The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances, or FACE Act, of 1994 explicitly prohibits obstructing, injuring, intimidating, or interfering “with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.” But President Joe Biden flipped that on its head, using the FACE Act as a political weapon against people of faith peacefully praying in public, while real harassment of churches and pro-life Americans was blatantly ignored. President Donald Trump can change that.
Recently, the country witnessed the disruption of a Sunday service in St. Paul, Minnesota, when radical protesters entered a church, interfered with worship, and intimidated churchgoers who were targeted and harassed in a sacred space.
If the FACE Act means anything at all, it applies here.
A church is not a public square, and the First Amendment does not grant activists the right to storm a sanctuary in the middle of prayer. Federal law exists to stop exactly this. Indeed, the most essential founding document of our republic, the Constitution, explicitly protects Americans’ rights to worship.
On the other hand, as the Supreme Court ruled in 2022 in the Dobbs decision, “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion.”
Yet under the Biden administration, taking the lives of millions of unborn babies was raised to a sacrament while peaceful pro-lifers were surveilled, prosecuted, and in some cases terrorized by federal authorities for simply praying outside of abortion facilities.
The most egregious example is the case of Mark Houck, a Catholic father of seven and 40 Days for Life volunteer whose home was raided by 25 armed FBI agents, terrifying his wife and children. Though the Department of Justice charged him with two felonies and threatened him with prison, a jury of his peers acquitted him completely.
Mr. Houck’s “crime” was defending his young son from an aggressive Planned Parenthood escort who confronted the 12-year-old with ridicule and profanity. The government’s case collapsed, but the message was clear: dissent from the Biden administration’s radical pro-abortion orthodoxy, and the full weight of the federal government will come down on you.
The so-called Catholic president turned a blind eye to churches that were vandalized, religious pregnancy centers that were firebombed, and worshippers who were harassed across the country. Instead, the Biden administration elevated radical gender ideology over Easter, allowed federal law enforcement to label traditional Catholics as possible extremists, and presided over a period in which bias-driven attacks against Catholics and other Christians reached their highest levels on record.
The law, it seemed, flowed in one direction only: punishing people who dared to live out religious beliefs that conflicted with the Biden administration’s radical, anti-faith, anti-life ideology.
That is why this moment represents a massive correction to all the wrongs committed against faithful and pro-life Americans over the past four years.
From restoring protections for doctors to defending religion in schools to defunding Planned Parenthood, the Trump administration has taken concrete steps to protect people of faith.
Enforcing the FACE Act in defense of innocent churchgoers would solidify Trump’s legacy as the most pro-religious freedom president of our lifetime.
DON LEMON ARRESTED BY FEDERAL OFFICIALS
Protecting churches from harassment is not controversial. People should be able to worship without being politically targeted in their pews. Trump has the opportunity to apply the law correctly and protect the people who suffered at the hands of the politicized Biden administration. He can make free speech great again. And it is long overdue.
Shawn Carney is President and CEO of 40 Days for Life, the world’s largest pro-life organization, and bestselling author of four books, including What to Say When 2: Your Proven Guide in the New Abortion Landscape. Follow him on Twitter @CarneyShawn
