New bill would allow houses of worship to open quicker during states of emergency

ATLANTA — There are potential changes to the rules places of worship follow during a crisis.

The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global pandemic four years ago on Monday.

Gov. Brian Kemp soon issued the first of several executive orders shutting down the state.

Now, one lawmaker wants to make it easier for Georgia’s houses of worship to stay open during states of emergency, like COVID-19.

In video from four years ago, Pastor Clayton Cowart from the Redeeming Love Church of God in Statesboro, Georgia defiantly refused to obey the pandemic state of emergency and met in person inside their church despite the health risk to his congregation.

Saint Mary Republican Steven Sainz still believes Georgia houses of worship should be closed during a general lockdown that affects every school or business, but his bill would allow those houses to reopen the very second any other entity is allowed to reopen like grocery stores.

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“They’re better off deciding what is right for their congregation than the government telling them what to do,” Sainz said.

He thinks people need churches in times like those.

“We know Georgians of all kinds of faiths need to, at some point, come in for physician worship and we want that to be done at the pastoral level and not the government level,” Sainz said.

His bill passed the House with bipartisan support, but there are detractors.

“It’s not just what we want to do. Sometimes it is what we need to do to take care of ourselves and others,” said Junction City Democrat Debbie Buckner, who is also a certified public health educator.

She worries that the bill undermines the authority of an agency trying to keep people alive during a pandemic.

“It is the role and function of public health to issue guidance and saying we don’t know how to take care of this right now. We’re trying to figure that out. The best thing that we can do is have people separate,” Buckner said.

That bill is now in a Senate committee where it is expected to pass and head to the floor of the Senate for a vote.

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