Attorney General William Barr on Tuesday defended a Mississippi church’s right to hold drive-in services during the coronavirus pandemic, suggesting that a mayor’s ban unfairly targeted its “religious conduct.”
The mayor, Greenville’s Errick Simmons, issued an order last week banning all in-person services, including drive-in services. After the order’s release, Greenville police ticketed members of Temple Baptist Church, who held a service anyway, with $500 fines. Police also broke up another service held by King James Bible Baptist Church.
[Read more: Coronavirus shutdowns place financial strain on churches]
Temple Baptist on Friday sued, and King James is threatening further legal action. Simmons retracted the fines on Monday but did not rescind the order.
Barr wrote in a letter introducing the statement that while social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic is important, it is equally important to abide by the Constitution when issuing stay-at-home orders.
“Even in times of emergency, when reasonable and temporary restrictions are placed on rights, the First Amendment and federal statutory law prohibit discrimination against religious institutions and religious believers,” Barr wrote. “Thus, government may not impose special restrictions on religious activity that do not also apply to similar nonreligious activity.”
Barr said that, according to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, “religious institutions must not be singled out for special burdens,” especially if other institutions are allowed to operate unrestricted. In the case of the Mississippi churches, legal representatives noted that while the churches must close, the drive-in fast-food chain Sonic has been allowed to stay open.
In his statement, Barr singled out the discrepancy in treatment of Sonic and the churches as a reason for supporting the latter.
“Notably, the city appears to permit citizens to sit in a ‘car at a drive-in restaurant with their windows rolled down,’ but not ‘at a drive-in church service with their windows rolled up,'” Barr wrote. “The church thus alleges that the city has ‘failed to prohibit nonreligious conduct that endangers its interests in a similar or greater degree,’ than drive-in services like the church’s here.”
Based on those allegations, Barr said, it did not make sense why the city would require churches to be closed while allowing drive-in restaurants to remain open, when they “appear to pose an equal — if not greater — risks.”
Barr said that “where a state has not acted evenhandedly, it must have a compelling reason to impose restrictions on places of worship and must ensure that those restrictions are narrowly tailored to advance its compelling interest,” concluding that in the Mississippi case, there does not appear to be a compelling reason.
Barr’s statement came amid a series of lawsuits from churches alleging that local government’s shutdown orders are in violation of the First Amendment and RFRA.
