Posted on 02/02/2022 10:22:31 AM PST by Enlightened1
Under the measure, houses of worship would be considered ‘essential services’ and no emergency order may ‘directly or indirectly’ cancel public worship if any businesses remain open.
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (LifeSiteNews) — Florida lawmakers have passed a bill that would prohibit future “emergency orders” like those enacted during the COVID-19 response from closing down religious institutions if any businesses are allowed to stay open.
Florida’s Republican-led Senate approved the measure (SB 254) in a 31-3 vote Thursday. A companion bill filed in the House, HB 215, was advanced Wednesday and awaits a floor vote.
Under the new measure, houses of worship would be considered “essential services” and no emergency order may “directly or indirectly” cancel public religious services so long as any businesses remain open.
The move comes after religious groups along with conservative politicians and commentators raised the alarm over the past two years when churches and synagogues were told to close their doors while other businesses, sometimes including liquor stores and marijuana dispensaries, were allowed to remain open.
"Our bill to keep churches open during a public emergency has passed off the Senate floor! No government should have the authority to prevent any American from exercising their freedom of religion."
https://twitter.com/jasonbrodeur/status/1487082385384554497
“It is born out of the pandemic, but not,” said the bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Jason Brodeur, noting that the legislation is not merely a knee-jerk reaction to COVID-19 and the restrictions imposed ostensibly to slow its spread.
“It applies to all emergency orders that would come in. It would basically say if Publix is open, so is your place of worship,” Brodeur said. “What it doesn’t seek to do is what we’ve seen in some of the other states, where churches, synagogues and mosques were singled out for congregated activities.”
If passed by the House and signed into law, SB 254 would make permanent a declaration made by Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in April 2020, when he issued an executive order specifically describing churches as essential services and exempting them from stay-at-home orders during the early days of the pandemic.
Florida Politics noted that Florida was among a dozen states to do so in 2020, while states like “California, New York and even Texas took a different path, shuttering religious institutions along with other businesses.”
Some churches and religious groups in states which had deemed them non-essential have argued that their rights were violated when public religious services were shut down while big box stores and other indoor spaces were permitted to remain open.
In California, the Thomas More Society won two settlements against the state after plaintiffs argued that congregants’ religious freedom was violated when statewide orders called for a shutdown of indoor church services.
In February 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against California in a 5-4 vote upholding religious liberty.
Meanwhile, though Florida chose to declare religious services essential early in the pandemic and to lift all statewide restrictions months ahead of many other states, it has not stopped there.
The Sunshine State’s GOP-led legislature has continued to enact legal bulwarks, including its new measure to protect churches from being shut down, in a bid to prevent the kind of intrusions on liberty enacted under the auspices of emergency mandates over the past two years.
In May, the governor signed SB 2006 declaring that no entity in Florida may demand proof of COVID-19 vaccination as a condition for entry to businesses and other venues.
In November, DeSantis called a special legislative session in which lawmakers crafted additional legislation against mask and vaccine mandates.
According to a press release put out by the governor’s office, the bills drawn up during the special session included those which banned mask mandates in schools and prohibited blanket employer COVID-19 jab mandates by requiring employers to provide a broad swath of exemption options including religious and health concerns as well as natural immunity.
“We provide protections for people: no nurse, no firefighter, no police officer, no trucker, no anybody should lose their job because of these COVID jabs,” said DeSantis. “We are respecting people’s individual freedom in this state.”
Now that is a good law.
The more laws that a nation has to limit the powers of government the happier and more prosperous it is.
Got to love Florida!
They understand there may come a day when they are not in power and are rushing to protect all that is good.
The national GOP should learn from them. The GOP had control of the house,senate,and presidency and squandered the time.
But now every sporting event broadcast at sports bars will be declared by the owners and attendees as a religious service. Lol
How about including in that law, a ban on hospitals telling you what clergy can and cannot see a patient ??
This is after a report that Advent Health in Florida was denying access to a family priest. ...
This is from the Director of Mission and Ministry. I am not sure where you heard differently but here is the policy.
And thank you for your question about clergy visitation, we want to make that as smooth as possible and serve the spiritual needs of our friends who need the hospital services. The short answer is that yes, with considerations, a community clergy person is welcome to visit a patient. From a religious perspective, our first priority as a chaplain department is to facilitate the patient’s own clergy or faith community representative visit when the patient or family requests, and with consultation about timing with the health care team. Our chaplain team visits or calls most new admissions and is available for support during the day, or on call at night when there is no one the patient or family prefers. For the local clergy who are visiting, now during Covid, there might be some extra infection control equipment required depending on the condition of the patient, but those are available in the hospital unit.
Sounds woke to me !
Totally not necessary. If the churches had looked at the information and made their own decisions, I could respect that. Bowing to the commands of government should have never happened. Government has NO authority to command churches... period.
Now that the churches have played along, they have made a difficult bed for us all.
The illegal alien Muslims released into the US by Resident Biden just got the prize in the CrackerJack box. This will reinforce their demands to build their mosques here, which is 'essential' to their religion. Mosques in the Middle East store weapons and war materiel in addition to conducting 'services'.
If we every get back to 'normal' in the U.S., the next President should open a shari'a court in New Hampshire with a detention center for illegal alien Muslims in Joe Biden's home town.
And yes, we would probably build a mosque there for them to blare their 'call to prayer' six times a day from the mosques.
And your point is?
Separation of church and state is a beautiful thing. No government should be able to shut down a religion institution. The government can still prosecute in criminal court religious terrorists who commit violence and seize assets of the organization if they are involved. That is all that should ever be needed.
THE POINT was an attempt at HUMOR. Next time you see “LOL”, that is your clue of what the point was.
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