In the aftermath of last Sunday's storming of Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, a nonpartisan civil liberties group says that the First Amendment does not protect protesters who interrupt church services, refuting claims made by political commentator Don Lemon.
In a post written by one of its board members, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which specializes in First Amendment cases and represents clients from a wide range of backgrounds and political beliefs, stressed that houses of worship are not public forums and that entering a church to disrupt a service is not a protected form of protest.
Board member Samuel J. Abrams clarified that the First Amendment protects speech in traditional public areas such as parks and sidewalks but does not extend those protections to private property where the owners have not consented to expressive activity.
"There is no First Amendment right to enter a house of worship and engage in conduct that effectively shuts down a religious service, even as part of a protest. Nor does anybody have the right to remain on private property after being asked by its owner or authorized representatives to leave," Abrams wrote.
"The First Amendment offers its strongest protection to speech in traditional public forums — streets, sidewalks, and parks — while also protecting freedom of association, religious exercise, and freedom of conscience. A society committed to free expression depends not only on protecting speech, but on maintaining a clear delineation between protected speech, on the one hand, and unprotected civil or criminal conduct on the other."
Several demonstrators associated with left-wing groups like Racial Justice Network and Black Lives Matter stormed the worship service of the Southern Baptist congregation on Jan. 18 to demand that one of its pastors step down because he leads a local ICE field office. The Sunday service ended early after demonstrators screamed at churchgoers.
First Amendment doesn’t protect church disruptions: rights group | Church & Ministries
