A 75-year-old devout Catholic woman under space arrest over a protest at an abortion facility has had her request to attend Sunday Mass denied by President Joe Biden’s Justice Department.
A federal ruling with the Justice Department ruled that a wheelchair-bound woman with multiple fitness situations cannot be allowed to attend Mass once a week because of her conviction for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinics Act.
But the ban on Paulette Harlow, who can be seen sitting in a chair blocking an abortion facility in 2020, obviously violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
He is under space arrest following his conviction for his physical disability. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly rejected his moderate request to attend Sunday Mass.
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act prohibits the federal government from infringing on a person’s freedom of devout unless it turns out that doing so “is in an overriding governmental interest” and uses “the least restrictive means to publicize that compelling governmental interest. “”
This is the case.
The federal government may have a general interest in keeping a convicted felon under surveillance in your home, even if he or she is not violent. This is not the “least restrictive way” to keep him from leaving his house for two hours once a day. week to practice your devout faith.
Even if you could now bring a priest into your home, it’s not a long-term guarantee. The Archdiocese of Boston, where he lives, has a single priest who serves in several churches.
Harlow awaits sentencing, which is expected to be issued next week. Even if he ended up going to jail, it would reframe how Biden’s Justice Department violated his rights in a number of ways.
The ministry’s refusal to accept him also makes it more difficult for him to obtain the sacrament of confession to obtain some other devout right. Many Catholics prefer the anonymity of confession as a screen rather than face to face. (Yes, how this is described in the movies. ) Meeting the priest who comes to his house eliminates this anonymity.
The Justice Department has other tactics to prevent the use of a Catholic Mass to plan an escape. You can simply use electronic monitoring, which federal courts already use for other people under space arrest. This is the simplest way.
The Justice Department’s opposition to Harlow’s freedom stands in stark contrast to Biden-Harris’ promises to the White House to create a “criminal justice formula [that] protects the public and ensures fair and independent justice for all. “
Biden’s Justice Breakdown resolution is part of a troubling history of targeting Catholics and other conservative Christians. The FBI issued an intelligence memo targeting Catholics who prefer the Latin Mass and calling them possible extremists. Its justification is an Atlantic article on the rosary as a weapon and a report through the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center.
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Attorney General Merrick Garland also called for law enforcement to end alleged threats from citizens who opposed sexualized school systems or COVID-19 restrictions. Similarly, Biden’s Justice Department exposed a former state charge, already dismissed by a judge, and tried, unsuccessfully, to use it to prosecute pro-life Catholic Father Mark Houck.
Sanjay Patel, the same prosecutor who failed to convict Houck, also opposes Harlow’s rights to deliberate freedom. He even went to speak with an organization at George Mason University Law School last year to report on the implementation of the FACE Act. Next year, he is expected to return to law school, to teach, but to update himself on religious liberty rights.
Matt Lamb is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is an associate editor at Fix College and in the past worked for Students for Life of America and Turning Point USA.