[rezonant]

The first amendment prevents the government from abridging the right for people to assemble and peacefully protest. Given that there's a public safety concern, one could argue there's nuance here, but you can hardly blame them for taking the safe route and avoiding violating our constitutional rights, and it's doubtful there was enough precedent for the CDC to feel comfortable taking the legal risk.

[int_19h]

It might have been a 1A issue if CDC straight out prohibited the protests, but the baseline expectation was for people who introduced and/or supported the mask mandates to at least clearly say that such large gatherings should be avoided for the sake of containing COVID.

Instead, we've heard things like, “In this moment the public health risks of not protesting to demand an end to systemic racism greatly exceed the harms of the virus.”

(FWIW I'm pretty far left and I think that COVID restrictions broadly made sense. I also believe that the protests had valid causes and would be perfectly reasonable if not for that whole ongoing epidemic thing.)

[orblivion]

Based on your first sentence I thought you were going to talk about the government shutting down church services, which was a talking point on the other side. I think in either case, the first amendment would allow for the government to impose safety restrictions. (Could you, for example, use the first amendment to stop your church from getting shut down due to building code violations?)

However, to the point about credibility among conservatives, even some drive-in Church services were shut down: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2020/08/08/cor...

I think if crowded outdoor marches were deemed safe, a drive-in church service should have as well.