(Newsmax) — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that Democratic California Gavin Newsom’s ban on in-person church services during the coronavirus pandemic can stand.
In a split ruling, the court said the government’s emergency powers supercede what in typical times would be fundamental constitutional rights, the Washington Times reported.
The lawsuit, filed by South Bay United Pentecostal Church in San Diego, prevents that church from reopening, according to the Los Angeles Times
The “constitutional standards that would normally govern our review of a Free Exercise claim should not be applied,” wrote the two judges in the majority opinion.
“We’re dealing here with a highly contagious and often fatal disease for which there presently is no known cure. In the words of Justice Robert Jackson, if a ‘(c)ourt does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact,'” according to the opinion.
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