Below, you can see Krystle Sommers and her mother (they look very similar), two of the right-wing nuts who stormed the Capitol last week. You can see the mother holding a noose while the daughter screams about how she’s going to — and I quote — “storm the Capitol” as a gas mask sits around her neck.
The mother Janet Casserley told a local news station that they were indeed part of the riotous mob:
“My daughter and I went to D.C. to support our president and it was a peaceful demonstration and we walked down to the Capitol which we were told to do,” said Casserley. “And I wanted to get right up there and I even wanted to climb the scaffold to get up there myself.”
Casserley did take a controversial photo showing her by a noose, a symbol that to many signifies hatred. She says she just got caught up in the moment.
“We all stood up there having our pictures taken. I mean this is history making.”
Right, just a typical mother-daughter bonding activist, to take a fun little picture near a symbol of murder and racism. It’s not just me saying that. Casserley herself stated, “it was a fun mother-daughter trip to make history.” She says they left before the attempted coup took place.
While Sommers’ Instagram page where she posted all this has been taken down, and her personal page is no longer public, the reason I bring this up is because they aren’t some random people. Krystle is a volunteer at Bayside Community Church in East Bradenton, Florida, where her husband Josh Sommers works as the Executive Director of Worship.
The church, which held indoor maskless worship services much of this year, is now trying to distance itself from the riots in the weakest possible way.
… Recently, it has come to our attention that there were attendees of Bayside Community Church who attended or participated in some of the events that took place at our Nation’s Capitol. As a result, there has been accusations and comments made regarding the church’s involvement with these events. Such responses have led to confusion. Anyone who attends Bayside Community Church and also attended the events in Washington D.C. did so as a private individual, for their own purposes and not as a representative of Bayside Community Church.
We want to make it clear that Bayside Community Church does not support, agree with, or condone violence, lawlessness, riots, or terrorism of any kind. No pastor or staff member of Bayside Community Church attended or participated in any of the events which occurred in our Nation’s Capitol this past week.
As a church, we cannot control or dictate the attitudes or actions of our church attendees, including the spouses or family of our staff members. Any actions, statements, and videos reflect personal viewpoints of the individual and in no way represent the viewpoints and beliefs of our church.
That is totally heartfelt and not-at-all something a lawyer wrote to try and cover their asses…
Leave it to a church whose entire reason for being is to control its members’ lives to say they “cannot control” what anyone does. They certainly control who works or volunteers for them. And what does it say about the church that its members were the sort of people who take part in an ultimately violent right-wing coup? What does that tell you about their sermons? Their ethics?
Even outside of politics, this church apparently never sent a clear message that participating in a coup against common sense and facts, in defense of a bigoted madman, is something members should avoid.
Either they don’t mind that people connected to them would support a coup attempt or they do a horrible job of teaching people to be decent human beings. Which is it?
(Thanks to Shannon for the link)
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