Federal appeals court rules Nevada COVID-19 cap on church gatherings is unconstitutional News
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Federal appeals court rules Nevada COVID-19 cap on church gatherings is unconstitutional

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Tuesday that Nevada’s 50-person cap on religious gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic is unconstitutional because it places harsher attendance limits on religious gatherings than on casinos and other secular businesses.

The ruling relates to Directive 021, one of the many COVID-19 directives issued by Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak this year. The Directive encourages Nevada residents to stay home and places limits on the size of indoor and outdoor gatherings.

Plaintiff Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley, a Nevada church, challenged the Directive, arguing that the Directive treats casinos, restaurants and bars, amusement parks, gyms and fitness centers, movie theaters, and mass protests better than religious services and thus violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

The Directive imposed a cap of 50 percent of their fire-code capacity on these 6 categories of secular gatherings while it expressly imposed a 50-person cap on “indoor in-person services” at “houses of worship.” It thus discriminated against houses of worships, claimed Calvary Chapel, and required that the state demonstrate a narrowly tailored compelling interest to overcome the discriminatory defect.

Sisolak’s counsel, on the other hand, argued that the directive was not discriminatory since it imposed similar or even harsher restrictions on comparable secular gatherings. However, the court ruled in favor of Calvary Chapel, concluding that the restrictions violated the Free Exercise Clause.

Relying on a recent US Supreme Court decision, the court held that “the Directive treat[ed] numerous secular activities and entities significantly better the religious worship services” and explained that the state could have tied the attendance cap for religious services to the size of the church, as it did for casinos, without compromising its interests in slowing the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

The court granted a preliminary injunction in favor of Calvary Chapel, therefore prohibiting Nevada from enforcing the attendance cap on in-person religious services.

The court also noted that the ruling applies to all subsequent directives issued by the governor, especially Directive 035, which replaced Directive 21 and imposed a cap of “the lesser of 25% of the listed fire code capacity or 50 persons” for religious services, while imposing only a 25 percent cap on commercial entities like casinos and museums.

The ruling effectively reverses the ruling of a lower court, which had denied Calvary’s Chapel request for a preliminary injunction.

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