Pastor Threatens To Shoot High School Kids Who Don’t Stand For Anthem (VIDEO)

Oh, my Lord and Bless their hearts. Here is an article reported by RawStory about a man who will surely make you shake your head. Or make your head explode. Either way, here it is.

There is a man in Butler County, Alabama. His name is Allen Joyner.

This man likes to call himself a Christian. He even serves as a pastor in a local Baptist Church. On the weekends in his small Southern town, Christian pastor Joyner volunteers to announce the local High School football games.

Isn’t that sweet? Lovely fall evening, autumn breezes blowing, the whole town gathered at the High School to watch the boys play. Along comes the local pastor, smiling at the crowd, ready to announce the starting lineup.

He takes the microphone to greet everyone. Then he does something just little unexpected.

Pastor Allen Joyner, who calls himself a good Christian, told the crowd this:

“If you don’t want to stand for the national anthem, you can line up over there by the fence and let our military personnel take a few shots at you since they’re taking shots for you.”

Excuse me, Pastor? Did you just threaten to assassinate a whole bunch of High School students if they didn’t act like your perverted image of a patriot?  Why, yessir, I believe you did.

Now I am not going to try to pass myself off as the greatest Christian on earth. I have my doubts about a lot of things, and I have my ideas about a lot of others.

But I am pretty damned sure that Jesus would not have threatened to kill a bunch of kids and their parents if they didn’t sing a certain nationalistic song.

The local School Superintendent, Amy Bryant, immediately denounced the words of the Pastor. She said:

“Patriotism should be a part of school events but threats of shooting people who aren’t patriotic, even in jest, have no place at a school. Threats of violence are a violation of school policy and certainly not condoned by the school board.”

Well, bully for you, Ms. Bryant. Nice, empty words. But here’s the problem.

“Patriotism” in the United States of America does not mean following certain rules about how to chant an anthem or how to honor a song. That would be the kind of nationalism that we have seen under Stalin, Castro and Kim Jong-Un. That is simply not America’s idea of “patriotism.”

American patriotism means honoring the United States Constitution. It means using your free speech rights to bring up difficult subjects. It means exercising your right to seek a redress of grievances.

It means that if you choose to sit down or to take a knee during the playing of the National Anthem, you are exercising your constitutional rights.

Threatening to kill those who choose to utilize the First Amendment? That would fall under “treason” if you ask me.

I hope “Pastor” Joyner loses his position as the announcer of the High School Games. I hope that he loses his right to act as Pastor to a congregation looking for Christian guidance.

Most of all, given the fact the he has threatened the shooting of young folks in his town, I hope to hell he loses his license to carry his firearm.

Let Colin Kaepernick explain this to you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd2uOriBwzs

Featured image via Twitter screengrab.

Karen is a retired elementary school teacher with many years of progressive activism behind her. She is the proud mother of three young adults who were all arrested with Occupy Wall Street. To see what she writes about in her spare time, check out her blog at "Empty Nest, Full Life"