Some California churches said Saturday they plan to reopen their doors this weekend after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted the ban on indoor worship during the pandemic, and ruled that Gavin Newsom’s strict government orders apparently protect the Constitution from free practice of religion.
Bishop Arthur Hodges, senior pastor of South Bay United Pentecostal Church in the suburb of Chula Vista in San Diego, called the verdict “a great victory.”
“We are excited and excited to return to church without legal threats of fines or arrest,” Hodges said in a television interview broadcast on Fox 5. ‘And it’s opening churches all over the state of California. It is therefore a victory for every church, every house of worship and every faith individual who wants to go to their house of worship this Sunday. ”
He said the church will hold indoor services this weekend. He had previously offered online services, but he was not an adequate replacement, comparing it to a virtual campfire or medicine for health.
“Online can only go that far,” he said. “It really does not satisfy the person of the faith that his church needs.”
South Bay United Pentecost was one of two churches that challenged the state’s ban in separate lawsuits. The other, Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena, said he would also hold indoor services on Sunday.
“Although some members of the community have come under fire, we stand firm that the fruit of the encounter lies personally in the spiritual, emotional and physical healing that the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ has brought to so many people around the world, “Ché Ahn, the church’s senior pastor, said in a statement.
He said the church decided to challenge the ban after it was singled out by ‘confusing California edicts’ that ‘give first-class essentials to abortion clinics, marijuana pharmacies and liquor stores.’
“While it’s one thing to close based on data, it’s a very different motive to allow some groups a right that others are denied,” he said.
Newsom’s government office said on Saturday it would issue revised guidelines for indoor church services.
“We will continue to apply the restrictions that the Supreme Court has put in place and after reviewing the decision, we will issue revised guidelines for worship services to protect the lives of Californians,” said Daniel Lopez, Newsom’s press secretary. a statement said. .
The judges in a 6-3 decision granted an appeal by South Bay United late Friday night, which repeatedly challenged state restrictions on church services, including the ban on singing and chanting. The ruling set aside rulings by federal judges in San Diego and San Bernardino, and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which upheld state orders despite earlier Supreme Court warnings.
But the Supreme Court said the state may limit attendance at indoor services to 25% of the building’s capacity, and that singing and chanting can also be restricted.
California has enforced “the most extreme restriction on worship in the country,” the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty told the court. While several states attend limits for church services, the group said California is “the only state that bans indoor worship” in all provinces except sparsely populated countries.
The six conservative judges in the majority disagreed, but they agreed that California singled out churches for unfair treatment.
“Since the advent of COVID-19, California has openly imposed stricter regulations on religious institutions than on many businesses.” wrote Judge Neil M. Gorsuch in one of three corresponding opinions. ‘California is concerned that worship brings people together for too much time. Yet California does not restrict its citizens to the entry and exit of other businesses; no one may stay in shopping malls, salons or bus terminals. ”
Gorsuch, along with Judges Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. voted to lift all restrictions, including the restriction on attendance and singing.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett said she was not convinced the ban on singing should be lifted. The state argued that singing within a group would spread the virus in the air, and Barrett said the churches had the burden of ‘establishing their right to relief from the singing ban. In my opinion, they did not carry that burden – at least not on this record, ‘she wrote. Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh agrees with her.
In May, Chief Justice John G. Roberts jr. An important vote was cast in a 5-4 decision to reject an early challenge to California’s restrictions on church services. He then said he believed he wanted to postpone him from government officials dealing with the pandemic. But he wrote Friday that he does not accept California’s current determination that the maximum number of worshipers who can worship safely in the largest cathedral is zero. … Procrastination, though broad, has its limits. ”
The state’s ban on indoor services is being challenged in separate lawsuits by South Bay United Pentecostal Church and Harvest Rock Church, and Friday’s order applies directly to them. But its legal logic would hinder the application of a similar ban to other churches.
The three liberals of the court – judges Elena Kagan, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor – differ.
‘Judges of this court are not scientists. We also do not know much about public health policy. “Yet today the court is repressing the rulings of experts on how to respond to a raging pandemic,” Kagan wrote. “The court orders California to weaken its restrictions on public gatherings by making a special exception on worship services.”
Two months ago, Judges Newsom and the 9th Circuit noted that the state’s ban on indoor worship services may have gone too far.
On the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday, the Supreme Court rejected part of the Government of New York, Andrew Cuomo, COVID-19, which limited worship services to 25 people in a few neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens where the virus spread rapidly. . The court said the church’s rules “exclude houses of worship for particularly harsh treatment” compared to shops, the court in the Roman Catholic diocese said against Cuomo.
Eight days later, the judges granted an appeal to the churches in California and ordered federal judges to reconsider their decisions, which upheld Newsom’s ban on indoor church services in all of the state’s heavily populated counties. The judges “evacuated” or set aside the rulings based on their verdict in the New York case.
But two district judges and the 9th Circuit Court upheld the state’s restrictions again at the end of January. They said California has a strong increase in COVID-19 cases, and they agreed with the state that worshipers at indoor church services have an “extraordinarily high risk” of spreading the virus because people for an hour or so was together longer.
In contrast, ‘patrons usually intend to go in and out of grocery and retail stores as quickly as possible,’ the 9th Circuit said. The state also argued that churches are free to keep services out.
Attorneys for the churches have asked the Supreme Court to file an emergency call and lift the state’s restrictions on worship services. They mention a difference of opinion from one of the senior conservatives of the 9th Circuit.
“A simple, straightforward application of these governing laws compels what the obvious result should be here: California’s uniquely severe restrictions on religious worship – including the total ban on indoor worship in almost the entire state – are apparently unconstitutional and must be determined, “Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain in Harvest Rock Church vs. Newsom written.
“California is the only state in the country that imposes such a ban,” he said, “but in exactly the same places where indoor religion is banned, California still leaves a large variety of secular facilities open inside, including (to name a few). only a few): retail stores, shopping malls, factories, food processing plants, warehouses, transport facilities, child care centers, colleges, libraries, professional sports facilities and film studios. ”
The two parties in the case differ on the current situation in Los Angeles County. Church attorneys told the court that Los Angeles County in late December said it would not apply the restrictions to church services, citing court rulings. But state attorneys said the country does not have the authority to waive state rules.