“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.”
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.
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.Clinics have hours of operation that are published, just mail a flyer to the local sheriff and it’s all good
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.
Does this include the time when Trump had a congregation teargassed away from their church so he could use it for a photo op?
Sounds like immigrants could be safe from ICE if we just declare every residential building a religious one. On the other hand, you could also declare your drug or sex trafficking operation a church and carry on without police interference. Unless law enforcement is somehow less disruptive than unarmed protestors, which defeats the entire purpose of the law.
Churches already are bastions of CSA.
Protesting used to be intentionally disrupting to systems which was the point. Now it’s just a performative release valve.
I agree when it’s not coupled by union action/strikes causing economic shutdown. When so, it’s powerful marketing.
There’s a difference between a protest and a rally.
I mean not really. A rally is a protest. Rioting is a protest. Not eating meat is a protest. The point is disruption.
When the people cause real serious distractions the cops kick the shit out of us (and usually a bunch of innocent bystanders and journalists too), and I can’t get too mad at people needing some kind of release valve with how our country has gone to shit
You can’t change anything with getting the shit kicked out of you. Of course collectively striking or stopping the flow of money will also work, but people aren’t that committed to change.
Except a bunch of us got that shit kicking in 2020 (or 2011 or 1999) and nothing changed anyway
I hear what you’re saying about the general principle here and more or less agree, I’m just saying the specific history of how America has violently suppressed dissent previously plays a role in how Americans have been acting (or not acting) recently
“Sponsored by Ted Cruz”
That’s all that’s necessary for me. Drag it all the way down. He has almost never sponsored anything for my benefit.
Is this like when people run into a church and yell “GOD IS FAKE!” ?
Yes exactly, or stand outside protesting church csa
fash <—> cults
Grabs Daneaxe with malicious intent
I remember being a kid and walking to special service events where protestors were outside denouncing csa. On one hand, they didn’t factor into my decision to leave the church - you’re told they’re the devil and evidence the church is right and then you forget about them. Disruptions also made the service far more interesting. On the other hand, I would hate for the church to go uncontested. Imho this is kind of a nothingburger. Ofc on principle I vote protect the protests, but I don’t think I’d waste a lot of energy on this one.
