"God bless you."
A street evangelist could only say this to a woman after she spat in his face on Saturday during the Women's March on Saturday.
Army veteran and D.C.-based evangelist Joseph Neigh was just one of many street evangelists who were heckled, spat on and doused with water by hundreds of marchers who came out in droves a day after the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, The Christian Post reported.
The march was ostensibly organised to promote women's rights and as a show of protest to the new American head of state who, the marchers believe, threatens the rights of women belonging to the pro-choice camp.
They were met by a smaller number of Christian believers who warned the protesters about the sins of abortion and homosexuality as mentioned in the Bible. The street preachers stood along Pennsylvania Avenue, each equipped with a megaphone and signs warning that "hell awaits" sinners and calling on people to repent.
Neigh told The Christian Post that this was not the first time he had been attacked by people who are "operating according to their flesh," as he described them.
"We shouldn't expect anything less because people killed Jesus because He preached righteousness and called people to repent," he said. "There have been a lot of people who have done dirty dancing around us, flicked us off, cursed at us but we are not going return evil for evil. We say, 'God bless you.' We are not out here casting stones, we are throwing life preservers."
Women from other cities in America and other parts of the world also held similar rallies—reportedly even in Antarctica. CNN estimated the number of protesters in the U.S. as over a million people.
For her part, conservative Christian evangelist Anne Graham Lotz, described the movement behind the Women's March as "destructive," saying they will lead those women to their "spiritual and moral graves."
In a Facebook post, Lotz said what the protesters really wanted was not really women's rights but access to unrestricted abortion
"My heart aches for many of the women I saw marching ... women who have joined a 'movement' that is deceptive and in the end, will be destructive and lead them to a spiritual and moral 'grave.' I pray earnestly for them to turn to the one, true, living God, who is the only One who can give them the deep, permanent peace, love, hope, and security we all long for," Lotz wrote.
Evangelist Franklin Graham, Lotz's brother, meanwhile lauded the women who marched for the right to life to coincide with the Women's March in Washington D.C.
Graham thanked them for taking a stand despite being ridiculed. In his Facebook post, Graham said, "I'm grateful they took a stand, even though they were ridiculed. They were standing up for lives that have no voice—the unborn."
