A new missive from the Center for American Progress (CAP) raised an eyebrow this week – lamenting the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo and related Agudath Israel of America v. Cuomo U.S. Supreme Court decision to issue a preliminary injunction on an executive order from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. That order limits the number of individuals who could gather in places of worship and was challenged by both the Catholic diocese and Orthodox Jewish congregation.
“Sadly, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month to prevent the state of New York from imposing limits on the number of people attending religious gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic,” write Maggie Siddiqi and Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons of CAP’s faith initiative. “We object to this reinterpretation of the First Amendment as an entitlement for our religious communities to ignore guidelines that others are morally and legally obligated to follow.”
Except that is exactly the point of the SCOTUS decision – numeric church limits by Cuomo were not applied to other gathering places of similar size.
The Supreme Court ruling identifies this problem:
“In a red zone, while a synagogue or church may not admit more than 10 persons, businesses categorized as ‘essential’ may admit as many people as they wish. And the list of ‘essential’ businesses includes things such as acupuncture facilities, camp grounds, garages, as well as many whose services are not limited to those that can be regarded as essential, such as all plants manufacturing chemicals and microelectronics and all transportation facilities.”
In a concurring opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch directly calls out why:
“So, at least according to the Governor, it may be unsafe to go to church, but it is always fine to pick up another bottle of wine, shop for a new bike, or spend the afternoon exploring your distal points and meridians. Who knew public health would so perfectly align with secular convenience?”
Readers may recall another court challenge, in which Capitol Hill Baptist Church argued that the District of Columbia Mayor restricted their ability to freely assemble outdoors, even as massive protest gatherings rightly went ahead unhindered. In October, the U.S. Court for the District of Columbia granted the church a preliminary injunction, allowing it to resume outdoor meeting in crowds of more than 100 persons during the pandemic.
CAP is a secular think tank on the political Left, not a Christian organization, placing them outside of IRD’s customary area of focus. But their #StayHomeStayHoly hashtag has been deployed by Religious Left figures including Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Graves-Fitzsimmons and the United Methodist General Board on Church and Society (GBCS), which readers of this blog are acquainted with.
A Double Standard
The issue isn’t about a decision to stay or not stay home – faithful Christians may advocate not to worship in-person with others as they consider those in their midst who may be especially vulnerable. Nor is the hypocrisy of some elected officeholders at the core of this issue. Failure to abide by a policy as an individual will rightly raise skepticism, but doesn’t by itself invalidate whether or not the policy is advisable any more than Christian leaders caught in adultery invalidate historic Christian teaching on marital faithfulness.
At issue is a double standard allowing some activities to go forward, while religious observance in community is restricted. CAP can ask others to “pledge to #StayHomeStayHoly this winter” but officeholders cannot single out church limits while shopping malls remain open.
The restrictions on houses of worship take no account of size – rather than 25 or 50 percent, they state 10 people maximum in the “red zone” and 25 people in the “orange zone”. A shopping mall might have a 20 percent limit, but not the strict numeric limit than Cuomo placed.
Many churches in the diocese have room for 800 or more people and can still safely allow for social distancing, according to Brooklyn Bishop DiMarzio.
According to The Becket Fund, Cuomo admitted the supposedly elevated rates of COVID-19 would not be considered serious in many other states. He drew restrictive “Red” lockdown zones around predominately Orthodox Jewish parts of New York City. These zones heavily restricted worship, closed schools, and prevented Jewish families from celebrating holidays while mere blocks away, schools were open and restaurants were serving customers.
The Court granted the injunction, finding that Cuomo’s “rules can be viewed as targeting the ‘ultra-Orthodox [Jewish] community,’” that there was no evidence that the houses of worship who brought the case had contributed to the spread of disease, and that the regulations violated the First Amendment by privileging secular activities over religious exercise.
The double standard on synagogue and church limits in New York seems obvious, but CAP is blind to it.
Comment by David on December 4, 2020 at 5:19 pm
Houses of worship are places of public assembly and need to follow those rules applicable to such places. Building codes, spacing of seating, aisles, and number of exits should allow for safe egress. Places where people are singing or speaking together have been found to contribute to Covide-19 spread. Some pastors have declared that God would never permit people to get sick from attending church. However, this report from the CDC disputes this.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6919e6.htm
In any event, the restrictions on the places in question were lifted well before the Supreme Court case as the infection rate declined because of the measures taken by the state. The decision is relatively meaningless.
Comment by Steve on December 5, 2020 at 8:31 am
Decision isn’t meaningless. Infection rates are going up in a second wave and its said it will be worse than the first. Los Angeles just banned walking. Just because Cuomo stopped violating that particular constitutional right doesn’t mean the decision is meaningless. He shouldn’t have been violating those constitutional rights in the first place, and the decision will hopefully deter him and others like him from doing so going forward. Consider the example of a protective order against spouse abuse; the fact that further spouse abuse does not occur is an indication of its effectiveness, not its lack of meaning.