“Certainly there were some churches that congregated in excess of the allowable number, and we will be taking action as to those individuals and those churches,” Lightfoot said at an unrelated event Monday morning.

The mayor said officials will determine which churches violated the stay-at-home order on Monday and announce fines against them later in the day.

Lightfoot and Pritzker have repeatedly urged churches to find alternative ways of holding services, without allowing gatherings of more than 10 people, by holding Zoom videoconferences, or live-streaming video of services.

Monday afternoon, Pritzker said he’s “extraordinarily reluctant” to interfere with ongoing services when churches do violate the stay-at-home order, and instead wants to focus on educating faith leaders and parishioners about the need to avoid large gatherings to limit the spread of the virus.

“The job, the goal here is to keep people safe. I want people also to be able to worship. There are many ways in which to do that during this time, and I know it’s very difficult,” Pritzker said. “So many people care deeply about the community that is their church or their mosque or their synagogue; I do too, and so we want to get back to it as soon as we can, but we have to keep each other safe, and I hope that faith leaders will heed the public health concerns, and follow the reopening plan.”

Metro Praise International Church in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood held three 45-minute services on Sunday, with dozens attending each one.

The decision didn’t sit well with neighbors who are following the rules and staged a protest outside the church on Sunday.

The protesters said they have had enough, and believe the church is breaking the law and putting everyone at risk, especially in a neighborhood where there is a higher than average positivity rate for COVID-19.

“Nobody’s denying them the right to meet. We’re just wanting them to meet safely,” protester Alonzo Zaragoza said.

Protesters walked and drove outside the church Sunday morning as services were held. They said the church is being reckless, and unfair to them, but pastor Joseph Wyrostek said Gov. JB Pritzker’s stay-at-home rules are unfair.

“If they don’t want to do what Indiana is doing, let’s do what Illinois allows Wal-Mart to do, and there’s going to be more there today than there are going to be here,” he said.

Church leaders told followers on Facebook they have seating for 60 to 80 people with social distancing. Everyone is required to wear a face mask. They have been told not to congregate, and there will be no physical interaction. The church also reminded people to stay home if they are over 65, have preexisting conditions, or have or may have been exposed to the coronavirus.

https://twitter.com/ViNguyen/status/1262018327930601472

Elim Romanian Pentecostal Church in Albany Park also hosted services on Sunday, despite a federal judge rejecting their request for a temporary restraining order allowing them to hold services with more than 10 people in defiance of the stay-at-home order.

Philadelphia Romanian Church in Ravenswood also planned Sunday services, but city officials put no parking signs on nine blocks surrounding the church in an effort to limit how many people could attend.

Ald. Matt Martin (47th) said the mayor ordered those signs put up in response to the church violating the stay-at-home order.

In a statement the pastor of the church said in part, “It is completely ridiculous. The mayor is inciting hate against the church, which is very sad.”

He went on to say “their effort to intimidate us will make us stronger.”

Source: https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/05/18/mayor-lori-lightfoot-plans-to-fine-churches-that-defied-stay-at-home-order-rules-to-hold-sunday-services/

The post Mayor Lori Lightfoot Plans To Fine Churches That Defied Stay-At-Home Order Rules To Hold Sunday Services first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

We are not a serious country. America’s “social distancing” campaign has gone both too far and not far enough. The restrictions and guidelines are arbitrary, irrational and unevenly applied.

While children’s swings and slides are now crime scenes, golf courses and pickleball courts in my city are wide open.

Weed and booze stores are considered “essential.” Ice cream, dessert joints and fast-food outlets with takeout and delivery services are still operating. But family-owned, sit-down restaurants that have been staples in our community have been forced to shut their doors after decades in business.

Barbershops and hair salons here were ordered to close three weeks ago, but government employees on landscaping crews who cut grass — like the ones I’ve seen all crammed together in a city truck — are still earning paychecks subsidized by the taxpayers sidelined from their jobs in the name of safety and public health.

In my state, and across the country, private gyms have been forbidden spaces for the masses for weeks. But if you’re a celebrity or Beltway elitist, you can still stay in shape while sanctimoniously taping public service announcements telling everyone else to stay at home.

Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez have been racking up social media clicks by sharing cozy family quarantine videos and coping tips from their multi-million-dollar Florida mansion. “We all need to take care of ourselves, mentally and physically, and also be respectful of the health and well-being of others. At a time when people need to stay apart, we can still find other ways to feel togetherness. Stay connected, and most importantly, stay safe,” Rodriguez tweeted to his 1.2 million fans. Yet, last week, the power couple was caught by paparazzi exiting a Miami gym whose front-door sign read: “This gym is not open. Stay home stay safe.”

Actors Mario Lopez and Mark Wahlberg have also become quarantine time favorites, sharing dance routines, home workouts and homeschool scenes to show their commitment to self-isolation. But last week, the buff Hollywood bros ventured out to a posh Los Angeles F45 Training facility to tape a partner workout together (with a two-person film crew) that they told their viewers to replicate in their apartments or backyards.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s personal trainer bragged that until last week, she was working out at the private Supreme Court gym. “Everybody’s been shut down,” trainer Bryant Johnson told Law360, a legal news, and analysis website. “The only reason why I didn’t shut the justice down is because, hey, she ain’t having it,” Johnson said.

Translation: We are not “all in this together,” like the cliched hashtag saying goes. The privileged among us get VIP gym access during the lockdown, while ordinary Americans are cooped up inside doing pushups in the living room, lunges through the bedroom, makeshift treadmill runs in slippery socks across the kitchen floor, and bicep curls with their jugs of laundry detergent.

Wealthy LA denizens were still flocking to trendy farmers markets last week — until they were shamed on Nextdoor and other social media outlets. Throngs descended on the D.C. Maine Avenue Fish Market last weekend in defiance of stay-at-home orders. Mardi Gras partiers and spring break students formed contagion-friendly mobs while authorities sat on their hands. Philadelphia hoodlums are still holding tailgate parties with carloads of boozers. New York subways remain stuffed to the gills with commuters on trains and platforms. But cops in Florida did crackdown on a pastor in Tampa for holding services at his megachurch, and police in New Jersey arrested 15 attendees at an Orthodox Jewish rabbi’s funeral.

Mandatory mass isolation (or at least the illusion of it) is an efficient way to instill hysteria and disrupt lives but a poor means of actually protecting the most vulnerable. Selective social distancing is a futile exercise in virus virtue signaling. Either we’re all in or we’re all out. You can’t attribute curve-flattening to “social distancing” if huge swaths of people never practiced it or opted out when convenient.

How long must we carry on the charade? Public health autocrat Anthony Fauci insists we must continue living like this until there are “no new cases” and “no new deaths” — and until a vaccine (which his control-freak pal Bill Gates is working overtime to foist on the world) is in place. This is nuts. The zero-cases/zero-deaths standard doesn’t exist for any other pandemic. We’re strangling ourselves in CAUTION tape, riddled with holes, for show. The pretense is a pointless cure worse than any infectious disease.

Source: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/08/the_grand_farce_of_american_social_distancing_142885.html

The post The Grand Farce of American Social Distancing first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.