Session: 2019-2020
ACLU-PA Position: Oppose
HB 2530 (PN 3782) would amend Pennsylvania’s Religious Freedom Protection Act to prevent any order under a disaster declaration or measure under the Disease Prevention and Control Act from restricting religious assembly, impeding travel to or from a place of worship, or authorizing related civil/criminal penalties. While the ACLU-PA would not normally oppose a protection of religious exercise, this bill attempts to establish religious assembly as an absolute right, which would likely violate both the U.S. and Pennsylvania Constitutions. The ACLU-PA always acknowledges that no right is absolute. There may be times, under very limited and narrowly tailored circumstances, when even religious exercise must give way to government infringement.
