South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom
The Court partially blocked California's COVID rules that banned all indoor worship services in its highest-risk tier, ordering the state to allow some indoor services while leaving a 25% capacity cap and a ban on indoor singing in place.
The split decision continued the Court's pattern of scrutinizing pandemic restrictions that appeared to treat houses of worship more harshly than comparable secular businesses, though three justices warned the ruling dangerously substituted judicial instinct for scientific expertise.
How it got here: The church filed an emergency application for an injunction with Justice Kagan, who referred it to the full Court for decision.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A Pentecostal church in California challenged the state's tiered pandemic rules, which in the highest-risk "Tier 1" — covering most of the state — prohibited all indoor religious services entirely. The state argued this rule applied equally to other large indoor gatherings like concerts and lectures, and that medical evidence justified treating congregational worship more strictly than quick retail shopping trips. The church argued it was singled out for worse treatment than many secular businesses.
The question before the Court
Did California's COVID public-health rules, which completely banned indoor worship services in its highest-risk counties while allowing retail stores and other businesses to operate at reduced capacity, warrant emergency intervention by the Supreme Court?
The Court's answer
Partly — the Court blocked the complete ban on indoor worship in California's highest-risk tier, finding that totally excluding all worshippers from indoor services while allowing retail stores to operate at 25% capacity or other businesses at 50% or more was sufficiently questionable under the First Amendment to justify temporary relief. Six justices agreed that at least some emergency intervention was warranted, though they disagreed on how much.
The order does not decide the underlying case on the merits. It is explicitly temporary, tied to whether the Court agrees to take the full case, and it leaves the 25% indoor capacity limit and the ban on indoor singing and chanting in place for now. The church remains free to return to lower courts with new evidence that those remaining restrictions are not applied equally across comparable secular activities.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Churches and other houses of worship in California's highest-risk counties could resume holding indoor services immediately, subject to the 25% capacity limit. For state governments nationwide, the ruling reinforced that a complete ban on indoor religious gatherings is very difficult to justify legally, even during a severe pandemic, while leaving open further litigation over what capacity limits and activity restrictions are permissible.
What changes now
California must allow indoor worship services in Tier 1 counties subject to a 25% capacity cap, effective immediately. The order expires automatically if the Supreme Court declines to take up the full case; if the Court does agree to hear it, the order stays in effect until a final decision. The church may return to lower courts with fresh evidence that the capacity limits or singing ban are not enforced equally against similar secular activities.
What this does not decide
The order does not rule on whether California's COVID restrictions are constitutional — it is a temporary emergency measure, not a decision on the merits. It does not address capacity limits in Tiers 2 through 4, and it explicitly does not foreclose future challenges to the singing ban or percentage capacity caps if new evidence of unequal enforcement emerges.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Roberts
Chief Justice Roberts agreed with blocking the total indoor worship ban but not the singing restriction or capacity caps. He acknowledged that courts owe significant deference to public health officials, but concluded that a determination that literally zero people can safely worship indoors — even in the largest cathedral — reflected insufficient appreciation of religious freedom interests rather than genuine public-health expertise. He stressed that deference to elected officials, though broad, has constitutional limits.
Concurrence — Justice Barrett
Justice Barrett, joined by Justice Kavanaugh, agreed with the result but wrote separately to explain why she would not block the singing ban. She emphasized that the applicants bore the burden of showing they were entitled to relief and had not yet carried it: the record was too unclear about whether the singing ban applied equally to entertainment-industry performers to justify a ruling that it unconstitutionally targeted religion. She noted the question remains open for future proceedings.
Concurrence — Justice Gorsuch
Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justices Thomas and Alito, would have granted the full application, including relief from the singing ban. He argued California openly assigned places of worship their own, more restrictive category while exempting comparable secular businesses — making this an unusually clear case of religious targeting requiring strict scrutiny. He contended the singing ban was also suspect because California's entertainment industry appeared to have won an exemption, and he criticized the majority for stopping short of full relief after its own precedents compelled it.
Dissent — Justice Kagan
Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Breyer and Sotomayor, argued that California's rules treated worship services identically to other large indoor gatherings — political meetings, concerts, lectures, and restaurants — that posed the same COVID transmission risk, and therefore satisfied the First Amendment's neutrality requirement. She warned that overriding expert public-health judgments during a deadly pandemic was dangerous, and criticized the majority for ordering the state to treat worship more favorably than secular activities that posed the same risk, not just the same legal treatment.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- Under the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, a state law that singles out religion for worse treatment than comparable secular conduct must pass strict scrutiny — the most demanding constitutional test, requiring the government to show an overwhelmingly strong reason for the restriction and that no narrower approach would work. The Court previously established this framework in the context of COVID regulations in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo.
- California's Tier 1 rules completely banned all indoor worship while allowing retail stores to operate at 25% capacity and certain other businesses at 50% or higher. A majority found that this disparity — treating houses of worship worse than establishments like stores and salons — raised a serious enough First Amendment problem to justify blocking the total ban while the case continued.
- For the 25% capacity cap on indoor worship, however, a majority declined to intervene, finding that limiting attendance proportionally (rather than banning it entirely) did not obviously treat religion worse than comparable secular gatherings subject to the same percentage limits.
- On the indoor singing and chanting ban, a majority also declined to act — but for a different reason: the record was ambiguous about whether the ban actually applied equally across all indoor activities or whether California's entertainment industry had carved out an exemption. Without clearer evidence of unequal treatment, the applicants had not yet met their burden for emergency relief on that specific claim.
- Because the order is an emergency measure rather than a final ruling on the merits, it is explicitly limited: it expires automatically if the Court does not agree to hear the full case, and it leaves open future challenges based on new evidence about how the capacity and singing restrictions are actually enforced.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo
Gorsuch's statement invokes this recent ruling as binding authority that COVID orders singling out houses of worship fail the Constitution.