Children singing “God Bless the USA” with a Republican congressman were heckled by protesters who said that those responsible for the event will “burn in hell.” Video of the event was first posted by Politicker.com.*
The event was held outside Public School 90 in Coney Island, N.Y., where school principal Greta Hawkins decided to axe Lee Greenwood’s hit from a kindergarten “moving up” ceremony while keeping Justin Bieber’s chart-topping “Baby.”
Some were offended by the principal’s decision, prompting Rep. Bob Turner, who is running for the U.S. Senate, to organize the event on Tuesday morning.
Shortly after the ceremony began, chaos ensued.
“You Republicans come go to a Republican area and do that, we don’t do that here,” one protester said. “This is ridiculous, this is sad. This is so crazy. This is sad.”
“Excuse me sir, can you let the kids sing please?” a man presumed to be a Turner staffer interjected.
The heckler immediately screamed “No!” and added “The kids don’t even know what they’re singing! They got something you tell them to say! It’s ridiculous! It’s sad, sad, sad. Y’all are going to burn in hell! You all burn in hell! Shame on you! Shame on you!”
After the kids finished singing, the children began to chant “USA! USA! USA!” to drown out the protesters, but the chanting failed to deter the hecklers.
Talk-show radio host Rush Limbaugh commented on the action this afternoon, saying, “A bunch of Democrat adults show up to heckle them. ‘You are all gonna burn in hell! Burn in hell!’ That was the reaction to kids singing ‘God Bless the USA.’ Why in the world would that make anybody mad? And the fact that it does tells us a whole lot.”
*This article has been updated to cite the video’s original source.