You kind of DO support his decision and actions, when you justify them by claiming the First Amendment sees him free to commit them, no? Or how do you reconcile the two (1, you dont support him...2, the 1st Amend apparently does support him)?
Supporting a law or right and supporting a decision are two very different things. I support your right and your freedom to leave you house and move around the world. I do not support your decision to do it at the expense of yourself and others.
I support your right to go home and drink 24 cans of beer every night if you choose - but I don't support you doing it every night.
Just because I don't like your choice, doesn't mean I have the right to stop you.
However, I think that Muscleupchron is on the right path that the constitution does NOT defend the right of the church in this case - I will get to that.
Answer my question from my post. How does a law that prohibits gatherings of 100 people (or whatever the amount was) not UNCONSTITUTIONAL to as it would prohibit the free exercise of religion for any church from gathering that has over 100 members since they wouldn’t be able to actually choose to have “church” to begin with, after all a church service by definition according to the Bible is a “ASSEMBLING”, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner some” (Hebrews 10:25).
Also, answer me this as well are the laws that deem the gun shops “nonessential businesses” that therefore force them to close constitutional? In a free society those at highest risk, the elderly and those with preexisting conditions should be told to quarantine and it should be up to the rest of the members in society to CHOOSE if they want to quarantine. The economy should not be mandated by government edict to shut down, businesses closed many of which will never open again, millions of people be unemployed, and everyone forced to stay at home! Total government overreach in so many areas at a cost to many millions.
I am not a constitution expert - I admittedly need to brush up on it - and I am no lawyer but I am a commercial real estate broker and work with zoning bylaws on a regular basis and I understand where Muscleupchron is coming from. Any building that open for the public has occupancy limits - whether this is a school, restaurant, retail store, office building or, yes, even a church. These laws are basically based on the intended use and apply in various ways to ALL buildings. I mean, even your own house has an occupancy limit in a way because you are only allowed so many bedrooms based on septic capacity because that effects your health and the public's health.
As far as "use" goes - churches and educational uses, at least in my state, supersede the zoning bylaws. What this means is that you cannot prohibit a church or educational use from locating anywhere. If something is zoned for an office use, you can't just open your auto repair shop there, but a church can go anywhere basically.
Having said that, my analysis seems to point in the direction that a religious use cannot be discriminated against. If it is OK for ANYONE, it is OK for a church. But a church still has to abide by the laws that EVERYONE has to abide by.
In other words, if ANY use is OK in a location (like an office use) you CAN discriminate against an automotive user, but not the church. But if a law says "Any occupancy of this building is limited to X number or people" the church still has to abide by it, because it applies to everyone and is not discrimination.
In this case, if an occupancy is limited to X number of people, that would thus be acceptable - and if a town reduces that number for everyone, the church is not protected because it is not a discrimination against the church specifically.
Of course the town, state and federal gov't can set occupancy laws based on health parameters as they see fit. If they reduce occupancy levels for such a reason, and you don't abide, you can be shut down and I would guess if you still don't abide, the person responsible could be arrested.
Pastor was stupid, reckless, and put his parishioners at risk is not the same as supporting his freedom of choice to do so. If someone believes abortion is morally wrong, but believes a woman should have a right to do so are they then supporting whatever she chooses? Illogical. Supporting that a choice should be present for someone to make a decision is in no way an affirmative support of a decision either way.
Actually, based on the above and muscleupcrohn's angle, I'm thinking he probably does not have the right to do so AND it is morally wrong in addition to it. But I do not think we need to suspend rights. If the church does not have the right to open for more than x number of people, because NO ONE has the right to open beyond that x number of people, then it does not require any suspension of any constitutional right perhaps.
And if the church still abides by that X number of people, they can still congregate - as was suggested above - with more services. So if they have to limit to 8 people, they can still congregate in groups of 8 or smaller - but that's the law for everyone so they are not being discriminated against.
And I support their right to go to church. I still think it is beyond moronic right now and I would question being part of any group of people that thought this was acceptable. I mean, how dumb are all the people that showed up for this? Perhaps they are worried about saving their souls and have a belief that they can't miss a day of church - but I disagree with them heavily. But if that is their belief, and they choose to take actions in accordance with their beliefs - they have a right to do it as long as they are not endangering others. And that's the bigger problem. They ARE endangering others.
Just like I have the right to own a gun, I don't have the right to shoot someone with it. And if I am sick, I don't have the right to make other people sick by walking around coughing on them - I would get arrested for assault at the very least if someone complained. The issue is, no one ever gets arrested for making someone sick because you would have to prove "malice aforethought" - that they intended to harm someone. In this case, going to church when you know people could be sick and you could spread it - that may be enough to prove you had an intent. And they have already arrested a doctor for coughing on a nurse and I'm sure there have been other arrests during this period as well for similar actions.
Yes, my suggestion instead is advise those at high risk such as those that elderly or with preexisting conditions to quarantine and not force the vast majority at low risk to do so closing the economy down, leaving millions unemployed with record high unemployment, knocking companies out of business, destroying one of the best economies on record, taking away people’s rights and freedoms etc with no concrete answer on when the “shutdown” will end.
This is part of the problem - the "high risk" group is a fallacy. People need to get this out of their heads. First off, EVERYONE is at high risk of GETTING this disease. Then there is a subgroup of that that is at a high risk of dying from this disease. But not being part of a "high" risk group doesn't mean you are immune or unlikely to die.
70% of americans are overweight, 40% are obese. THAT is a huge risk factor. As has been pointed out in this thread - most of the critically ill patients are showing up merely being overweight. This means you would have to eliminate 70% of the population right off the bat - they cannot leave the house. Then you'd still have people who are not overweight who have autoimmune diseases, asthma, smokers, drinkers, normal-weight diabetics, cancer patients, etc.
So it's a fallacy to act like there are a bunch of people who are not at risk. EASILY 80% and maybe 90% of the population would fall into some kind of risk category. And the remaining 10-20%? Well, some of them are dying too.
And it's a fallacy to think that just because someone is a risk group they can stay home. You're healthy - can you stay home? Can you not go out and get food? Can you not buy supplies? No, everyone has to do that stuff or have someone do it for them and that means EVERYONE has the potential for being a contact point.
Keeping people who think they're healthy away from other people who think they're healthy is the only way to stop this - because the people who are sick and on ventilators aren't spreading it as much as you think, they are contained with limited contact points. The high risk people are NOT the problem. The low risk people are. The high risk people will be contained and they will die.
Isn’t obesity a risk-factor for this? So most of America would have to stay inside anyway.
People are NOT getting this. Keep beating that drum. If you are 20 pounds over the maximum weight for your height, you are obese. If you are over the maximum weight for your height, you are over weight. For a 5'8'' person this is 160 pounds. This is based on statistics and muscle mass does not matter - once you are beyond this weight, risks of disease is increased.
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