Don Lemon Needs a Lesson in YOUR Rights (Courtesy of MLK on His Day)

We need to talk about the First Amendment because the Left uses it as a shield to hide behind while violating your genuine First Amendment rights. We begin, distastefully, with CNN-star-turned-YouTuber Don Lemon, and a shocking violation of Minnesotans' right to free exercise of their religion.

Recent events in Minnesota — which PJ Media's own Jennifer Rust covered last night — attracted Lemon like a fly to manure. To recap ever-so-briefly, there was some confusion over whether SBC Cities Church pastor David Easterwood is the same David Easterwood who serves as the acting field office director for ICE in Minnesota. But never mind confirming facts and things before siccing anti-ICE "protestors" on worshippers during Sunday services.

Yet Lemon claimed the moral high ground, telling lead pastor Jonathan Parnell, "Listen, there's a constitution, the First Amendment to freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and protest."

Yeah, no.

Let me just say up front that I have a more restrictive reading than is generally understood of the First Amendment's right to protest — a word that doesn't even appear in the text.

Here it is:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

That's it. That's the whole thing. A mere 45 words long, the First protects fundamental individual rights — including, the way I read it, the right to be left alone by professional busybodies, whether they're in Congress or Don Lemon and his BLM buddies.

Check that punctuation. The other rights covered under the First are separated by semicolons, but there's only a comma in between the "peaceably to assemble" and "petition the Government" clauses. The way I see it, that lone comma locks in an ironclad right to petition the government — but leaves no constitutional license to harass private folks at their churches, businesses, or homes.

The Bill of Rights is all about protecting individual rights, and I've never understood how the courts decided that one person's right to disagree with me also grants him the right to make a nuisance of himself at my property.

Sadly, various Supreme Court decisions disagree with my reading, so here we are in a country where even "peaceably" has taken a beating.

Fortunately, Congress kinda-sorta agreed with my take way back in 1994 with the FACE Act.

Originally intended to protect abortion clinics, the Clinton-era Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act also makes it a federal crime to harass people at church. Or as FACE puts it, "intentionally injuring, intimidating, or interfering with, or attempting to injure, intimidate, or interfere, any person by force, threat of force, or physical obstruction exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship."

Introduced by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), FACE protects exactly two kinds of places from scenes like the one Lemon and BLM caused: Places of worship and abortion clinics. I'll let you read into that what you will.

But FACE and my personal reading of the First Amendment aside, Lemon wasn't "peaceably" anything. He was making a scene for YouTube clicks. In other words, he's a publicity hound and a jerk.

Since it's Martin Luther King Jr. Day, let's wrap this up with a reminder of what it really looks like to peaceably assemble and to have righteousness on your side.