Ventura County Supervisors Dismiss Contempt Lawsuit Against Godspeak Calvary Chapel
‘Money is worthless without liberty’
By Katy Grimes, April 20, 2021 8:31 am
The Ventura County Board of Supervisors dropped their lawsuit against Pastor Rob McCoy and Godspeak Calvary Chapel following the recent U. S. Supreme Court decisions to protect religious practice in California, despite Gov. Gavin Newsom ordering the indefinite closure of churches during the coronavirus statewide lockdown.
The Globe talked with Pastor Rob McCoy and his attorney Robert Tyler, President of Advocates for Faith & Freedom, about the county’s lawsuit against Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Newbury Park. Attorney Tyler said Pastor Rob McCoy was the first pastor in the State to be sued for holding holiday services. “The County got an injunction against Pastor McCoy,” Tyler said.
Pastor McCoy announced back in May 2020 that he planned to hold Pentacost Sunday services on May 31st. Tyler said McCoy announced on his nightly fireside video chats he was prepared to open as an essential service.
And then he held four packed services May 31st.
“The County filed a Motion for Contempt” Tyler said. “So we went to trial on contempt charges.” But what was so ironically funny, was Tyler had received photos of Ventura County code enforcement officers sent to enforce the shut down orders against Godspeak Calvary Chapel, sitting in their tiny county car, shoulder-to-shoulder, and maskless. Tyler cross-examined the county code enforcement officers who admitted under oath that they were indeed maskless, sitting in the car shoulder-to-shoulder, and were not family members – all conditions they demanded of the church.
“We showed their hypocrisy,” Tyler said. “The County had egg on their face. But they didn’t take any further enforcement action.”
However, Tyler said they filed a cross-complaint in order to ramp up discovery, and expose the justification for the closures, the lockdowns, and to gain access to the data. “The responses are due in a couple of weeks,” Tyler said. Tyler also noted that he received a report with data showing which businesses and industries were the biggest spreaders of COVID-19. “Churches were the lowest,” he said.
Pastor McCoy said they are not dropping their counter-lawsuit against the county. “It’s costing us hundreds of thousands of dollars, but money is worthless without liberty,” McCoy said.
“The County of Ventura had no real option but to dismiss its case against Godspeak Calvary Chapel,” Attorney Tyler said. “The County was the first to file for contempt charges against a church and its pastor for merely exercising their religious liberty. The U. S. Supreme Court has continued to rule against the State of California and multiple county restrictions because they are unconstitutional. We will continue to prosecute our cross-complaint against the County and the State and will force them to provide the real justification behind the infringement on the religious liberty of thousands of people.“
“I call this a Poker game,” Pastor McCoy said. “The County has been using taxpayer money to gamble.” He said even after Ventura County lifted the charges, there were no fines, no further restraining orders, but also no apology.
This is from the Ventura County Board of Supervisors’ press release:
“The Board of Supervisors has unanimously voted to dismiss the lawsuit against Godspeak Calvary Chapel. The lawsuit was a last resort to keep the public safe through adherence with State Public Health Orders in the height of the pandemic to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Dismissing the lawsuit is an act of goodwill in acknowledgement of the loosening of indoor restrictions accompanying the County’s move into the Orange Tier.”
The State of California’s COVID-19 INDUSTRY GUIDANCE: Places of Worship and Providers of Religious Services and Cultural Ceremonies, is dated July 2020, and still orders churches to follow these guidelines:
Even with adherence to physical distancing, convening in a congregational setting of multiple different households to practice a personal faith carries a relatively higher risk for widespread transmission of the COVID-19 virus, and may result in increased rates of infection, hospitalization, and death, especially among more vulnerable populations. In particular, activities such as singing and chanting negate the risk reduction achieved through six feet of physical distancing.
*Places of worship must therefore discontinue indoor singing and chanting activities and limit indoor attendance to 25% of building capacity or a maximum of 100 attendees, whichever is lower. Local Health Officers are advised to consider appropriate limitations on outdoor attendance capacities, factoring their jurisdiction’s key COVID-19 health indicators. At a minimum, outdoor attendance should be limited naturally through implementation of strict physical distancing measures of a minimum of six feet between attendees from different households, in addition to other relevant protocols within this document.
This is particularly notable in the state guidelines for churches:
Considerations for Places of Worship:
• Discontinue offering self-service food and beverages. Do not hold potlucks or similar family-style eating and drinking events that increase the risk of cross contamination. If food and beverages must be served, provide items in single-serve, disposable containers whenever possible. Workers or volunteers serving food should wash hands frequently and wear disposable gloves.
• Discontinue singing (in rehearsals, services, etc.), chanting, and other practices and performances where there is increased likelihood for transmission from contaminated exhaled droplets. Consider practicing these activities through alternative methods (such as internet streaming) that ensure individual congregation members perform these activities separately in their own homes.
• Consider modifying practices that are specific to particular faith traditions that might encourage the spread of COVID-19. Examples are discontinuing kissing of ritual objects, allowing rites to be performed by fewer people, avoiding the use of a common cup, offering communion in the hand instead of on the tongue, providing pre-packed communion items on chairs prior to service, etc., in accordance with CDC guidelines.
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Leave the churches alone. Pastors should know what to do. It should be up to their discretion.
The press release from the Ventura County Board of Supervisors is chock full of empty, unsupportable and unscientific claims. Relying upon the CDC for guidelines is like relying upon a blind dog for walking. The CDC already has admitted there is no isolate of the so-called virus. The CDC has claimed that vaccines do not cause autism. The CDC is a vaccine company so it’s advice contains a conflict-of-interest, i.e., self-interest. The CDC has said that CV-19 is spread by air was an error. The CDC has also said that 94% of Covid deaths had underlying medical conditions. Nobody dies from the Covid. They only die with the Covid. And the CDC has stated that at no time were masks indicated to protect the wearer.
The Ventura County Board of Supervisors is producing reams of “guidelines” that have no (scientific) basis in reality and thus no basis for existence.
Do not obey. Bravery is required, not compliance. Our liberty is sacred.
Excellent stuff, Charles, so well said.
You are right to call on us all to not be compliant when so much is at stake.
“Relying upon the CDC for guidelines is like relying upon a blind dog for walking.”
I think I will embroider that on a sampler and hang it on the wall. 🙂
Thanks, Showandtell, but you’re no slouch at having ideas and communicating them. You probably could write your own column here at CA Globe. You’re smart; I enjoy reading your comments.
Thank you, Charles. You made my day.
McCoy was also on the committee of the Ventura Community Foundation with Vanessa Bechtel (of those Bechtels and a close associate of Gavin Newsom) to disburse funds from the Conejo Victim’s Fund related to the Thousand Oaks “mass shooting” – an incident where the Ventura County ME still refuses to release autopsies and where officer Michael Chilton says there was a cover-up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIzvE23RU2s
Rob McCoy is an agent of US and Israeli Intelligence, and a strange thing about the Borderline incident is the owner (Golden Realty) has connections to Mossad and the Israeli National Fund. McCoy’s missionary work with Godspeak and especially with the Wilks Brothers and the MudMan Burgers franchise of potters Field ministry was basically a front for embedding intelligence assets as fundamentalist missionaries in Honduras and Africa. Because of the missionary work, McCoy was able to ship weapons and drugs under the cover of missionary supplies out of Port Hueneme. McCoy sent Godspeak’s bookkeeper to clear out Potter’s Field’s books when the slave-labor situation was discovered on an Indian Reservation in Montana – and the whole thing is basically a money-laundering enterprise for drugs and guns kept on-reservation to avoid local law enforcement. McCoy also takes kickbacks in the form of his home in the Harvest Moon neighborhood of Thousand Oaks which he failed to declare on his FPPC forms, and the purchase of Godspeak’s YMCA property using public funds is highly sketchy.
Because Corona is so political and an obvious Psyop, I think what’s going on with McCoy at his cult-like-church is that he has been instructed by his intelligence handler to defy the lockdown as a “strategy of tension” – in other words, he’s actually supporting the lockdown by creating a controversy that will label Corona Skeptics and Ulra-right-Fundamentalist-Nazi-Nut-Jobs making California fauxgressives feel more smug in loving the Governor and Corona Restrictions as a problem-reaction-solution.
Dude…you need to seek psychiatric help…
Seriously….
The channel that video is posted under is a guy that’s run unsuccessfully and repeatedly for Ventura County Sheriff, so no axe to grind there, right??
And the recently released report and analysis of the interdepartmental LACK of communication and coordination does not ease anyone’s dismay at Sgt. Helus’ passing, but to make the accusations and insinuations that you are tend to indicate an overly active imagination at best… I’d leave a more serious assessment to trained medical personnel, but for your own mental health and well-being, I’d advise seeking a mental health evaluation…
The only thing wrong with being open is that the pastors who took PPP (like Rob McCoy) say that they did it because they obey God’s law and another man’s. While that may “feel” like a truth but how can any church take Cesars dollar and then say they are under God’s law. I am a church goer and every time I hear of another PPP pastor saying they are a church not a business, it just breaks me to pieces. Be open, take a stand but don’t be a hypocrite by doing these things while being in the same camp of the very groups you despise (e.g. Planned Parenthood and so on). Those nonprofit groups do not get the same privileges as churches and they have to report their income, but churches do not so, they had more of right to take PPP than did churches, and it’s natural for they as a business to make agreements with the government but churches??? I think all these issues are rooted in PPP, the Bible says “the borrower is servant to the lender” and he who borrows and does not repay is wicked, so how can any pastor think taking PPP and not paying it back is ok? How can any PPP pastor think that they didn’t acquiesce to the law of man when taking the money? It just doesn’t add up according to the Bible.
The only thing wrong with being open is that the pastors who took PPP (like Rob McCoy) say that they did it because they “obey God’s law and not man’s law”. While that may “feel” like a truth the thing is, it is hypocritical. How can any church take Cesars dollar and then say they are under God’s law? The very essence of the point is that the church stands under the provision of God and God alone, but the actions of these pastors say the complete opposite when they take government provisions. The very facts are that churches don’t pay taxes and yet many took tax payer funds ahead of tax paying businesses. How then do they justify the church status when they are acting as businesses? It simply makes no sense at all.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a regular 2x-3x week church goer so I get it when they say the church is essential but every time I hear of another PPP pastor saying they are a church not a business, it just breaks me to pieces. PPP churches are businesses, period. They became businesses when they made a covenant with government called: PPP aka Covid Bail Out funds. The worst part is that they think nobody knows and they hide this information from whomever and whenever they can. In my opinion if a church wants to be open and take a stand that’s great but seriously,
don’t be a hypocrite in doing these things while you are standing in the same camp of every American business that took PPP including some groups you despise (e.g. Planned Parenthood and so on). If you are different than these groups then prove it! Prove you trust God, in your actions, prove you have faith over fear in your actions, prove you live under God’s law by actually living under it. You see, those other nonprofit groups do not get the same privileges as you churches and they have to report their income, this is because they are businesses but you, you are churches and so you have the privilege of not having to report any income whatsoever! And you don’t pay taxes either!
Frankly, I think all these issues about fines and such are rooted in PPP, the Bible says “the borrower is servant to the lender” and “he who borrows and does not repay is wicked“, so how can any pastor think taking PPP and not paying it back is ok? How can PPP pastors think that they aren’t a slave to the government now, and how is it that separation of church and state is not forfeited by PPP? How can any PPP pastor think that they didn’t acquiesce to the law of man when taking the money? It just doesn’t add up, not according to the Bible, and not even ethically. That’s the bottom line.