We have previously noted Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) request that churches in the Bluegrass State suspend in-person worship services through Sunday, December 13th. I pointed out that, as long as it was a request, rather than an order, the Governor was acting within his free speech rights. Churches, on the other hand, are acting in their First Amendment rights of Freedom of peaceable Assembly and Free Exercise of Religion regardless of which way they chose to go on Mr Beshear’s request.
Well, it seems as though many churches are honoring the Governor’s request by stating that they will continue to exercise great caution, but will remain open. From the Lexington Herald-Leader:
After Beshear’s request, some churches cancel services. Others ‘draw a line in the sand.’
By Karla Ward | November 21, 2020 | 08:42 PM EST | Updated 8:57 PM EST
While a number of congregations are complying with Gov. Andy Beshear’s request to halt in-person worship services through Dec. 13, others are reluctant to return to having only virtual services.
“I feel very strongly that churches have to draw a line in the sand,” Pastor Denny Whitworth, of the Bread of Life Assembly of God, wrote in a post on the church’s Facebook page. “I am concerned that this recommendation will possibly extend beyond the time frame laid out, this is always the trend. We are essential to our community and it is an opportunity to reach people for the kingdom of God, who may not be reached unless our doors are open.”
That’s an absolutely valid concern. The Governor’s initial church closure wasn’t a request, but an unconstitutional order, one he nevertheless got away with, and it lasted for nine weeks. On March 13th, he asked churches to cancel services, but many did not. So, on March 19th, he made it an order, with which almost all churches complied. In May, a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order allowing churches to reopen, and on May 24th, we were ever-so-graciously allowed to attend Mass again.
The Governor even sent the State Police to record license plate numbers on cars in church parking lots on Easter Sunday, Easter Sunday! to order the owners of the vehicles into quarantine.
Whitworth said the congregation will cancel fellowship meals until January, and he urged attendees at services to wear masks “coming in building and leaving” and to continue social distancing and other measures.
Several churches that said they plan to continue holding in-person services mentioned that they have taken careful steps to try to keep from spreading COVID-19.
This is what the Diocese of Lexington has done. My pastor holds Mass outside if the weather allows, though now that it’s the latter half of November, that’s a vanishing option. The Diocese insists on masks and social distancing, which has not been a problem even inside the church; my parish is a very small one.
Pastor Jeff Fugate of Clays Mill Baptist Church said many people, especially the elderly, may need to stay home, but the church does not plan to halt in-person services.Pastor Jeff Fugate, from his parish website.
“There are many of us that are able and anxious to be in church for services,” Fugate wrote on his Facebook page. “I refuse to allow Governor Beshear who promotes the liquor business, abortion business and gambling . . . and keeps them open, to take away or threaten a Constitutional right of a church to assemble. If we as Patriotic Americans continue to sit back and allow this type of control to take place without resistance we are going to lose/give away our freedoms.”
Now that’s a man I can admire! But then he kept running his mouth:
Fugate said in an interview Saturday that the church had 500 to 600 people in attendance at its worship service Nov. 15. Most attendees, he said, do not wear masks. In addition, he said the church buses are running again, picking up a few hundred children for Bible classes each Sunday.
A church service at Clays Mill Baptist Church, picture from the parish website. The photo is not dated, so it could be from well before last March.
If the Governor reads about this, and the Herald-Leader is delivered in Frankfort, the state capitol, Pastor Fugate has pretty much dared him to change his request to an executive order. Local people probably knew about how large the congregation is, and that masks weren’t being worn, and that occupancy restrictions weren’t being observed, but they could ignore it as long as nobody rocked the boat.
Pastor Fugate rocked the boat.
Was the Governor deterred from making his request an order by the federal judge’s ruling in May? I can’t read his mind, so I do not know, but Pastor Fugate, bless his heart, is trying to tempt the Governor into trying an order again. Yeah, he’d lose in court, again, but that would take several weeks and cost churches thousands of dollars. [1]Every Southerner knows just what “Bless your heart” means in a sentence like this
Governor Beshear hasn’t made it an order, at least not yet. In that, he has not violated Kentuckians’ freedom of religion or right to peaceable assembly, at least not in church. Though there are many, many things about which to criticize the Governor, this is not one of them. But now Pastor Fugate has virtually challenged the Governor to make it an order, and that’s just stupid.
The hornet’s nest on the corner of your porch really isn’t much of a problem . . . unless you poke it with a stick. Brother Fugate — I think that’s the appropriate form of address for a Baptist minister — has poked the hornet’s nest with a stick.
References
| ↑1 | Every Southerner knows just what “Bless your heart” means in a sentence like this |
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