MarriageDefense.org has since taken down its website and appears to have ceased "operations." Yob has been evicted from the swanky downtown Grand Rapids condo he called home for both himself and for Marriagedefense.org.
If the Land/Voorhees family had nothing to hide and did not think that their actions would be seen as unethical, why try to hide their money trail by waiting until right after the July 20th deadline? Why not operate right out in the open by contributing their money and reporting it like most others did – before July 20th?
Charged with enforcing Michigan election law, it would seem that Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land would know better than to allow herself to be involved in such a scheme in the first place.
But to make matters even worse, she looked the other way when Uncle Harold racked up three separate fines of $1000 by brazenly refusing to file reports for MarriageDefense.org during the ten months of its existence.
None of the fines have been paid and MarriageDefense.org still owes $3000 to the state of Michigan. Failing to respond to several notices, Voorhees does not appear interested in paying the fines, even though he and his family spent ten times that amount during the last ten days of the 2004 primary election cycle.
Despite several strongly-worded letters to the organization sent by the Secretary of State threatening to report refer it to the Attorney General’s office for legal action, the request has fallen on deaf ears as though the law does not apply to members of the Secretary of State’s own family.
Uncle Harold? Aunt Joanne? Dad? One would think Secretary Land would have enough pull to make someone listen.
Or maybe she just doesn’t care and is willing to give her own family members special treatment. Consideration that Secretary Land certainly never offered when she singled out and chastised two Democrats who incurred identical fines for the same reasons in 2004.
Secretary Land went on record in the cases of Representatives LaMar Lemmons and George Cushionberry, both of Detroit, proclaiming that "openness and accountability are the foundation of a healthy political process. We will not let that foundation be eroded by disregard for our election and campaign finance laws."
Unless, perhaps she should have added, you are related to me in which case I will look the other way and save you all some cash.
In an ironic twist, almost all of the Voorhees/Land money that MarriageDefense.org spent to promote "family values" went to try and ensure the election of three candidates:
1. Bob Gosselin, who was arrested twice – in 1994 and 1998 – for soliciting prostitutes – a laughable endorsement from an organization whose mission is to protect the sanctity of marriage.
2. Kent Vanderwood, who proved duplicitous on more than one occasion during his primary battle, prompting Green to write in a pre-election news release that "it seems Kent has lost his moral compass. Frankly I expected more from someone who spent 30 years running religious schools and instilling Christian values in our children." Vanderwood’s son was recently arrested for the armed robbery of a convenience store in the district to feed a heroin addiction. He plead guilty and is now serving time in the Michigan prison system.
3. John Ramsey, the maligned father of the brutally-murdered JonBenet Ramsey. John and his wife relocated to Michigan after being run out of Colorado.
These are certainly three curious candidates for an organization supposedly committed to protecting family values to support.
At the end of the day, MarriageDefense.org and the Michigan Leadership Fund allowed the Voorhees and Land families to skirt campaign finance law and spend $13,352 on behalf of John Ramsey and $11,801 on behalf of Kent Vanderwood, trashing their fellow Republican opponents, Kevin Ellsenheimer and Kevin Green respectively.
Both Ramsey and Vanderwood lost.
Bob Gosselin – despite his two arrests for solicitation – was the only candidate supported by MarriageDefense.org to win his primary. It must have been a proud day for those dedicated to protecting the institution of marriage.
Voters might have been interested in this story had the facts been made public in a timely fashion. But thanks to the helpful loopholes in campaign finance law, the Voorhees/Land family was able to spend $31,750 in the final ten days before the 2004 primary and hide it from public view until the election was over and public interest had faded.
UPDATE: After reading this article, Barton Dieters, a reporter from the Grand Rapids Press, confronted Voorhees about MarriageDefense.org and the unpaid fines. Twenty-four hours later, the outstanding $3000 was paid.
THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS
Voorhees Establishes Clear Pattern of Lies and Deceit
The first time Harold Voorhees ran for mayor of Wyoming, citizens awoke every morning during the week before the general election to find flyers in their paperboxes and under the windshield wipers of their cars featuring the inaccurate and unflattering cartoon caricature of a bloated, worried, foolish-looking Carl Huizenga. Huizenga was the current Wyoming mayor and Voorhees’ opponent in the general election.
Like a school bully would prey on a weaker, unsuspecting classmate, Voorhees childishly lampooned Huizenga. Above the caricature, appeared the words "WHAT-DO-YA-MEAN?" and below it, "TWO MORE YEARS OF THIS. IT’S TIME FOR A CHANGE IN WYOMING CITY HALL."
Inside, the flyer distorted the mayor’s positions and record, claiming that, if re-elected, Huizenga would triple citizens’ water bills and allow other governments to raise Wyoming residents’ taxes.
The allegations made in the flyer were derived from another Voorhees-led campaign to prevent Wyoming from joining the Metro Council, a coalition of cities and townships in the Grand Rapids metro area that work together to promote economic development and collaborate on regional issues.
The power of Voorhees’ scare-tactic campaign was clear as Wyoming voters resoundingly voted to keep the city from joining the Metro Council, fearing that neighboring communities would steal Wyoming’s water and raise taxes on its citizens. In hindsight, those fears proved unfounded and earlier this year – fifteen years later – Wyoming joined the other 32 area communities and finally signed on to the Metro Council. It is estimated that, as the only community not included, Wyoming’s holdout cost the city millions of dollars in state road and highway money.
THOU SALT NOT STEAL
Voorhees Caught by Police Vandalizing Opponents Campaign Signs
Voorhees committed another decidedly "unchristian-like" act in 1998. While voters elected him to the Michigan House of Representatives in 1992, he was forced to vacate that office six years later. Under Michigan’s term limits law, an individual is allowed to serve a maximum of six years.
With Harold unable to run for re-election, he waged an all-out war to keep the seat in his family by handing it over to his wife, Joanne – even though she had no previous political experience.
During the final days of what was a contentious Republican primary campaign, Harold Voorhees was caught by the Wyoming Police Department committing an undignified and compromising act unbecoming of a man who was still a sitting member of the Michigan House of Representatives.
Early on the morning of August 4th, 1998, Wyoming police officer Thomas Groen detained Voorhees and cited him for vandalizing campaign signs urging voters to elect Carol Sheets – a fellow Republican running against Harold’s wife, Joanne.
Officer Groen wrote in the report that he had "observed Mr. Harold Voorhees pull two ‘Carol Sheets’ political campaign signs out of the ground and lay them down." The report further went on to say that neither sign was illegally placed.
He stopped his vehicle, tore down a Sheets campaign sign. Got back in his vehicle, drove further down the road, then did it again. At that point, the Wyoming Police Department stepped in to stop Voorhees from wreaking any further destruction.
Here is a copy of the police report.
When informed that Harold had been caught tearing down her signs, Sheets responded with incredible restraint, declining to press charges even though dozens of her signs had been vandalized or stolen throughout the campaign.
In a letter to Voorhees dated August 28 – well after his wife Joanne had defeated Sheets in the primary – Sheets cited her commitment to work together with Joanne to win a Republican majority in the State House and not to jeopardize that by pressing charges against Harold. "If we indeed are working for a Republican majority . . . then dirty tricks need to be absent from our campaigning. I hope this change starts with my not pressing charges against you and continues through all future elections." Sheets wrote.
That, of course, did not happen. In 2004 – when term limits prohibited Joanne from seeking a fourth term in the state house – Harold orchestrated another behind-the-scenes campaign to pass the torch to Kent Vanderwood, whom the Voorhees’ described as "a close family friend." Harold and Joanne had reportedly "promised" Vanderwood the seat as early as 1999, during Joanne’s first term in the House.
This time, while Harold had the expected August Surprise planned for the end of the campaign, he got started early – wasting little time before starting to play puppet master in a series of unscrupulous tricks. After all, this time the opponent was Kevin Green, a young and popular city councilmember – and the only candidate who had ever beaten the Voorhees machine.
Voorhees Caught Cheating. Efforts to Sabotage Green’s Campaign Backfires
Harold and Joanne Voorhees knew that Kevin Green would be a formidable opponent. A tireless campaigner, he defeated Voorhees’ recruit Dave Dishaw in his first run for the city council in 1999. It was during that campaign that tensions began brewing between Green and Voorhees when Green fell victim to the typical Voorhees-style last minute attacks. Green won anyway, and over the next several years, became the first elected Republican official who was openly critical of Harold Voorhees’ history of political hypocrisy.
When it became clear that Green was planning to seek the State House seat the Voorhees family had promised to Vanderwood, both he and his wife sought privately to pressure Green into dropping out of the race. When that failed, Harold went to work spearheading a systematic and underhanded campaign on behalf of Vanderwood to sabotage Green.
Exhibit A: An E-mail to deceive the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce The first shot was fired on the eve of the very important Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce endorsement. After both candidates had gone through the interview process, Vanderwood sent a last-minute, secret e-mail message smearing Green to every member of the Grand Rapids Chamber’s Board of Directors in an effort to sway their votes and win their endorsement. Knowing that, because the interview process had already occurred, Green would not get a chance to respond to the allegation.
In the e-mail, Vanderwood falsely stated that Green had been endorsed by local Teamsters, writing "I'm not sure how compatible the agendas of the labor unions are with the Chamber, but it would seem to me there are stark contrasts. Is it possible that Kevin is playing both sides a bit? What do you make of it?"
That Vanderwood would send that particular e-mail seemed curious given that it was Vanderwood himself who attempted to contact Teamster PAC director Bruce Harvey in an effort to solicit a campaign contribution from the union.
Not surprisingly, Chamber board members were not fooled and voted unanimously to back Green, giving him their strongest possible endorsement.
When members of the media began investigating Vanderwood’s shenanigan, Harold Voorhees admitted to Tim Skubic – widely considered the dean of Michigan’s political press corps – that is was he, Voorhees, who had written the e-mail, signing Vanderwood’s name and sending it from Vanderwood’s e-mail address.
It remains unclear whether he acted with Vanderwood’s knowledge or consent.
Exhibit B: The Flyer
Later in the race, Vanderwood circulated a flyer eerily similar in style to the Voorhees attack on Huizenga from years earlier. In it, Vanderwood ridiculously attacked Green for only being married for three years and only living in the community for less than 10 years while Vanderwood had been married for 30 years and had been a resident since 1980, somehow making Vanderwood the more qualified "family-man" and more "pro-marriage" than Green.
Included on the flyer was a statement that Vanderwood had won endorsements from "10 current and former state representatives" while Green had been endorsed by "0 state representatives and former Grand Rapids Mayor John Logie" – whose endorsement Voorhees deemed as more of a political liability to Green than a benefit.
In reality, Voorhees had called in favors from several of those current and former Republican members of the state House of Representatives, twisting their arms to endorse Vanderwood – an uncommon measure for an open seat with a competitive Republican primary. Several of those members later claimed privately that they had been uninformed or misinformed about the facts in the race and made the endorsement only as a favor to Voorhees.
Vanderwood maintains that he asked them all for endorsements.
The flyer wasn’t the first flap over endorsements. Several community leaders who had endorsed Green were surprised to discover their names on a list of supposed Vanderwood supporters published in Vanderwood’s campaign materials and on his website. The explanation given to those who complained: Vanderwood (or Voorhees) had simply copied a list of Joanne’s endorsements from her 2002 race and listed the names as Vanderwood supporters.
Exhibit 3: VOTE PRO-LIFE TODAY
Even more incredulously, on the day of the Republican primary, Vanderwood’s campaign team – run by Voorhees – attached signs that directed voters to "vote pro-life today" to all of Vanderwood’s oversized campaign signs. It was a move that Tim Disselkoen, in a column for the Advance newspapers, said was "clearly meant to mislead voters into thinking Vanderwood was the "pro-life" candidate. In fact, both candidates met the Right to Life criteria and it was Green who was the only candidate who had ever won the Right to Life of Michigan endorsement. Disselkoen went on to say "Had the extended Voorhees family and Vanderwood truly believed it was God’s will for him to serve the district, they never would have undertaken such tactics."
Exhibit 4 – The Big Lie
Phone calls started pouring in to Kevin Green’s campaign headquarters right around 9:00 on Friday morning, July 30 2004. Was it true? Callers wondered? Was Kevin Green really in favor of gay marriage? Did he refuse to sign a petition in support of officially defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman? And worse, had he really been plotting with Jennifer Granholm to raise Michigan’s sales tax?
Throughout the campaign, Green staff members had been predicting that the Vanderwood/Voorhees team would go negative at the last-minute. Given Harold’s history, they were certain of it.
The week before the election, Harold Voorhees confided in a Lansing-based lobbyist that Vanderwood had the election "in the bag," and that the Green campaign had "no idea what was about to hit them."
At 5:30 Friday morning – just five days before the election – the Green campaign found out.
The attack came on three fronts – over the airways, via the telephone and through the mail. The message came through loud and clear when WOOD radio – a highly-respected news radio station based in Grand Rapids – began airing two urgent-sounding 30-second campaign spots.
One suggested that Green planned to conspire with Governor Granholm to raise the sales tax and the other claimed that Green had refused to sign a pledge supporting the definition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman – a move that would have constituted Green committing political suicide in this heavily-religious district .
Of course, both contentions were outright lies. In June, Green and his wife Chele had, indeed, signed the petition in question. And he had not conversed with Granholm on any policy initiative – certainly he had no plans to raise the sales tax. Over the next five days, Green campaign volunteers worked day and night to assure voters of the truth before they went to the polls on election day.
Implementing the rapid response plan Green’s campaign team had prepared for just such an occasion, a literal army of volunteers flooded the district with an "URGENT ELECTION UPDATE" flyer informing the citizens of the 77th district that the commercials and phone calls were false.
"It was amazing," said Green campaign staff member Michael Huffman, who helped to organize the effort. "Literally hours after hearing the first ad, we had a response written, printed and distributed to more than a dozen volunteers who worked around the clock over the next several days to make sure the voters knew that Vanderwood and Voorhees were lying. We went house to house, street to street, throughout Wyoming and Byron Township."
Upon learning the truth – that Vanderwood’s campaign team, led by Harold Voorhees, was responsible for the false ads – hundreds of citizens personally called the Green campaign to offer their support and express their dismay with the Voorhees/Vanderwood campaign, noting that the attacks smacked of hypocrisy. "Family values" do not include lying and cheating.
A Green campaign volunteer even served Voorhees himself with an URGENT ELECTION UPDATE – which was printed in Vanderwood’s campaign colors – at a local parade site on the Saturday before last August’s election. A grumpy Voorhees complained, "I don’t need to see this crap," crumpled up the flyer and threw it to the ground.
Of course, Green went on to beat Vanderwood by a surprisingly wide margin in the primary and then defeated Democrat Albert Abasse in the general election to win the 77th district seat.
Representative Green declined direct comment on this article, citing his desire to strengthen party unity and build positive relationships.
Next Stop for Voorhees: Back in the Saddle as Mayor
Even though Harold Voorhees won’t fork over the money he owes to Michigan citizens and pay the $3000 in campaign-finance fines levied against him last year, he is more than willing to spend money to run for mayor. In a move that stunned even those closest to Wyoming city politics, Voorhees filed in May as a candidate for the non-partisan seat. He faces at-large city councilmember Mayor Pro-Tem Carol Sheets, and councilmember Jack Poll.
One other member of the city council, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Voorhees was running because he blames current city officials for the Wyoming’s ongoing financial crisis. Recently, he was instrumental in killing a voter referendum that would have allowed Wyoming to re-open the fire station at Gezon Parkway and Byron Center Avenue which permanently closed last year after voters failed to approve a millage increase earmarked for public safety.
Last summer, Voorhees actively opposed a police and fire millage increase that city councilmembers and a group of community leaders offered as a last-ditch effort to avoid laying off firefighters and closing the brand new Gezon Fire Station. The millage failed by 62 votes, largely due to Voorhees’ efforts in the city’s panhandle area to kill the measure. The millage was defeated in that portion of the city by a wide margin.
Carol Sheets says she has been particularly dismayed by Voorhees’ successful efforts to cut the legs out from under Wyoming’s plans to maintain an adequate public safety infrastructure and that his allegations of financial mismanagement by current city officials are not only false, but misguided and irresponsible.
"When Harold and Joanne Voorhees were in the state legislature, they boasted about their support for improving public safety, but I am interested in how they might define the word ‘improving.’ First, they were instrumental in creating Wyoming’s financial crisis when the state slashed two million dollars in revenue sharing funds that the city had depended on for decades to pay for services like fire and police protection. We counted on that money to pay for public safety. Then they forced us to lay off fire fighters and close fire stations by opposing the fire millage," said Sheets.
"In the wake of losing revenue sharing funds, the city council worked tirelessly to balance Wyoming’s budget. If Harold wants to blame someone for Wyoming’s financial woes, he should look in the mirror. For someone who maintains that he is dedicated to public safety, he has certainly done all he can over the past year to make sure Wyoming had to lay off fire fighters and close fire stations," she continued.
Despite Voorhees’ actions to cut revenue sharing and positions he has taken in favor of closing fire stations, his website
www.haroldworking4you.com tells – surprise – a very different story. On it, Voorhees claims "The purpose of government is the protection of life and property. September 11, 2001 showed us once again the unselfish dedication our police and fire personnel have toward protecting life and property.
That same dedication to service is prevalent in our local safety providing entities as well. The City of Wyoming, with its contingent of fire fighters stationed at Byron Center Road and 56th St., our Byron Township and Gaines Township firefighters are dedicated to protecting life and property in the 9th County Commission district. . . by 2001 the service calls (for police) had grown by 2001 to 6,539. That’s a 600 call growth in 5 years and then a 500 growth in just one year. Law enforcement needs are on the increase as the district grows. . .Crime prevention needs to be a greater emphasis in our district."
If that seems like a contradiction, Voorhees was one of only two of the 16 County Commissioners who voted against improving emergency services by centralizing Kent County’s 911 dispatch system.
Voorhees Accused of Racism in His Crusade Against Casinos
Unfortunately, Harold Voorhees has not limited his use of trickery and deceit to campaigns for public office. As an elected official with a particular distaste for any activity he does not consider to be "family-oriented" Voorhees has special level of disdain for anyone who might advocate the existence of casino gaming.
From his perch as an elected official, he has taken every available opportunity to wage war on the expansion of gaming.
He has even gone so far as testifying before the Michigan State House of Representatives that the state should ban the placement of ATM machines in casinos. Voorhees describes his opposition to casinos as a deeply- rooted belief that gambling violates his Christian belief system and does not promote family values.
At times, in what might be described as a fervently uncontrollable desire to impose his personal values on others, Voorhees has a history of making missteps that shift focus away from the issue he is trying to address.
Two years ago he tried to single-handedly prevent the Wyoming-Kentwood Area Chamber of Commerce from granting membership privileges to a local Indian tribe.
Upon learning that the Gun Lake Band of Pottowattomi Indians applied for membership in the Chamber, Voorhees made a series of personal telephone calls to members of the organization’s board of directors, pleading with them to deny the tribe membership.
Voorhees’ actions quickly resulted in allegations of racism.
When word of the phone calls began to spread, there initially were contradicting reports over whether it was Harold, Joanne or both of them who actually made the calls. But Joanne cleared that up during the "public comment" portion of a subsequent government affairs committee meeting after a member asked her to confirm whether she had made "personal phone calls to Chamber board members insisting they refuse to accept the membership dues paid by the Gun Lake tribe, a racial minority group, and deny its application for membership in the Chamber of Commerce, a public organization."
Her response for the record, with WKTV television cameras which record the meetings for public broadcast rolling, Joanne Voorhees claimed that she personally did not "specifically remember" making any phone calls.
"But I know that Harold was making some," she said.
Brent Holland, the vice-chairman of membership development who first initiated contact with tribal leaders and invited them to join, expressed outrage that Voorhees made the phone calls.
"Here we are, working our tails off every day," Holland said during a Chamber executive committee meeting, "reaching out to the whole community in an effort to facilitate economic growth. Then, out of nowhere, Harold Voorhees steps in and tries to sabotage us. He certainly spends plenty of time and money to make sure HE gets to decide whether I will ever have the opportunity to play the video poker machines without having to drive more than 100 miles. But never once, in all my years in the Chamber, has Harold Voorhees ever performed a single committee function, attended a meeting or otherwise lifted a finger to help organize a Chamber event. I am not sure whether his staggering arrogance or his presumptuous racism is more repugnant."
"We need to encourage participation from all who are interested and cannot, according to our by-laws, deny membership to any legitimate business." Holland continued, "As a chamber of commerce, our mission – surprise – is to promote commerce. There is a place for everyone here."
"Publicly, he is always so concerned about preaching ‘family values,’ but quietly asserting his influence behind-the-scenes to prohibit a minority group from joining a public organization does not appear on any list of "values" I would ever advocate instilling in my children.
Voorhees and Homosexuals
The only issue Voorhees may be more passionate about than fighting the proliferation of casino gambling is preventing – fervently and at any price – the acceptance and inclusion of gays and lesbians as active, positive contributors to the community.
Voorhees is widely known for using his positions of power and authority to disenfranchise the gay and lesbian community every chance he gets.
Last year, he launched an unsuccessful effort to prevent Grand Rapids area Gay Pride Day organizers from holding their annual festival on city-owned property, singling out the gay and lesbian community from the dozens of other organizations that use Calder Plaza and other city locations to host annual events.
More recently, Voorhees asked the County Commission to break the lease it has with Diversions, a predominately gay and lesbian nightclub that has rented space in a building it shares with government offices for the past eight years. In a March 25 story published in the Grand Rapids Press, Voorhees announced that he did not believe that the county should lease space to an establishment that does not fit Voorhees’ definition of a "family-friendly" venue. Additionally, in a stunningly ignorant statement that puzzled even some of Voorhees’ usual political allies, he suggested that gay people participate in "unhealthy activities" and that, as a public official, he "must work to reduce the county’s exposure to those unhealthy activities that could put public funds at risk."
Yet Voorhees’ proposal to give Diversions the boot is a move that he knows would cost Kent County an estimated half a million dollars. So if the spirit of protecting public funds is truly the issue, Voorhees should be delighted with the Diversions lease. It saves taxpayers a pile of money.
More likely, Voorhees just discovered that Diversions is a gay bar. Let’s face it. It has been there longer than he had been a county commissioner and its presence had never presented a problem to Voorhees before his recent homophobic tantrum.
While he has not been victorious in his attempts to institutionalize bigotry and discrimination against homosexuals as a County Commissioner, Voorhees played a key role in the successful campaign to officially define marriage in Michigan as a union between one man and one women that voters overwhelmingly approved last November. Similar measures also passed by wide margins in eleven other states.
Despite the eleven new state laws, it is widely believed that those laws will eventually be declared unconstitutional with the Lawrence v. Texas decision now set as judicial precedent. Even Justice Scalia, in his scathing dissent of the 6-3 decision, admits that Lawrence leaves state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples "on pretty shaky grounds."
That won’t sit well with Voorhees. In fact, terrified by that Supreme Court decision, he vowed to work through MarriageDefense.org to pass a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Which again begs the question of why MarriageDefense.org no longer exists.
Many of those who advocate such a constitutional amendment consider the separation of church and state to be a one way street – that government should never impose policy that would inhibit the free practice of religion, but far right Christian values should be of central concern to policy-makers when considering legislation.
It is unclear how that position squares with the reality that any legislation based on the values or doctrine of any particular religion will by definition impose government policy on those who believe in a competing doctrine or set of values, thereby preventing them from freely practicing their chosen religion.
But if Voorhees himself doesn’t seem sympathetic to protecting the separation of church and state, it is probably because he doesn’t believe it exists.
His bte-noir for what he calls "the homosexual lifestyle" bordering on vitriolic, Voorhees rolled out the red carpet at the Wyoming Home School Building last fall for Alan Keyes, a 2004 candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois who is close to Voorhees.
During his speech, Keyes indicted gay people as "hedonistic" and called the separation of church and state "silly," claiming that its very existence as a constitutional mandate is "entirely a lie." To rally those in attendance, he declared emphatically that, "We must reject the notion of separation of church and state."
The Supreme Court, however, disagrees. And Keyes lost his Senate race to Barak Obama by the widest margin in U.S. history, taking only 27% of the vote.
When questioned why his opposition to gay marriage was so vehement, Voorhees replied in a manner that sounded hauntingly familiar. "They are trying to force change on us. And I don’t think that is right," said Voorhees.
In an interview for this article, Ed Brayton, a political analyst for the popular weblog In The Agora, found striking parallels between Voorhees' words and the rhetoric used by those who opposed civil rights for blacks. "It would be interesting," Brayton said, "to produce a document with quotes from those who opposed integration in the south, or opposed the Supreme Court's 1967 Loving decision that overturned state bans on interracial marriage, along with quotes from those who oppose gay marriage. If the quote did not specifically name the issue being opposed, I doubt anyone could tell which issue they were referring to. The rhetoric is almost word for word the same, especially the rhetoric about change being 'forced' on those who resisted it.
Brayton continued, "Those who opposed the Loving decision used the same arguments we hear used against gay marriage today - that 'activist judges' were 'subverting the will of the people' by 'forcing' interracial marriage on them. But the whole notion of it being 'forced' on anyone is absurd. No one will be forced to be IN a gay marriage."
According to Brayton, the idea that widespread acceptance of gay marriage will somehow shake the foundation and threaten the sanctity of traditional marriage is unjustifiable. "The whole notion that those who oppose gay marriage are somehow 'protecting the sanctity of marriage' is just so much empty rhetoric. Protecting it from what? Will some straight couple suddenly get divorced if the gay couple down the block is given the same legal protections that they take for granted? Will they stop having children, or ignore the ones they have?
Not that the current foundation of marriage is all that sanctimonious. Brayton points out that "Even Harold Voorhees might agree that any commitment two people are allowed to make in a burst of drunken inspiration and have legally certified by a part-time Elvis impersonator in downtown Las Vegas at 3 o’clock in the morning cannot be considered sanctified. At least not with a straight face."
Don’t drink and drive. We will send you to prison. But feel free to fire down a case of Miller Lite and go wed.
"If anything, gay couples are likely to treat marriage with far more commitment and depth than your average straight couple. Why? Because they don't take it for granted. It's been denied to them for so long that they will treasure the opportunity and not treat it like something that can be thrown away.
"One need only look at the pictures of the people in Massachusetts, or in San Francisco last year, as they came out from their weddings. They were elated. Contrast that with the faces of those who protested those weddings, their t-shirts bearing hateful slogans and their faces twisted and contorted with rage as they screamed homophobic epithets at the happy couples. And now tell me who is on the side of marriage and who is merely on the side of bigotry."
When Harold Voorhees said "They are trying to force change on us and I don’t think that is right," he was compared by some to former Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett, who in defiance of a federal court order to allow the first African American student to attend Ole’ Miss in 1962, promised never to allow integration in Mississippi schools as long as he was governor.
AND MERCY SAID NO.
In Washington, DC, where people are often ruined for political sport, the story of the South Kent Mafia and the Land/Voorhees political machine might not amount to much. Politicians use the law to their own advantage and use their positions of power to scratch the backs of their friends all the time. Politicians even, on occasion, use their influence to help their enemies, making a deposit in the all-important "favor bank."
Maybe, even in West Michigan, citizens have so come to expect unsavory political behavior from its elected officials that Harold Voorhees’ culture of intolerance and hypocrisy doesn’t matter that much. Even the voters of Wyoming, Michigan who are interested enough to read this extraordinarily long article might not even take the time to vote in the August 2nd mayoral primary.
They may not remember Tim Disselkoen’s article in last August’s Wyoming Advance that first exposed the Voorhees’ duplicitous history.
As a result, Harold Voorhees might spend a lot of money and win another election, currying favor with voters while at the same time thumbing his nose at them.
To keep control of the Michigan Republican Party from falling back into the hands of Brooks Patterson and other Detroit-area Republicans, Kent County party members might continue to look the other way, knowing that Harold Voorhees and his family play dirty pool to win elections – even elections against fellow Republicans.
Quite simply, maybe nothing will change.
But here is to hoping that is not the case – that proud Michigan citizens will demand integrity from their public officials. Here is to hoping that the players involved in Michigan politics take this opportunity to right their ship and refuse complicity with those who routinely smile and preach Godliness in public but cheat and deceive when they think no one is looking.
While none of us is without sin, and we should always be ready to forgive each other for our faults, we should set the highest possible standard of scrutiny for those who represent us in public office. We deserve to know who we are electing to serve us.
To err is human, and to forgive divine.
We might, as a community, be proud to prove that by putting our confidence in a former alcoholic, or in someone who has suffered through a divorce due to marital infidelity, or even in a candidate who has made more serious mistakes in the past. But we should be given the opportunity to do so with all the metaphorical cards on the table.
And over the course of his political career, Harold Voorhees has done exactly the opposite. He has lied to voters. He has vandalized his opponent’s property. He has schemed to violate campaign finance laws. He has demonstrated a complete intolerance for those who do not fit well into his political or religious worldview. He has demonstrated racism and exhibited a pattern of homophobic behavior as en elected official. Through his actions, he has besmirched the reputations of good men and women who have politically opposed him. He has hurt and marginalized many others.
And because he has taken on another role as a stone-throwing candidate for yet another public office, voters ought to know about everything contained in this article.
Additionally, those who have known about and tolerated Harold Voorhees’ behavior and kept quiet about it should be ashamed – even those who have done so in fear of political reprisals. We, the people, grant power to our elected officials. Our system was never intended to work the other way around.
UPDATE: After this article was released on the website www.secrethandshake.org, and the attached flyer was distributed throughout the city of Wyoming, Carol Sheets soundly defeated Voorhees in the 2005 Wyoming mayoral race. Elected overwhelmingly to his position as Kent County Commissioner just a year ago, Voorhees garnered just 39% of the vote on November 8th, 2005. Stomped like a narc at a biker rally.