A Christian petition backing Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde who confronted President Donald Trump about immigration and LGBTQ+ issues during the inaugural prayer service on Tuesday has received thousands of signatures.
Newsweek has reached out to the White House via email for comment on Sunday morning.
Why It Matters
Budde made a direct plea to Trump during the service at the Washington National Cathedral, sparking backlash from the president and his allies.
Trump has promised a mass deportation of people living in the United States illegally, often referring to them as criminals. A New York Times/Ipsos poll, carried out from January 2 to 10, found 55 percent of voters strongly or somewhat supported such plans. Eighty-eight percent supported “Deporting immigrants who are here illegally and have criminal records.” Large majorities of Democrats and Republicans agreed that the immigration system is broken.
Trump signed a flurry of executive orders on Monday including ones that targeted immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community, such as the one to end birthright citizenship of children born to people living in the U.S. illegally and the one that said his administration will use “clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.”
Trump has touted his Christian support and during his inaugural address on Monday, he told America, “I was saved by God to make America great again,” referring to his assassination attempt in July 2024. Budde called on Trump’s faith to ask him “to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”
What To Know
Faithful America, an organization of Christians supporting social justice causes, posted a petition on Wednesday in support of Budde’s sermon. The organization called the bishop’s actions “courageous,” but acknowledged that “confronting a man like Trump in a public forum puts a target on your back.”
As of Sunday morning, the petition had been signed by over 47,000 people, bringing Faithful America close to its goal of 50,000 signatures.
What Does the Petition Say?
The petition read as follows:
Dear Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde,
Thank you for using your prophetic voice to speak truth to power during Washington National Cathedral’s Service of Prayer for the Nation on Tuesday, January 21st.
Your direct plea to Donald Trump calling for mercy for our LGBTQ, immigrant, and otherwise marginalized people in America speaks to the greatest commandment: to love our neighbors as ourselves. As Christians committed to walking the way of Christ, we stand with you in public support.
We urge you to continue speaking out against the injustice of Trump’s executive orders, and we hope Christian leadership from every denomination will do the same.
Thank you, and may God bless you and keep you.
What Did Bishop Budde Say in Her Sermon?
“There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families, some who fear for their lives,” Budde told Trump on Tuesday.
She also spoke of the role immigrants play in American society, adding: “The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals.”
The bishop said the “vast majority” of immigrants, including ones without the proper documentation, “are not criminals.”
“Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people,” Budde said.
The bishop defended her sermon in a subsequent interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, in which she said, “We’re in a particularly harsh moment now when it comes to conversations around immigrant populations in our midst, and so that was the reason for the tone I took now.”
She added: “I wanted to make, as you heard, a plea, a request that he broaden his characterization of the people that are frightened now and are at risk of losing everything, and I thought that that would be the more respectful way to say it.”
What Did Trump Say About the Service?
Trump later criticized the prayer service on Truth Social, his social media platform, calling the bishop a “radical Left hard line Trump hater,” “very ungracious” and “not very good at her job.”
He called the service “boring and uninspiring,” and demanded an apology from Budde and her church.
What People Are Saying?
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, wrote on X, formerly Twitter on Wednesday: “Bishop Budde hijacked the National Prayer Service to promote her radical ideology. This was an opportunity to unify the country in prayer, but she used it to sow division.”
Representative Mike Collins, a Georgia Republican, wrote on X on Tuesday: “The person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list.”
MeidasTouch, a news network that often criticizes Trump, wrote on X on Tuesday: “Wow. Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde fearlessly calls out Trump and Vance to their faces. This is heroic.”
What Happens Next
Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship has already been temporarily blocked by a federal judge who called it “a blatantly unconstitutional order.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) warned that if Trump’s executive order targeting transgender people’s identities was to be used to curb workplace protections and federally funded programs providing access to gender-affirming care, “the ACLU and other LGBTQ rights organizations will fight them every step of the way.”
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