Case 6:22-cv-06486-JLS Document 56 Filed 12/29/22 Page 16 of 36
prohibited, while the same carrying in numerous other circumstances remains permissible. For these reasons, the place of worship exclusion is not a “neutral” law.
Nor is it generally applicable. The general applicability requirement prohibits the government from, “in a selective manner[,] impos[ing] burdens only on conduct motivated by religious belief.” Church of the Lukumi Bablu Aye, Inc., 508 U.S. at 543. A government policy “will fail the general applicability requirement if it ‘prohibits religious conduct while permitting secular conduct that undermines the government’s asserted interests in a similar way,’ or if it provides ‘a mechanism for individualized exemptions.’” Kennedy, 142 S.Ct. at 2422 (quoting Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 141 S.Ct. 1868, 1876 (2021)). See also Cent. Rabbinical Cong. of U.S. & Canada, 763 F.3d at 197 (A law is “not generally applicable if it is substantially underinclusive such that it regulates religious conduct while failing to regulate secular conduct that is at least as harmful to the legitimate government interests purportedly justifying it”). Here, the State’s prohibition on concealed carry “was not applied in an evenhanded, across-the-board way.” Kennedy, 142 S.Ct. at 2423. It specifically targets carrying of firearm motivated by religious beliefs while permitting concealed carry in relation to numerous secular activities.
The State argues that Plaintiffs fail to demonstrate that that the statute is not a neutral law of general applicability because they “largely ignore the existence of subsections e(2)(a)–(b) and (d)–(t), which prohibit the carrying of firearms in a variety of other sensitive locations including, but not limited to, schools, public
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