A Colorado church on Thursday appealed a ruling from a federal court requiring it to follow a 175-person limit at church services.
The church, Andrew Wommack Ministries International, sued Gov. Jared Polis on Monday, claiming that his coronavirus safety orders, which impose stricter limitations on churches than businesses, violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. A federal judge on Tuesday rejected the church’s request for a temporary injunction, adding that because “numerous courts have considered, and persuasively rejected” similar cases, the suit was unlikely to succeed.
“The relief Plaintiff requests has the potential to increase case numbers significantly, placing a high burden on the state,” wrote Colorado District Court Judge Christine Arguello in a Tuesday opinion. “Further, Plaintiff would be compromising the health of the public, which could cause the death of an untold number of innocent citizens.”
The Supreme Court this summer rejected similar injunctions in the cases of a Nevada church and a California church seeking relief to hold services as their lawsuits progress.
The church, represented by the nonprofit firm Liberty Counsel, countered on Thursday with references to examples since the beginning of the coronavirus of successful lawsuits in which churches regained their rights to set their own safety limits on services. The appeal pointed to two Kentucky churches that sued in April to regain their ability to hold Easter services and asserted that the circumstances were similar to its own situation.
AWMI’s suit arose after the governor’s orders, issued in mid-September, prevented it from holding a conference in October, at which about 600 people are expected to appear. Restrictions on church services, which had previously been capped at 50 people or 50% capacity, have been in force with varying severity since March.
An outbreak was linked to a previous conference held by AWMI in July. Beforehand, the Colorado attorney general’s office sent the church a cease-and-desist letter, urging it not to hold its conference. Lawyers at Liberty Counsel responded with a letter, countering that it had followed the 50% capacity rule.
Andrew Wommack, the pastor, at the time, wrote in a Facebook post that, no matter the restrictions in place, it was his constitutional right to decide how many people can attend his services.
“In light of the fact that protests with thousands had been permitted and even encouraged, and retail stores were allowed unlimited numbers in their stores without near the safety measures we employed, I felt completely justified in what I was doing. But the bottom line is that we have the constitutional right to freely exercise our faith and to peaceably assemble together,” he wrote.
After filing the most recent appeal, Liberty Counsel President Mat Staver reiterated Wommack’s point, saying that, in principle, church coronavirus lawsuits are an effort to combat “preferential treatment to nonreligious gatherings over religious gatherings” in pandemic rules.
“While the virus does not discriminate between nonreligious and religious gatherings, Gov. Polis does,” Staver said. “This discriminatory treatment is unconstitutional. The First Amendment gives preferential treatment to the free exercise of religion.”
Staver, in May, led a movement to remove restrictions on church services nationwide, calling any cap on attendance “unconstitutional.”
