{"id":4267,"date":"2023-07-18T05:03:41","date_gmt":"2023-07-18T05:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=4267"},"modified":"2023-07-18T05:05:40","modified_gmt":"2023-07-18T05:05:40","slug":"wisconsin-constitutional-amendment-would-ban-places-of-worship-from-closing-during-states-of-emergency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=4267","title":{"rendered":"Wisconsin Constitutional Amendment Would Ban Places of Worship from Closing During States of Emergency"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/culture\/faith\/wisconsin-constitutional-amendment-would-ban-places-of-worship-from-closing-during-states-of-emergency\/sberry\/2023\/07\/18\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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A proposed amendment to the Wisconsin constitution that would clarify that state and local officials \u201cmay not order the closure of or forbid gatherings in places of worship,\u201d in response to a state of emergency declared at any level of government during a public health emergency, will go before a state Senate committee<\/a> Tuesday.<\/p>\n

State Republican lawmakers introduced Senate Joint Resolution 54<\/a> in June in response to the 2020 COVID-19 shutdown order that restricted worship gatherings, even though the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down that order.<\/p>\n

\u201cIntroducing this should not be necessary, but unfortunately during COVID, many of our rights were thrown out the window,\u201d state Rep. Ty Bodden (R-Hilbert) said<\/a>, reported Wisconsin State Journal<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s time to right the wrongs of the past and do what we can to prevent those rights from ever being taken from us again.\u201d<\/p>\n

State Sen. Cory Tomczyk (R-Mosinee) led the resolution in the Senate.<\/p>\n

For Republicans, the value of a constitutional amendment that bars the shutdown of places of worship during a public health emergency is that a Democrat governor cannot veto it.<\/p>\n

In 2021, Gov. Tony Evers (D) vetoed<\/a> a bill prohibiting public health orders from restricting worship services and gatherings in places of worship.<\/p>\n

The bill, Evers said, \u201cwould take away existing tools available to state and local public health officials to prevent and suppress COVID-19.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c[O]ur response to this pandemic should be about following the science and public health experts, not finding ways to make it harder to fight it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The Rev. Kerri Parker, executive director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches, expressed a lack of support for the resolution among some members of the council.<\/p>\n

\u201cLegal actions such as this proposed constitutional amendment aren\u2019t supported or desired by all religious bodies,\u201d she said, according to the Journal<\/em>. \u201cEven as some support it, some of our members believe it would do more harm than good.\u201d<\/p>\n

In January 2022, Parker and her council recommended<\/a> that churches end in-person services for four to six weeks in order to \u201cslow the omicron spread,\u201d according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Parker and other members of her organization reportedly said they believed their social distance and vaccination efforts amounted to living out the principle of loving one\u2019s neighbor.<\/p>\n

The Republicans\u2019 proposed constitutional amendment \u201ccomes as\u00a0conservative groups have put<\/a> a renewed emphasis\u00a0on constitutional amendments as a way to bypass Evers\u2019 veto pen and preserve and enact legislation that they fear could be struck down by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which will have a liberal majority come Aug. 1,\u201d reported the Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As the resolution indicates, \u201ca constitutional amendment requires adoption by two successive legislatures, and ratification by the people, before it can become effective.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

Susan Berry, PhD is national education editor at The Star News Network<\/strong>. Email tips to <\/em>sberryphd@protonmail.com<\/em><\/a>
\nPhoto \u201cState Sen. Cory Tomczyk\u201d by Cory Tomczyk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The post Wisconsin Constitutional Amendment Would Ban Places of Worship from Closing During States of Emergency<\/a> appeared first on The Wisconsin Daily Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/culture\/faith\/wisconsin-constitutional-amendment-would-ban-places-of-worship-from-closing-during-states-of-emergency\/sberry\/2023\/07\/18\/ A proposed amendment to the Wisconsin constitution that would…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":3495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-daily-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4268,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4267\/revisions\/4268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}