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Supreme Court won't force states to speed up church reopenings

Richard Wolf, USA TODAY
USA TODAYMay 29, 2020, 11:45 PM CDT

WASHINGTON – A deeply divided Supreme Court refused Friday night to allow churches in California and Illinois to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic with more worshippers than state plans permit.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who cast the deciding vote in the more consequential California case announced just before midnight, said choosing when to lift restrictions during a pandemic is the business of elected officials, not unelected judges. He was joined in the vote by the court's four liberal justices.

Roberts, the only one of the five to explain his vote, compared in-person church services to other forms of assembly. His conservative colleagues who dissented compared the services to secular businesses.

"Although California’s guidelines place restrictions on places of worship, those restrictions appear consistent with the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment," Roberts wrote. "Similar or more severe restrictions apply to comparable secular gatherings, including lectures, concerts, movie showings, spectator sports, and theatrical performances, where large groups of people gather in close proximity for extended periods of time."

Writing for three of the four conservative justices who dissented, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh said California's current 25% occupancy limit on churches amounted to "discrimination against religious worship services."

"The basic constitutional problem is that comparable secular businesses are not subject to a 25% occupancy cap, including factories, offices, supermarkets, restaurants, retail stores, pharmacies, shopping malls, pet grooming shops, bookstores, florists, hair salons, and cannabis dispensaries," Kavanaugh wrote.

The legal battle reached the nation's highest court days before Pentecost Sunday, when churches that have been restricted to virtual or drive-by services since before Easter are eager to greet congregants.

In the California case, the court sided with Gov. Gavin Newsom's decision to limit in-church gatherings to 25% of capacity, and no more than 100 people.

In a second, separate case arising in Illinois, the justices earlier denied two Romanian American churches' petition because Gov. J.P. Pritzker lifted his state's restrictions Friday, making the complaint essentially moot. The court said the churches could file "a new motion for appropriate relief if circumstances warrant."

The religious disputes over governors' reopening plans are most heated in states that impose limits on religious gatherings. While 30 states no longer have prohibitions, 20 and the District of Columbia impose restrictions, according to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. They are most severe in California, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington.

President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and many religious leaders have demanded that state and local governments treat churches the same as most businesses. Last week, Trump labeled churches, synagogues and mosques as "essential places that provide essential services."

But some states and public health authorities, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have linked religious services to outbreaks of COVID-19. In one example, the CDC said 38% of those attending a rural Arkansas church in early March caught the virus, resulting in four deaths.

The churches have become the latest protesters against strict state coronavirus restrictions. Legal battles have stretched from California to Virginia and from Minnesota to Mississippi.

The petitions that reached the high court came from a Pentecostal church in southern California and two Romanian American churches in Illinois. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom retreated during the dispute and agreed to allow churches to reopen at 25% capacity, with a limit of 100 parishioners. In Illinois, Pritzker's reopening plan initially carried a 10-person limit.

"With each passing Sunday, churches are suffering under the yoke of the governor’s unconstitutional orders prohibiting churches from freely exercising their sincerely held religious beliefs requiring assembling themselves together to worship God," lawyers for the Illinois churches had argued in court papers.

Illinois noted in response that its strict limit was expiring Friday, to be followed by no mandatory restrictions but with public health guidance about best practices. For that reason, the attorney general's office said, the churches' challenge was moot.

In the California case, the South Bay United Pentecostal Church warned in court papers that planned church reopenings in defiance of state orders could lead to "widespread civil unrest" and a "constitutional crisis."

But the state countered that its reopening guidelines were measured in light of the pandemic's risk to public health.

"When the attendance restriction proves unnecessary, the state will lift it or loosen it," the attorney general's office said in court papers. "In light of the tremendous uncertainty continuing to surround this new and deadly virus, however, it would be rash to do so today."

En route to the Supreme Court, federal district and appeals court judges ruled against the churches in both states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit noted that the coronavirus is "a highly contagious and often fatal disease for which there presently is no known cure."

The Supreme Court's slim conservative majority, with Roberts in agreement, has come down on the side of religious liberty consistently in recent years. In the next few weeks, the high court will decide if state funds can be used to help pay religious school tuition, if employers with religious or moral objections can refuse to offer insurance coverage for contraceptives and if religious employers can sidestep job discrimination laws.

Let's put the first amendment in simple context shall we...

Congress shall make no law...

1 - Respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
2 - Abridging the freedom of speech,
3 - Abridging the freedom of the press;
4 - Abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble...

So simple a retarded monkey could get it right, but apparently Roberts is still confused what the Constitution is and/or what it means. There is no special noting of secular gathers in the 1st, but there damn sure is specific language recognizing religion has special standing over any other form of assembly. Kavanaugh got this one right in his dissent. Quite a shame a junior justice can get it right but the Chief Justice, well he's just too screwed between the ears to figure it out. I so can't wait for RBG to croak and be replaced so Roberts can go sit in the corner while cases are decided without him.

Quick question...As a supposedly conservative justice, when do you know you've completely blown it? When you're joined by all four liberal justices and not one of the conservative justices.

Thanks to Kavanaugh, however, for the backhanded acknowledgement of Weed Dispensaries as normal businesses, right next to hair salons, florists, and bookstores. That has to be exceptionally rare in SC opinions. Not that it carries much weight, but it's certainly evidence of the changing winds. Interesting.

quote:

"The basic constitutional problem is that comparable secular businesses are not subject to a 25% occupancy cap, including factories, offices, supermarkets, restaurants, retail stores, pharmacies, shopping malls, pet grooming shops, bookstores, florists, hair salons, and cannabis dispensaries," Kavanaugh wrote.

/tangent

quote:

Originally posted by 46and2:
Thanks to Kavanaugh, however, for the backhanded acknowledgement of Weed Dispensaries as normal businesses, right next to hair salons, florists, and bookstores.

I fail to see any distinction. Cannabis dispensaries are legal businesses today, just like the rest of the businesses he noted.

It isn’t John Roberts who screwed us, it’s George W. Bush for nominating that traitor.

quote:

Cannabis dispensaries are legal businesses today, just like the rest of the businesses he noted.

They are not legal everywhere and they are definitely not essential businesses by any means. At best, they could be compared to liquor/ABC stores which have continued open.
To restrict church/religion in any way is clearly unconstitutional no matter what that pussy Roberts thinks. Sadly, unless something happens to him or the old bitty Ginsberg finally dies and is replaced with a true conservative, we are stuck with him siding with the leftists on too many issues.
Every church across the country that wishes to open as usual should do so. Let these politician/tyrants be seen sending their minions to close and arrest people and many folks might finally wake up to what is happening to our rights.

quote:

Originally posted by PowerSurge:
It isn’t John Roberts who screwed us, it’s George W. Bush for nominating that traitor.

This. One of many times he screwed us.

RMD