Opinion: Don’t dance on graves of anti-vaxxers who die of COVID-19

In late November, Marcus Lamb, a prominent Christian broadcaster who had publicly scorned COVID-19 vaccinations, died of complications from the coronavirus.

As the president and founder of Daystar Television Network, his programming, reaching upwards of 2 billion people worldwide, frequently broadcast anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, notably that the vaccines were being used to steal freedoms away from Christians. Instead, Lamb urged viewers to use unapproved, untested or ineffective remedies, including prayer and ivermectin.

Then, a couple of weeks after the announcement that he had tested positive for COVID-19, he died from complications, leaving behind his wife and their three children.

Awful, enough – but there’s more. Piers Morgan, the controversial British broadcaster, tweeted, “Another needless tragedy. How many anti-vaxxers have to die from Covid before they realise they're wrong?” That was among the kinder responses. Elsewhere, the thugs and trolls of the internet had a field day after Lamb’s illness and death became public, excoriating him for his anti-vaccine views.

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So much for the adage, “Do not speak ill of the dead.”

Tide of vitriol

Even by today’s low standards, the tide of vitriol against those who oppose vaccination is astounding. The pandemic has unleashed Reddit forums and websites devoted to exhorting the ignorance of the unvaccinated, with members ready to pile on once an anti-vaxxer dies from COVID-19. A common refrain is “you only have yourself to blame,” often expressed online as, “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

Their delight seems more than mere schadenfreude. Colin Wayne Leach, a Barnard College psychology professor, told The New York Times that this is "not just taking a little pleasure in somebody’s misfortune. In many ways, it’s seeing your enemies suffer because of what they believe. That is the sweetest justice."

Or what some might call sweet revenge.

Yes, it’s true that unvaccinated people make up the majority of deaths now during the pandemic, but what kind of people dance on the graves of the mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, who have died from this plague? And if the goal is to get more Americans vaccinated, what do we accomplish when we pillory Marcus Lamb and others like him? Or when we create bogus accolades like the Herman Cain award, named after the conservative politician and businessman who eschewed masks only to die from COVID-19.

“Gloating over a COVID death is unethical,” Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at New York University, told me in an interview. “It is cruel to survivors and does not in my view encourage vaccination by others.”

We seem to have accepted the polarization that stains daily life in our country, exacerbated by the pandemic. Are we going to hold on to this ugliness for eternity?

The Times reported that Hal Bledsoe, whose son died from COVID-19 (after adding a frame to his social media page that read, “I don’t care if you’ve had your vaccine” and whose final post was an anti-vaccination video) was bombarded with messages “that (his son) should have died, that he deserved to die.”

Bledsoe spoke of the hurt these comments caused on top of his grief over the loss of his son.

I can’t imagine. Actually, I can.

Where is the kindness?

I remember early on in the AIDS epidemic when gay men were dying like flies on the streets of San Francisco and New York, that Pat Buchanan, a conservative opinion columnist, wrote completely devoid of empathy, "The poor homosexuals ... have declared war upon nature, and now nature is exacting an awful retribution." I lost many friends during the worst of those years, too many of them abandoned by family, considered pariahs, and then gone.

Where was our kindness? It’s when we’re scared, angry or confused that we need kindness most.

Despite our differences, we – relatives, friends, colleagues, even strangers – I steadfastly continue to believe we are a family, the human family. Families fight; we disagree; we say awful things. But we must look after one another – and not only when it’s easy.

It’s bad enough to be at war in daily life, but where is the grace that comes with death? When we say “do not speak ill of the dead,” it’s to take a moment to note the sanctity of every life.

It’s not, as some will argue, to give someone a pass on their misdeeds.

To take joy in others’ suffering and loss certainly doesn’t hurt the deceased: It diminishes and damages those who would inflict pain and mock deaths; it makes us into the kind of people we say we abhor. Let us grieve for every death, and let us work to get every one of us vaccinated.

Steven Petrow, a writer on civility and manners and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors, is the author of five etiquette books, including "Stupid Things I Won't Do When I Get Old." Follow him on Twitter: @stevenpetrow

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Opinion: Stop gloating when anti-vaxxers die of COVID-19