The Satanic Temple claimed that Texas abortion laws infringed on their “rituals,” but the judge dismissed the suit for being filed in “bad faith.”
A federal judge in the Southern District of Texas has dismissed a lawsuit filed by The Satanic Temple (TST), calling their claims “willfully inadequate and deficient.”
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of “Ann Doe,” stems from TST’s claims that Texas abortion laws are preventing its members from performing their abortion “rituals.”
Lawyers on behalf of the complainant stated, “The abortion ritual requires an abortion; and affirms [Doe’s] religious subscription to TST’s Third and Fifth Tenets.”
Judge Charles Eskridge in Houston saw the case differently.
Eskridge called the complaint “spare and unusually cryptic” and explained that TST did not give sufficient information on how Texas law had a direct effect on their “belief structure.”
Providing numerous points of dissolution with TST’s claims, Eskridge continued on to explain that the “supposed ‘religious statutes’ aren’t specified or explained in any way. Neither are ‘the Seven Tenets’ or ‘the ritual.’”
The defendant in the case is Cecile Young, executive commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. She sought to dismiss this case, as she argued it lacked standing because the complaint failed to state a claim.
Young argued that the complaint should be dismissed also on the grounds of sovereign immunity, as it applies to state officials.
“Young argues that the third amended complaint is so devoid of explanation that Plaintiffs fail to demonstrate that any exception to sovereign immunity applies,” Eskridge said. “Plaintiffs don’t respond to this argument in any meaningful way.”
He went on to explain that it is not up to the court to “theorize what the best argument in this regard might be, or to imagine how they might be connected to facts that haven’t been pleaded.”
Eskridge continued this line of reasoning for the dismissal, stating that it is “unknown” how Young is involved in the enforcement of the complaint in the case at all. He asked in response, “How, when, why, and in what way did she apply them to Plaintiffs?”
Read more at: thetexan.news