Easter Worshippers

Submission 22,889

Part of a series on 2019 Sri Lanka Easter Bombings. [View Related Entries]

Overview

Easter Worshippers refers to a label used to describe of some of the victims targeted in the 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings by prominent Democrats on Twitter, which was subsequently met with criticism by those who felt the victims should have been labeled as Christians.

Background

On April 21st, 2019, Barack Obama condemned the Sari Lanka Easter bombings on Twitter,^[1] referring to those who were attending church during the attack as "Easter worshippers" (shown below).

Hours later, Hillary Clinton posted a similar tweet, referring to the event as "horrific attacks on Easter worshippers and travelers in Sri Lanka" (shown below).

Developments

Online Reaction

On April 22nd, @nickmon1112^[2] posted a thread about the controversy, highlighting various examples of people using the word "worshippers" when referring to victims in the attack (shown below).

Meanwhile, The Daily Dot^[3] published an article about the controversy titled "Obama’s ‘Easter worshippers’ tweet upsets conservatives." Additionally, numerous posts about the tweets reached the front page of various subreddits, including /r/The_Donald,^[4] /r/Conservative^[5] and /r/conspiracy.^[6]