
engineers, writers, journalists, students and even storm victims
applying for disaster relief. It's the new McCarthy Era, but this time
it is the Israel Lobby taking away our free speech rights.
I urge my mid Hudson Valley state representatives, both in the Senate and in the Assembly, to protect all New Yorker's First Amendment right to boycott.