Locke in Lakewood: Locating the Proper Meaning of the Free Exercise of Religion in the Time of COVID-19
One disturbing aspect of the United States’ experience with the COVID-19 pandemic has been the threats and other verbal attacks against elected officials trying to protect public health to the best of their ability. In the most shocking case, which came to light in October 2020, thirteen men plotted...
| Subtitles: | Special Issue on Governments’ Legal Responses and Judicial Reactions during a Global Pandemic: Litigating Religious Freedom in the Time of COVID-19 |
|---|---|
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
2022
|
| In: |
A journal of church and state
Year: 2022, Volume: 64, Issue: 4, Pages: 581-599 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Religious freedom
/ COVID-19 (Disease)
/ Pandemic
/ USA
|
| IxTheo Classification: | KBQ North America SA Church law; state-church law |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | One disturbing aspect of the United States’ experience with the COVID-19 pandemic has been the threats and other verbal attacks against elected officials trying to protect public health to the best of their ability. In the most shocking case, which came to light in October 2020, thirteen men plotted to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in response to her executive actions to curb the spread of the deadly virus, seeing the Democratic politician as a “tyrant” who had exceeded her legitimate powers. Several months earlier, four hundred miles south, right-wing agitators protesting Kentucky’s public health measures and in favor of gun rights hung that state’s Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, in effigy outside the governor’s mansion at the state capitol in Frankfort, again claiming he was acting as a tyrant. Garnering less attention were extremists acting to defend their governor’s actions against their fellow defiant citizens. One example was in New Jersey, where a man was so irate at the failure of the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jewish community in the town of Lakewood to cooperate with Governor Phil Murphy’s executive orders that he threatened violence in antisemitic terms. The man, Anthony Lodespoto, resided in Howell Township, just north of Lakewood, and sent messages on Facebook on March 26, 2020, in the early days of the pandemic, threatening to beat members of Lakewood’s Jewish community with a baseball bat. While Lodespoto’s anger took a menacing form—he pled guilty to bias intimidation—his frustration with the religious community’s actions amid a public health crisis was shared by other people in New Jersey and across the country. Just a ninety-minute drive north, in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the Hasidic Jewish community drew similar condemnation when its members persistently ignored the COVID-related edicts of New York’s then-governor, Andrew Cuomo, and New York City’s then-mayor, Bill de Blasio. One local activist critical of “extremist” Hasidic leaders told The New York Times, “There has been a total disrespect to everything medical authorities and the government have been telling us to do … It is total defiance.” ... |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2040-4867 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: A journal of church and state
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jcs/csac065 |