Tensions Erupt As Newbury Park Church Holds Indoor Services
NEWBURY PARK, CA — A woman was knocked to the ground Sunday during a protest of a Newbury Park church that has stayed open despite a judge’s orders and a statewide ban on indoor services with more than 25 percent of the building's capacity.
Groups of protesters from both sides of the debate - though The Los Angeles Times reported that pro-church protesters outnumbered anti-church ones – gathered outside the Godspeak Calvary Chapel. Footage shows a masked woman named Beth falling to the ground and screaming after a man took her sign. Church security told Eyewitness News that the man was not a member of the church, and was asked to stay on the other side of the sidewalk, or he’d be asked to leave. The woman got up, and no injuries were reported.
In a case that is making national news, a judge Friday issued a two-week temporary restraining order banning Godspeak from holding indoor services, following a lawsuit against the church from Ventura County. The church was forbidden to hold indoor services until a full hearing can be held Aug. 31.
But even after the ruling, Pastor Rob McCoy still held three services Sunday. The statewide order caps attendance at 25 percent of attendance, or a maximum of 100 people. Most religious institutions have opted to host their services online.
McCoy, a former Thousand Oaks councilmember and mayor, has said that the order violates religious liberty, and that churches are being unfairly singled out. He also claimed that no one in his congregation has tested positive for the coronavirus. McCoy resigned from his council seat in April due to controversy from keeping his church open.
“We are lovingly standing in defiance of Caesar’s orders because we’re standing in faithfulness to God’s order,” McCoy said in an online service of the broadcast. McCoy warned his congregation – which The Los Angeles Times reported had 100 to 150 people who were mostly not wearing masks – that they might be cited.
Ventura County Sheriff’s Capt. Eric Buschow said that no citations or arrests were made, and does not plan to make any citations in the future. Buschow told Patch that it will be up to the County of Ventura Code Compliance Division to enforce the order.
Ventura County spokesperson Ashley Bautista said the County filed papers Monday morning asking the court to authorize and direct the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department to “take all actions reasonable and necessary to close defendants’ Newbury Park property to prevent any further indoor worship services.” The papers also ask to the court to issue an order to show cause why the church and McCoy should not be held in contempt of court. A hearing on the matter will take place at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.
Last Tuesday, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to give county attorneys the ability to seek legal action against people or entities defying state or local health orders. County counsel filed for a restraining order against the church Wednesday.
“The church is permitted to have service outside or vitually,” Bautista told the Ventura County Star. “They are putting their congregation and the community at risk by violating the orders.”
Judge Matthew Guasco cited a recent Supreme Court decision in which Chula Vista, Calif. challenged Gov. Gavin Newsom’s restrictions. “The Constitution is not a suicide pact,” said Guasco. “The exercise of individual liberties has to be consistent with public health: otherwise the one would cancel out the other.”
Guasco said that the county had sufficiently demonstrated that keeping the church open posed a public health risk.
“On a scale of 1 to 10 of the most immediate irreparable harm possible, this is a 10,” he said. “It doesn’t get much more immediate or irreparable than the threat that a lot of people are going to spread a contagious and deadly disease.”
McCoy said that the 8,000 confirmed cases and 82 deaths in a county with 850,000 does not justify these prohibitions.
“They shutter our businesses,” he added, “destroy our families, they remove our children from schools, traumatize them emotionally and now they release convicts into our county. And now they’re coming to prosecute a church. We haven’t had one case of COVID in our church. We’ve been open since May 31.”
This article originally appeared on the Agoura Hills Patch
