Following the infiltration and disruption of a worship service at a Baptist church by anti-ICE protestors in Minneapolis last month, state lawmakers in Alabama have put forward a bill that would make it a felony punishable by prison time to disrupt a church service or block others from entering one.

House Bill 363, which was introduced last month, would make it a felony if a person “knowingly” enters a “church building with the intent to disrupt the worship service” and either “engages in an unlawful protest, riot, or disorderly conduct inside the church building” or “otherwise engages in harassment of any individual participant in the worship service; or obstructs the ingress or egress to the church building or church property.”

Republican state Rep. Greg Barnes, who sponsored the legislation, stated that the need for the measure is rooted in the constitutional right to freedom of religious worship. “No one has the right to disrupt a church service and infringe on their fellow citizens’ right to worship freely,” he insisted. “In Alabama, we are not going to sit by and allow crazy people to intimidate our women and children in our churches. We simply will not tolerate it.”

The bill was introduced in response to an incident in Minneapolis on January 18, when a group of protestors infiltrated a worship service at Cities Church and interrupted Senior Pastor Jonathan Parnell, demanding that another pastor of the church, who also serves as a director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), remove ICE officers from Minneapolis. The protestors then gathered in the center of the church and screamed slogans such as “ICE out,” “hands up, don’t shoot” and “justice for Renee Good.” Some of the protestors shouted provocations at churchgoers and harassed those trying to leave. When asked to leave by the senior pastor, the protestors refused and continued to shout slogans for 20 minutes.

The Trump administration’s Justice Department has since pressed charges against nine of the protestors for violating the federal FACE Act, which prohibits interfering with a person seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.

But as legal experts like Eric Johnston, who serves as founder and president of the Southeast Law Institute, are pointing out, state laws like Alabama’s HB 363 add an additional layer of deterrence against would-be disrupters of religious services.

“The [HB 363] draft that we have [makes interfering with a worship service] a class D felony. That’s the lowest felony. That would be maybe a year in prison. A second or subsequent offenses would be a class C felony, which could be up to 10 years in prison plus fines,” he explained during “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Monday. “And we 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 give the attorney general the ability to enforce the law.”

Johnston went on to contend that the FACE Act and state laws like Alabama’s HB 363 are vitally important in an era of widespread hostility and violence being perpetrated against churches.

“[I]n Minnesota, if it hadn’t been for the FACE Act, … simple trespass laws might be the only thing that could be applied, and the penalties [for] those [are] very, very nominal,” he observed. “… [N]ow that we know the way the culture and the society is going, we can expect there to be [obstructive] demonstrations around churches. I mean, 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 have seen grow during the Biden administration and exist right now.”

As for the claim that the Alabama bill would put a freeze on free speech rights within church worship, Johnston emphasized that the free exercise of religion takes precedence in the context of a church service.

“The First Amendment activity in churches is free exercise of religion, not speech,” he underscored. “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. You know, in the old days we heard [people insist], ‘If it stays within the four walls of the church, it’s okay. Just don’t bring it out on the street.’ Well, the church brings these issues out on the street and ministers to people and takes a voice in the culture, and that is what brings [protestors] inside the church, because they object to the position the church is taking. I just want to be sure that the church is protected when those days come, because surely they will come.”

HB 363 is currently under consideration by the Alabama House’s Judiciary Committee.