Double Standard for Protests

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TRANSCRIPT

Across America, churches remain under severe restrictions while protestors gather by tens of thousands not observing any restrictions.

This double standard is being questioned in some corridors of the halls of power.

United States Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is asking if the First Amendment, with its guarantee of freedom of religion, is being ignored amid widespread social permissiveness in the large-scale protests.

Senator McConnell: "But apparently while protests are now permissible, prayer is still too dangerous."

McConnell specifically called out mostly Democratic politicians supporting the double standard, like Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.

Senator McConnell: "The same governor of Michigan who argued that letting people carefully shop for vegetable seeds — vegetable seeds — would be too dangerous during the pandemic now poses for photographs with groups of protesters."

On June 4, roughly 1,200 health professionals, many of whom were from the University of Washington Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, signed a letter underscoring a broad-based double standard where some protests are allowed while others, not.

"However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health," it said, but adding, "This should not be confused with a permissive stance on all gatherings, particularly protests against stay-home orders."

The letter also warns of "an increased number of infections in the days following a protest," almost immediately after asserting the gatherings were not dangerous to public health.

On the same day McConnell made his remarks, Missouri senator Josh Hawley requested a civil rights probe into the continued Church restrictions, claiming states "have violated the free speech and free exercise rights of religious Americans" by putting limits on church gatherings while allowing the protests propelled by the killing of George Floyd to continue.

With businesses and churches remaining closed amid lockdowns, and cities being looted and burned down by violent protests, Sen. Hawley and Majority Leader McConnell are both demanding answers from state governments as to why the standard is "protests for me but not for thee."

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