;On Monday, police arrested the Reverend William Barber for praying:
The arrests occurred roughly 15 minutes after Barber, the Rev. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Steve Swayne, director of St. Francis Springs Prayer Center, started praying in the Rotunda as dozens of police stood nearby, some prepared with plastic handcuffs. The three took turns praying, lamenting potential budget cuts to social safety-net programs such as Medicaid, often chanting together: “Against the conspiracy of cruelty, we plead the power of your mercy.
“When we cannot depend on the courts and the legislative power of human beings, we can still depend on … the power of your love and your mercy and your truth,” Barber said in the Rotunda as police began to surround him.
While arresting protesters at the Capitol is not unusual, the response to Barber’s prayer was unusually dramatic: After issuing verbal warnings, dozens of officers expelled everyone in the Rotunda — including credentialed press — and shut the doors, obscuring any view. Press and others were then instructed to leave the floor entirely.
Welp! So much for the Rancid Kumquat’s war on anti-Christian bias. Apparently, that only applies to the white kind of Christian. And it definitely doesn’t apply to people that would pray sanity to come back to the government or for the poor who will catch the brunt of the Republicans’ greed.
