The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted a New Jersey church and synagogue injunctive relief from Gov. Phil Murphy’s pandemic restrictions on houses of worship after religious leaders protested against his orders requiring congregants to wear masks during services.
In an unsigned order released Tuesday afternoon, the court vacated a district court decision against the church and sent the case to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals for further consideration in light of the court’s ruling in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo. In that case, the court found that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had violated the First Amendment by regulating church activity more harshly than businesses during the pandemic.
This latest injunction, which came on the same day that the court decided in favor of a Colorado church’s pandemic protest, pushes its favor shown to churches further than previous decisions. In addition to giving the religious leaders, Rabbi Yisrael Knopfler and Father Kevin Robinson, relief from Murphy’s 25% occupancy limitation, the order vacated the state’s previous attempts to enforce its mask mandate.
The two men in their brief protested against the mask mandate as one of their central grievances, arguing that it was another manifestation of the alleged unequal treatment leveled against houses of worship. Referencing New Jersey’s rules for people dining in restaurants, which allow customers to convene without masks for an unlimited time, Knopfler and Robinson argued that churchgoers should be allowed to do the same.
“Worshippers cannot sit in pews — facing in the same direction and separated by six feet from each other — for even one hour, once a week, without the mandated face covering,” attorneys for the two wrote. “They [are allowed to] partake of Holy Communion or ‘the Kiddush cup’ only ‘momentarily’ without the state-imposed mask, but diners can tuck into multicourse dinners and imbibe wine for as long as they please while maskless. In what world is this disparate treatment of religion versus dining constitutionally permissible?”
In a brief filed to the court in December, New Jersey State Solicitor Jeremy Feigenbaum singled out opposition to mask-wearing as one of the primary reasons why the court should deny the houses of worship an injunction, claiming that such a decision would do “profound” damage to the state, “especially in the middle of the second wave.”
“Study after study, and expert after expert, confirm that gatherings of this kind contribute to COVID-19’s spread,” Feigenbaum wrote, adding that “without capacity limits to ensure spacing indoors, and without requiring the use of masks, the state has few tools left.”
Since the New York decision, the court has decided in favor of a growing number of churches, motivated in part by Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s addition to the court. Barrett acted as the swing vote, in that case, signaling a new attitude for the court on the issue.
The court previously rejected two cases from a California and a Nevada church this summer, with Chief Justice John Roberts as the swing vote. At the time, Roberts wrote that he was not comfortable issuing a temporary injunction, given the ever-changing terms of coronavirus restrictions.
