A brazen group of anti-ICE agitators barged into a Sunday service at Cities Church in St. Paul, disrupting worship with chants of “ICE out” and forcing frightened families to flee while children looked on. This was not a peaceful civil-rights moment; it was a coordinated desecration of a sacred space that should make every freedom-loving American recoil.
Even more troubling than the stunt itself was the involvement of media figures who should know better — former CNN anchor Don Lemon acknowledged he was embedded with the protesters and even discussed a planned “operation” before the church was targeted. Lemon’s insistence that he was “just practicing journalism” rings hollow when a livestream shows him tracking the operation and elbowing into a house of worship during the chaos.
News outlets and conservative commentators alike have rightly called out the thuggery, and on Newsmax’s American Agenda religious leaders and guests forcefully condemned the intrusion into Christian worship. The outrage is bipartisan in its basic decency: Americans of all stripes know that churches are refuges for prayer, not stages for political grandstanding or vigilante justice.
The Department of Justice has sensibly opened an investigation into possible violations of federal law, and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon warned that those who targeted worshippers would face the “full force” of the law. This is precisely the kind of decisive response we should expect when radicals attempt to weaponize protest into intimidation and disruption of religious exercise.
For conservatives who have watched the Left celebrate disruption for years, the episode underscores a glaring double standard from the establishment media and parts of the Left that excuse mayhem so long as it’s dressed up as righteous fury. Outlets and activists that defended other occupations of public spaces must not get a free pass when their methods cross the line into harassment, targeting of families, and the violation of federal protections.
We should demand accountability — from the protesters who stormed the pews, from media figures who embedded with them, and from any official who condones such behavior. Protecting worshipers, enforcing the law, and defending the quiet dignity of religious practice is not partisan; it is patriotic, and anyone who applauds the desecration of a house of worship should be on the wrong side of history.
