Let Worshipers spread the virus

     "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . . ." 

A modest proposal: let faith-based groups do what they want. Yes, they will spread the disease. They have the right. Anyhow, they do already.

COVID cases are up again. Hospitalizations are up. Deaths are up. 

A lot of people don't think COVID danger is real, and even if it is real, darned if they want some governor telling them what to do.

Governors, both Democratic and Republican,  have been issuing executive orders to save lives and protect the economy, enforce "pauses," "freezes" and "shutdowns."  They are urging people not to travel and to limit the size of gatherings for Thanksgiving.

Some people are complying. A lot of people are not. The airports are busy and people who want to get together are doing so. Fox and social media are circulating the idea that the government cannot tell them what to do for Thanksgiving. They are right; Thanksgiving dinners are not going to be subject to meaningful law enforcement.  Thanksgiving is personal. It defines and unites a family. People are going to do what they want.

Governors are fighting tradition and sentiment. This year they are also fighting political partisanship. Democrats are on the side of prudence and sacrifice.  Republicans are COVID skeptics and resist what they consider un-Constitutional government over-reach. 

All over the country--and all over Oregon--county commissioners and sheriffs are saying they won't enforce the shutdowns. They know when a law is unpopular, and if COVID spreads and people die, they won't be blamed. Democrats will blame Trump; Republicans will blame China or the Democratic governor. 

Readers old enough to remember the era of the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit to save gasoline, will see the parallel. An unpopular law makes heroes of outlaws who mock and resist the law.  

Governors include faith-based gatherings in their shutdown orders. Oregon's governor limits church gatherings to 25 people. On the surface it makes sense. Churches are classic super-spreader venues. There is good anecdotal evidence of COVID spread from weddings, church services, and funerals. It appears to be a straightforward obligation for an officeholder with the duty of public safety. 

There is a problem. It fails to meet the test of the "consent of the governed. It was not inevitable that COVID skepticism and resistance would be partisan, but Trump wanted it so. Once that happened, the various Governors' attempts to limit church services became defined as an attack on religion, not COVID. Democrats had an opportunity to change that message but were slow to understand how partisan the issue had become and how badly the messaging would break for them.  Democrats were accused of being against God.

55 MPH outlaw hero

What they could have done is say that legitimate faith-based groups are exempt from the regulation. Say religion has an amendment and gets special treatment, whether people like it or not. Public health people would have howled in objection, as would the non-religious. That opposition would have proven their bone fides as defenders of the rights of the religious.

After all, people in churches can handle snakes if they want; let them risk getting COVID. Their call.

Such a stance would be consistent with a defense of other Constitutional rights that have troubling consequences. The Second Amendment allows people who behave dangerously with guns to have guns.  The First Amendment's freedom of speech allows people to say nonsense and dance naked in public. Troubling cases are how we keep freedom. And how Democrats show they are not anti-God.

There is a powerful potential objection to this modest proposal: the church services will endanger and kill people. What about public safety? People will die anyway and are now. Faith-based groups are getting together. New York investigating an Orthodox Jewish wedding with 7,000 guests! People in those groups who feel under attack are doing their own private behavior. No one can tell them how to worship or have Thanksgiving or anything else. There is a lot of backlash, much of it unseen.

Democrats' inclusion of churches immediately raises the question why grocery stores and BLM protest marches and bars and gyms might be open, but churches be closed. It fed the meme of faith institutions and people of faith being disrespected. It slowed buy-in on social distancing and mask-wearing. Americans are accustomed to more personal space and freedom than are people in our peer countries. President Trump led the opposition, made it a contest of freedom vs. regulatory over-reach, and Democrats fell into the trap. 

One thing is evident: based on COVID spread and deaths-per-100,000 people, the USA is an outlier in its failure. Whatever we did, it did not work.

The fact that church and choir gatherings killed people was no secret. Some church leaders would no doubt have done stupid things, certain that God would protect His worshipers. People would have noticed the results, and perhaps defined it as a hostile, immoral act. 

As it is, a great many people perceive restrictions on churches as the hostile, immoral act. The response was to scoff and protest against the big, bad sheriff.