Legal battles over pandemic-era worship gatherings rage on.
Last October’s confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett flipped the U.S. Supreme Court’s script on such questions.
The latest ruling came last Friday night: A 6-3 order stopped California’s ban on indoor worship in most of the nation’s most populous state. But the justices allowed a 25 percent capacity limit to remain.
Perhaps most interestingly, the majority said California can keep prohibiting singing and chanting. For now.
On the singing issue, the justices sang several different tunes:
• Chief Justice John Roberts: “The State has concluded … that singing indoors poses a heightened risk of transmitting COVID–19. I see no basis in this record for overriding that aspect of the state public health framework.”
• Barrett, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh: “Of course, if a chorister can sing in a Hollywood studio but not in her church, California’s regulations cannot be viewed as neutral. But the record is uncertain. … (H)owever, the applicants remain free to show that the singing ban is not generally applicable and to advance their claim accordingly.”
• Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito: “California has sensibly expressed concern that singing may be a particularly potent way to transmit the disease. … But, on further inspection, the singing ban may not be what it first appears. It seems California’s powerful entertainment industry has won an exemption. So, once more, we appear to have a State playing favorites … expending considerable effort to protect lucrative industries (casinos in Nevada; movie studios in California) while denying similar largesse to its faithful.”
