Posted on 04/14/2020 1:04:48 PM PDT by Morgana
Three southern California churches sued Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday, arguing that the state’s social distancing orders infringed upon the First Amendment right to freedom of religion and assembly.
The suit was filed in the federal court for the Central District of California and also names state Attorney General Xavier Becerra and officials of San Bernardino and Riverside counties. It seeks to block the governor’s coronavirus stay-at-home orders, which don’t exempt houses of worship as “essential” infrastructure and prohibits group gatherings, according to the Associated Press.
James Moffatt, senior pastor at Church Unlimited and a plaintiff in the suit, was fined $1,000 for holding a Palm Sunday service in defiance of Riverside County’s stay-at-home order.
Moffatt “believes that Scripture commands him as a pastor to lay hands on people and pray for them, this includes the sick,” the suit said. “Moffatt also believes that he is required by Scripture to baptize individuals, something that cannot be done at an online service.”
A parishioner and the head pastor of Shield of Faith Family Church in Fontana and the senior pastor of Word of Life Ministries International in Riverside are also named in the suit, the Associated Press reported.
The churches argue that the state and local orders are too broad and that social distancing can be practiced in religious settings in the same manner as grocery stores and other essential businesses that are allowed to remain open.
“The state does not get to dictate the method of worship to the faithful,” Harmeet K. Dhillon, chief executive of the Center for American Liberty, a California nonprofit organization that filed the suit, said according to the Associated Press.
“If a Californian is able to go to Costco or the local marijuana shop or liquor store and buy goods in a responsible, socially distanced manner, then he or she must be allowed to practice their faith using the same precautions.”
U.S. District Judge Cynthia A. Bashant, citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, said the right to freedom of religion doesn’t “include the right to expose the community … to communicable disease.”
Well I live in OK...and my Gov. ain’t acting like your Gov.
You So, I can restrict your right to own guns because you might hurt someone. Right?
You, so so. no if there is mental illness you could and should. . you have to extrapolate the exemptions by amendment They are not all the same and emergencies are not the same. I assume you are a sentient being and your question was well thought out.
Everyone could potentially hurt someone.
overly broad and ridiculous
a person with the virus can lead to my death thru virus; a person not a carrier cannot. In a city where 1,000 have it and walk around in the crowds, in a month 1 million can have it.
I trust the epidemiologists at Scripps. I don’t trust anonymous people on the internet who can’t be inconvenienced on Sunday mornings.
Emergencies differ as i said somewhere today in explaining simple issue to people who refuse to understand.,
Everyone with a gun is a carrier. Any of them could hurt you.
Sweden shows that their herd immunity strategy makes my analogy more than appropriate.
You flirt with death daily in many ways.
Yes the emergency orders are overbroad and ridiculous.
Can the governor order the police to shoot you if you dint wear a mask, or mow down everyone at a crowded church service?
or are there limits to these emergency powers?
I worked corrections and your statement is not true, I was with many armed people none of whom would hurt me. They were well trained. What is the defense against the virus when you’re in public and 10% of them have the virus and don’t know it. She how this is not analogous to your gun example?
I am tired of this issue after explaining to people over and over and they don’t get it. So I will take the blame for being a bad teacher even though I taught emergency preparedness and response at the policy and line level for 20 years.
Start with the question, why did we give governors and the president emergency powers. What’s the difference between emergencies and “normal times?”
Now move to what might be different? I assume you are intelligent. So, from there, you might figure out, what would be done in a pandemic to reduce death. You will also realize, as we see today, there can be more than 1 response. So who makes the call? We already know that answer and I stated it above. Hint, not by vote of anonymous people on an internet web site.
Best wishes. I’m out.
The issue of the chicom corona in America is the same as the issue of chicom corona data. The data says that the prognosticators were way over estimating, grossly over-estimating.
That means that the threat to you is far less than you were originally told. If we don’t recalculate our fears based on newer, better numbers, then we will be unintentional fearmongers among our friends, family,and acquaintances.
Unreasonable fear is my target. That is how using unreasonably fearful, leftist views of gun owners makes sense in this discussion.
The spread isn’t what we thought last month, nor the communicability, nor the death rate.
It’s time to open our country. It’s time to recalibrate our fear meters.
Yes, the hypocrisy is glaring. Stores cannot guarantee that social distancing is taking place. Churches can, and many have. It’s clear the agenda.
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