Kentucky Christians who attended drive-in services on Easter — despite warnings from the governor to stay home over the coronavirus pandemic — were met by police presence and nails dumped in the road, the pastor of a Kentucky church said.
Democratic Kentucky Andy Beshear had announced that the state would enforce a stay-at-home measure by recording the license plates of any person attending Easter services. Americans in other states, such as in Nevada, Colorado, California, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania, similarly gathered to observe the Christian holiday through drive-in church services.
“This is a time and weekend, a whole week for multiple faiths, that is about faith. It’s about knowing we have faced as people – as Christians, as Jews, as members of many faiths – many difficult, dark times, and we have prevailed,” Beshear said Friday. He did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Kentucky State Troopers recorded the license plate numbers of those who attended an Easter Sunday service at the Kentucky Maryville Baptist Church, leaving notices on the windshields of the 50 church goers cars, and warning those persons to quarantine for 14 days or else face “further enforcement measures,” according to USA Today.
Maryville Baptist Church had also received a state-backed order from the Bullitt County Health Department ordering the church to “immediately” cease in-person gatherings, the publication reports, but Rev. Jack Roberts held a Wednesday service regardless of the order.
Roberts said that he arrived at the church Sunday to find nails dumped at church parking lot entrances, USA Today reports. The Kentucky State Police did not respond the DCNF’s question asking if they knew where the nails came from.(RELATED: ‘Stunning’ And ‘Unconstitutional’: Judge Grants Restraining Order After KY Mayor Vowed To Record License Plates Of Easter Church Goers)
“Of all the places to keep you from, they should’ve put them down at the liquor store — keep people from getting drunk, going home, and killing somebody on the way,” Roberts said, Fox News reports. “They could’ve put them down at the abortion center. They could’ve saved some lives down there, maybe.”
“It was sad when we drove into the house of God today,” the pastor told his congregation, the publication reports. “Someone decided it would be nice if you all drove home with flat tires today.”
Roberts did not respond to a request for comment.
Photos posted by a the Courier Journal show police officers putting notices on cars, nails on the road, and a man holding signs that read “Tyrant Beshear” and “Without KSP Beshear is just a guy with bad ideas.”
The notices accused those in the cars of “CREATING SCENES OF AN EMERGENCY,” according to Fox News.
From nails to notices. It wasn't a normal Easter morning. Even during a health pandemic….
Posted by Scott Utterback on Sunday, April 12, 2020
Other lawmakers had imposed similar restrictions as Easter Sunday approached. Greenville Mayor Errick Simmons had banned in-person services as part of Mississippi’s shelter-in-place order, the Daily Mail reports, though the order did not specify that drive-in services were banned.
Video footage shows police shutting down Reverend James Hamilton’s drive-in-service at King James Baptist Church in Greenville, Mississippi.
“I’m a good citizen, I ain’t breaking no law. I ain’t selling no drugs. I’m just preaching the word of God. Look at all these police cars here,” Hamilton can be heard saying in a viral video he posted Thursday. He did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
https://www.facebook.com/charles.hamilton.336/videos/2815225008513294/?t=41
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