North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina legislators and leading sheriffs want Gov. Roy Cooper to clarify or remove a portion of his executive order that limits how religious services can convene under his eased stay-at-home rules for COVID-19.

Cooper’s health and human services secretary said on Monday that state lawyers are taking a second look at the language designed to provide an exception to the continued ban on mass gatherings. The governor’s order says the permitted worship services “shall take place outdoors unless impossible,” but state senators said it’s unclear what impossible means.  

The North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association executive committee asked Cooper to simply allow indoor services.

Feature photo: Late afternoon light shines through the stained glassed windows of the Page Memorial United Methodist Church in Aberdeen ~ Sandhills Sentinel Photographer John Patota.

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