Case 6:22-cv-06486-JLS Document 56 Filed 12/29/22 Page 2 of 36
citizens to an impossible choice: Forfeit your First Amendment right to gather for religious worship or forfeit your Second Amendment right to armed self-defense.” Id.
Ample Supreme Court precedent addressing the individual’s freedoms under the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution dictate that New York’s new place of worship exclusion is unconstitutional. As in Hardaway, the State fails the Second Amendment test set forth in Bruen. And it fares no better with respect to Plaintiffs’ claims under the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment. Thus, and for the further reasons set forth below, Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction enjoining Defendants’ enforcement of this place of worship exclusion is granted.
BACKGROUND
Pastor Michael Spencer filed this lawsuit on November 3, 2022, joined by His Tabernacle Family Church, Inc. (the “Church”). Dkt. 1. Plaintiffs sue three Defendants in their official capacities, namely, the superintendent of the New York State Police and the District Attorneys of Chemung County and Tompkins County. See id.
Pastor Spencer, who is licensed under New York law to carry a concealed firearm, “believes that, as the Church’s pastor, he has a moral and a religious duty to take reasonable measures to protect the safety of his congregation.” Id. at ¶¶ 41–42. Consistent with his “view of the Christian scriptures and what they say about a pastor’s role,” he “regularly carried a concealed firearm on the Church’s New York
2
