MAGA evangelicals’ 'religious freedom' claims are falling apart

Roughly two and one-half weeks after the fatal January 7 shooting of motorist Renee Nicole Good by a U.S. Immigration and Enforcement (ICE) agent, yet another Minneapolis resident was fatally shot during a protest in the city: 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti, who worked in an internal care unit in a Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House adviser Stephen Miller are claiming that Pretti was shot by U.S. Border Patrol agents in self-defense, noting that he was carrying a concealed weapon. But critics of President Donald Trump's ICE raids in Minneapolis are countering Pretti never pointed the gun at Border Patrol agents and that he was shot after being forced onto the ground and disarmed.

In an article published on Monday, January 26 — two days after Pretti's death — Salon's Amanda Marcotte offers a blistering critique of the response that far-right white evangelicals have had to the unrest in Minneapolis.

"The Christian Right will never turn down an opportunity to make false accusations of religious persecution," Marcotte argues. "These days, they're especially eager to play the victim. Doing so allows them to distract from the ugly reality that they, in voting for Donald Trump, have helped to unleash in Minnesota: A woman killed in front of her wife, children ripped from their parents, a baby nearly killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents firing tear gas at a family driving home from a basketball game. On Saturday, there was another unjustifiable shooting. Video appears to show 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an intensive-care unit nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital, helping a woman to her feet when Border Patrol agents swarm and pepper-spray him — and then shoot him in the head."

Marcotte adds, "All this, though, apparently pales in comparison to a more serious form of oppression: right-wing Christians being told it's immoral to support a brutal, racist assault on their neighbors."

The Salon journalist is referring to a Sunday, January 18 protest in which activists disrupted a service at the evangelical Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota because one of the pastors, David Easterwood, is an ICE field director in the area. MAGA Republicans, from Noem to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, described that disruption as an attack on religious freedom — an argument Marcotte considers disingenuous.

Tim Whitaker, a former Christian nationalist, told Salon, "Cities Church is part of the Southern Baptist Convention, which was founded in 1845 over the right to own slaves. This church should be disrupted. As far as I'm concerned, Jesus would've been right with those protesters…. (Cities Church) is home to a pastor that works for a federal agency kidnapping brown-skinned immigrants and killing unarmed citizens."

Marcotte notes that one of the protesters arrested during the January 18 protest at Cities Church is herself an ordained Christian minister.

"Unfortunately, the right's histrionic language about 'religious freedom' has cowed many centrists and even liberals into thinking the protesters who interrupted a single church service are in the wrong," Marcotte writes. "Instead, they should be applauded as following the tradition of Jesus himself confronting the moneychangers in the temple."

Religious freedom means the right to worship as you see fit. By the same token, it also allows everyone else the right to question what churches are teaching — especially when they impact people and communities outside the church doors."

Marcotte adds, "In an era when Christian churches are condoning outright evil actions such as ICE’s deadly rampage through Minnesota, it’s more important than ever to not allow this dishonest definition of 'religious freedom' browbeat the rest of us into silence over spiritual oppression."

Amanda Marcotte's full article for Salon is available at this link.