Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20a136_bq7c.pdf
Page Number: 10

Cite as:  592 U. S. ____ (2021) 

1 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

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No. 20A136 (20–746) 
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SOUTH BAY UNITED PENTECOSTAL CHURCH, 
ET AL., v. GAVIN NEWSOM, GOVERNOR OF 
CALIFORNIA, ET AL. 

ON APPLICATION FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF 

[February 5, 2021]

  JUSTICE  KAGAN,  with  whom  JUSTICE  BREYER  and 
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR join, dissenting. 
  Justices of this Court are not scientists.  Nor do we know 
much about public health policy.  Yet today the Court dis-
places the judgments of experts about how to respond to a 
raging  pandemic.    The Court  orders  California  to weaken 
its restrictions on public gatherings by making a special ex-
ception  for  worship  services.    The  majority  does  so  even 
though the State’s policies treat worship just as favorably 
as  secular  activities  (including  political  assemblies)  that, 
according to medical evidence, pose the same risk of COVID 
transmission.  Under the Court’s injunction, the State must 
instead  treat  worship  services  like  secular  activities  that 
pose  a  much  lesser  danger.    That  mandate  defies  our 
caselaw, exceeds our judicial role, and risks worsening the 
pandemic. 
  Start  with  the  governing  law.    We  have  held  time  and 
again  that  the  First  Amendment  demands  “neutrality”  in 
actions affecting religion.  Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, 
Inc.  v.  Hialeah,  508 U. S.  520,  532 (1993).   A government 
cannot put limits on religious conduct if it “fail[s] to prohibit 
nonreligious conduct that endangers” the government’s in-
terests “in a similar or greater degree.”  Id., at 543.  That 
principle,  though,  has  a  corollary:  The  “Constitution  does 
not  require  things  which  are  different  in  fact  . . .  to  be