In
Gish v. Newsom, (CDCA, April 23, 2020), a California federal district court refused to issue a temporary restraining order against state-wide and county-wide COVID-19 Orders in a suit brought by a group of pastors in the Inland Empire region of southern California. (See
prior posting.) Plaintiffs sought an injunction to prevent enforcement of the COVID-19 Orders against Plaintiffs’ engagement in religious services, practices, or activities at which social distancing guidelines of the CDC are followed. In rejecting Plaintiffs' constitutional challenges to the Orders, the court said in part:
When responding to the COVID-19 pandemic ... Defendants “may implement emergency measures that curtail constitutional rights so long as the measures have at least some ‘real or substantial relation’ to the public health crisis and are not ‘beyond all question, a plain, palpable invasion of rights secured by the fundamental law.’...
Plaintiffs argue that the Orders are underinclusive of secular activities that may also contribute to the spread of COVID-19 because they allow grocery stores, fast food restaurants, and marijuana dispensaries to remain open.... But these are all essential services: without access to the food and medicines sold at these locations, more citizens would become ill or die.... If the state applies the same rules to in-person religious gatherings ... people will get sick and die from attending religious gatherings just as they are dying from working in grocery stores....
Because the Orders are facially neutral and generally applicable, they are subject to rational basis review..... And they easily survive rational basis....
