TL;DR article, I know, but
Heather Alberda watched as her elected representatives on the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners sought to dismantle what remained of her life’s work.
As the sex educator for the county’s health department, Alberda, 46,developed programs to lower teen pregnancy and curb the spread of sexually transmitted infections.
The board’s vice chair, Sylvia Rhodea, was introducing a resolution that sought to “protect childhood innocence” by blocking the county from spending money on programs that “normalize or encourage the sexualization of children.”
Doug Zylstra, the board’s lone Democrat, was pushing her and the measure’s other backers to provide examples of taxpayer-funded activities that sexualized children. County employees, he said, deserved to know specifically what was being prohibited. [No clear answer was received.]
Alberda had already endured months of scorn from the new commissioners, who had publicly accused her of promoting abortion and sexualizing children. What she’d been doing was her job, which required her to talk about birth control, sexually transmitted infections, abstinence and consent. She met with high school students, migrant farmworkers, teens in juvenile detention and people struggling with addiction.
--
The biggest driver [in these new changes in government] was Ottawa Impact, a political group that formed in 2021 and pledged to field county board candidates who would govern according to conservative Christian principles. The group’s leaders drew inspiration from Matthew Trewhella, a Wisconsin-based pastor who preaches a version of Christianity that focuses on using politics and the law to purify the community of evildoers and sin.
In 2013, Trewhella self-published a book called “
The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates,” which argues that low-level elected officials — “lesser magistrates” — have a sacred duty to oppose higher authorities who attempt to enforce immoral or anti-Christian laws.
Trewhella drew inspiration for the book, which he said has sold more than 80,000 copies, from 1500s-era treatises written by Protestant leaders resisting the tyranny of the Catholic Church. His roots, though, were in the 1990s antiabortion movement. In 1993, he signed a letter describing the murder of doctors who provided abortions as
“justifiable,” and he often boasted of the 15 months he spent in jail for blocking the doors to abortion clinics.
--
Alberda wasn’t the only one feeling pressure from the county board. In April, Bonnema and the new board members toured the
Children’s Advocacy Center, a nonprofit group that works with law enforcement to prosecute sex offenders and counsel their victims.
[tour]
[Commissioner] Bonnema recalled suggesting that they discuss “the elephant in the room.” At first, [nonprofit director] Fluharty wasn’t sure what he meant. Then Bonnema began talking about the 3-by-5-inch LGBTQ+ Pride sticker on the center’s front door
The county provided about $120,000 a year to the center ... After the commissioners left, Fluharty warned her board of directors that the Pride symbol could put their county funding at risk.
Bonnema, an insurance agent who was new to politics, didn’t approve of the Pride symbol. But he was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the way some Ottawa Impact commissioners viewed any compromise as betrayal
Bonnema was concerned about what would happen if the center’s relationship with the county unraveled. ... it would cost the county more than $800,000 a year to replace the center with something that might not serve abused children as well.
[but really, isn't it worth providing worse care to abused children at greater cost, as long as gay people feel less welcome? Commissioner Bonnema is starting to have his doubts, but even so, that's likely to mean that certain board issues go 9-2 instead of 10-1.]
www.reuters.com
