Supreme Court ruling on houses of worship puts states on notice
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s conservative justices moved for the first time late Wednesday to block a governor’s COVID19 restrictions, ruling that New York’s attempt to control rapidly spreading infections in churches and synagogues had violated constitutional religious freedoms.
Newly seated Justice Amy Coney Barrett cast a key vote in a pair of 5-4 orders handed down just before midnight. Lawyers for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Brooklyn and several congregations of Orthodox Jews had sued the governor, contending the restrictions violated the First Amendment’s protection for the free exercise of religion.
The immediate impact of the rulings may be limited because Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, had already lifted the 25-person limit in Brooklyn late last week. Citing that change, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the court’s three liberals said there was no reason to grant the emergency appeals now.
But the court’s five other conservative justices issued an order that puts all states on notice that they must be careful in their efforts to control the pandemic to not impose far stricter limits on churches, synagogues and
mosques than they place on businesses or other places where large numbers of people might gather.
The court’s ruling could soon have an impact in California. Lawyers for the Harvest Rock Churches, including several in the Los Angeles area, filed an appeal this week asking the court to lift Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s restrictions on indoor church services. The justices asked the state’s lawyers to respond by Monday.
In the New York case, the majority said Cuomo’s orders were not neutral toward religion, but “single out houses of worship for especially harsh treatment.”
“Members of this court are not public health experts, and we should respect the judgment of those with special expertise and responsibility in this area. But even in a pandemic, the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten. The restrictions at issue here, by effectively barring many from attending religious services, strike at the very heart of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty,” the court said in an unsigned opinion in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo.
“Government is not free to disregard the First Amendment in times of crisis,” wrote Justice Neil M. Gorsuch in a separate opinion. “At a minimum, that amendment prohibits government officials from treating religious exercises worse than comparable secular activities, unless they are pursuing a compelling interest and using the least restrictive means available. Yet recently, during the COVID pandemic, certain states seem to have ignored these long-settled principles.”
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Gorsuch said the governor’s order deemed many retail businesses essential, including hardware stores, liquor stores and bike repair shops.
“It is time — past time — to make plain that, while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates colorcoded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues, and mosques,” he wrote.
Until Wednesday, the high court had repeatedly turned away appeals arising from the pandemic and said judges should be wary of second-guessing state and local officials who are trying to stop the spread of the virus.
Earlier this year, the court turned down a San Diego church’s religiousliberty challenge to the limits on indoor services set by Newsom and a similar appeal from Nevada. Both decisions came in 5-4 votes, with Roberts and the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the majority and the four remaining conservatives at the time in dissent.