The Supreme Court is Now Filled with Activist Judges
Who believe churches are to be granted special privilege, even over speech
On November 25th, 2020, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled — in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, New York v Andrew M. Cuomo, Governor of New York — that Cuomo’s gathering restrictions during an active outbreak during the COVID-19 pandemic have violated freedom of religion and claims that the restrictions targeted Catholic churches and Orthodox Jew synagogues, despite at the time of their ruling, none of those restrictions were in place.
Amy Coney Barrett was the swing vote in this case w/Chief Justice Roberts joining the “liberal Justices.”
The majority argues that both the Catholic church and the Jewish synagogues have self-restricted and have had no outbreaks from in the church/synagogue, and that limiting them to 10-person gatherings (for churches that hold upwards of 1k people) causes irreparable harm. It should be mentioned that the number of restrictions on gathering is tied to the ‘color’ of a zone within the cities and “red” is 10, “orange” is 25, etc.
Strangely enough, however, is that Amy Coney Barrett — prior to being tapped for a Supreme Court Justice seat, replacing RBG — upheld other restrictions on political speech because those same restrictions gave special leeway to religious ceremonies and churches. This case is known as Illinois Republican Party v. J.B. Pritzker, Governor of Illinois.
In THAT case, she even cited Jacobson v. Massachusetts — a Supreme Court case from 1905 that essentially provided a framework for public health taking precedent over individual liberties. In Jacobson, the Supreme Court ruled that mandatory vaccinations do not violate the Constitution. Jacobson was also cited in the Cuomo case, but disregarded in total by Gorsuch:
That decision involved an entirely different mode of analysis, an entirely different right, and an entirely different kind of restriction
In the Pritzker case, Amy Coney Barrett also cited a court case, Reed v. Gilbert, which claimed adherence to sign ordinances within a city being applied to a church as being a violation of the freedom of religion, despite the fact that everyone was equally forced to adhere to signage rules within said town. So the SCOTUS ruled special privilege to the churches while no such special privileges were given to political speech. Her argument said the case did not apply to Pritzker and they must “break new ground.”
What this means is that any “mandates” henceforth must give churches special privilege, otherwise the SCOTUS will rule against it, as is clear within ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF BROOKLYN, NEW YORK v. ANDREW M. CUOMO.
Dissent
Chief Justice Roberts dissented, but not necessarily on the merits of the case, but as he stated, because “ [t]here is simply no need to do so.” Here is a full quote from page 20 of the V Cuomo ruling (emphasis added):
I would not grant injunctive relief under the present circumstances. There is simply no need to do so … the Governor revised the designations of the affected areas. None of the houses of worship identified in the applications is now subject to any fixed numerical restrictions …
The Governor might reinstate the restrictions. But he also might not. And it is a significant matter to override determinations made by public health officials concerning what is necessary for public safety in the midst of a deadly pandemic. If the Governor does reinstate the numerical restrictions the applicants can return to this Court, and we could act quickly on their renewed applications. As things now stand, however, the applicants have not demonstrated their entitlement to “the extraordinary remedy of injunction.
In the other dissenting opinions, they pointed out that Cuomo’s epidemiologists had granted special favor to houses of worship when compared to other comparable gatherings such as concerts, public lectures, theatrical performances — those gatherings were restricted more than the churches.
Wow.
Activist Justices Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Barrett, Thomas, and Alito granted injunctive relief to an issue where relief was no longer needed because the issue had been resolved. In doing so, they have stated that churches are essentially untouchable while everything else is still fair game.
So long as restrictions grant churches, and not just speech, special immunity, Amy Barrett says it’s fine. In Diocese v Cuomo, despite being able to provide services online, they are untouchable. Let’s also not forget that Amy Coney Barrett is a “devout” Catholic — one might even call her a religious extremist. Based on her contradictions, it appears that label may be quite accurate.
This is a tragic ruling that was unnecessary and contradictory to nearly every previous SCOTUS precedent set in the past. The government can force you to be injected with a vaccine but cannot limit gatherings of churches “too much.” Ridiculous.
