Some churches in California said on Saturday that they planned to reopen their doors this weekend after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted the state’s ban on indoor worship during the pandemic, and ruled that Governor Gavin Newsom’s strict orders appear to be in violation. are with the protection of the constitution for the free exercise of religion.
Bishop Arthur Hodges, senior pastor of South Bay United Pentecostal Church in the San Diego suburb of Chula Vista, called the ruling “a great victory.”
“We are excited and excited to go back to church without legal threat of fines or arrest,” Hodges said in a television interview on Fox 5. “And it opens up churches across the state of California. So this is a win for us. every church, every house of worship, and every individual of faith that wants to go to their house of worship this Sunday. “
He said the church would hold office hours this weekend. It had previously offered services online, but they weren’t a suitable substitute, he said, comparing them to a virtual campfire or tele health drugs.
“Online can only go so far,” he said. “It really doesn’t satisfy the believer who needs his church.”
South Bay United Pentecostal was one of two churches to challenge the state’s ban in separate lawsuits. The other, Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena, said it would also hold indoor services on Sundays.
“While we have come under fire from some members of the community, we firmly believe that the fruit of meeting face to face lies in the spiritual, emotional, and physical healing that worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ brings to so many 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 essential preferences to abortion clinics, marijuana dispensaries, and liquor stores.”
“While it is one thing to lock based on data, it is quite another motive to give some groups a right that is denied to others,” he said.
The Newsom government office said Saturday it will issue revised guidelines for in-house church services.
“We will continue to enforce the restrictions imposed by the Supreme Court and, after reviewing the decision, will issue revised worship guidelines to continue protecting the lives of Californians,” Daniel Lopez, Newsom’s press secretary, said in a statement. statement .
The judges in a 6-3 decision appealed late Friday night against South Bay United, which has repeatedly challenged state restrictions on church services, including the ban on singing and singing. The ruling overturned decisions made by federal judges in San Diego and San Bernardino, as well as by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which upheld the state’s orders despite previous warnings from the Supreme Court.
But the Supreme Court said the state may limit indoor attendance to 25% of the building’s capacity, and singing and singing may also be limited.
California has enforced “the most extreme restriction on worship in the country,” the court was told by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. While several states set limits on church attendance, the group said California is “the only state to prohibit inner worship” in all but sparsely populated counties.
The six Conservative judges differed in majority, but they agreed that California had selected churches for unfair treatment.
“Since the advent of COVID-19, California has openly imposed stricter regulations on religious institutions than many companies.” Judge Neil M. Gorsuch wrote in one of three concordant opinions. California worries that worship will bring people together for too long. Still, California doesn’t limit its citizens to getting in and out of other institutions; no one should linger in shopping centers, salons or bus terminals. “
Gorsuch, along with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. for removing all restrictions, including restrictions on attendance and singing.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett said she was not convinced that the ban on singing should be lifted. The state argued that singing in a group indoors spreads the virus in the air, and Barrett said the churches were tasked with “establishing their right to be exempted from the ban on singing. this record, “she wrote. Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh agreed.
In May, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. cast a major vote in a 5-4 decision to dismiss an early challenge to California’s restrictions on church services. He then said he believed in putting off government officials dealing with the pandemic. But he wrote on Friday that he could not accept California’s “current stipulation that the maximum number of adherents who can worship safely in the most cavernous cathedral is zero.” … Reverence, while broad, has its limits. “
The state’s ban on back office services has been 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 block the enforcement of a similar ban in other churches.
The court’s three liberals – Judges Elena Kagan, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor – were of the opinion.
Judges of this court are not scientists. We don’t know much about public health policy either. But today the court is pushing out experts’ judgments on how to respond to a raging pandemic, ”Kagan wrote. “The court orders California to ease restrictions on public gatherings by making a special exception for worship services.”
Two months ago, judges notified Newsom and the 9th Circuit that the state’s ban on indoor worship may have gone too far.
On the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday, the Supreme Court dropped some of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s COVID-19 rules, which restricted meetings in places of worship to 25 in a few Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods where the virus was spreading rapidly . It said the state’s rules “select houses of worship for particularly harsh treatment” compared to retail stores, the court said in the Roman Catholic Diocese vs. Cuomo.
Eight days later, the judges approved an appeal from the California churches and told federal judges to reconsider their decisions that enforced Newsom’s ban on in-house church services in all populous counties. The judges “vacated” or set aside those decisions based on their New York ruling.
But two district judges and the 9th Circuit Court reaffirmed the state’s restrictions in late January. They said California was experiencing a surge in COVID-19 cases, and they agreed with the state that indoor church worshipers were “at an exceptionally high risk” of spreading the virus because people spend an hour or longer were together.
In contrast, “customers generally intend to get in and out of supermarkets and stores as quickly as possible,” said the 9th Circuit. The state also argued that churches were free to hold out services.
Lawyers for the churches urged the Supreme Court to file an emergency appeal and to lift state restrictions on worship. They cited a dissent from one of the 9th Circuit’s senior conservatives.
“A simple, straightforward application of these control cases forces what should be the obvious result here: California’s uniquely severe restrictions against religious worship – including the total ban on inner worship in nearly the entire state – are clearly unconstitutional and must be imposed, “Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain wrote in Harvest Rock Church vs. Newsom.
“California is the only state in the country to impose such a ban,” he said, “Yet in the very same places where indoor worship is prohibited, California still has a wide variety of secular facilities open indoors, including (to name only a few): shops, malls, factories, food processing factories, warehouses, transportation facilities, childcare centers, colleges, libraries, professional sports facilities and movie studios. “
The two parties in the case differed on the current situation in Los Angeles County. Lawyers for the churches told the court that Los Angeles County said in late December that it would not enforce restrictions on church services, citing court rulings. But state lawyers said the county did not have the authority to waive the state rules.