A California State Attorney, fed up with the unjust way the state has been treating churches by imposing restrictions on when and whether they can or cannot worship, has declared one county to be “a sanctuary county for worship and praise in church” and announced that his office will flat out refuse to prosecute any cases which may be brought up for those reasons.
Speaking at an Independence Day celebration, California District Attorney and chief prosecutor Dan Dow declared:
I’m proud that each one of us has our right to worship in the way that we want to, getting back to right being wrong and wrong being right, our state over the last few years has been letting out people out of prisons early, back into our communities, and especially right now, but yet our governor wants to make it a crime to worship and praise God in church by singing to our almighty God. And that to me is an example of where right has become wrong and wrong has become right.
And I’ll tell you right now for the first time with a microphone. By the power vested in me as District Attorney of San Luis Obispo County, I declare San Luis Obispo County a sanctuary county for worship and praise in church. When we’re releasing the real criminals into our community but we’re trying to criminalize those that are dedicated to exercising their First Amendment rights, we’ve gone wrong, and I won’t allow that to happen in San Luis Obispo County while I’m the District Attorney.
In an interview with the San Luis Obispo Tribune, Dow elaborated further and defended his comments:
I am firmly committed to the principle that it would be a severe injustice for my office to charge a person with a crime who has simply chosen to practice their faith by singing in church. Today in 2020, more than ever, we need more people attending their houses of worship and seeking help from the Almighty for an answer to the coronavirus.
Would that other magistrates could be so bold.
