Alabama mulls bill to make disrupting church services a felony
Quick Summary
- Alabama lawmakers consider a bill to make disrupting church services a felony.
- House Bill 363 would classify such disruptions as a Class C felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
- The bill follows a protest incident at a church in Minnesota where services were interrupted.
Alabama lawmakers are considering a bill that, if passed, would make disrupting worship services a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The Alabama House of Representatives might soon vote on House Bill 363, which would make disrupting a church service a Class C felony.
According to the bill, a person “commits the crime of disruption of a worship service” if they “knowingly” enter a “church building with the intent to disrupt the worship service” and either “engages in an unlawful protest, riot, or disorderly conduct inside the church building” or “otherwise engages in harassment of any individual participant in the worship service; or obstructs the ingress or egress to the church building or church property.”
If an individual receives “a second or subsequent violation, the individual shall be guilty of a Class C felony and shall serve a mandatory minimum of five years imprisonment.”
Introduced last month and sponsored by Republican state Rep. Greg Barnes, HB 363 was approved by a House committee last week and is expected to be taken up by the House soon.
“No one has the right to disrupt a church service and infringe on their fellow citizens’ right to worship freely,” Barnes said, as quoted by the Alabama Political Reporter.
“In Alabama, we are not going to sit by and allow crazy people to intimidate our women and children in our churches. We simply will not tolerate it.”
The proposed legislation came in response to a protest held last month at Cities Church of St. Paul, Minnesota, in which several people disrupted a worship service to protest one of the pastors being tied to a local U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office. One protester blocked parents from accessing their children, and a churchgoer was injured while attempting to flee, according to CBS News affiliate KARE.
According to the official indictment, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, the church protesters engaged in “a coordinated take-over style attack,” which included “acts of oppression, intimidation, threats, interference, and physical obstruction.”
“As a result of defendants’ conduct, the pastor and congregation were forced to terminate the Church’s worship service, congregants fled the Church building out of fear for their safety, other congregants took steps to implement an emergency plan, and young children were left to wonder, as one child put it, if their parents were going to die,” claimed the indictment.
According to prosecutors, protesters interrupted the sermon with “loud declarations” that included chants like “ICE Out!” and “Stand up, fight back!” as well as yells and the blowing of whistles.
Some have defended the actions of the Cities Church demonstrators, arguing they were protected by the First Amendment. Others have said the protest violated the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which protects houses of worship from physical intimidation.
