Passage of Amendment No. 2 Represents Vindication for Rev. Spell, Life Tabernacle

The Governor of Louisiana tried everything he could to put Rev. Tony Spell in jail and close his church.  The Mayor-President told people not to go there.  The police chief arrested him on trumped up charges.  The media of the nation and the world vilified him as a menace to public health and a murderer.  He received death threats and every imaginable smear and insult. He was made into a demon and a monster.  An insult to humanity.

Yet, all he really did was continue having church services in his own church, just as he and his grandfather had done for the past 64 years without missing a single of their three-times-a-week worship services — nearly 10,000 continuous services at Life Tabernacle Church.

Now the people of Louisiana have said he and his congregation were right, just as the Louisiana Supreme Court said in May 2022.

In the spring of 2023, the Louisiana Legislature bypassed the state’s liberal governor and approved by a two-thirds’ vote a constitutional amendment to specifically address Gov. John Bel Edwards’ unconstitutional order shutting down churches across the state.

The proposed amendment said that every Louisiana citizen has the constitutional right to attend and participate in in-church worship services, and that that right should be almost impossible to violate.

More than 800,000 Louisiana voters approved this measure, which was on the ballot Oct. 14, 2023. It passed by nearly 80 percent of the vote. The amendment does not alter the Religious Liberty article in the Declaration of Rights of the Louisiana Constitution of 1974. The new provision of the constitution is an enforcement mechanism that makes it clear that in-person worship service can never be prohibited. 

In May 2022, the Supreme Court ruled everything the Governor did to Pastor Spell was “illegal and unconstitutional.” Now the voters have left no doubt where they stand.