The U.S. Supreme Court overnight canceled New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s extreme attendance restrictions on religious services pending a review in the courts, confirming that the appellants, a Jewish congregation and a Catholic organization, “have shown that their First Amendment claims are likely to prevail.”
“Denying them relief would lead to irreparable injury,” the 5-4 decision said, “and granting relief would not harm the public interest.”
Just before midnight on the night before Thanksgiving, the Supreme Court blocked New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo from enforcing attendance limits at religious services. The vote is 5-4, with Roberts and the three liberals dissenting.
Here is the ruling: https://t.co/AI8VgygAPx https://t.co/yYuwY0piOO
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) November 26, 2020
The opinion suspended enforcement of the leftist governor’s mandates restricting some events to 10 persons, and other events to 25 persons, depending on the whether they happen in “red zones” or “orange.”
The applicants were the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and the Agudath Israel of America congregation.
They argued the governor was violating the Constitution’s First Amendment and the majority agreed.
“Both the Diocese and Agudath Israel maintain that the regulations treat houses of worship much more harshly than comparable secular facilities,” the ruling explained. “And they tell us without contradiction that they have complied with all public health guidance, have implemented additional precautionary measures, and have operated at 25% or 33% capacity for months without a single outbreak.”
The plaintiffs “have made a strong showing that the challenged restrictions violate ‘the minimum requirement for neutrality’ to religion.”
In fact, Cuomo’s restrictions “single out houses of worship for especially harsh treatment,” the court wrote.
“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,” the justices found, and those “essential” businesses including “acupuncture facilities, camp grounds, garages” as well as “plants manufacturing chemicals and microelectronics.”
Because Cuomo’s established rules that were not neutral, they are required to be “narrowly tailored” to serve a “compelling” state interest,” the ruling said, which Cuomo failed to do.
The Washington Examiner explained the decision was a reversal from an earlier Supreme Court case related to religious gatherings amid COVID-19 restrictions. The judges then sided with the regulations.
But that decision came when liberal jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg was still on the bench. Ginsburg died on Sept. 18 and was replaced by Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
The justices said, “Stemming the spread of COVID–19 is unquestionably a compelling interest, but it is hard to see how the challenged regulations can be regarded as ‘narrowly tailored.’ They are far more restrictive than any COVID–related regulations that have previously come before the Court, much tighter than those adopted by many other jurisdictions hard-hit by the pandemic, and far more severe than has been shown to be required to prevent the spread of the virus at the applicants’ services.”
The court confirmed that responding to a pandemic does not mean that constitutional rights are suspended.
“Members of this Court are not public health experts, and we should respect the judgment of those with special expertise and responsibility in this area. But even in a pandemic, the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten. The restrictions at issue here, by effectively barring many from attending religious services, strike at the very heart of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty,” the judges said.
Chief Justice John Roberts and three liberals dissented, claiming Cuomo had moved the affected churches into less restrictive zones and that the court no longer needed to act. But the majority disagreed, noting that the governor could at any time move those places of worship back to more severe restrictions, the Examiner reported.
