Top Republicans on Tuesday launched a series of attacks against Democrats for supporting a “double standard”: strict stay-at-home orders for churchgoers but leniency for mass protesters.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell led the assault in a speech on the Senate floor, in which he accused Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio of “picking and choosing” their application of the First Amendment. All three leaders have either praised or participated in protests over the death of George Floyd in the past week.
“It is hard to see any rational set of rules by which mass protests should continue to be applauded, but small, careful religious services should continue to be banned,” McConnell said. “These prominent Democrats are free to let social protest outrank religion in their own consciences if they choose. But they do not get to impose their ranking on everyone else.”
Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, both of whom have been outspoken critics of many states governments’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic, piled on. Cotton tweeted an attack at Whitmer’s supposed vice presidential aspirations, adding that any governor who violates her own social distancing requirements cannot continue to “discriminate” against churches.
Hawley, in a letter dated Tuesday, asked Attorney General William Barr to investigate potential civil rights violations in state-required church closings. The Missouri senator wrote that, although he supports the rights of people to demonstrate peacefully, he believes the same rights need to be applied to houses of worship.
“Many jurisdictions across the nation are imposing extraordinarily strict caps on religious gatherings — such as restricting religious gatherings to 10 or fewer people — even as those jurisdictions allow thousands of people to gather closely in protests,” Hawley wrote. “States cannot allow one but prohibit the other.”
Barr, who has made religious liberty a priority during the pandemic, on Tuesday hinted that the Justice Department would launch an investigation into the legitimacy of church closures. During an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier, Barr said that, although lockdowns were initially justified, the way some governors have reacted since the protests began makes him question their continued necessity.
Barr explained that, in his view, the prolonged lockdowns on churches, businesses, and schools, are an “impingement on fundamental liberties” unlike any he’s seen before. And elected leaders who have become permissive on their restrictions now that people are protesting, Barr added, “changed the dynamic” of the entire situation.
“It raises a fundamental question,” he said, “Which is: Why should some people who are enjoying their First Amendment rights by going out and protesting have broader rights than other people who may want to exercise, for example, their religious First Amendment rights and go to church, as long as social distancing rules and things like that are complied with?”
This approach to religious freedom questions is consistent with Barr’s past comments on the subject, which have focused on equality of treatment for churches and other entities. In several cases of church shutdowns where the Justice Department intervened, either Barr or other officials have cited the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which requires that restrictions placed on churches must be “generally applicable” across all areas of life.
“We have to be very careful to make sure that the draconian measures that are being adopted are fully justified,” he told Fox News in early April, as states began ordering church closures. “Whatever they’re doing to churches, they have to do to everybody.”
And Barr found, as the pandemic developed, that prohibitions on drive-in church services, and eventually those on in-person services, discriminated against religious people. The Justice Department asked governments in Mississippi, Virginia, California, and Nevada to lift restrictions on churches in the period of March through May.
Barr’s approach to religious liberty found favor with President Trump, who in May, as many states began the slow process of reopening, demanded that all governors reopen churches immediately — or he would “override” them. The administration has since walked back the claim.
Since Trump’s demand, every state except for New Jersey has allowed in-person church services in some form. And like national Republicans, state Republican lawmakers on Monday took to protesting Gov. Phil Murphy after he participated in protests.
“Business owners who want to assemble to fight the continued lockdown because they are struggling to remain afloat, or church congregants who want to be able to worship more freely have equal rights to protest,” Republican state Sen. Steve Oroho said in a statement. “The Governor’s words and latest actions don’t marry up, and frankly he lacks the authority and ability to speak with clarity and conviction about the lockdown anymore.”
Following the outcry, Murphy announced Tuesday afternoon that restrictions on churches and protests would be lifted immediately.
“Given the growing body of evidence showing the reduced risk of transmission of coronavirus outdoors, we believe the appropriate rule prioritizes individuals‘ right to speak and worship freely,” Murphy said during a press conference.
