SCOTUS Strikes California’s In-Home Covid Limits: Read It For Yourself
Thomas Hawk, United States Supreme Court. Creative commons license: Attribution Non-Commercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY NC 2.0).
The Supreme Court has struck down in-home Covid limits that were part of California’s Covid restrictions 5-4, in what has become a string of rulings against state-level Covid restrictions targeted at religious worship gatherings.
For the fifth time, the U.S. Supreme Court has sided with religious adherents and against California’s COVID-19 restrictions. This time, the court barred the state from enforcing a rule that for now limits both religious and non-religious gatherings in homes to no more than three households.
The court’s unsigned order came on a 5-to-4 vote. Chief Justice John Roberts cast his lot with the dissenters, but failed to join their opinion. He noted simply that he would have left the lower court order intact.
A panel of the Ninth Circuit Court Of Appeals ruled that because the state treated both secular and non-secular groups alike when it came to home gatherings, the state restriction was constitutional. The appeals court panel declined to temporarily block its own order pending appeal.
But even as home worshippers appealed to the Supreme Court, the state said it was in the process of modifying its rules as part of its ongoing process of easing restrictions by April 15.
None of that satisfied the Supreme Court majority, including Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and President Trump’s three appointees, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
Government regulations are not neutral when they “treat any comparable secular activity more favorably than religious exercise,” said the majority, noting that “it is no answer that a state treats some comparable…activities as poorly as…the religious exercise at issue.”
In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor noted that California has adopted a blanket regulation limiting all home gatherings to three households, and that just because the state does allow larger gatherings at hair salons and other retail venues does not invalidate the home gathering limit.
Read the full order on in-home Covid limits here:
Supreme Court California
Sounds like the court wants to drive home the point of not playing favorites.Report
California didn’t think they were playing favorites. The restriction was that members of no more than three households were allowed in a single home. Period. No regard for purpose of the gathering. The court says that’s the wrong comparison. The logical conclusion of this seems to me to be that if a gathering is allowed somewhere for secular purposes, than comparably-sized gatherings must be allowed anywhere for religious purposes.
I wonder if this covers those secret funerals that happened in New York where there there were hundreds of unmasked people packed in shoulder to shoulder during the worst of the outbreak and the strictest rules on gatherings? There were still places — eg, hospitals — where hundreds of people were allowed to gather inside for secular purposes.Report
That last sentence deserves to be amplified.Report
My main problem with this ruling is that it is 5-4.Report
I haven’t read the decision yet, and these things can be more complicated and more even than they sound upon first hearing, but I do understand the attitude of “you had one job”. It’s weird that we have three threads going, one asking whether there are limits on government, another on gun regulation,, and this one on religious restrictions. The Framers weren’t psychics, but, you know, the same stuff keeps coming up. It’s like the 15-year-old girl who tells her dad that boys aren’t all like that, but keeps running into boys trying to be exactly like that. Sure, of course I respect your rights, I only want a little common sense reform.Report
The Court has been taken over by Satanists and has decided to start killing religious people.Report