As we near the one-year mark since the United States began balancing COVID-19 protocol and civil liberties, the debate over how to achieve them both is ongoing, as are the lawsuits.
Late Friday night, the Supreme Court partially granted an application for injunctive relief in two cases, South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom and Harvest Rock Church v. Newsom. Now California Gov. Gavin Newsom must end the state’s total ban on indoor worship and let religious spaces reopen at 25% of occupancy, though the state can continue to ban singing and chanting indoors.
The Supreme Court was splintered in its decision, and, for the first time, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote separately from the rest of the court.
Per the decision, Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch would have granted the applications in full, which would have ended all COVID-19 related restrictions on worship. Justice Samuel Alito would have ended capacity restrictions immediately but would have given California a month to show that they still had to have restrictions on singing and capacity.
Barrett wrote separately, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed with her. She took issue with the singing issue: “I agree with Justice Gorsuch’s statement, save its contention that the Court should enjoin California’s prohibition on singing and chanting during indoor services.”
As usual, Gorsuch demonstrates he understands the real discrepancies between COVID-19 restrictions and the First Amendment, which is lack of consistency. California was, after all, the only state that still had an indoor worship ban. He wrote:
While other lawsuits on this topic have appeared throughout the court system, including the Supreme Court, the Arkansas House of Representatives passed a bill, the Religion is Essential Act, ensuring churches and other religious organizations can remain open during a similar public health crisis just as other essential businesses do. Because the GOP holds a majority in the state Senate and the Arkansas governor is a Republican, the bill could pass.
In a statement, Alliance Defending Freedom legal counsel Greg Chafuen applauded the measure and underscored what Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch said in a case about the importance of the Constitution’s authority even during a pandemic:
If the approaching one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 restrictions and religious liberty issues has proven anything, it’s that we are a nation divided. We are a people who want to protect others in the name of a public health crisis but also want the right to worship after a year of lockdowns. We’re still not sure how to balance the two. The right to worship freely should stand with or without a pandemic, and that has not been the case this year. It has been tampered with and upheld differently depending on the ideology of the elected officials in power in certain areas. This, too, is unfortunate, disappointing, and unconstitutional.
Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.
