Religion has a special status in the First Amendment. Always has.
Sure, churches can be held to generally applicable laws such as fire codes. But to completely forbid worship in a church setting puts a stake through the heart of the First Amendment.
To your second point, it is not the job of courts to decide what is required of a religious faith. If I believe I have to congregate or to eat fish on Fridays should a court say no I don’t and no I don’t?
We may have dominated for 17 centuries, but since the 1960s the Court has excluded us from public life and John Roberts has decided that a state can forbid congregation in church. Read the last part of that last sentence. That’s from a Justice appointed by a Republican president.
Roberts is just a wormy little asshole who changed his vote on Obamacare because he read newspaper articles being mean to him. So much so that Senators write amicus briefs to troll him hoping to change his vote. He has no business being a Supreme Court Justice.
Dem presidents do a hell of a job at finding solid liberal justices.
They interpret the Constitution the right way.
The “compelling interest” test is misplaced here. That is a judicially created test to survive strict scrutiny which has exclusively been used as an exception to things like racial classifications or things which strike at the periphery of a right.
A compelling interest is never, and I repeat never, a justification for denying the core of a guaranteed right. No matter how compelling the government interest, you cannot ban criticism of the President or the purchase of religious books. It doesn’t matter how compelling that interest is. The decision against that law has been made previously in the Constitution. It is not subject to any balancing test.
Likewise, attendance at church is at the core of the First Amendment. The framers made that decision. It is not subject to law, debate, or infringement except by amendment to the Constitution.
Any government always claims a compelling interest in violating your rights. That’s what governments do. That’s why we put limitations on them. It’s terribly inconvenient for police to have to wait outside your house for a search warrant when they just KNOW that you have bad stuff in your house. You could say that their knowledge compels them to go inside. But the Constitution says they have to get a warrant.
A compelling interest cannot serve as a suspension of rights.
So you’re taking the position that your religion trumps the safety and health of people around you?
Great - you go to a packed religious celebration, pick up the virus, then go about your business while spreading the virus and making other people sick. There are documented instances of illness and death stemming from religious gatherings during this time of covid.
What gives you and yours the right to play Russian roulette with the health of other people?
No one is stopping you from talking to your god(s). You can pray all you want in your home, or out under the sky. God is not locked in a building or box.
Religion is not being singled out here - ALL gatherings are under restriction. For public safety. What gives your religion the right to jeopardize other people? Is that “Christian” of you?
I am so sick of people whining about their religion being curtailed when this pandemic is killing people. Are you now practicing human sacrifice by lottery? Is that OK with your god? Does that what your holy book tells you to do?
Come up with a way to practice your religion that won’t injure or kill other people.
I do believe five judges just stated that these regulations do NOT trample upon those constitutional rights. So sorry your side lost on the legal argument, but you really did just have your day in court.
Funny - George Washington was actually an advocate of quarantine for infectious illness.
And you can still attend church… my area has seen religious services on the internet, in open fields with people at a distance from each other, and in other manners that don’t put other people at risk. Assuming you’re Christian, your messiah Jesus held the Sermon on the Mount outside - what’s stopping you from emulating him? I’ve read the Bible, both Old and New Testament, I can’t ever recall where it says you MUST be in a particular building in order to worship God even if that’s your habit.
Maybe, due to extensive experience with epidemics in their own lives they didn’t feel it necessary to inject some common sense about not using your religion to endanger and kill other people.
A good start! I can only wish of times where true logic prevails and all churches and other wastes of religious properties are turned into schools, hospitals or even parking lots. A good parking space gives you all the fulfillment you’ll need for a productive day.
I guess I’m having difficulty reconciling these two positions, and perhaps it would be helpful to others if you could clarify.
If “attendance at church” is core and no compelling interest is allowed in restricting that, then why do you allow for fire codes? Isn’t “not dying in a fire” just another compelling interest? Why are you allowing for a “MAX OCCUPANCY 100” restriction but not a “25% or 100, whichever is lower” restriction, which is specifically the restriction in this Supreme Court case?
I mean, those seem to be the same type of restriction, differing only in degree. But differing in degree doesn’t seem compatible with your “compelling interest is never, and I repeat never, a justification” point. So why is it acceptable if you’re that 101st person in pre-pandemic times to be disallowed from entry because of the fire code, but not acceptable if you’re that 26th person in pandemic times to be disallowed?
I would put a different take on it: IMHO, the Court is NOT interpreting the Constitution correctly, but…the virus doesn’t read the Constitution.
You can’t say “Constitution, Constitution!” when there’s an asymptomatic, contagious and deadly virus afoot. The virus doesn’t care for the First Amendment.
So does the right to assemble outside of religion but that’s been restricted, too, under this epidemic. How come you’re not howling about that?
NO right is unlimited. We don’t allow religions that practice human sacrifice, either. We don’t allow Muslims and Mormons to marry multiple wives but you’re not up in arms about that.
Millions of religious people have continued to worship while modifying their customs to accommodate the need to not make people sick or dead. Why does your sect get an exception?
As already noted - plenty of churches (and synagogues, and mosques, and others) have managed to both worship and protect their congregations and the general public. Why is yours incapable of doing the same?
Is your church the people or the building?
Find a way to congregate in a manner that doesn’t put others at risk. A lot of other people have managed this, why can’t you?
In other words, from the 1960’s your group has been curtailed from imposing your religion on everyone else in public. You do understand that from the very beginning there were people other than Christians in the United States, yes? Not everyone is a Christian, or a particular type of Christian, and from the viewpoint of those who are not the majority here we have been pretty happy about the Court restraining the majority from trampling OUR rights and OUR freedom to worship as we choose (or not, as the case may be) and NOT be required to give lip service to your sect in public while we’re told to keep ours at home.
You don’t like his decision(s) so you think he’s a bad guy. OK. You know, that’s not how this is supposed to work, right? You don’t like a SCotUS decision you go back and change the law or amend the constitution.
You didn’t answer the first one and I have idea what the response to the second question is supposed to mean, so I guess I’ll just stick to the third one. Hell, I’ll even scratch the compelling interestargument to avoid pages long hijacks. So, we’ll just stick to whether the court was right or not.
Wasn’t Big Tony the one who referenced Reynolds v United States when he wrote:
Also, Newsom’s rules weren’t an attack on religious freedom, they were an attack on in-person gatherings. Straight from the decision:
They have since even eased up the rules specifically for churches, so we’ll see what the church has to say about that. My guess is that they won’t be satisfied.
While I disagree with UltraVires on outcome of this case and I realize that you are trying to back up his disagreement with the constitutionality of the opinion, you are dead wrong here and I’m pretty sure UltraVires and myself would both agree (but he’s free to state otherwise, obviously) as to why you are wrong. Yes, you absolutely can and should say “Constitution, Constitution!” even when there’s a nasty and deadly virus afoot.
The first amendment is not a suicide pact. The way you’re arguing, if there was a pandemic that spread like wildfire in crowds with 99% fatality, the government still couldn’t restrict religious gatherings.
Uh, no. That’s not even what you cite says. It names specific Sundays,different in different countries. And then it also indicates that dispensation can be given–you know, like the Pope himself did this last Easter.
Furthermore, you ignore centuries of practice where the sick do not attend and have Mass administered by a priest, and are not condemned to Hell. And you ignore the practice where a layperson can administer Mass on their own in emergencies. There are ways around these requirements even without dispensation.
Christianity is ultimately about love. So any Christian that holds to their principles will have some way of avoiding doing actions that will kill people. Killing people who don’t want to die is not an action of love.
As for freedom religion, well, when your actions will cause death, then that is not an excuse. If it were, we could have religions with human sacrifice. When everyone is restricted from something, that is not an abridgment of freedom of religion.
Freedom of religion, like all rights, has restrictions. As the saying goes, “My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.”
Right, because his cite is specifically about Holy Days of Obligations, which are different in different countries and not always on Sundays. Catholics have an obligation to attend Mass every Sunday unless excused for a serious reason. And even with this obligation, the Catholic bishops in my area dispensed Catholics from the obligation to attend Mass even before almost everything was shut down. They dispensed Catholics from the obligation even while the churches were still open and Mass was being celebrated ( which actually scared the hell out of me).
I don’t think any of that really matters in some ways, but I do think it matters in other ways. What do I mean by that? Regarding the restrictions, there’s a certain group who are arguing that religious services are essential services - it’s kind of hard to argue that when Catholic bishops were giving dispensations, considering that the Roman Catholic Church is one of the few ( and I’m sure the largest) groups that actually requires ( not encourages) attendance every Sunday.
Well, Judaism requires the presence of 10 Jewish adults (men, if you are orthodox) for many functions.
But it also teaches that saving a life trumps almost all the other rules and obligations. And that God doesn’t require you to do that which is impossible. So we don’t bring animals to sacrifice at the (destroyed) temple, and instead offer prayers in groups. And during the pandemic, those groups may be virtual.
As others have said, the Catholic Church also requires physical presence for a bunch of stuff (taking communion, baptism, and confession, for instance) but also has specific exceptions when that’s not a good idea. Here’s a Catholic article about how to continue to practice Catholicism in the midst of pandemic restrictions:
The current pandemic restrictions are exactly like fire code restrictions. They apply to everyone and every organization, religious or not, and they have been instituted to save lives.
I think it’s odd, and political rather than religious, that it’s the Christian groups that DON’T require an intercessor, and that have been clear that God is everywhere and can be worshipped by anyone anyplace, that are kicking up a fuss about the lockdown.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and conclude that you didn’t actually read the opinion at all. While I am completely unsurprised by that fact coming from you, it might help if I point out a couple sentences from it:
“The Order places temporary numerical restrictions on public gatherings to address this extraordinary health emergency. State guidelines currently limit attendance at places of worship to 25% of building capacity or a maximum of 100 attendees.”
“In response to the COVID–19 health crisis, California has now limited attendance at religious worship services to 25%
of building capacity or 100 attendees, whichever is lower.”
No one is “completely forbid[ing] worship in a church setting”. That’s just more idiotic rhetoric. And, again, completely unsurprising coming from you.
But even the Free Exercise Clause isn’t unlimited. You can’t be a bigamist. You can’t commit perjury. You can’t smoke peyote. As long as the general rule isn’t targeted specifically against religion (like it was in Church of Lukumi Babalu) ala the Smith case, it shouldn’t need to pass strict scrutiny. Since the restrictions aren’t a complete ban on worship, but rather just limits on all public gathering, I think they’re reasonable. There is certainly room for debate about whether the restrictions (is 25% capacity really necessary?) are reasonable (especially as we learn more about the virus, its spread, and how the “reopenings” go). But, for now, I think that debate should be done first by the legislatures and executives, and only negated by the judiciary if they go too far. For example, I think banning drive-in worships or a complete ban on any church worship would be very problematic. But from most of what I’ve read, it seems to me these restrictions are pretty reasonable and generally applicable.
Not just on religion but also on other various explicit and inferred rights. Such as the “right” to ignore quarantine restrictions and prevent the enforcement of closure of a place of business by walking around with my firearms on display.
No, really – I am hearing too much from the right that seems to claim the constitution means that any law and regulation that is inconvenient or burdensome is “tyranny” that merits the threat of armed rebellion.
Indeed.
Only because in the framers’ knowledge and experience the deadliest conflict of sociocultural constructs was the religious kind (and remained so until the rise of the 20th century totalitarianisms), where believers would be ready to kill and die with no qualms.
To figure out where that protection starts and stops is the Court’s function, and yes, it should be given careful scrutiny and no, it should NOT be a matter of just “my expert says it’s unsafe, don’t meet”. That’s simplistic.
But at the same time, neither can it be a matter of crying “religion!” and then you become untouchable, all the precedents say that’s not what it means.
ISTM the evidence leans in the direction that what it takes for congregations to adapt to small group limits and to online services is the will to do so, but that by itself does not mean some other congregation MUST believe the same way; and meanwhile I keep hearing arguments on the other side basically reducing it to “I call ‘religion’! You can’t tell me what to do!” which is not a real constitutional argument either.
Nobody has done that, as mentioned before, all rights are succeptible to time-place-manner constraints. Just that some must be more closely scrutinized than others.
