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Kirk Cameron has defied LA County and California’s lockdown orders by holding two large caroling events where people huddle together and sing, maskless, as some kind of celebration of a certain segment of Christianity’s descent into selfish insanity. He’s called it a “Christmas caroling peaceful protest.” He’s issued conflicting statements about it, claiming on one hand that carolers are encouraged to wear masks and social distance, but citing freedom and ‘murica on the other. It’s just one of those self-owning ways that evangelicals are trying to stick it to the libs. It’s sad, it’s infuriating and it puts countless people at risk, not just the idiots gathering but anyone unfortunate enough to come into contact with them. Those people are anti-maskers and super spreaders at a time when ICUs are almost full. History will not be kind to them, and there is plenty of evidence of their willful misconduct. I could go on, but I’ll spare you.
The somewhat good news is that Kirk Cameron’s sister, Candace Cameron Bure, and his old co-stars on Growing Pains, Jeremy Miller and Tracey Gold, have made it clear that they don’t share his recklessness. They’ve encouraged people to wear masks and social distance, however they were nicer to him than I would have liked. Here’s some of the report on his infuriating events, from People:
On Tuesday evening, Cameron shared a series of photos and videos on his Instagram Story from a caroling event at The Oaks mall in Thousand Oaks, California — a state where coronavirus cases continue to surge with tens of thousands of new cases being reported daily.
In the videos, dozens of attendees were seen singing closely together, many without masks, defying the state’s mandate that everyone must wear a face covering when outside of their home.
A representative for Cameron told PEOPLE the event was organized by community members and churches in the area, and that face masks and social distancing were encouraged. In a statement to PEOPLE, Cameron said the caroling was intended to instill “hope and encouragement.”
“During this awful pandemic, people are longing for hope and encouragement and we want to offer that to them…we encourage attendees wear masks and the freedom to socially distance, but we won’t deny our neighbors the opportunity to sing Christmas carols outside in whatever manner they choose,” he said. “Spirits were lifted and people were encouraged! This is America — the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
Cameron attended a similar event last week and documented it on his social media page, telling followers that the group would be “celebrating our God-given liberties” to gather.
“It’s T-38 minutes for our Christmas caroling peaceful protest,” Cameron captioned an Instagram post ahead of the event. “We are going to be celebrating our God-given liberties, our constitutionally protected rights at this time at Christmas to sing Christmas songs to gather, to assemble, and to sing about the birth of our savior.”
Ventura County, where Thousand Oaks is located, is currently experiencing a rise in coronavirus cases and remains under a regional stay-at-home order issued earlier in December.
Kirk’s sister, Candace, tweeted this, urging people to be nice to her a-hole brother, but saying they should wear a mask and social distance.
I did not attend any recent caroling events. Also, I choose to follow the greater guidelines by wearing a mask and social distance when I’m in public. However, I don’t appreciate the vile tweets about my family. I believe respectful dialogue is the key to being heard. Stay safe🎄
— Candace Cameron Bure (@candacecbure) December 24, 2020
And Jeremy Miller, who played Kirk’s little brother, Ben Seaver on Growing Pains, sent a statement to Page Six saying he was disappointed in him:
“While I will always love my brother Kirk,” Miller exclusively told Page Six over email, “I could not disagree more with his holding these maskless events at a time when safety and concern for others is an extreme priority.”
“I truly couldn’t be more disappointed in him
Tracey Gold, who played Kirk’s sister Carol on Growing Pains, tweeted this:
Checking in with my dear brother Mike. @KirkCameron As your more intelligent sister I want you to know that I disapprove. I’m worried about you brother AND your family. Wear a mask. Stay home. Sing later. ❤️ 😷
— Tracey Gold (@TheTraceyGold) December 16, 2020
I haven’t thought about Growing Pains in so long! I used to watch that when I was a kid. At least Ben and Carol have turned out to be decent human beings.
It’s not the time to be “respectful” to people who are killing others with their behavior. I also feel like Tracey and Jeremy are being too nice to Kirk. At least they’re calling him out publicly though. F-ck civility at this time. We should be as nasty and confrontational to those people as they’re being to us by daring to pull stunts like this. They want to get the libs mad and I think we should be. It’s the only logical response when thousands of people are struggling and dying every day.
Here are some of the responses to these tweets.
I get this but Im married to a hospital RN. My oldest friend is an icu RN @ a hosp. that called in a refrigerated truck 4 bodies. He is negligent & causes trauma 2 front liners who have PTSD that they will fight forever & still they put themselves at risk for people like him.
— Jayme Roybal (@jaymeroybal) December 24, 2020
There is a global pandemic. People are dying or getting really sick. Many of us have been staying home since March and following the rules. I think what your brother did was very vile and I wish he would own up to it. Reach out to those that have lost loved ones.
— BabyLisa (@sidecar542) December 24, 2020
Getting ready for the reboot: Breathing Pains
— Andy Swingler (@energy_stored) December 24, 2020
My favorite comments on the post where he’s announcing the caroling event.
So freaking angering. I posted this before, but I lost my uncle last Monday, 4 days before Christmas, to a non-Covid illness. He died alone. I hadn’t seen him since February. His funeral will not take place until almost mid-January, practically 3 weeks after his death– because the funeral homes are literally too busy.
This caroling nonsense is a smack in the face to those losing loved ones.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
I can’t imagine losing someone and not even being able to hold a funerial in a timely manner, and yet I know it’s happening for far too many.
I’m so very sorry for your loss Rapunzel, and the added stress of the Covid restrictions.
@ Rapunzel, I am so sorry for your loss. Please accept my sincere apologies. No one should have to die alone, and that must have been extremely painful for your family.
I’m so sorry Rapunzel. My dad is 95 and in a nursing home. I may never be with him in person again. Hundreds of thousands of people have needlessly died. The iterations of this pandemic just go on and on. And will go on and on, unless people wake up and start behaving like grown-ups.
Both the Cameron siblings are entitled f*ckers.
@ Sierra, yes!! If the state/county is on a lockdown, that means everyone!! Not some self centered, selfish idiot who thinks that his message to sing caroles is imperative at a time like this. I know that this is cruel, but those who flout the guidelines, I wish that the HC community would allow them to treat those who took precautions first and make those who insisted on flying or gathering in large groups, to stand at the end of the line for treatment.
Who figured Young Republican Alex P Keaton would grow up, snap out of it and be the better adult?
Wrong show. 😉
I know what I wrote.
He’s a vile and sad little man. And here’s something I didn’t know about the virus except that the non-profit I work for, which provides recreation programs for people with disabilities, is not allowed under our state’s Covid guidelines to hold any activities involving singing, because it has been found to spread the virus droplets further and more forcefully than talking or breathing!
So while our participants, many of whom get very little social interaction even when things are normal, are deprived of two of their favorite theater and singing programs indefinitely, this guy just decides it’s more important to own the libs with his garbage than to keep his fellow neighbors safe.
Yes, singing is supremely effective at aerosolizing the virus.
And Kirk Cameron is one sick fck. It’s beyond “owning” anyone; it’s a perverted arrogance. He’s saying that he and his beliefs have supremacy over anyone else. Like people with disabilities who already weren’t always having lives as full as possible due to budgetary constraints. He’s regugnant.
Nothing he is doing is helping. All they are doing is stroking their own misguided egos.
Meanwhile, one of my friends watched Christmas via zoom because she is an ER doctor and has been living in an RV to keep her kids safe.
That breaks my heart, Enis! I don’t get why these people don’t care about what these healthcare providers are sacrificing.
I am so worried about healthcare workers. We are going to be loosing a lot of them to burnout after this is over. Already many older doctors are retiring to avoid this mess. The selfishness of so many people adding to the burden on hospitals has been awful to watch. Starting of course with the man at the top.
He is a megalomaniac, immaterial if also a Christian. He deserves scorn and vile for organizing an event that will spread a deadly disease in glory of his own name. ‘Look at me and what I did’. Revolting.
God didn’t give him the freedom to spread disease. The Israelites had all types of rules from God to prevent the spread of disease. God’s guidance is about protecting the helpless, being kind and treating others as you would like to be treated. If the music was that important to him there surely was a way to do it virtually.
That’s why I find this disturbingly fascinating. It’s so easy to say the Lord is testing us and our love for our fellow man. So Easy! and yet, there are these sects saying the complete opposite and it’s revolting
“If the music was that important to him there surely was a way to do it virtually.”
Even if they insisted on being there, they could wear masks, stand 6+ feet apart, and one of them could hold a boombox playing Christmas carols. It would be awesome and retro!
(I know there are more modern ways to play music, but I like the imagery of someone carrying a boombox).
He needs to be thrown in jail! POS!
As my Dad was explaining to me the other day that we were “hiding behind masks” and by refusing to get together as a family for Christmas we were disrespecting God or something, my 10 year piped up, “Jesus would wear a mask!” (and no, I’ve never said that in front of him)…it’s just obvious that if you are told to love your neighbor as yourself and consider others before your own needs…you wear a mask. I don’t claim this selfish version of faith wrapped in “God-given rights”…I’m not even sure what those are in this context. Go sing in your own back yard buddy – by yourself or with your family where only God can hear you. I recall the Bible having a lot so say about doing things in public so that everyone knows how righteous you are. Gah.
Good for your son! From the mouth of babes comes truth.
Matthew 6:2: “So when you give to the needy, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be praised by men.”
The same can be said for “good deeds.” Of course, none of what he is doing is a good deed, so it makes it even worse.
Ugh. Respectful dialogue left the building about five years ago. And there’s nothing I loathe more than self-righteous assholes speaking over everyone else because THEY have the answers. THEY fancy themselves as leaders. THEY have to be heard.
My favorite present this year was spent with my family (husband, 15yo son, 24yo son on vacay from MD base, 30yo son with his pregnant wife) and watching them leave once for ice and beverages only to run back in before leaving because someone forgot their mask. Riding with my oldest for an errand and seeing masks and sanitizer conveniently located. In fact, my middle son kept his ‘Murica mask dangling from his neck the entire time just in case. And they only teased me once about my hatred for the orange fecal douche. They absolutely know, without a doubt, I’ll f@cking walk out the door if I’m near anyone justifying any part of the last four years.
Round all of them up, take down their names ans SS#s, and ANY SINGLE ONE OF THEM that subsequently shows up at a hospital for COVID – send them home. They made their bed, let them lie in it, since they evidently don’t care if they die in it. EFF these people. Imagine how extra-callous they have to be, doing this around the corner from a hospital with zero ICU beds available.
an emphatic +1.
These displays of arrogance and ignorance towards the scientific and public health community this far into the pandemic are mind boggling. The trajectory of this crisis has exceeded our worst expectations, there is NO DENYING its effects and its path of destruction. AND TO TOP IT ALL OFF, it has mutated to become even more contagious.
Cameron couldn’t help himself, as a commercialized Christian. His schtick is fundamentalist evangelicalism. So he absolutely is using his only means of continued fame and income to push what his followers want to hear. He may even believe what he’s selling, or he wants to believe it because it fits his brand. Either way, if or when he infects himself and others, he needs a public reckoning. He absolutely will contract COVID, and so will anyone who follows and flouts his behaviour.
I am disgusted. This is not the same situation we had in January, March, the summer, the fall. COVID is picking up steam, it has won the war. The only defence we have is to finally understand this, and to try to stave off contracting it until the vaccines can be distributed. Anything that places more obstacles in front of us is criminal. End of rant.
It’s won the war and is now mutating. I fear a strain that takes out younger people is coming soon. That’s what happened with the Spanish flu. It’s terifying.
My father can’t get the life saving surgery he needs because the health care system is overwhelmed. I can’t get a cancer screening so I have do idea if I’m ok or if I am leaving two small children motherless. But, hey, I’m sure jesus is super proud of you for carolling during a global pandemic. I hope your faith is strong should you find yourself dying alone on a ventilator.
Lady Keller I’m so sorry you are having to live through this. I’m hoping the vaccine will slow things down to the point where you and your dad can move forward with your care.
I’ve never liked Candace. She uses Christianity as a marketing tool. Her brother is loathsome.
A lot of his behavior is just from being an a-hole I think. But there is also something to be said about the age he became famous. I’ve long thought that many celebs’’ maturity is stunted at the age which they became famous. Kirk was a teenaged boy when this happened for him. So his whole, “Nnnno! You can’t tell me what to do!” defiant a-hole behavior has a lot to do with that, IMO.
I realize this doesn’t explain the rest is the idiots not taking the pandemic seriously.
According to my religious beliefs, Kirk Cameron should be sewed inside a bear.
Lol…yes, Midsommar his ass!
Lord. That made me chuckle…👏
Ugh, this massive prick! I do not understand why there are no consequences for people who violate Covid rules!
I could cry every time I think about all the healthcare providers who are suffering and people losing their jobs and businesses and people DYING because fools like this couldn’t give up one stinking holiday season?! That shit is what is vile!
I never watch a holiday movie with his sister, and now I feel more justified. There is something I personally find insincere about both, and this incident just supports that perception.
Maybe he can go stand in a roadway and see how things turn out. Risk is risk, right?
I think some people covet the attention of defying safety measures. This could be the most attention he has gotten in 30 years.
This insanity is happening in my community, I live in Thousand Oaks. This was the THIRD maskless singalong that he organized, and he doesn’t even live in our area–he lives in Los Angeles County. The feckless Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub has taken a hands-off approach to the Christian nationalists in our community who insist on shopping, singing, going to church, all without masks in the name of their “rights.” A group of them recently organized and invaded a Sprouts grocery store with masks shouting at customers and employees about their “rights.” It is insanity! Kirk Cameron is part of the pro-Trump Christo-fascists who are not going away when the Orange Turd leaves office. They are building a national movement based on the viewpoint that religion–their religion–trumps every other right and responsibility in our society. It is truly alarming. Cameron was at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago with the right-wing Turning Point Foundation the same week he pulled this stunt. I’m guessing his next step is running for office.
In other news, I was today years old when I realized Cameron and Kirk are siblings.
(I also hadn’t thought about either one since I was a teen in the 90’s)