‘De Blasio And Cuomo Get Creamed In Court’: Federal Judge Rules Cuomo, de Blasio wrong to limit worship services, condone mass protests

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The Democrats war on religion just suffered a stunning blow.

A federal judge said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Attorney General Letitia James, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio “exceeded” their executive limits by limiting worship services and condoning mass protests as the state continues to reopen from coronavirus restrictions.

Photo: Editorial credit: A Katz / Shutterstock.com

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Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a judicial decision just handed down that is of utmost importance to people of faith:

Protesters can take to the streets, some violently, and that is okay by Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo—the mob does not have to abide by social distancing rules—but religious New Yorkers cannot congregate in their houses of worship lest they imperil the public health. Well, the jig is up.

U.S. District Court Judge Gary Sharpe issued a preliminary injunction on June 26 saying that de Blasio and Cuomo (as well as Attorney General Letitia James) exceeded their authority by putting restrictions on people of faith while simultaneously condoning the protests.

By allowing the protests, they were “encouraging what they knew was a flagrant disregard of the outdoor limits and social distancing rules.” In doing so, de Blasio and Cuomo “sent a clear message that mass protests are deserving of preferential treatment.”

Two Catholic priests and three Orthodox Jews sued and won.

The Catholic League encourages people of faith to ignore all future restrictions placed on them by de Blasio and Cuomo. They exposed themselves as frauds when they gave the green light to thousands of protesters who took to the streets, night after night, while imposing draconian restrictions on the faithful. And they did nothing about those who totally ignored their responsibility to peaceably assemble.

De Blasio and Cuomo have lost the respect of practicing Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Mormons, Muslims, and those of every other religion. They got creamed in court, which is exactly what they deserve.

Federal Court Says New York Governor Cuomo is Wrong to Limit Worship Services

NEW YORK (VINnews) – New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is wrong to limit worship services yet condone mass protests, according to a federal judge. After telling Thomas More Society attorneys in a June 18 hearing that he was “troubled by” the government’s responses, Senior U.S. District Judge Gary L. Sharpe issued a preliminary injunction on June 26, 2020, prohibiting Governor Cuomo, his Attorney General Letitia James, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio from ordering or enforcing COVID-19 prompted restrictions on outdoor religious worship gatherings.

Thomas More Society Special Counsel Christopher Ferrara remarked, “We are pleased that Judge Sharpe was able to see through the sham of Governor Cuomo’s ‘Social Distancing Protocol’ which went right out the window as soon as he and Mayor de Blasio saw a mass protest movement they favored taking to the streets by the thousands. Suddenly, the limit on ‘mass gatherings’ was no longer necessary to ‘save lives.’ Yet they were continuing to ban high school graduations and other outdoor gatherings exceeding a mere 25 people. This decision is an important step toward inhibiting the suddenly emerging trend of exercising absolute monarchy on pretext of public health. What this kind of regime really meant in practice is freedom for me, but not for thee.”

Sharpe’s order noted that, “it is not the judiciary’s role to second guess the likes of Governor Cuomo or Mayor de Blasio when it comes to decisions they make in such troubling times, that is, until those decisions result in the curtailment of fundamental rights without compelling justification.”

In awarding the injunction, the court noted that “nonessential businesses” that enjoy a 50% capacity limitation are not justifiably different than houses of worship.

Sharpe remarked that offices, retails stores, salons, and restaurants – all now permitted to open at 50% capacity indoors – all involve the congregation of people for a length of time. He stated, “These secular businesses/activities threaten defendants’ interest in slowing the spread of COVID-19 to a similar or greater degree than those of plaintiffs’ and demonstrate that the 25% indoor capacity limitation on houses of worship is underinclusive and triggers strict scrutiny review.”

The judge pointed out, “Another case of individualized exemption seems even more obvious.” Governor Cuomo has now specifically authorized outdoor, in-person graduation ceremonies of no more than 150 people. This is an express exemption from the ten- or twenty-five-person outdoor limits that apply to other situations. Yet, “There is nothing materially different about a graduation ceremony and a religious gathering such that defendants’ justifications for a difference in treatment can be found compelling.”

Sharpe took New York City to task, stating that de Blasio’s simultaneous pro-protest/anti-religious gathering messages “clearly undermine the legitimacy” of his argument that selective enforcement of the challenged laws with respect to mass race protests is a matter of public safety.

“Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio could have just as easily discouraged protests, short of condemning their message, in the name of public health and exercised discretion to suspend enforcement for public safety reasons instead of encouraging what they knew was a flagrant disregard of the outdoor limits and social distancing rules,” wrote Sharpe. “They could have also been silent. But by acting as they did, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio sent a clear message that mass protests are deserving of preferential treatment.”

As a result of the federal order, Governor Cuomo, Attorney General James, and Mayor de Blasio are “enjoined and restrained from enforcing any indoor gathering limitations” against the involved houses of worship “greater than imposed for Phase 2 industries,” provided that participants follow the prescribed social distancing. They are also forbidden from “enforcing any limitation for outdoor gatherings provided that participants in such gatherings follow social distancing requirements as set forth in the applicable executive orders and guidance.”

Cuomo, James, and de Blasio were sued by two Catholic priests from upstate New York and a trio of Orthodox Jewish congregants from Brooklyn for violations of their civil rights by prejudicial orders and selective enforcement. The federal lawsuit, filed June 10, 2020, in United States District Court for the Northern District of New York, charged the governor, attorney general, and mayor with violating the plaintiffs’ rights to free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, assembly and expressive association, and due process, under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Governor Cuomo was also accused of violating New York state law and the New York State Constitution.

Ferrara explained the lawsuit: “In an unprecedented abuse of power, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio have exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to create, over the past three months, a veritable dictatorship by means of a complex web of executive orders. The orders have imposed and selectively enforced ‘social distancing’ under a ‘lockdown’ of virtually every aspect of life for New York state residents on the pretext of ‘public health,’ but with numerous exceptions. The permissible activities, not based on the science of viral contagion, but rather determined according to personal value judgments, have included mass demonstrations of thousands of people – gatherings of which the governor and mayor have approved and the mayor participated in. Cuomo and de Blasio, along with James, have enforced the gubernatorial ‘lockdown’ by threat of criminal prosecution and actual prosecution, including $1,000 fines for the recently created offense of violating Cuomo’s ‘Social Distancing Protocol.’”

Ferrara added, “These mass protest gatherings, taking place during the COVID-19 stay-at-home lockdown orders, have been not only allowed but praised by both the governor of New York and mayor of New York City, even though massive property damage and death have resulted. This, when the government’s primary purpose is to protect the people it governs.”

Read United States District Court for the Northern District of New York Judge Gary L. Sharpe’s Memorandum-Decision and Order, issued June 26, 2020, in response to the Thomas More Society’s complaint, filed on behalf of Rev. Steven Soos, Rev. Nicholas Stamos, Daniel Schonbrun, Elchanan Perr, and Mayer Mayerfeld, in Rev. Steven Soos, et al v. Andrew M. Cuomo, et al, here [https://www.thomasmoresociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Dist.-Ct.-Memo-and-Order-June-26-2020.pdf].

About the Thomas More Society

The Thomas More Society is a national not-for-profit law firm dedicated to restoring respect in law for life, family, and religious liberty. Headquartered in Chicago, Omaha, and Fairfield, NJ, the Thomas More Society fosters support for these causes by providing high quality pro bono legal services from local trial courts all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. For more information, visit thomasmoresociety.org.

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santashandler
santashandler
3 years ago

That judge needs to have the same ruling applied in CA, where the power-hungry gov Newsome just issued an order (how can it be enforced) to have masks worn everywhere in public.

Mighty_Flynn
Mighty_Flynn
3 years ago

All democrats are breaking the law, and will continue to do so. What they forgot is when the violent backlash begins, and it will, it is very difficult to stop. JFK, RFK, MLK, Evers, Malcolm X, Rockwell, Hampton, Milk…

Laddyboy
Laddyboy
3 years ago
Reply to  Mighty_Flynn

@MF: You are WRONG! Do not put me into the Domestic TERRORIST group known as the DemocRAT national communist party!!! There ARE still many Americans who are trying to work against these COMMUNISTS while registered in the Democratic party.
Do not confuse a DemocRAT/communist with a true American Democrat.

tituspullo
tituspullo
3 years ago

the judge was not appointed by a democrat president. will be interesting to see if an appeals court with a democrat majority will overturn his injunction

Michael Goldman
Michael Goldman
3 years ago
Reply to  tituspullo

Great point. It won’t matter anyway. Cuomo and Die Fuhrer don’t believe that the law applies to them.

DemocracyRules
DemocracyRules
3 years ago

BOOM! Nike Features Colin Kaepernick In All Their Marketing, the Brand Collapses
“Nike Reports Profit Loss of $790 Million in Q4 and a Year-Over-Year Sales Decline of 38% (46% in U.S.)…”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/06/26/nike-reports-profit-loss-of-790-million-in-q4-and-a-year-over-year-sales-decline-of-38-46-in-u-s/#more-195393
“How bad were their results? To give you some perspective most financial analysts in the industry were looking for a profit target around seven cents per share. The result Nike reported was a loss of 51 cents per share.”

Michael Goldman
Michael Goldman
3 years ago
Reply to  DemocracyRules

Nike could go out of business worshiping this ignorant racist scumbag. We should only be lucky enough to see it.

Cassandra
Cassandra
3 years ago

Hopefully the plaintiffs with get some financial recompense, after all the commie slime bags running New York don’t think anything on dropping $1 billion on no one knows what so-called charity….

Laddyboy
Laddyboy
3 years ago
Reply to  Cassandra

Was it not in NY where PUBLIC TAX DOLLARS were used to “PAINT the STREETS” with ANTI-AMERICAN SLOGANS? I believe this is a CRIMINAL act of MISAPPROPRIATION of FUNDS.

Anthony Silvio
Anthony Silvio
3 years ago

comment image

LightTexas
LightTexas
3 years ago

If it ends up in the Supreme Court…ol’ back stabbing sob roberts will side with the America haters

felix1999
felix1999
3 years ago
Reply to  LightTexas

Eventually our U.S.S.C. will require Christianity be rewritten or banned to accommodate the LBGTQ+ people. Britain has already started to do this with their rulings –

Various UK councils have banned Christmas on the grounds that it is “too Christian” and therefore “offensive” to people of other faiths, and are replacing it with meaningless “winter festivals”.

How Britain is turning Christianity into a crime
by Melanie Phillips
Last updated at 11:14 07 September 2006

(What was the crime?)

An evangelical Christian campaigner, Stephen Green was arrested and charged last weekend with using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour.

So what was this behaviour? Merely trying peacefully to hand out leaflets at a gay rally in Cardiff.

So what was printed on those leaflets that was so threatening, abusive or insulting that it attracted the full force of the law?

Why, none other than the majestic words of the 1611 King James Bible.
(BTW God condems it in the Old and New Testament.)

The problem was that they were those bits of the Bible which forbid homosexuality. The leaflets also urged homosexuals to “turn from your sins and you will be saved”.

But to the secular priests of the human rights culture, the only sin is to say that homosexuality is a sin.

And yet at the same time, the police are still studiously refusing to act against Islamic zealots abusing British freedom to preach hatred and incitement against the West.

The Bible is the moral code that underpins our civilisation. Yet the logic of the police action against Mr Green surely leads ultimately to the inescapable conclusion that the Bible itself is “hate speech” and must be banned.

But Christianity is still the official religion of this country. All its institutions, its history and its culture are suffused with it; Britain would lose its identity, its values and its cohesion without it.

Behaviour which was previously considered to transgress the moral norms of the Bible has now instead become the norm — and it is biblical values that are treated as beyond the pale of acceptable behaviour. This is no accident.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-404052/How-Britain-turning-Christianity-crime.html

Other situations are getting the same treatment in their courts. They are tryng to do the same thing here!

Cheryl
Cheryl
3 years ago
Reply to  felix1999

George Orwell: 1984….

felix1999
felix1999
3 years ago

Maybe there is a glimmer of hope for NY state.

Letitia James made history as New York’s 1st black Attorney General in 2019.comment image

Senior U.S. District Judge Gary L. Sharpecomment image?1459385065

felix1999
felix1999
3 years ago

comment image

fedup666
fedup666
3 years ago

The two Fredo’s are above the law as they answer to their master, the Devil.

CARRENO  BARTOX
CARRENO BARTOX
3 years ago

Well …
Blasio and Cuoma were poorly advised.
Even the Italian Mafias would never dare to mess with their catholic branch…

Drew the Infidel
Drew the Infidel
3 years ago

Those in politics and the media who seek to hamper the First Amendment rights of others need to be reminded that those are the very same constitutional liberties that allow political discourse and a free media to even exist in the first place.

fedup666
fedup666
3 years ago

New York City, is named after James Duke of York, who founded and ran a slave-trading monopoly that “shipped African slaves to the Americas and the slaves were provided by the Muslim Arab slave traders and African tribal chiefs.
Therefore, as part of the cancel culture, NY should be renamed to Floyd city and the hypocrites will be able to worship a sociopath career criminal and drug addict, Floyd.

Laddyboy
Laddyboy
3 years ago

“De Blasio (WILHELM, the FAKE Italian), the WOMAN ‘a.g.’ and Cuomo have lost the respect of New Yorkers”.
Question: When did they ever EARN the Peoples’ R E S P E C T ???

glenda lafont
glenda lafont
3 years ago

Cuomo is a bimbo. When he opens his mouth I cringe. DeBlasio
is a blatant commie.

Roma Mikhasev
Roma Mikhasev
3 years ago

Like religion wars?!!!!!!!! :))))))))))))))))))))))

Roma Mikhasev
Roma Mikhasev
3 years ago

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