On The Front Lines
Rutherford Institute Warns Against Allowing the Government Unbridled Authority to Override the Constitution in the Name of Crisis Management
Documents
Amicus brief: In re Covid-Related Restrictions on Religious Services
Complaint: Hines v. Carney
DOVER, Del. — The Rutherford Institute is sounding a strident warning over allowing the government unbridled authority to override the Constitution in the name of so-called “crisis management,” pointing out that such unrestricted emergency powers could very quickly become a slippery slope to a total lockdown mindset.
The Rutherford Institute has been a vocal critic of the government’s efforts to weaponize one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers and justify all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security. This latest legal diatribe, in an amicus brief filed with the Delaware Supreme Court in a consolidated proceeding titled In re Covid-Related Restrictions on Religious Services, challenges the broad application of qualified immunity to shield government officials from accountability for the unconstitutional use of COVID-19 emergency powers to restrict religious gatherings and practices.
“We have become a nation in a permanent state of emergency,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “However, what we must guard against, more than ever before, is the tendency to become so acclimated to these emergency decrees—lockdowns, authoritarian dictates, and police state tactics justified as necessary for national security—that we allow the government to keep having its way in all things, without any civic resistance or objections being raised.”
In March 2020, Delaware Gov. John Carney declared a state of emergency relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and soon after issued additional emergency orders limiting the size of gatherings within the state. By April 1, the Governor had ordered that no indoor gatherings of more than 10 persons could be held. The ban on gatherings was specifically applicable to churches, restricted how baptism and communion could be administered while not restricting physical contact in rituals of other religions, and “strongly encouraged” houses of worship to transition to remote services. However, the ban contained numerous exceptions, allowing more than 230 big-box shopping stores, liquor stores, and guns shops to be open without having to abide by a 10-person restriction. Rev. Bullock, the pastor of Canaan Baptist Church, who was holding on-line services for his 2500-member congregation, sought to challenge what he saw as unequal and unfair treatment of churches under the governor’s emergency restrictions, especially when compared to the less strident restrictions imposed on secular stores.
After Rutherford Institute attorneys filed a First Amendment lawsuit challenging the governor’s discriminatory emergency restrictions for churches, Delaware officials eventually rescinded their attempts to dictate to churches about how best to minister to their congregants during a pandemic. A year after Institute attorneys reached a settlement with the State of Delaware, attorneys affiliated with The Rutherford Institute filed a separate lawsuit to prevent the governor from using his emergency powers again to restrict religious gatherings and shut down houses of worship and affiliated ministries in the future. The lower court dismissed the claims, finding that the governor was covered by qualified immunity and the State Tort Claims Act, which The Rutherford Institute disputes in its amicus brief to the Delaware Supreme Court.
Scott D. Cousins of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP assisted The Rutherford Institute in presenting the arguments in the amicus brief in In re Covid-Related Restrictions on Religious Services.
The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization, provides legal assistance at no charge to individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated and educates the public on a wide spectrum of issues affecting their freedoms.
Case History
