The U.S. Supreme Court is seen at sunset in Washington on Oct. 4, 2018. The Supreme Court is telling California that it can’t enforce coronavirus-related restrictions that have limited home-based religious worship including Bible studies and prayer meetings. The order from the court late Friday, April 9, 2021, is the latest in a recent string of cases in which the high court has barred officials from enforcing some coronavirus-related restrictions applying to religious gatherings. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) (RNS) — Last Friday (April 9), the Supreme Court granted an injunction against a California COVID-19 rule that limited in-home gatherings to three families from applying to home Bible studies. This is the latest in a series of 5-4 decisions since Amy Coney Barrett joined the court in October in which the court has supported religious free exercise against state COVID-19 restrictions. What the latest decision, Tandon v. Newsom , makes clear is that the court’s determinedly pro-religion conservative wing has found a way to neuter, without actually reversing, its 1990 Smith decision. That’s the one where the late Justice Antonin Scalia persuaded four colleagues to agree that free exercise claims cannot be made against “neutral, generally applicable law.” Let me […]
