Free Republic

The pastor of the Adams Square Baptist Church in Worcester has sued the city and the governor after being fined for holding in-person services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Gov. Charlie Baker has issued an order banning any gatherings larger than 10 people. Despite the order, Pastor Kristopher Casey has held more than three church services that violated the governor’s ban and has been issued fines. ... n the federal filing, the church said it is a small congregation and normally has 75 to 125 persons at its weekly worship assembly. “Governor Baker’s COVID-19 Executive Orders have been interpreted, applied, and...

On March 23, Massachusetts Gov. Charles Baker declared a public health emergency relating to COVID-19. He created a list of businesses and organizations he believes provide “essential services” and ordered all non-essential businesses to cease in-person operations. Constitutional freedoms derived from the Bill of Rights are not among the list of essential services, including the freedom to worship according to our consciences. In Massachusetts, I can stand in a line of 200 people at a liquor store to buy a bottle of Maker’s Mark, but I am not afforded the same reasonable accommodations in the same-sized building across the street...

Several states banned religious gatherings due to the coronavirus but have allowed liquor stores to remain open. Governors in California, Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Minnesota, Illinois, New York, and Vermont prohibited in person religious gatherings through stay-at-home orders implemented as the coronavirus took hold of the United States, data from the Pew Research Center shows. Some of these states have since begun the process of reopening that loosens restrictions on religious gatherings. But when governors initially banned religious gatherings, liquor stores remained opened in California, Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Minnesota, Illinois, New York, and Vermont. Churchgoers in several of these...

MADISON - The Wisconsin Supreme Court has struck down Gov. Tony Evers' order shutting down daily life to limit the spread of coronavirus — marking the first time a statewide order of its kind has been knocked down by a court of last resort. The state's highest court, which is controlled by conservatives, sided with Republican lawmakers Wednesday in a decision that curbed the Evers administration's power to act unilaterally during public health emergencies.

As governors crack down on religious services during the coronavirus pandemic, pastors across the United States weigh in on whether Attorney General William Barr and the Department of Justice are doing enough to protect their civil liberties. The attorney general has issued multiple statements on the importance of respecting religious liberty “even in times of emergency” and intervened in cases of government crackdowns on churches and pastors. The DOJ referred the Daily Caller News Foundation to several more instances of Justice Department intervention, including an April 27 memorandum from the attorney general on balancing public safety with the preservation of...

Today, Governor John Bel Edwards and the Louisiana Department of Health outlined a plan for COVID-19 testing and tracking that would hire as many as 700 Louisianans to serve as “contact tracers,” interviewing and advising people who have tested positive to determine who in their lives could also be at risk. This week, LDH signed a contract with Accenture and Salesforce to manage Louisiana’s contact tracing process, using two Louisiana-based call centers with 100 percent Louisiana agents. The training for these contact tracers will be managed by LSU’s Stephenson Disaster Management Institute. While hiring will be statewide the initial locations...

Don’t be evil” was explicit to Google’s motto and code of conduct for some 15 years. In 2015, Google updated its motto to “Do the right thing.” Today, Google, which owns YouTube, seems to have altered its motto to “Be evil” or “Do the wrong thing”—including censoring free speech of doctors, scientists, professors, politicians and journalists whose ideas differ from those of Google executives. “This is the next step in the evolution of the Internet,” former Google CEO Eric Schmidt lauded Google’s purchase of YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006. We now know Schmidt’s definition of Internet “progress” ostensibly centers...

This cop is a must see. He is reaching out to other cops telling them to stop trampling on the rights of Americans.

Title: President's Bill of Rights - We Hold These Truths Description: A program to celebrate the Bill of Rights' 150th anniversary, written by Norman Corwin. In addition to Welles, performers included Lionel Barrymore, Jimmy Stewart , Marjorie Main and others. Creator: Welles, Orson, 1915-1985 Corwin, Norman, 1910-2011 Date: 12/15/41

Many on the left have accused originalism of being nothing but a cover for conservatives’ preferred policy outcomes, but Vermeule’s proposal illustrates how restrained originalists have been. “The Republic” often alarms first-time readers. Not only is Plato’s dialogic style foreign to us, the character of Socrates makes bizarre and even wicked proposals as he outlines a supposed ideal polity, such as a communism not only of property, but also of wives and children. Many readers, including some philosophers, have taken Plato literally and seriously, and therefore condemned him as a proto-totalitarian. Something similar seems to have happened in response to...

A network of 3,000 California churches, representing 2.5 million members, plans to defy Gov. Gavin Newsom by resuming in-person services, as pastors insist they've been left out of the process. California Church United pastors announced Thursday in front of a Fontana megachurch that they plan to open May 31, instead of waiting until stage 3, when gyms, movie theaters, and other venues open, the San Bernardino County Sun reports. May 31 was chosen because it is Pentecost, marking the birth of the Christian Church when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles and followers of Jesus, according to Christian tradition,...

RELIGIOUS LEADERS, state lawmakers and businesses filed a federal lawsuit against Gov. Larry Hogan and other Maryland officials on Saturday for violating Americans' constitutional rights during the coronavirus pandemic. A number of governors are facing similar lawsuits, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who was sued on May 4 by Rep. Paul Mitchell (R-Mich.) for her stay-at-home order, which will remain in place until at least May 28. The lawsuit filed against Maryland's Republican governor, Health Secretary Robert Neall, Deputy Secretary of Public Health Services Frances B. Phillips and Maryland State Police Superintendent Woodrow W. Jones had been under discussion for...

Facebook on Wednesday announced the first 20 members of its Oversight Board, an independent body that can overturn the company’s own content moderation decisions. The oversight board will govern appeals from Facebook and Instagram users and questions from Facebook itself, although it admitted it will have to pick and choose which content moderation cases to take due to the sheer volume of them.  The board will receive cases through a content management system that is linked to Facebook’s own platforms. They will then discuss the case as a group before issuing a final decision on whether the content should be allowed to stay...

Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia stood behind a podium at the front of the room -- wearing no mask -- but looking like he had an important message to deliver. He was issuing an order to the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority. As part of his strategy to deal with COVID-19, Virginia restaurants and bars would now be able to sell mixed drinks for takeout or delivery. "All Virginia restaurants that remain open are now takeout or delivery only," Northam said. "Allowing them to sell mixed beverages with takeout or delivery orders will help them augment their revenue streams so...

Kansas City, Missouri, officials are now requiring every church to submit a list of members and attendees along with their names, addresses and telephone numbers to city officials for tracking and surveillance purposes.I am running out of adjectives to describe how completely insane the tyrannical abuses launched by state governors and local officials against pastors and churches are becoming. It is as if these leaders never bothered to so much as glance at the Constitution they swore to uphold and defend. They seem to be governing from some make-believe, dystopian viewpoint. Yesterday, we received a desperate call from a Kansas...

A new Democratic-aligned political action committee advised by retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, is planning to deploy technology originally developed to counter Islamic State propaganda in service of a domestic political goal - to combat online efforts to promote President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The group, Defeat Disinfo, will use artificial intelligence and network analysis to map discussion of the president's claims on social media. It will seek to intervene by identifying the most popular counter-narratives and boosting them through a network of more than 3.4 million influencers across...

There’s good news and bizarre news for Christians who live in Knoxville, Tennessee. The government will allow you to return to your church house on May 1st, but there are a number of rules, regulations and hoops you will have to jump through to make that happen. City and county leaders released a lengthy list of guidelines for church members and pastors. Click here to read the full list. I was particularly curious about an edict from government leaders banning what we in the Baptist faith tradition call The Lord’s Supper. “The physical taking of communion/sacrament should not be performed...

A South Los Angeles pastor was arrested Tuesday outside the home of Mayor Eric Garcetti on suspicion of felony stalking after several days of demonstrating on the Windsor Square block.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom sent a clear message to his state's residents after images circulated of throngs of crowds on Ventura and Orange County beaches this weekend: stop flouting social distancing guidelines or it could delay the state's reopening. "Those images are an example of what not to see, people, what not to do if we're going to make the meaningful progress that we've made in the last few weeks extend into the next number of weeks," Newsom, a Democrat, said during a news conference Monday. "I cannot impress upon you more, to those Californians watching, that we can't see...

Spiritual nourishment is as vital as physical in the current crisis, as people deal with the trauma possible infection or (much more likely) economic disaster the response to the crisis has caused. An earlier article reviewed threats to religious liberty resulting from the draconian restrictions imposed by some governors to the coronavirus crisis. While it noted that there is an argument for keeping worship services legal, the more common position of advocates of religious liberty is that bans must be temporary and part of a larger ban on public gatherings. A closely related matter is that of personal liberty, which...