court has long recognized that the st amendment protects not only an individual's right to crap just the religion of his choice also the right to be free from the practice of religion altogether texas marriage law to issue here today leaps this principle because it is not as the public all the benefits of the marriage ceremony solely because they have chosen to axe to exercise their constitutional right to be free from the practice of religion but the court does not actually need to reach the merits of this claim today because the issue on appeal is more straightforward you are powerless allegations of discriminatory treatment possibly state a claim to really see that this case  district court improperly dismissed a punch to stop of the morning i apologize all right you may begin again i will start with the standing issue here today there are three reasons why  falling and rd this injury has already occurred or is certainly impending i want to ask you a question who are the intended beneficiaries of this statue of this statue your honor yeah i would have familiar with the facts and move on yes you are so could the plaintiffs in that case have pled an injury at the motion to dismiss stage where the petition for review stage without identifying the endangered species  associate general carter contractors versus city of jacksonville that discriminatory treatment under the law where a lot of wrecks a barrier that makes it more difficult for one group to receive the benefit for another group this is a prime injury we talk anything about prosecution how do you have any basis to complain about the risk of a class a misdemeanor charge where you have been sued anybody else if you there are a couple of reasons why we have a standing here based on the carrying out the discriminatory treatment and the discriminatory treatment is the injury that we allege here there are multiple magnussen in the statute for carrying out this this discriminatory treatment one is the criminal penalties the other for a couple of reasons the st is that most of the cases many of those cases deal with sovereign immunity which don't address the issues of traceability and redress ability the nd is that those cases the plaintiff there have not seen anyone really wanted to do it with my high school principal have standing to challenge the statute under the establishment clause no there are this is that this situation is different for a couple of reasons the st is that we are advocating  and here that makes it different because they do have a serious interest in gauging the condo prohibited by the statute and that is demonstrated by the fact they have actually completed c f i straining requires not only the training to become a secular are if it is based on their deeply held beliefs then that then that is true the issue here is that the lot discriminate based on deeply held secular believes which the th circuit recognise and reasons st the american legion and supreme court case is not political in this instance because this is not a public practice or case nd even if the american legion did apply that as an act intensive inquiry that should not have been result on a motion the american legion case was a case where the supreme court declined to strictly apply the women test and a st amendment case that dealt with a public monument that had religious symbolism and again this case is unique public practice or monument case what we have here is in laws that regulate it regulates surely private conduct it regulates private contact private marriage ceremonies between private individuals on private property this is not a public monument establishment clause problem as you understand it by deleting the st three some sections of the statute so the only mentions of religion are in a one for christian ministers a two for jewish rabbis and then a three for any other religious issue here your honor is we're not asking for any any religious organizations be deleted from the statue all we're asking is for secular couples to have an avenue to have a marriage ceremony that reflects their beliefs and which the couples to be able to participate in a marriage ceremony that reflects their beliefs which again the th circuit has recognized or extend it to religious beliefs and this is finally the last point i would like to address here is that good morning may it please the court heather hacker for the dallas county clerk texas's marriage solemn the zation law reflects two hundred years of tradition the law includes both religious and secular options and humanist couples are free to marry in texas in a ceremony that contains no religious overtones is of no constitutional concern that these options do not satisfy the plaintiffs and there is no legal basis for this court to rewrite texas law as the plaintiffs demand the district meritless claims here was correct the plaintiff's case suffers from a more fundamental threshold defect because they lack standing and like to make a few quick points on standing to follow up with some of the issues that the court highlighted just a minute ago  st even if plaintiffs alleged a sufficiently concrete injury there is a cause ation problem here because the plaintiffs sued only the dallas county clerk yet failed to allege that any member of i or couple wants to apply for a marriage license in dallas county there are two hundred and fifty four dollars counties in texas so even if the clerk would deny a humanist  marriage license based on their choice of song miser we don't know from the complaint that that's actually causing anyone injury but i would also point out that that's not clear from the statute statute only gives the clerk the duty to record the marriage the there is no duty under texas law for the clerk to investigate the credentials of the individual who signs the marriage license so there is no doubt there as report i'm saying that the statute does not give the clerk a duty to investigate it it seems to me that from reading the statutes together the fact that there would be a criminal penalty means that the investigative responsibility would go to the da who as the court has pointed court could bind only the dallas county clerk with an injunction against since we don't know from the complaint that there is anyone who would submit a marriage license to the dallas county clerk that injunction would be meaningless further even if a couple if even if there is a couple that would apply for and submit a marriage license in dallas county an injunction cannot redress the harm prosecution because it would not mind e t a s and because for the simple reason that if if the court and joined the clerk to record the marriage that doesn't stop the da from bringing charges for performing marriage outside the statute finally the type of relief that the plaintiffs are asking for here my opponent just mentioned that they are and they are basically asking for their own category here they're not arguing that they belong in either category that this that the statute creates they're not arguing they belong in the religious category they're not arguing that they belong in the civil official category they want their own category which is basically asking this court to rewrite the law and to that to respond to that argument i no standing for a taxpayer objecting to a religious tax exemption and wanting one of their own based on a philosophically unless the court has further questions about standing i'd like to move on to the m even if the court were to find that the plaintiffs have standing the district court was still correct in determining that they failed to state a claim and since i have limited time here i'm going to just focus on the establishment clause claiming the equal protection clause of course must the greatest questions to precedent shows that this is false st as the court is as the supreme court held yesterday and espinosa there is no argument under the establishment clause that a program a neutral program that gives a benefit to religion is unconstitutional now as we argued in our brief i think it makes more sense to view this if anything as an accommodation rather than a benefit but ultimately question doesn't really matter because this is a historic practice that is consistent with the establishment clause the supreme court in town of greece held that the establishment clause must be interpreted by reference to historical practices and understandings it rejected the idea that legislative prayer is only constitutional because it's historic instead clarifying that the establishment clause itself must be interpreted in light of history if the practice here was permitted contemporaneously with the establishment clause ratification or if there's a long history of allowing that it cannot be said that the establishment clause bars the practice in our brief we demonstrated the lengthy tradition in this country and in texas itself permitting religious officiants and state officials to samas marriages for purposes of state recognition and that tradition dates back hundreds of years the plaintiffs had no substantive response to this argument other than argu analysis of legal tradition requires discovery and expert testimony which is just dream onst demonstrably false as the supreme court's decision and has been as a yesterday illustrated's there the court engaged in lengthy historical analysis and did not cite to the record or the joint appendix it cited to original sources and scholarly articles which this court is also quite capable of doing the fact that plaintiffs really have no substantive response to that point i think is really decides the question here as american legion and town of greece made clear where a governmental religious practice is steeped in long tradition and recognize the important role that religion plays in many people's lives as the law issue here does it cannot be said that that practice via establishes religion or endorses religion in violation of the us i want to make one more note about the establishment clause here the district court arrived at the right justin ation but used the wrong road to get there by applying the lemon test a majority of the supreme court the six votes has rejected lemon in the context of displays symbols and practices and this court should explicitly recognize that and not apply lemon in this case however even if lemon does apply as we explained in our brief the law still meets the test because it has a clear secular purpose it doesn't have the primary effect of advancing religion and it does not involve entanglement moving on to the equal protection clause the only way that the plaintiffs can state a claim under the equal protection clause as if no reasonably conceivable state of facts can provide a rational basis for the law plaintiffs argue that the law is irrational because non religious officiants may not some eyes marriages but people who obtain online or nations can at this argument fails for two reasons st the plaintiffs appear to be judging these actually i let me let me back up the st point i would make is that as these as for the argument about these online ordinations this is a fact that is not alleged in the complaint the complaint contains no allegations about anyone else who is allowed to marriages so that's a primary point there but moving on to what i was saying in a nd ago the plaintiffs appear to judge these individuals who become ordained here in online source as somehow insincere or hypocritical but that just that kind of judge mental attitude is not appropriate for the state who's prohibited from pursing the sincerity or the substance of the religious beliefs of individuals texas does not root out all marriages performed by officiants deems insincere or not religious enough is a free exercise virtue not an establishment clause vice it goes back to the roots of the establishment clause in forbidding denominational preference the nd reason is that the law is clearly rational as the district court found it's based on the idea that marriage is an important commitment and that it should be a solemn occasion it should be a separate should be a ceremony that is a tradition that's reflected over hundreds of years of history and it also  the idea that either religious or civil authority should should songlines that ceremony just goes back to the idea that those those types of authorities are exercising authority or the couple now religious couple would believe that the religious authority has primary authority over them a couple without a religious commitment is subject to state authority and so it makes sense for those two categories to be allowed to dishonest marriages there's a simply no argument that this law is irrational and the plaintiffs are failed to state an equal protection claim as well if they could unless the court has any questions i'll wrap it up here the plaintiffs lack standing and their claim should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction but even if the court agrees that there allegations are sufficient for standing they are insufficient to state claims as the district court found either way the court should a against the injury here that is a life discriminatory treatment under the law and there are two mechanisms that the statute uses for posing this discriminatory treatment one is the clerk's conduct in accepting or rejecting license as signed by authorized