BATON ROUGE — A state Senate committee advanced two bills on Tuesday with the purpose of criminalizing disruptive protests in and around churches. 

Both SB 35 by Sen. Bill Wheat, R-Ponchatoula, and SB 306 by Sen. Rick Edmonds, R-Central, were sent to the Senate floor. 

Both bills, if signed into law, would criminally punish those whose protests disturb or disrupt worship services. Edmonds' law specifically says that using force, threats of force, physical obstruction, intentional injury or attempt injury, to intimidate or interfere with religious worship would be punished. 

His bill also says that damaging property in a church, refusing to leave private property of a church or knowingly supporting a person engaged in such acts would be criminalized as well.

The bills were both introduced following a Jan. 18 protest at a Minnesota church that resulted in several people, including journalist Don Lemon, being arrested.