The Supreme Court in Washington.
Photograph:
J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press
Politicians are increasingly trying to restrict America’s central freedoms, and the courts are the last line of defense. The Supreme Court intervened in this violation again on Friday with a partial injunction against California’s unequal treatment of religious meetings in the pandemic.
A divided court imposed the state’s total ban on indoor worship services, while the state allows secular meetings of comparable size and density (South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom) Judges Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would have gone further and barred the state’s 25% capacity restriction and its ban on singing or singing.
But court president John Roberts and judges Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett preferred to submit more to the state until the factual record is clearer. The three liberal judges are said to have postponed declaring “experts”.
Judge Gorsuch rebutted this argument in a statement accompanied by Judges Thomas and Alito. “Of course, we are not scientists, but we also cannot leave the field when government officials with experts in tow seek to infringe a constitutionally protected freedom,” he wrote.
“California is concerned that worship unites people for a long time. However, California does not limit its citizens to entering and leaving other establishments; nobody is prevented from staying in shopping malls, beauty salons or bus terminals ”, writes Justice. “Nor, again, did California explain why more restricted options, such as a reasonable limit on the length of internal religious meetings, would fail to address their concerns.”
Restrictions on the pandemic are a foretaste of the confrontations to come, as the progressive in power impose their cultural values on Americans with traditional views. To adapt William F. Buckley Jr., the Supreme Court will have to face the abusive government by shouting “Stop!”
Editorial Magazine Report: Progressives now want ideas to be monitored. Image: Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post via Getty Images
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Published in the February 8, 2021 print edition as ‘.’