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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026

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I don't know that a trespassing charge would stick here. I can't speak for the particularities of Minnesota law, but PA has three basic categories of trespass:

  • Criminal Trespass, the most serious, which involves breaking into buildings.
  • Simple Trespass, the least serious, which involves entering property with the intent of causing damage to the premises
  • Defiant trespass, which involves either entering property that you're clearly meant to be kept out of (like if it was posted or there was a fence), or not leaving at the request of the owner

The only category that would apply here would be defiant trespass, since the church was ostensibly open to the public. In the video, the pastor politely asks Lemon to leave and then walks away. Lemon leaves 7 minutes later. Again, I can't speak for Minnesota, but most of the cases where someone is prosecuted for defiant trespass in PA involve someone ignoring repeated demands to leave, and then remaining there until the police show up. Realistically, the police aren't going to prosecute based on video evidence or testimony unless they're in a very small town with nothing else to do. When I had my own practice I would occasionally get calls about people who caught poachers on their property and wanted to sue them. In these cases they always called the police, who weren't about to run plates and arrest people who had already left (they were usually caught coming out of the woods). Lemon might be guilty of defiant trespass withing the strict letter of the law, but he might not, and the case is blurry enough that most police and prosecutors don't think it's worth the hassle. In PA refusing an order to leave is a misdemeanor which will probably get you six months probation. I'd expect that if a prosecutor were willing to push a case like this he'd probably bargain it down to a summary offense, which would be in line with ignoring a posted sign.