by Michael Snyder, End Of The American Dream:

Isn’t it odd that Walmart stores all over the nation have remained open throughout this crisis but we are being told that it is “too risky” to hold a church service in many states?  During this crisis it has often been said that “my rights do not end where your fears begin”, but right now we are witnessing a stunning erosion of our First Amendment rights.  Churches remain closed in many states, and some churches in states that have “reopened” are now being forced to close down again.  For example, a Baptist church in Georgia has announced that they will not be holding any in-person worship services “for the foreseeable future”…

A representative for the Catoosa Baptist Tabernacle in Ringgold, Ga., told The Christian Post in a statement on Monday that church decided earlier this month to no longer offer “in-person worship services for the foreseeable future” after confirming some of its families were “dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 virus.”

When that church started holding services again recently, extremely strict social distancing guidelines were put into place…

“Seating was marked to only permit sitting within the six-foot guidelines, all doors were open to allow access without the touching of doors, and attendees were asked to enter in a social distancing manner and were dismissed in a formal manner as well to ensure that the social distancing measures were adhered by all,” the church told the outlet.

But even with all of those restrictions, COVID-19 started spreading in the church.

And so now that church has closed up shop indefinitely.

In Houston, another church that recently reopened has now been forced to close again…

Days after the move by the church in Georgia, ABC News reported that Houston-based Holy Ghost Parish also did the same after it was discovered multiple members of the organization had contracted the novel coronavirus and one leader had died.

The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston said the church, which had also reportedly begun hosting mass at the start of May as some coronavirus restrictions on certain businesses in Texas had begun to ease, decided to re-close last week after the death of Father Donnell Kirchner, 79.

Sadly, we will probably see a lot more stories like this in the weeks and months to come.

But no matter what we do, we aren’t going to be able to prevent people from catching the virus.  In order to do that, we would literally have to shut down everything for a very long time, and that is simply not going to happen.

Whether the current “shelter-in-place” restrictions remain in place or not, and whether we are holding church services or not, the truth is that this virus is going to continue to spread.

And it will keep spreading until the vast majority of the U.S. population has been exposed to the virus and herd immunity has been achieved.

So shutting down all of our churches is not going to solve anything, but the mainstream media keeps pumping out horror stories about how Christian gatherings are helping to spread COVID-19.  For example, the following comes from CNN…

A person who later learned they were positive for Covid-19 attended a California religious service on Mother’s Day, exposing 180 other people to the novel coronavirus, according to local health officials.

The individual got a positive diagnosis for Covid-19 the day after the service and is now in isolation at home, Butte County Public Health said in a statement Friday.

And here is a story from NBC News about a church in Arkansas…

Two people infected with COVID-19 spread the virus to more than 30 people during church gatherings in Arkansas in early March, before the first case was ever diagnosed in that state, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Tuesday.

The cases illustrate how rapidly the virus can spread to others involved in faith-based organizations, and may have implications for places of worship as churches nationwide figure out how to reopen safely.

But why don’t we ever see any stories about how our major retail stores have become hotbeds for spreading the virus?

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