Court Opinion

ID: 9816434
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 03:07:48.017468+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:49.531204
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. GIBSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result and in the judgment.
I concur in the judgment, which denies the motion for a preliminary injunction and leaves open the possibility of further consideration of the issues on the motion for permanent injunction.
I have, however, some reservations about language in the court’s opinion and am of the thought that these issues should be ventilated in the hearing still to come. The term “Assembly Hall” seems on its face to include a hall where people assemble for religious purposes. In my view the rejection of the church’s application therefore demonstrates approval of secular assemblies and rejection of religious assemblies. Nor is the effect of the discrimination mitigated because the church could have operated elsewhere in the city; the church’s mission, to “serve the poor and disadvantaged in downtown,” can only be accomplished downtown. I concur with the understanding that these issues should be open for further consideration at the permanent injunction stage, rather than being barred by anything in the court’s decision today.