The Alabama House of Representatives on Tuesday voted through a bill that would make it a felony to disrupt a worship service.
House Bill 363 by State Representative Gregory Barnes, R-Jasper, filed the bill shortly after a protest disrupted a church service in Minnesota last month, leading to the arrests of several protestors and former CNN anchor Don Lemon.
“I think people want to make sure our places of worship—which is covering all of them—are safe,” Barnes said. “And we don’t want intrusion, riot, issues. Anytime you have children, you have elderly, women, etc.—there’s always an opportunity for something bad to happen. We want to prevent that. We want to make sure that people are put on notice; they know that if they do this, there’s a high probability that something bad for them could be the result.”
Democrats filibustered the bill, among others, speaking out for an hour against the day’s calendar and an additional 40 minutes on this particular bill before the Republican supermajority voted to end debate and advance the bill. It pass 75-29 along party lines.
“In Alabama, we understand that places of worship are to be respected and that any effort to disturb them is totally unacceptable,” said Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville. “After seeing what recently happened in St. Paul, Minnesota, it is clear that our state needs additional protections to ensure every Alabamian can practice their faith in peace and security.”
The bill would create the crime of “disruption of a worship service,” a Class C Felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Subsequent offenses would come with a five-year mandatory minimum prison sentence.
The law relies on existing state legal definitions of “riot,” “disorderly conduct” and “harassment.” Intentionally entering a church during a worship service to riot, participate in disorderly conduct or harass individual churchgoers would be a violation of the law.
“Disorderly conduct” includes “mak(ing) unreasonable noise” or “disturb(ing) any lawful assembly or meeting of persons.”
The law also prevents demonstrators from blocking ingress or egress to the church.
