Stories & Opinions Worth Knowing but Maybe Not Quite Threadworthy 8/22

[SVPete]

Excluding Farmer's Market Vendor for Refusing to Host Same-Sex Weddings on Its Land Violates Free Exercise Clause

https://reason.com/volokh/2023/08/21/excluding-farmers-market-vendor-for-refusing-to-host-same-sex-weddings-on-its-land-violates-free-exercise-clause/

From Country Mill Farms, LLC. V. City of East Lansing, decided today by Judge Paul Maloney (W.D. Mich.):

The City of East Lansing requires vendors for its Farmer's Market to comply with the City's public policy against discrimination. Country Mill Farms offers to rent a portion of its property [which is not connected with the Farmer's Market] for weddings. Country Mill Farms, however, will not rent the property for same-sex weddings. Because of this general business practice, the City denied Country Mills Farm's vendor application for the 2017 East Lansing Farmers Market. Country Mill Farms and its owner, Stephen Tennes, sued….
...
Defendant relied in the revised 2017 vendor guidelines to deny CMF's application to participate in the ELFM. The stated reason for the denial was the Plaintiffs' decision not to rent the venue for same-sex weddings. Plaintiffs' decision was motivated by religious beliefs. Plaintiffs were forced to choose between their religious beliefs and a government benefit for which CMF was eligible….
...
A law also lacks general applicability if it prohibits religious conduct while permitting secular conduct that undermines the government's asserted interests in a similar way." Fulton. Under the Free Exercise Clause, the government "cannot in a selective manner impose burdens only on conduct motivated by religious belief" while failing "to prohibit nonreligious conduct" that undermines the interests protected by the law. …
...
A law burdening religious practice that is not neutral or not of general applicability" is subject to strict scrutiny review … [i.e.,] "must be justified by a compelling governmental interest and must be narrowly tailored to advance that interest." … To meet the strict scrutiny analysis, the government cannot rely on the general interest advanced through enforcement of the law; rather, the government must show its compelling interest in the denial of the exception….

It took 5 or 6 years to try this case and get a district court decision?! Will the owners of Country Mill Farms still be alive when the State of Michigan loses or gives up on appealing this decision?

[SVPete]

Preliminary injunction in Alabama gender care for minors law vacated

https://hotair.com/david-strom/2023/08/22/preliminary-injunction-in-alabama-gender-care-for-minors-law-vacated-n572718

The 11th Circuit Court vacated a preliminary injunction against an Alabama law that made using puberty blockers or hormone treatments on minors illegal.

Alabama’s Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act was passed last year and was almost immediately enjoined by a judge. The basis of the injunction was that prohibiting parents from certain medical decisions for their children violated their constitutional rights and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. The lower court agreed with this contention and prevented the law from going into effect.

The 11th Circuit held that the injunction was invalid. Not just invalid, but based on very flimsy legal reasoning.
...
There are a number of legal infirmities the Circuit Court identified. First and foremost is that they disagreed with the District Court that the case was likely to succeed on its merits. Parents do not have an unlimited right to make decisions for their children, including medical decisions. And especially medical decisions based upon experimental treatments, even if physicians believe that the treatment is warranted.