The Supreme Court reaffirmed the importance of the church and the right to worship in a ruling released late Friday evening in which the conservative majority ordered California to allow churches to resume in-person services.
The ruling is limited: California can still restrict in-person worship attendance, but only up to 25% capacity. The state’s ban on singing and chanting during services was left in place for now, though the majority did say California needs to provide evidence proving this ban is necessary.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito wanted the court’s ruling to grant even broader relief, but Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh were more hesitant due to the extraordinary health circumstances.
Still, this is an important win for churches not just in California, but across the country. Many people of faith have spent the past year barred from practicing their faith the way it was meant to be practiced, while secular activities have been allowed to continue with only a few restrictions. In California, specifically, Hollywood’s studios have been allowed to film with hundreds of people on-set, even though these studios technically hit each of the four standards California officials have used to justify religious bans: There are (1) large numbers of people mixing from different households (2) in close proximity to each other (3) for extended periods of time, (4) participating in activities that directly contribute to the spread of the virus.
Yet for some reason, studios have been granted an exemption, while churches that defy the state’s restrictions are fined tens of thousands of dollars.
Gorsuch put it this way: “It seems California’s powerful entertainment industry has won an exemption,” he wrote for the majority. “So, once more, we appear to have a State playing favorites during a pandemic, expending considerable effort to protect lucrative industries (casinos in Nevada; movie studios in California) while denying similar largesse to its faithful.”
The Supreme’s Court ruling is also important because it has the potential to affect all coronavirus restrictions, not just ones that have to do with places of worship. Gorsuch hinted at this in his opinion, which states very clearly that broad restrictions now approaching their second year need to have a set expiration date — or else.
“Government actors have been moving the goalposts on pandemic-related sacrifices for months, adopting new benchmarks that always seem to put restoration of liberty just around the corner. As this crisis enters its second year — and hovers over a second Lent, a second Passover, and a second Ramadan — it is too late for the State to defend extreme measures with claims of temporary exigency, if it ever could,” he wrote.
The Supreme Court understands the government cannot continue to restrict the day-to-day lives of its citizens if it does not also set clear parameters to protect our constitutional rights. Business owners have the right to operate so they can make a living, and religious citizens have the right to gather and worship. Those rights do not change, even in a pandemic.
California and several other states seem to think otherwise, so it’s likely we’ll see more cases like this in the days ahead. Hopefully, the court’s future rulings are more assertive because in most of these cases, our rights depend on it.
