Chicago pastor Cristian Ionescu grew up in Romania watching communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu close churches, jail pastors, and brand Christians as criminals. When he heard the news that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker had issued an executive order banning religious gatherings of more than 10 people because of the coronavirus pandemic, Ionescu felt compelled to raise a challenge.

A Catholic diocese in Texas has won the support of Protestants and Jews in a state Supreme Court case that deals with a church’s right to self-governance. Though the case is about how the diocese handled a sex abuse allegation, the ruling could have repercussions for religious autonomy.

A protester on Saturday circled the governor’s mansion in Jackson, Miss., in a white Chevy Tahoe with the slogan “I prefer dangerous liberty to peaceful slavery” painted on the back windshield. Earlier in the week, a blond woman sat on the steps of the Kansas Capitol in Topeka with a sign that read, “My business, my choice.” And the week before, a man in Olympia, Wash., wearing a Seattle Seahawks jersey held up a sign that declared, “Give me liberty, or give me death.”

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said on Wednesday he was “not thinking of the Bill of Rights” when he implemented strict social distancing measures to try to stop the spread of the coronavirus, and the Democrat likely wasn’t alone. State and local officials across the country, facing a spiraling public health crisis by mid-March, quickly issued highly restrictive public gathering bans and stay-at-home orders—sometimes without considering the constitutional ramifications.

Petitions, ballot initiatives, and referendums have often served as tools for voters who feel unheard by legislators to take democracy into their own hands. A voter-driven ballot initiative in 2018 enshrined unborn children’s right to life in the Alabama Constitution, for example.

Henry Fernandez doesn’t like preaching to an empty room and a camera: “Here I am in this small sanctuary with six people, and I’m trying to ignore the camera and speak normally, and that has been a real challenge for me.”

Though the situation makes him anxious, Fernandez, who pastors Bryce Avenue Presbyterian Church, a Presbyterian Church in America congregation in Los Alamos, N.M., said the decision whether to obey the state’s ban on public gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic was straightforward.

With New York City engulfed by the coronavirus, Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday pleaded with congregations not to gather for worship—and threatened severe repercussions if they did.