Texas religious expo exempt from COVID rules. ‘I am as frustrated by that as anyone.’
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include a response from the Southwest Believers’ Convention.
The south end of downtown Fort Worth has been filled with an unlikely commodity this week: crowds. As in, hundreds to thousands of people have actually been there, attending a large gathering at the convention center and walking in the direction of restaurants and hotels, the way we did in the Before Times.
It is the work of religious leader and televangelist Kenneth Copeland. His Kenneth Copeland Ministries has been hosting the Southwest Believers’ Convention this week. The summit is the Fort Worth Convention Center’s first since the onset of coronavirus after it spent most of March through June functioning as a shelter for roughly 1,600 people experiencing homelessness.
Religious events are mostly exempt from Gov. Greg Abbott’s coronavirus executive orders, allowing for Copeland to host the Southwest Believers’ Convention without following most of the protocols mandatory for other indoor gatherings, including masks, occupancy limitations and social distancing. And many of the attendees from Copeland’s event appear to not be wearing masks or keeping six feet apart. The various speakers, for whom the audience cheers and applauds, have mostly not been wearing masks either.
“I am as frustrated by that as anyone,” Tarrant County Judge B. Glen Whitley said after a County Commissioners meeting on Tuesday. “When we are sitting here, trying to figure out how we are going to keep businesses open, keep people working, it frustrates me when you have a group of folks — any group of folks — that say basically ‘I’m going to be above this and I’m not going to worry about what effect I have on someone else.’
“I have rights,” Whitely continued, “but my rights should end at the beginning of the rights of someone else. I want people wearing masks because it protects others who want to be or need to be protected. ... I want us all to respect each other. Wear the mask. It’s a small inconvenience.”
The Fort Worth Convention Center’s pandemic operating procedures, according to public events director Mike Crum, require masks to be worn and seating to be set up for social distancing guidelines. Attendance is limited to half of the convention center’s capacity (it seats about 10,500 people in permanent seats and 2,500 on the floor).
Those guidelines do not exist for Copeland’s expo. “In a nutshell, for religious events, mask wearing and social distancing is left up to the individual,” Crum said in an email.
After this story was originally published, a spokesperson for the Southwest Believers’ Convention responded to the Star-Telegram. He said the convention, which was planned for months, has followed numerous safety guidelines, including spacing rows 7 feet and 4 inches apart and allowing only family units to sit closely together.
“Does everybody wear a mask? No,” said the spokesperson, Lawrence Swicegood. “At the same time we have encouraged people to wear masks.” He added that 17 signs are posted that recommend masks.
Asked why the event didn’t mandate masks, Swicegood said, “We’re following the guidelines as stated by the governor.”
A spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office also pointed to Abbott’s executive orders regarding the event. GA-28 states religious services have no occupancy limits. Another executive order, GA-29, exempts “any person who is actively providing or obtaining access to religious worship” from wearing a mask. It adds, “but wearing a face covering is strongly encouraged.”
Whitley said, “We have been told to stay away from religious events, from any restrictions whatsoever. Maybe I just don’t understand the difference. I understand church and I understand state. But I really believe that when our forefathers put that in the Constitution, it was not there to keep us from ... protecting the health of the community. As I remember history, it was to keep the church from being the ruling form of government.”
In July, the Texas Medical Association deemed attending a religious service with 500-plus worshipers one of the riskiest activities for getting COVID-19, along with large music concerts and bars.
Swicegood estimated about 2,500 people were attending the various sessions every day, with the great majority of them spaced out in the permanent seating and not on the floor. He said visitors had created some 3,500 hotel nights in the city. “They’re absolutely elated we’re in town,” he said.
Speakers at the event have included Georgia-based televangelist Creflo Dollar and Illinois-based televangelist Bill Winston. Copeland, whose organization is based in Tarrant County, has been a scheduled speaker on multiple days. In March, during a fiery sermon, Copeland demanded a vaccination for COVID-19 to come immediately and told COVID-19 to “get off this nation.”
“It is finished. It is over!” he proclaimed in March. “And the United States of America is healed and well again.”
Staff writers Anna Tinsley and Luke Ranker contributed to this story.
This story was originally published August 6, 2020 at 4:16 PM.
