OPINION:
If you are a left-wing activist living in St. Paul, Minnesota, you now have official state sanction to invade a church, scream at parishioners, terrify children and harass people on their way out of worship services.
All that happened at Cities Church on Jan. 18, when a mob invaded the Southern Baptist church during a protest against its pastor, Jonathan Parnell, who is also an official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Protesters reduced children to tears by screaming at them, “Do you know your parents are Nazis? They are going to burn in hell.” Others accused the parishioners of being “rich” and “White.”
On Wednesday, because none of the 39 people arrested had committed physical violence or vandalism, St. Paul City Attorney Irene Kao dismissed all state charges.
“This decision should not be interpreted as an endorsement of unlawful behavior or public disorder,” Ms. Kao said. “The right to peacefully protest is protected, as is the right to exercise one’s religious beliefs. Balancing these equally important rights is paramount to our decision today.”
What part of shutting down a worship service and harassing worshippers constitutes “balancing”? Letting the mob get away with it?
“They had stormed into the house of God, a place of peace and refuge, and they defiled it with rage,” Mr. Parnell wrote in an op-ed in which he offered an olive branch to the protesters, writing that the love of Jesus “is a joy that opens wide its arms to our cities, even to those who raised their fists against us.”
Although the defendants still face charges brought by a federal grand jury, the city attorney’s dismissal of the cases sends a loud signal to heavily subsidized and coordinated left-wing protest networks: “Don’t worry. We’ve got your back, especially here in one of the most progressive sanctuary cities in the nation.”
The church was invaded after days of protests against ICE roundups of thousands of illegal alien criminals in Minneapolis, during which two anti-ICE activists were killed.
One of those in the Cities Church mob in St. Paul was former CNN news anchor Don Lemon, who had conferred with the activists and given them donuts before the church invasion.
Although he insists that he was merely a journalist livestreaming the protest, Mr. Lemon was arrested on charges of violating state and federal civil rights laws. The federal charges include “acts of oppression, intimidation, threats, interference and physical obstruction.”
Still, the church invasion was apparently no big deal to Ms. Kao, a longtime progressive activist who spearheaded diversity, equity and inclusion policies at the Minnesota Bar Association.
In practice, DEI means open discrimination against Whites, males, Christians and conservatives — and, increasingly, against Jews.
Catholic League President Bill Donohue wrote a letter Thursday to Ms. Kao, asking why the church invasion did not constitute a First Amendment violation.
“If someone organized a group of protesters to take over your office, would you find that acceptable?” he wrote. “There would be no violence — just in-your-face invective and intimidation. If this were to happen, you wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, morally or legally.”
Mr. Donohue also wrote a letter Thursday to acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, asking him to make the Cities Church case a priority.
Noting that he himself had attended a rally a week earlier to protest hatred against Jews in New York City, Mr. Donohue wrote: “Today I am rallying to the side of our Protestant brothers in St. Paul who have been targeted by hate mongers. If people of faith cannot practice their religion without intimidation and interference, it means their First Amendment right to religious liberty means nothing.”
Antisemitic incidents are increasing in places such as New York, London, Paris and Sydney.
Mosques are not immune either. In San Diego on May 18, two radicalized teenagers driven by White supremacist and Nazi ideologies killed three people at an Islamic center. Evidence indicates the two shooters pretty much hate everyone, especially women and Jews, for which they blame even the rise of Islam.
After the Hamas invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s subsequent retaliatory attacks in the Gaza Strip, Jewish students on U.S. college campuses feared for their lives as pro-Hamas demonstrators erected anti-Zionist tent cities and told Jews they were no longer welcome.
College administrators were so worried about not appearing woke that they failed to crack down on the harassers, leading to congressional hearings and several high-ranking college officials forced to step down.
It is important to confront official indifference to attacks on religious liberty and law and order. Otherwise, it just metastasizes.
The same sort of mob that attacked Cities Church, led by paid agitators, has been rioting at the Delaney Hall ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey. The agitators are either confident that nothing will happen to them or hoping to trigger another fatality that they can exploit.
As of this writing, law enforcement officers in cities, states and the federal government have managed to avoid such an outcome.
As for the St. Paul prosecutor, Mr. Donohue finished his letter to her this way: “I hasten to add that your workplace does not merit the special protections afforded a house of worship. But that wouldn’t stop you from screaming to high heaven if protesters invaded your space.”
• Robert Knight is a columnist for The Washington Times. His website is roberthknight.com.
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