Do Houses of Worship Have a Right to Enforce Their Own Rules of Modesty? https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/politics-current-affairs/2017/05/do-houses-of-worship-have-a-right-to-enforce-their-own-rules-of-modesty/

May 5, 2017 | Walter Olson
About the author:

While attending Sunday services at a Virginia church, Annie Peguero began nursing her daughter and, in keeping with the church’s policy, was promptly asked to do so in a private room. She now plans to take the church to court. Walter Olson explains:

In 2015, following the lead of many other states, Virginia passed a “law that says women have a right to breastfeed anywhere they have a legal right to be,” as the Washington Post reports. The law provides . . . no quarter, it would seem, for owners’ ordinary rights to set terms and conditions when they invite visits from the general public. . . .

Should [the mother] press a claim in court, she might have to contend with Virginia’s version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). . . . But since not all states have a version of the RFRA—and particularly since . . . a large sector of polite opinion is taking Ms. Peguero’s side and appears to see nothing wrong with applying such laws to churches—it seems likely that this will not be the last such claim.

Personally, I’m fine with public breastfeeding no longer being classed as an automatically shocking thing. But why is government dictation of how a church may arrange its worship services no longer classed as an automatically shocking thing?

Read more on Cato: https://www.cato.org/blog/can-virginia-require-church-permit-breast-feeding-pews