Jim Ulvog

The US Supreme Court has issued injunctions in three different cases in three different circuits overturning lower court rulings which restrict religious freedom. (Update:  make that four.)

On top of that, the County of Los Angeles has announced it will revise its public health orders to allow worship services to be conducted indoors.

Fantastic, wonderful news for your early Sunday morning reading.

(Update: Minor corrections for grammar and typos made without identify such changes. Substantive updates identified as such.)

Update: I just read the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn ruling. Wow. The sum total of all sarcasm and ridicule I have previously brought to the table regarding religious freedom pales in comparison to the scathing comments by Justices in that ruling. When I have time, I’ll recap some of the comments. Quick summary:  it is past time for governors to stop intentionally ignoring and flagrantly shredding the U.S. Constitution. Oh yeah, the Governor of New York is working hard to fight the case and violate the Constitution.

US Supreme Court – Harvest Rock Church, et al. v. Newsom, Gov. of CA

In a 10 line, unsigned order SCOTUS vacated the ruling by the District Court for the Center District of California which ruled against Harvest Rock Church in their lawsuit to allow indoor worship.

Ruling can be found here.

The ruling was dated Thursday 12/3/20, which is 2 ½ weeks ago.

The court ordered the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to order the District Court to reconsider their ruling in light of Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn.

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This three part series looks at rulings which show courts are beginning to recognize that imposing severe restrictions on religious worship constitutes a violation of the free expression clause of First Amendment. Just in case you think I’m being too harsh in my sarcastic, ridiculing comments regarding the attacks on the First Amendment, check out some of these court rulings. When it comes to criticizing unconstitutional government rules, I’m a lightweight compared to any of these judges. These posts focus on two lower courts that re-read the U.S. Constitution after the U.S. Supreme Court started the refreshing trend of actually reading said Constitution before issuing a ruling. The cases:

• Supreme Court – Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn
• California Superior Court – Bakersfield Division – Father Trevor Burfitt vs Gavin Newsom
• Ninth Circuit –Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley v. Sisolak (current post)

 

Ninth Circuit –Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley v. Sisolak.

12/15/20 – Hill Faith – First Amendment: Court Strikes Down Nevada’s Covid Church Attendance Limits – Nevada issued rules restricting the number of people who can gather for worship to the lesser of 50% of fire code capacity or 50 people. Large number of other activities have a restriction level of 50% of fire code capacity. The 50% only limit without a numerical cap applies to “casinos, bowling alleys, retail businesses, restaurants, arcades, and other similar secular entities.” (more…)

This three part series looks at rulings which show courts are beginning to recognize to impose severe restrictions on religious worship constitutes a violation of the free expression clause of First Amendment. Just in case you think I’m being too harsh in my sarcastic, ridiculing comments regarding the attacks on Read more…

Courts are beginning to recognize that imposing more severe restrictions on religious worship than other similar activities constitutes a violation of the free expression clause of First Amendment.

Just in case you think I’m being too harsh in my sarcastic, ridiculing comments regarding the attacks on the First Amendment, you really need to check out some of these court rulings.

The following rulings entail complex sentences with multiple subordinate clauses, systematic use of multisyllable words, embedded legal citations, technical legal verbiage, and subtle nuance. Hidden behind those comments are harsh and brutal critiques of the egregious violations of religious freedom guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

In terms of criticism of constitution-ignoring governments I am a mere simplistic lightweight simpleton compared to any one of the following judges.

This series of posts will provide more background on the Supreme Court ruling that started this trend of courts on actually reading the Constitution and then discuss two more rulings. The cases:

• Supreme Court – Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn
• California Superior Court – Bakersfield Division – Father Trevor Burfitt vs Gavin Newsom
• Ninth Circuit –Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley v. Sisolak.

12/14/20 – Hill Faith – Justice Samuel Alito’s Christmas Present For America – Article calls attention to a speech given by Associate Justice Alito to the Federalist Society’s National Wires convention back in November.

In his speech he opined the religious freedom protections outlined in the first amendment are in more danger now than ever before with politicians using the pandemic as an excuse to walk all over the Constitution (my paraphrase of the article).

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