City demands churches turn over names, addresses, phone numbers!

Officials want information for ‘surveillance’ of members

Governors and mayors across the nation have claimed that their emergency powers allow them to ban large groups during the coronavirus pandemic. They don’t want groups gathering in malls, movie theaters or even churches, despite the constitutional protection of religious rights.

Now one official is moving into extreme territory, demanding churches provide him with the names, addresses and telephone numbers of anyone who shows up to worship.

The move by Quinton Lucas, the mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, already is attracting the attention of Liberty Counsel, which has been defending churches amid the coronavirus lockdowns.

Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver noted Kansas City is requiring that churches “submit list of members and attendees along with their names, addresses and telephone numbers to city officials for tracking and surveillance purposes.

“I am running out of adjectives to describe how completely insane the tyrannical abuses launched by state governors and local officials against pastors and churches are becoming,” he said in his newsletter. “It is as if these leaders never bothered to so much as glance at the Constitution they swore to uphold and defend. They seem to be governing from some make-believe, dystopian viewpoint.”

He said the order also applies to businesses, but that doesn’t make it any more constitutional.

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