State fights challenge by churches
Despite a Supreme Court ruling lifting restrictions on indoor worship services in New York, Gov. Gavin Newsom refused to back down Monday from shutdowns in California, telling the high court they are justified by the sharp increase in coronavirus cases and the perils of lengthy indoor gatherings with singing and chanting.
“California is experiencing an unprecedented surge in COVID19 cases, creating an even greater public health need for restrictions on prolonged communal gatherings in indoor places,” Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s office, representing Newsom, said in a filing opposing a church group’s request for an immediate order lifting his restrictions.
“Scientific evidence demonstrates why those activities pose a particularly grave threat of virus transmission during the current pandemic,” the state’s lawyers said.
The court rejected a San Diego County
church’s challenge in May to Newsom’s orders limiting indoor worship services to 25% of the building’s capacity, with a maximum attendance of 100. Chief Justice John Roberts cast the deciding vote in the 54 ruling, saying the state was treating churches the same as secular businesses and should be allowed to make its own health care decisions.
But after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her replacement by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, an appointee of President Trump, the court voted 54 last week to prohibit New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo from imposing similar restrictions on indoor religious services. Barrett cast the deciding vote.
“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 majority said. Justice Neil Gorsuch, in a separate opinion, scoffed at Roberts’ May opinion and said the court must not allow “executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues and mosques.”
Anticipating the ruling, California churches had already asked the Supreme Court to step into their cases, now in lower courts, and strike down Newsom’s current restrictions. For counties in highrisk areas, which covers most of the state,
the governor is forbidding all indoor worship services because of the rise in COVID cases, while allowing 25% indoor attendance in moderaterisk counties.
“We cannot afford to let tyranny against religion rise in the guise of wellmeaning governmental ‘ protections,’ ”
said attorney Thomas LiMandri of the Thomas More Society, representing South Bay United Presbyterian Church of Chula Vista ( San Diego County).
The request for immediate court intervention was filed by Harvest Rock Church of Pasadena and Harvest International
Ministry, which is affiliated with 162 California churches. And Salvatore Cordileone, the Catholic archbishop in San Francisco, said Saturday he may also challenge Newsom’s order in court.
In Monday’s filing, Newsom’s lawyers said the governor’s latest restrictions on indoor worship are similar to the limits California is imposing on other “indoor congregate events,” such as movies and lectures, as well as indoor restaurant dining, exercising in gyms or socializing in bars.
“The state is committed to relaxing those restrictions as soon as public health circumstances allow,” the state’s lawyers said.
Noting that the case is awaiting a ruling in the Ninth U. S. Circuit of Appeals in San Francisco, Newsom’s lawyers asked the high court to allow that court to rule, based on the standards the high court set in the New York case.
But if the justices decide to intervene and strike down Newsom’s ban on indoor worship services in highrisk counties, the lawyers said, they should allow California to maintain some of its restrictions — like the 25person attendance limit — and its requirements for maskwearing, social distancing and a ban on singing during services.