BY ELANA SCHOR, NEW YORK — Despite state and local limits on public gatherings, some faith leaders have persisted in holding in-person services -- a matter of religious freedom, they say, as the nation approached its fourth Sunday battling the coronavirus pandemic.
Law enforcement officials in Florida, Louisiana and Maryland took separate action this week against pastors who continue to hold in-person services in the face of stay-home orders in most states.
But more than a half-dozen of those state orders provide a degree of exemption for religious activity, underscoring the political sensitivity of the decisions being made by states and localities.
