Mass Easter service ‘like Jonestown’ in coronavirus threat, Kansas health chief says
In the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, Kansas’ top health official has likened plans for a mass Easter Sunday service to the 1978 Jonestown Massacre.
Health Secretary Lee Norman made that comparison in a Saturday night Facebook exchange with Rep. Brenda Landwehr, R-Wichita and chairwoman of the House Health and Human Services Committee.
The exchange took place after Landwehr shared an ABC News story about a Kentucky federal judge ruling that Louisville couldn’t block drive-in-style worship services, saying it unconstitutionally “criminalized the communal celebration of Easter.”
“Good thing or bad?” Norman replied to the post. “Your opinion (as I’m looking at an 800-member congregational gathering tomorrow)? I think they are irresponsible. Like Jonestown Guyana, except in Kansas.”
Jonestown was the notorious religious compound where more than 900 people died from drinking poisoned punch in a ritual mass murder/suicide ordered by their leader, the Rev. Jim Jones.
In response to Norman’s comment, Landwehr wrote back that she didn’t see any problem with drive-in church, where celebrants are directed to stay in their cars and listen to the service over loudspeakers or radio.
“I do not know of any churches doing that here,” she wrote.. “I am not aware of any churches meeting inside.”
Replied Norman: “They are, in person, but not in your county. CRAZily negligent.”
Norman didn’t specify a location but said he’d been informed of a plan by five church congregations to band together for a live, in-person Easter celebration.
“I’m told that it’s in a big communal congregation,” Norman wrote. “Roads blocked out for traffic management, the whole shebang.”
Such a mass celebration would defy Gov. Laura Kelly’s executive order limiting most gatherings to 10 people or less to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The Norman-Landwehr exchange took place shortly after the Kansas Supreme Court ruled Saturday that a committee of seven legislative leaders couldn’t override Kelly’s order, because of procedural missteps made by the Legislature.
The Legislative Coordinating Council had sought to carve churches out of the mass-gatherings ban, based largely on an opinion by Attorney General Derek Schmidt that it places an unconstitutional burden on the free exercise of religion.
Schmidt advised law enforcement not to enforce the order on religious gatherings.
