WTE: Love does not require suspending the Constitution

In the COVID-19 crisis, some are calling for “stay-at-home orders.” Desperate times demand desperate measures, they say. So far Governor Gordon has resisted pressure from mayors and interest groups. While strongly urging stay-at-home tactics, he has declined to enforce them at the point of a gun.

He stands with nine Republican governors—and the legislature of Kansas that overturned their governor’s executive order. They all understand that constitutional restraints on government power do not dissolve in desperate times.

Unfortunately, not all in Wyoming have followed the governor’s restraint. Teton County has run roughshod over the Constitution with Public Health Order #20-4. It threatens “criminal prosecution” against any “person or entity” that gathers with even one individual not already “living in the same household.” This violates both the free assembly clause, and the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.

While there are some narrow exceptions for “essential activities,” church is not one of them. This categorical discrimination ignores nuanced differences between religions. While some declared their gatherings non-essential from the start, others disagree with this doctrine and have labored to find responsible ways to carry on their essential work.

Some who want to suspend First Amendment protections are openly hostile to Christianity. Such hostility was on open display in a recent New York Times op-ed that irresponsibly blamed “the religious right” for the entire pandemic.

Others, however, are members of various religions who argue that Christian love for the neighbor requires the suspension of worship gatherings. These deserve a thoughtful answer.

The requirements of neighborly love can be rightly understood only when we understand human need. We must first see that human beings are both corporal and corporate.

A man is more than a mind. Our bodies are a part of who we are, and these bodies are designed to come together. As social beings we live life in groups—families, classrooms and cities. This is easily observed as a universal fact. We should also see it is a necessary fact.

That’s the first rub in our COVID-19 crisis. Epidemiologists want to separate people in order to “slow the spread.” But people are not spread as easily as so many beans on the counter. Human need binds people together. Not mere personal choice.

Social distancing fights against a fundamental force of human nature. The force of law and social shaming can scatter people in the short run. But, like stretching a rubber band, the farther and longer people are separated, the greater is the tension.

The second thing to recognize is that human togetherness is fundamentally life-giving. This principle is turned on its head when people are portrayed as walking petri dishes to be avoided like the plague.

From the first moment of your conception, you depended upon nearness to your mother. At birth you were placed upon her breast. Babies in the NICU thrive by human touch. They waste away without it. Medical professionals have learned the need to find the right balance between a sterile, pathogen-free environment and “risking” the life-giving benefits of human touch.

Balance is the key word. When we talk of personal responsibility to love our neighbor, we can neither command total isolation nor irresponsible contact. If we veer too far toward either pole, we are not helping our neighbors, but harming them.

Human beings are not mere atoms that can be rearranged willy-nilly. When natural bonds are broken and replaced by unnatural ones, individuals and societies suffer. We are seeing this writ large in the treatment of the elderly.

Since the first days of the COVID-19 crisis, nursing homes closed their doors to visitors. Even this drastic measure has not infallibly spared our elderly from infection.

Human contact is always a risk. But it is the risk of love. When we allow nursing home staff to take that risk, but deny it to family, we are making value judgments about the relative worth of natural family bonds. And these judgments are by no means foolproof.

Who is qualified and capable of determining such a delicate balance with absolute certainty? Not even the president’s COVID-19 task force is infallible. This need for balance is why republican governments entrust judgment to those most directly affected by the decision.

Governments that ham-handedly designate liquor stores as “essential businesses” while closing churches as “non-essential” are enough to illustrate the point. Unwittingly, they are establishing a religious doctrine by state authority.

That’s why the First Amendment remains necessary especially in desperate times. Faithful congregants are as capable as anyone of weighing the risks of love and finding a responsible balance.

The free exercise of religion does not conflict with authentic human love but supports and enhances it. We need it now, more than ever.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on April 10, 2020.