Against the wishes and efforts of overreaching, power-hungry politicians, Christians this Easter Sunday are filling (about half of) the pews at churches from coast to coast, and Jewish families have been celebrating Passover together.
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser and California Gov. Gavin Newsom are among the Democratic executives who fought in court to save their unreasonable and unconstitutional curbs on worship. Bowser and Newsom both lost in court, and consequently, many other church-restricting mayors and county executives around the country have backed down in the face of lawsuits and potential lawsuits.
Montgomery County, Maryland, for instance, was, as of last summer, prohibiting even outdoor, masked, distanced worship while encouraging and celebrating crowded Black Lives Matter protests on county property.
This was obviously discriminatory, as were Washington’s limits on worship. The massive Basilica of the National Shrine in the district was forced to operate at just 8% capacity. A judge pointed out that this limit wouldn’t apply “if they hawked wares instead of proclaimed the Gospel.”
Pointing out such anti-religious discrimination is worthwhile because it shows how unreasonable the restrictions are. It could also reveal the animus that many self-styled “progressive” politicians have toward organized religion. But the argument against burdensome restrictions on worship shouldn’t rest mostly on discrimination grounds.
Churches, synagogues, and mosques don’t merely deserve equal treatment to hardware stores, concert halls, and yoga classes. Religious institutions in America are guaranteed extraordinary treatment.
Tolerance is not the appropriate stance of governments toward religion. Deference is the appropriate stance.
The free exercise of religion is one of only a few rights explicitly guaranteed in the First Amendment. Multiple federal and state laws, including the bipartisan Religious Freedom Restoration Act, make it clear that government needs to accommodate religion.
Calling for distancing and masking inside churches, synagogues, and mosques during the pandemic is sensible. But governments owe deference to the religious leaders who run these institutions. Local health departments should provide guidance on what is safe and what is dangerous. Health authorities have the right to shut down a church that is facilitating an outbreak.
But any law that restricts worship, either through capacity limits or banning certain circumstances, must have an overwhelmingly compelling reason, and it must be tailored as narrowly as possible so as to avoid unduly curbing the free exercise of religion. This is what federal law and wise court precedent lay out. Restricting free exercise of religion is a far graver thing than restricting recreation or commerce.
That religion holds a place of honor in our society is not a notion widely accepted by much of our media and political class. Many believe religion has less rights than secular activities. This is not only averse to the law, our founding, and all of Western tradition, but it is harmful.
For the working class and the middle class in America, religion has historically been the central institution of community. As America secularizes and deinstitutionalizes, the middle class and working class are increasingly left alienated, isolated, and detached from community.
The numbers are grim. Most people in the United States, according to the latest Gallup poll, do not belong to any organized religion. This is the first time America has been recorded as mostly unchurched. Those who don’t belong to a mosque, synagogue, or church are more likely to do drugs, less likely to get married, more likely to get divorced, more likely to abuse or be abused, and likely to die younger than church-attenders are.
Every move by government that drives churches into the shadows is a move that harms people.
Churches, synagogues, and mosques need to stand up to increasingly oppressive local, state, and federal politicians. As COVID-19 clears up, this is the perfect time for a new Great Awakening.
