Ellison Wants FACE Act if You Photograph Outside Mosques, But You Can Invade and Disrupt Churches

Keith Ellison calls for FACE Act enforcement outside mosques but ignores disruptions at churches.

Keith Ellison was a big fan of using the FACE Act to punish a woman who photographed people as they entered a Mosque. 

And another time, he called for the prosecution of protesters who were legally carrying firearms at a protest outside a Mosque

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Ellison's own record contradicts that claim. As Minnesota attorney general, he submitted a brief in a 2020 federal lawsuit that accused a Minneapolis woman of violating the First Amendment rights of parishioners at Dar Al-Farooq, a mosque outside Minneapolis, by filming them without their permission.

In 2015, as a House member, Ellison urged Obama civil rights chief Vanita Gupta to investigate whether a group of protesters in Phoenix violated the FACE Act by holding firearms during protests outside a Phoenix mosque.

"These demonstrators argue that they are exercising their First Amendment rights. What they fail to understand is that First Amendment rights are not absolute; they are limited to protect the safety and rights of others," wrote Ellison.

Whatever you think of these cases, two things stand out: 1) Keith Ellison knows that the FACE Act applies to the protection of people attending worship services, because he wanted to use it to prosecute people who he claimed violated the First Amendment rights of Muslims; and 2) both of these events took place outside the Mosque on public property, and impeded nobody from entering the Mosque to worship. 

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In fact, these acts were far less intrusive than anything happening here in Minnesota every day, and certainly not comparable to the invasion of a church with the intent to traumatize children, as Don Lemon admitted was the purpose of invading Cities Church. 

Despite these facts, Keith Ellison is quite certain that the FACE Act does not apply in this case, because...reasons. 

I think we all know what those reasons are. 

Ellison is playing coy, but as with all Minnesota Democrats, he is not sly enough to pull it off. 

Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison (D.) defended the group of anti-ICE agitators who stormed a St. Paul church on Sunday, telling former CNN host Don Lemon—who accompanied the agitators and boasted of conducting "reconnaissance" ahead of the stunt—that critics of the incident were "getting tender about a church service."

Ellison appeared on Lemon's YouTube show on Monday to discuss the protest, in which Lemon accompanied Minneapolis attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong, St. Paul school board member Chauntyll Allen, and other activists on "Operation Pull Up," the Washington Free Beacon reported. The group disrupted services at Cities Church in St. Paul based on the belief that a pastor there works for ICE, shouting "ICE Out" and other slogans.

The incident sparked a federal civil rights investigation and calls to arrest Lemon for his role in the ordeal. A defiant Lemon mocked the churchgoers on Monday, saying they had a sense of "entitlement" that stems from "a white supremacy." He also insisted he was at the protest as a journalist and not an activist, and that disrupting a church service is protected by the First Amendment.

"I think that protest is fundamental to American society. You know, it's freedom of expression. People have a right to lift up their voices and make their peace. And none of us are immune from the voice of the public," Ellison told Lemon.

"They're getting tender about a church service now," added Ellison, who is Muslim.

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Ellison is insisting that invading churches and disrupting services is normal First Amendment activity, and that the FACE Act is only supposed to be used to protect the sanctity of the sacrament of abortion. 

The FACE Act does protect abortion clinics, but it also specifically protects churches. As a lawyer I am pretty sure that Attorney General Ellison is quite aware, and he wanted to use it in that manner, but apparently only to protect members of his own religion. 

Ellison, along with Walz, wants this fight with the Trump administration very badly, and he is using means as corrupt in making his case as he did when he facilitated all the Somali fraud here in Minnesota. 

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And, of course, they are related. He wants THIS fight, because it is on his turf, and it distracts from the fight he is in with the Trump administration over the fact that he may turn out to be a key figure in a multi-billion dollar fraud scheme. 

Walz, Frey, and Ellison are all deeply implicated in the Feeding Our Future scam, and Walz, at least, is complicit in all the fraud that has stolen over half our Medicaid dollars. 

HALF. Or more. $10 billion and counting. Likely much more. 

Wouldn't you rather rally your base by fighting Bad Orange Man? And if it means creating chaos, conflict, and violence, so be it. 

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David Strom

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