The SC House passed a bill on Wednesday stating that churches are “essential services” that cannot be forced to close during a state of emergency, and some Washington lobby group launched an announcement announcing the “important step. “that South Carolina had just given to defend our First Amendment right to worship” by allowing religious organizations to keep their doors open and protecting them from discrimination based on their religious identity or constitutionally protected conduct. “
It would be worth celebrating H.3105 if we were in New York. Or in California. Or anywhere where the government forced churches to close during the pandemic while allowing liquor stores to continue to function.
But this is South Carolina, where churches are not being attacked and where there is absolutely no reason to suspect that they might one day be.
And this is not just a harmless little bill that soothes hurt feelings that no one is declaring churches “essential” – as if Christians need someone to tell us that churches are essential – and that allows supporters to brag of how they are protecting Christians.
Cindi Ross Scoppe
It is a harmful bill that feeds the false narrative that the great bad government is closing our churches.
People who wish to hate the government can find many fact-based reasons to hate the government; we don’t need to invent more.
Yes, supporters acknowledged during the House debate that the government had not closed any churches in South Carolina, with Dep. Richie Yow describing his project as a way of saying “thank you” to the churches for their work during COVID-19 . You know, the kind of thing that the Legislature usually does through thanksgiving resolutions, not through amendments to state law. And no, like someone who has spent the past 370 days working with my priest to keep our parishioners connected and continue to serve as the hands of Christ, even during the COVID-19 pandemic – partly developing, launching and maintaining our broadcast ministry. alive – I am not anti-church.
But I am also not against the government.
Unfortunately, the government narrative is closing churches is easy to sell because of California and New York, and a handful of American cities and entire countries that have actually closed churches. And people who consume a diet of stealing cable news souls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and unrated posts on Facebook and Twitter, have heard so much about the blockades and attacks on churches that they have forgotten what the reality is. in South Carolina.
A pastor friend of mine even stood on a Columbia lectern a week ago and lamented how “the authorities – local, state, national – decided we were not ‘essential'” and forced the churches to end the service in person and “struggle to find the guidelines of those authorities. ”
Therefore, a year after the start of the pandemic, a quick update may be necessary.
First, the churches: SC Attorney General Bob Cook laid the legal foundations for South Carolina’s direct approach to churches in a March 24, 2020 letter to SLED explaining that Governor Henry McMaster’s ban on public meetings of two or more people do not restrict church services because “it must be applied in such a way that meetings involving fundamental and established constitutional protections are authorized, even if prudence requires that they be discouraged”.
When Charleston, Mount Pleasant and Columbia issued limited home stay orders later that week, Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin assured me that his order did not apply to church meetings; Charleston changed its order in a few days to clarify that.
Nor did the federal authorities interfere with the churches. By the way, federal authorities have never imposed any mandates on churches, businesses, cities or states.
The Episcopal Church of the Church of the Good Shepherd of Columbia was one of many that replaced face-to-face services with live broadcasts during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic – not because the government ordered it, but because it was the right thing to do.
And so, in the past year, some churches in SC continued their worship services as if nothing had changed – well, except for all those extra funerals they had to perform. Many moved to the Internet, not because some government told them, but because they believed it was the right thing to do. Some remain online only; most, like mine, still offer live streaming to increase personal worship over social distances.
Mr. McMaster closed schools on March 16 and restaurants on March 18, and boat ramps and beaches later in the month. Charleston, Mount Pleasant and Columbia all backed down after the governor specifically banned local closure orders.
The governor’s most extensive restrictions came on April 6, when he issued a “home or work” order that listed specific businesses that needed to be closed, including gyms, massage parlors, theaters and some retail. (By implication, everything that was not on his list was considered “essential.”) But he reopened department stores less than three weeks later, on April 20, beaches on April 21 and other businesses from time to time. The restaurants reopened eight weeks after closing, although they were limited to half their capacity for months.
Today, the only government restriction that remains is a reduced, but still present, limit on visits to nursing homes. Because, no, a masked mandate is not a block and it is not a business constraint.
Yes, entertainment venues and barbers, hairdressers and other personal services businesses were closed for a few months, but in most cases, Southern Carolians were legally allowed to maintain most of our daily activities, except for a month or two.
In addition, restrictions on our lifestyle resulted entirely from churches and businesses restricting their services to be responsible members of our communities – and from us restricting our own activities to being responsible members of our communities.
You may find that none of the restrictions makes sense. You may think that they lasted a long time. But all those people you see talking or tweeting about being locked in their homes because of the blockade? They live in very different places in South Carolina, where the blockade was a very limited and temporary inconvenience that has long since been lifted.
