New York Times reports today that the White House has rejected proposed CDC Guidelines for reopening schools, businesses and houses of worship. A significant part of the White House objections focused on religious liberty concerns. The Times said in part:
... White House and other administration officials rejected the recommendations over concerns that they were overly prescriptive, infringed on religious rights and risked further damaging an economy that Mr. Trump was banking on to recover quickly. One senior official at the Department of Health and Human Services with deep ties to religious conservatives objected to any controls on church services.
“Governments have a duty to instruct the public on how to stay safe during this crisis and can absolutely do so without dictating to people how they should worship God,” said Roger Severino, the director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights, who once oversaw the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation....
Particularly contentious were the C.D.C.’s recommendations for churches and other houses of worship. Mr. Severino vocally opposed them.
“Protections against religious discrimination aren’t suspended during an emergency,” he said in a statement on Thursday. “This means the federal government cannot single out religious conduct as somehow being more dangerous or worthy of scrutiny than comparable secular behavior.”
The recommendations for churches include encouraging all congregants to wear cloth face coverings when inside the building, offering video streaming or drive-in options for services and considering “suspending use of a choir or musical ensemble” during services. It also urges churches to consider “temporarily limiting the sharing of frequently touched objects,” like hymnals, prayer books and passed collection baskets....
In one version of the draft guidance, the section titled “Interim Guidance for Communities of Faith” was left blank, with a note in capital letters referring to multiple federal agencies that have to come to agreement. But another version included the guidance for faith communities with the caveat that it “is not intended to infringe on First Amendment rights as provided in the U.S. Constitution.”
“The federal government may not prescribe standards for interactions of faith communities in houses of worship,” the second version states. “C.D.C. offers these suggestions that faith communities may consider and accept or reject.”
