Ruling eases worship limits

Mandate allows for return of indoor religious services

The U.S. Supreme Court’s move to lift California’s ban on indoor religious services reverberated across the state Saturday as religious leaders and activists hailed the strongly-worded ruling and the state promised new rules to meet the court mandate.

The late-night Friday injunction by the court’s conservative majority dealt a blow to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s power to impose sweeping shelter-inplace rules and comes after months of defiance by some churches in the Bay Area and around California.

In a 6-3 ruling, the high court ordered the state to roll back its outright ban on indoor worship covering much of California. The state can still limit attendance to 25% of building capacity and prohibit singing or chanting, the court said. The court’s three liberal justices dissented and the court must now decide whether to hear the full case and issue a final ruling.

Daniel Lopez, a spokesperson for Newsom, said the governor’s office “will continue to enforce the restrictions the Supreme Court left in place and after reviewing the decision, we will issue revised guide

lines for worship services to continue to protect the lives of Californians.”

The injunction comes after legal challenges from two different Southern California churches — the South Bay United Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista and the Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena — along with numerous high-profile disputes regarding religious worship across the state. In a concurring opinion, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch argued that California’s ban is inconsistent with the rules applied to indoor spaces such as malls, buses and hairdressers — all of which have been allowed to open at reduced capacity — thus singling out places of worship.

“If Hollywood may host a studio audience or film a singing competition while not a single soul may enter California’s churches, synagogues, and mosques, something has gone seriously awry,” Gorsuch wrote.

In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan argued that the California rules treat places of worship just the same as secular gatherings — such as political assemblies — that, according to medical evidence, pose a significant risk of COVID-19 transmission. From that lens, the injunction “defies our caselaw, exceeds our judicial role, and risks worsening the pandemic,” she wrote.

The injunction will remain in place until the justices decide whether to take on the case now pending in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which could happen in the next six weeks. It also follows a decision late last year in which the justices by a 5-4 vote barred New York from enforcing certain limits on attendance at churches and synagogues in the state.

Mat Staver, founder of the Florida-based law firm Liberty Counsel that appealed to the court on behalf of the churches, Saturday called the ruling a “huge win” but added that the group will push to overturn the 25% capacity limit, as well as prohibitions on singing and chanting.

“We’re not finished,” Staver said. “Gov. Newsom has acted as though he has no constitutional checks. He’s always put places of worship in the back of the bus and he can’t do that anymore on this decision.”

Still, at least one Bay Area county was quick to claim that decision does not affect its own orders. Because Santa Clara County has never distinguished churches from any other type of indoor gathering, the Supreme Court ruling addresses a fundamentally “different legal question” than is relevant to local rules, County Counsel James Williams said Saturday.

He insisted the decision would not impact the county’s ongoing legal battle with San Jose’s Calvary Chapel, a church that has racked up nearly $2 million in fines for allegedly flouting social distancing, masking and other requirements. Most of those infractions are related to specific safety violations, not just indoor gatherings, Williams said.

“We’ve never issued separate guidance for places of worship. We’ve always, since Day 1, regulated in a content-neutral, consistent manner,” Williams said. “Our gatherings directive, which has nothing to do with the facility, remains in effect. Indoor gatherings remain prohibited in Santa Clara County.”

But even a blanket ban that treats religious services and secular gatherings the same could face renewed legal challenges in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, Loyola Law School Professor Jessica Levinson said.

“There is no freedom to shop in the Constitution, but there is a freedom to worship,” she said.

It’s not yet clear whether other Bay Area counties also will seek to maintain tight restrictions, but church leaders across the region said they plan to welcome worshipers back indoors today. San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, who has been a vocal critic of restrictions on church service imposed during the pandemic, praised the ruling as “a breath of fresh air in dark times.”

In San Jose, Bishop Oscar Cantú said that parishes in the San Jose Diocese may resume indoor service as soon as they’re ready, but restrictions on capacity and singing still will be observed.

“While we will now be able to gather for indoor religious services, it is vital to appreciate that things will not immediately ‘go back to normal’ as COVID-19 still poses serious risks of infection, especially for the most vulnerable,” Cantú said.

Bishop Michael C. Barber of the Diocese of Oakland — which includes parishes in Alameda and Contra Costa counties — also expressed similar sentiments.

“I am glad churches and synagogues will fall under the same safety rules which govern retail shopping and gambling casinos and we will no longer be singled out for arbitrary restriction by the government,” he said in a statement Saturday evening. “We look forward to welcoming our congregations back inside our churches, at 25% capacity, and following all COVID safety procedures. The high court’s decision is a victory for religious liberty rights for all Americans.”

Regardless of the permanent outcome, the decision is a departure from the leeway courts have given state governments so far in the name of slowing the spread of COVID-19, said Leslie Gielow Jacobs, professor at University of the Pacific, Mcgeorge School of Law in Sacramento.

“Now the court is saying, ‘Hey, if you mention religious services, you have to justify it more,’” Jacobs said. “It’s expanding the scope of religious liberty and it’s skeptical about putting more restrictions on religious worship than other secular activities.”