Supreme Court rejects Colo. church’s challenge to state lockdown measures

October 16, 2024

The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a request from a Colorado church seeking protection from future pandemic lockdown restrictions on gathering for worship.

The Christian Post reports that the Supreme Court issued an orders list Tuesday denying a petition of certiorari in the case of Grace Bible Fellowship et al. v. Jared Polis, governor of Colorado, et al.

The court’s refusal to hear the case leaves in place an earlier ruling from an appeals court panel that found in favor of Colorado Governor Jared Polis.

The case stemmed from legal complaints that arose during the Covid-19 pandemic in which several states were challenged over lockdown policies that restricted houses of worship while allowing secular establishments to remain open.

According to the Christian Post, two Colorado churches were able to get an injunction in 2020 that prevented the state from imposing some lockdown measures that were unfairly affecting churches.

Grace Bible Fellowship later filed an amended complaint over the Colorado Disaster Emergency Act in order to prevent future unconstitutional gathering restrictions from being imposed on them.

While the matter was being litigated, Colorado lifted its restrictions which led Judge Daniel D. Domenico to rule that the church lacked a case.

Domenico wrote: “The presence on the State’s books of statutes that grant broad authority to the Governor and state bureaucrats to order extraordinary limits on the freedoms of its citizens in an emergency is worth pondering.”

The judge went on to state: “That these statutes have been used in the recent past to adopt public-health orders that likely discriminated against religious activity is troubling. That the State at one point argued that the federal courts owe near-total deference to its determinations as to what extraordinary measures are warranted, and what counts as emergency that justifies such measures, is even more so.”

In March, a 3-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled that the church had failed “to demonstrate the injury required for constitutional standing as to most of their claims” while one of their claims was moot.

Photo: top, Credit: Getty Images