In the face of a certain Supreme Court spanking, the Polis administration dropped its random capacity restrictions on the First Amendment right to freedom of religion limiting how many people can attend services at churches, synagogues, or mosques.
In typical arrogance, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment announced this in a news release late Monday night:
“Worship and ceremonies such as weddings and funerals are classified as essential.”
It was good of Gov. Polis to deem religion and the U.S. Constitution as essential to Americans, but the little dictator didn’t have much choice.
Wednesday was the deadline for Polis and the state to respond to a case in the U.S. Supreme Court brought by the High Plains Harvest Church and Pastor Mark Hotaling.
And irony of sweet ironies, the case was going to Colorado’s own Justice Neil Gorsuch, who already knocked down New York Gov. Cuomo’s COVID restrictions on religion.
“While the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues, and mosques,” Gorsuch wrote.
There was no way Colorado was going to withstand a Supreme Court challenge to Polis’s own color-coded executive edicts.