“This is a fear-driven response,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said during an Oct. 6 phone conversation about his pandemic-inspired restrictions on religious services. “This is not a policy being written by a scalpel. This is a policy being cut by a hatchet.”

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, which is asking the U.S. Supreme Court for an emergency injunction against Cuomo’s order, argues that a bit more care is required when the government interferes with the free exercise of religion. The Court’s decision will be an important indication of whether the justices are prepared to enforce constitutional limits on what politicians can do in the name of fighting COVID-19.

Under the hatchet-cut policy that Cuomo imposed last month, “houses of worship” in Brooklyn may admit no more than 10 people in “red” zones and no more than 25 in “orange” zones. The injunction application says those limits, which apply regardless of a building’s size, “effectively shutter all of the Diocese’s churches in those zones.”

The rules for secular activities are much looser. In red zones, “essential” businesses — including supermarkets, convenience stores, hardware stores, banks, pet stores and various offices — operate without capacity limits. In “orange” zones, that is true for an even wider range of businesses, including department stores.

You might surmise that Cuomo is picking on churches because they have proved to be especially dangerous sources of infection. Yet, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis, even while declining to enjoin enforcement of the restrictions, acknowledged that “there has not been any COVID-19 outbreak in any of the Diocese’s churches since they reopened.”

In fact, Garaufis said, “the Diocese has been an exemplar of community leadership” in responding to COVID-19. “At each step,” he noted, the diocese “has been ahead of the curve, enforcing stricter safety protocols than the State required.”

When the diocese began to reopen its churches, Garaufis added, it enforced “rigorous safety protocols.” Those included face masks, physical distancing, shorter services, sanitization between masses, a revised Holy Communion ritual and a 25% capacity cap, which it continued following even when the legal limit was raised.

The diocese is perfectly willing to accept neutral public health guidelines aimed at preventing virus transmission. It is not willing to accept a policy that explicitly imposes special burdens on religious activities while granting more leeway to myriad secular activities that pose similar or greater risks.

The Supreme Court has said the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause does not require religious exemptions from neutral, generally applicable laws. But it also has said laws are presumptively unconstitutional when they discriminate against religion.

Cuomo’s rules clearly fall into the latter category. By denying that reality, Garaufis and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, which upheld his decision, are, in effect, saying an emergency like the COVID-19 epidemic suspends the constitutional rights Americans otherwise enjoy, giving politicians like Cuomo unlimited discretion to respond as they see fit.

In a Federalist Society speech he delivered on the same day the diocese filed its application with the Supreme Court, Justice Samuel Alito warned that “laws giving an official so much discretion” can be abused. When that happens, he said, “the Supreme Court and other courts cannot close their eyes.”

The Court already has closed its eyes twice, turning away challenges to restrictions on religious services in California and Nevada — decisions from which Alito, joined by three other justices, dissented. The Nevada case was especially striking since the state’s rules for houses of worship were stricter than the rules for other venues — including casinos, bars, restaurants, gyms, arcades and bowling alleys — where the risk of virus transmission was arguably higher.

The contrast between the treatment of religious and secular establishments in New York is even starker, and the replacement of Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Amy Coney Barrett could make a crucial difference this time around. If the Court again declines to intervene, then it will send a dangerous signal at a dangerous time for the Constitution.

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine. Follow him on Twitter: @JacobSullum. To find out more about Jacob Sullum and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Himsan at Pixabay

By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: Days after Jharkhand Assembly passed a resolution seeking separate religious code for tribals from the Central government, tribal leaders in Odisha are preparing for a mass movement to press for their demands to include a religion column as ‘tribal’ in the 2021 Census.

Until 2011 Census, people were classified under six religions – Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Jain, and Buddhist and those who do not subscribe to these are clubbed under the ‘Other’ category.

Tribal bodies have expressed reservations as this time the Centre has dropped the ‘Other’ option for Census 2021. They fear tribals will be forced to either declare themselves members of one of the six specified religions or leave the column unfilled.

Secretary general of Odisha Adibasi Kalyan Mahasangha Niranjan Bishi said tribals do not belong to any religion specified in the Census document as they worship nature and have a distinct tradition and culture.

“Tribals were being categorised under a special tribal code till 1951, but later it was deleted. Our identity is being pushed to inexistence and we may lose our constitutional safeguards if our religious identity is not specified,” he pointed out.

The organisation has decided to submit its memoranda addressed to the Prime Minister and Chief Minister at district level on November 25 seeking a separate tribal code in the Census document. The members have planned to go for road blockade and rail roko on December 6 and intensify their agitation if no decision is taken by then.

A senior tribal leader Fagu Hansdah demanded Odisha government pass a special resolution on the lines of Jharkhand during the Winter session seeking separate tribal religion. “We have been demanding a separate Sarna religion since long. The government should include the option in the upcoming Census,” he said.
In the resolution sent to the Centre, Jharkhand has demanded Sarna religion be listed separately. Andhra Pradesh had also included ‘tribal’ religion as the tenth option among the 12 options in a recent household survey.

The Executive Secretary, Nigeria Christian Pilgrims Commission (NCPC), Rev. Yakubu Pam, has said that 70 per cent of the problems and crises witnessed in the country were rooted in religion. Pam, whomadethedisclosureduring acourtesy call by the Muslim Youths Council of Nigeria (MYCN) on his office in Abuja, stressed on the need for peaceful coexistence regardless of religion, adding that recent developments showed that Nigerian youthswerewillingtoreposition the countryunto the path of peaceful coexistence.

He said: “70% of our problems, crisis in Nigeria are rooted in religion; it is unfortunate that religion is being used for so many evil things but of recent, I can see a very good new shift.

“The people they were using before, which are the youth from the age of 12 to 40, were the instruments in the hands of politicians, extremists, religious leaders they have been using them to cause all sorts of mayhem and crisis, but in recent times, the same people they were using are the same people that are proffering solutions to Nigerian crisis. “I see the MYCN as the solution to all the troubles we have been having in this country, because your thinking is not like their thinking, it is quite different from those people who are doing this kind of thing both from the Muslim side and the Christian side. I foresee hope for Nigeria that indeed something great is going to happen in building our relationship together here in this country. We need to keep preaching peace.”