This article undertakes a comparison of legal restrictions on religious gatherings in the USA during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic and the COVID-19 pandemic. After contextualizing each pandemic within its legal, political, and social culture, the analysis distills prevailing principles between the two health crises and their approach to religious liberty. Evidence suggests that courts in both periods relied on proportionality and equality to resolve disputes between government bans on worship services and conscientious objectors. However, the experience of multiple local governments in 1918 and other nations in 2020 models a better way. Instead of using proportionality or equality, these state officials relied on reciprocity between government and religious groups. Their approach tended to produce fewer bans, lower case counts, and greater trust during the pandemic and offers a useful precedent for current US lawmakers managing the religious freedom concerns of COVID-19.

中文翻译：

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传染病、会众和宪法：1918 年和 2020 年大流行病中的互惠和宗教自由

本文比较了 1918 年西班牙流感大流行和 COVID-19 大流行期间美国对宗教集会的法律限制。在将每种流行病纳入其法律、政治和社会文化背景后，该分析提炼出两种健康危机及其实现宗教自由的方法之间的普遍原则。证据表明，这两个时期的法院都依靠相称性和平等性来解决政府禁止礼拜服务与出于良心拒服兵役者之间的纠纷。然而，1918 年多个地方政府和 2020 年其他国家的经验为更好的方式提供了借鉴。这些国家官员没有使用比例或平等，而是依靠政府和宗教团体之间的互惠。他们的方法倾向于产生更少的禁令，减少案件数量，