You have probably read about Grace Community Church in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles. They have gone to court and won an injunction against the County of Los Angeles who was attempting to prevent them from holding services. Over the past three weeks the courts have continually ruled that the Church could continue to hold services. You can read the article over on Parknews.biz.
The Church leases from the county a parking lot across the street where the majority of congregants park each Sunday and has been leasing it for 45 years. I guess the county figures that if they can’t close the church, they will simply close the parking lot. It has notified the church that effective October 1 the church can no longer park there and if they do, the cars will be confiscated by the county.
To quote the Church’s attorney:
“We maintain that their health order is unconstitutionally burdening the right of churches to worship, and there exists no rational basis, much less a compelling interest, to try to shut down indoor services at this point, particularly when the county is allowing strip clubs to operate and massive riots to take place – and not seeking restraining orders against them. We look forward to making those arguments at a subsequent proceeding, where we will ask the court to properly check this power grab by Los Angeles County and the State of California’s executive branch.”
I think she has a point – The President can have 1500 people at his nomination acceptance speech, many thousands can show up at a demonstration on the capitol mall, marches can take place across the country with mayors, city council members, and other officials joining in, riots are seemingly allowed with impunity (going on for 85 consecutive nights in Portland) , you can buy pot, liquor, and of course go to Costco, your supermarket, and Home Depot, but you can’t go to church, even though everything points to the fact that we are on the back side of this pandemic.
It seems a tad ironic that after having used police, health officials, closing down parties by turning off power and water, issuing citations, and running down surfers with power boats, the power that be are now cutting off parking as a means of enforcing their will.
What part of “the court is not issuing an injunction against the church” don’t you understand, County of LA.
JVH
2 Responses
John, this is a real “limbo” move — how low can you go?
Now that 260,000 people are dead in the U.S. and the numbers of infected are climbing back up, do you think maybe it’s time to take down this article with its fallacious claim “everything points to the fact that we are on the back side of this pandemic”?