Below is my column in today's edition of the Grand Haven Tribune.
Yes, Christian Nationalism is on the rise, as I said in my column back in February. (If you share my concern, join the Unifying Christians event happening at the end of this month – information and tickets are online here: unifyingchristians.com/nationalism). But not all forms of right-wing belief are Christian Nationalism.
Take Ottawa Impact (OI), for instance. While some of their views are clearly Christian Nationalism, others are just wrong. Cutting millions of dollars from the Ottawa County Department of Public Health clearly has nothing to do with Christianity. Indeed, fighting against public health – even refusing to receive grants that would help people because the word “COVID” appears somewhere within them – this is clearly the opposite of Christian values, right?
The difficulty is that all of these areas are like overlapping Venn diagrams. Certain views and groups and people overlap in one area but not exactly in another. And so, it becomes difficult to put your finger on the difficulty, the concern, that is gnawing at our collective values and community consciousness.
This is happening in Grand Haven right now, and the Venn diagram illustration may be helpful. Given the toxicity associated with OI, we now have a situation where candidates run for local office, insist they are not associated with OI, but still holding concerning views. I’m speaking of City Council candidates DeAnna Lieffers and Steve Skodack.
I want to be clear. I can believe Lieffers and Skodack when they tell us they are not affiliated with OI. (It would surprise me for any smart conservative to choose to align with that group at this point.) But at the recent City Council debate, Mayor Pro-Tem Ryan Cummins raised an essential point. He noted that it is not enough to ask if someone is affiliated with OI, you must also dig into their actual ideas.
When you do that, it becomes clear that Skodack or Lieffers may not be OI candidates, but they exist in an overlapping Venn diagram of far-right conservative beliefs.
For example, when discussing the proposed charter change in the debate itself, Skodack insisted that more government doesn’t make things more efficient (a strangely anti-government view for someone who wants to serve on City Council). When you dig into his social media, the overlap becomes clearer. Skodack clearly aligns himself with Restoring Ottawa and their attempts to ban books in our schools. He reposted Ukraine conspiracy theories involving the Bidens, along with posts questioning the integrity of our last election. And he posted that he thinks welfare should be as difficult to get as veteran benefits. Why would anyone think either should be difficult to get?
To his credit, Skodack talked with me a couple times, but it didn’t make me feel much better. He decried OI in one breath and then supported the ending of grants with COVID in them with the next. When I asked him about the Pride Festival I helped lead, he suggested we should tone it down a bit next year, perhaps putting any drag shows behind closed doors. I asked if he wanted to put walls around the boardwalk, where you can see far more skin on a given summer day, and he said that was different.
Yes, because one idea is hiding people who do not fit gender stereotypes, queens who fought for the LGBTQ community and who helped start the Pride movement as we know it. The other is impossible without ending Grand Haven’s status as a beach-town destination.
Lieffers, for her part, articulated in the debate her own belief that climate change does not affect our city on a local level (a rather shocking idea in our waterfront community and one that was not, thankfully, shared by any other candidate). When you dig into her social media, it becomes even more concerning. In addition to pro-Trump posts and vaccine skeptic posts, Lieffers posted a video of someone shooting at a case of Bud Light with the caption “Kid Rock speaks for me” (likely in response to Bud Light’s brief connection with trans activist Dylan Mulvaney). How can someone post a video like that in an age of rising violence against trans people?
Sure, Skodack and Lieffers are not OI candidates, but the diagram of overlap is concerning. And you see that overlap in the current debates surrounding charter change. The fact that so many of those who support OI and their brand of “transparency” and “good governance” is one of the reasons I got involved with charter change in the first place. That’s not to say that everyone opposed to charter change supports OI, because that’s not how a Venn diagram works. The correlation, though, is noteworthy.
The correlation is also there between those who support OI and those fighting once more against two needed millage proposals that would give our kids the schools they need. I know I am not the only family who lives in Grand Haven precisely for our schools. But groups like OI and Restoring Ottawa are bent on doing whatever they can to block needed resources to our schools.
All of these things have a lot in common. They involve fear of the other, the desire to control those who do not fit within your viewpoint, and dangerous attacks on the marginalized and vulnerable.
No matter your own beliefs, I hope you’ll take the time to vote next Tuesday. But before you do, dig into the views of the candidates running for office. Read the details of questions like charter change and the public school millage proposals. And ask yourself: What choice will advance the common good of all residents, and not just protect the privilege of the few?
About the writer: The Rev. Dr. Jared C. Cramer serves as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven. Information about his parish can be found at www.sjegh.com. The views in this column are his alone as a private citizen. They do not necessarily reflect the views of his church.