‘Our lawyers are ready.’ Charlotte church says it will ignore proposed mask mandate
Freedom House Church has told its followers that the church will not comply with Mecklenburg County’s planned mask mandate for religious institutions, bucking the county as it seeks to slow the rate of hospitalizations and infections.
The Charlotte church is led by the married senior pastors Penny and Troy Maxwell. “Mecklenburg County is messing with the wrong people,” Penny Maxwell said on an Instagram video, adding, “Our lawyers are ready to go.”
The church appears to be the first in the county to openly defy the proposed rule, which would eliminate the exemption of churches, mosques, synagogues and other religious institutions from the county’s mask mandate.
In a 5-4 vote, county commissioners approved the change on Wednesday. The change to the mask mandate will be published on Sunday and will go into effect Sept. 22, according to the health department.
“If the churches want to fight it, I think they’re within their right to do so,” Commissioners’ Chairman George Dunlap told the Observer Friday afternoon. Dunlap voted against the change during Wednesday’s board meeting.
“I maintain those congregations have the right to do within their walls what the federal government has told them what they have a right to do,” Dunlap added. “I’ll let the churches decide at this point what, if any, action they will take.”
Commissioner Vilma Leake on Friday questioned what Freedom House Church meant by “messing with the wrong people.”
“My door is always open,” Leake told the Observer. “They haven’t called me to talk at all.”
‘Not backing down’ on mask mandate
Penny and Troy Maxwell declined to be interviewed for this story. But they said in a joint statement that the church “believes you can decide for yourself if you wear a mask or not,” and that, “Though the overwhelming majority of our church does not wear them, it is your decision.”
On their social media pages, the senior pastors devote many of their posts to criticizing vaccine and mask mandates.
Last month, Troy Maxwell posted on Facebook that the church would write religious exemption cards for people who hoping to avoid mandatory vaccinations at work or school. (Charlotte employment attorney Josh Van Kampen told WCNC that the chances of these exemptions holding up in court are thin.)
The pastors also are vocal on other political trends like the so-called “culture war” — a term typically used in conservative circles to point to the divide over progressive social policies like gay marriage and transgender rights.
On a news article about Gov. Roy Cooper considering proof of vaccine for indoor dining, Troy Maxwell posted last month: “Get ready for a fight!!! Folks if we don’t begin to stand for our freedoms they will continue to take them.”
Commissioner warns of ‘slippery slope’
Other houses of worship told the Observer that they would comply with the mandate, and that they have already been implementing COVID-19 protection measures.
Leading up to Wednesday’s vote, county commissioners were divided over whether to include churches and other religious institutions in the mask mandate order. Dunlap said at the time he thought the commission was “going down a slippery slope.”
Whether the county will be able to enforce the rule inside houses of worship remains unclear.
“The health director was just surprised as I was that this exemption was going to take place,” Dunlap said. “We don’t have an enforcement arm in Mecklenburg County. We don’t get to tell the (Charlotte-Mecklenburg) Police Department what should and shouldn’t enforce.”
During the largest COVID-19 outbreak in Mecklenburg County, which occurred after an event at the United House of Prayer for All People last year, officials issued a rare imminent hazard order to shut down in-person church activities.
Enforcing mask mandates has been challenging throughout the pandemic.
Officials have no good way to forcefully respond to repeated complaints at businesses or schools, Gibbie Harris, the county’s public health director, told commissioners at their meeting on Wednesday.
So far, the county has received 168 complaints since Aug. 19 related to the county’s mask mandate, Harris said, most of them coming from private schools. The health department did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
This story was originally published September 10, 2021 at 12:03 PM.
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