SACRED Act: Protecting Worship from Harassment

The American Council supports House Bill 8239, the Safeguarding Access to Congregations and Religious Establishments from Disruption Act, and urges every member of the House Judiciary Committee and the full House to vote yes. Every person seeking to worship deserves to walk freely through a church door, a synagogue gate, or a mosque entrance without being made to fear for their safety. This bill answers that conviction with concrete federal law.

The SACRED Act establishes two distinct prohibitions near a place of religious worship. First, it bars any course of conduct within 100 feet of a place of religious worship carried out with intent to intimidate or obstruct passage, when that conduct causes any person to reasonably fear for their physical safety while entering or exiting. Second, it separately bars intentionally approaching and harassing any person seeking to exercise religious freedom within 8 feet of that person, when within 100 feet of such a place. The bill defines its terms with care: 'intimidate' means placing a person in reasonable apprehension of imminent physical injury to themselves or another; 'obstruct' means rendering ingress or egress impassable or unreasonably difficult or hazardous; and 'harass' means committing a serious act or engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that interferes with their freedom of movement and is intended to and does place that person in reasonable fear of physical harm, or is intended to and does cause that person to reasonably experience substantial emotional distress. That dual intent-plus-result standard is meaningful: it targets genuine threats, not ordinary disagreement.

The bill's enforcement structure is layered and proportionate. Criminal penalties for a first offense reach up to one year of imprisonment, scaling to three years for a second or subsequent offense. A carve-out for exclusively nonviolent conduct caps a first such offense at a $10,000 fine and six months imprisonment, and caps a subsequent nonviolent offense at a $25,000 fine and 18 months imprisonment. Where bodily injury results the ceiling rises to 10 years, and where death results the court may impose any term of years or life. On the civil side, aggrieved worshipers and the entities that own or operate houses of worship may sue directly for injunctive relief, compensatory or punitive damages, attorney fees, and expert witness costs, with an option to elect $5,000 in statutory damages per violation in lieu of actual damages. The United States Attorney General and any State Attorney General acting as parens patriae may also bring civil actions, with courts authorized to assess civil penalties up to $10,000 for a nonviolent first violation and $15,000 for other first violations, and up to $15,000 for a nonviolent subsequent violation and $25,000 for any other subsequent violation.

The bill is also careful about what it does not do. It explicitly preserves First Amendment-protected expressive conduct, including peaceful picketing and peaceful demonstration, occurring outside places of religious worship. It does not preempt state or local laws that provide their own penalties or remedies. The definition of 'place of religious worship' is broad enough to encompass the parking lot, parking lot entrance, driveway, and driveway entrance of any covered building or space, ensuring that protection does not evaporate the moment a congregant steps outside the front door. The American Council reads these provisions together as a carefully drawn, constitutionally grounded shield for the free exercise of religion. We urge passage without delay.