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The key part of the dissent is what is a comparable “business” to a church service. I think it is sports arrangement, or perhaps political arrangement, and the
by kmonsen 6y ago
The key part of the dissent is what is a comparable “business” to a church service. I think it is sports arrangement, or perhaps political arrangement, and the Supreme Court justices believe It is a supermarket and manufacturing. I’m not sure how we could find common ground or understand each other.
I do believe the governor could have made the case better by stating restrictions (6 feet personal space, no sharing drinking cups, perhaps no choir in enclosed spaces?) instead of blanket numbers like max 100 people in a service regardless of church size which seems a bit arbitrary.
- dehrmann 6y agoConsidering religion is protected by the First Amendment, I'm fine with erring on the side of importance. The other nuance here is that while churches might be free to open, they're also free to stay closed out of caution, and individuals are free to not go.
- kmonsen 6y agoSure, but everyone (at least me and the 8 people on the Supreme Court) believes the governor is allowed to impose some restrictions in a pandemic. He is just not allowed to have harsher restrictions on churches then comparable activities which seems reasonable even to me as an atheist.
- fastball 6y agoThe dissent explicitly lists: > "factories, offices, supermarkets, restaurants, retail stores, pharmacies, shopping malls, pet grooming shops, bookstores, florists, hair salons, and cannabis dispensaries. " I think saying religion is equivalent to sports is pretty strange. People clearly place way more importance overall on religion than they do on sports, even in a country that's pretty crazy about sport. I would definitely argue that church is more important than pretty much everything in the latter half of the dissent's list.
- joshuamorton 6y agoThe question isn't one of importance, but of the danger to individuals from partaking in the activity. Yes, speaking constitutionally, shopping malls are less important than churches. But that doesn't matter if a church service is a religious concerts and concerts (religious or secular) aren't allowed.
- kmonsen 6y agoJust note that shopping malls are closed in California so that is not a reasonable argument. But for example Tesla manufacturing is reopened, is that a comparable activity? I think this whole case is clearly subjective and should not be of course. It would be useful to have a general rule what a church is comparable to.
- fastball 6y agoIt is obviously not purely a function of danger. It is a cost-benefit of danger/importance. Clearly importance is relevant to this discussion. Supermarkets are open everywhere because they are very important (vital), even though they might be a ripe vector for transmission. I would agree that on the graph of danger against importance, supermarkets are obviously going to be less dangerous and more important than church. But my point was that it's not clear where to draw the line on this graph, and even if you do have a clear line, I think church is going to be higher on the cultural importance scale than concerts or sporting events, so it could make the cut even if they do not.
- kmonsen 6y ago