On the Supreme Court's recent ruling on religious services: an interview with Nomi Stolzenberg, law and religion scholar

We talk about law, COVID, and religious liberty; also, heartening sounds from the Taiwanese Grammys.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of religious organizations in New York that had challenged Governor Cuomo’s restrictions, which decreed that in areas labeled as red zones—where the risk of coronavirus transmission was highest—no more than ten persons could attend a religious service. In orange zones, attendance was capped at twenty-five. The plaintiffs, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel of America, argued that Cuomo’s orders violated the First Amendment’s protection of religious liberty.

The case has garnered attention in part because it’s the first ruling to involve Justice Amy Coney Barrett. But also because it reverses rulings from earlier in the year: in similar cases filed in May and June in California and Nevada, the Supreme Court ruled against the religious organizations.

We asked the brilliant Nomi Stolzenberg, a professor at USC Law School and a scholar with three decades of experience studying law and religion, to help us understand the Co…