Editorial: The Supreme Court Wednesday struck down New York’s latest COVID-19 (China Virus) restrictions on religious gatherings in a 5-4 decision.

“Members of this Court are not public health experts, and we should respect the judgment of those with special expertise and responsibility in this area,” the majority opinion said. “But even in a pandemic, the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten. The restrictions at issue here, by effectively barring many from attending religious services, strike at the very heart of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty.”

Now the Tulsa City Council and our Pandemic Pandering Mayor Bynum may not believe in freedom or law, but at least at the top of the court system, by a very slim majority, freedom in America rules at this time.

In a separate opinion siding with the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote saying churches and synagogues were treated differently than commercial institutions by the state.

“It is time — past time — to make plain that, while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues, and mosques,” Gorsuch argued.

Chief Justice John Roberts in a dissenting opinion accused the court of acting irrationally and disregarding the public health expertise of the state.

“It is a significant matter to override determinations made by public health officials concerning what is necessary for public safety in the midst of a deadly pandemic,” he wrote.

It is sad that Justice Roberts apparently believes irrationally that the state provides freedom. America’s founding documents recognize that “Nature and Nature’s God” provide rights. Our human rights came before the existence of government or any law officials of any government may ever devise.