Article from The Daily Wire by James Barrett.

On Wednesday, Minnesota’s Democratic governor unveiled the state’s new timeline for its “Stay Safe” plan, which includes the mandate that places of worship not be allowed to hold any types of services for more than 10 people — whether inside or outside — while simultaneously allowing restaurants to serve up to 50 customers at a time in outdoor dining areas.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted not only in a devastating economic crisis in the United States but a massive civil rights debate amid state and local mandates effectively prohibiting American citizens from exercising their constitutional rights, including First Amendment-protected rights of “the free exercise” of religion and the right to “peaceably to assemble” and “petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Several state and local mandates prohibiting “non-essential” entities from operating have ended up including churches, and some officials have even cracked down on churches providing safely socially distanced “drive-up” services.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) heaped fuel on the religious freedom fire on Wednesday in his unveiling of the state’s “Stay Safe” plan beginning June 1.

As noted by the Washington Examiner, Walz announced that while restaurants will be able to host up to 50 customers in their outdoor seating areas, churches will remain restricted to serving just 10 congregants at a time, whether indoors or outdoors.  The only remaining concession to churches is that they’re allowed to hold “drive-up” services, in which worshippers must remain in their cars and tune in to the message.

Read the entire article at The Daily Wire.

Image Credit: By St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons