The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the Catholic Diocese and Orthodox Jews who were seeking to block New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s authoritarian attendance limits on houses of worship.
On Wednesday evening, the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 in favor of religious freedom, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the court’s three liberal members dissenting.
The court decided that Gov. Cuomo’s restrictions violated the First Amendment’s protection of the free exercise of religion. The New York Times reports that Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said Cuomo had treated secular activities more favorably than religious ones.
“It is time — past time — to make plain that, while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues, and mosques,” Justice Gorsuch wrote.
In lockdown cases decided before Justice Amy Coney Barrett was appointed, the court had ruled in the opposite direction.
While Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg was in the court, in May and July, SCOTUS had ruled on cases concerning limits on religious services in California and Nevada, also 5-4, but against the church.
