Join the discussion as we delve into Don Lemon’s controversial remarks and their subsequent legal implications. A recent magistrate judge’s decision not to arrest Don Lemon has sparked debate on journalism and activism, raising questions about the definition of free speech and legal accountability. We also examine the justice system’s role in protecting First Amendment rights in the context of recent church disruptions.
SPEAKER 06 :
On today’s show, Don Lemon says, make me the new Jimmy Kimmel, as a judge shuts down his arrest.
SPEAKER 11 :
Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever, this is Seculo. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekula.
SPEAKER 06 :
Welcome to Sekula. We have a packed show today. I’m here for the next 30 minutes and Will’s going to take over. So you know what? You want to call in the back half of the show. Get ready to call in already and get in line to talk to Will. One-on-one with Will. That’s right.
SPEAKER 08 :
We’re going to talk exclusively about Davos and the economic policy for 30 minutes. This actually becomes the world economic…
SPEAKER 06 :
forum right right here right now phone lines are open for you next half hour if you want to talk about normal people stuff at 1-800-684-3110 and look there’s a lot of news to cover today there’s a winter storm about to smack a lot of us uh so you know what if you don’t hear a show on monday or you see hey why are they running best doves why are they talking about will’s birthday yeah that’s weird maybe it’s because we can’t get into the studio so uh just fair warning that that could be coming on monday hopefully we’ll be back though we’ll see what happens but The big developing story, once again, this is another moment. You know, you saw yesterday the arrest that happened in Minnesota for those agitators that stormed the church, and people said, what about Don Lemon? Well, a judge has ruled shutting down the option of arresting Don Lemon. We’ll get to that, but you know who seems really upset about that? Don Lemon. Don Lemon seems upset about that. He goes on his podcast and it’s like, I know this isn’t the end for me. Bring it on. And he says the quote, make me the new Jimmy Kimmel, which just feels like you’re begging. You’re begging for some attention, for some relevancy, Don Lemon, because it’s the first time your name has been in the news in how many years? Since that Elon interview was really the last time we even heard from you. And now you got a little bit of attention and much like a lot of these people, these quote unquote journalists, celebrity journalists who can’t seem to escape their own ego. They have to push it further and further. And when a judge actually rules on your side and says you were doing anything wrong, which I mean, we can talk about that. Do you think he was doing anything wrong? 1-800-684-3110. Give me a call. He says, oh, don’t worry. It’s not over for me. I got to keep fighting because we know they’re coming for me the next time. Let’s hear it by 11.
SPEAKER 05 :
I stand proud and I stand tall. This is not a victory lap for me because it’s not over. They’re going to try again and they’re going to try again. And guess what? Here I am. Keep trying. That’s not going to stop me from being a journalist. You’re not going to diminish my voice. Go ahead. Make me into the new Jimmy Kimmel if you want. because I’m not going anywhere and I’m going to believe the same things whether you want to, whatever. None of this is about justice. This is about power and it’s about people who are incompetent
SPEAKER 06 :
And that is Don Lemon, again, goes out there, makes this big statement. Look, I’m proud of what I did. That’s fine. He can be proud of what he want, but he’s not going to take a victory lap because, gosh, he can’t. Well, let it get out of the news cycle.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, remember, he was the one that also in that interview where he said the church deserved it because there are a bunch of white supremacists said, you know, I don’t know why this is all about me. Why is it all about me? Oh, because I’m the biggest name there. I was the biggest name there. From the beginning, it’s been all about him. You’ve seen it. You saw the way that he went and did all these interviews after. But yes, it is true. A federal magistrate judge in Minnesota declined to sign off on the criminal complaint against Don Lemon. And we’re going to get into that as well. How do you feel about that? I feel like if it were a magistrate judge in the District of Columbia after maybe something that Republicans did, they would have been more than willing to not pay attention to journalism or claims of that nature. And in reality, it’s really, really hard to say what Don Lemon did was an act. of journalism as he calls it we’ll get into that in the next segment as well but i want to hear what you think do you think that he should be able to get off scot-free at this point with the context of everything he said where he pointed out and said this church is white supremacist so he was making it known that they were targeted for their faith Call us, 1-800-684-3110. And today’s March for Life.
SPEAKER 06 :
Tens of thousands of people will be out on Washington, D.C., on the mall, marching for pro-life laws to make sure they don’t get either overturned or changed. Look, there’s a lot of fights still going on in the pro-life movement. It hasn’t stopped. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Seculo. Phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110. We’ll be taking your calls throughout the show. Will’s going to be joining us in the back half. We also have some ACLJ attorneys maybe calling in, maybe some new updates. Of course, it is the March for Life today, so I wanted to bring some attention to that. Tens of thousands of our friends and, of course, even our ACLJ team are out there. They’re pro-life supporters who descend on the nation’s capital because, historically, this is the weekend that was the Roe versus Wade. uh a day like the anniversary anniversary of the decision or the argument um however now we know that roe has been overturned and with we’re all being overturned just a few years ago it’s easy for the pro-life movement uh to be forgotten about they’re still out there there’s still some good friends out there performing speaking jd vance is speaking it’s it’s a big group but the aclj i want you to know i just have a note here on the side Over just the last year, the ACLJ has been involved. And when you think that the pro-life moment is over, we won, states can decide what they want to do. A lot of states, like the state we’re in right now, it’s very restrictive. Other states, a lot looser. But over the last year, the ACLJ has been involved in 224 pro-life matters. And we have a petition right now. During this March for Life, I’m going to ask you to take action with us. Sign our petition at aclj.org slash sign. It hasn’t gone away. It’s still happening right now. There are plenty of pro-life cases that we are taking on, plenty of people trying to push in all the different pro-life situations. And look, it’s going to be a battle for the rest of our lives in some way or the other. depending on where you live now this was a big win a few years ago but don’t forget that this is still happening uh nationwide i do want to take some calls though on the don lemon situation you may have heard don lemon is not going to be arrested a judge ruled and it seems like the person most upset about that may be don lemon himself because that means he may not make it uh or may not still be in the news cycle what happens then he’s saying go ahead media go ahead uh Trump administration, make me the new Jimmy Kimmel. That’s exactly what he wants. I think when they show their cards so easily, just saying, please keep me relevant. Keep me in the news. It’s all I want. It’s not about creating news. It’s not about covering news. It’s about making myself the news. It’s really disheartening, but also not unexpected. This has been Don Lemon’s character for a while. You can go back to why he was even removed from CNN in the first place. This is an ego-driven moment. I say it not even loosely. when he went into that church and essentially you know how did the pastor and told the pastor that you know well these people are just exercising their first amendment right their freedom of speech it shows how profoundly he does not know how the law works and how a lot of great commentators have a teleprompter in front of them are really good at doing that
SPEAKER 08 :
but haven’t taken the time to actually learn the laws of the land. Here’s what really frustrates me about this whole thing, too, with him trying to say, make me the next Jimmy Kimmel. Please. Right. Here’s the difference. Jimmy Kimmel made a statement that was in poor taste in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, and his company put him on suspension based off of his statement. now he’s back on air Don Lemon was fired from CNN for a host of reasons not this he’s been trying to make himself relevant for a long time but he went inside the church where there was violations of the law three people have already been arrested for that for various crimes not just violation of the face act He himself was getting in the face of the pastor when the pastor was still trying to get people out of the church. It wasn’t like he said, pastor, can I get an interview with you over here now that everything is calmed down? It was in the middle of it while the pastor was trying to take care of people that were frightened. And the pastor even says, I need to go take care of my flock. But that’s where, as you even mentioned, he says the misunderstanding of the Constitution by saying, well, people are doing their freedom of speech and right to assemble in your church service, as if that’s how that works. But the two analogies, they aren’t analogous. They are completely different. Jimmy Kimmel
SPEAKER 06 :
was removed from air suspended briefly also for a comment this is going in went on the air and apologized crying in tears now whether that was legitimate or not i think we can now look at time may tell otherwise but at least in that moment not only did he have to be suspended from air he went on and a pretty big mea culpa and was visibly crying, apologizing for what he had to say. Whether that was the network making him or not to keep his job, time will tell. But in that moment, that’s what he had to do. He didn’t go on there and say, I believe what I believe. I can say whatever I want to say. He actually went on and did quite the opposite in that moment and said, we made a mistake.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, as well as they weren’t trying to pursue criminal charges against Jimmy Kimmel. This is a completely different circumstance. He’s trying to elevate his status, even though I think people watching our show wouldn’t say Jimmy Kimmel has that high of a status. He does have a television broadcast on Bradcast. There’s a couple million people watching him. Exactly. But this is someone who has become irrelevant. And even the stuff he was saying afterwards, fantastic. filming the child that was being comforted by the the kid’s father and saying oh look they’re uncomfortable i bet there’s some trauma that’s the point he was engaged in this it wasn’t just reporting on it he was a part of it i lost all um sympathy or care or journalistic uh respect
SPEAKER 06 :
for Don Lemon in that moment where you are celebrating the traumatization of children who are just going to their church service, kids that probably had no choice whether to be there or not, certainly didn’t understand what was going on and these are kids that are living in a time where it’s not necessarily safe to be in their own school certainly not safe to necessarily be in their own church and now they’re experiencing firsthand instead of going oh man that’s really upsetting that this has to happen he’s going to look at that look at that kid over there who was traumatized but you know that’s the point shake things up i mean that’s that’s a summarizing a quote i’m sure we can uh fine here yeah here it is let’s go to bite four
SPEAKER 05 :
This guy here, look, he’s hugging his kid. And, you know, I just imagine it’s uncomfortable and traumatic for the people here. But again, careful, it’s very slippery right here. It’s uncomfortable and traumatic for the people here, but that’s what really, careful, please, really slippery. Not kidding. That’s what protesting is about.
SPEAKER 06 :
And so he says to take away all of his talk about the snow being very slippery in the ice, he said it’s uncomfortable and traumatic for the people here. But that is really what protesting is about. That is a moment that, again, I lost all feelings towards Don Lemon in terms of any sort of at least journalistic respect. Not that I had much to begin with. He’s been rude and obnoxious for years and years and years. But in that moment, you start doing this to children. Yeah, you got no love for me. All right, let’s take some phone calls. Let’s go to Tim who’s calling in the great state of Tennessee. Tim, go ahead.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah. So, uh, it’s actually, uh, two questions real quick. One, uh, at what point does, does John Lennon actually exceed, uh, the, the, the ruling of, uh, uh, being a journalist and then being someone could be prosecuted. And two, if he’s not affiliated with any, uh, organization, a news organization, uh,
SPEAKER 06 :
can he still claim that he’s a journalist yeah i mean i think you can claim independent journalists i don’t think there’s anything wrong with that look i mean there are a lot of people who do that do it really well especially in new media uh when it comes to where that line is i think it’s a blurry and it’s also slippery slope you got to be careful but when he was part of the mob invading knowing the plans going in there with them and then intimidating people i think that’s where probably the line is however a judge ruled the other way
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, and once again, this is a magistrate judge. This isn’t a judge that is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Magistrate judges are appointed by the district court judges to handle pretrial motions and things of that nature. So the magistrate judge did not sign off on… what the charges that were being brought by the Justice Department. The Justice Department has said they are looking at other avenues. But Tim, and to your point as well, you can do journalism without being a part of the New York Times or Fox News or a big organization. The First Amendment doesn’t say freedom of the press. And here is the definition of what that is. But it also doesn’t give you a get out of jail free card if you violate the law. That is why when you have the protection of a large organization that has attorneys that are telling you, hey, you know what? That actually is going too far. Protecting sources. You cannot go out and solicit someone to break the law for you and give you information. But if you receive it from someone who brings it to you, that’s different. There are levels of protection, yes, as the press, but it’s not protection from you violating the law. That is the big difference here. And where Don Lemon is trying to say, I was just a journalist documenting, reporting on. No, he was engaged in it. And I think that’s also where the hypocrisy that we have seen is how aggressively they went after people that claimed that defense on January 6th. And… You have to be able to look at them in context in the cases, but you can’t someone like Don Lemon 100% say, me going in, trespassing, engaging in this, supporting it, saying it was because it is a white supremacist church, And then also try to say, I was just documenting it. I was just being a journalist. No, he was being an advocate and a participant who had a camera crew with him. And that is the difference here. And I’m surprised to some degree that the magistrate judge did not sign off on this arrest warrant. But I don’t think the Justice Department is done here.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. We’ll be back in just a moment. Want to support the work of the ACLJ? Go to ACLJ.org and give me a call. 1-800-684-3110. Welcome back to Secular. Hey, right now, President Trump is making a statement for the March for Life. Can we actually go to that for a second? I wouldn’t mind doing it. See if we can. They’re broadcasting it right now. It’s from the Oval Office, so it’s a pre-recorded message, but I think it could be interesting just to pop in. Hopefully, President Trump doesn’t say anything offensive, not radio-friendly during the March for Life, but you know, you never know.
SPEAKER 08 :
And also, I do want to say that the ACLJ is a coalition partner at the March for Life. We have some of our attorneys on stage there. We may go to that, to the March for Life with our attorney later on. But also, once again, you are seeing the president fully supports the March for Life in ways that has never been done before.
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He’s spoken in person and Vice President Vance is speaking today.
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So even reiterating that support for the pro-life movement is very important.
SPEAKER 06 :
uh even at this time all right well let me know if we can do that uh phone lines are open for you at 1-800-684-3110 looks like it just may have wrapped up 1-800-684-3110 to have your voice heard today of course we are talking about look when you have one of these moments of march for life which is always i mean very very largely a very peace focused protest or march that happens a very uh scheduled uh event and then you have what’s going on in minnesota uh it’s very different And look, there’s a lot of news that’s coming out of Minnesota. A lot of it’s misleading. A lot of it we have to do a lot of digging on. We have seen some headlines in the last 24 hours and thought, you know, man, even J.D. Vance said, you know, some of those stories break your heart. Then you read about them and you start looking at the details. They don’t necessarily all line up with how the media wants to portray it. And that’s a big part of what we have to do here is to kind of sort through where the media lands. I would like to, let’s go pop into a call. Let’s go to, is it Dewana on line three?
SPEAKER 09 :
dewana in arkansas line three you’re on the air um i hope our justice department is not continuing itself done because it brought charges against three i understand those are the leaders and they needed to go first but i don’t want these other protesters to sit in jail for three years just because they you know walked in a church and stood there for a while and whatever and disrupted service but without a trial like our January 6thers, you know. But I do want them to be brought up for trespassing and for disturbing and, you know, whatever they can be charged with. And otherwise, this craziness is just not going to stop. The Justice Department can’t consider itself done with three people.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, I think that there’s a lot of people who feel that way, Juana. I’m at least pleased that there have been people who have already been held accountable because that’s not necessarily what we see. I know a lot of you call in and complain. You never see arrests. You never see anything happen. We’ve been talking about that for the last few days. Well, now you’ve seen three arrests. And yes, you saw someone like, you at least saw an answer, which was you had a magistrate judge say, we’re not going to go after Don Lemon. At least you got an answer there. And I don’t know if this is the end. You got to go to the leader and then find out who the rest of them are.
SPEAKER 08 :
As well, do you want to remember that the three that have been arrested now are probably the easiest to get the arrest warrant signed off on. You have the organizer, two people that were organizers, kind of ringleaders of this. And then the individual who has kind of made a name for himself around, he was holding a press conference saying, you know, you can kill the revolutionary, but not the revolution. He is a known entity. He has been getting in the face of national guardsmen in DC. He also put out video of himself harassing people. Very easy to get those arrests done quickly without much investigation of trying to figure out who are these people. But now that you have them, you can go further, try to get more information and, go down that line of people that violated the law in the way that they did this. I also want to say, once again, the Justice Department says they’re not done with Don Lemon. They’re going to continue and look at other avenues for charging him. But once again, I’ve also seen people saying, well, arrests aren’t enough. We have to see them in jail. Well, That is, yes, that is the goal after an arrest is to prosecute these individuals. But we know the courts can take a while and there’s a discovery phase and bringing it to trial, it takes some time. The Justice Department can’t just put someone in jail and convict them on their own. Nor should they. That is how our legal system works. They get their day in court. In the eyes of the law, they are innocent until proven guilty. And we need to always reiterate that. That is for good. We want that to be in place and don’t want to… Shatter the American legal system just because we know they are guilty. We have seen what they have done, but in the eyes of the law, innocent until proven guilty. And so, yes, they have to go through that process. Just the arrest. I know once again, you see people arrested and you see even sometimes people get off the hook because of the jury pool that is pulled for this. But I think you’ve got a lot of evidence here because they were live streaming it and Don Lemon was saying what their motive was that we should see justice in this case.
SPEAKER 06 :
All right. Do we have a stream here going on? Yeah. Okay, let’s let’s pop it. This is Vice President Vance speaking on the March for Life right now.
SPEAKER 07 :
For the thousands of men and women and children, for the church groups, the school groups, the grandparents and the toddlers and everyone in between who braved this chilly Washington afternoon, all of us, all of us in the Trump administration from the president on down, we thank you for your prayers, we thank you for your perseverance, and we thank you that for today we are all marching for life. I know a lot of us heard from the president just before this, so you know that he loves and cares deeply about this movement. And it’s why he has fought for the pro-life cause and why we do it in this administration. And it’s why three years ago, we cannot forget, he delivered and his Supreme Court justices delivered the most important Supreme Court decision of my lifetime. Because with the Dobbs decision, what we did, what the president did, what the Supreme Court did, was put a definitive end to the tyranny of judicial rule on the question of human life. He shattered a 50-year culture of disposability, one that treated human life as expendable the moment that it became inconvenient. And he empowered our nation and our movement to build a culture of life from the grassroots up. And over the last year, I got to brag a little bit, our administration has worked very hard to lead that effort and to pick up the pieces, to clean up the wreckages of five decades of bad policy on the question of life.
SPEAKER 06 :
I think that this is an important moment, and I really do. When you see the vice president out there, and you know we’re only a few years from another presidential election, which will serve as a new president, you have to remember the impact. When a lot of people give you grief and may say, why did you vote for President Trump? Why do you support President Trump when you see what’s going on with ICE? Or maybe you disagree with some of the rhetoric. Maybe you disagree, even though you voted for President Trump, on some of the ways he has handled certain situations. And then you have moments like this. And understand, I’ve been in this pro-life fight for my entire life. No president or vice president has come out and made these kind of bold statements other than maybe you could say, you know, President Trump and Mike Pence probably did, but other than Trump administrations. Whether you want to push back and say, I don’t know if they believe it or they don’t believe it, if they’re just pandering to their own, to who they think is going to vote for them. You know what? The laws say one thing, and that is that regardless if they believe it or not, I do believe that at least you have JD fans here speaking very passionately. They got it done. So hold your head high and know that if you’re part of this pro-life cause, this should be celebrated. And over the last year alone, we have had over 200 protests. Legal pro-life matters here at the ACLJ. Because though, as Vice President Vance said, though the tide is turning and though you had something like Dobbs overturn Roe versus Wade, the states all got much more aggressive and the ones who wanted to go as far as far into the culture of death have done it more than ever. We’re fighting back, and I want you to be part of it at aclj.org. We’ll check in more with the March for Life and our ACLJ team, who is there on the ground. When we get back, the second half hour of Seculo is coming up. Join us, aclj.org.
SPEAKER 11 :
Keeping you informed and engaged, now more than ever. This is Seculo.
SPEAKER 08 :
Welcome back. Second half hour of Seculo on this Friday. I know many of you throughout this country are preparing for a historic winter storm. So we pray that you all stay safe. And as Logan mentioned at the top of the show, if you hear some things that sound familiar on Monday. know that it is not us just taking a nice winter break. It is because we were unable to make it to the studio. But we pray everyone stays safe. And we have seen actually a really good turnout at the March for Life, despite the fact that D.C. is kind of in the target range for this winter storm. So that is a wonderful thing to see that people still showed up and were out there on a very cold day. The vice president speaking. But we are talking about Still this issue with Minnesota, where the church that was invaded by these agitators, these protesters, as they want to call them, and that we have seen three people charged thus far. We know that a magistrate judge in Minnesota refused to go along with the charging based off of these initial reports. They rejected the criminal charge against Don Lemon and the Justice Department has said that they will move forward with other avenues. They’re going to still look at ways to try and charge him with his part of participating in that disruption of the church service in Minneapolis. I know there’s a lot of questions about that. So please call me 1-800-684-3110. We’ll do our best to get to all of you in this broadcast this half hour. But also in the next segment, we’re going to have Nathan Molker, who you’ve seen on this broadcast before, one of our attorneys here at the ACLJ, talking about an appeal that we’re having to file because. When you have historically, who are the people they go after the most that are peacefully protesting? Pro-life advocates. And you talk about on a day like today where there’s the March for Life, it’s important to bring this up. But we’re having to fight for the ability for individuals to even peacefully, by holding a sign, not disruptively protest. exercising their freedom of speech. And you contrast that with what we saw that they thought they could get away with in Minnesota. Fortunately, we have a different justice department now that is actually going after individuals that went into the church and that had, they were doing it based on ideological grounds, making assumptions about the worshipers there based off of them being a traditional Christian church. And we’ve discussed it a lot this week. It has been frustrating. It’s been disheartening to see the left’s reaction. It’s been just really disgusting to see even how Don Lemon portrayed this entire thing. And I think we should play this just so people remember this was his reaction after the fact. This is by nine. This is how he described. And actually, we’re running short on time. So I’m going to save that for you all. I’ll keep it as a teaser. I don’t want to freak out the people in the booth too much that we’re going to run close there. But he was saying that there’s this entitlement in that church and that it comes from a place of white supremacy. And it’s not the Christianity that he practices. It really is. It was one of those moments that you heard what he said and you watched it and you couldn’t believe it. And this is after the fact. And he’s laying out the case for the Justice Department that they were doing this based off of targeting this church based on their religion, based on their faith. And they were trying to deprive them of their constitutional right to exercise that faith. But we know that three have already been arrested. They are attempting to go after Don Lemon himself. And he’s trying to say, I did an act of journalism and they’re coming after me. That’s not what journalism is. Journalism is not taking part in the activity. That’s called activism. And if your activism violates the law, you can be punished for that and should be punished for that. We’ll get into it more. We’ll also be joined by our attorney, Nathan Mulker, in the next segment of the broadcast. So stick around. As well as I see we’ve got a full bank of calls and we will get to those as well. But as we are a part of the March for Life today and all the pro-life work that we have going on, consider supporting the ACLJ at ACLJ.org or sign our petition today. Welcome back to Seculo, and I am joined now by Nathan Mulker, who is Senior Associate Counsel here at the ACLJ. And Nathan, I know that you’re not in the office today. You’re normally in DC studio, but as much of the East Coast and the Southeast are preparing for this winter storm, you are not in office today. But I wanted to talk about this because I think the contrast here is important because When we see, once again, this is the March for Life, which is a very important day for those of us that are pro-life advocates and have been fighting for this cause for a long time. But also when you talk about what we saw in Minnesota in that church where individuals overran the church and they got in the face and they intimidated people and their entire goal was to terrorize people that were trying to exercise their faith on a Sunday. You have that and you see the Justice Department rightfully going after people that were violating the law there. But what we have to fight for, for people that are peaceful protesters, peaceful advocates that stand with signs, and we see that governments make laws to try and make simple, peaceful demonstrations illegal. And that’s what we’re fighting for in Carbondale, Illinois. And we’re actually having to file an appeal. Give us a little bit of background in what we’re having to do today on this March for Life Day.
SPEAKER 02 :
Exactly. So it’s very appropriate that this is what we’re doing today on the day of the March for Life. So our client, Brandon Hammond, all he wants to do is share the gospel outside a Planned Parenthood clinic. He’s not aggressive or confrontational. He’s just trying to share the message of hope and the gospel with people who might be entering the clinic. So as part of that, he has small signs, signs like will be carried in their thousands today in D.C., And with those small signs, he simply communicates his Christian message of hope and a message of life. And because of those signs, of course, the city came after him and told him he had to take away his signs. And he asked the police officers, would you go after someone else with different signs? And these police officers, they were honest. They were like, no, I don’t think the city would go after him. In fact, there’s even a similar sign across the street for a fast food restaurant. That sign was fine, but not the pro-life sign. No, Carbondale sent people after him to make sure that he took down his small signs that he just had with him as he was seeking to share the gospel.
SPEAKER 08 :
And once again, we see this all over the country. And obviously, we are talking about Illinois, a state that people are like, OK, well, it’s Illinois. But we see it all over the country. It doesn’t matter what state, no matter how conservative or how liberal the state is. You see a lot of times municipalities make these ordinances, make these laws to target speech. But it’s not just that state. the speech is like, we don’t want any signs. We don’t want the way it looks. We don’t want to aesthetically detract from our city with signage. But we see time and time again, it is specifically viewpoint discrimination. It is the specifics of the speech of the sign that they are targeting, not just the visibility of signs in general. And once again, that’s what we’re having to deal with here in Carbondale, Illinois.
SPEAKER 02 :
Exactly. And in fact, we sought a preliminary injunction in this case. And when we were there in court, one of the police officers admitted on the stand that they were targeting these signs because of their message. So we’re appealing this case now to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. which is in Chicago. And there we will be arguing that the court should issue an injunction over overruling the decision of the court below here and and affirm the First Amendment rights of our client as he seeks to share the gospel and proclaim the truth about life.
SPEAKER 08 :
And Nathan, go ahead. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you there.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, you’re fine. And it’s particularly important on a day like today with the March for Life happening as we speak that people stand up for the cause of life, right? The March for Life is in D.C., but people are standing for life all over the country. So it’s such a privilege that today we get to file an appeal for someone trying to share the gospel and the message of hope and life outside an abortion clinic.
SPEAKER 08 :
And once again, folks, these cases, they take a while. They take resources. They take hours and hours from our wonderful attorneys like Nathan and the team in D.C. and around the country. But this is just on the preliminary injunction stage that we’re already at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Once again, even if we are successful here on the preliminary injunction stage, We still have to go back to the district court for the rest of the case, for the merits of the case, and that takes time and resources. So, Nathan, we’re grateful to you and the hardworking attorneys at the ACLJ, but this isn’t something you planned for, to be filing on a Friday of the March for Life. That is because we are always ready to respond. We are always, even when you’re preparing for a winter storm, always ready to be there in court. Even though you were… just what, a week and a half ago in Houston, or sorry, in New Orleans, rather, on behalf of a client out of Houston for her free speech rights, being able to pray as a teacher in public school. We are all over the country, never stopping, but this is not over even here at this appeal stage. This is a long fight ahead, and that’s why people should support the ACLJ as we continue to fight for Americans’ rights.
SPEAKER 02 :
Exactly. In fact, we’re really all over the country right now, particularly on issues related to life. So I got to be out in Missouri this past week for the trial there as part of a wonderful team. We have a bunch of attorneys working on that case, and I got to be there for a couple of days. And just next week, we will be in court again in Boston defending a pro-life pregnancy center that has been called dangerous in a public health crisis by the state there in Massachusetts. So the fight for life really just has intensified in these last few years. And it’s just wonderful to be a part of the ACLJ where we’re on the forefront of so many of these important battles.
SPEAKER 08 :
Nathan, thank you for joining me today. Thank you for your hard work and stay warm and safe this weekend as the weather gets dicey here in this part of the country. But I also want to go back to the original topic we were talking about today and take some phone calls as we get towards the end of the show. Open up a few phone lines and let some folks get on the air if you want to call in. But let’s go ahead and talk to Tony on line two calling from Tennessee. Tony, you’re on Sekulow.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, guys. Great to talk to you. Thank you for taking my call. Thank you. Hope y’all are staying warm. Listen, I want to ask maybe a little bit of an uncomfortable question, but to set it up, it’s a huge country. Geographically, there’s a lot of differences. What’s going to happen? Every church is not just like the church we saw on Sunday. What’s going to happen when these protesters, probably emboldened by Don not getting arrested, what’s going to happen when Don or his protesters show up at the, for lack of a better word, the wrong church?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, Tony, I think I understand what you’re saying. And I understand also that it poses a very dangerous potential way forward. And I know you’re in Tennessee and Tennessee. We are as well. Our broadcast. I know that. Many of the churches in our area have very strong security because of situations like this. And whether it be having off-duty police officers and members of the law enforcement community that help support that or having their own security teams. One, I don’t know that Don Lemon not getting the arrest here yet. will embolden others because the organizers and the people whose names you don’t know are the ones getting arrested so if you’re a protester uh one don lemon is giving himself too much importance in this and trying to make a name for himself out of it but even though according to what i’ve seen it appears that he was engaged in this and not just being a journalist i do think seeing The protesters whose names you didn’t know before this should be a stronger deterrent than if Don Lemon himself were arrested for this. You also see director of the FBI, Kash Patel, put out a tweet or sorry, Logan, we get on to me a post on X saying, Last night, they said every individual who allegedly targets our brave law enforcement, targets places of worship, or in any way pays for or facilitates such illegal activity will be pursued and will be caught. And along with that, he put up the three images of the three arrests that they had made in Minnesota. So one, I think vigilance by churches to make sure that their congregations are taken care of is important. But I also know that it is a tough position. And I think that’s why that church was exploited by these protesters. Because churches are welcoming. The whole goal is to invite in. They call the place of worship a sanctuary. And the proper use of the term sanctuary, unlike the sanctuary cities that the blue states and the blue governments are using, it is a place where people can come and receive rest and receive a message of hope and a life-changing message. That is the purpose of the church building. We know that the church is the body of Christ, the people, but the purpose of the building is for a place where the body of Christ can come and congregate and worship. And they knew that they could target it because it is a welcoming place and because they could get in the face of people and try to terrorize them and make them feel uncomfortable. And it was demonic what we saw. However, I’m proud of the law enforcement that are taking this seriously and protecting our First Amendment, protecting the freedom of religion that we have while we still have it. Because we’re not promised it forever. And we know that is something you have to fight for. And that’s why we fight for it here at the ACLJ every day. Support the work at ACLJ.org. Welcome back to Sekulow, final segment of the broadcast today. And we have a full bank of calls, so I’m going to get right to those. We’re going to go to William calling from Nevada Online 4. William, you’re on Sekulow. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yes, I was wondering if those same protesters went into a mosque, if there would be any difference. Because my understanding is most Muslims are pro-life.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you. William, you know… There would be a difference from some and not from others. There would probably be a difference from the left. They would say, how dare they? You know where there wouldn’t be a difference? Right here. Because you shouldn’t have people breaking in, disrupting Friday prayers, and getting in the face of individuals if they were worshiping. And I think that we would call that out as well. If that same reaction that we saw from these protesters over ICE had been when the Somali fraud allegations were in the news, and they still should be and still are, even though this is taking away from it to some degree. If individuals decided to go and break into mosques during Friday prayer and disrupt the service and say, because this is a mosque and there are Somalis in this building, Somali immigrants, that we are going to blame all of you. How dare you not shut down the fraud? I would condemn that as well for the exact same reason. And so you would see the left be more outraged in that case, 100%. But the message here would be exactly the same, that you should not be doing that. That is not the way to combat fraud. It’s definitely not the way to also get people to examine the issue for what it is. And instead, though, it is a lot… more easy for people to target people of faith because they think that they can get away with it and the justice department is not allowing that thank you william for your call i’m going to keep going here i’m going to go to kevin from michigan who is an aclj champion i should have taken you first kevin i’m sorry about that uh logan will get on to me later but kevin you’re on the air
SPEAKER 14 :
No problem. Thanks a lot, you guys. You’re all gentlemen over there. We love contributing to the cause, but there’s a couple of things that you gentlemen are not saying. First and foremost, Don Lemon’s not a Christian. His lifestyle choices and desire to pander to the evil and distorted left is evidence of that. Just read your Bible, everyone. Number two, they’re going after these churches not only because the churches are forgiving and generous and peaceful, but because they know they’ll get away with it. You know, there was a bunch of people, I don’t know how many, that were thrown in jail after January 6th. They languished in jail for years under trumped-up charges. You know, unless and until we start treating our adversaries in the same fashion, we’re going to be disappointed and frustrated. Guys, it’s time for us to fight fire with fire.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thanks. Well, Kevin, you know, here is the reality of the situation. One, we see that the Department of Justice is going after these individuals. for violating the law. And I have brought up that issue of January 6th. And I think it’s an uncomfortable one for both sides because when you look at what’s happening here, people like Don Lemon saying, I was just a journalist, I was just documenting what’s going on. When people that were inside the Capitol tried to use that defense, many of them still were prosecuted. But when it’s Don Lemon, he should get a pass, even though he was actively participating. I don’t know the facts of the case of the January 6th individuals that were prosecuted, even though they claimed that defense. But if they were engaged in the way that Don Lemon was, then I think the argument stands that Don Lemon should not be able to claim that. And they probably shouldn’t have either. It’s consistency that we’re lacking on both sides here. But the same thing with… All the other people that were violating, they were trespassing, they were in there to disrupt, if they are going to be – we saw how aggressively the federal government went after individuals at the Capitol – at a a government building then i think that it should be also the case that these people are gone after aggressively uh and i don’t think that either one was a good situation neither january 6th nor these people breaking in there and i i hope that this can be a moment of consistency from both the left and the right. And to call out that that should not happen. That going into a church and getting in the face and trying to disrupt the worship in the First Amendment right is not something that we should allow in our country to continue. But I’m going to keep going with calls. Let’s go to Wendy calling from California on line one. Wendy, you’re on Seculo.
SPEAKER 10 :
Thank you. My question is Does the church, the pastor, or the congregants have the ability to bring charges against these people?
SPEAKER 08 :
So, Wendy, they cannot bring the charges. The Department of Justice has to bring the charges. Now, they can file reports with local authorities as well. I don’t know that the local authorities are willing there necessarily to bring charges. But once again, the charges must be brought by… either the state in the case of state charges or local district attorneys or by the Justice Department U.S. attorneys in this case. But there is a civil component to the FACE Act, the violation of the FACE Act, where the church could bring civil cases against these individuals. Now, That civil case would not lead to jail time. That is a monetary issue seeking damages in that venue. And that’s up for the church to decide. The church has a much bigger mission in the world, and that is sharing the gospel and spreading the love of Christ. They have put out very strong statements about protecting the First Amendment and protecting the church and the right to our freedom of religion here. I don’t know if they are, and that would be up to their elders, to their congregation, to their staff, if that is the angle they would want to go to seek a civil case against individuals. They may use it as a bigger witnessing opportunity in saying, This cannot stand, and we’re glad our government is doing this, but we are not going to pursue a civil case. Or they may say we have to make an example. That’s not for me to decide. That’s for them to decide as that church. But there is a civil angle to the FACE Act. We only have a couple minutes left here. Real short. I’m only going to be able to get to one other today. Let’s go to Warren on line six calling from Idaho. Warren, you’re on secular. You got about 30 seconds.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, I changed my statement. We need to remember what Jesus said. He said, don’t revile those when they revile you. It shouldn’t take us as a surprise. But he also took it a step further and said, bless those that persecute you and, you know, love those that hate you. And it’s so hard when we want justice. Let’s leave that to the ACLJ and let God make up the rest.
SPEAKER 08 :
Warren, I am so thankful that you called, so thankful that you changed your statement as well. You had a great one before. But yes, at the end of the day, we are not guaranteed in this life safety and the ability to practice our faith freely without persecution. We know that that will come. But we should fight for it as an organization, as a country, to maintain and keep that First Amendment while we can. But as he said, the Justice Department is the one here to take care of that and get the legal retribution, not us. And that we should continue to be a light to the world and show what the gospel can truly bring. We’ll talk to you next week.
