New York City Bill de Blasio has a talent for making bad problems even worse.
Speaking to the city’s residents during a daily press briefing on Friday, de Blasio warned religious leaders — some of whom were reportedly considering re-opening in April — that he would permanently shut down their houses of worship if they did not adhere to the city’s social distancing guidelines.
“A small number of religious communities, specific churches and specific synagogues, are unfortunately not paying attention to this guidance even though it’s so widespread,” de Blasio said. “I want to say to all those who are preparing for the potential of religious services this weekend: If you go to your synagogue, if you go to your church and attempt to hold services after having been told so often not to, our enforcement agents will have no choice but to shut down those services.”
This is a fair warning. Our federal government’s health officials have asked us to suspend group gatherings through the month of April to better contain the spread of the coronavirus. This is especially important in New York City, which is now the epicenter of the United States’s COVID-19 outbreak. Holding a service or a prayer meeting would endanger the public health; thus, the city’s law enforcement has the right to treat re-opening like the threat it is.
But de Blasio did not stop there. He then announced that if religious centers do not listen to the city’s authorities, law enforcement “will take additional action up to the point of fines, and potentially closing the building permanently.”
The threat of permanent closure is so clearly unconstitutional that it’s a wonder de Blasio even suggested it. He does not have the right, even in the midst of a global pandemic, to tell a church or a synagogue or any other house of worship that it can never again meet, hold services, or worship. The city can ask religious centers to temporarily close, as long as that request applies to every other kind of public gathering, which is what New York City’s shelter-in-place order does. But de Blasio cannot indefinitely withhold constitutional rights, and he certainly cannot use the suspension of constitutional rights later as punishment for noncompliance now.
Churches, synagogues, and other houses of worship must respect the directions of our health officials. As a Christian, I understand that the church is responsible for the spiritual and physical well-being of its members. Right now that responsibility requires sacrifice; it means we must trade the fellowship, community, and in-person worship we enjoy for socially distant, online services with the expectation that we will be together again when it is safe.
That expectation — that we will be able to freely exercise our religious rights in-person as soon as we’re able — is something de Blasio cannot take away. And he knows that. But he’s a man in crisis who has no idea what to do or how to lead, so he has resorted to empty threats that have no bearing on reality.
Still, de Blasio’s warning should be treated as the unconstitutional musing that it is. In this time of crisis, we are trusting our elected leaders to guard our liberties. A leader who breaks that trust even a little bit must be held accountable.
