A company that processed donation payments for Patriot Prayer has cut ties with Vancouver-based organization after it was barraged by calls from critics over the last several days.
When Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced that supporters of the right-wing group had posted a security force on the upper levels of a downtown parking garage during one of its regular incursions into the city, the Oregon chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations began urging Patriot Prayer’s critics to contact GivingFuel.
But it wasn’t until an opinion column on the group’s leader, Joey Gibson, in The Sunday Oregonian drew intense backlash that the message really took hold, CAIR Chairman Zakir Khan said.
He and CAIR had been urging GivingFuel to sever ties with Patriot Prayer for months, Khan said. Gibson said the site had been fielding complaints about its relationship with him for much longer.
The volume of complaints had gotten to be too much, Gibson said representatives told him.
“I respect them as a private organization to do whatever they need to do in terms of how they want to make money,” Gibson said. “They’re a small company. From what I understand, it was a financial decision.”
GivingFuel in a statement told The Oregonian/OregonLive it felt “the actions of Patriot Prayer fell outside of our terms of use.”
“Our goal is to empower organizations to positively impact the world and we make great software to help them do it,” the company said. “This was not a political decision.”
GivingFuel did not say how Patriot Prayer violated its rules.
But the group has long drawn the ire of left-leaning groups and officials for the violence that pervades its Portland rallies. Ultimately, that’s what CAIR and other critics voiced to GivingFuel over the last several months.
“I think most people in Portland, if not all, are against these far-right militant groups coming into town,” Khan said. “If Joey Gibson’s group had respect for any people who have experienced trauma, I think they wouldn’t come into Portland anymore.”
Gibson said the loss of GivingFuel as a conduit for donations won’t impact his organization’s bottom line much. He’s already shopping around for another payment processor, he said. Gibson will also continue to visit Portland.
He’s attending another rally in Portland Nov. 17, this one organized by one of his longtime Patriot Prayer lieutenants.
“When I open up a new account with a different company, I’ll probably get a big response with a lot of donations,” he said. “It’s probably going to help me in the long run.”
