North Dakota has passed a law that largely prohibits the state government from treating houses of worship worse than non-religious establishments during times of emergency.

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Gov. Doug Burgum signed Senate Bill 2181 into law on Monday, which amends subsection 12 of section 23-01-05 and section 37-17.1-05 of the North Dakota Century Code.

The new law prohibits state government health officials from, among other things, issuing emergency orders that treat religious bodies worse than secular entities unless a compelling state interest exists.

SB 2181 states that “any orders relating to disease control measures” cannot substantially “burden a person’s exercise of religion unless the order is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.” The states that officials can’t treat “religious conduct more restrictively than any secular conduct of reasonably comparable risk, unless the government demonstrates through clear and convincing scientific evidence that a particular religious activity poses an extraordinary health risk.”

Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal nonprofit that has filed multiple lawsuits on behalf of churches against various state restrictions on in-person worship during the pandemic, celebrated the news. . . .

Sponsored by six Republican state lawmakers, SB 2181 garnered broad support in the North Dakota legislature, passing the Senate by a vote of 46-0 and the House by a vote of 88-4.

Earlier this month, the North Dakota Catholic Conference sent an open letter to the House Judiciary Committee expressing its support for the legislation.

“The nationwide pandemic has brought renewed attention to how government actions can, intentionally or not, restrict the exercise of religious freedom,” the conference argued in its March 16 letter.  . . .

The House of Representatives in Oklahoma passed a similar bill earlier this month that states that “no governmental entity shall substantially burden a person’s free exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.”

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(Excerpt from The Christian Post. Article by  Michael Gryboski. Photo Credit: Getty Images.)