John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Grafton, a message was posted warning parents not to send their children to the event because the event would have left-leaning speakers promoting “things contrary to the Catholic Faith,” specifically a transgender speaker. “It is unfortunate that that was blasted on social media.”Ī local church also published a statement against the camp’s event. “Absolutely not was that going to be the conversation this week or when he was going to be speaking for the half-an-hour time slot that I gave every speaker,” she said. She started hearing backlash about Stever’s gender and sexuality, as well as about one of his tweets from three years ago that mentioned sex toys. “We wanted to make sure that all voices were heard, that they all were people that would be a part of the table - table meaning table of the church that we’re all a part of,” said Kjelland. Rebecca Kjelland, executive director of Park River Bible Camp, said all speakers at the event were chosen intentionally and the group contained an Indigenous speaker, Black speaker and disabled speaker along with Stever, who represented the LGBTQ community. Stever’s talk would have been about goodness and kindness. Each day of the event had a speaker scheduled to give a talk about that day’s theme and be present for activities at the camp. Youth Fest, taking place July 10-15, is a new event for the ELCA camp, and was created for seventh- through 12th-grade students as an alternative event for the ELCA’s National Youth Gathering, which was canceled due to COVID-19. “Camp is supposed to be a place where you can go and just be, and we didn’t feel like we could be at camp and be in the town fully present, fully comfortable and fully feeling like our safety was a priority,” said Stever.
He cited concerns for his and his family’s safety for his decision to back out. Pastor Drew Stever - a queer, transgender pastor at Hope Lutheran Church in Hollywood, California, an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America-affiliated church - was scheduled to speak at Park River Bible Camp’s Youth Fest on July 10, but decided not to after people in surrounding communities expressed their disapproval to camp leadership and on social media. – A speaker at an event hosted by Park River Bible Camp near Park River, North Dakota, backed out after backlash from surrounding communities about the speaker’s gender and sexuality.
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