A recent episode in the Twin Cities shows how quickly chaos follows when performative activism meets media applause. Anti-ICE demonstrators surged into a service at Cities Church in St. Paul, and the footage of the disruption was livestreamed by former CNN anchor Don Lemon, who followed the group inside and reported from the scene. That decision to embed himself with a political operation during worship set off a political and legal firestorm.
The Department of Justice has signaled it will investigate and potentially pursue charges tied to federal protections for religious worship, citing statutes such as the FACE Act and other civil rights laws. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon publicly condemned the intrusion and warned that those who treat houses of worship as staging grounds for political stunts could face serious consequences. This is not about punishing speech; it is about defending the sanctity of religious life and the rule of law.
Don Lemon’s defenders will call his presence “journalism,” but his own words in livestreams show he was cheering on an operation framed as a “clandestine mission” to confront a pastor alleged to have ICE ties. Lemon portrayed the action as necessary protest tied to the tragic death of Renee Good, but recording and amplifying an invasion of worship crosses a line between reporting and facilitating. The media elites who normalize that behavior should be held to account for the damage they help create.
Conservative critics are right to point out the hypocrisy: when protesters invade a church it’s treated as righteous moral outrage, yet the same activists condemn law and order when it suits them. Several outlets have called for accountability and even for arrests as the legal ramifications are weighed, and public officials are rightly alarmed at the precedent this sets. The notion that some public figures can weaponize the First Amendment selectively is an affront to every citizen who respects both free speech and free exercise.
This controversy is a reminder that freedom of speech does not mean freedom to intimidate or to trample on others’ rights in places of worship. Federal statutes exist precisely to prevent this kind of intimidation, and the Justice Department’s intervention signals that there will be consequences when protests morph into harassment. If our leaders are serious about protecting churches and congregations, they must not let political grandstanding go unpunished.
Pastors and parishioners who found their service interrupted were understandably outraged, and local clergy have denounced the stunt as an invasion of a sacred space. This is about more than one disrupted sermon; it is about whether our civic institutions will be allowed to function without fear of being mobbed for political theater. Protecting houses of worship from targeted, disruptive campaigns should be a nonpartisan priority that unites those who believe in liberty under the law.
The broader lesson is plain: the media cannot act as unpaid PR for lawlessness and then cry foul when accountability follows. When journalists choose to cross the line from observer to participant, they undercut public trust and invite legal scrutiny. Americans who value faith, order, and liberty should demand both accountability for those who break the law and humility from the media class that helped normalize this spectacle.
