The attack on Christian worshipers in Seattle over Memorial Day weekend wasn’t an isolated event. Not by a long shot. The incident may tell you all you need to know about how Antifa is allowed to attack Christians and others with impunity, holding the de facto position of the Democrats’ protected shock troops.
“Where is your God now?” taunted an Antifa thug to Christian worshipers when he and several other masked attackers maced, set off smoke bombs, and threw eggs at those at a permitted worship service. Then, as the worshipers fled, Antifa thugs destroyed the sound equipment.
That was in 2021 in Portland, Ore.
The event featured Canadian pastor Artur Pawlowski, who stood up to the Justin Trudeau government when it sought to shut down church services due to COVID.
No one was arrested in Portland’s attacks. The police were told to stand down and give Antifa yet another free pass.
The same anti-Christian Antifa attacks happened over Memorial Day weekend 2025 at Antifa’s sister-city of Seattle. In fact, you can probably count on the fact that several Portland Antifa activists were at both attacks. They’re all the same people.
As Vodkapundit reports nearby, the Seattle worship service by the group MayDayUSA, called the rally “Don’t Mess With Our Kids” and was attacked by vicious anti-free speech Antifa apparatchiks on Saturday.
The attack occurred at Seattle’s notorious Cal Anderson Park, part of the Summer of Love takeover by violent Antifa and BLM apparatchiks in 2020. The Christian group initially sought to hold its rally at another park, but the city vetoed that idea and ordered them to hold it on Antifa’s playground.
Unlike the 2021 Portland event, Seattle Police intervened this time and came under immediate attack by the same Antifa thugs. Police say that 23 arrests were made at the service — all of them violent Antifa protesters who assaulted officers.
Seattle’s mayor blamed the Christian group for holding a service that dared condemn the bizarre trans movement.
Mayor Bruce Harrell told the city that Christians were not part of “Seattle’s values,” issuing this statement:
Seattle is proud of our reputation as a welcoming, inclusive city for LGBTQ+ communities, and we stand with our trans neighbors when they face bigotry and injustice. Today’s far-right rally was held here for this very reason – to provoke a reaction by promoting beliefs that are inherently opposed to our city’s values, in the heart of Seattle’s most prominent LGBTQ+ neighborhood.
When the humanity of trans people and those who have been historically marginalized is questioned, we triumph by demonstrating our values through our words and peaceful protest – we lose our voice when this is disrupted by violence, chaos, and confusion.
The phrase, “to provoke a reaction by promoting beliefs that are inherently opposed to our city’s values,” which means: shut up, Christians. By Harrell’s reckoning, their words are not “our values” if they conflict with the trans or any part of the leftist agenda.
Related: A Distraught Portlander Gets the Mayor to Finally Apologize for ‘Summer of Love’ Riots
Worse, and more to the point of this story, is the phrase “to provoke a reaction” assumes the head-cases on the left aren’t responsible for their acts in response to the words uttered by Christians. It’s permission to the mayor’s left flank to raise hell against people with whom they disagree. It’s state-approved violence.
Harrell’s words gave license to the Seattle media to condemn the Christian group as “fascist,” a leftist talking point, in its headlines. Here’s the headline in the Seattle Times.
And, as you might have expected, this, too, has happened before. Portland gave a huge olé to Antifa violence when it gave wholesale condemnation to the group Patriot Prayer in 2022. More on that in a minute. But first, a few details.
Patriot Prayer was known for holding “free speech” rallies in Portland to see if the totalitarian Antifa – the Democrat Party’s shock troops — would try to shut them down. When Antifa attacked, as they almost always did, Patriot Prayer was ready to fight back. If Antifa didn’t show up, which was rare, there was no violence. It was quintessential, “don’t start nothing, won’t be nothing.”
And here’s a factoid for you: The one time in 2018 when both sides showed up and there was no violence, it was when the cops kept them apart. After that peaceful rally, Antifa began attacking cops.
There were several clashes between the two sides in Portland, one on May Day 2019, resulting in a lawsuit against the leader of Patriot Prayer, who was assaulted by a trantifa activist at the Cider Riot pub. The pub, run by a fellow anarchist/Antifa activist, was named for the group’s riotous activities. Joey Gibson was acquitted of felony riot — a shocking turn of events in a Portland court, though his innocence was obvious by video from the event.
Then, after Memorial Day weekend, on May 25, 2020, the George Floyd riots started in Minneapolis, followed quickly by Portland and Seattle and hundreds of other towns.
In September 2020, Oregon’s Gov. Kate Brown called out the Oregon State Police to watch over a planned rally by what she characterized as “white supremacist groups from out of town, including the Proud Boys.”
Related: 10 Big Fat Lies You’re Being Told About the Portland Riots
Brown said, “They are expecting a significant crowd—some people will be armed, with others ready to harass or intimidate Oregonians. Many are from out of state.”
She’d never said anything like this about Antifa, even though they often traversed Interstate 5 to attend each other’s direct actions. There were Portland Antifa activists at CHAZ and CHOP. They’d often participate in each other’s vandalism sprees on May Day.
Official Portland blamed Patriot Prayer for fomenting violence. Violence that would never have happened had Antifa not shown up and started it, which, by the Seattle mayor’s logic, would have been an appropriate response to free speech.
During the 2020 “Summer of Love,” Antifa riots commemorated Minneapolis drug dealer, George Floyd, who died of heart failure and fentanyl poisoning (along with several other drugs in his system) while in a police knee hold on his shoulder.
During this time, Wheeler, who doubled as the police commissioner, marched with Antifa and adopted their anti-cop rhetoric. Antifa’s response was predictable. Over time, he was attacked, pepper-sprayed, threatened, and his address was doxxed and attacked by Antifa.
On Aug. 25, 2020, City Hall was partially sacked by Antifa.
The city still kept at arm’s length from the Antifa and BLM riots.
Then, four days later, on Aug. 29, 2020, Patriot Prayer associate Aaron “Jay” Danielson was walking in downtown Portland, observing the destruction and fires, and was assassinated at point-blank range by a “100% Antifa” killer on the streets of downtown Portland.
Official Portland did not condemn Antifa for the assassination on its own streets.
It was months and hundreds of riots later that, in a fit of anger on New Year’s Eve 2020, Wheeler temporarily tsk-tsked Antifa, saying, “My good faith efforts at de-escalation have been met with ongoing violence and even scorn from radical Antifa and anarchists. In response, it will be necessary to use additional tools and to push the limits of the tools we already have to bring the criminal destruction and violence to an end.”
Oooh, burn. Burn like the city, I mean.
Even after the assassination on their own streets, in 2022, Wheeler and the Multnomah County Commission denounced Patriot Prayer because — and here’s a Bruce Harrell shout-out — they brought out the worst violent tendencies of Antifa.
Mayor Ted Wheeler condemned Patriot Prayer in 2022, saying: “Hate and hate groups have no place in our city. Violence has no place in our city. Bigotry has no place in our city. We will not tolerate acts of violence, destruction, prejudice, or intimidation.”
Antifa had been waging violence in Portland for years before this, as any Portlander could tell you.
The head of the Commission said Patriot Prayer was not welcome on Portland’s streets.
A known Antifa associate told a reporter, “If the government won’t prevent hate groups from inciting violence, then community members will step up to fill the void.” Only in leftist Portland and Seattle would that dumbfoolery pass the laugh test.
He also had the audacity to say, “The people that we need to rely on right now — our police, our government — are not here. They haven’t been, they weren’t, they’re not going to be.”
Bonchie, over at our sister publication RedState, has it right when he says of the Seattle church melee:
You see, it’s not the fault of the left-wing crazies who showed up and injured police officers. It’s the fault of the Christians for simply existing. Had they not dared to exercise their rights to free assembly and expression through the legal permitting process, none of this would have happened. That’s Harrell’s argument.
The Democrats have fomented the violence through their inaction for years. The victims of the violence who don’t comport with the freakish “values” of Seattle and Portland are blamed for provoking the violence committed by the Democrats’ shock troops.
How’s that working out for you, Seattle and Portland?
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