10 GOP Senators Seek To Spur Christianity's Ongoing Loss Of Membership

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Miles
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10 GOP Senators Seek To Spur Christianity's Ongoing Loss Of Membership

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Post by Miles »

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"10 GOP Senators: States Must Open Churches If They Want To Receive COVID Funding


A group of 10 Republican senators are asking Donald Trump to withhold federal COVID funding from any state that prevents churches from holding in-person gatherings if they’re perceived to be treated any differently from secular businesses.

Sen. Mike Lee of Utah spearheaded this insane request under the guise of preserving “religious freedom”:

… we ask you to support proposals in Congress to place restrictions on any forthcoming COVID-19 relief funding to states and localities that prevent churches, houses of worship, and religious schools and institutions from reopening.

Such executive action would send the nation and government leaders a clear and unequivocal message that religious liberty matters, and that no state or locality can unilaterally strip away protected constitutional rights.


To be clear, there’s no evidence of states attempting to stifle religious freedom during the pandemic. Lee is presumably referring to states where governors have placed sensible restrictions on in-person gatherings that apply to churches even though they don’t apply to places like grocery stores. For obvious reasons! "
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Re: 10 GOP Senators Seek To Spur Christianity's Ongoing Loss Of Membership

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There is at least some evidence of states attempting to stifle religious freedom during the pandemic. For instance, Nevada has allowed casinos, gyms, restaurants, bars, indoor amusements parks, bowling alleys, water parks, pools, arcades, and other establishments to open at 50% of the fire code capacity, but limited churches to a maximum of 50 regardless of their facilities’ size or the precautions they take.

That certainly seems to single out and stifle religious freedom by holding religious groups to far stricter standards that non-religious groups.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html
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Re: 10 GOP Senators Seek To Spur Christianity's Ongoing Loss Of Membership

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Post by Miles »

bjs1 wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 8:52 pm There is at least some evidence of states attempting to stifle religious freedom during the pandemic. For instance, Nevada has allowed casinos, gyms, restaurants, bars, indoor amusements parks, bowling alleys, water parks, pools, arcades, and other establishments to open at 50% of the fire code capacity, but limited churches to a maximum of 50 regardless of their facilities’ size or the precautions they take.

That certainly seems to single out and stifle religious freedom by holding religious groups to far stricter standards that non-religious groups.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html
Should we assume this is less than 50% of fire code capacity? Not to suggest you don't have a decent point here, but the difference may be because of how people congregate differently in the various venues; with church goers remaining seated around each other most of the time whereas in most of the others people can continually change their positions in relation to one another.

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Re: 10 GOP Senators Seek To Spur Christianity's Ongoing Loss Of Membership

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Post by bjs1 »

[Replying to Miles in post #3]

We can safely assume that there are many churches in Nevada with a fire code limit that is higher than one hundred. Just as an example, Central Christian Church in Las Vegas is one of the largest churches in the country with regular attendance of over 20,000 people. Even split into a few services, that dwarfs the 100 person fire code limit.

And yes, people congregate in different ways in churches than other locations, though that would seem to favor the safety of churches. Sitting in a single location by family group with appropriate social distancing would be far less likely to spread COVID-19 than the more mobile nature of casinos (as an example).

To be clear, this is a minor issue to me. I have seen persecution up close. Limiting churches to 50 people during a pandemic while allowing secular business to welcome thousands of people is unfair, but I think that we could, so to speak, walk it off. The issue is largely symbolic. While symbols matter, for many people the struggle for religious freedom is in no way symbolic.
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
-Charles Darwin

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