Harmeet Dhillon Appears on FNC’s ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ To Discuss NY Leaders Restricting Worship
According to Dhillon (Video Transcript):
I want to give kudos to Chris Ferrara and the Thomas More Society. They are the lawyers who got that ruling today. They have been side by side with us on some other cases as well. I’ve sued the governors of Virginia, of New Jersey, of California, and of Hawaii on similar issues. Unfortunately, it’s been hard to get judges to see it the right way but I guess the hypocrisy had reached the level of outrage in New York that this judge saw it correctly and kudos to him for finally recognizing what many judges before him should have recognized.
Some of us didn’t say that. I went to court in the first month and I’ve been doing it regularly and so have many of my clients and the fact that you can’t go to the marijuana store and the alcohol store and many other kinds of stores from day one because those stores have good lobbyists and connections with the governor and you could not go to church, you could not protest, that’s another case that we’ve been suing in California and you could not do so many other activities, get married, go to a funeral. These are life and death activities for many Americans and governors just trash those civil rights with no consideration other than political. I think it has turned out to be politically expedient for many of these governors to hype up this drama over COVID which is a serious illness but just frankly they are not taking seriously when it comes to protest that they like. And governors are going to begin to get rebuke in the court because of that as our attorney general for defending these indefensible policies.
No, I am not surprised. The thing about federal judges is each federal judge is a life tenured judge and it is one by one and they make their own decisions. So this judge was brave. There have been many other judges, by the way, appointed by Republicans who for one reason or the other decided that they couldn’t confront the governors. I think the governor of New Jersey is equally egregious. Certainly the governor of California is even worse, he’s egged on these protests and he has massively violated rights and he has barred protests against himself. To date, that has been the position of the governor and he has gotten away with it, and federal judge after federal judge, I think I’ve filed 15 lawsuits and it’s been an uphill battle but hopefully the tide is turning now. This is a great joy for the three orthodox Jewish plaintiffs and the two catholic priests who stepped forward to assert not only their own rights but of course the rights of all of their parishioners. Brian, people have been arrested in America for driving their cars into a church parking lot and parking there, and listening to worship, and listening to prayer. That is outrageous and it’s unconstitutional, and one day hopefully the Court of Appeals in this country will step forward and make that the rule. Chief Justice Roberts gave us a pretty bad concurring opinion on this freedom of religion but I think where the balance is so egregious like you had in New York, I think this decision will be upheld if it is appealed to the second circuit.
I think that’s easy. It is politically expedient for governors to shut down everything and make people dependent on the government. That’s blue state governors. But where they got tripped up is that they’ve treated COVID like a switch they can turn on and off. They turned it off for Black Lives Matters protests. What they are doing endangering lives, Brian, because if citizens don’t take the warnings of health officials seriously and if they are not proportional, then they will not take them seriously… — it would be the boy who cried wolf problem. They will not take them seriously when they need to. That’s the risk that these governors have created so they need to back off, check themselves and really focus on protecting people who are vulnerable, making rules that we can all follow and stopping the interference with our First Amendment, equal protection and other constitutional rights.
No, you’re absolutely right. They have mocked states like Florida without really drilling into the details. They’re the ones who made a mockery of science and a mockery of the law. It’s time to stop. It’s time for Americans to assert their rights in a respectful and appropriate way while staying safe, Brian.
Thank you, Brian.
