Posted on 04/27/2020 12:23:16 PM PDT by Morgana
Under orders from pro-abortion Governor Laura Kelly, Kansans can be punished for going to church because of the coronavirus, but abortion facilities in the state continue to jeopardize lives by killing unborn babies. However, a court has put a stop to that.
Kelly’s executive order, issued just before Easter, bans religious services of more than 10 people. It also allows religious leaders and their congregants to be punished with fines of up to $2,500 and 12 months in jail for violations. Meanwhile, abortion businesses, including one in Wichita that kills unborn children in late-term abortions, can remain open.
A week ago, churches won their first battle as a federal district court issued a temporary restraining order requested by attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of two Kansas churches against Kelly’s mass gathering ban that unconstitutionally treats religious congregations different from many secular gatherings.
Then on Saturday, Kelly was forded to agree to fix her COVID-19 mass gathering ban that unconstitutionally targets churches and, in the meantime, subject herself to a 14-day extension of the court-imposed temporary restraining order issued against her.
Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Ryan Tucker told LifeNews.com, “Singling out churches for special punishment while allowing others to have greater freedom is both illogical and unconstitutional. That’s why Gov. Kelly has agreed to an extension of the temporary restraining order against her in our case, filed on behalf of two rural churches.”
“It is beyond shameful that the governor is claiming that her administration has resolved this legal challenge and that ‘under the agreement, the two churches agree to comply with safety protocols put in place by the court.’ As noted in the court’s order against her, the churches themselves created and proposed those safety protocols long ago—protocols that the governor refused to consider acceptable until the court compelled her to abide by them,” Tucker added. “The governor claims that she and her administration are ‘confident that we have the law on our side,’ but if this were true, the governor would not be consenting to an agreed motion that states that she ‘intends to issue a new executive order with less restrictive mass gathering provisions that will start May 4’ and abide by the court’s order against her for an additional 14 days, until May 16.”
He concluded: “We reserve the right to continue litigating this matter if Gov. Kelly does not follow through with appropriately amending her mass gathering ban. This is a victory for the churches whose First Amendment freedoms the governor has repeatedly disrespected throughout this ongoing litigation.”
The court must still approve the Agreed Motion to Extend Temporary Restraining Order against Defendant Governor Laura Kelly signed by counsel for all parties.
The two churches of less than 100 people each are in rural Kansas counties with COVID-19 infection rates of less than one-tenth of one percent, and both churches have voluntarily implemented rigorous social distancing measures, including temperature checks, six-foot separations between persons or families, drastic occupancy limit reductions, no usage of church bulletins or offering plates, increased ventilation, availability of masks and hand sanitizer, and more. The churches are also working to hold drive-in or outdoor church services but wish to be able to safely meet in the church building if such services are not feasible.
“Gov. Kelly has had ample opportunity to correct the obvious constitutional problem with issuing a church-specific ban and has chosen not to. So we have no choice but to go to court to defend the constitutionally protected freedoms of these congregations,” Tucker said previously.
The governor’s executive order carves out broad exemptions for 26 types of secular activities from its gathering ban, but the order singles out “churches and other religious services or activities” of 10 or more people regardless of whether social distancing, hygiene, and other efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19 are practiced. And busy abortion clinics are allowed to remain open as well.
This prompted Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt to issue a memorandum to all Kansas prosecutors and law enforcement stating that the religious gathering prohibitions of the order “likely violate both state statute and the Kansas Constitution.” In light of that, the Kansas Legislative Coordinating Council voted to rescind the governor’s religious gathering ban. Kelly took the matter to the Kansas Supreme Court, which ruled that the legislature didn’t have the authority to rescind the order, and that a separate lawsuit would need to be filed to challenge the constitutionality of the ban.
So ADF attorneys filed First Baptist Church v. Kelly in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas on behalf of First Baptist Church and its pastor, Stephen Ormord, in Dodge City and Calvary Baptist Church and its pastor, Aaron Harris, in Junction City. Joshua Ney and Ryan Kriegshauser, two of more than 3,100 attorneys allied with ADF, are serving as co-counsel in the case for the two churches.
As the lawsuit notes, U.S. Attorney General William Barr issued a statement on April 14 related to an ADF case in Mississippi that explains the federal government’s position that “the First Amendment and federal statutory law” prohibit governments from “impos[ing] special restrictions on religious activity that do not also apply to similar nonreligious activity.”
“For example,” Barr wrote, “if a government allows movie theaters, restaurants, concert halls, and other comparable places to assemble to remain open and unrestricted, it may not order houses of worship to close, limit their congregation size, or otherwise impede religious gatherings. Religious institutions must not be singled out for special burdens.”
Punishing church-goers is not just a possibility. It already is happening in the U.S.
Recently, police fined members of a Mississippi church $500 each for attending a “drive-in” church service. Supposedly they violated a social distancing order even though the church, Temple Baptist in Greenville, required attendees to stay in their vehicles with the windows up and listen to the worship service through their radios, according to the Washington Times. A Florida pastor also was arrested in March for holding church services.
Pro-life sidewalk counselors also are being arrested for offering information and resources to pregnant moms as they go into abortion facilities. Earlier this month, David Benham and several others were arrested for praying outside an abortion clinic in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Social distancing measures are supposed to protect lives. But Kelly and other Democrat governors are allowing abortion facilities to remain open to kill unborn babies in elective abortions.
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In Kansas in particular, there are major concerns that abortion facilities may be jeopardizing the lives of all Kansans by bringing in abortionists and patients from other states who may have the coronavirus.
Operation Rescue recently uncovered information about a California abortionist practicing at a Wichita abortion facility after allegedly being exposed to the coronavirus. Pro-life advocates believe the abortionist was not tested for the virus and could be spreading it to patients.
Another abortionist may be practicing at the Wichita facility without a license. “The abortionist on duty over the eventful weekend was believed to be a former Trust Women abortionist named Cheryl Chastine, who allowed her Kansas medical license to expire in 2016, after quitting her job in Wichita. It has not been renewed. Chastine is also not listed on Trust Women’s current 24-hour consent form as required by law,” according to the pro-life organization.
In response to these concerns, the Sedgwick County Commissioners approved a recommendation last week urging Kelly and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to include elective abortions in their restrictions on non-essential health care.
Writer C. Mitchell Shaw commented on the troubling situation:
Government is often mocked for its inefficiency, but in this case, the Kansas Supreme Court acted with extreme efficiency to trample the rights of church-goers. Perhaps the issue was never one of efficiency, but of priorities.
… A Kansan can visit a crowded abortion clinic and obtain an “elective surgery” to kill her unborn child without threat of arrest. But if a Kansan attends a religious service with even 11 people present and spread out widely across a building that seats hundreds, they all face arrest and prosecution.
That is the very definition of religious suppression by the state.
It also is a sign of politicians’ true priorities, ones that elevate certain human lives above others.
SPJNK.
What is with Kansas and baby killer Governors? Who can forget the horrible Kathleen Sebelius, a more evil, vile woman you will never meet.
I had never heard of her and looked her up.
She's vile all right.
I am in early kidney failure, yet I had to have my medical consult over the phone. But if I wanted an abortion, I could see a doctor.
Btw..for all intents and purposes, Wichita isn’t exactly closed down. People hunkered down for about 2 weeks but not any more. It was so nice being able to shop without crowds and drive the highways without having to pretend to be Morio Andrate. Sigh..
She is an evil woman, elected by Republican women who can’t stand Trump and refused to vote for a Trump supporter for Governor. Excepting the two large metros (Kansas City and Wichita), and three other hot spot counties with large meat packing plants, Kansas has not experienced a coronusvirus pandemic. The Governor overreacted and is looking ways to punish anyone who defies her unconstitutional actions.
The people of Kansas have already decided, they are going back to work and the Governor of Kansas cannot do anything about that.
When the personification of evil, church elder, George Tiller, stood out as the United States' most prolific late term abortionist, at one time owned ALL elected folks in Kansas, except for one, Phill Kline, the Kathleen Sebelous (sp?) appointed, KS Supreme Court declared him guilty of breaking every law in the State of Kansas, no elected Kansan stood behind him, even those who voted to end every late term abortion, they left open a couple of windows: (1) to save the mother's life and "health (which covered everything from being sad to miss out on the prom "because her dress might no longer fit," to she'd have to cut out some of her gymnastics as she'd gain too much weight to do the floor exes," and (2) another doctor signed on to the abortion due to the health of the mother being "in danger."
Later it is finally brought out that the second doctor signing off to the necessity of the abortion, that this so-called "second doctor" was actually a business partner of George Tiller.
Kansas legislators even looked away while a couple of young sisters had been impregnated by their step-father numerous times and only when one was visibly upset and crying at school in Wichita, KS, because she had to have another abortion because "it hurts," did a teacher or guidance counselor finally notify child services, who finally notified law enforcement!
As Phill Kline told a number of his supporters that the money coming from abortion is the dirtiest and blackest yet and many times the reason those choosing to look the other way did so, is that they felt guilty themselves by either having an abortion themselves or participating in one as a parent, a father of the unborn or helped a young unwed mother afford the abortion and thus had unclean hands. The other ones felt many if not most abortions occurred in such "Romeo/Juliette" cases wherein the actual truth, once he was able to gain Tiller's case files showed the unborn males were at least 10 years older than the unwed mothers and thus far more influential supporters of the younger girls/women and offered to pay to keep the birth from happening!
Sadly, we have sunk so far in immorality since the files of Tiller and Planned Parenthood began to be exposed that abortion almost seems tame and a non-event.
The Lord tells us in scripture that the wages of sin aren't less sin but lots and lots more!
We are much deeper into Hell today than then!
Kill God,kill a baby. How quaint like in Satan’s world.
I remember Tiller the baby killer. I also remember Sebelous
defended that evil scumbag, of course she did. Children of the father of lies both of them.
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