Activist Don Lemon is not the journalism hill for the liberal media to die on

Don Lemon’s arrest for invading a St. Paul church as part of an anti-ICE protest has his lefty-media pals sonorously pontificating about the First Amendment, “attacks on journalism” and fascism in America — ignoring the fundamental fact that a press card isn’t a license to break that law.

Boasting that you’re “committing journalism” as you hold a mic doesn’t immunize you from arrest and prosecution for joining with an ugly mob to harass a congregation on private property, which is exactly what Lemon did.

Lemon joined the band of “resistance protesters” who disrupted of Sunday services at Cities Church; coyly telling his camera they were “planning an operation that we’re going to follow them on . . . After we do this operation, you’ll see it live.”

He smirkingly announced that the purpose of “Operation Pull-up” was “to surprise people, catch them off guard, and hold them to account.”

The feds arrested him for violating the FACE Act, which prohibits the use or threat of force to interfere with religious observance at a place of worship.

That’s plainly what Lemon did, as he smugly told the bewildered pastor of the church that the mob’s “freedom of speech and freedom to assemble and protest” trumped the congregation’s right to worship God in peace, and browbeat the minister demanding answers to his questions.

Of course, no one has a right to speak, assemble or protest on someone else’s private property.

And calling yourself a reporter as you join in an illegal action doesn’t give you a “get out of jail” card.

Lemon is no different from Antifa agitators who riot while holding a cell phone and call themselves “press” or “legal observers,” or have some bandages in a backpack and call themselves “medics.”

This ruse — not so far from having Hamas operatives wear “PRESS” vests — helps goons move in and out of active rioting while maintaining deniability as to their true role.

After his St. Paul stunt, Lemon bashed the “entitlement” and “white supremacy” of the Cities Church congregation, whining that being a “gay, black man in America” makes him a target for persecution by the forces of repression.

Puh-leeze: He’s a wealthy man claiming that supposed victim status and a (false) sense of moral superiority give him some excuse to lord it over normal folks.

Genuine freedom of the press is vital to American life (and our own work); that makes it all the more important that delulus like Don Lemon pay real consequences for trying to turn the trade into a privilege that somehow trumps the rights of every other citizen.