4 states cracking down on worship service disruptions after the Cities Church storming

By Samantha Kamman, Christian Post Reporter Thursday, May 28, 2026

2. Louisiana

Louisiana passed two laws intended to shield congregations from similar disruptions. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed two bills in May — House Bill 294 and House Bill 68.

“In Louisiana, we are committed to maintaining the right to worship without interference, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to safeguarding religious liberty,” Landry said in a May 18 statement. “With the signing of these two bills, those protections just became stronger.”

Sponsored by Rep. Gabe Firment, HB 294 strengthens existing trespassing laws and makes it easier for churches, synagogues and other houses of worship to remove trespassers from their property.

The other bill, HB 68, sponsored by Rep. Laurie Schlegel, expands the legal definition of disturbing the peace to include disrupting worship services.

According to HB 294, any religious leader, security team member “or person who is lawfully on the premises of a church or other place of worship” can request that a trespasser or disruptive individual leave the premises. If the request is refused, the law allows people lawfully present at the facility to use “reasonable and apparently necessary force” to remove the trespasser.

One critic of HB 294, Democratic Rep. Edmond Jordan, told Firment the bill could be used to target members of certain racial groups.

“If somebody of the opposite race comes into the church and a member of the church is offended by that, and says that they are trespassing — they’re not being disruptive — but they determine that they’re trespassing and they ask them to leave, now they’re just there to worship, you don’t see your bill opening that up?” Jordan asked.

Firment dismissed such situations as “far-fetched scenarios,” but Jordan argued that lawmakers have “to take into consideration all of those scenarios.”