Los Angeles County change on indoor religious services could impact South Bay lawsuit
and last updated 2020-12-20 01:53:42-05
LOS ANGELES (KGTV) â Late Saturday, Los Angeles County changed its public health order to allow indoor religious services with modifications â something that could have implications for a South Bay church s legal battle.
Los Angeles County s Department of Public Health issued the changes following a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 3 that places of worship in New York could reopen because coronavirus restrictions violated the First Amendment of the Constitution.
The high court then sent an unsigned order to California judges to reconsider Gov. Gavin Newsom s restrictions.
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The Supreme Court handed down a deeply strange order Thursday evening, denying relief to a religious private school in Kentucky that wants to reopen despite a Covid-19 related order closing all primary and secondary schools in the state.
As a matter of law, the outcome in
Danville Christian Academy v. Beshear is correct or, at least, it would have been correct before the Court handed down a decision on the eve of Thanksgiving that significantly expanded the rights of religious objectors to state laws. But oddly, the Court’s
Danville Christian order barely discusses the merits of the case, and it doesn’t engage at all with the question of whether
Massachusetts governor’s pandemic response ruled constitutional
The Civil Defense Act provides authority for Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker’s March 10 declaration of a state of emergency and subsequent emergency orders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and those actions did not violate the state or federal constitutions, the state’s Supreme Judicial Court has ruled.
The case had been brought by businesses whose operations have been disrupted by the pandemic response, including two hair salons, a tanning salon, a boxing gym, two restaurants, an indoor family entertainment center, and a conference center, along with two houses of worship and their pastors, and the head of a religious academy.
(AP Photo/Sait Serkan Gurbuz, File)
Yesterday, the Supreme Court kicked two decisions by Obama-appointed judges back for “reconsideration” in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in
Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. New York. At issue were decisions originating in New Jersey (that would be the state where the governor dines in close quarters in a restaurant while he sends out the
Staats Polizei to break up Jewish funerals) and Colorado, which have established “public health em
ergency” rules that make it easier to shop at Costco or buy liquor than to attend worship. (The judges were Raymond P. Murphy in Colorado and Claire C. Cecchi in New Jersey.) This is how SCOTUSBlog described the cases: