Three Christians were arrested in Moscow, Idaho for the crime of violating social distancing rules during an outdoor event where a large group sang hymns and Bible psalms.
The event was held, in part, to protest the city mayor’s mask mandate.
PJ Media – On Tuesday, the city council extended the mandatory masking order, set to expire on October 6, until January, despite the fact there have been no deaths, or even hospitalizations, due to the COVID-19 virus in Latah County.
Breitbart reports – Officers arrested Gabriel Rench, Rachel Bohnet, and Sean Bohnet, according to Moscow Report, a local independent news outlet.
A video uploaded to social media shows Bohnet, a local music teacher, and his wife telling officers they refused to comply with an inaudible order. Moscow Report says the apparent infraction is that they refused to show identification.
Rench is a co-host of CrossPolitic, a Christian political talk show, and a candidate for county commissioner. “You guys should not be doing this,” he told officers as they walked him to a squad car. “And doing this kind of crap for the mayor, this is embarrassing. You guys are stronger than this.”
Released that same day, Rench appeared on his talk show to discuss the arrest, playing extended footage of his conversation with officers. One of his companions is heard telling the officers “We backed you guys” at recent Black Lives Matter protests advocating to defund the police. “They didn’t send you [to enforce social distancing] with BLM to go do that when they said defund you guys. We backed you guys.”
Rench and his co-hosts also talk about how BLM protesters aren’t arrested for not wearing masks or for social distancing, but Christians peacefully singing hymns…that’s when the cuffs come out.
Watch the incredible exchange here:
The Gateway Pundit shared a post from the Moscow Report showing Moscow Mayor Bill Lambert officiating a wedding without a mask and without social distancing.
Moscow resident Jemimah Merkle was stopped by MPD after exiting a private building while walking within 6 feet of her cousin without a mask on Main St. and threatened with a misdemeanor and jail time.
Yet Moscow Mayor Bill Lambert officiated a wedding without a mask or social distancing in Moscow at a private residence. Yesterday the same Mayor Lambert and the entire Moscow City Council voted to extend the mandate under an emergency health order until January 6th, 2021.Hundreds of Moscow citizens sent letters pleading their case for ending the mask mandate and gave testimony for over an hour citing health studies, statistics, concerns of the legality of the mandate, the effect of isolation on the elderly, the effect of masking on growing children, and most importantly the fact that not a single COVID case caused a death in our county, nor even a hospitalization. The mayor and council did not interact with those claims, but repeated the same reasoning as the previous extension and original mandate, namely, that they have read studies to the effect that masks can help prevent COVID. They did this once again in the absence of COVID deaths or hospitalizations, and without any kind of metric for ending the emergency mandate.
