DON’T TURN HOUSES OF WORSHIP INTO SHIELDS FOR SETTLEMENT SALES

I urge you to oppose H.R. 10052 and S. 5289, the “Right to Worship Act.” This bill uses protection of religious worship as the basis for a much broader restriction on protest. Its definition of a “religious service” reaches beyond worship or prayer to a “class, or other event” where people supposedly “otherwise exercise” religion - language vague enough to shield political or commercial activity simply because it occurs at a religious site. That concern goes directly to the origins of this legislation. Supporters have specifically pointed to protests against Israeli real-estate events held at U.S. synagogues, where property in illegal West Bank settlements was marketed or sold. Those were commercial land-sale events, not worship services. The cited events were held on Monday and Tuesday nights, not on Shabbat and not in conjunction with religious services. Congress must not allow a synagogue, church, mosque, or other religious building to become a protest-free zone for unrelated political or commercial activity. Marketing property in illegally occupied territory does not become religious worship because it happens inside a synagogue, and protesting that activity is not an attack on Judaism. Worshippers absolutely should be protected from violence, threats, and genuine obstruction. But that does not require giving law enforcement a vague new federal power that can criminalize lawful First Amendment protest. Vote NO on H.R. 10052 / S. 5289. Do not cosponsor or advance these bills, and oppose any attempt to attach them to other legislation.