California Lifts COVID Capacity Limits on Places of Worship
Uploaded: , Wednesday, Apr 14, 2021
By Courthouse News Service
California public health officials this week lifted capacity limits on in-person services at places of worship from the state’s reopening scheme, following a handful of Supreme Court decisions in favor of congregants challenging the state’s COVID-19 capacity limits.
“In response to recent judicial rulings, effective immediately, location and capacity limits on places of worship are not mandatory but are strongly recommended,” the California Department of Public Health wrote on the state’s industry guidelines website Monday night.
But one attorney told Courthouse News the capacity restrictions lifted Monday don’t moot the lawsuits challenging California’s COVID-19 restrictions, since the state has vowed to implement restrictions again should a COVID-19 variant create another public health emergency.
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For 30 years, the Supreme Court applied a simple rule when someone with a religious objection to a state law sought an exemption from that law. So long as the law applied equally to everyone, regardless of whether someone is religious or not, then everyone had to comply with the law.
As the Court held in
Employment Division v. Smith (1990), religious objectors must follow “neutral law[s] of general applicability.”
Ever since Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the Court last fall, however, the Supreme Court has been rapidly dismantling
Smith. On Friday night, the Court fired a bullet into
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California churches seek emergency reprieve from state s pandemic restrictions Indoor capacity limits, singing prohibitions still in place Follow Us
Question of the Day By Valerie Richardson - The Washington Times - Saturday, April 3, 2021
A group of California churches is seeking a reprieve from state limits on indoor worship capacity and bans on singing and chanting in advance of the most important day on the Christian calendar.
Harvest Rock Church and Harvest International Ministries filed Friday for an emergency injunction in its 10-month case now before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals against California Gov. Gavin Newsom over what the churches describe as his discriminatory pandemic orders.