In America, where there is a separation of church and state as required by the First Amendment of the Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that government must no longer maintain an attitude of neutrality toward religion.
Indeed, while governors, mayors, and their legions of bureaucrats have declared draconian lockdown rules to fight the COVID War, which have destroyed millions of businesses and tens of millions of lives and livelihoods, the judges Supreme declared that religions are of a higher order, and they are not obliged to live by everyone else’s rules.
Last Wednesday night, the Supreme Court ruled to exempt religions from capacity regulations imposed on businesses… especially inside seating capacity and social distancing rules that have destroyed much of the restaurant business.
The Court, in their report, said the majority that granted the injunction wrote in the ruling, “Even in a pandemic, the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten. The restrictions at issue here, by effectively barring many from attending religious services, strike at the very heart of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty.”
The suit was brought by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Orthodox Jewish synagogues. Both claimed the restrictions infringed on their First Amendment rights. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered on 6 October that these restrictions would be enforced in different color zones in the state during an uptick in cases at the time.
The New York Times reported that Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, who is from Brooklyn, NY, said he believed Governor Cuomo’s restrictions were an “overreach that did not take into account the size of our churches or the safety protocols that have kept parishioners safe.”
Christopher Ferrara, a special counsel for the Thomas More Society, reportedly said the Supreme Court decided that “governors can no longer use a public health emergency as a pretext for dictates shutting or severely restricting the use of houses of worships while secular businesses and activities they deem ‘essential’ – and even certain favored ‘non-essential’ secular businesses and activities – are not subjected to the same draconian restrictions.”
TRENDPOST: That the United States Supreme Court granted special rights to religions and not to the general public, in violation of America’s Constitution, has been ignored by the mainstream media and is barely addressed by the alternative media.
Instead, they have focused on the composition of the Court and how the votes represent a split along political party lines and belief systems.
TRENDPOST: Beyond America, religious leaders around the world are unwilling to abide by new coronavirus restrictions, which they say infringe on their right to worship.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that from church pews in Brooklyn to cathedrals in Europe, religious leaders say places of worship have been unfairly singled out, and the science does not back up the policy.
The WSJ pointed to a study that showed those who visited a house of worship three or more times per week were 16 times more likely to come down with the virus. But there was an important caveat to the study: it was unclear if those infected were attending services or there to receive a meal, which would indicate additional outside risk factors.
Religious leaders have called many of the virus guidelines arbitrary at best, prejudicial at worst. France, for example, barred all worship inside churches in late October except for funerals, where up to 30 people would be able to attend.
