Gubernatorial candidate suing Inslee for ban on religious gatherings

GOP gubernatorial candidate Joshua Freed sued Governor Jay Inslee in federal court, arguing that the ban in Washington state on religious gatherings violates the rights of Washingtonians. He joined the Jason Rantz Show on KTTH to discuss why.

“We’ve been voluntarily acting at the stay-at-home order, but things really significantly changed just about a week and half ago when [Inslee] came out with his press briefing with the attorney general, and said we want you to start calling on your neighbors and reporting those folks that are going to work if they’re non-essential, and if we catch them, we’re going to take away their business license,” Freed said.

“So you really move from voluntary action to full-on strict enforcement of neighbors calling on neighbors, and I thought we were all in this together.”

Freed said Inslee has essentially been picking winners and losers in deciding what’s allowed, and since some of the restrictions appear arbitrary, he believes it’s a violation of our constitutional rights. If people follow social distancing practices responsibly, they should be able to gather for religious reasons, he said.

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“Jay Inslee has gone forward and picked winners and losers arbitrarily and deemed some activities essential and others non-essential. Where I feel that he has violated our constitutional rights is when you are able to go to a pot shop today where it’s been frequented by 50 to 100 people in that day,” he said.

“And yet if you are feeling some fear and anxiety and want to go pray with your religious leader, you’re prohibited from doing so. So in proclamation 2025 by Jay Inslee, he says you could not leave your home for social, religious, or recreational reasons and meet with any number of people. … A Jewish person couldn’t go to their rabbi, a Muslim couldn’t to their Imam, a Catholic couldn’t go to their priest.”

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In emergency situations like the coronavirus pandemic, governors are often given plenty of leeway. So what makes Freed think Inslee doesn’t have the right to be capricious in his decisions?

“Well, we have what’s called equal treatment under the law, and so the governor does have a lot of rights in the state of emergency, but he has to treat people equally and activities equally, so he could say everyone needs to stay home regardless,” Freed said.

“But in this case, he’s saying, hey, if you’re feeling anxiety, go to your marijuana store and purchase a federally prohibited item in a store that’s frequented by 100 people a day, and you can’t go pray alone with a pastor in a church. There’s no data or science to support his decisions.”

Why did Freed focus on religious gatherings exclusively?

“There are plenty of avenues of which to go after Governor Inslee today,” he said. “I think this is the clearest, most blatant violation of the Constitution.”

Listen to the Jason Rantz Show weekday afternoons from 3 – 6 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (or HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here.

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