Last week, the Fifth U.S. filed a brief with the governor. Circuit Court of Appeals filed a brief last week challenging the June ruling by the U.S. District Court declaring the law unconstitutional. Two main points were argued in the brief: the original plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case, and the law did no violation of either the Equal Protection clause or the establishment clause of The First Amendment. U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves ruled that the law violated both constitutional provisions hours before it was due to go into effect. Attorneys for the governor used more than 400 pages, including appendices, to support their argument that the court has a long history protecting religious objections. The governor’s attorneys stated in their brief that accommodations for conscientious objectionors are deeply rooted within this nation’s history, tradition and culture. Attorneys for the plaintiffs who successfully sued to block the law stated that the new brief by the governor does not contain any new arguments, despite the fact that it is long. It’s not surprising that they repeated the same arguments they made before. “It’s not surprising that they repeated what they said before, especially if you have a stay motion,” Rob McDuff, an Attorney in Barber V. Bryant, which was one of two cases that challenged the state’s law. House Bill 1523 was signed by Bryant in April. It singles out three “sincerely held” religious beliefs that are worthy of protection. They are that marriage is between one man, one woman, and that people shouldn’t have sex outside of marriages. These beliefs would be protected from lawsuit if anyone refuses to marry-related services. Opponents claim that the law discriminates against gay, lesbian, and transgender people. Reeves was able to hear arguments in two lawsuits that sought to invalidate the law. They were Campaign for Southern Equality against Bryant and Barber contre Bryant. Both lawsuits argued that House Bill 1523 is unconstitutional as it violates both the Equal Protection Clause and the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment. These clauses prevent government from favoring one religion or one group of citizens above another. Reeves struck down House Bill 1523 just minutes before midnight on July 1. The next day, Attorney General Jim Hood released a press release stating that he didn’t support the law. Bryant filed a notice to appeal and a request to stay Reeves’s ruling a week later. Bryant was joined later by John Davis, a Department of Human Services defendant. Jonathan Mitchell and John Sauer, St. Louis lawyers, and Alliance Defending Freedom (an Arizona-based conservative Christian group) are representing the state officials pro bono. The state argued that forcing gays and lesbians to use the same-sex marriage services was similar to forcing doctors to perform abortions or conscientious objectors to serve in wars. Reeves disagreed. “Issuing a marriage licence to a gay couple does not mean that they will be forced to engage in armed combat or assist with an abortion. Matters of life or death are not subject to interpretation. “If movants really believe that providing services for LGBT citizens makes them ‘tinkering with the machinery of Death,’ then their animus is greater than anything seen in Romer Windsor or the marriage equality cases,” Reeves stated in his decision. Attorneys for the governor reexamined this argument in a brief last week. They stated that not all conscientious objections should receive equal weight. The reasoning of the district court is not valid. There are many valid and legal reasons why a legislature might choose not to protect certain conscientious scruples…. It is inexorable (and completely constitutional) that some conscientious suples will be given greater statutory protection than other,” the attorneys for the governor stated in the brief. It can be understood that the language regarding conscientious objections is a signal that the attorneys for governor want to go beyond the protection of objections to transgender people and same sex marriage to make a wider argument for religious and conscientious objectsor rights. The state submitted a 36-page reply to the U.S. District Court days before the June hearing. It contained 29 references to the terms “gay,”” “lesbian,”,” homosexual,” “same sex” and “gender identity” as well as 11 mentions about “abortion” but no mentions regarding contraception. The 419 pages of the governor’s brief last week contained 659 mentions either of “abortion” and “contraception”, but only 58 mentions of terms related to same-sex marriage and gender identity. This week is the deadline to file supporting briefs. The deadline for filing supporting briefs is later this week.