The US Supreme Court Thursday vacated a federal court decision affirming California Governor Gavin Newsom’s restrictions on indoor religious services and ordered that the court reexamine the case.

The challenge was brought by Harvest Rock Church, based in Pasadena, which claimed that the restrictions were harsh and went against its freedom to practice religion as protected by the First Amendment. In its request to the Supreme Court, the church argued that greater restrictions were placed on religious gatherings than on non-religious gatherings and thus were discriminatory.

Newsom imposed the rules following a surge of COVID-19 infections in the state. Counties are divided into color-coded tiers as part of the state’s system of tracking infection rates. The tiers have distinct guidelines with regard to the rate of increase in infections. Indoor religious services are prohibited in purple tier counties as they have a high risk level, with the rate of infection being more than 8 percent.

This is the Supreme Court’s second decision regarding pandemic guidelines for churches in a span of two weeks, and it has asked that the present case be further considered in light of the first decision. In Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, the court banned the enforcement of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s restrictions regarding attendance limits on places of worship in the state. It ruled that the restrictions amounted to discrimination since they were relaxed for other social gatherings. The court’s 5-4 ruling in favor of the churches reflected its new conservative majority.