"A splintered Supreme Court on late Friday night partly lifted restrictions on religious services in California that had been prompted by the coronavirus pandemic...."

"With the pandemic raging, in-person worship services were entirely barred in Tier 1, which covers almost all of the state. In a brief, unsigned opinion, the court blocked that total ban but left in place a 25 percent capacity restriction and a prohibition on singing and chanting. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch said they would have blocked all of the restrictions. Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented, saying they would have left all of the restrictions in place. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., in a concurring opinion, explained why a middle ground was appropriate....  Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in her first opinion, wrote that she would not have blocked the restrictions on singing and chanting based on the available evidence. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh joined her opinion. Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justices Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., said the state had favored its entertainment industry over worship services.... 'In the worst public health crisis in a century,' Justice Kagan wrote, 'this foray into armchair epidemiology cannot end well.'"

Writes Adam Liptak (in the NYT).

Here's the opinion. I'll just single out the Gorsuch opinion, which looks at what I find most compelling, unequal treatment. It's one thing for government to choose a strict, risk-averse approach to the epidemic, something else to be strict toward some and generous toward others. Justice Gorsuch writes:

It seems California’s powerful entertainment industry has won an exemption. So, once more, we appear to have a State playing favorites during a pandemic, expending considerable effort to protect lucrative industries (casinos in Nevada; movie studios in California) while denying similar largesse to its faithful. See, e.g., Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley v. Sisolak, 591 U. S. ___, ___ 2020) (GORSUCH, J., dissenting from denial of application for injunction relief ).... 

Government actors have been moving the goalposts on pandemic-related sacrifices for months, adopting new benchmarks that always seem to put restoration of liberty just around the corner. As this crisis enters its second year— and hovers over a second Lent, a second Passover, and a second Ramadan—it is too late for the State to defend extreme measures with claims of temporary exigency, if it ever could. Drafting narrowly tailored regulations can be difficult. But if Hollywood may host a studio audience or film a singing competition while not a single soul may enter California’s churches, synagogues, and mosques, something has gone seriously awry.