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Friday, March 29, 2024

Churches sue Pritzker, say governor's treatment of churches amid COVID-19 an unconstitutional 'sham'

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Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker delivers remarks during his daily COVID press briefing on April 1, 2020. | Illinois Department of Public Health Livestream Screenshot

Yet more churches have signed legal challenges to the authority of Gov. JB Pritzker to restrict church worship services and other religious gatherings amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

On May 8, the congregations known as the Elim Romanian Pentecostal Church, of Chicago , and Logos Baptist Ministries, of Niles, filed suit in Chicago federal court against the governor.

The lawsuit specifically targets Pritzker’s executive orders restricting the size of gatherings permitted in churches and other religious settings. The lawsuit also targets Pritzker’s so-called “Restore Illinois” plan. That plan lays out a 5-phase proposal for reopening businesses and group settings in Illinois, many of which are currently closed under the governor’s executive actions under the emergency powers he has claimed under the disaster declaration he issued in early March in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

While the plan calls for the eventual reopening of churches, it specifically refuses to allow any gatherings of more than 50 people until a vaccine or some other effective treatment is developed to greatly reduce the severity and lethal risk from COVID-19. Critics have pointed out such a vaccine or treatment could be 12 months away, or may never be created and placed into widespread use.

The churches’ lawsuit asserts the governor’s orders limiting religious gatherings violates rights of believers under the U.S. Constitution. They assert the orders improperly specifically target religious gatherings, permitting them no more than 10 participants, while allowing potentially hundreds to gather inside big-box retail stores and an array of other businesses in 23 “essential” categories granted exemptions under the governor’s orders.

“… The government does not have the authority to, with the stroke of a pen, declare churches and attendance at church to be ‘non-essential’ and impose criminal sanctions on Plaintiffs for failing to abide by that government-imposed prescription of orthodoxy,” the churches wrote in a memorandum accompanying their complaint. “The Constitution demands more. So, too, should this Court.”

The churches’ lawsuit comes as the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago prepares to take up arguments in the litigation brought against Pritzker by The Beloved Church, a Christian congregation in the northwest Illinois community of Lena.

That church had similarly challenged the governor’s executive orders. However, U.S. District Judge John Z. Lee rejected their request for an injunction barring the governor from enforcing his COVID-related rules against them.

In that ruling, Judge Lee said the governor’s orders should be allowed because the governor’s oft-repeated goal of “saving lives” from COVID-19 takes precedence over a congregation’s right to gather and practice their faith.

He also rejected that congregation’s attempt to compare themselves to big-box retailers, saying the more apt comparison is to theaters or stadiums, all of which have been shuttered by the same orders the governor applied to churches.

In their filing, the Elim and Logos congregations rejected the contention churches are not analogous to retail stores or other businesses currently permitted to operate by the governor.

They pointed to language from a recent decision from the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which addressed attempts by Kentucky to bar religious gatherings, and even prohibit so-called drive-in services, with the goals of reducing the spread of the disease.

“Restrictions inexplicably applied to one group and exempted from another do little to further these goals … and do much to burden religious freedom,” the Sixth Circuit judges wrote. “Assuming all of the same precautions are taken, why is it safe to wait in a car for a liquor store to open but dangerous to wait in a car to hear morning prayers? Why can someone safely walk down a grocery store aisle but not a pew? And why can someone safely interact with a brave deliverywoman but not with a stoic minister? The Commonwealth (of Kentucky) has no good answers.”

Also in his decision, Judge Lee noted he believed many of the concerns over religious worship rights had been addressed by Pritzker’s move to revise his orders to allow for drive-in services and allow gatherings of 10 or fewer people to resume.

In their case, however, the Elim and Logos churches said such revisions should be brushed aside.

They said the governor’s actions cannot be considered “neutral” nor “narrowly-tailored” in their case because a “broad swath of exemptions” demonstrates the governor directly targeted religious gatherings. They said that decision stands as “textbook content discrimination.”

“The progression of the State’s actions was a sham at the start and remains unconstitutional even after its ‘benevolent’ instructions for ‘proper’ worship during COVID-19,” the churches said. “Its purpose in treating religious gatherings differently from the start was a sham because there is no evidence that religious gatherings ‘pose unique health risks that mass gatherings at commercial and other facilities do not,’ … or ‘because the risks at religious gatherings uniquely cannot be adequately mitigated with safety protocols’ such as those at liquor stores, cannabis stores, or other ‘essential’ stores that may continue to operate without the 10-person limitation.

“Thus, treating Plaintiffs and other religious gatherings differently was a sham from the start and remains constitutionally infirm even now.”

The churches are represented in the action by attorneys with the firm of Mauck & Baker LLC, of Chicago, and by Liberty Counsel, of Orlando, Fla.

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