A Pasadena-based church has won a partial injunction against California’s prohibition against indoor worship services to help limit the spread of coronavirus under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued late Friday night, Feb. 5. Restrictions on crowd size, singing and chanting can remain in place, however, according to the nation’s highest court.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said Saturday that those state measures were imposed to protect worshippers from getting infected, but that the state will issue revised guidelines for indoor church services.
“We will continue to enforce the restrictions the Supreme Court left in place and, after reviewing the decision, we will issue revised guidelines for worship services to continue to protect the lives of Californians,” the governor’s press secretary, Daniel Lopez, said in a statement.
On a 6-3 vote, justices cited the Constitution’s protection of the free exercise of religion and ruled that “regulations like these violate the First Amendment unless the state can show they are the least restrictive means of achieving a compelling government interest.”
Friday’s Supreme Court ruling came in response to filings on behalf of Pasadena-based Harvest Rock Church and Harvest International Ministry, which has more than 160 churches across the state, including campuses in Downtown Los Angeles, Santa Ana and Corona, as well as the 600-seat South Bay United Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista.
“You can go to your house of worship, as of now! You can go back to church, we’re excited about that,” Pastor Art Hodges of the South Bay United Pentecostal Church told KNSD-TV.
The church has defied state orders since last May by holding service indoors while following COVID-19 safety protocols, Hodges said. He said he was thankful to hold services on Sunday “without any pressure or threat or concern” and added that the 25% attendance limit will make him add two or three more services to accommodate church members.
“It at least allows us some wiggle room to operate,” he said.
On Instagram, Harvest Rock’s ministry in Downtown L.A. announced it would hold an in-person service Saturday evening.
“Bring the kiddos! We’d love to see the whole family for service tonight!” the announcement said, followed by the hashtag #inpersonservice.
Attorney Mathew Staver, who represents the church, said in a statement that he and his clients would “continue to press this case until religious freedom is totally restored.”
Los Angeles County public health officials did not immediately respond to an email seeking response on Saturday. Responding to earlier court decisions, county officials on Dec. 19 lifted a previous ban on indoor church services. According to county health officials: Houses of worship are instructed to enforce social distancing and require the wearing of face coverings; attendance should not exceed the number of people who can be accommodated with six feet between separating households. Despite easing the indoor rules, the county has consistently recommended that services be set outdoors when possible.
California, and in particular, Southern California, became the epicenter of this debate that pitted the government and public health officials against some churches that insisted on keeping their doors open. The state’s regional stay-at-home orders have prohibited indoor activities across a broad range of industries but did allow for outdoor religious services.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that federal courts owe “significant deference” to politically accountable officials in public health matters but said that deference has its limits.
“The state’s present determination — that the maximum number of adherents who can safely worship in the most cavernous cathedral is zero — appears to reflect not expertise or discretion but instead insufficient appreciation or consideration of the interests at stake,” Roberts wrote.
The decision reflected the court’s current ideological divide, with six conservative justices in favor of the partial injunction and the three liberals dissenting.
“Justices of this court are not scientists,” Associate Justice Elena Kagan wrote in dissent to the majority ruling. “Nor do we know much about public health policy. Yet today the court displaces the judgments of experts about how to respond to a raging pandemic.”
“The state has concluded, for example, that singing indoors poses a heightened risk of transmitting COVID-19,” he wrote. “I see no basis in this record for overriding that aspect of the state public health framework.”
The ruling was the latest in a series of high-profile emergency requests to the nation’s highest court seeking guidance on indoor worship.
Last year, South Bay United Pentecostal Church was repeatedly denied preliminary injunctions against the state health orders by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, prompting the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Similarly, a federal appeals court turned down Harvest Rock’s bid for an emergency pre-Christmas ruling after the Supreme Court directed the lower courts to reconsider the matter.
Representatives for South Bay and Harvest Rock have argued that outdoor worship or those held by video-conferencing are “inadequate substitutes” for in-person gatherings and that the public health orders prohibit the church “from holding the services mandated by scripture.”
They have also argued that California has arbitrarily allowed certain sectors considered essential to stay open and conduct indoor operations while discriminating against religious institutions.
Other high-profile battles, some watched nationally, have erupted in the past year. In the San Fernando Valley, Pastor John MacArthur and his Grace Community Church, a Sun Valley megachurch, repeatedly congregated with thousands of people in its sanctuary.
When the church didn’t stop doing so after repeated warnings from public health officials, L.A. County and the church traded lawsuits. The county asked for a restraining order citing state and county health orders, while the church maintained its members had the constitutional right to congregate.
The Associated Press and City News Service contributed to this report.
Source: Orange County Register
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