In my opinion, outside of mic feedback, there is very little more distracting than a child crying in the middle of a service.

Mr. Olson’s post and Ann Althouse’s cites not withstanding, if the law says the woman can breast feed in an area where she can legally be, can she legally be in an area where the people who own the property have asked her to leave because she is creating a disturbance from the child crying? (And not the breastfeeding?)

“the last time I looked, Virginia has a Religious Freedom Preservation Act, § 57-2.02:

“‘No government entity shall substantially burden a person’s free exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability unless it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person is (i) essential to further a compelling governmental interest and (ii) the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.'”

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2017/04/can-state-law-require-that-churches.html

http://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title57/chapter1/section57-2.02/

What constitutes participation in a religious service is to be determined by the private religious organization. If a church finds that there are times and places for which some activities seem inappropriate, how can a government showing now religious favor decide which elements of a service should or should not endorse nursing, or any other secular activity.

Presumably even the state has some prohibitions to this perceived natural and inviolable right: Nursing in a moving car forbidden by seat belt and car seat necessity, barring some improbable contortions.

“Given the First Amendment right to exercise religion, I don’t think it has to.”

SCOTUS decided decades ago that the free exercise clause of 1A does not entitle anyone to exemptions from generally applicable laws. This is why Congress passed the RFRA.

Not only does the church have a “baby room”, she was physically IN that room, and took the baby OUT and then started breastfeeding, according to her own video (attached to the Post article.) (She manages to go about 2 whole minutes before deciding she has to breastfeed on that video, too.)

“The law provides ‘no exemption for religious institutions'”? Given the First Amendment right to exercise religion, I don’t think it has to. Virginia law cannot override the Constitution.

Annie Peguero, of Dumfries, says in a Facebook Live video that she was questioned twice as she breastfed Sunday in Summit Church in Springfield: first as she sat near the church’s “baby room” without a nursing cover over her breast and a second time as she nursed openly in the sanctuary during the sermon.

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Virginia-Mom-Says-She-Was-Escorted-Out-of-Church-for-Breastfeeding-420538353.html

So the church does have an area for women so that the agitated child does not distract others.

Whether this church has such an accommodation is unknown to me.

However, from the Washington Post article caught my eye:

Annie Peguero was trying to soothe her agitated 19-month-old baby in church on Sunday….

So the child was agitated and the mother tried to soothe the child when she was asked to move to a different area.

Gee, how horrible that a woman whose child was disrupting a service (through no fault of her own) was asked to take the child elsewhere to calm her down.

While the woman might say she was asked to leave because she was breastfeeding, the church will probably rightfully say the child was causing a disturbance and the mother was asked to deal with it.

If the mother is concerned with other worshipers and wants to treat people as she wanted to be treated (ie without causing a commotion) she should have left the sanctuary. Instead, she created the problem and now is claiming to be a victim.