Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Churches filing suits over virus restrictions
Churches in California and Minnesota filed lawsuits this week against the governors of their states challenging restrictions imposed during the coronavirus outbreak that they contend are violations of religious liberty.
They’re the latest in a long series of legal challenges, many of them in California, pitting clerics and houses of worship who believe they should be exempt from certain restrictions on public gatherings against governors who insist the measures are needed to rein in the pandemic. Most of the suits have been rebuffed; some have succeeded.
In Minnesota, a lawsuit was filed Thursday in federal court challenging Gov. Tim Walz’s executive orders requiring 6-foot social distancing and the wearing of masks at worship services.
“Gov. Walz, a former teacher, gets an F in religious liberties,” said Erick Kaardal, special counsel for the Thomas More Society. “Other states, including Texas, Illinois and Ohio, have excluded churches from covid-19 mask mandates.”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison reiterated his defense of Walz’s order, saying it was legally and constitutionally sound.
Walz had been embroiled in a battle with Roman Catholic and Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod congregations across Minnesota over restrictions he placed on gatherings of more than 10 people. He relented and said they could hold services at 25% capacity if certain conditions were met after they made that clear they planned to defy the order.
Earlier this month a pastor in Palmetto, Fla., filed a suit challenging Manatee County’s mask mandate. The Rev. Joel Tillis of Suncoast Baptist Church said the order shouldn’t extend to houses of worship because it hinders prayer.
The Thomas More Society, which specializes in litigation on religious issues, filed a lawsuit Wednesday in California Superior Court against Gov. Gavin Newsom and other officials. It seeks to prevent the enforcement of “unconstitutional and onerous coronavirus pandemic regulations” against Grace Community Church in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Sun Valley.
The pastor, John MacArthur, has been holding services in recent weeks attended by throngs of worshippers in defiance of state and county limits on gatherings.
“We will obey God rather than men,” MacArthur said in a message to his congregation. “He will be on our side.”
MacArthur was greeted with applause Sunday when he welcomed worshippers to his church’s “peaceful protest.”
One of the two Thomas More lawyers representing MacArthur and his church is Jenna Ellis, who also is a senior legal adviser to President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign.
“California’s edicts demanding an indefinite shutdown have gone now far past rational or reasonable and are firmly in the territory of tyranny and discrimination,” Ellis said. “This isn’t about health. It’s about blatantly targeting churches.”
The lawsuit contends that restrictions on large gatherings should not be enforced at churches because they were not enforced on large demonstrations against racism and police brutality.
Officials in California, where virus cases have been surging in recent weeks, say strict restrictions remain necessary in Los Angeles County and other counties that are on a state monitoring list for high rates of new infections.
Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office referred a request for comment to Newsom’s office, as the new lawsuit addresses the governor’s executive order. Spokesmen for Newsom did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld state restrictions on religious gatherings in a suit filed by South Bay United Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista, Calif.
In the new Minnesota case, the plaintiffs were Protestant churches in the towns of Alexandria, Buffalo and Crosby, along with their pastors.
“Our people are commanded to meet together in fellowship,” Eric Anderson, pastor of Life Spring Church in Crosby, said at a news conference Thursday.