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New Coronavirus Limits Bring New Religious Freedom Tension

Associated Press

   NEW YORK - Despite state and local limits on public gatherings, some
   faith leaders have persisted in holding in-person services -- a matter
   of religious freedom, they say, as the United States approached its
   fourth Sunday battling the coronavirus pandemic.

   The most high-profile clash over in-person worship -- and crowd limits
   designed to stop the virus's spread -- came in the state of Florida,
   where Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne was arrested Monday for violating a
   county order by hosting a large number of congregants at his Tampa
   church.

   Howard-Browne said after his release that he would move future worship
   online, but the county later ended its effort to apply limits on large
   gatherings to religious services after a statewide order described
   religious gatherings as essential.

   Law enforcement officials in the states of Louisiana and Maryland took
   separate action this week against pastors who continue to hold
   in-person services in the face of stay-home orders in most states.

   But more than a half-dozen of those state orders provide a degree of
   exemption for religious activity, underscoring the political
   sensitivity of the decisions being made by states and localities. Vice
   President Mike Pence said this week that churches should not host
   groups bigger than 10 people.

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