{"id":713579,"date":"2021-09-03T13:05:45","date_gmt":"2021-09-03T17:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=713579"},"modified":"2021-09-03T13:05:48","modified_gmt":"2021-09-03T17:05:48","slug":"california-taxpayers-will-pay-800000-to-church-targeted-by-newsom-city-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/california-taxpayers-will-pay-800000-to-church-targeted-by-newsom-city-officials\/","title":{"rendered":"California Taxpayers Will Pay $800,000 to Church Targeted by Newsom, City Officials"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcalifornia-taxpayers-will-pay-800000-to-church-targeted-by-newsom-city-officials%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=713579&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div readability=\"29.75641025641\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"article-category\"><a class href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/coronavirus\/\">Coronavirus<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-excerpt\">State, local authorities threatened pastor for defying unconstitutional lockdown policies<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-thumbnail-container relative lg:mr-24 w-full my-4 mb-8\">\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"736\" height=\"514\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/GettyImages-1322907427_736x514-1.jpg\" class=\"w-full lazyload blur-up wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 736px) 100vw, 736px\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/s4.freebeacon.com\/up\/2021\/09\/GettyImages-1322907427_736x514.jpg 736w, https:\/\/s4.freebeacon.com\/up\/2021\/09\/GettyImages-1322907427_736x514-300x210.jpg 300w, https:\/\/s4.freebeacon.com\/up\/2021\/09\/GettyImages-1322907427_736x514-703x491.jpg 703w\" data-sizes=\"auto\" \/>\t\t\t<\/figure>\n<p>\t\t\t<span class=\"text-gray text-xs md:text-lg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/patrick-hauf\/\" title=\"Posts by Patrick Hauf\" class=\"author url fn text-red-700\" rel=\"author\">Patrick Hauf<\/a> \u2022 September 3, 2021 1:00 pm<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div readability=\"86.814864348491\">\n<p>Gov. Gavin Newsom&#8217;s (D., Calif.) administration and Los Angeles County quietly agreed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to a local church in connection to their enforcement of unconstitutional lockdown policies, according to a legal settlement.<\/p>\n<p>State and local authorities will each pay $400,000 to Grace Community Church and pastor John MacArthur to cover the legal costs wrought by Newsom&#8217;s shutdown order, which singled out churches for capacity limits as he eased restrictions on businesses. State officials threatened massive fines and <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/coronavirus\/la-county-aims-to-hold-pastor-challenging-coronavirus-guidance-in-contempt\/\">even jail time<\/a> for the pastor after the church resumed services in the summer of 2020. Local officials went so far as to <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/coronavirus\/county-seizes-property-from-l-a-church-challenging-coronavirus-restrictions\/\">cancel<\/a> the church&#8217;s five-decade-old lease on a parking lot. MacArthur, in a statement, said the settlement, as well as numerous legal victories, vindicated his stand-off with California Democrats.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Over the past year, our congregation has seen his hand of blessing in ways like never before, and the Lord&#8217;s promise has been realized: \u2018I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overpower it,'&#8221; MacArthur said.<\/p>\n<p>Newsom&#8217;s church restrictions, which covered everything from attendance size to whether parishioners could sing, have proved costly to taxpayers. Los Angeles County spent nearly $1 million in legal fees in connection to the Grace Community Church lawsuit. California paid <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/06\/03\/california-churches-win-2m-in-legal-fees-in-covid-closure-suits\/\">$2 million<\/a> in legal fees to two other churches in June in response to separate suits over lockdown enforcement.<\/p>\n<p>Neither the Newsom administration nor Los Angeles County responded to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Newsom enacted some of the harshest lockdown measures in the nation in 2020, but the Democrat&#8217;s heavy-handed policies, as well as his refusal to personally comply with them, helped inspire a recall campaign in addition to legal challenges in state and federal courts. In February, the Supreme Court struck down&nbsp;Newsom&#8217;s indoor service ban in a 5-4 ruling.<\/p>\n<p>Paul Jonna, special counsel for the Thomas More Society, which represented the Sun Valley-based church, said MacArthur was specifically targeted by the state because he brought national attention to the injustices of government-enforced lockdowns.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They wanted to make an example of him,&#8221; Jonna told the <em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em>. &#8220;He had 7,000 people packed in the church side by side every Sunday. He was completely defying the restrictions. He was doing it in a public fashion. They didn&#8217;t like that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The California recall election is scheduled for Sept. 14.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coronavirus State, local authorities threatened pastor for defying unconstitutional lockdown policies  Patrick Hauf \u2022 September 3, 2021 1:00 pm Gov. Gavin Newsom&#8217;s (D., Calif.) administration &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-713579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}