Written by Nicholas Vetrisek
Gov. Gavin Newsom recently banned singing in churches due to the supposed risk of spreading COVID-19.
The guidelines state “Places of worship must, therefore, discontinue singing and chanting activities and limit indoor attendance to 25 percent of building capacity or a maximum of 100 attendees, whichever is lower.” This has rightfully come under attack by faith leaders due to the fact that according to the state government, it is too dangerous to hold services while it is apparently completely acceptable to allow protests.
Sam Feucht, a worship leader at Bethel Church, said that the new guidelines are an “unprecedented attack” on the freedom to worship and that he will not obey the governor’s ban.
“For the last several weeks, tens of thousands of people have been gathering outdoors in cities all across California and they have been screaming and chanting and protesting, and all the while state officials are encouraging them as they do this,” Feucht said. “And then now, as the church wants to gather just like we’ve been doing for thousands of years to simply worship God, they bring the hammer down against us. It’s just, can you see the hypocrisy and how insane this is? It really is time that we take a stand and that we fight back.”
To further cement his point about the prevention of singing in church being wrong, Feucht posted pictures on Instagram showing him in two other places where worshipping was a crime: Iraq and North Korea.
This recent policy just shows how partisan the coronavirus issue has become. Banning singing in churches has nothing to do with stopping the spread of the virus. If that were the case, Gov. Newsom would have never allowed the protests, which had tens of thousands of people. The only reason this is happening is because protesters are predominantly leftists and churchgoers tend to be more conservative. Newsom simply doesn’t care because churchgoers aren’t part of his base.
This policy must be repealed because it is a violation of our First Amendment rights. Nowhere in America should ever be comparable to Iraq or North Korea, but as people like Sam Feucht show, that is exactly what the governor’s actions resemble. This has only been made more clear by Gov. Newsom’s latest orders that prohibit indoor church services in 30 counties, but still permit indoor protests to commence.
