Protests at places of worship
stetson
Shipmate
in Epiphanies
Shipmates may or may not be aware of a series of mildly violent protests and counter protests taking place in Canada at Sikh and Hindu places of worship, related to the pro-Khalistan movement. One of them involved the visit of Indian consular staff to the temple in question(I believe they were giving elderly diaspora members advice on pensions or some such), and was presumably directed partly against the Indian government.
In condemning the clashes, the mayor of one of the cities(a Christian) opined that, while protest is fine, it should not be done at or against a place of worship. Not sure what his exact argument was, though I'm guessing that he and many of his listeners would have considered the point self-evident.
Many of us here probably agree with actual laws curtailing protests around
But should that taboo apply to churches, temples etc? And I wonder if it makes a difference if you're protesting something the faith is doing in alliance(if only de facto) with governments or political parties eg. picketing Baptist churches that preach against burlesque clubs during a police crackdown on such estsblishments, or just an internal policy with no political sanction, eg. ex-JWs protesting at Kingdom Halls against the no-transfusions policy.
(And speaking of JWs, when they rent a hockey stadium to perform a mass baptism, does the stadium become a house of worship, deserving the same consideration and regard as a full-time church?)
In condemning the clashes, the mayor of one of the cities(a Christian) opined that, while protest is fine, it should not be done at or against a place of worship. Not sure what his exact argument was, though I'm guessing that he and many of his listeners would have considered the point self-evident.
Many of us here probably agree with actual laws curtailing protests around
reproductive health clinics,
and I think there's a general sentiment that protesting in front of someone's private home is, at the very least, distasteful.But should that taboo apply to churches, temples etc? And I wonder if it makes a difference if you're protesting something the faith is doing in alliance(if only de facto) with governments or political parties eg. picketing Baptist churches that preach against burlesque clubs during a police crackdown on such estsblishments, or just an internal policy with no political sanction, eg. ex-JWs protesting at Kingdom Halls against the no-transfusions policy.
(And speaking of JWs, when they rent a hockey stadium to perform a mass baptism, does the stadium become a house of worship, deserving the same consideration and regard as a full-time church?)
Comments
Well, if someone today did what Jesus did to the money changers at the temple, he'd likely be guilty of some sort of crime, and so no, there would be no recognized right to do that.
Well, just to be clear, I wasn't asking about the churches themselves protesting against something, I was asking about people protesting AGAINST the church, over the church's support for some policy or other.
In the case of Jesus clearing the temple, the case is a little different than most, because the activity he opposed, ie. blasphemous money changing, was actually taking place IN the temple itself. So if he wanted to challenge those particular money changers directly, the temple was really the only place he could do it.
To make the story a closer comparison, suppose Jesus couldn't get to the actual temple, so instead went to some local synagogue on the Sabbath and stood outside yelling about how the guy's running the religion are also allowing greedy businessmen to operate at the main temple. While people inside the synagogue are just trying to pray in peace.
Personally(and maybe I'm showing my hand here), I think the criterion would be less whether it's your own faith, but more whether you or someone you are concerned about are negatively affected by the policies supported by the place of worship.
In my earlier example, sex workers and their allies might protest a church that preaches against burlesque clubs during a police crackdown, and I'd applaud that, regardless of the trauma it inflicts upon the congregants. But I might consider it a little obnoxious if the church simply preached against burlesque clubs as an internal teaching, and wasn't allying itself with the state.
I'm inclined to agree with your implied point.
But would you take that position if the place of religion on that particular day was being used for, say, a wedding or a funeral?
I believe that here in the US, where religious institutions enjoy 501(c)(3) tax exempt status, yet still wade very deeply into the wide gray area of political activity, legal, measured protests on public property that abuts the property of places of worship are entirely reasonable.
A racist protest should be condemned, whether it's taking place at a house of worship, a government office, or a community centre. But, in asking my question, I'm assuming a situation where there is no racist motivation, and the objections are based on some construed immunity from protest enjoyed by churches etc.
FWIW, I can think of about half a dozen protests I've heard about at places of worship that weren't motivated by racism.
So...weddings and funerals?
(Where I'm going with this is, I recall a guy protesting at a JW mass-baptism, held in a rented venue, who was objecting to the no-blood policy and saying his sister was a JW who had died as a result of it. I'm guessing that JWs feel the same sort of sentiments about those baptisms as people do about their weddings and their loved ones' funerals.)
Wedding scripts used to include a pause for objections to the marriage. Not sure if they're very common any more. I don't think we're talking about that kind of intimately personal protest, though.
I would think that any coordinated protest on religious property could and would be prosecuted as trespassing at the very least.
Westboro Baptist* Church's protests at funerals are notorious, but I don't know what the legal ramifications of them have been.
No, it was local people. It might have been local church people; the First Baptist Church still protests at the Gay Pride Parade every year. But it was before I worked there, so was only reading about it in the paper.
If the protest is "invasive" or "on church property", assuming you're not wanted there, that would be illegal everywhere, church, stadium, restaurant etc.
I was thinking of situations where the protestor is on "public property that abuts the property of places of worship", to use your phrase, IOW has not illegally entered the religious space.
My understanding is that they never got arrested, because their leaders all had legal training and knew exactly what they could and could not get away with.
One of the cases I was thinking of was the opposite: LGBQT activists protesting outside a Catholic church during an ordination ceremony.
That's another situation where I wonder about the similarity to protesting a wedding, since for the ordained and their loved, ordination is pretty close to marriage.
A church offering sanctuary would be engaging in civil disobedience. That well might be an appropriate and laudable action for a church to take, but no church, and no person taking sanctuary in a church, should be under any mistaken belief that there is actually any legal protection. Any protection would be based solely on possible unwillingness of law enforcement to press the matter.
Good for old Henry. If I can't offer sanctuary to lawbreakers in my own home, there's no logical reason why a church should have the right.
Now, that being said....
Indeed, you can engage in civil disobedience, as long as you're prepared to accept the legal consequences. However, if I cheer when the police refuse to enter a church harbouring a lawbreaker I sympathize with, do I forfeit the right to complain when the police somewhere else refuse to enter a church harbouring a law-breaker I hate?
Okay. Let's say "criminal suspects" then. If I cheer when the police refuse to enter a church harbouring a criminal suspect I sympathize with, do I have to cheer every time a church does the same thing for any suspect?
(And FWIW, in the cases I can remember, the churches weren't arguing that the protected person was innocent, just that the laws they'd broken were unfair, or for some reason should not be enforced in the particular case in question.)
I think at least some of them would be just fine with dragging people out of churches they don't approve of. I think such churches might also be subjected to IRS scrutiny of their tax-exempt status, the way All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, CA was for a sermon the rector gave in the lead-up to the 2004 election. They were cleared, but they're a large and very rich church; consider the toll a weaponized IRS could take upon a smaller, poorer organization.
The logistics of Trump's evil plan as regards deportations will prove very difficult, though, it seems to me, and there are reports in the UK that military leaders are discussing what to do if they receive illegal orders instructing them to use active-service personnel to carry out such orders. OK, it could be that he will simply do what he pleases, with no-one to say him nay, but there must surely be some resistance...
I wonder what there'll be in the way of protests at or near any of the rejoicing Trumpian churches tomorrow?
It occurs to me...
Since the state in the anglosphere does not recognize a right of churches to provide sanctuary, but the cops and prosecutors enjoy the long-recognized discretion to decide when a law will be enforced...
The granting of sanctuary is basically just a plea for leniency, using the religious setting for its emotional symbolism.
The head of the ared forces in USA (I think it was him) said a day or two ago that his job during the transition was to ensure that the military obeyed the lawful commands of their commander-in-chief. Why did he find it necessary to include the word "lawful"?
The version presented in Vaughn, Ontario. includes hospitals, child-care centers, schools, and houses of worship.
(And, yes, those are listed in what I maintain to be a descending order of sacrality. I'm kind of ambivalent about schools, I mean, they've always kind of been politically contested areas, and a well-behaved protest doesn't necessarily hinder the learning process.)
Don't think these laws would hold up under the Charter, at least not in their entirety.
The right to protest doesn't, IMO, mean a right to protest at any location you wish, nor does it include a right to harass or threaten people exercising their rights to worship or seek medical care.
Well, Catholics harassed by Orangemen or Muslims harassed by Islamophobes certainly make for sympathetic victims, at least by the shared standards of most of us here. But I assume the Scottish model, if applied to churches, would also nab eg. lgbqt activists protesting in front of a church to counter the resident sermonizers defaming their community week after week?
And I don't know about other places, but in my hometown, the archdiocesan headquarters are in a building attached to the basillica. So a ban on picketing churches would also make it pretty tricky to picket the local offices of the RCC as well. I guess you could say "Don't cross the line on the sidewalk that divides the office from the church", but worshippers going into the church are still gonna see the protest, and know that it is their faith being criticized.