New York And California Updates

A new federal lawsuit has been filed by ultra-Orthodox Jews in the upstate cluster of Orange and Rockland County, NY cases:

On Wednesday, three Orthodox Jewish congregations in Rockland County, N.Y., sued Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) for issuing a “blatantly anti-Semitic” coronavirus order restricting religious services in Jewish areas, just before three sequential Jewish holy days. Cuomo falsely blamed the Orthodox Jewish community for a surge in COVID-19 cases in New York, referring to the surge as “a predominantly ultra-orthodox cluster,” and he admitted the lockdowns were based on “fear” rather than science.

According to the link, the lawyers in the case are Ron Coleman and Harmett Dhillon with Dhillon Law Group and the Center for American Liberty. The Dhillon group, based in San Francisco, has represented California parents suing to reopen schools and Northern California churches suing against COVID lockdown provisions.

The story quotes from the transcript of Gov Cuomo's call with ultra-Orthodox rabbis that I mentioned in Thursday's post .

In an October 6 phone call with Jewish leaders, Cuomo admitted, “This is not a highly nuanced, sophisticated response, this is a fear-driven response, this is not a policy being written by a scalpel, this is a policy being cut by a hatchet, it’s just a very blunt.” He attempted to blame New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for the fear-driven response, but then admitted that he worked with de Blasio in adjusting it.

"It’s not the best way to do it, but it is a fear-driven response, the virus scares people, hopefully we get the numbers down in the zip codes, the anxiety comes down, and then we can have a smarter, more tailored approach,” the governor added. “Hopefully we get it under control in a few weeks, people take a deep breath, and then we can have a more intelligent, sophisticated policy.”

The rabbis cited this gobsmacking admission in their lawsuit.

They also explained the vital importance of religious gatherings in Orthodox Judaism.

Notice that in the case of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, the plaintiffs were able to obtain a free-exercise restraining order based on the argument that their strongly held doctrines are unique to a small sect. But if doctrines are just as strongly held. but they're more mainstream, and they're generally held by a larger group, this is pretty clearly going to be a much tougher case.

It's hard to avoid seeing Cuomo's remarks as anti-Semitic, addressed to a group of rabbis apparently on the assumption they'd understand that the community is agitated against the Jews, so he has to act.

In the Southern California case of the Harvest Rock Evangelical megachurch, LIberty Counsel is asking for its request for a restraining order against Gov Newsom to be heard by the US Ninth Circuit appeals court en banc:

Harvest Rock Church and Harvest International Ministry filed an en banc petition to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals requesting that the entire panel of judges review the case regarding Governor Gavin Newsom’s unconstitutional orders. Harvest Rock Church has multiple campuses in California, including in Pasadena, Los Angeles, Irvine and Corona. Harvest International Ministries has 162 member churches throughout the state.

Earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision did not grant an injunction pending appeal. However, the Court of Appeals will hear the merits of the request for an injunction in a future hearing to be set in the new year. Due to the importance of the issues, and the fact that now the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued two separate 2-1 decisions (in the South Bay and Harvest cases), Liberty Counsel is requesting a rehearing before all the Ninth Circuit judges.

This continues to be a slow process that's clearly estending into 2021. The problem is, of course, that COVID lockdowns, originally intended to last over a period of weeks, have taken on an indefinite life, and civil authorities are claiming to be able to tighten them, loosen them, modify them, and extend them on vague pretexts that, as we're beginning to see, arrn't "scientific" even by their own admission.

It remains to be seen whether restrictions on indoor worship services -- in many cases, forbidding indoor gatherings entirely, or limiting them to very small numbers -- that were seen as at least tolerable over the summer will continue into the late fall and winter. Legal redress may be ineffetive if weather curtails any in-person worship before the authorities can be prevailed upon to relax their restrictions.

Capitol Hill Baptist: More To The Story

I ran across an Evangelical YouTube channel that's generally sympathetic to Pastor John MacArthur and Grace Community Church. The video below referred me to a dispute that gave me much more perspective on what's happening with Capitol Hill Baptist in Washington, DC:

The video sent me to a story in Baptist News that portrays the approaches of Capitol Hill Baptist and Grace Community Church as contrasting, with Capitol Hill Baptist much the better case.

Throughout the summer, MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, has been in a litigious battle with Los Angeles County over the county’s public health restrictions against large indoor gatherings. Despite a restraining order entered against the church by a Superior Court judge, MacArthur has defiantly held indoor services with thousands of unmasked, un-distanced worshipers.

. . . Almost as far away from Los Angeles as one can go in the continental United States, [Pastor Mark] Dever has taken a different — and now more successful — approach with the District of Columbia government.

Late on Friday, Oct. 9, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden granted relief to Dever and Capitol Hill Baptist Church in their request to be allowed to conduct outdoor worship services in the District despite the local government ban on such assemblies.

The differences between the two cases and the approach of the two pastors are considerable. MacArthur has been combative and defiant from the start. And even now, while still embroiled in legal battles, he has released a video calling on other pastors across the country to “open your churches.” Dever has stated his case more calmly, without making threats or inciting other churches to follow his lead.

MacArthur has seen Los Angeles County’s ban on large indoor gatherings as persecution of the church and built his case on this persecution complex. Dever has stated a unique theological conviction that biblical worship must be held in-person, not via video or even in multiple services.

But the article goes on to say that the secret to Capitol Hill Baptist's success in the courts is that it holds doctrines that only a tiny percentage even of Evangelicals believe:

In D.C., Dever made a unique case that his congregation’s theological belief is that to fulfill the biblical mandate of “assembling together,” they must meet in person and in one service. Prior to COVID-19, Capitol Hill Baptist Church held only one Sunday morning service, did not offer a livestream and did not employ multi-site campuses.

That gave an opening for Judge McFadden to differentiate the claim of the D.C. church against any other such cases nationwide.

In other words, it holds only one Sunday service not because of clergy shortage, small congregation, or anything else -- it simply believes on Biblical authority that a church must meet in a single body once on Sunday, no matter what. In other words, it's gone to the judge and said, "Judge, you may think we're troublesome Christians just like any others. But that's not the case. We're fringe crazies who don't hold with nearly any other denomination. We're more like Jehovah's Witnesses or Jim Jones. You have to accommodate us just like you'd accommodate a sect that doesn't believe in vaccination."

In other words, the basic argument is we're tiny and harmless, leave us alone.

Beyond that, Capitol Hill Baptist is playing what can only be characterized as small ball. They aren't disputing the District of Columnbia's right to ban indoor worship without masks or social distancing -- they've simply been meeting in a group of over 100 in an Alexandria, VA field, outdoors, masked and socially distanced. All they're asking is the right to move back across the river and meet in a field inside the District the same way. No matter they have a perfectly good building at 525 A St NE in Washington whose doors have been shut by government edict since March and will remain so indefinitely.

And as I posted Sunday, while their church building remains closed, the weather this fall will get steadily worse, so that their little victory, being able move their outdoor gathering of more than 100 back into the District, will be of little value in a matter of weeks.

Cursory investigation shows that the typical First Baptist in any given city has more than one Sunday service, so that Capitol Hill Baptist's views are not usual among most Baptist orgainizations. Wikipedia says Capitol Hill Baptist is a member of the District of Columbia Baptist Convention. I don't know if Capitol Hill's policy is unique even there.

I think MacArthur and other churches that follow his approach are more tactically savvy, recognizing that it's impractical for a group of any size to meet in a field or park (do you read scripture, preach, and celenrate with a bullhorn?), and livestream services are neither church nor mass. To close church buildings indefinitely imposes financial and maintenance burdens. At the same time, experience in places like New York and California has been that civil authorities do not necessarily negotiate in good faith, and they rescind prior "permissions" at whim.

All I can concude is that Capitol Hill Baptist is a very strange place, and even by its own admission, its strategy isn't reproducible -- leaving aside the very limited life of the small success it's achieved.

Two New York Updates

The backgound and legal history of the religious freedom cases stemming from COVID restrictrions are looking more and more complex as information comes to light. (For instance, there's another post to be made on the Capitol Hill Baptist case, which I hope to put up in the next day or so.)

In New York, it appears that there are two separate clusters of cases and issues, one centered in Brooklyn and Queens, the other in Orange and Rockland Counties, which are across the Hudson and just north of New Jersey. Both deal with amended COVID restrictions issued by Gov Cuomo on October 6. I'll call the west-of-the-Hudson cases the "upstate cases". Of these, the Thomas More Society reports,

On October 5, Governor Cuomo threatened to shut down New York churches and synagogues if they did not continue to limit religious gatherings to 50% of their indoor capacity, which was the relief provided for several of the above plaintiffs by federal court order on June 26, 2020, through the exclusive representation of Thomas More Society attorneys. But just one day later, on October 6, the governor pivoted and issued a new policy called the “Cluster Action Initiative,” virtually shutting down churches and synagogues in various newly created “Red Zones” throughout New York City and other state locales. He also completely shut down religious schools in both the “Red Zones” and in the newly designated “Orange Zones.” The most restrictive “Red Zones” single out “houses of worship” and limit them to religious gatherings of up to 25% percent capacity, but cap that number at a maximum of ten people. “Orange Zones” limit “houses of worship” to 33% of capacity but no more than 25 people, and the also newly defined Yellow Zones limit “houses of worship” to 50% of capacity.

This is a separate action from the case ruled on by Judge Eric Komitee on the "red zones" in Brooklyn and Queens on October 9, where he denied a restraining order against the new lockdown. Regarding the upstate cases,

[T]wo Catholic priests, two Catholic school students, and four Orthodox Jewish individuals are renewing an ongoing lawsuit against the head of New York state for imposing new, draconian restrictions on religious services, nearly four months after a federal judge enjoined Cuomo from treating houses of worship differently from exempted businesses and activities.

The Thomas More Society filed an Emergency Amended Complaint and Motion for Temporary Restraining Order on October 9, 2020, in United States District Court for the Northern District of New York on behalf of the priests and individuals. The new filing shows that Cuomo and other state officials are now singling out religious gatherings for special burdens without showing any evidence that religious gatherings, and not countless other exempted gatherings and activities, are unique sources of spreading COVID-19.

It appears that the October 6 color-coded designations of micro-hot spots violate an earlier injunction issued by a federal judge:

On June 26, 2020, Senior U.S. District Judge Gary L. Sharpe issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting Governor Cuomo, his Attorney General Letitia James, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio from enforcing previous orders treating the original plaintiffs in this case (including the two Catholic priests and three of the four Jewish individuals) less favorably than New York’s COVID-19 “Phase 2 Industries,” which included many offices, retail outlets, personal care services, and more, and which at the time were limited to occupancy rates of 50% of their indoor capacity.

So far, I don't see an outcome of the current Thomas More Society action.

Regarding the Brooklyn-Queens cases,

Leaked audio shows Cuomo admitting that his lockdown orders, specifically those targeting Jewish schools, are not based in science.

The audio is contained in a Twitter post included in the link. The gist is that Cuomo is telling rabbis that the problem is that "everyone" is scared, and there is neither time nor budget to invetigate whether the schools and temples are actually spreading the disease, but they must be shut to avoid panic and give Cuomo time to develop a more equitable approach. At some indefinite future time.

And Judge Komitee has already explained that the Catholic diocese is just "swept up" in this process, but it's the Jews that have everyone in a panic. This is bizarre beyond belief.

So, Have The Illuminati Decided COVID Is No Longer A Thing?

On March 11, the deeply compromised World Health Organization declared COVID a "pandemic", the same term applied to the 1918 Spanish flu. Within days, world governments began declaring lockdowns. On October 11, the WHO officially discouraged lockdowns as a primary COVID control policy.

Whoever it is that actually runs the planet -- the Illuminati, the Bilderbergs, the lizard people, or whoever else -- may be knuckling under. On Monday, the New York Times announced that COVID measures were proving remarkably successful, and the disease would be disappearing far sooner than anticipated.

Rush Limbaugh's reaction echoed mine. From the transcript of yesterday's show:

Now today we have another story. Ready for this? “New York Times: Experts Confident Pandemic To Be Over ‘Far Sooner’ Than Expected, Trump Efforts ‘Working With Remarkable Efficiency.”

. . . Now, something is behind this, folks. Something is behind this. I think part of it is that there must be polling because everything in major political party politics, especially the Democrats, is done bouncing off of or reacting to polling.

. . . Three weeks ago from the election, World Health Organization now admits what everybody’s known, lockdowns are counterproductive and do great damage, are not necessary. And experts — New York Times! — express confidence that the pandemic is gonna be over far sooner.

Well, for one thing, the New York Times and the World Health Organization, which means the global left is trying to take these issues off the table one way or another. If the pandemic is gonna be over soon, it means that we don’t need to have crisis after crisis-related policies regarding it. If we’re defeating it, if it’s naturally fading away on its own faster than anybody knew, great news. And if we don’t need to lockdown, the only reason these two things are happening is something is hurting Joe Biden out there. Something is hurting the Democrat campaign, the overall Democrat position here.

Now, you would think three weeks into the election that the stories would be the exact opposite. Pandemic racing, pandemic worsening, Trump administration horrible at dealing with it. You would think, likewise, that the World Health Organization would be doubling down on lockdowns because the pandemic is so bad, it’s so damaging, it’s so out of control. But it’s the exact opposite. They’ve gotta have some polling data.

One thing I've noticed about current electoral punditry -- and I completely discount corporate media or the National Review -- is that even the more edgy social media commentary is ignoring COVID lockdown resentment as a driving factor. But look at the states where COVID rebellions have been most prominent -- say, Michigan, which since the days of the Owosso barber last spring has been at the center of national attention.

Oh, by the way, the Michigan senate race, with a Republican challenging the incumbent Democrat, is dead even.

Wisconsin, another state where COVID lockdowns have been overturned, was flipped by Republicans in 2016 and is likely to flip again in November.

And absolutely nobody has mentionied California, which won't go for Trump electorally, but there are a number of House districts the Republicans intend to flip. The bellweather is the 25th district, which had a special election in May that was rated a tossup, but which the Republican comfortably won.

(That was the first where the Democrats tried to implement mail-in ballots. The trouble was that Republicans mailed in ballots as well. The Democrats initially planned to delay the count and contest the election, but the margin from Republican mail-ins was so great that the Democrat conceded instead.)

Oh, by the way, that district sends churchgoers to both Godspeak Calvary Chapel and Grace Community Church. The 28th district, where a Republican is mounting an upset campaign against Adam Schiff, sends worshipers there, as well as to Harvest Rock Church. Nobody, but nobody, has covered California in this November election cycle.

As far as I can tell, the media polls voter sentiment on COVID lockdowns in the broad category of "health care issues", which I think is a gross miscalculation. COVID, lockdowns, and compulsory masks seem to be an issue that hasn't been publicly addressed -- but the Bilderbergs may finally have this one figured out. Except that three weeks before the election, it's too late to turn that ship.

It's Easier To Ask Forgiveness Than It Is To Get Permission

Thanks to a visitor for this link:

A federal< judge denied a request made by the Diocese of Brooklyn for a temporary restraining order to block Gov. Andrew Cuomo from enforcing his new COVID-19 rules on houses of worship.

Judge Eric Komitee’s decision, handed down late at night on Oct. 9 following a hearing that afternoon, means that the new restrictions Cuomo mandated can go into effect.

. . . In his decision, Komitee wrote that Cuomo’s executive order was actually aimed at houses of worship in the Orthodox Jewish community and that the diocese “appears to have been swept up in that effort having been mostly spared, so far at least, from the problem at hand.”

Judge Komitee is a Trump appointee. Although Judge Stickman, who has issued the most intelligent and comprehansive opinion striking down COVID restrictions so far, is also a Trump appointee, I noted last week that Judge Amy Coney Barrett also upheld COVID restrictions on houses of worship in an appeals court decision. Trump judges will not be a magic bullet to solve this problem.

Several factors make this decision bizarre. One is that last Friday, a different federal judge issued a restraining order that allowed Capitol Hill Baptist Church to hold in-person services under circumstances very similar to those in Brooklyn.

Another strange factor is that the judge agreed with Gov Cuomo that the problem wasn't the Catholics, who had been following health orders that had already been negotiated and agreed, the problem was ultra-Orthodox Jews, and the Catholics had just been inadvertently swept up. But this somehow justified it.

I'm not sure how this differs from the health department shutting down Joe's Pizza for too many rats and roaches, but also shutting down Bert's Burgers, which doesn't have rats or roaches. Can the judge just say, "That's OK, Bert, this was aimed at Joe's Pizza, and you just got swept up. The health department was OK to shut you down as well. No hard feelings, though!"

The legal envioronment here is presently unstable, and it isn't doing to stabilize anytime soon, especially as "blue" civil authorities continue to assert their ability to impose renewed lockdowns at whim. And this won't stop just because there's a vaccine, or just because the lockdowns have gone on too long.

The Archdiocese of New York issued the following statement before the court denied the restraining order:

Catholic parishes throughout the Archdiocese of New York – indeed, throughout the entire State – have been able to safely and successfully re-open for Mass and the sacraments, thanks to careful planning, strict adherence to safety guidelines, and the full cooperation of our clergy, parishioners, and parish staffs.

So it is unfair to arbitrarily close, even temporarily, churches which have been operating without a spike in coronavirus cases simply because other institutions have not yet been able to do so. The Diocese of Brooklyn’s lawsuit seeks to defend their First Amendment right to continue to safely worship and operate their parishes, and we support the Diocese of Brooklyn in their effort.

That and $2.75 will get them a subway ride. Meanwhile, the faithful are being denied spiritual food. Now, someone may be able to get together with Cardinal Dolan, Abp Cordileone, Abp Gómez, and whomever else and work out an effective strategy that will allow the faithful to receive spiritual food without waiting indefinitely for it. But the fact is that going through the courts is proving to have unpredictable and at best long delayed results.

On the other hand, the strategy of the Southern California Evangelical megachurches has so far been far more effective. To go ahead and hold services is an effective strategy. Does Gov Cuomo seriously believe NYPD will arrest or cite Catholic parishioners? Califonria authorities recognize local police and sheriffs will not. The Evangelical pastors recognize they get good publicity and fill their pews as well. And the local courts recognize that there are First Amendment issues that must be dealt with before penalties can be applied.

It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.

Anglo-Catholicism: There's Never Been A There There

A visitor e-mailed me the other day:

I've just come across your light-hearted blog of 24 April 2019: So Why Not Houseling Cloths? I'm reading Eamon Duffy's Stripping of the Altars in which he mentions houseling towels and my subsequent search of the term led to you and your question about whether houseling cloths were ever in Anglican or Anglo-Catholic usage.

Until I left the area a couple of years ago I worshipped at Our Lady Saint Mary South Creake in Norfolk, Diocese of Norwich. OLSM is an example of the late flowering in the 1920s of the Oxford Movement in Norfolk (it's just a few miles from Walsingham). There indeed a houseling cloth is permanently attached to the sanctuary side of the communion rails (see for instance https://flic.kr/p/Jh6hYr - note these rails are placed in front of a nave altar) and, until she had to go into sheltered accommodation a few years ago, the sacristan would pull the cloth over the rail to cover her hands as she received communion.

If such matters interest you, the history of OLSM and its encounter with Anglo-Catholicism in the last 100 years are worth exploring. Fr Roger Arguile has written a short but scholarly history of the church 'A Church in a Lanscape: A History of South Creake Church'; a much abbreviated version of this can be found on the church website, and you can buy a copy of the book if you contact Barbara Allen, one of the Churchwardens, via morleysfarm@afiweb.net. I think she asks for £5 plus postage.

Although Anglo-Catholic ritual continues in the liturgy at OLSM, I think it's fair to say that the original fervour has faded somewhat over the years. The worshipping congregation enjoy the smells, bells, and Angelus and works hard to sustain the pre-Reformation look and atmosphere of the interior complete with rood and images. But I suspect there is limited understanding of what it's all about, certainly so speaking for myself. Although I did discover that what the aforementioned sacristan was doing was to save fragments of the Host falling to the floor, I didn't know until now that she was using something called a houseling cloth. No-one else ever used the cloth and its presence was never discussed or questioned.

I have moved to London where coincidentally the nearby parish church of S. Paul's Deptford sustains a far more vigorous and rigorous Anglo-Catholic tradition. However whilst I'm not certain of this, I don't think the ritual includes a houseling cloth.

This account presents at best a puzzling picture. Anglican papalists in the UK, from everything I've been told, went to the novus ordo mass when Rome did, since their intent was to do as the Romans. Thus there has been relatively less interest in the Divine Worship missal, since that is itself an artifact of the late flowering in the 1920s of the Oxford Movement that the visitor mentions. something that was never really Catholic, as opposed to Anglicn Papalism, which tries to follow contemporary Rome more closely.

What the visitor describes strikes me as eccentrically English, and I think the visitor suggests as much in referring to the sacristan befpre she went to sheltered accommodation. But even as Anglo-Catholicism, it's clearly something at the fringe.

I replied ro the visitor asking whether any UK parishes carrying out this punctiliouis quasi-Catholic observation had any interest in the UK ordinariate, but he didn't reply. And on a day's reflection, I can't imagine they would. They're living out a fantasy of Catholicism, and even the rubrics of the Divine Worship missal would break the spell.

But this brings me to news from my regular correspondent. The Daily Office volume of the Divine Worship missal, we recall, has been delayed due to disagreements between Houston and the other ordinariates.

I refer to Divine Worship: The Daily Office, which is apparently nearing completion, at least the “Commonwealth Edition,” to be used by the UK and Australian ordinariates. Still no word on progress on the Houston version. Canadians just starting to become aware that for purposes of Divine Worship, they are not in the Commonwealth. These are people who still haven’t recovered from the fact that Dominion Day was renamed Canada Day in 1982. Personally they are having none of that. I predict a howl of protest when it all sinks in.

Bemused, I asked from how many the howls would actually emanate, since I don't believe there are more than a few hundred total Canadians in the North American ordinariate, if even that many.

This whole enterprise is a fantasy, a sort of group reification of something that has only an abstract existence.

UPDATE: A visitor comments,

My own impression is that English "Anglo-Catholic" parishes that tried to revive this sort of pre-Reformation stuff - houselling cloths, Easter sepulchres, "Sarumy" stuff - tended to be in the non- or even anti-papalist Anglo-Catholic camp, followers of Percy Dearmer and others like him

These tended to "sarumize" rather than "romanize." Many of these sort of "Anglo-Catholics" have accepted priestesses (so long as they're willing to do so "Medieval Fayre" style church services - and there are a few such priestesses in the Church of England); a few (in England) became Orthodox in the 1990s; and a few tried to start up English "Continuing Anglican" cheuiches, without much success.

And this is specific to the UK. In North America, it's less precise. My regular correspondent says,

OCSP adopters of disparate English Catholic/Anglican/Anglo-Catholic liturgies and vestments are happily piecing together Canterbury caps and lace albs, St Swithun and E. B. Pusey, because it’s all English and therefore somehow “Patrimonial.” People who actually live in the UK don’t have the same romantic notions.

Or perhaps their romantic notions are more particularly specified.

Today's Weather In Washington, DC Is 67 And Rain

Social media, insofar as it's taken notice, is celebrating what it thinks is a big win for Capitol Hill Baptist in Washington, DC.

A D.C. church that filed suit against the District of Columbia has won injunctive relief from a federal judge and can begin holding church services in the city again.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! But let's go past the first paragraph.

In a statement, Capitol Hill Baptist Church Pastor Justin Sok said the church is, “thankful that the court has granted us” the ability to hold services in D.C. again. The church, which counts most of its members as D.C. residents, had been holding services at a field in Alexandria, Virginia.

“With this ruling in hand, we are speaking with the operators of a variety of outdoor venues to move our weekly gathering from Virginia to D.C.,” he said.

. . . The judge’s ruling only affects Capitol Hill Baptist Church and no other religious organization that’s still currently barred from holding any indoor or outdoor service with more than 100 people.

So let me figure this out. Capitol Hill Baptist had been meeting in an Alexandria, VA field, which of course is just across the river from the District. In effect, they get to move to another field -- or maybe even socially distanced in high school bleachers or something -- five miles closer to home.

In the fall, that is, when they can find a place to host them. November weather in Washingon has an average high of 59, with an average of six days of rain.

And this applies only to Capitol Hill Baptist. If any other parish in DC had been meeting in an Alexandria field, well, good luck, keep on meeting in the field. Maybe your attorney can get you the same deal, that is, if you file suit in federal court on the same basis Capitol Hill Baptist did. You'll spend thousands of dollars and wait weeks or months so you can meet outdoors at Christmas in the District, not in Maryland or Virginia.

Big whoop.

The DC federal courts continue to function as a well-oiled machine. How on earth is this a favorable ruling? The parishioners at Capitol Hill Baptist, in an exclusive deal, get to shiver in the rain on this side of the Potomac and not in Virginia! And Mark Tapscott at Instapundit thinks this is great!

This raises another question, which is that in other areas like California, the civil authorities have graciously allowed churches to worship outdoors, socially distanced, of course, with no singing and limits on attendance, all summer. But the weather is changing, while the civil authorities may or may not change their rulings to accommodate. That Mayor Bowser, actually the court, would now allow Capitol Hill Baptist to worship outdoors in the middle of winter, a few short months away, is moot.

The churches need better strategy and better lawyers, because these lockdowns aren't going away.