Public figures never had a problem with mass assembly.

That's why the Governor of California wined and dined at the French Laundry restaurant in violation of his own COVID protocols at the height of the pandemic. Or why public figures encouraged people to attend large protests. It's pretty obvious in retrospect that they were playing fast and loose with the science for entirely political reasons.

What political goals do you suppose they were trying to accomplish by restricting public gathering establishments? Is the governor of California secretly a Republican trying to help create right wing talking points?

Sure, that doesn't give you license to play fast and loose rejecting science for entirely political reasons.

Individuals are fallible, politicians are hypocritical, news at 11. Rather than aim for consistent application of rules and justice, your movement seems to have overextrapolated these failings into a rejection of having any kind of society in the first place.

I think people view it more as an irreparable shattering of the social contract. Society exists, but the rules just don't matter. Many people have become strict conflict theorists, to borrow a term from sociology.

>A church is literally a place for mass assembly, while a liquor store or dispensary can easily be configured for social distancing, i.e. only let up to N customers in the store at a time depending on the size.

This logic makes 0 sense. Churches have the same capabilities to reconfigure, if not more most of them are just one big room. The same capabilities to limit patrons if it was required. They could split services and space the people out, or only let in N numbers of people as you suggested

It does not make 0 sense.

A liquor store or dispensary functions just fine with as low as 3-5 customers in the store. A church with only 3-5 patrons allowed at a time is effectively closed for most purposes.

It is literally a gathering space.