On Memorial Day weekend, the holy spirit came down on Cal Anderson Park and performed a miracle. One of the least religious cities in America became a house of God. And their God was under attack.
In Cal Anderson, the worship rally claimed the whole center of the park. Mayday USA, a far-right Christian group, constructed a towering stage with stadium speakers and a massive TV screen. They spread across the lawn, setting up tents for children’s haircuts and bicycle giveaways and raffles and baptisms in metal troughs. No matter where a Godless, queer Seattleite stood in the park, they could see, hear, and feel their worship.
Hundreds of protesters brought signs that read “Republican Lies Kill Trans People” and “the LGBTQ Agenda is a peaceful existence.” Punk bands tried to drown out the stadium speakers. Protesters booed while ministers spoke in tongues and testified about their salvation.
These speeches and pig-trough baptisms happened at the heart of Seattle’s gay neighborhood in a park named for the state’s first openly gay State Senator. Capitol Hill has one of the most visible transgender populations in the United States. It’s uncommonly friendly and safe. Organizing a rally with the hashtag #DontMessWithOurKids will get a rise out of people. That should have been completely obvious to city leaders. Inevitable.
The Seattle Police Department showed up in force. Dozens of officers with batons and pepper spray stood between the far-right Christian rally and the protest. Officers’ bodies—and their weapons—faced protesters while the people on stage repeated anti-gay myths and taunted the protesters for being tricked into attending an all-day church service. Mayday USA’s private security stood watch from behind the police line.
The city did not force the event out of the park. Around 6:30 p.m., Mayday USA was asked to leave by the Seattle Police Department, who, by that time, had lost control of the crowd and defaulted to violence. By then, they’d arrested 23 protesters. All of them thrown to the ground and cuffed in a carousel of bicycle cops. And when Mayday USA finally finished its last, meandering worship song, the Christians filed out casually like they were leaving a concert at Climate Pledge Arena behind a wall of police bodies. Mike Solan, the president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, blamed mismanagement on SPD staffing issues. This was also just what happens when you put a “peaceful group” in “Antifa land, Cal Anderson Park,” he told KTTH’s Jason Rantz, echoing a SPOG statement on X.
On that Saturday evening, Mayor Bruce Harrell issued a statement about the “extreme right-wing national effort to attack our trans and LGBTQ+ communities.” Mayday USA took this as their cue, calling for a “Rattle in Seattle” on the steps of City Hall. They were being oppressed. Their freedom was being violated.
Exactly the way they wanted.
The Christian right has its own version of events: Innocent Christian worshippers were mobbed at a city park by anti-Christians and the city endorsed their persecution. But this was not the story they were telling on social media before the protest. In their words, the rally was intended to be a battle in a spiritual war. Against the child “butchers,” the demonic forces, the unholy.
Standing by them in that fight was the Seattle Police Department (and private security). Above them, the federal government.
There’s a strong feeling on the Christian right that the Trump administration is on their side and in God’s pocket. They’re somewhat right. Trump’s “favorite” book? The bible, which he sells for the low price of $59.99. There’s the ostentatious prayer breakfasts. An executive order establishing the White House Faith Office led by Minister Paula White-Cain. A National Faith Advisory Board and anti-Christian bias task force. His promotion of a myth that surviving an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania ordained his presidency. He may believe this, or has only realized the story’s power. His sincerity is irrelevant.
The Christian right read this umbrella of federal support as a sign of God’s favor, says Matthew D. Taylor, a senior Christian scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies in Baltimore, Maryland, and author of The Violent Take It By Force, a book about how White-Cain engineered an interface between independent networks of charismatic faith leaders and Trump’s orbit.
In the days since the Mayday USA event, Federal Bureau of Investigation Deputy Director Dan Bongino posted on X that the FBI will “fully investigate allegations of targeted violence against religious groups at the Seattle concert. Freedom of religion isn’t a suggestion.” The Alliance Defending Freedom, the far-right legal powerhouse responsible for Dobbs v. Jackson, 303 Creative, and Masterpiece Cake Shop, says it is “evaluating legal action.”
When Jenny Donnelly and Ross Johnston launched Mayday USA, they said they had a “window” for a “four-year mission.” Events like Mayday are the first step in turning the US into the dominion of God.
There’s no question the groups aligned with Mayday USA are extremist, anti-trans, and anti-LGBTQ. But who are they, and what do they actually believe?
Imagine a terrible Charmander, Bulbasaur, and Squirtle: There are basically three ascendant Christian supremacy movements in the United States. Anti-traditionalist Catholics, a hyper-reformed or “reconstructionist” Calvinist protestantism, and a supernaturalist, apostolic, and prophetic style focused on catalytic experiences of worship that revolve around charismatic worship leaders. You don’t need to know all the ins and outs of Christianity, just that all these ideologies have influence in the White House and they are fixated on the idea that Christians must dominate society.
JD Vance is an avatar for the Catholics. Pete Hegseth stands in for the reconstructionist Calvinist preachers, young bearded “TheoBros,” some of whom don’t think women should vote. Minister White-Cain is a conduit for the apostolic movement that was out in force in Cal Anderson. And Trump is Ash Ketchum. He caught them all.
Both Mayday USA and#DontMessWithOurKids are associated with the organization Her Voice MVMT (or HVM), which experts say is leading the charge. HVM was founded by Jenny Donnelly, who runs Tetelestai Ministries with her husband Bob. Her stature has risen since the January 6 insurrection and Her Voice has been instrumental in religious school board takeovers on the West Coast, Taylor says.
Freddy Cruz, program manager for monitoring and training at the pro-democracy civil rights organization Western States Center, says that “don’t mess with our kids” is presented on social media as emphasizing traditional family values. But videos on the Her Voice MVMT website include extreme testimonies, including a man declaring victory over witchcraft in the name of Jesus.
“When people are considering what this group actually stands for and the kinds of things they are pushing—they’re talking about witchcraft, they’re talking about demonic attacks on children, when they’re pushing anti-trans views under the guise of religious liberty.”
The purpose of the Her Voice MVMT, says Taylor, is to publicly confront and attack this mystical cabal by staging spiritual battles to beat back these demons. Demon is not a euphemism here, but meant literally. In New Apostolic Reformation circles, a highly politicized evangelical Christian supremacist leadership network Donnelly belongs to, there is a notion that demons control “territory” and that Christians need to take back that territory by waging spiritual warfare. They’ll even call high-ranking demons in their advanced demonology “territorial spirits.”
Before the event, Mayday USA asked people to join them “to STAND for our kids, their rights, and their futures. We’re declaring the SANCTITY of human life, the SACRALITY of biological gender.”
On May 24, Cal Anderson was that battlefield, the neighborhood’s residents the “demonic forces” they intended to provoke.
One of its warriors was Ross Johnston, the other co-host of the event, is the son of lesbian moms, “born of artificial insemination,” who says he’s “living proof” that anti-LGBTQ Christians can pray hard enough to force God in a heathen, queer household. Since 2024, he’s regularly gone into public high schools to “save” students in front of their peers, and carries out faith healings on social media and on stage.
Russell Johnson, pastor of Pursuit NW, also preached during the worship rally. He preaches that our society suffers from a “sexual sickness,” offers “Christ-centered” education through his PNW elementary schools, and calls to “Make Prayer Great Again.”
Folake Kellogg, one of the guests at Mayday USA, is a minister at The Collective Church, which preaches a calling to “preserve the sanctity of life,” “restore the integrity of family,” and “lay down our lives for the sake of all future generations.”
Donnelly, Kellogg, and Johnston have another thing in common, a connection to Ché Ahn, one of the most important apostles of the New Apostolic Reformation, that highly politicized Christian supremacist leadership network.
Within Ahn’s network, “apostles” are the primary governing layer of the church and are advised by “prophets” who say they hear directly from God. Donnelly was commissioned as an apostle in Ahn’s church in 2023. Kellogg was at the global summit for Ahn’s Harvest International Ministry in late April. Johnston is an evangelist in Ahn’s network, which is enormous.
Ahn’s Harvest International Ministry claims more than 25,000 churches, non-government organizations, and nonprofits in 65 countries. Whether the figure is accurate, his influence is undeniable. What’s concerning to experts like Taylor is that since January 6, there’s been a cross-pollination between Ahn’s network and far-right militia circles. And as militias become more enmeshed in this broader theological landscape, militias are showing up at religious events, while the Christian far right adopts the tactics of the accelerationist right, which seeks to “accelerate” the collapse of an irredeemable society.
“Those worlds are becoming harder to distinguish,” Taylor says.
Matt Shea is an example. Shea, who spoke at Cal Anderson for his Spokane-based On Fire Ministries, spent six terms in the Washington state House of Representatives before he was expelled from the GOP Caucus. . Shea had distributed a four-page manifesto called “Biblical Basis for War,” his outline for how Christians should behave in an inevitable civil war between Christian and secular society. It advocated for replacing the government with a theocracy and “the killing of all males who do not agree.”
Independent investigators commissioned by the Legislature identified Shea, a public supporter of rancher Cliven Bundy, as a leader of the Patriot Movement extremist group, which does not believe the government should own public lands. The report alleged he “planned, engaged, and promoted a total of three armed conflicts of political violence” against the US government. Legislators were so disturbed that they forwarded the report to the FBI.
In 2022, Shea was participating in an anti-LGBTQ march through downtown Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, when police arrested 31 members of the far-right militia Patriot Front after a tipster had spotted the masked, armored men loading gear into a U-Haul. Shea claimed the truck was filled with antifa, but one of the men arrested, Mishael J. Buster (then 22), had attended Shea’s church. The Spokesman Review reported that Buster and his father had appeared on stage in a livestream of an On Fire church service.
This is not secret. These figures are open about what they believe and who they associate with. They love posting. In an Instagram reel filmed at the Mayday USA event, Kellog told Shea that they “are holding the ground,” as she gestures back to the protesters. “This ground belongs to Jesus, so we are holding it.” But they present themselves as lambs, not lions, a story the right-wing media is eager to spread.
Their intended audience showed up: Former Fox 13 show host and correspondent Brandi Kruse, the Discovery Institute’s Jonathan Choe, and radio host Jason Rantz. And the national news followed—from the New York Post to Fox News.
In the guise of prayer, these events lay claim on progressive cities with a known activist base and protest culture, where a staged confrontation is more likely to get out of hand. When arrests are made or there’s violence, the story is elevated to a national prominence and amplified as an “example” of anti-Christian bias. This is then used rhetorically for a government crackdown on their enemies, which include activists and queer people. Punch you in the face, when you punch me back—I’m persecuted.
These tactics are familiar to Joan Braune, a lecturer of philosophy at Gonzaga University who studies and publishes on fascism and the far right. During the first Trump administration, there was a phenomenon on the far-right where white nationalists were trying to get teenagers to put up posters in their high schools that said it was “okay to be white.” White nationalists would use any negative reaction to prove to the teens they’d been punished for who they were, rather than because they’ve said something offensive or harmful.
“The reason why people are reacting to the sign is because they know it’s a white supremacist message,” Braune said. “You get this predictable response of outrage, which they’ve primed you to interpret as persecution … Typically, what happens is people tend to tunnel in deeper right, where they start posting more and more edgy, offensive things.”
In 2020, evangelical musician Sean Feucht brought his “Let Us Worship” movement to Cal Anderson Park, Feucht’s response to COVID restrictions in California. Like many Christians who hold all-absorbing, communal worship as a key spiritual practice, the prominent figure in the “Charismatic Christian” movement interpreted health restrictions as infringing on religious liberty. After defying statewide COVID-19 restrictions to sing and pray with hundreds on the Golden Gate Bridge, he took this show on the road in 50 states and bragged he’d become the number one COVID violator in 28 of them.
That disease-riddled August, Feucht performed songs and baptisms down the street from the former Capitol Hill Organized Protest, or CHOP. “It was absolutely bonkers in so many ways!!!” Feucht (pronounced Foyt) wrote on Instagram afterwards. White antifa had screamed at Black pastors and cursed his wife and children all night long, he said. There was an entire Satanic cult march, he said.. But the church refused to be intimidated, he said, as he appeared to violate the state ban on gatherings and outdoor live music. Local Christian pastors who spoke to The Seattle Times said Feucht’s event was insensitive and showed a “lack of caring” for the community.
The following summer, Feucht gave an unpermitted worship concert at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland for the second year in a row. Violence ensued with pepper balls and mace, but they wouldn’t back down. They wouldn’t stop worshipping. They wouldn’t stop fighting for “religious freedom.” In 2022, Feucht marched for Jesus in West Hollywood, the gayest part of LA.
Ostensibly, this is all about “religious freedom.” But it’s really an attempt to take back the public square for God to Christian Nationalist and Christian supremacist ends.
After the Obergefell decision legalized same-sex marriage, many Christian rights organizations pivoted to a rhetoric of religious freedom. They wanted the right not to hire queer people, not to marry them in their churches. Pluralism needed to include religious conservatives. Those messages have evolved into religious freedom from the “LGBTQ agenda,” and “cultural Marxism,” and “Critical Race Theory.” In this frame, public affirmation of LGBTQ people is encroaching on Christian expression and dominance. If the city of Seattle is celebrating LGBTQ people, the city is opposed to the fundamental Christian identity that they believe is essential to Americanness.
“These folks, they don’t want pluralism,” says Taylor. “They want a single vision of society united around their radical, reactionary vision of Christianity … They see this as a true, out-and-out battle where there’s no room for compromise because their enemies are demonically inspired.”
It’s one thing for a Christian group with a provocative message to come to a liberal city. It’s another for this crew to come to this park in this neighborhood. These are extreme beliefs, gilded in Christianity. Mayday USA says it came to Seattle to pray. But in their words, prayer is “a weapon.” Worship is “a weapon.” The meaning was in plain sight for weeks. The city did not prepare.
The city has offered “free speech” as an explanation for why it allowed this to happen, like the First Amendment bounded their hands and mouths.
Certainly, it was not the city’s job to regulate speech. But it was the city’s job to manage crowds and to ensure people could safely arrive, safely gather, express their beliefs, and safely leave.
That’s not what happened. At both protests, the City sent dozens of cops to manage the event. And at every turn, those cops showed Mayday USA that they trusted them, but not the protesters who came out against them.
They maintained a consistent, physical barrier between the two groups, with their backs to Mayday and their weapons trained on the protesters. But when the event ended and Mayday filed out, cops stood in a 20-minute standoff with protesters, to avoid showing them their backs.
When Mayday organized a protest against the Mayor after he condemned the rally, they set up a full Christian revival concert on the steps of City Hall, with 10-foot-tall stacks of speakers, a soundboard, and a diesel generator. Any amplification outside of City Hall requires a permit that they didn’t have. “Our building staff are on site and have given the organizers a copy of the rules and informed them that public speech activities must not be disruptive,” a spokesperson from the City told The Stranger at the time. The rules were never enforced, and they were allowed to carry on for three more hours. But at the end of the event, when three protesters wanted to hold a sign over the railing of City Hall, that the same set of rules declared to be too large, a city employee physically stood on the sign to stop them.
By Tuesday night, police had arrested 31 protesters between the two protests.
This was a unique opportunity for the City to show queer Seattleites that they had their back, even if they have to respect hate speech. Instead of doing that, they threw one more log on the fire.
City Councilmember Bob Kettle thought that was avoidable. The following Tuesday, he told KOMO News: “I believe in the group’s ability to protest and to come and protest, to be blunt, it was a mistake to grant it at Cal Anderson Park. It was a mistake. There’s many parks, there’s many locations that could have accommodated the group. Cal Anderson should not have been on that list.”
On Labor Day weekend, Feucht plans to come to Cal Anderson for “Revive in ’25,” a traveling worship event targeting “America’s darkest, most broken cities.”
There’s already a petition to move the event out of Capitol Hill. The Change.org petition points to the chaos of Memorial Day as a warning. “We are asking … Seattle Parks and the Office of Economic Development [to] relocate this event to Magnuson Park,” the petition states. “We have serious concerns about a copycat event at Cal Anderson again.”
The city has a chance to handle this differently this time.
This is all straight out of the Fred Phelps Westboro Baptist playbook, complete with the intentionally provocative statements shouted through bullhorns and the lawyers at the ready to file lawsuits at the predictable reactions.
Thanks for this article. I appreciate the deep dive and the full context of events and into the tactics of these hateful organizations. It’s unfortunate that larger outlets coughseattletimes*cough* fall for the bait everytime.
Everyone with a brain knows these folks are dishonest yet too many protesters gave them exactly what they came for – violence. Ultimately we don’t want government gatekeeping speech (it’s a sure loser in court), so the solution is a counter protest that these bigots can’t use: a giant, queer love-in.
Why did these same homophobes go after things like drag queen story time? Because events like that humanize the gay community – that’s what these folks most fear. If they can point to violence, if they can play the victim, they win (in their fucked up world view). So the solution is the spirit of pride – happy, joyful expression of love (and massive amounts of PDA). Let them be the equivalent on the sidewalk preacher down near the stadiums (most people know / ignore the assholes) – deny them the attention they want (but do give them a sight their eyes wont soon forget).
“ In the guise of prayer, these events lay claim on progressive cities with a known activist base and protest culture, where a staged confrontation is more likely to get out of hand. When arrests are made or there’s violence, the story is elevated to a national prominence and amplified as an “example” of anti-Christian bias.”
Given the fact that they hold these events in Seattle to purposely provoke a reaction; shouldn’t the Stranger use its influence with the activist community to urge Seattle to completely ignore it.
No counterprotest, no acknowledgment at all. Just stay home, turn up the music and ignore them. Make the next event a total snooze fest.
I hope the event is NOT moved to Magnuson Park. The amplified music would seriously disturb the beaver colony there, not to mention other animals as well. Steps should be taken to ensure that MayDayUSA never visits again.
@5 “Steps should be taken to ensure that MayDayUSA never visits again.“
Agreed. The most effective way of doing this would be to make certain their next event is a snooze fest.
The Stranger should use its influence with Seattle activists to make sure everyone just ignores them the next time they bring their traveling medicine show into town.
If everyone who disagrees with the bigots ignores them there will still be a story, it will just be about how they reclaimed demonic, LGBTQ, antifa Seattle through the power of Jesus. But more importantly, ignoring them grants them a veneer of normalcy and legitimacy. See these quotes sharing the perspective of a Holocaust survivor about the infamous Skokie Nazi march:
“The Jewish War Veterans organization said they would mount a counter demonstration. Others said that would give the neo-Nazis the publicity they were seeking. Better to stay off the streets.
“But there was a time we were told to stay at home when the Nazis marched through the streets,” Gans said. “That won’t happen again.”
In her youth, the strategy of the European Jewish leaders was to avoid confrontations with Hitler’s followers. Eventually the German people would be tired of his antics. Rule of law would be restored, and life would return to normal for Jews.
Instead, the Holocaust followed.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2023/01/22/vintage-chicago-tribune-in-1977-skokie-was-a-refuge-for-thousands-of-holocaust-survivors-then-a-group-of-self-styled-nazis-planned-a-march/
The actual solution is for counter protestors to go even harder next time. Make it impossible for these people to hold a successful event in this city. Run them out of town. Even if that’s not successful at least we’ll show our LGBTQ+ neighbors we care enough about them to stand up to those who would deny their humanity, that it’s not more important to us to avoid being labeled as “uncivil” by bad faith reactionary new media outlets.
@3: Drag Queen story hour a la fairy godmother – fine. Drag Queen story hour a la burlesque strip club showgirl, that’s one of the reasons gay rights is loosing support from both conservatives and liberals.
No one is doing burlesque strip club drag queen story hour. Where do you hear this shit and why do you believe it.
@7
So are you writing your ACAB screeds from Walla Walla?
@9: I’m always amazed how you knee jerk deem something as false without knowing the facts. Not all the way nude but you know as well as I do that drag queens take liberties – that’s why we love them. But this stuff is crazy, and I don’t mind being called a pearl clutcher over it. The parents take their kids even. It’s been going on for years.
Since you asked, Arielle Scarella explains:
https://x.com/ArielleScarcell/status/1828080781236826364
You can also find her, a lesbian influencer, on YouTube. But I imagine you’ll say there were done in Burbank studio by MAGA provocateurs or something like that.
Mr. Vel-DuRay’s cousin and her husband are visiting from back east. They are both quite Catholic, and would have nothing to do with events like these. That’s because they know that if Christian Nationalism got a toehold in this country, the old barely suppressed prejudices would come roaring back.
Personally, I think Christianity as a whole is a paper tiger with a small group of screaming meemies and bible-addled nitwits being egged on by a bunch of weak, neurotic, white men who imagine themselves as some sort of warriors.
And I think the idea of having one of their little jesusfests at Magnuson is hilarious. Let the swells at Sandpoint and Inverness have to listen to that dreadful “praise music” for a few hours.
Wow the way the current federal administration is supporting groups like these sounds pretty bad! If only there had been a presidential election in 2024 where The Stranger could have forcefully advocated for the Democratic Party candidate for president by relentlessly publishing articles talking about how the two parties had very different policy preferences and would result in very different outcomes depending on who was elected president. Ah well, maybe next time.
“There’s already a petition to move the event out of Capitol Hill.”
So, nobody’s learning anything then. The May Day USA folks will use this as another example of how they’re the real victims of discrimination here. Even the Stranger’s reporting shows the May Day USA event attendees at Cal Anderson Park did not commit any acts of violence; all arrests were of persons protesting the event. So, why should May Day USA be denied a permit for Labor Day weekend there? It’s not May Day USA’s fault Seattle’s protests always seem to turn violent.
@3: “So the solution is the spirit of pride – happy, joyful expression of love (and massive amounts of PDA).”
Exactly. And if the May Day USA folks can’t stand to see same-sex couples kissing, and react violently, then the SPD can arrest them, and the city might have a good legal reason to deny future permits to May Day USA.
@13: But a terrorist-infested flyspeck of land, thousands of miles from the US, whose population aligns with May Day USA on LGBTQ+ issues, was The Most Important Place In The History of Ever, and so now we have a federal administration who supports such groups.
Mayday’s message might be unpopular in the neighborhood, but they have the same right to free speech in a public place as anyone else. The Seattle police should be commended for their completely appropriate response and only arresting people who committed crimes, which is presumably what you’d want them to do at any event.
@13 or the Democratic Party could have run a candidate capable of winning. If your Presidential campaign gets derailed because an alt weekly in Seattle critiques your positions that’s a you problem. I can only assume you’re on the DNC payroll given your desperate need to blame anyone else for the Democrats’ embarrassing failure.
@15 why do you believe the cops only arrested people who actually committed crimes, because the cops said so? Does that entirely unquestioning deference extend to all government officials?
@16 There were tons of people taking videos at the rally from multiple angles. People are on video committing crime and being arrested. No one is on video being arrested for nothing. I am simply going off the available evidence.
@16: If the Democratic candidate wasn’t “capable of winning,” then why did Sawant campaign against her?
DontMessWithOurKids
It’s time for a return of the return of the Youth Pastor Watch.
Thornton, Colorado: Joshua Lucero, a youth pastor at Word Alive Church, was arrested for sexual assault on a child. The incidents allegedly occurred between 2017 and 2020 when he was overseeing juveniles between the ages of 13 and 18.
Yakima County, Washington: A volunteer youth group leader was arrested for multiple sex offenses involving a teenager. He allegedly admitted the teenager had visited his home but denied any sexual contact.
Outlook, Washington: A youth pastor was charged with multiple counts of child rape.
Fountain, Colorado: A former youth pastor, Hutto, at Highlands Baptist Church was arrested for sexual assault on a child. He was facing a felony charge of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust.
Atlanta, Georgia: Daniel Menelaou, a former youth pastor at Futures Church in Adelaide, Australia, was arrested for allegedly possessing and sharing child sexual abuse material on social media. He had moved to the Atlanta branch of the church in 2023.
Reisterstown, Maryland: A youth minister, Blair, was arrested on child abuse charges. The abuse allegedly took place over six years and involved five different boys.
@18: Simply to be in the political spotlight, but also because of her passion for politics.
skiesofblue dear, joemygod.com does a pretty good round-up of the perverts in the clergy. They’re not just the Catholic priests anymore, that’s for sure (it was never just the Catholic priests).
To each their own, of course, but I look at that top picture and for the life of me I can’t understand the appeal of standing in a crowd of people with your arms in the air, and listening to what is truly banal music with a bunch of halfwits, some of which are sure to be sobbing.
I was raised in the Catholic church, which has a reputation for making people feel guilty (Although it never really worked for me). Part of the reason that it has that rep is because of the basic theological statement of the “Primacy of Concsience”: the idea that you should let your conscience – informed by church teachings, of course – be your guide. Theortically that allows you to even go against church teachings or clerical authority if you think you can justify it in your mind. It’s never really worked out that way, except for maybe those of us who looked around at the church and decided to take a hike, but that’s the idea.
Catholicism is also very contemplative (i.e. boring). Saying the Rosary, for instance, lulls the participant into a trancelike state (something I’m sure they appropriated from some other culture, but who doesn’t do that?). It’s full of things like retreats where you don’t speak. Perpetural Adoration of the Eucharist, where you have to keep your yap shut for the duration of your shift, and all manner of other silent stuff. To this day I will sometimes go to St. James and sit quietly if I have something that is troubling me. Something about the age and grandeur of the building, not to mention all of those flickering votive candles, is reassuring (but don’t get me started on that godawul remuddle they did a few decades back).
It’s also campy as hell, with fabulous costumes, some of the greatest sacred music of western culture, fantastic architecture, statues galore (many of which depict gruesome acts) and all manner of rituals, many of which make no sense to the outside world (blessings of the throat, blessings of the animals, blessings of new homes, etc). That’s why I think converts are so weird. You have to be born into it to make any sense of it, and they take it all way too seriously.
Which brings me back to the Evangelicals. Maybe it’s my upbringing in the Catholic church, where we dressed up and quietly filed into our pews every Sunday, where we had a few Bible readings (which the Priest explained to us), communion (transubstantiation is another weird Catholic thing) and that was it for the week, except for Holy Days of Obligation – twelve random days during the year where you were supposed to go to mass – and the drag pageant that is Catholic lent. No Sunday school, certainly no Bible study – that was the priest’s job. There was First Communion, first confession and Confirmation, but once that was over you were on your own. (I say that from the perspective of a public school kid, of course. Catholic school kids had it rougher)
It just seems like Evangelicalism is the Wal-Mart of religions and I’m more of a Frederick & Nelson gal.
But look what happened to Frederick & Nelson…..
https://youtu.be/r2BJiD529-o
“…But it was the city’s job to manage crowds and to ensure people could safely arrive, safely gather, express their beliefs, and safely leave.
“That’s not what happened.”
According to the Stranger’s own reporting, that is exactly what happened for the May Day USA folks.
“At both protests, the City sent dozens of cops to manage the event. And at every turn, those cops showed Mayday USA that they trusted them, but not the protesters who came out against them.”
Again, according to the Stranger’s own reporting, the MayDay USA participants validated that trust.
“But when the event ended and Mayday filed out, cops stood in a 20-minute standoff with protesters, to avoid showing them their backs.”
Why did the protestors remain for 20 minutes, after the event they were supposedly there to protest had ended?
@22: Well, you and Tammy Faye sure like your wigs and make up.
https://youtu.be/jUUB96c6EpY
If the City starts approving or denying events at any location based on the content of the speech, they lose in court.
Kettle ought to know that.
The Stranger, who’s very existence relies on the First Amendment, ought to know that.
On the plus side, they are giving the community some time to take over CAPA, and make large swaths of Cal Anderson, nudity (which is not a crime) friendly.
@16 — Donald Trump and the Republican Party continue to appreciate your impassioned and unrelenting efforts to get Republicans elected, ensuring that the full weight of the Federal government is thrown behind the protestors at Cal Anderson and their policy preferences are implemented. Outstanding work!
@30 I don’t work for the DNC nor did I vote for Hillary or Kamala in any primary, so I’m not the one you’re looking for. I do however share your frustration with the people who helped Trump get elected twice.
I think the writers meant to refer to “traditionalist” or “anti-modernist” Catholics in the 16th paragraph, not “anti-traditionalist” ones. Nonetheless, a valuable and interesting read.
@31: And I share your frustration with persons who stumped for Trump. For example, if the Democratic candidate wasn’t “capable of winning,” as you wrote @16, then why did Sawant campaign against her?
Again re: the typology presented here, it’s worth noting there are tensions between the three groups that potentially could be exploited by activists with some theological knowledge. In particular, the hyper-Calvinists (whose influence relative to the other two groups seems to have declined since the fall of Mark Driscoll) tend to regard the charismatics as heretical loonies, and both those groups are wary of any and all Catholic influence, even the most traditionalist kind. Of course this hasn’t stopped them all from aligning politically, as they did to great effect in the abortion debate. But religiously, they’re fierce competitors.
@33: please let it go.
“Don’t mess with our kids!”
Does that apply to their youth Pastors? There seems to more child molesting going on with that group than anywhere else.
@35: Hit the road, Jack!
‘kay?
😉
@33 “if the Democratic candidate wasn’t “capable of winning,” as you wrote @16, then why did Sawant campaign against her?”
Just to fuck with you. She and Jill Stein check this site religiously and get massive dopamine rushes every time you mention either of them. It’s the sole reason they’re still in politics.
@38: If the Democratic candidate wasn’t “capable of winning,” then why did Sawant campaign against her?
@39 take a look at this poster for their Dearborn rally and see if you can figure it out all by yourself:
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/665a884e2e70ec03829248f1/ca52bb71-12d2-43ee-823c-e9708bf416e5/October+6+Rally+Leaflet.png
“Antifa-land”
Not so much. Both sides of this fight represent minority points of view in Seattle and this country. Capitol Hill may represent a larger LGBTQ+ demographic than the city does on average. But it is also home to a major Jesuit university and a number of iconic churches. The rest of us tolerate both sides. As it should be.
But we’re like dad, when the kids start fighting in the back seat: “Don’t make me stop this car!”
Denying permits for them in Cal Anderson should have been a no-brainier. Seattle should have clearly designated zones for those things that are likely to provoke large protests. It is not hard to determine. Public safety outweighs free speech in these cases.
If the GOP and Dem conventions can establish “free speech zones” without abridging the right to protest, so can Seattle. If you think that gives the RWNJ’s and Dominonists a pass, think again. Both can and should still be allowed in the same places. Preferably in some vacant lot somewhere. That would take the wind out of the Dominonist’s sails.
I am reminded of the good ol’ days with the Merry Pranksters. I am sorry I missed the party.
@40: The flyer for the Dearborn rally starts with, “NO HARRIS, NO TRUMP,” which was an impossibility. It also features the leader of the Abandon Harris movement. So, there’s nothing on there which even implicitly claims Harris was anything other than “a candidate capable of winning.”
If you’re saying Sawant went that far out of her way to prevent the election of a candidate who could not possibly have won anyway, then I’d agree she made a better decision than had did in all ten years on the Seattle City Council. (She was still stumping for Trump, though.)
Here’s an idea for how to protest “christian prayer” events:
Nakedly.
It’s not illegal to be naked in Seattle, right? So how about surrounding whatever public space the “christian” event is to be held in with hundreds or thousands of naked people.
Let the “christians” walk in through the middle of peaceful counterprotestors, trying to keep from looking.