Thu Jun 1, 2023 – 6:34 pm EDT
(LifeSiteNews) – A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has revived a legal challenge of Maine’s refusal to allow religious exemptions for COVID-19 vaccine mandates, chastising a lower court’s decision to dismiss the constitutional challenge by a group of healthcare workers.
The case, which has been ongoing since 2021, was snubbed last year by the U.S. Supreme Court, allowing the mandate and the lawsuits to continue. More recently, federal Judge Jon Levy had dismissed the plaintiffs’ case that the mandate violated their constitutional rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, but last week the 1st Circuit panel reversed him (while upholding his dismissal of lesser claims).
“[W]e conclude that the plaintiffs’ complaint states claims for relief under the Free Exercise and Equal Protection Clauses, as it is plausible, based on the plaintiffs’ allegations and in the absence of further factual development, that the Mandate treats comparable secular and religious activity dissimilarly without adequate justification,” the panel ruled.
“We conclude that it is plausible, in the absence of any factual development, that the Mandate falls in this category, based on the complaint’s allegations that the
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