House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) are calling for the National Park Service to revoke its permit for a scheduled prayer service after categorizing the event as a “white supremacist rally” that “attracts white nationalists.”
“Freedom Rally SAN Francisco," to be held by the Patriot Prayer group, is scheduled for Aug. 26 at Crissy Field Beach, according to the group's Facebook event page.
The event description states it will be "a day of freedom, spirituality, unity, peace, and patriotism!"
In a press release on Aug. 15, Pelosi’s office wrote, in bold print, that she was asking the National Park Service to “Reevaluate Its Capacity to Ensure Public Safety at Crissy Field White Supremacist Rally.”
"San Francisco takes great pride in being a city of peace which cherishes free speech and the right to public dissent. However, the National Park Service’s decision to permit a white supremacist rally at Crissy Field raises grave and ongoing concerns about public safety,” Pelosi’s statement reads.
“I am deeply alarmed by the hateful and dangerous nature of the event, its timing so soon after the horrors in Charlottesville, and the serious questions over whether the National Park Service is at all equipped to ensure public safety during a white supremacist rally,” the statement continues. “The NPS should reevaluate its decision and its capacity to protect the public during such a toxic rally.”
Pelosi’s statement goes on to suggest the White House may be personally responsible for the rally being permitted:
We must wonder, where is the decision to permit a white supremacist rally in a national park being made? At the National Park Service? In the Department of the Interior? Or under guidance from the White House?
Pelosi’s statement also suggested the First Amendment does not allow people to “endanger the public in any venue,” which, supposedly, Pelosi is accusing the event of potentially doing.
On Aug. 16, Feinstein issued a similar statement about a call she allegedly had with the general superintendent of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
In Feinstein’s statement, she claims the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated the Patriot Prayer group as one that “attracts white nationalists and other hate groups to its rallies”:
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Patriot Prayer attracts white nationalists and other hate groups to its rallies with the intent to provoke unrest between those groups and counter-protesters. I am alarmed at the prospect that Crissy Field will be used as a venue for Patriot Prayer’s incitement, hate, and intimidation.
Feinstein similarly calls for the National Park Service to revoke its permit for the event, claiming it will be a “free pass to incite violence.”
While Pelosi categorized the rally as a “white supremacist” event and Feinstein said the group “attracts white nationalists,” the Southern Poverty Law Center itself reveals Joey Gibson, the group’s chief organizer, condemned the violence in Charlottesville at a recent event. He even went as far as to mention his own race as a person of color and tell the crowd, “F**k white supremacists! F**k neo-Nazis!”
Speaking with Tucker Carlson, Gibson revealed that out of all of the eight scheduled speakers, only one is white.
Carlson and Gibson also discussed, due to the attention Pelosi has garnered for the event by dubbing it a “white supremacist” event, counter-protesters are more likely to attend and cause violence.
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