UPDATE: Some critics have pointed to additional factors and context that they say might have led to increased furor among the town hall crowd, including the purported size of the room and the fact that Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy was reportedly a half hour late to the meeting; one individual said she waited outside the venue for “hours” before the meeting began.
Watch the meeting (and see the original story) below:
Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy meets with a big crowd in Metairie for the Bill Cassidy Town Hall in Metairie, happening now.
Posted by NOLA.com on Wednesday, February 22, 2017
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Protestors erupted in boisterous outrage at a town hall for Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy in Metairie, Louisiana, last week — specifically when a chaplain started to deliver a prayer before the crowd, CBN News reported.
Cassidy scheduled the Feb. 22 meeting to discuss various issues such as health care and immigration with constituents, but the gathering quickly devolved into something else entirely.
People identified as “liberal protesters” began heckling Chaplain Michael Sprague as soon as he started praying, with one person imploring him to invoke God on his “own time,” while another woman yelled “Lucifer.”
Others in the crowd chanted “separation of church and state,” leading Cassidy to at one point respond.
“Thanks for doing that, Mike,” the senator said to Sprague. “Wow, they booed the name of Jesus.”
Watch the prayer chaos below:
It was truly a bizarre scene — one that left the chaplain stunned, though he later said he harbors no negative feelings toward those responsible for the troubling interruptions.
“I’ve never been shouted down throughout a time of prayer like that,” Sprague told conservative commentator Todd Starnes. “I’ve never been in a situation like that. It’s sad there wasn’t honor and respect for God.”
But it didn’t end there.
A Vietnam War vet who was simply trying to lead the Pledge of Allegiance also ended up getting heckled, with protestors in the audience disrupting his attempt to lead the recitation; some even refused to stand:
Starnes called the entire spectacle “one of the most heinous acts of un-American, anti-Christian behavior I’ve ever seen.”
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