KY Attorney General Sides With Religious Schools Against Democrat Gov’s COVID Closures

P. Gardner Goldsmith | November 25, 2020
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For a long time, Kentucky residents have suffered repeated attacks on their liberties, attacks that have come at the hands of COVID-crackdown Governor Andy Beshear (D) and his sycophantic apparatchiks in innumerable bureaus across the bluegrass state. But now, citizens are standing up, and welcoming the support of Attorney General Daniel Cameron in their fight for liberty.

As Fox News’ Sam Dorman reports:

Kentucky's attorney general is suing his own governor in an attempt to keep private religious schools open, despite the state ordering virtual classes during the coronavirus pandemic.

Indeed, Cameron, whom many complimented for his speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention where he slammed Joe Biden for his classless race-baiting, has correctly observed that Beshear’s recent order to prohibit in-person instruction at public and private schools is an immense attack on something Beshear ought to know: The First Amendment.

In a series of Tweets on November 21, Cameron explained that he previously had warned Beshear that such an edict would violate the Constitution, and he noted:

As a result, we filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the Governor’s order banning in-person learning at religious schools. The ability to provide and receive a religious education is one of the freedoms protected by the First Amendment…

Dorman reports:

An emergency hearing took place on Monday after Attorney General Daniel Cameron and the First Liberty Institute filed a petition seeking a temporary restraining order on Gov. Andy Beshear. In the petition, Cameron argued that Beshear's latest executive order infringed on Danville Christian Academy's and other religious schools' constitutional freedoms.

Cameron and the petitioners are absolutely right. And, as I often note when looking at so-called “lockdown” orders that prohibit people from engaging in previously arranged business agreements, Beshear’s edict stands in violation of the Contract Clause of the US Constitution (Article One, Section Ten).

The Contract Clause prohibits state officials from interfering with the fulfillment of a pre-existing contract.

So, if you run a business and you have employees with whom you have made agreements, or if you run, say, a school, and you have contracts with parents, as well as employees and contractors who bring you supplies or maintain building services? All of those are pre-existing contracts, and Beshear’s edicts infringe on people fulfilling those contracts.

It’s pretty clear, yet this politician either doesn’t get it, or he disregards it.

Just like he disregards the First Amendment.

And the First Amendment doesn’t just protect religious gatherings. It is supposed to protect the freedom of voluntary association on public property as well as the sanctity of it on private property.

Again, Beshear appears either oblivious, or openly hostile to this principle.

Many people in Kentucky will no longer allow him to behave in this manner, and the Attorney General is on their side.

It remains to be seen how the court will rule.

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