“Protecting religious freedom must not come at the expense of other constitutional rights,” the groups explained.

“The Right to Worship Act,” sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and cosponsored by Republicans and Democrats alike, seeks to “protect” religious buildings and people inside them by limiting the First Amendment right to protest in nearby areas.

The bill prohibits activities within 100 feet of a house of worship that include actions that are “knowingly disrupting the scheduled religious service” or “impeding people from participating at [a] scheduled religious service.”

  • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
    631·
    1 day ago

    Want to stop this? Get the Satanic Temple to state that they consider any abortion clinic part of their rituals, and say it’s covered under this law.

    • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
      13·
      1 day ago

      While I think that CoS or TST could absolutely fit the criteria of the bill to abortion clinics under definitions B and E, the way it’s worded means it would also need to fit with part F (regularly scheduled service) and that will be slightly trickier. Not insurmountable but on the offchance this blatantly unconstitutional horseshit passes, might be good to have it figured out in advance!

      (B) House of worship - The term house of worship means a defined parcel of property or other space that religious adherents collectively recognize or religious leadership designates as a place to routinely or regularly gather to hold religious services.

      (E) Religious service - The term religious service includes any collective worship or prayer service, class, or other event, at which individuals congregate to worship, study, or otherwise exercise, their religion.

      (F) Scheduled religious service - The term scheduled religious service includes any religious service—

      (i) that is observably underway or imminently beginning or concluding, as evidenced by the gathering or dispersing of congregants at or by congregants approaching or leaving a house of worship;
      (ii) the date and time of which have been communicated to the defendant by law enforcement, by a representative of the house of worship, or through a prior judicial or administrative proceeding, or of which the defendant had actual knowledge; or
      (iii) follows a customary and regularly recurring schedule of which the defendant had actual knowledge.

      • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
        9·
        1 day ago

        Clinics have hours of operation that are published, just mail a flyer to the local sheriff and it’s all good

        • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 day ago

          I don’t think that would matter - it’s explicitly not required to publicly post the schedule, and it’s implied that LE knowledge is only incidentally beneficial. The issue I can see would revolve around the scheduled act of worship, as abortion appointments are not an act involving a congregation nor are they regularly (or for most definitions I’ve seen, irregularly) scheduled. You could manage it, but I suspect you’d need an actual lawyer to weigh in on exactly how to conduct the process so the argument would fall within the bounds covered by the bill.

          (2) Rules

          (A) Scheduled religious service - Nothing in this section shall require a house of worship to publish the schedule for a scheduled religious service on any publicly accessible medium.