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https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...er-main_scotusnevada-925pm:homepage/story-ans
The Supreme Court Friday night denied a Nevada church’s plea that the state’s coronavirus-related restrictions on houses of worship unlawfully treat them worse than the state’s famous casinos.
The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the court’s liberals in the majority. They did not give a reason for rejecting the emergency plea from Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley, a church in Dayton, Nev. That is not unusual in the court’s treatment of such petitions and in line with what the Supreme Court did in rejecting a challenge to California’s restrictions in May.
But the court’s four most consistent conservatives made their objections clear in three lengthy dissents.
“The world we inhabit today, with a pandemic upon us, poses unusual challenges,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote. “But there is no world in which the Constitution permits Nevada to favor Caesars Palace over Calvary Chapel.”
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Brett M. Kavanaugh also dissented.
“The Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion,” Alito said in a dissent joined by the other two. “It says nothing about the freedom to play craps or blackjack, to feed tokens into a slot machine, or to engage in any other game of chance, But the governor of Nevada apparently has different priorities.”
Alito added: “That Nevada would discriminate in favor of the powerful gaming industry and its employees may not come as a surprise, but this court’s willingness to allow such discrimination is disappointing. We have a duty to defend the Constitution, and even a public health emergency does not absolve us of that responsibility.”
The Supreme Court in May rejected a similar challenge to California’s restrictions, saying local and state officials deserved some leeway in balancing constitutional rights such as freedom of religion with government’s responsibility to protect the public in a pandemic.
In that case, Roberts said judges should defer to local and state officials who are faced with a historically difficult task of preventing the deadly virus while attempting to reopen sectors of American society that have been shuttered for weeks.
Protecting public health is a “dynamic and fact-intensive matter subject to reasonable disagreement, but one the Constitution principally entrusts to elected officials,” Roberts wrote at the time.
The Supreme Court Friday night denied a Nevada church’s plea that the state’s coronavirus-related restrictions on houses of worship unlawfully treat them worse than the state’s famous casinos.
The vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the court’s liberals in the majority. They did not give a reason for rejecting the emergency plea from Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley, a church in Dayton, Nev. That is not unusual in the court’s treatment of such petitions and in line with what the Supreme Court did in rejecting a challenge to California’s restrictions in May.
But the court’s four most consistent conservatives made their objections clear in three lengthy dissents.
“The world we inhabit today, with a pandemic upon us, poses unusual challenges,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote. “But there is no world in which the Constitution permits Nevada to favor Caesars Palace over Calvary Chapel.”
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Brett M. Kavanaugh also dissented.
“The Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion,” Alito said in a dissent joined by the other two. “It says nothing about the freedom to play craps or blackjack, to feed tokens into a slot machine, or to engage in any other game of chance, But the governor of Nevada apparently has different priorities.”
Alito added: “That Nevada would discriminate in favor of the powerful gaming industry and its employees may not come as a surprise, but this court’s willingness to allow such discrimination is disappointing. We have a duty to defend the Constitution, and even a public health emergency does not absolve us of that responsibility.”
The Supreme Court in May rejected a similar challenge to California’s restrictions, saying local and state officials deserved some leeway in balancing constitutional rights such as freedom of religion with government’s responsibility to protect the public in a pandemic.
In that case, Roberts said judges should defer to local and state officials who are faced with a historically difficult task of preventing the deadly virus while attempting to reopen sectors of American society that have been shuttered for weeks.
Protecting public health is a “dynamic and fact-intensive matter subject to reasonable disagreement, but one the Constitution principally entrusts to elected officials,” Roberts wrote at the time.