Balancing public health against the right to free exercise of religion poses a difficult challenge amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly, when cases from California and Nevada reached the Supreme Court earlier this year, the justices deferred to the judgment of their governors, who are, after all, accountable to the people.
But those cases were decided by a narrow 5-4 margins before Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September. The court changed its tune late Wednesday night, when her replacement - Amy Coney Barrett - and the four earlier dissenters formed a new 5-4 conservative majority that invalidated restrictions on worship services in hot zones designated by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
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