Facebook bans vlogger for slamming McLean Bible's 'low-life non-Christians' hurt by prayer for Trump
Army combat veteran turned podcaster and vlogger Graham Allen says Facebook banned a recent post of his which slammed critics of President Donald Trump's prayer photo-op at McLean Bible Church.
The conservative speaker, who now has a program called "Rant Nation" on Blaze TV, has garnered an audience by sharing his "rants" on a wide range of issues. After addressing the controversy over Pastor David Platt praying for President Donald Trump after Trump unexpectedly showed up at a June 2 worship service, Facebook labeled his comments “Hate Speech.”
"I'm known for being kind of blunt in my videos," Allen told CBN after the social media platform banned his video this month. "It's interesting that this video caught so much attention because it was a very low-key video. I just felt the need to address the hypocrisy of Christians being upset for praying for our leader in America, whether you agree with him."
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He added, "The video was pretty much just if you believe that Donald Trump is this horrible, racist, bigoted person, isn't that the type of person that you should want to pray for?”
The video was titled, "Real Christians Pray For Everyone," and criticized members of McLean Bible Church who reportedly felt hurt by Pastor David Platt's decision to invite President Trump on stage during the worship service to pray for him.
In Allen's video, which is still available on Allen's Instagram account, he says in part, "Now this pastor who prayed for our president has come under fire because apparently Christians [holds up finger quotes] within the congregation are horrified that he would pray for the president. What kind of hypocritical low-life non-Christian having, whoah, Lord Jesus, help me ... Christians, ha! Make me sick, man. What kind of Christian would get upset for praying?"
While Allen used demeaning language in the video regarding members of McLean Bible Church, he told CBN that he was only calling for praying for Trump.
"A couple of days later, I got a notification from Facebook that I had violated their community standards for hate speech. So they took the video down. They removed it. I got no appeal process ... no anything. And I just found it incredibly, incredibly sad that calling for prayer for the President of the United States was considered hate speech," pray told CBN.
A CBN article about Allen's interview is titled in part, "His Call to Pray for President Trump Labeled as 'Hate Speech.'"
After a video is flagged multiple times on Facebook the platform investigates it and then determines whether or not it should be pulled down. After their investigation of Allen's video, Facebook deemed it “hate speech."
Allen also claimed in the video that Trump was there to attend the worship service and to pray for the victims of the Virginia Beach shooting. However, Trump only showed up near the end of the service and left after Platt prayed over him on stage. While the White House claimed that Trump was there to pray for the Virginia Beach shooting victims, Platt never mentioned the shooting in his prayer and McLean Bible Church is 200 miles from Virginia Beach.
The prayer happened the same day as the "Special Day of Prayer for the President," led by evangelist Franklin Graham, but Platt did not sign onto that event.
Platt addressed the controversy in a blog post and at the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors' Conference. He noted that some in his congregation felt "hurt" by his appearance with Trump, but did not specify why. While many critics assumed those who felt hurt believed Platt shouldn't pray for Trump, another possibility is they did not like their pastor being used as a photo-op for Trump.
Allen released a video on YouTube addressing the discrimination, which you can watch below.
