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1 1 (April 16, 2020)

handle is hein.crs/govcwzw0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Resarh Service Banning Religious Assemblies to Stop the Spread of COVID-19 April 16, 2020 Most of the United States is now subject to some form of state or local order directing residents to stay at home and closing nonessential businesses in response to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). While the particulars of the orders vary, some state and local orders prohibit in-person religious gatherings and require houses of worship to shut down physical facilities. To the extent that the orders burden residents' exercise of religion, they may implicate federal and state protections for religious freedom, including the Free Exercise Clause of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. Some of these bans are already being challenged in court, and at least one Kentucky church has prevailed in its legal challenge: on April 11, 2020, a federal district court entered a temporary restraining order preventing the Louisville mayor from prohibiting drive-in church services. By contrast, a day earlier, another federal court had declined to grant a California church an exemption from a San Diego order prohibiting in-person religious gatherings. This Legal Sidebar explores legal challenges to orders prohibiting religious gatherings, focusing on Free Exercise Clause arguments. A separate Sidebar discusses other First Amendment considerations raised by the gathering bans, including whether stay-at-home orders violate federal constitutional protections for freedom of speech. Legal Background: Free Exercise Clause The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution bars federal and state governments from prohibiting the free exercise of religion. (The First Amendment applies to state governments through the Fourteenth Amendment.) Governments may not regulate religious beliefs, for example, by compelling people to affirm certain views or punishing the expression of specific beliefs. Governments also may not punish religiously motivated actions if the government is motivated by a purpose to disapprove of a specific religion or religion in general. Thus, the Supreme Court has said that a law specifically prohibiting casting statues for worship or bowing down before a golden calf' would doubtless be unconstitutional. However, governments can regulate religious actions through laws of general applicability that do not specifically target religious activity. In Employment Division v. Smith, the Supreme Court held that a state could, without violating the Free Exercise Clause, deny unemployment benefits to two members of a Native American church who had used peyote for sacramental purposes. The church members' peyote use violated state drug laws: criminal laws that generally prohibited the use of certain drugs and were not Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB10450 ORS LegA! SidebaF Prpred For Meumbers and Comrm itees of Coqgr ss ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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