DC sued over 'discriminatory' coronavirus restrictions in churches
Lawsuit calls orders 'unscientific' and 'discriminatory'
Just days ahead of Christmas, the Archdiocese of Washington, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, is suing the District of Columbia over coronavirus orders limiting public worship.
"This is about science and common sense," Montse Alvarado, vice president and executive director of Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, told Fox Business host Neil Cavuto.
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The lawsuit, filed Friday in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia against Mayor Muriel Bowser, called the orders "unscientific" and "discriminatory."
"The archdiocese has shown that they can have mass and be socially distanced ... so really what this boils down to is discrimination on the part of the city. They are choosing to treat the religious entities different from restaurants where you can sit down for 90 minutes with no masks or tattoo parlors or liquor stores," Alvarado said.
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Bowser is also going against what the Supreme Court has already ruled, she added. It ruled 5-4 in favor of the Brooklyn Diocese and Orthodox Jewish synagogues in November in their case against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's coronavirus restrictions.
Alvarado said it was "very unreasonable to have a cap" of 50 people in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which has a capacity of at least 10,000 people.