RELIGION--"THERE IS NO PANDEMIC EXCEPTION TO THE CONSTITUTION & ITS BILL OF RIGHTS"...BY SPECIAL REQUEST

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BY SPECIAL REQUEST OF OUR FAITH-BASED READERS....Justice Department Intervenes against Northam’s Communal Worship Restrictions MAY 4, 2020--The Virginia restrictions run afoul of the First Amendment.

‘There is no pandemic exception to the Constitution and its Bill of Rights.” That, yet again, was the Justice Department’s message as it intervened on Sunday on the side of a Virginia church, which is suing Governor Ralph Northam’s lockdown against communal worship.

As I related back in April, Attorney General Bill Barr has admonished states and municipalities that the Justice Department stands ready to take action against social-distancing edicts that unduly restrict fundamental constitutional rights. The DOJ’s Civil Division has been paying particular attention to restrictions on the free exercise of religion — specifically, heavy restrictions or outright bans on communal worship.

A number of governors and mayors, particularly in blue states and cities, have decreed that, in their considered opinion, religious observance is not sufficiently “essential” to be indulged while the authorities are trying to stop the spread of COVID-19, the potentially lethal infectious disease caused by the novel coronavirus. State and municipal executives are relying on their emergency powers to dictate draconian restrictions (i.e., these are not legislative enactments).

We need not speculate whether insufficient weight has been accorded the Constitution in the fashioning of various prohibitions on worship, work, and assembly. As New Jersey governor Phil Murphy smugly put it when questioned by Fox’s Tucker Carlson, the Constitution is “above my pay grade,” so “I wasn’t thinking of the Bill of Rights when we did this.” His Honor was relying on a purportedly higher authority: “scientists.”

The U.S. attorney general has countered that federal constitutional law is dispositive on this subject.  READ MORE AT https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/justice-department-intervenes-against-northams-communal-worship-restrictions/