Religion & Law

Colorado Limits On Worship Services Enjoined

By Howard M. Friedman

In Denver Bible Church v. Azar, (D CO, Oct. 15, 2020), a Colorado federal district court granted a preliminary injunction barring enforcement against two churches of portions of Colorado's COVID-19 restrictions on worship services. The court said in part:

Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their free exercise claim for a simple reason. Having decided that the risk of allowing various activities to be exempt from the strictest Safer at Home rules is justified on the basis that those activities are critical and necessary, the State cannot decide for Plaintiffs what is critical and necessary to their religious exercise. With each exception Colorado makes for secular institutions, the failure to make the same exemption for houses of worship becomes increasingly problematic.... So Colorado?s failure to offer a compelling reason why houses of worship are subject to greater restrictions than warehouses, schools, and restaurants violates the First Amendment?s guarantee of the free exercise of religion....

Note well that the implications of this conclusion aren?t as broad as some might hope or others might fear. Plaintiffs will still be subject to the neutrally applicable rules and prohibitions in Public Health Order 20-35. They will, for example, have to enforce sanitization requirements, maintain social distancing between individuals, and not permit shaking hands.... All in all, based on their bona fide religious need to do so, Plaintiffs will be allowed to open their sanctuaries subject to the same capacity, social distancing, and masking rules that are applicable to other critical businesses, and will be able to permit congregants to remove their masks if and when it is necessary to carry out their religious exercise.

CBSN Denver reports on the decision.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on October 21, 2020 (boomark / email).