North Carolina Sheriff Will Not Enforce Church Attendance Limit; Other Sheriffs Also Out Of Line

I'm more and more puzzled that so few bloggers are covering restrictions on First Amendment rights to attend religious services. As I've been discovering, even if certain controls on movement or public assembly are justifiable, singling out religious services over and above any other activity is unconstitutional. But bloggers aren't seriously covering this, nor other grassroots concerns over such issues.

Most recently, I find N. Carolina Sheriff Won't Enforce Limit on Church Attendance:

In a letter released Wednesday, Johnston County Sheriff Steve Blizell called the state’s 10-person limit on in-person church services “unfair” and “morally wrong,” before encouraging people to “HAVE CHURCH!”

Blizell was part of the 12-member executive committee of the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association that asked Gov. Roy Cooper to allow indoor church services last week, saying that the guidelines for churches should be no more severe than those for retailers.

Most businesses in the state can open with limited customer occupancy, usually to 50% of what the fire code allows. “If social distancing and other guidelines are good enough to allow big box stores to operate? Why is it not good enough for in-person church services?” Blizell wrote in his letter.

Arbitrary 10- and 25- person limits on church services seem to be extremely common, and they're apparently imposed even when other businesses have no such arbitrary attendance limit. When challenged, these fall.

Neither news sites nor bloggers have been covering the increasing number of sheriffs who are publicly stating they won't enforce stay-at-home orders and similar policies. In addition to those I've listed in a previous post, I've found these additional in the past few days, leaving aside Sneriff Blizell:

• Fresno County, CA
• Franklin County WA
• Culpepper County VA
• Shiawassee County MI
• Douglas County IL
• Kane County IL
• Kendall County IL
• Ogle County, IL
• Tazewell County IL
• Jackson County OR

This list is not exhaustive. While these are not numerous in comparison with the total number of counties in the US, I think it's significant that many sheriffs at all are making public statements on what they won't enforce. In addition, the reference in the North Carolina article above suggests other sheriffs are in sympathy with the public views expressed by their colleagues but won't make public statements.

It also appears that many local law enforcement agencies, while they don't express public policies on what they will or won't enforce, do not give stay-at-home orders priority. Not long ago on Live PD, for instance, I saw an episode where Pomona, CA police, called to the scene of a loud party (by definition a violation of stay-at-home), specifically stated to those at the party that they were enforcing parking and traffic laws, but the party itself was not their concern.

I think this is an indication of grassroots feeling in the US at large regarding stay-at-home orders.