House Bill 363, sponsored by State Rep. Greg Barnes (R-Jasper), would make it a felony for anyone to enter church property with the intent to riot, harass or disrupt the service.
Southeast Law Institute president Eric Johnston, who helped draft the bill, said churches needed protection, especially after the events in Minnesota, where rioters disrupted services at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, to protest local Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.
"Immediately after the events in Minnesota, some of our proactive legislators wanted to do something. So a bill was drafted. I think it was a little bit weak. We've worked on a bill to expand how we can protect churches. That one bill is moving through the process now, and we expect to have another version of it moving through soon, maybe this week," Johnston said Monday on "Washington Watch with Tony Perkins."
Johnston said the bill would make the first offence a Class D felony, carrying up to a year in prison, and that subsequent offences would be a Class C felony, carrying up to 10 years, plus fines.
"We've included a provision to give a private right of action to church members who were injured or damaged, and the ability to have an injunction. And we also gave the attorney general the ability to enforce the law," he said.
"In Minnesota, if it hadn't been for the FACE Act, simple trespass laws might be the only thing that could have been applied, and the penalty in those [cases] is very nominal. We learned in the 1990s with the FACE Act, when it was used against those who were sidewalk counselors at abortion clinics, that you need a very strong law… Now that we know the way culture and society is going, we can expect there to be such demonstrations around churches. We all know that the church is the only thing that stands in the way of some of these very new cultural phenomena that we've seen grow in the Biden administration and exist right now."
In response to some of the bill's detractors arguing that it could hamper the free exercise of the First Amendment, Johnston said, "The First Amendment activity in churches is free exercise of religion, not speech. The speech rights of those who object to the position that the church takes are wrong. They need to respect what is going on in the church. In the old days, we heard about, if it takes place within the four walls of the church, it's OK. Just don't bring it out on the street. Well, the truth brings these issues out on the street and ministers to people and takes a voice in the culture. And that is what brings the people inside the church because they object to the position the church is taking. We need to ensure that the church is protected when those days come, because surely they will come."
HB363 advanced out of the House Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security on February 4. However, the following day, it was re-referred to the House Judiciary Committee for further consideration.
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