Kentucky churches won the right to meet in-person during the coronavirus pandemic after three federal courts in two days ruled against an order by the Kentucky governor.
The March 19 order by Gov. Andy Beshear and state officials bans mass gatherings, including faith-based ones, but carves out multiple exceptions, including ones for factories and grocery stores.
U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove issued a temporary restraining order on Friday preventing Kentucky officials from “enforcing the prohibition on mass gatherings” in churches and faith-based gatherings as long as the groups “adhere to applicable social distancing and hygiene guidelines.”
“If social distancing is good enough for Home Depot and Kroger, it is good enough for in-person religious services which, unlike the foregoing, benefit from constitutional protection,” wrote Van Tatenhove, who was nominated by President George W. Bush.
The lawsuit was brought by First Liberty Institute and two other law firms on behalf of Tabernacle Baptist Church of Nicholasville, Ky.
“The unexplained breadth of the ban on religious services, together with its haven for numerous secular exceptions, cannot co-exist with a society that places religious freedom in a place of honor in the Bill of Rights: The First Amendment,” Van Tatenhove wrote.
On Saturday, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued…
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