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Another US city has reversed its unconstitutional ban on drive-in church services.
In response to the city of Chattanooga ceasing the ban, Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing an area church voluntarily dismissed a federal lawsuit that challenged the ban.
Initially the city’s stay-at-home order did not ban drive-in churches, but subsequently Mayor Andrew Berke announced right before Easter that his order specifically prohibited them.
On April 9, Berke posted a message aimed at churches stating that “drive-in services…even in their cars with the windows rolled up, for any length of time, will be considered a violation of our shelter-in-place directive.”
A number of churches in the area were forced to cancel drive-in Easter services.
“Singling out churches for special punishment makes no sense and is very clearly unconstitutional,” said ADF Senior Counsel Ryan Tucker, director of the ADF Center for Christian Ministries.
“It never made any sense that, in Chattanooga, you could sit in your car at a drive-in restaurant, but you couldn’t sit in your car at a drive-in church service.
“We commend the city for changing its policies and respecting the constitutionally protected freedoms of area congregations, which can now participate in alternate versions of worship during this pandemic that are specifically designed to comply with all applicable health and safety recommendations.”
Now that Pastor Steve Ball and Metro Tab Church have been permitted to host drive-in services, the church has been able to not only safely hold worship services but receive donations for victims of a tornado that affected the city.’
On Monday April 27, US Attorney General William Barr issued a memo that instructed federal prosecutors to identify coronavirus-related measures “that could be violating the constitutional rights and civil liberties of individual citizens.”
“If a state or local ordinance crosses the line from an appropriate exercise of authority to stop the spread of COVID-19 into an overbearing infringement of constitutional and statutory protections, the Department of Justice may have an obligation to address that overreach in federal court,” the memo read.