MANATEE COUNTY – Churches and all other houses of worship are now excluded from the mandatory face-covering provisions included in a recent Manatee County resolution.
On Tuesday, Aug. 25, county commissioners voted 6-1 in favor of immediately excluding churches and places of worship from the face-covering mandates included in county resolution R-20-116, adopted on July 27.
County Commissioner Carol Whitmore made the motion to exempt houses of worship and to direct the county attorney’s office to present at the next commission meeting an amended resolution reflecting this change.
Whitmore said she made the motion because County Administrator Cherri Coryea and Public Safety Director Jake Sauer ensured the commission that the spread of the COVID-19 virus is currently flattening and declining in Manatee County.
Although they supported Whitmore’s motion, commissioners Reggie Bellamy, Betsy Benac and Misty Servia expressed lingering public safety concerns about church congregations potentially contributing to the spread of the virus. Commissioner Vanessa Baugh said houses of worship should never have been included in the resolution.
Commissioner Steve Jonsson cast the only opposition vote. He said this was because of his general opposition to the original resolution, and not because he opposed excluding houses of worship.
In July, Whitmore, Benac, Bellamy and Servia supported the face-covering resolution and Baugh, Jonsson and Priscilla Trace opposed it.
“An individual in a business establishment must wear a face covering while in that business establishment,” the resolution says.
According to the original resolution, “The term ‘business establishment’ also includes places of worship.” The language referring to houses of worship is no longer valid and will be removed in the amended resolution.
The county resolution applies to the unincorporated areas of Manatee County, which includes Cortez. It also applies to the cities of Bradenton Beach and Palmetto, which have not adopted their own city-specific face-covering mandates. Face-covering mandates previously enacted in Anna Maria, Holmes Beach and Bradenton do not specifically reference houses of worship.
County Attorney Mickey Palmer and Chief Assistant County Attorney Bill Clague told the commission that removing the houses of worship reference does not diminish the county’s ability to defend the resolution being challenged in a lawsuit filed on Aug. 2 by Joel Tillis – Senior Pastor of the Suncoast Baptist Church in Palmetto – and State Rep. Anthony Sabatini. The lawsuit alleges the county resolution is unconstitutional because it violates the privacy, due process and religious freedom clauses in the Florida Constitution.
Tillis was among the religious leaders who attended Tuesday’s meeting and called for the houses of worship exclusion.
“I do not call into question the intent of your mask resolution. But I do call into question the unintended consequences that have inflicted unnecessary difficulty and strain on one of this nation’s most sacred institutions: that is houses of worship. The resolution redefined houses of worship fundamentally to be no more sacred than a Walmart or Wendy’s. Surely you did not intend that,” Tillis said.
“The resolution is fundamentally unfair to houses of worship. One can reserve a table for 15 at The Cheesecake Factory and take off the masks for two hours to eat and drink, yet to do so in a house of God is to break the very resolution that you have passed. The people that I represent have, are, and will continue to defy what we believe is an unconstitutional and insensitive resolution. I humbly ask for you to provide an exemption for houses of worship,” Tillis said.
When contacted later in the week, Palmer was asked what impact the commission decision has on the still-pending lawsuit.
“We believe that the plaintiff’s lawsuit complaint is rendered moot as it relates to houses of worship. There are other aspects of the plaintiff’s complaint, however, that are unrelated to the houses of worship issue. As to the unrelated issues, those will presumably survive the mootness argument but may very well be disposed of in a forthcoming motion to dismiss,” Palmer said.
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