Cali Gov Newsom Suffers Another Embarrassing Defeat: Supreme Court Gives The Thumbs Up To Churches
The Supreme Court has smacked down another lockdown order issued by California Governor Gavin Newsom.
The Governor had banned indoor worship service for the entire State prohibiting churches from meeting indoors. The justices ruled that indoor services can resume at 25% of a building’s capacity.
The justices were ruled on an emergency lawsuit launched by South Bay United Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista and Pasadena based Harvest Rock Church which has over 160 churches campuses across the state.
Chief Justice Roberts wrote that “federal courts owe significant deference to politically accountable officials” when it comes to public health restrictions, but he said deference “has its limits.”
Roberts ruled that California’s determination “that the maximum number of adherents who can safely worship in the most cavernous cathedral is zero-appears to reflect not expertise or discretion, but instead insufficient appreciation or consideration of the interests at stake.”
All the Justices that ruled in favor of removing the ban wrote their opinions on the matter, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote, “if a chorister can sing in a Hollywood studio but not in her church, California’s regulations cannot be viewed as neutral.”
Justice Kagan wrote the dissent claiming that the decision is going to make the pandemic worse.
“I fervently hope that the Court’s intervention will not worsen the Nation’s COVID crisis. But if this decision causes suffering, we will not pay. Our marble halls are now closed to the public, and our life tenure forever insulates us from responsibility for our errors. That would seem good reason to avoid disrupting a State’s pandemic response. But the Court forges ahead regardless, insisting that science-based policy yield to judicial edict,” she wrote.
The Justices have also instructed a lower federal court to closely reexamine California’s restriction on chanting or singing while in church, signaling that if that case ends up at the Supreme Court it will be blocked as well.
Newsom’s lockdowns orders have been incredibly controversial, he has shut down bars but allows movie studios to place outdoor dinning tents. He wants California’s to keep their mask on their face in between bites then goes to an expensive restaurant with friends maskless.
For the sake of the people of California lets hope Newsom gets recalled, they deserve better.
