An attorney for five men of Redeeming Love Church of God the Bibleway began filing motions Friday seeking to dismiss a criminal charge brought against them in early April when their Statesboro church continued to meet in alleged violation of Gov. Brian Kemp’s COVID-19 “shelter in place” order.
Attorney Kevin Gough from Brunswick and a leader of the larger Church of God the Bibleway organization, Apostle Clayton A. Cowart from Florida, gathered with the men they called “the Bibleway Five” and other Redeeming Love parishioners on the Bulloch County Courthouse lawn. Gough said a copy of the motion to dismiss the case against Pastor Eli Porter had just been delivered to the Bulloch County State Court solicitor.
The other four defendants will be joining in that motion, Gough said.
“These men were illegally arrested by the Georgia Department of Public Safety in April, during the so-called lockdown, for peaceably worshipping their God at their church with other like-minded members of that church,” he said. “The department claims this action was taken in furtherance of Governor Kemp’s executive order dated March 14, 2020, but these men are charged with reckless conduct. …”
State Patrol citations
Kemp’s March 14 state of emergency declaration was actually followed by a series of executive decisions culminating in an April 2 “shelter in place” order. Among other things, it banned gatherings of more than 10 people except where at least 6 feet of distance could be maintained between them.
Georgia State Patrol troopers cited the five men with one count each of misdemeanor reckless conduct April 5 when members of the church, which is on Georgia Highway 67, met for a Sunday evening service.
Like other misdemeanors, reckless conduct is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and up to 12 months in jail.
“If convicted, each man faces up to 12 months in jail,” Gough said in his prepared statement. “They have demanded not only a jury trial but also a speedy trial. Justice delayed is justice denied.”
Arraignment documents filed in mid-August indicated that the men would seek jury trials. The document in the court records for Porter had “Defendant refused to participate in arraignment” written on the signature line.
First Amendment
The motion filed Friday to dismiss the case cites “several grave constitutional issues,” Gough said.
“But we believe the most egregious aspect of this case is the violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Georgia,” he said. “God is an essential worker. So are the leaders of his church, including Pastor Eli Porter. Church is an essential service.”
In April, Cpl. Matthew Sowell of Georgia State Patrol Post 45 said church leaders were first given a warning on that Sunday evening. But when troopers returned after complaints, they found about 30 members still clustered together and then issued the citations, he said.
The church then held Bible study the following Wednesday and never stopped meeting for Sunday services and other occasions.
“Our major concern was if you look during that same time, Walmart was open and all of the stores in the area were open, and not every customer of Walmart was cited,” Cowart said Friday. “To us, this is a discriminatory practice on religion, where you’re choosing now between commerce and religion, and the difference is, you see, you get tax dollars off of the stores, you don’t get any tax dollars off of the church.”
Stores at the time were not requiring masks, many were not practicing social distancing, and yet they were deemed essential, he noted.
“We believe that righteousness and religion are essential and this is the foundation the country was supposed to be built on,” Cowart added.
Not alone
Church of God the Bibleway, based in Winter Haven, Florida, has 220 congregations, and many others have faced similar challenges during the pandemic, he said. Another organization Cowart heads in Florida, the Poor & Minority Justice Association, is providing assistance, he said.
Much has changed in relation to COVID-19 in Georgia and locally since April. Kemp lifted the “shelter in place” but issued other, less restrictive orders. In Bulloch County, public and private grade schools and East Georgia State College, Ogeechee Technical College and Georgia Southern University all resumed in-person classes in August for the first time since the March shutdown.
At the time the citations were issued at the church, there had been 10 confirmed COVID-19 cases among Bulloch County residents but no deaths. By Friday, there had been 2,299 cases of the novel coronavirus in the county, resulting in 124 hospitalizations and 22 deaths.
“I don’t want to rat out any of our fellow Christians, but my understanding is there are plenty of churches in the Statesboro area and throughout the Coastal Empire that have been conducting church services very openly for months, including the same time frame that these young men were arrested,” Gough said, “and none of those churches have been harassed in any way, to our knowledge, by law enforcement, and we are exploring whether there were other motivations for the arrests in this case beyond the governor’s executive order.”