Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20a87_4g15.pdf
Page Number: 17.0

Cite as:  592 U. S. ____ (2020) 

3 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

(KAVANAUGH, J.,  dissenting  from  denial  of  application  for 
injunctive relief ) (slip op., at 7).  Rather, once a State cre-
ates a favored class of businesses, as New York has done in 
this case, the State must justify why houses of worship are
excluded from that favored class.  Here, therefore, the State 
must  justify  imposing  a  10-person  or  25-person  limit  on 
houses  of  worship  but  not  on  favored  secular  businesses.
See  Lukumi,  508  U. S.,  at  537–538;  Smith,  494  U. S.,  at 
884.  The State has not done so. 

To be clear, the COVID–19 pandemic remains extraordi-
narily serious and deadly.  And at least until vaccines are 
readily  available,  the  situation  may  get  worse  in  many 
parts  of  the  United  States.  The  Constitution  “principally
entrusts the safety and the health of the people to the polit-
ically accountable officials of the States.”  South Bay, 590 
U. S., at ___ (ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in denial of appli-
cation for injunctive relief ) (slip op., at 2) (internal quota-
tion marks and alteration omitted).  Federal courts there-
fore  must  afford  substantial  deference  to  state  and  local 
authorities about how best to balance competing policy con-
siderations during the pandemic.  See ibid.  But judicial def-
erence in an emergency or a crisis does not mean wholesale 
judicial abdication, especially when important questions of
religious discrimination, racial discrimination, free speech, 
or the like are raised. 

In light of the devastating pandemic, I do not doubt the
State’s authority to impose tailored restrictions—even very
strict restrictions—on attendance at religious services and
secular gatherings alike.  But the New York restrictions on 
houses  of  worship  are  not  tailored  to  the  circumstances 
given the First Amendment interests at stake.  To reiterate, 
New  York’s  restrictions  on  houses  of  worship  are  much
more severe than the California and Nevada restrictions at 
issue  in  South  Bay  and  Calvary,  and  much  more  severe 
than the restrictions that most other States  are imposing