California church with history of flouting COVID rules set to host New Year’s wedding
A Sacramento-area megachurch with a long history of brazenly flouting the state’s COVID-19 protocols during the pandemic appears to be going forward with a New Year’s Eve wedding ceremony for the lead pastor’s daughter amid the state’s worst surge in virus activity.
Destiny Christian Pastor Greg Fairrington’s daughter planned to get married at the church’s main campus in Rocklin later Thursday.
The Sacramento Bee became aware of the wedding after at least three readers with knowledge of it contacted the newspaper this week, expressing concern that the celebration would include a large number in attendance and carry the potential of becoming a so-called superspreader event for the coronavirus.
The Bee found a website for the wedding, which bills it as a formal attire, adults-only event held from 8:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. That timeline would also put the event in violation of the state’s 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew for nonessential activities, which was quietly extended last week.
An FAQ page on the website instructs those wanting to know details about “covid accommodations” to contact an email address. An email sent by a Bee reporter to that address Wednesday evening has not been returned.
Asked about community concerns regarding the wedding, Destiny Christian spokesman Tanner Di Bella referred to it as a “private event.”
“I’m unsure why you would be asking for comment from the church on a private event. There is no church event taking place this weekend,” his full emailed response read.
While it may not formally be a church event, there are ties. In addition to the venue and bride Alexandria Fairrington, the groom is a worship leader at Destiny Christian, according to his social media pages, which indicated as recently as Wednesday evening that Thursday’s wedding is still on. And Di Bella, the church’s marketing and communications director, is listed on the wedding website as a groomsman.
Destiny Christian is a Pentecostal church with about 1,500 seats. Pastor Fairrington has been an outspoken opponent of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state’s stay-at-home orders. He has called on churches nationwide to open their doors — immediately — for in-person worship despite the coronavirus crisis, which has forced many such services outdoors or virtual.
The Sunday before Thanksgiving, the church invited noted conservative figure Charlie Kirk as a guest for multiple services. Photos and videos posted by Kirk to social media showed that the services took place indoors at Destiny, with the pews nearly full, minimal social distancing and virtually no mask use visible — each separate violations of the state’s COVID-19 health order.
Kirk even acknowledged during his discussion with the pastor that those in attendance were risking contracting the disease by being there, but defended their right to do so as their personal choice.
Multi-household gatherings of any size have been barred under most iterations of California’s stay-at-home order — one of the tightest versions of which was imposed in the 13-county Greater Sacramento area earlier this month. The lockdown was triggered when the region’ intensive care availability dropped below 15%. Spread of COVID-19 across most of California has grown rampantly since the start of November.
Wedding ceremonies and other “cultural ceremonies” are exceptions, allowed to be held in California even under these tight restrictions — but only outdoors, and with “strict physical distancing measures of a minimum of 6 feet between attendees from different households” mandated, the state health department’s protocols say.
The state’s shutdown rules also specify that weddings may proceed with “ceremonies only,” meaning wedding receptions are supposed to be off-limits.
It’s unclear how many people may show up for the event at Destiny. Details on the wedding’s website don’t specify whether the event is indoors or outdoors, though weather forecasts showed temperatures expected to dip into the 30s late Thursday.
One of the worried readers who emailed The Bee alleged that the wedding will be lavish, including a large rented Ferris wheel and a fireworks display set to ring in the new year. The Bee could not confirm either detail, but with Destiny’s campus located directly adjacent to Highway 65, a carnival attraction and fireworks would be plainly visible.
Weddings, particularly large ones, have been pointed to by health experts as something of a perfect storm for COVID-19 transmission, especially as colder weather drives these gatherings indoors.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in November published a case study on a 55-person wedding in rural Maine. The CDC report found that just under half the wedding’s guest tested positive for COVID-19 and that overall, 177 cases were linked back to the event, including seven deaths.
California is entrenched in its worst surge yet of the now nearly 10-month coronavirus pandemic. Hospitals’ intensive care units are packed well beyond capacity in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley, where health systems are reaching into “crisis mode” to treat onslaughts of COVID-19 patients.
Although ICU availability has fared better in the Greater Sacramento region, which could be eligible to exit the regional stay-at-home order as early as Friday, Placer County’s hospitalized virus patient total has exploded from 24 to 216 in the past two months, state data show. The rate of tests returning positive has quadrupled from 3% to 12% in that time, according to the local health office.
The county estimated on Wednesday that nearly 3,700 residents are still actively infected.
County officials and the local health office, like many in the region, have taken a hands-off approach, opting for education rather than enforcement. Placer has not had its own separate local health order in place for months, putting the onus on the state, which in practice has no enforcement mechanism it can apply to either churches or weddings.
In one of the county’s only public disclosures of a community outbreak, Placer’s health office linked dozens of cases to a youth basketball center in Rocklin that held multiple indoor tournaments in November “despite being advised such operations are not allowed and with full knowledge that COVID-19 cases have been associated with activities at the facility.”
Public health data showed some of the fastest growth in infections across Placer County from late November to late December came in the ZIP codes including Rocklin and the parts of Roseville closest to Rocklin.
Placer, in more detailed COVID-19 reports released monthly, said nine cases confirmed in October had attended weddings.
In November, though, only two confirmed Placer cases were linked to weddings. Six confirmed that month were linked to funerals.
This story was originally published December 31, 2020 at 8:44 AM with the headline "California church with history of flouting COVID rules set to host New Year’s wedding."
