After the leaked Dobbs draft, radical abortion activists are threatening to disrupt Catholic Masses. Federal law protects worshippers — if Biden’s DOJ will enforce it.
After the leaked Dobbs draft, radical abortion activists are threatening to disrupt Catholic Masses. Federal law protects worshippers -- if Biden’s DOJ will enforce it.
W ill the country’s second Catholic president direct his Department of Justice to protect Catholic Mass–goers this Sunday from the thuggery of abortion zealots? It’s a little-known fact that they are protected from such disruption by a federal civil-rights law. Will President Biden — who will be attending Mass himself — choose to ignore it?
Several pro-abortion groups are calling for demonstrations at Catholic churches across the country this Sunday — Mother’s Day — in protest of the leaked draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that would strike down Roe v. Wade. The group Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights will kick off a “week of action” to protest the not-yet-final Supreme Court opinion with “actions outside of churches” on Sunday. But the threat extends to the interior of churches, too. Militants calling themselves “Ruth Sent Us,” after the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, have denounced the Supreme Court as “corrupt and illegitimate.” It wants its followers to “stand at or in a local Catholic Church” on Sunday. “Whether you’re a ‘Catholic for Choice’, ex-Catholic, of other or no faith, recognize that six extremist Catholics set out to overturn Roe,” the group tweeted.
Neither group mentions to its followers on Twitter or TikTok that the planned protests, by targeting private citizens at their houses of worship, are likely to violate a federal civil-rights law used for decades against anti-abortion protesters. The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994 (FACE) defines as “prohibited activities” whoever “by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person because that person is or has been, or in order to intimidate such person or any other person or any class of persons from, obtaining or providing reproductive health services” or “any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.” It also prohibits anyone who “intentionally damages or destroys the property of a facility, or attempts to do so, because such facility provides reproductive health services, or intentionally damages or destroys the property of a place of religious worship.”
Of course, Congress provided that nothing in the statute shall be construed to “prohibit any expressive conduct (including peaceful picketing or other peaceful demonstration) protected from legal prohibition by the First Amendment.” If you break this law, you could face severe financial penalties. FACE authorizes the attorney general to seek injunctive relief, statutory or compensatory damages, and civil penalties against individuals who engage in conduct that violates the act. Until now, the question of disruption to places of worship hasn’t really arisen. In the late 1990s, when I worked in the office of the Justice Department tasked with enforcing FACE and other civil-rights laws, the law was used as a weapon against pro-life demonstrators. I asked not to be assigned any of those cases. There was no shortage of them. Since the signing of FACE by President Clinton, the federal government has obtained temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions, won orders of civil contempt for violations of these injunctions, imposed civil fines, and in one case even secured criminal contempt against an abortion protester. No investigations have been brought based on protests that targeted houses of worship.
The leaking of the draft Dobbs opinion has changed everything. A Catholic parish church in Boulder, Colo., was immediately defaced with pro-abortion slogans. The door of Sacred Heart of Mary Parish was spray-painted with the slogan “My Body My Choice.” The parish was also vandalized last September with numerous spray-painted slogans, including “Jesus [Loves] Abortion,” “Bans off our bodies,” and “No Wire Hangers Ever.”
Make no mistake about it: Ruth Sent Us is a sinister outfit. In collaboration with Vigil for Democracy, it generated and posted a Google Maps graphic pinning what it claims are the home addresses of Justices Barrett, Kavanaugh, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Roberts. Vigil for Democracy labeled the map “Extremist Justices,” adding, “Where the six Christian fundamentalist Justices issue their shadow docket rulings.” They don’t mention that in Virginia, where three of the six justices live, protesting outside a private home is illegal.
Incredibly, when asked about planned protests at the private residences of the Court’s six conservative justices, White House press secretary Jen Psaki refused to condemn them. Instead, referring to the leaked draft opinion, Psaki said, “I think the president’s view is that there is a lot of passion, a lot of fear, a lot of sadness from many, many people across the country about what they saw in that document.” Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network was spot-on when she said that such an abdication of responsibility is disgusting. It might also be dangerous.
So the question now is: Will that same president “share the concern” of protesters disrupting the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass while he himself stands in line, in a very well-protected church, to receive Holy Communion?