COVID-19 ‘Stay at Home' Orders Provoke First Amendment Challenges - Client Newsletter

As state and local authorities scrambled in March and April 2020 to respond to COVID-19, a disease caused by the novel coronavirus, it became hard to explain to the public why houses of worship had restrictions that other places did not. In Louisville, Kentucky, drive-through liquor stores could operate, but drive-in churches could not. In Kansas, religious gatherings were limited to 10 congregants with an unlimited number of clerics, musical performers, and others leading a service, while detoxification centers, hotels, and libraries had no restrictions on the number of people who could gather. In Illinois, religious gatherings were limited to 10 people total, but large warehouses and stores selling recreational cannabis were not.