CNA Staff, Nov 26, 2020 / 13:23 pm
The Supreme Court said Wednesday night that NY state restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic are a violation of the First Amendment's protection of free religious exercise. After the ruling the Bishop of Brooklyn, whose diocese was a plaintiff in the suit, said that religious worship should be considered an essential during the coronavirus pandemic.
"It is time - past time - to make plain that, while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues and mosques," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a concurring opinion in a Wednesday night decision, which temporarily bars restrictions on religious worship that were enacted Oct. 6 by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
The court's ruling is temporary, as lawsuits filed by the Diocese of Brooklyn and by Orthodox Jewish synagogues in New York will continue, though the Supreme Court's Nov. 26 decision is likely to weigh heavily in the outcome of those cases.
The state's restrictions forbade the attendance of more than 10 people at religious services in state designated "red zones, and 25 people in "orange zones."