Cities Church Attorney Slams Catholic University for Honoring Don Lemon in ‘First Amendment Week’

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—An attorney for Cities Church, the St. Paul, Minn., church that faced an anti-ICE invasion in January, condemned a private Catholic university for hosting former CNN anchor Don Lemon, who stands accused of interfering with the First Amendment rights of churchgoers, as a headliner for its “First Amendment Week” celebration.

“Don Lemon has made a mockery of the First Amendment,” Renee Carlson, general counsel at True North Legal, which represents Cities Church, told The Daily Signal in a statement Wednesday. “Calling him a hero for violating others’ constitutionally protected freedom of worship is a farce.”

“It’s like giving ‘Lia’ Thomas a women’s athlete of the year award,” Carlson quipped.

The Los Angeles Loyolan, a student newspaper at Loyola Marymount University, announced Tuesday that it will host Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort—who also faces charges in the church invasion—at two “headliner” events for its annual celebration of the First Amendment. Lemon and Fort face charges for depriving worshippers of their First Amendment rights by disrupting and blocking access to a church service.

The Loyolan claimed that the arrests of Lemon and Fort “sparked a national outcry about threats to the free press.” The paper characterized their roles in the Jan. 18 invasion of Cities Church in St. Paul as “covering a protest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during which demonstrators entered a church to protest its pastor, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.”

Tom McClusky, government relations liaison at CatholicVote, told The Daily Signal that the Catholic school should be ashamed to invite Lemon.

“Don Lemon’s hatred of Catholic doctrine is well documented, which alone should stop any college calling itself Catholic from having him come speak,” McClusky said. “However, it is Don Lemon’s disregard for the First Amendment that makes his invite so egregious.”

“The First Amendment not only protects freedom of speech, but also freedom of religion, a part Mr. Lemon seems to forget,” he added. “Don Lemon, and by extension Loyola University, believe that your rights end where his begin.”

‘Hatred of Catholic Doctrine’

As for “hatred of Catholic doctrine,” McClusky highlighted Lemon’s response to a 2021 Vatican document forbidding Catholic priests from blessing same-sex unions.

Lemon said that the Catholic Church “and many other churches” need “to reexamine themselves and their teachings because that is not what God is about.”

“God is not about hindering people or even judging people,” Lemon added. The former CNN anchor has been in a relationship with another man, Tim Malone, since 2016, and LGBTQ activist groups like the Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD have hosted the couple.

McClusky also highlighted Lemon’s statement in 2020 that “Jesus Christ… admittedly was not perfect when he was here on this earth.” This directly contradicted Catholic—and orthodox Christian—doctrine that Jesus, the Son of God, was and remains sinless (Hebrews 4:15, 7:26).

The Church Invasion

A federal grand jury indicted 39 people, including Lemon and Fort, on two charges: violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which also protects access to churches; and violating the Ku Klux Klan Act, which criminalizes efforts to deprive Americans of their fundamental rights—in this case, the right to the free exercise of religion.

According to the indictment, between 20 and 40 agitators, who claimed to be opposing Immigration and Customs Enforcement because one of the church’s pastors worked for ICE, refused to leave when asked and shouted, “Who shut this down? We shut this down!”

The indictment also mentions that agitators screamed at crying children, blocked parents from getting to their children in Sunday School, and that one agitator told a child his parents were Nazis and going to hell.

The indictment states that Lemon strategized with the group’s leaders Nekima Levy Armstrong and Chauntyll Louisa Allen before the invasion, and notes that Lemon said the group planned to “disrupt business as usual” at the church. Lemon appeared to hide the target location on his livestream before the disruption.

Once inside, Lemon allegedly confronted Cities Church Pastor Jonathan Parnell, while other agitators—including Fort—blocked the pastor in, and asked him questions to further the agitators’ narrative. When people finally exited the church, Lemon observed that they were “frightened,” “scared,” and “crying.” He said that was understandable because the experience was “traumatic and uncomfortable,” which he added was the purpose of the incident.

Fort allegedly stood in front of a minivan, preventing it from leaving, while interviewing Armstrong after the disruption.

Pastor Parnell said that Lemon was “in on the terror” of the church invasion.

“I told him, plainly, that we had gathered to worship Jesus and that he should leave. He did not leave. He was in on the terror,” the pastor wrote in an op-ed on the incident.

Lemon and Fort have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Neither The Los Angeles Loyolan nor Loyola Marymount University responded to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.

Lemon did not respond to a request for comment.

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