Since mid-March, most decent-sized churches have abandoned in-person services in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. This came first in the wake of guidance from the CDC and state health officials that large gatherings, secular or otherwise, aren’t worth the risk. Since then, much of this guidance has been turned into formal directives banning mass gatherings. If that wasn’t enough, we’ve seen story after story about COVID-19 outbreaks that can be traced directly to church gatherings.
You would have thought that this would be too much even for the likes of fundie law firms like the American Center for Law and Justice, Liberty Counsel and the Alliance for Defending Freedom. After all, what if they came to a church’s defense, and a coronavirus outbreak or death could be traced to that church? Well, I was wrong.
You may recall that the “Holy Ghost Bartender,” Rodney Howard-Browne, was arrested last Monday for continuing to hold services at his Tampa megachurch, The River of Tampa Bay, in direct violation of a stay-at-home order in Hillsborough County, home to Tampa. Within hours of making bail, he’d retained the services of Liberty Counsel. True to form, Liberty Counsel chairman Mat Staver bleated and screeted about how Howard-Browne was the victim of discrimination, and that effectively telling churches not to hold in-person services was nothing less than tyranny.
Now, fast-forward to Wednesday, when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued a statewide stay-at-home order. However, the order deems churches are an “essential activity,” and can still meet with no limits on how many people can attend. On Thursday, DeSantis carved out a loophole in his order big enough for a freight train—he declared that his order would supersede any measures taken at the local level, effectively banning local governments from taking stricter measures. Under the circumstances, Hillsborough County was all but forced to amend its stay-at-home order to allow churches to meet.
But as near as I can tell, most decent-sized churches in major Florida cities are still online-only. Why? Well, Staver may have dropped a clue while declaring “victory” on Facebook on Thursday.
Staver claimed that as a result of Howard-Browne’s “unbelievable and outrageous arrest,” The River had been dropped by its insurance company. It’s hard to blame that company for doing so. After all, if even ONE person got sick or died from coronavirus and it could be definitively traced to a church, the public outcry would make the ones from the Penn State, Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein scandals look minor league. The bar for acceptable behavior is set much higher than the bar below which you get ticketed or arrested for this very reason.
Legal or not, no reputable insurer would want to be associated with that. And it’s hard to believe that the loved ones of the victims in such an outbreak wouldn’t have grounds to sue, citing both the scientifically-grounded guidance from the CDC and the numerous outbreaks at other churches. They would argue that no reasonable person would hold in-person services under those conditions.
So even if the pastors at many churches didn’t have the basic decency to keep their doors closed, it’s very likely their insurers would have told—not asked—them to call off in-person services under pain of being dropped. That probably explains why you aren’t seeing too many churches in Texas and Indiana reopen their doors, even though Staver claims they amended their stay-at-home measures in light of what happened in Florida.
If this is playing out the way I think it is, The River’s insurance company deserves a medal. It may have saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives.
Sunday, Apr 5, 2020 · 3:57:44 PM +00:00
·
Christian Dem in NC
Since this made the rec list, I thought I’d mention that someone in the comments suggested the churches couldn’t be sued because the members came of their own volition. However, in a lot of these churches, like Howard-Browne’s, the pressure to come is inexorable. We’ve seen pastors belittling members for staying home through this. So absolutely, if members were pressured to come to a church that was still meeting in-person, that church can and should be sued out of existence if someone gets sick and it can be traced to that church.
Sunday, Apr 5, 2020 · 4:38:11 PM +00:00
·
Christian Dem in NC
Mountain Sufi makes another point in the comments. What these scofflaw churches are doing is no different from the pastor of a snake-handling church dumping rattlers on the church lawn. If one of those bit a child, that pastor would be liable in both his official and personal capacity. A pastor reckless and stupid enough to still be holding in-person services are doing is no different.