Amy Coney Barrett plays decisive role as Supreme Court bans New York’s COVID restrictions on church services

Judge Amy Coney Barrett was instrumental as the Supreme Court has banned New York from applying certain coronavirus restrictions on church services.

The Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Jewish synagogues in the borough of Brooklyn and Queens in New York have filed a lawsuit to challenge attendance limits in places of worship in areas hardest hit by the virus.

Attendance was capped at 10 and 25 people for the red and orange zones, respectively. However, the decision will not have immediate impact as both groups are in areas now designated as yellow zones, where places of worship can hold services at 50% of their maximum occupancy.

The Supreme Court voted 5-4 to ban the measures, with the last member of the court Barrett having voted with decision. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and the court’s three Liberal justices dissented.

The decision was at odds with decisions about capacity limits in churches in California and Nevada earlier this year.

In those cases, decided when Barrett’s predecessor, Liberal Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, was in court, the judges voted 5-4 to leave the governor’s restrictions on church services in place. Barrett, a conservative and devout Catholic, was confirmed in court last month after Ginsburg’s death in September.

The court order covered two claims – one from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, which covers Brooklyn and Queens, and another from Agudath Israel of America, two synagogues and two other people.

Both requests argued that places of worship were unfairly treated by an executive order of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, imposing further state restrictions last month.

Synagogues argued that the governor’s restrictions chose the Orthodox Jewish community. Cuomo “did not attack religious belief in general, but chose a particular religion for the blame and retribution for a rise in a societal pandemic,” he said.

New York said church services were treated more favorably than secular gatherings that carry a similar risk of infection, such as concerts and theatrical performances, which were banned altogether.

But in an unsigned order, the majority of the court agreed that Cuomo’s restrictions violated the First Amendment’s protection of the free exercise of religion.

“Members of this Court are not experts in public health, and we must respect the judgment of those who have particular expertise and responsibility in this area,” he said. “But even in the event of a pandemic, the Constitution cannot be put aside and forgotten.”

In a concurring opinion, Judge Neil Gorsuch said Cuomo treated religious exercises much harsher than secular activities.

“It is time – the time has passed – to make it clear that while the pandemic poses many serious challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive decrees that reopen liquor stores and of bicycles but close churches, synagogues and mosques, “he wrote.

In his dissent, Roberts said the measures “appear unduly restrictive,” but added that “it is important to override decisions made by public health officials about what is necessary for public safety in the environment. of a deadly pandemic “.

In another dissent, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Judge Elena Kagan, said she feared the ruling “would only exacerbate the suffering of the nation.”

“The judges of this Court are playing a deadly game in questioning the expert judgment of health officials about the environments in which a contagious virus, now infecting one million Americans every week, most easily spreads,” she writes.

She added: “The free exercise of religion is one of our most precious and jealously guarded constitutional rights. States cannot discriminate against religious institutions, even when faced with a crisis as deadly as this. But these principles are not in play today.

“The Constitution does not prohibit states from responding to public health crises with regulations that treat religious institutions equally or more favorably than comparable secular institutions, especially when those regulations save lives. Because New York’s COVID-19 restrictions do exactly that, I respectfully disagree. “