Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-1143_3f14.pdf
Page Number: 2

2 

DR. A. v. HOCHUL 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

vaccines  because  they  were  developed  using  cell  lines  de-
rived from aborted children.  Pet. for Cert. 8.  Ordered to 
choose between their jobs and their faith, petitioners sued
in the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of New 
York,  claiming  that  the  State’s  vaccine  mandate  violated 
the  Free  Exercise  Clause.    The  District  Court  agreed  and 
issued a preliminary injunction.  ___ F. Supp. 3d ___, ___, 
2021 WL 4734404, *8 (Oct. 12, 2021).  The Court of Appeals 
reversed.  We  the  Patriots  USA,  Inc.  v.  Hochul,  17  F. 4th 
266 (CA2 2021) (per curiam); We the Patriots USA, Inc. v. 
Hochul, 17 F. 4th 368 (CA2 2021) (per curiam).  This Court 
then denied petitioners’ emergency application to reinstate 
the injunction, which three of us would have granted.  See 
Dr. A., 595 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 1).  Since then, “every
Petitioner except one has been fired, forced to resign, lost
admitting  privileges,  or  been  coerced  into  a  vaccination.”
Pet. for Cert. 13–14, and n. 10. 

Petitioners  now  ask  us  to  review  the  Court  of  Appeals’ 
decision  vacating  the  District  Court’s  preliminary  injunc-
tion.  I  would  grant  the  petition.   We  have  held  that  a 
“law . . . lacks general applicability if it prohibits religious 
conduct while permitting secular conduct that undermines 
the government’s asserted interests in a similar way.” Ful-
ton v. Philadelphia, 593 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (slip op., at 6). 
Yet  there  remains  considerable  confusion  over  whether  a 
mandate, like New York’s, that does not exempt religious 
conduct  can  ever  be  neutral  and  generally  applicable  if  it 
exempts secular conduct that similarly frustrates the spe-
cific interest that the mandate serves.  Three Courts of Ap-
peals  and  one  State  Supreme  Court  agree  that  such  re-
quirements  are  not  neutral  or  generally  applicable  and 
therefore  trigger  strict  scrutiny.1    Meanwhile,  the  Second 
—————— 

1 See Monclova Christian Academy v. Toledo-Lucas Cty. Health Dept., 
984 F. 3d 477, 482 (CA6 2020); Midrash Sephardi, Inc. v. Surfside, 366