Vans Warped Tour Is Facing A Backlash For A Pro-Life Booth

When we think of punk rock, the politics we associate it with tend to be left wing. From The Clash to NOFX to Green Day, the punk world has always had a distinctly liberal vibe to it. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why attendees at this year’s Vans Warped Tour were surprised to see a booth supporting two of the more controversial right wing causes: the pro-life movement and the All Lives Matter movement.

Over the weekend, concertgoers took to Twitter to express their surprise and disdain over the inclusion of a conservative group called Rock for Life, which is supportive of both the pro-life movement and All Lives Matter. Because many of the attendees at Warped Tour are in their teens, and because many of the people behind the booth were men, quite a few people who saw the booth were taken aback by the implications. Particularly irksome was a sticky note board in which attendees were asked to lace on the board where they thought life began:

this is unreal, a women's right to chose reduced to a sticky note collage at warped tour https://t.co/Gv12IKNX6v

— Sorority Noise (@sororitynoise) July 9, 2016

Rock for Life was also selling shirts with the slogan All Lives Matter. That motto has come under fire as a response to Black Lives Matter that strikes many as ignorant at best, and racist at worst. In this instance, it seems to adopt a life-begins-at-conception context, but still manages to derail the larger BLM conversation. RFL courted more controversy for tying that slogan to their logo, which features a fetus:

https://twitter.com/mariasherm/status/751839558304559104

What caught many off guard about this was that, according to an article on Brooklyn Magazine, there is no mention of Rock for Life on Warped Tour’s website; nothing saying that they were a sponsor of the show, or one of the non-profits that would be appearing at the show. Now, this could be a simple oversight, but it does beg the question of whether Warped Tour was trying to keep this controversial group’s inclusion under wraps.

As of now, Rock for Life is still aboard Warped Tour as they travel the U.S.