Churches that refuse to stop services

I think there is settled law on this topic, but I saw a reference to it so long ago, I can't find it. I believe as long as people aren't prevented from worshiping, the government can insist they not worship at the same place. I do think the main problem is that so many continue to under-estimate this bug.

 

I agree, and I'm agnostic. I don't get all these people who feel that god will protect them, as if no religous people ever die of illness or disease?

 

Perhaps not just as we are starting to get hit with the worst of it, though. We hit max peak deaths/day on April 16, about 2,400 Americans will die from COVID in just one day. By June 1, we should be through the worst of it. We just started hitting 1,000 deaths/day about three days ago.

We will completely surpass H1N1 deaths in a year, by day 36. This is so much worse than anything we've ever seen in our lifetimes.

 

The emotional blackmail aspect will still count against the pastor when it comes to a lawsuit. If there is any record of him saying something like you have an obligation for whatever reason (saving your soul, going to heaven, etc, etc) then that is coercion.

 

Any member of this denomination that doesn't go to that church every week are denying the Lord and flipping off Jesus! Giving medication and doctor effort is also an affront to God!

Being sued is not a issue because a person or a family like this is spiritually bankrupt anyway!

If anyone gets sick at this church they should just stay in that church day and night until they get well or dies in order to actually prove they believe in God!

 

If people want to kill themselves, there is nothing you can do about it other then advise them of the consequences.

These events happen every one hundred years or so; this is how mother earth thins the herd if you will. When they are lying in bed vomiting blood, gasping for air, remind them and their families that they are saved. Not much else to be done

 

No no, Derideo. Coercion is supposed to be a big deal and hard to assert as a defense against either civil or criminal responsibility. It should not be diluted into meaning guilt trips, emotional blackmail or manipulative behavior that grown ass adults are supposed to be able to deal with, simply by virtue of growing up and learning how to handle those tactics.

This is your typical coercion definition in lay terms

"The intimidation of a victim to compel the individual to do some act against his or her will by the use of psychological pressure, physical force, or threats. The crime of intentionally and unlawfully restraining another's freedom by threatening to commit a crime, accusing the victim of a crime, disclosing any secret that would seriously impair the victim's reputation in the community, or by performing or refusing to perform an official action lawfully requested by the victim, or by causing an official to do so..."

You can't have coercion without having coerced people as the end product.

"...A defense asserted in a criminal prosecution that a person who committed a crime did not do so of his or her own free will, but only because the individual was compelled by another through the use of physical force or threat of immediate serious bodily injury or death."


We don't get a pass on our personal behavior because someone gave us a hell fire and damnation sermon that we believed.

If the pastor is guilty of 'cercion' than every single parishioner, all 150 of them, who willfully and knowingly defied the lawful orders of mayors and governors is now innocent. They simply could not control themselves. You just turned them all into victims when they are active participants.

I don't want to dilute the legal definition of coercion to get the pastor or allow his flock to walk away. I want to treat religion like any other abstract idea, and its just not an excuse to break the law. Charge the pastor with the same crime or misdemeanor you would if it were the Boy 'scouts or a political rally, or a frat party. You can charge each and every adult that walked through those pews, exactly as you would if they knowingly walked through the doors for the political convention, or a football game.

The Florida pastor was arrested on two-second degree misdemeanors for Unlawful Assembly and Violation of Public Health Emergency Rules. I support that. If the parishioners don't get the message next Sunday, arrest some more!

If you don't like the severity of the punishments, take it up with the legislature next session, but treat that pastor like you treat someone who organizes a frat party or a business convention. ​

 

Ah, so you are taking the approach that the entire congregation must be held liable if anyone else is infected by someone who attended the church gathering.

That is a much heavier lift because now you have to trace the movements of everyone and establish that they were infectious and KNOWINGLY infected supermarkets and pharmacies.

Can you expound a little on how you see that happening?

 

Well if you think can use current tort law successfully to assert civil liability for the infection of a communicable disease because people chose on their own volition to gather together and you think that a lawyer can connect the dots and convince a jury or judge, go for it, but nobody was 'coerced' by a religious sermon they themselves chose to attend and chose to believe in, just because you want to get that pastor! If its hard to prove the dots when there is an invisible virus that is hard to trace that is highly contagious through to a direct compensatory harm, and a whole lot of people who choose to take that riskm then that is just how life is trying to use a our civil tort law in this instance.

I don't have an objection to the effort if your effort and standard is the same as it would be for secular organizations that defied the order, but I think a litigator is going to have an uphill climb here showing who got sick directly from what negligent act, that they did not have a duty to mitigate by not willingly and knowingly participating and contributing to themselves in the same conduct.

If the parishioners chose to go, then they themselves are to blame, if others who did not go, are sick, then a smart litigator will be asking where else they went, did they wear a mask, did they sanitize their hands, did they see their cousins, give a co worker a hug, or keep their distance in the gas line, sanitize their groceries. You have got problems here that simply may not have easy answers you like in the real world of litigation.

 

Perhaps we have an opportunity to try out some new technology which might be precedent setting.

We know the exact location of the church and the time of the service. The anonymous signals from the cell phones in that location at that time can be tracked using a "spider search". So by knowing where the faithful went afterwards that can be mapped to those places that subsequently became hotspots where there had been no infections previously. Find enough of them and now you have a class action lawsuit with actual physical data to establish how the virus was spread from point A to points B, C, D, etc.

 

I am no litigation expert here. If you think you have a solid legal theory, and sufficient evidence, file it. But in my opinion, any adult who drove to that church, walked into those doors and sat down in those pews among 80 others within inches of each other for 90 minutes and ended up sick, has no business suing anyone else to recover a dime. They are as guilty as the pastor because they broke the same laws as he did. They are not sheeple. They are thinking, rational people who are responsible for their own stupid risk-taking just like you and I are.

 

I am talking about the entire congregation being collectively sued for spreading the virus out into the surrounding communities and needlessly endangering them.

 

yep, this one doesn't matter if a church would win or lose, just like a cop disarming someone they see as a threat to society, they may win in the end, get their guns back, but still the cops accomplish what they wanted at the time - courts take time, and they want to keep the people safe now

 

That does not trouble me at all because it does not exploit and promote offensive stereotypes of people of faith as 'coerced'. sheeple, too feeble of mind, to 'brainwashed' to be treated as adults with complete moral ,ethical and legal culpability.

Cannot stand that patronizing approach.

Just make sure you are just as passionate about 'getting' the secular breaches of these same public health orders.

 

Not a problem since the same technology can identify the anonymous Spring Break cell phones and show how they dispersed afterwards. State of FL will be on the hook for promoting the spread of the virus together with all of those who participated.

 

If you can sell a jury, you have me sold! I am as anxious to discourage this sort of assault on public health as you are.

I am just very sensitive to any argument that assumes religious people must be either perpetrators of fraud ( the pastors or religious institution), or victims of fraud ( the laity) based on the mere fact that they are religious. They are not under some hypnotic spell because they hear a biblical verse or two from someone with a clerical collar. Give them credit for having a working brain, and expect them to use it.

 

For the majority of ordinary theists I absolutely agree.

However studies have shown that for the zealots it can be an addiction. They get a "high" from the services and thus they need their weekly "fix". Granted they are the exception and there is no reason why they should not be held accountable for their actions.

FYI this is the technology I am talking about.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/04/tech/location-tracking-florida-coronavirus/index.html

 

I guess that depends on the length of your lifetime.

The Hong Kong flu killed about 34,000 in the US.

 

I gave you the projections from IHME in another thread. You told me you weren't interested in facts. We'll hit 35,000 deaths from this thing by April 15, or 46 days from the 1st death. We will be at 81,671 deaths on June 1, 93 days after the 1st COVID death.

You keep asking the same questions. I've given you this information in 3 or 4 different threads, now. Why do you keep pretending you've never gotten the information?

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...leaving-church-service-says-wouldnt-else.html

Texas televangelist says he can BLOW the coronavirus away with 'the wind of God' during a sermon while worshippers across the country defy stay-at-home orders to attend Palm Sunday services

Texas televangelist Kenneth Copeland 'blows wind of God' in coronavirus prayer
Copeland claims the pandemic would be 'destroyed' by warm winds in a sermon
More than 9,622 Americans have died from the coronavirus, prompting officials and medical experts to plead with the public to practice social distancing
But dozens of defiant Christian pastors across the country are preparing to open their church doors to their congregations for Palm Sunday
'I'm covered in Jesus' blood,' one Ohio woman said as she left a church service
She explained that she goes to stores like Walmart and Home Depot 'every day' and implied that she has a chance of being infected by grocery shopping

 

Does this same jerk tell parishioners not to lock their doors, because god will save them from robbers? Does he tell them not to bring lifeboats when they go sailing, because god won't let them drown? WTF is wrong with people?

 

Unless you think you have provided evidence here that people who attend a house of worship are under some hypnotic spell because they hear a biblical verse or two from someone with a clerical collar, or that religious people must be either perpetrators of fraud or victims of fraud, or that we should not assume they have a working brain and expect them to use it, I think your content and mine can marry in harmony. Some pastors are manipulative conniving attention seeking amoral pigs, and some of their followers feed into their schemes for a variety of reasons including utter stupidity. 'Sheeple' do exist and some will fit preexisting and stubborn stereotypes of the religious just as is true of every other demographic that has been defined by one.

I want secular and religious people who break the law to feel consequences and I don't particularly care why they did so.

 

Actually that's false. At no point did I say, as you claim, that I wasn't "interested in facts." As in the other thread, you made a point that wasn't part of the conversation and for some reason, you think that's a slam dunk.

 

Why did you throw 34,000 number at me? How is that significant in any way related to these off-the-charts numbers we're seeing from this monster?

 

I honestly that was obvious based on your comment that I replied to.

CDC estimates there were 12,469 deaths during the H1N1 2009 season, so the Hong Kong Flu numbers of 34,000 (for 1969 ) far exceed the deaths from H1N1.

When I copy/paste a comment from someone, as a general rule I'm actually replying or responding to the comment that person has made. I thought that was normal forum behavior but based on the many off the wall, off topic comments I get in response, I may be an outlier in that regard.