Music

Vans Warped Tour draws controversy for its pro-life tent

by Jesse Locke

This summer’s edition of the Vans Warped Tour is skipping Canada completely, but that’s not the main reason why the festival is drawing controversy. The pop-punk, emo, and metalcore caravan has added a new vendor for 2016: Virginia pro-life organization Rock For Life.

Creepily co-opting punk aesthetics with their logo of a fetus playing a guitar, t-shirts with the phrase “All Lives Matter”, and other intense imagery, the organization asks teenage fans to vote “when should rights begin” using Post-it notes.

Brooklyn Magazine reports that Rock For Life will be joining the Warped Tour on 41 tour dates, alongside their appearance at 17 other Christian music festivals this summer. Warped Tour is as a secular organization, but the subset of Christian crabcore groups and impressionable teens makes it a perfect location to spread its controversial messages. In a press statement, Rock for Life co-founder Erik Whittington said “We have to meet these teens where they are” and “speak their language.”

“This summer will be our largest endeavor yet as we will be going to nearly triple the number of music festivals we have gone to in the past, including one of the biggest secular music festivals in the country. Many young people that we talk with, even at Christian festivals, are either undecided on abortion or are not pro-life, so reaching them at this crucial stage of figuring what they believe and why it is important.”

Music blogger Paige Backstage is one of the most outspoken critics of Rock For Life. In a new video titled “Defend Girls, Not Pop Punk” she rallies against the festival’s ongoing issues of gender parity (juxtaposed with the 2016 slogan “Save Our Scene”) and delivers the following sarcastic statement: