Metro’s mask law has us covered – or does it?

Friday, September 13, 2024, Vol. 48, No. 37

Face masks are popping up again here and there. I’ve seen a few on people at the airport, in church and even at the grocery store.

Are they breaking the law in Nashville?

The situation is nothing like it was in 2020-22 when COVID made mask-wearing the rule, either explicitly by government mandate or implicitly by example. But it’s a reminder that, despite most attitudes and behaviors to the contrary, COVID hasn’t disappeared.

As of Sept. 1, the state health department reported 19,614 new cases in the previous 30 days with 40 deaths. For comparison, a report from Dec. 20, 2021, showed 9,689 cases and 54 deaths since just the day before.

But a graph with the current report shows a clear upswing in cases starting around June 1.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meanwhile, is suggesting everyone six months and older get the new COVID vaccine, approved last month. My Kroger store has been texting me about the availability of that, along with various other vaccines they’d be happy to jab me with.

All of which circuitously brings me to a package of four proposed ordinances pushed by Mayor Freddie O’Connell and introduced in the Metro Council. The stated purpose is to “boost public safety” in the wake of recent visitations by various right-wing groups, including the Patriot Front and the Goyim Defense League.

One of the proposals relates to masks, which – surprise! – Nashville already bans in public places, with some exceptions. Those exceptions are children younger than 17, workers needing protection against occupational hazards, people in “traditional holiday costumes” or “engaged in theatrical productions or masquerade balls” or “wearing gas masks in civil defense drills and exercises or emergencies.”

The new proposal would add two exceptions, for people wearing a mask “based on a sincerely held religious belief or practice” or “intended for a legitimate medical purpose.”

I’m tempted to ask what might be an “illegitimate” medical purpose or an “insincerely held” religious belief or practice, but instead just chalk the wording up to legal boilerplate.

Still, the proposed new exceptions left me with questions about the mask ban, including why we have one to begin with. So I turned to Wally Dietz, Metro legal director.

“We have researched but have been unable to find the original purpose for the mask ordinance,” he told me in an email response.

The website for the Free Speech Center at MTSU says “Most anti-mask laws were passed ... in response to the Ku Klux Klan, whose members used masks to hide their identities as they terrorized their victims.”

Whether the Klan played any role in the Metro ban or not, its potential application to the mask-loving wingnuts who recently visited isn’t hard to envision. The ordinance itself – 11.12.040 in the Metro Code – actually prohibits “disguises,” which is certainly the intent of those groups, despite their assertions to the contrary.

“Anonymity protects the lives and efforts of those speaking out against tyranny,” the Patriot Front founder Thomas Rousseau says, “and promotes a selfless quality in messaging.”

What it really protects is cowards who haven’t the backbone to be seen promoting their hateful messaging, but Rousseau is free to put his spin on it.

Dietz said the exceptions for medical masks and religious headgear were “already being honored” by the Metro police.

“By incorporating those two additions to the list of exemptions, our police will have an easier time applying the ordinance uniformly across the board,” he wrote.

Dietz’s response still left me wondering whether medical or religious masks are still technically illegal, a topic he did not address. But I’d have to guess that they are. Just because cops look the other way doesn’t make something legal. So I welcome the potential change to the law.

And I’d welcome some enforcement of the ban against those whose only real intent is intimidation.

Joe Rogers is a former writer for The Tennessean and editor for The New York Times. He is retired and living in Nashville. He can be reached at [email protected]