Resistance to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s extension of his statewide stay-at-home order grew Thursday, with a church in northwest Illinois filing a federal lawsuit contending that Pritzker’s executive actions have demonstrated “illegal and discriminatory hostility to religious practice, churches, and people of faith.”
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Beloved Church, a roughly 80-person congregation in the town of Lena, by the Thomas More Society, a conservative public interest law firm in Chicago. Stephen Cassell, the church’s pastor, is listed as a co-plaintiff with the church.
The complaint takes issue with how Pritzker’s stay-home order deemed worship spaces nonessential, and alleges that Pritzker and other law enforcement and public health officials have “intentionally denigrated Illinois churches and pastors and people of faith by relegating them to second-class citizenship.”
Gov. J.B. Pritzker arrives to speak April 19, 2020 at the Thompson Center during the coronavirus pandemic.(Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)
On March 31, Lena police Chief Craig Beintema, who is one of the co-defendants with Pritzker, delivered Cassell a cease-and-desist order insisting on the church’s compliance with the stay-at-home order, according to the lawsuit. The church says it hopes to resume public worship on Sunday without fear of arrest.
The lawsuit criticizes Pritzker for requiring churches to remain shuttered while other highlighted businesses — including liquor stores and dog groomers — are permitted to continue operations.
“Plaintiffs believe that, in these dark times, Illinoisans need the Spirit of Almighty God, but Pritzker’s orders have left them to settle for the lesser spirits dispensed out of the state’s liquor stores,” the document states.
During his daily press briefing Thursday, Pritzker called the Beloved Church an “outlier,” saying many pastors across Illinois have partnered with the state to encourage parishioners to stay home.
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“I would just urge the faith leaders, you know, who are concerned about the length of this to just put the health and safety of their congregants first. I think that’s uppermost in everybody’s minds. It’s certainly uppermost in my mind,” Pritzker said.
The governor said that large gatherings continue to pose a public health risk to the communities in which they occur, and he encouraged parishioners to request that services be canceled or held online during the stay-at-home order.
“Nobody’s going to, you know, run in and break up a gathering of churchgoers at the moment, but I will tell you that there are consequences. Of course the state has the ability to enforce orders, but we’ve been looking to people to do the right thing,” Pritzker said.
The church’s lawsuit arrives on the tails of two other legal challenges to Pritzker’s stay-at-home order introduced recently by Republican state representatives. On Monday, a downstate judge issued a temporary injunction allowing Rep. Darren Bailey of Xenia to ignore the stay-at-home order. Rep. John Cabello of Machesney Park filed another complaint on Wednesday in Winnebago County seeking to exempt more Illinoisans from the stay-at-home order.
Peter Breen, one of the lead attorneys representing the Beloved Church, is running as the Republican nominee for state representative in the west suburban 48th District. He previously held the seat until losing in 2018 to Democratic Rep. Terra Costa Howard, who is seeking reelection.
