Bipartisan bill seeks to shield houses of worship

Leaders from more than 30 Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and other faith groups gathered on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to urge passage of the Right to Worship Act, a bill designed to protect religious services from the interference of protesters.

Speaking to reporters, the bill’s House sponsors, Democrat Tom Suozzi of Long Island and Republican Brad Knott of North Carolina, said the legislation is intended to balance potentially conflicting elements of the First Amendment.

The challenge is to mesh our “constitutional rights between the right to free speech and the right to worship. These are two very fundamental parts of what makes America a fantastic place to live,” Suozzi said. “We have got to balance these two ideas together.”

The bill would make it unlawful, under penalty of a civil fine, for anyone to knowingly disrupt or impede a scheduled religious service by engaging “in a course of conduct that substantially affects interstate commerce” within 100 feet of the entrance of a house of worship.

The bill also creates a right for anyone whose religious service is so disrupted to sue in court.

“If there’s a civil action that can be brought, it will make the antagonizers, the harassers, the people who don’t want to peaceably protest think twice,” Knott told JNS.

Jewish groups have sought greater federal and local protections for houses of worship as a result of anti-Israel protests and attacks against synagogues in the wake of Oct. 7.

Anti-Israel protest groups frequently target synagogues hosting what the protest organizers describe as “real estate sales” events offering property in Israel, including in Judea and Samaria. Those events are frequently put on by groups like Nefesh B’nefesh, which promotes aliyah to Israel.

For centuries, rabbinic law has regarded moving to Israel as a religious obligation.

JNS asked Suozzi and Knott if Jewish organizations would have to ask courts to determine that making aliyah was a religious observance protected under the law or if those events fall outside the scope of a protected “scheduled religious service.”

Suozzi said he expects there will be litigation around that issue and others.

“The bill really focuses heavily on religious services, so that’ll be a real question and a real challenge as to whether or not that will withstand the constitutional challenge,” Suozzi said. “That’s why we’ve spent so much time speaking to constitutional experts about this process.”

Some local officials have been less than fully supportive.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in January that while pro-Hamas chants from protesters at a synagogue in Queens was “wrong,” a Nefesh B’nefesh event at Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue in November was a “violation of international law,” according to his spokesperson.

Knott said one reason he is backing the legislation is that worshippers currently have no legal remedy if local prosecutors decline to press charges against protesters who violate existing laws protecting houses of worship. He cited a recent case in which protesters stormed a church in St. Paul, Minn.

In regard to aliyah events, Knott said the bill is deliberately narrow.

“Within the buffer zone, if you hold a sign that says ‘Israel do better,’ that’s perfectly consistent with this law,” the North Carolina Republican said. “If I grabbed a worshiper by the lapel pin and said, ‘You’re committing whatever crime’ you allege, that is a disruption that’s not sanctioned with this bill.”

“We were not trying to cast a wide net,” Knott said. “It’s a focused net where people use an organized, established house of worship to target specific people.”

The Jewish and other faith groups backing the legislation include the Jewish Federations of North America, Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, Agudath Israel of America, US Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Association of Evangelicals, Hindu American Foundation, Islamic Society of North America and United Sikhs.

Eric Fingerhut, CEO of Federation, described the $1 billion cost that American Jews now pay for security at their religious institutions.

“Our synagogues know, and our worshippers know that they are under attack and that they have to be safe and secure,” he said.

The House went into an early recess on Wednesday, meaning that the bill will not come up in the lower chamber before the midterm elections in November.

Suozzi said he hopes there may be more activity in the Senate, where Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) have sponsored the bill’s companion version.

“I’m really hoping that we can convince the Senate, who’s going to be in session for another three weeks, to pay attention to this now,” Suozzi said. “I think that we can get the speaker to pay attention to this once we come back, because I think it’s something that he was paying attention to and asked Knott to work on this, specifically.”