By Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons
On Friday, the same day President Donald Trump confirmed that Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary tested positive for the novel coronavirus, Pence traveled to Iowa and signaled to religious leaders that they should reopen houses of worship. He falsely claimed that “for most healthy Americans, the risks that the coronavirus poses remains very low” and thanked religious leaders for “[stepping] forward back into the exercise of your faith.” In addition, CNN reported the day prior that the Trump administration will not implement any of the guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on reopening, in part, because of a “religious freedom” concern about placing any restrictions on churches. The administration is once again trying to unfurl the banner of what it might describe as religious freedom, this time as cover for a premature push to reopen the economy.
From a wider perspective, the Covid-19 crisis also reveals a new dimension to how some conservatives have distorted our treasured American value of religious freedom. The virus does not discriminate whether we are gathered in a house of worship or any other type of gathering. State and local governments are within their constitutional authority to include houses of worship in bans on gathering. Yet at least 20 states instituted some form of a religious exemption to their Covid-19 public-health orders. And in addition to the Virginia lawsuit, there have been at least a dozen more lawsuits in states such as Florida, Mississippi, Kansas, Virginia, California and Texas. Now the push for reopening by the administration has been coupled with a religious freedom argument. This comes as many religious communities are continuing to care for one another and the common good by adapting to the trying circumstances.
Religious freedom is not a license to spread the coronavirus, and this is not the first time it has been exploited to pursue a conservative agenda. For years, conservatives have tried to use religious freedom as a license to deny women reproductive health care or discriminate against LGBTQ people. According to a watchdog report, the legal advocacy groups arguing the cases challenging stay-at-home orders on religious grounds are the same ones that have waged a so-called religious freedom war against the LGBTQ community.