Lindsay Wiley and Josh Blackman on Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 4 December 2020
⏱️ 48 minutes
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Summary
In a ruling late in the night, the day before Thanksgiving, the Supreme Court issued a preliminary injunction against Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, preventing him from imposing restrictions on how many people could attend houses of worship—restrictions that Governor Cuomo defended as necessary to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. In a lawsuit brought by a Catholic Diocese and an organization of Orthodox Jews, a majority of the Court held that the occupancy restrictions had a high likelihood of violating the free exercise of religion as protected by the First Amendment. To help explain that decision and to discuss its implications for future public health responses to COVID, Alan Rozenshtein spoke with law professors Lindsay Wiley of American University and Josh Blackman of the South Texas College of Law.
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
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| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:32.6 | Trains, subways, planes where you have lots of people, potentially crad together for |
| 0:39.5 | long periods of time, with or without conventional ventilation, maybe they're wearing masks, maybe |
| 0:44.7 | they're not. |
| 0:46.6 | Why are people allowed to crowd into buses, trains and planes that's mandatory six-foot |
| 0:50.8 | distancing? |
| 0:51.8 | Well, you might say because it's really, really important people to travel and willing |
| 0:56.0 | to tolerate that risk. |
| 0:58.3 | When a governor says something's essential, what they mean is it's important. |
| 1:01.9 | And what I think just as Kavanaugh articulated and I think the majority adopted quietly, |
| 1:06.4 | they didn't say so, they adopted it, is, governors can't see religions unimportant. |
| 1:10.5 | So, if you say certain types of gatherings are important, doesn't matter what kind they |
| 1:15.0 | are, then by definition, by a matter of law, you must treat the exercise of law. |
| 1:21.7 | Religion as favorably. |
| 1:24.4 | I'm Alan Rosenstein and this is the LawFair podcast, December 4, 2020. |
| 1:31.0 | In a ruling late in the night, the day before Thanksgiving, the Supreme Court issued a preliminary |
| 1:36.1 | injunction against Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, preventing him from opposing restrictions |
| 1:42.2 | on how many people could attend houses of worship, restrictions that Governor Cuomo defended |
... |
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