Warriors for Christ (WFC), an SLPC-certified anti-LGBTQ extremist hate group, is suing Washington D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser for using taxpayer money to paint a street mural to Black Lives Matter (BLM), a group that WFC calls a “Secular Humanist… cult.”
On June 5, four days after President Donald Trump threatened military force against BLM protestors, Bowser had 16th street, the street that leads directly to the White House, painted with the “Black Lives Matter” in large yellow letters. She also renamed that part of the street “Black Lives Matter Plaza.”
In response, WFC members — self-proclaimed “street pastor” Rich Penkoski, “outspoken Electronic Dance artist” Chris Sevier and “former bull rider” Tex Christopher — filed a typo-ridden lawsuit (which you can read here) accusing Bowser of violating the First Amendment by trying to establish BLM’s cult-like “religion” of Secular Humanism.
While Secular Humanism is a worldview that basically encourages people to treat all people ethically outside of religious morality, it’s not really a church or a religion. Interestingly, anti-gay activists like WFC have long tried to claim that the LGBTQ movement is part of Secular Humanism so that they can argue that any recognition of queer civil rights is the same as the government trying to establish or favor a certain religion.
WFC says that of the BLM “cult”: “(a) Black lives do not matter to the Black Lives Matter cult unless a black person was killed by a white police officer in the line of duty; (b) Black lives would be safer if Article II was sponteneously [sic] gutted from the Constitution and the government lost its policing powers…”
While all three WFC members have their own anti-gay cred, Friendly Atheist explains a little more about Sevier’s anti-gay schtick:
In 2013, he sued Apple for making computers that let him access pornography. In 2016, he filed several lawsuits because he wanted to marry his computer — because if two gay men can get married, why not a man and a machine? (CHECKMATE, ATHEISTS!) And in 2017, he sued four Democratic members of Congress for having a rainbow flag outside their offices because they apparently established the religion of homosexuality.
WFC wants Bowser to paint street-sized murals that declare “Blue Lives Matter” (for police), “Green Lives Matter” (for the National Guard), and “All Lives Matter” (to promote “a secular self-evident all-inclusive truth claim”). The group also wants Bowser to rename Black Lives Matter Plaza as “Jesus is the answer Plaza” — because that would solve the First Amendment issue forbidding the government from favoring one religion over another?
At least one judge has laughed off a past lawsuit of Sevier’s as frivolous, so its doubtful WFC will actually win their case let alone get a court hearing,