The coronavirus has left the Supreme Court with a difficult task: balancing the nation's physical and spiritual health.
The dispute over reopening churches involves the Constitution's protection of religious freedom, but it also breaks down into a battle over numbers and percentages. If retail stores can open at 50% capacity, the argument goes, how can states such as California set different limits for religious gatherings?
Some experts in religion law see a difference, however, between retail stores with pedestrian traffic and houses of worship where congregants sit in pews for lengthy periods. San Diego County, where the Pentecostal church is located, notified the Supreme Court Wednesday that it now allows religious services under Newsom's revised order. But the state's guidance still recommends outdoor ceremonies and remote streaming technology, "given the high risk of this activity.
“People say, 'Why am I at the back of the line?'" said Eric Rassbach, senior counsel at the Becket Fund. Why should churches face strict limits, he said,"if you’re opening up the Mall of America and tattoo parlors?"allowed for drive-in church services, given that drive-in restaurants already were open.
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