New Justice in Town

SCOTUS rules on shuls: Here’s what comes next

What a difference a new justice makes.

Just a few months after a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that allowed governors to close houses of worship to halt the COVID-19 pandemic, a narrow majority on the nation’s highest court has now pulled in the reins. This time the Court overturned Governor Andrew Cuomo’s shuttering of shuls and churches in the red and orange containment zones his administration created.

The difference is that in the interim since the first ruling, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the dean of the court’s liberal wing, died and was replaced by Amy Coney Barrett, a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. It is the clearest shift in the Court’s ideological majority in three decades.

What Does the Ruling Say?

The Court’s ruling is quite simple — religious activity is considered essential. If a state government’s COVID restrictions make exceptions for essential services, they must include houses of worship in those exceptions. This was aimed squarely at New York governor Andrew Cuomo, whose exceptions for essential businesses included liquor stores and bike repair shops and completely exempted industry in orange zones. And while there were no restrictions on protests, prayer was shunted to the bottom of the priority list — houses of worship were limited to ten people in red zones and 25 in orange zones, regardless of their overall size.

The justices specifically cited Cuomo’s labeling of COVID as “an ultra-Orthodox Jewish problem.”