Anti-LGBTQ Recruiting Event at North Shore Bible Church Helps Spark Backlash Against Chelan Pride
Organized by Chelan Valley Republican Women, The Collective's self-described "prophetess" Folake Kellogg led an anti-LGBTQ seminar June 2 – helping fuel division among locals in the small tourist town
This year Pride month on Lake Chelan kicked off with demagoguery, doxing, and the targeting of members of Chelan’s Pride community and the businesses that support them.
It started on June 2 when Folake Kellog, one of the pastors of Cashmere’s offshoot of The Collective and self-described “prophetess,” gave a presentation at North Shore Bible Church in Manson. It was a highly-anticipated and well-publicized event organized by the Chelan Valley Republican Women.
The prior Sunday NSBC Pastor Craig Rayment introduced a promotional video featuring Kellogg and disgraced former Washington State legislator Matt Shea (among others) to promote Kellogg’s upcoming presentation.
Shea is most famous for being accused of domestic terrorism by his colleagues in the state legislature. He was censured and eventually drummed out of that body. He also authored a document called “The Biblical Basis For War” in which he lays out a plan for the establishment of a Christian theocracy after they “kill all males” who don’t get with the program.
Here’s the promo video:
On June 2, Kellog was introduced by Pam James, the president of the Chelan Valley Republican Women and the hospitality coordinator for North Shore Bible Church.
Kellogg plugged her hour-long recruitment event for the “#dontmesswithourkids” movement after the church service and invited everyone to stay for it.
DMWOK is a movement manufactured to stoke outrage and resentment at public schools over inclusive policies in education, and its primary advocate in the Pacific Northwest is Jenny Donnelly. DMWOK and Donnelly have been linked to the New Apostolic Reformation and Moms For Liberty, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has listed as a far-right group.
The group uses similar vocabulary as MFL (describing mothers as “mama bears” for instance) and both devote a lot of time focused on conspiracy theories about the LGBTQ “agenda” and its influence on public schools and thus society.
“Our nation is in a crisis - families are being ripped apart at the seams by an agenda determined to sexualize our kids,” Donnelly’s website reads. “Mama bears across the nation are rising up to join the #dontmesswithourkids movement and pray, fast, and stand for their families.”
Kellogg and Donnelly’s other recruiters are putting on a full-court press this summer in hopes of drumming up a million women, or “Esthers” as they’re calling themselves, to join the movement and march on Washington D.C. in October.
And like many ideas on the religious far-right promoted and championed by women – it came from a man.
The man in this case is Lou Engle, an NAR “prophet” who said the idea for the march came to him after a dream about The Lord Of The Rings. You can listen to the origin story of the movement in this video featuring him, but spoiler alert if you haven’t read the LOTR books or watched the films yet.
Taking Aim At Pride From The Pulpit
When Kellogg took the stage to plug her after-service seminar, she mentioned Pride month and how they need to take it back for Jesus.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I am here on June 2 when the world wants to take the month of June as Pride month, we are taking it back as a month for Jesus Christ the son of the living God!” she yelled. “He will be enthroned!”
You can watch that clip here, and the keen-eyed among you might notice the screenshot of an article I wrote onscreen behind her when she takes the stage.
You’ll also notice that in her introduction of Kellogg James said DMWOK started in Peru, which is true. And for anyone paying attention to what has been happening in Peru over the last few years that should be a red flag.
It actually started as “Don’t Mess With My Kids,” and according to research by the Global Philanthropy Project the movement “garnered significant public support for its attacks on women’s and LGBT rights through the instrumentalization of children.”
It’s a movement that created powerful alliances between evangelicals, Catholics and right-wing political leaders in that country who were united in their desire to roll back women’s rights, restrict abortion and curb cultural acceptance of LGBTQ lifestyles.
“Concretely, the Don’t Mess With My Kids (DMWMK) movement in Peru is representative of how gender-restrictive groups instrumentalize children to threaten children’s rights, along with gender-justice, in a country with disturbing evidence of gender-based violence and intense sexism,” they write. “The Peruvian case also illuminates the ways in which gender-restrictive groups identify key battlefields related to women’s and children’s issues—such as Comprehensive Sexuality Education—that they use as a toehold to advance gender-restrictive initiatives in many policy areas and at several political levels.”
You can read that research paper here.
After Kellogg spoke Rayment plugged NSBC’s private Christian school, which is expanding.
The day after Kellogg’s presentation a woman named Orn Miller posted in Chelan’s largest community Facebook group, Chelan Valley Strong, about being denied a vendor booth at the small town’s upcoming Pride festival.
That post was removed and not long after that reposted in another local group called “Chelan Valley Uncensored.” That group was created by a man named Jim Edinger, who said he established it because he and others had been “censored” by the administrators of Chelan Valley Strong.
“We were tired of being blocked and censored by the other group in the valley,” Edinger wrote. “Just thought an alternative avenue for other people that felt the same, would be beneficial for everyone that wants to participate.”
When asked what he wanted to post that was censored he said there were many things and “they are actually no longer relevant really.” He added that he doesn’t agree with everything posted in the group but he’s committed to being “fair and nice to everyone.”
Yet that spirit of benevolence seems absent in his decision to post a list of businesses that support Chelan Pride so folks can “pray for them, support them or boycott them.”
He and his fellow group administrator (and wife) Debra also allowed an anonymous user to dox the Chelan Pride board of directors. They defended the decision to leave the post up even after some in the community noted that doxxing is illegal in Washington state.
“Everyone deserves their contact info!” the anonymous user wrote. “They would rather mutilate children then have a civil conversation.”
According to RCW 4.24.792, posting folks’ personal information with the “intent or knowledge that the personal identifying information will be used to harm the individual whose information is published” or with “reckless disregard for the risk the personal identifying information will be used to harm the individual whose information is published” is a crime.
These online actions have resulted in real-world consequences according to Chelan Pride officials.
Jenna Navin, president of Chelan Pride’s board of directors, wrote that board members were physically intimidated at the Pride festival on June 8 and “a board member’s car was keyed at her place of work.”
The Chelan Rotary Club also dropped Pride as a grant recipient “due to the backlash from these Facebook groups,” and club board members resigned because of the decision, Navin wrote.
“We are deeply concerned about the actions of the Facebook group Chelan Valley Uncensored and a small organized group of individuals who have shown intolerance, prejudice and harassment towards the LGBTQIA2S+ community,” she wrote. “The impact of online harassment on the well-being of Queer individuals and our allies, including local business owners and our youth, is exhaustive, disturbing, and threatening to the peace of the community as a whole.”
You can read Navin’s full statement on behalf of Chelan Pride here.
Local Businesses React
Judy Phelps and her husband Don own Hard Row To Hoe Winery, one of the businesses on Edinger’s prayer/boycott list. When reached for comment she confirmed she had heard about the list and stands in solidarity with Chelan Pride.
“Haha, proud to be in this group!” she wrote.
Maggie Blomquist is the general manager of Vin du Lac Winery & Bistro. She said they treat everyone the same no matter what their sexual orientation and every human deserves respect.
As for being on Edinger’s list, she’s not concerned and it won’t change their support for Chelan Pride.
“Honestly it doesn’t affect us,” Blomquist said. “We have no problem participating in this.”
Houston Stodghill owns The Cove Wine & Games, which sponsored the Pride kickoff button sales, and he said they are happy to help support the community in any way they can. As for being on Edinger’s list, he didn’t have a comment.
Connecting The Dots Back To Kellogg
After I reached out to Edinger via direct message he decided to answer in a public post in the group. So I interviewed him in that format and asked if he was at Kellogg’s presentation on June 2.
Turns out he was.
And I reached out to Kellogg, like I said.
Neither Kellogg nor Miller responded to questions, but clearly Miller attends The Collective.
My Two Cents: To Saturate, Try Hate
While looking over the content shared by Miller and others in the group I noticed they weren’t only sharing Kellogg’s content.
They were also posting promos for Sean Feucht’s Revival in Yakima (which I attended) and videos promoting Grace City Church’s Strongermen Nation Conference this month.
I couldn’t help but think of GCC’s original “GCC 101” handbook from 2013 in which Pastor Josh McPherson explained their mission.
“The mission of GCC is to saturate our region with believers living out the Gospel in Community on Mission for Jesus,” he wrote.
Part of that is allying with like-minded “gospel communities” to offer something for everyone.
“In 20 years, we want to see one Gospel Community for every 500 people in the Greater Wenatchee Area,” McPherson wrote. “This theoretically would make it impossible to live in Wenatchee without regularly bumping into a disciple-making disciple of Jesus…”
You can read more about that, and GCC members’ feelings about the LGBTQ community, here.
While McPherson in his Reformed tradition and Kellogg from her charismatic NAR background might not see eye to eye on some theological questions (or the question of women in ministry) what they and other Christians in both the Protestant and Orthodox traditions do tend to agree on is a shared animosity of the LGBTQ community and gender non-conforming people.
Far-right religious extremists in Peru harnessed that hatred to bring together evangelicals, Catholics and rightwing politicians to target LGBTQ people, women and reproductive rights in that country. It’s a model that savvy operators like Donnelly are attempting to “scale up” in North America using the Pacific Northwest as a test region.
Whether or not they will be met with success is unclear at this point. What is clear is that they’re not afraid to use people in sexual minority groups and their allies as scapegoats, stoking collective anger against them to achieve their political ends – all while soliciting donations in the process.
Well, at least I got a handy list of businesses that I will support! Good for them. I am surprised (not so much) that the Republican Party would openly promote this hate fest and a boycott list (guess they like cancel culture when they are doing the cancelling). I know people are reluctant to label businesses for boycott, but the other side has no reluctance to do it. Anybody have a list of anti-LGBTQ+ businesses in Chelan so I know where not to do business?
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross"
Sinclair Lewis, who is credited for this quote, was absolutely right when he said it. These stories are indicative of how we should be taxing churches as businesses, because that's what they are. Further, the first to be taxed are the ones where, by policy and philosophy, have inserted politics into their everyday operations.