CA church hit by IED, but media yawns because they preached traditional marriage

When headlines hit my stream this morning about First Works Baptist Church in El Monte, California, I didn’t pay a ton of attention. I assumed based on the headlines that it was a minor incident, perhaps some kids throwing firecrackers at the front door or something. I should have dug deeper then because as it turns out, this was a full-blown hate crime.

It wasn’t a firecracker. It was an improvised explosive device of some kind that was strong enough to blow out all the windows and send smoke spewing from the building in the aftermath. The walls were plastered with hateful graffiti. Now, the FBI is on the case. They could have been on the case before when the pastor first reached out to them two weeks ago to report threats of violence and arson. According to The Daily Mail:

Sirens are heard in the distance and multiple police cars are seen racing to the scene. A bomb squad was called in to check for any secondary devices. FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said the agency is investigating the ‘IED attack’ as a possible hate crime.

“Anytime a house of worship is attacked, we will respond,” Eimiller said. “If it was motivated in any way by hate, that’s always a working theory when a house of worship is attacked, although that has not been confirmed.”

The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has set up a command post close to the church following the attack, reported the Tribune. The bombing comes just two weeks after Pastor Bruce Meija said he had contacted the police after receiving a threat on social media of an arson attack.

“It appeared that the walls to the church had been vandalized as well as all the windows at first appeared to be smashed,” El Monte Police Department Lt. Christopher Cano said. “Then, we realized that the windows were not smashed and that they had actually blown out from some type of explosion.”

The FBI responded overnight with @elmontepolice & @LASDHQ to an #IED attack at the First Works Baptist Church in El Monte, CA. Bomb Techs & the FBI's Evidence Team continue to process the scene. If you have a tip about the responsible party, please call 3104776565. #SeekingInfo pic.twitter.com/LobrjbrZtx

— FBI Los Angeles (@FBILosAngeles) January 23, 2021

We generally do not pull information from foreign sources to report on domestic affairs, but all of the reports by American mainstream media focused on the church’s stance on gay marriage rather than the hate crime they suffered.

The church rightly opposes same-sex marriage, promoting the Biblical definition one man and one woman. Doing so has earned them community protests, a Change.org petition with over 15,000 signatures calling for them to close down, and a report by the radical progressive grifters at Southern Poverty Law Center calling them a hate group.

If had been a mosque hit with a firecracker, it would have been front-page news. But it was a Christian church preaching traditional marriage that was hit by an IED, so it’s a story for mainstream media to suppress.

COVID-19 lockdowns are taking down an independent news outlet

Nobody said running a media site would be easy. We could use some help keeping this site afloat.

Colleagues have called me the worst fundraiser ever. My skills are squarely rooted on the journalistic side of running a news outlet. Paying the bills has never been my forte, but we’ve survived. We have ads on the site that help, but since the site’s inception this has been a labor of love that otherwise doesn’t bring in the level of revenue necessary to justify it.

When I left a nice, corporate career in 2017, I did so knowing I wouldn’t make nearly as much money. But what we do at NOQ Report to deliver the truth and fight the progressive mainstream media narrative that has plagued this nation is too important for me to sacrifice it for the sake of wealth. We know we’ll never make a ton of money this way, and we’re okay with that.

Things have become harder with the coronavirus lockdowns. Both ad money and donations that have kept us afloat for a while have dropped dramatically. We thought we could weather the storm, but the resurgence of lockdowns that mainstream media and Democrats are pushing has put our prospects in jeopardy. In short, we are now in desperate need of financial assistance.

The best way NOQ Report readers can help is to donate. Our Giving Fuel page makes it easy to donate one-time or monthly. Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal as well. We need approximately $17,300 to stay afloat through March when we hope the economy will be more open, but more would be wonderful and any amount that brings us closer to our goal is greatly appreciated.

The second way to help is to become a partner. We’ve strongly considered seeking angel investors in the past but because we were paying the bills, it didn’t seem necessary. Now, we’re struggling to pay the bills. This shouldn’t be the case as our traffic the last year has been going up dramatically. June, 2018, we had 11,678 visitors. A year later in June, 2019, we were up to 116,194. In June, 2020, we had 614,192. In November, 2020, we hit 1.2 million visitors.

We’re heading in the right direction and we believe we’re ready talk to patriotic investors who want to not only “get in on the action” but more importantly who want to help America hear the truth. Interested investors should contact me directly with the contact button above.

As the world spirals towards radical progressivism, the need for truthful journalism has never been greater. But in these times, we need as many conservative media voices as possible. Please help keep NOQ Report going.

American Conservative Movement

Join fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. The coronavirus crisis has prompted many, even some conservatives, to promote authoritarianism. It’s understandable to some extent now, but it must not be allowed to embed itself in American life. We currently have 11,000+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.

[yikes-mailchimp form=”1″]