Despite the White House and the Coronavirus Task Force both warning against gatherings of ten or more people in any one place to slow the spread of coronavirus, Attorney General Bill Barr’s Department of Justice is defending churches that defy social distancing policies.
In violation of those warnings and of an executive order from Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, Lighthouse Fellowship Church held a service for 16 people early last month as the virus spread through communities and was killing Americans. The death toll has since exploded to nearly 70,000 while the number of infected has eclipsed 1.1 million.
Holding this service in defiance of social distancing policies in the middle of a pandemic needlessly put congregants and church personnel at risk, which also put families and communities at risk.
And so, police rightfully issued a citation to the church’s pastor, who could be fined or jailed for the violation.
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Churches may be an important part of some people’s lives, but they are definitely not an essential service at this time when people need to be staying home, especially since the technology exists to hold church services through the Internet.
But Barr and the DOJ filed a legal notice in court in support of the church and also directed “Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Eric Dreiband, and the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, Matthew Schneider, to review state and local policies to ensure that civil liberties are protected during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Again, nobody is banning religious services. They are just being barred from being held in physical gatherings at churches. No civil rights are being violated.
But Dreiband apparently disagrees like a good toady.
“For many people of faith, exercising religion is essential, especially during a crisis,” Dreiband said in a statement. “The Commonwealth of Virginia has offered no good reason for refusing to trust congregants who promise to use care in worship in the same way it trusts accountants, lawyers, and other workers to do the same. The U.S. Department of Justice will continue to monitor any infringement of the Constitution and other civil liberties, and we will take additional appropriate action if and when necessary.”
Actually, the state of Virginia has nearly 70,000 reasons to bar such gatherings at churches. That’s how many Americans have died because of this virus, and the death toll is still rising. Allowing non-essential church services to resume could trigger a second wave of the virus and the state and the nation would be right back in the thick of a crisis that could have ended sooner, had people simply stayed at home until they are given the all-clear by health officials.
The federal courts should reject this filing by the DOJ and uphold the case against the pastor. Because if this pastor can get away with defying the rules during a pandemic, then all pastors will do the same, including evangelical pastors with megachurches that seat thousands of potential carriers and future victims of the virus.
Featured image via screen capture
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