California has instituted a layered system that has resulted in a total ban on domestic services in some counties. The court blocked the ban on indoor worship in the hardest-hit areas, but allowed some limitations based on percentages of capacity to stay in place, as well as a ban on singing and singing during indoor worship.
In all, the judges wrote four different opinions. On one side of the spectrum, Judges Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch would have given the churches the total relief they sought, while the three liberal judges – Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor – would have sided with the state.
“Federal courts owe significant deference to politically responsible officials,” wrote court president John Roberts, explaining his vote to grant partial relief to churches.
He added that the state’s determination that no one could safely worship in the “most cavernous cathedral” reflected an “insufficient appreciation” for the interests at stake. “Deference, while broad, has its limits,” said Roberts.
Writing with passion for the liberals, Kagan said that “the judges of this Court are not scientists, nor do we know much about public health policies”.
She said the majority had replaced expert judgment on “how to respond to a violent pandemic” and eased California’s restrictions on public meetings. She said that “California’s choices make sense” and that the state is “desperately trying to slow the spread of a deadly disease”.
“In the worst public health crisis in a century, this onslaught in armchair epidemiology cannot end well,” she said.
The cases presented by Harvest Rock Church and South Bay United Pentecostal Church challenged California Governor Gavin Newsom’s “Project for a Safer Economy”, which established a framework system. Counties are assigned to one of four levels ranging from “generalized” (level 1) to “minimum” (level 4.) At the first level, internal meetings for certain businesses and activities are prohibited.
In court documents, lawyers for Harvest Rock, represented by Mathew Staver of the Freedom Council, argued that the “Constitution cannot be discarded and forgotten”. He said that some secular meetings like those in supermarkets, laundries and shopping malls were exempt from restrictions.
Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general and appointed by President Joe Biden as secretary of health and human services, defended the restrictions he called “carefully structured” and a “proportional response” to unprecedented threats to public health.
This story has been updated with additional information from the decision.