There were significantly more people in support at the council last night than opposed. The opposition relied on pushing religious agenda more than coming up with a valid argument against the festival.
Anti-gay bigotry will be on full display at tonight’s city council meeting! Members of the “religious right” will all be coming with prepared remarks to council tonight. Please come and offer a positive message of pride and the welcoming community we want Owosso to keep developing during citizen comments. The hate cannot be the only voice in the room tonight! 6:30pm at City Hall!
Republican gubernatorial candidate and former attorney general Mike Cox has received campaign donations of more than $30,000 from eight political action committees, four of which have his wife, former Michigan Republican Party Chair Laura Cox, listed as the treasurer.
Three of those PACs — Cox Leadership PAC, Make Michigan Grow Again PAC, and Make Michigan Safe Again PAC — have given more than 98% of the money they raised to Cox’s gubernatorial run. The fourth, Cox Majority PAC, has given around 90% to Cox.
Michigan’s temperature pattern is about to seem like the summer switch has just been turned on. Monday and Tuesday are going to be hot days by mid-May standards here in Michigan.
A storm system hanging west of Michigan Sunday into Monday will create a stiff southwest wind. The wind blowing from the southwest will bring us early summer heat more typical of the southern Plains states like Kansas and Oklahoma.
Article has a pretty interesting interactive map showing population data for all Michigan communities.
Michigan hunters in the Lower Peninsula will only be allowed to kill one buck starting in March 2027, the state commission that sets hunting and fishing rules declared Wednesday.
>Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers is facing scrutiny over his campaign's ties to a church where three leaders have been convicted of child sex crimes.
... According to the Midland Daily News, "Nearly three weeks after a faith coalition leader with ties to Mark Barclay’s Living Word Church resigned from Mike Rogers’ U.S. Senate campaign, a second coalition leader with ties to the organization appears to still be on the campaign. The Rogers campaign has received criticism for not speaking publicly about the volunteer coalition leaders’ ties to the Midland County church, where three leaders over the past two years were convicted of sex crimes involving children."
The first such leader, Tim Cross, resigned from the campaign in a lengthy statement that went out of its way not to mention the scandal at Living Word.
"The resignation came after an open letter from two former Living Word Church members published in the Midland Daily News called for the Rogers campaign to cut ties with Cross and coalition member Brian Ford, pastor of Living Word Church of Ludington," said the report. "The letter mentioned former Living Word youth leader James Randolph, who was sentenced in March to 25-40 years in prison for sexually abusing a child and had a prior assault conviction from 1984 before coming to the church."
The letter writers, Dana and Dan Stahl, slammed Rogers specifically, saying, “Mike Rogers is still silent and Michigan needs to hear from him directly. He has refused to acknowledge these concerns for over a month, and Brian Ford, who supported James Randolph during his trial, kept him on his own board of directors and is still on Rogers’ campaign leadership team.”
Gas prices are going up right at the start of vacation season. This is going to cut into the travel and hospitality sectors. Air travel is going to get significantly more expensive. The price to ship something across the country will increase. It's going to be a hot summer. This is going to hurt a lot.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan is urging members to select new doctors if they receive care through the Michigan Medicine Health System.
If you saw the Argus-Press coverage of Monday's council meeting (https://www.argus-press.com/news/community/owosso/article_61d14039-ccca-4a7d-b997-b391918ca060.html), you know that a routine vote to close a street for the Owosso Pride event drew a crowd. I wanted to share a few thoughts.
The vote itself was about closing Curwood Castle Drive so people could walk safely between food trucks. That is the kind of small, practical thing a city council exists to do. Owosso Pride has been putting this event on for years. It is family-friendly. There is bracelet making and bingo and music. Whether you go is up to you.
Many of the people who showed up to speak against the event were not from Owosso. At least one speaker drove in from Bennington Township. I have a hard time with the idea of folks coming in from somewhere else to tell our council what our public spaces should look like. If you live outside the city and you do not want to attend, the simple solution is to not attend.
The church doing a lot of this organizing is Calvary Baptist. If you have been to the farmers market, you have probably seen them there with the big signs telling you that you and almost everyone you know are going to hell. Their approach is closer to Westboro Baptist Church than to the other churches I know in this town. They organized to fill the council chamber on Monday, bringing in people from outside the city, and citing scripture in a way that a lot of Christians I know would not recognize as their own faith.
They would rather spout hate-filled messages than actually do the work of clothing the poor, feeding the hungry, and giving shelter to the unhoused. They look more like the Pharisees with their hypocrisy, self-righteousness, and legalism, twisting biblical teachings to enact strict, man-made rules over God's love, mercy, and justice. They can do that in their own houses of worship, but don't impose your will on others outside of your church.
What I see when I have gone to the Pride event is that year after year, it is packed with people. The folks who showed up on Monday do not speak for everyone in this town. They certainly do not speak for me.
If you want to come to the Pride event on May 30 at Curwood Castle Park, come. If you don't, don't.