Hi everyone-
We all saw the viral videos of protesters storming into the Cities Church on Sunday morning to protest one of the pastors for the congregation, though that pastor wasn't even preaching that day. Don Lemon was embedded with the protesters, the leader of whom claimed she was there in the "power of God." Lemon claimed the whole protest disrupting services inside the church—not in the parking lot, not on the sidewalk, not outside the front doors—was First Amendment-protected speech.
The only problem with that, of course, is that it isn't. You can't express your rights by obliterating other people's, and in this case, the protesters disrupted services, terrorized families, screamed at worshipers, called them all manner of horrible names, and claimed they were entitled to do so. No one is entitled to do that on private property, and definitely not in a house of worship.
In August, Minneapolis saw a deadly church shooting when a gunman opened fire in a church and killed 2 children. In September, there was a church shooting killing 5 in Michigan. July saw a church shooting kill 3 in Kentucky and June saw another in Michigan killing 1. A December 2024 church shooting in Madison left 3 dead. There were others from 2008-2024 in Houston, New Jersey, Nashville, Alabama, California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Tennessee, Kansas, Colorado, Missouri, and the list goes on, leaving dozens dead.
But somehow it's okay to storm churches and parishioners are just supposed to understand that the cause of the agitators is so important that it trumps worship? It's not alright. AG for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon has said she intended to charge protesters with violation of the FACE Act, which if you were following along yesterday you remember prohibits violent disruptions of worship services. One of the protesters even went to a mosque afterwards and said it was beautiful and wonderful and said that made him feel good about upending the "white supremacist" church in St. Paul.
Minnesota AG Keith Ellison says the agitators did not violate federal law. He lied about the FACE Act, saying it only prevented protests at abortion clinics. But that's not true. The 1994 law protects houses of worship. In fact, the more Lemon says he was just "chronicling" and doing journalism, the more it sounds like the pleas of J6ers which landed on the deaf ears of the Biden administration. Journalists went to jail for reporting on J6, for being inside the Capitol and recording what protesters were doing—Lemon went further and took part, harassing a pastor who was trying to lead parishioners amid a terrifying protest.
You can't just storm into churches and start screaming at everyone, threatening them, and calling them names while they're in there trying to pray. The protesters justify it because they say ICE is arresting people outside churches or homes or whatever, but there is no equivalency.
Libby