Man Asked to Remove "Jesus Saves" Shirt in Mall of America

Religious Freedom the Left Loves to Hate

     It might have seemed a bit mysterious at the time. About a week before the 2008 presidential election, Democrat candidate for President, Illinois Senator Barack Obama declared at a campaign rally that he and his supporters were, “5 days away from fundamentally transforming America!” We now know in a myriad of ways, exactly what he meant, and none of those ways were good for America. Fast forward, Obama’s Vice President, Joe Biden, is now President. Is there any reason to believe that Biden, after a slight delay to undo everything that former President Donald Trump did, did not pick up where Obama left off? Well, look around you. The answer to that is clearly no. But while the Biden administration does everything it can to pit Americans against each other by race, gender, income, and any other way you can think of, perhaps the most sinister way, is by faith.

     Recently, Paul Shoro was at Minneapolis’ Mall of America to do a bit of shopping at Macy’s. He was stopped by two Mall security guards and told that he must remove the T-shirt he was wearing that said “Jesus Saves” across the front, and on the back was the “Coexist” logo with a line through it. Beneath that, the phrase, “Jesus is the Only Way.” The Mall cops claimed that he had offended other shoppers in the mall, and that he must remove the shirt or leave the mall. The first question a rational person might ask is, what’s the problem? Here is just a guy, wearing a shirt that obviously says what faith he belongs to, doing some shopping. As Americans, we are proud of the fact that one of the founding tenets of our nation is religious freedom. We see people wearing clothing all the time proclaiming their faith. No big deal. But here is where the irrationality comes in. The Mall cops claimed that by wearing the shirt, Shoro was engaged in what they called “religious soliciting.” Shoro assured them that was not the case. He was even honest enough to tell them that he had in fact been asked to leave the mall on a previous occasion for what he described as “preaching the gospel,” but Shoro said he was merely shopping.  

     Mall of America policies state that no one will be allowed in the mall wearing what they call “inappropriate attire.” This would include any clothing bearing any obscene gestures, or any racial, religious, or ethnic slurs. There is also something about not engaging in any “picketing, demonstrating, soliciting, protesting, or petitioning on mall property. Ok, fair enough. We certainly don’t want anyone wandering through the food court wearing a swastika or yelling offensive slogans at people. But Paul Shoro was not doing any of those things. What if Paul Shoro was Jewish? Would his wearing of a kippah be offensive? What if he were a Sikh? Would the wearing of a turban be off limits too? Where exactly, are we drawing the line on “offensive” religious garb?

Here is one guess as to why Paul Shoro’s shirt might be so offensive in a place like the Mall of America. Remember that old saying, “location, location, location,” because it certainly applies here. The Mall of America sits in what is one of the largest Muslim population centers in America. And it is not the first time Christians have been targeted. In November of 2018. Tyler O’Neil at PJ Media told the story of Ramin Parsa, an Iranian refugee and former Muslim who is now a Christian pastor. Parsa, who lives in California, was in Minneapolis to speak at a church. One of the church elders and his son offered to take him to the Mall of America. While there, he struck up a conversation with some Somalis, of which there is a large community of in Minneapolis. The talk soon shifted to the Somalis asking if Parsa was a Muslim. When he answered that was not, and that he had become a Christian, the Somalis wanted to know why. A woman who was not part of the discussion decided she was offended and went to get a Mall guard. Parsa was charged with trespassing for speaking about Christianity with Muslims, who had him why he became a Christian. The charges were eventually dropped, but it left Ramin Parsa dumbfounded. In an interview with PJ Media, Parsa said, “With tears in my eyes, I was so thankful to be in America, where I can express myself, nobody can stop me or oppress me for my faith…and then this happened to me. I didn’t expect that would happen in America. As a citizen in America, I have rights. They denied my basic rights.

     The Mall of America is really just a microcosm of a nationwide issue. The ultimate goal of the left is to squash anything they find threatening, in this case faith. And it may not even be about Christianity. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg recently gave a six-month plea deal offer to a man who brutally attacked a Jewish man and went on to state he would gladly do it again. Is this really about someone being “offended” by a shirt with the name of Jesus on it, or something more? In the case of the Mall of America, they will do what they must to see that the surrounding Muslim community is not offended. As the Twitter video of Shoro speaking with Mall cops went viral, there were plenty of comments implying that had Shoro been wearing a shirt praising Islam or ironically, a Pride shirt, those choices would have been completely acceptable, and he would have been free to go about his business. The left wants nothing to do with faith, especially Christianity because like most faiths, Christianity defines standards of behavior. And to acknowledge those standards might mean they are wrong…about a lot of things. So, the easiest thing to do is to suppress it.  

     No matter what your faith, people like Paul Shoro should be supported and defended. We may not know that if they come for us, there will be someone left to speak up.