Newly obtained emails show a wave of heated, anti-Christian opposition from community members and University of Maine staff after UMaine initially agreed to sell the Hutchinson Center to Calvary Chapel Belfast, a Christian church.
The emails, secured through a Freedom of Access Act request, reveal deep outrage over the church’s conservative beliefs, with some calling the sale “horrifying” and “appalling.”
[RELATED: UMaine Rescinds Offer to Sell Hutchinson Center to Belfast Church…]
UMaine rescinded its decision to sell the Hutchinson Center to Calvary Chapel Belfast last August, after the church was initially chosen as the winning bidder among three offers, with plans to use the facility for addiction recovery and a homeschool co-op.
Calvary Chapel Belfast filed a lawsuit against UMaine in late November after UMaine reneged on their offer to sell the property to the church, alleging that the decision was reversed due to the “church’s scriptural beliefs on marriage and sexuality.”
This December, UMaine announced that it had upheld its decision to sell the property to Waldo Community Action Partners (WCAP) — a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization funded almost entirely through taxpayer dollars —instead of Calvary Chapel Belfast, rejecting an appeal from the church to reconsider.
[RELATED: UMaine Upholds Decision to Renege Hutchinson Center Sale to Calvary Chapel Belfast…]
Now, the Maine Wire has obtained a large number of emails through the state’s Freedom of Access Act that were sent to the UMaine Board of Trustees and other staff after UMaine’s original announcement that they would be selling the Hutchinson Center to Calvary Chapel Belfast.
Those emails, all sent within days of each other, show a rabid and vitriolic anti-Christian backlash to the decision, with several of the emails claiming to be “shocked,” “horrified,” and “appalled” that the school would even dare to do business with a Christian church that holds to conservative beliefs.
An Aug. 21, 2024 email from Virginia Holmes to the UMaine System Board of Trustees reads, “As a public (and as an educational) institution, the UMS cannot and must not ally itself with a religious organization that not only teaches and promotes discrimination, but also is a representative of one religion, and views itself as the only true religion.”
“So, yes, I am horrified. Shocked. Horrified,” Holmes wrote. “I understand the financial reasons for this choice. They are not enough. A public educational institution is [sic] the United States should never make a decision such as the one you have made. Shame on you. Shame.”
Wendy Schweikert wrote to Umaine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy that she viewed the choice to sell to Calvary Chapel Belfast as “appalling,” and called it a “disastrous decision that reflects poorly on the trustees.”
Schweikert pondered whether the sale was “part of the movement toward white Christian nationalism in America? Terrifying thought.”
Sett Balise wrote to the trustees that the sale to the church would “be harmful to the town,” claiming that “The Cavalry Chapel Association [sic] promotes bigoted ideals that are dangerous to members of the community (ie, that homosexuality causes natural disasters).”
Paddrick Thomas-Whittaker wrote to the UMaine trustees and president that he was “personally discriminated against by Calvary Chapel” for being gay, claiming to have been “harassed constantly and mentally abused by the pastoral body for my sexuality.”
“This church and any of its affiliated branches should not be allowed to indoctrinate children through their own school as it is entirely exclusionary to anyone who does not meet their religious based requirements,” Thomas-Wittaker wrote.
“Belfast is a wonderfully welcoming city to the Queer community to the point that a homophobic & transphobic organization such as Calvary Chapel Belfast should not be allowed to take up residency in a building dedicated to helping the surrounding community,” he wrote.
Nina Miller wrote in an Aug. 20 email to the trustees, “Please do not sell to the evangelical church in a place where acceptance is fostered.”
Nancy Perkins wrote in opposition to the sale that it is “pure irony that a public university representing academic freedom and educational values would sell an important resource to a biased, fundamental, and discriminatory organization.”
“If due diligence was performed then it defies common sense,” Perkins wrote, taking issue with the fact that a Calvary Chapel pastor sued Maine Gov. Janet Mills over her COVID-19 lockdown policy.
Morgan Lowe told the UMaine trustees that she is a “survivor of the fundamentalist, evangelical Christian approach to education,” and asked that the university reconsider the sale.
“[Calvary Chapel’s] sermons are readily available online. They want to teach children anti-science, anti-history Young Earth Creationism. They want kids to learn that LGBTQ lifestyles are a sin worthy of eternal damnation,” Lowe wrote.
“They want them to believe that in marriage wives should be submissive to their husbands. They will tell children that ‘the word of God supersedes earthly law that is contrary to the holy scriptures’. The list goes on—you can find this all on their website,” she wrote.
[RELATED: The University of Maine Shows Cowardice in the Face of Anti-Christian Bigotry…]
Michael Cressey told the board he was “strongly concerned” that Calvary Chapel is “radical and extreme” for not ordaining women as pastors and for not requiring a seminary degree for their pastors.
Michelle Ratte in her email to the UMaine president called the university’s decision “distressing-mystifying,” and referred to Calvary Chapel Belfast as a “fundamentalist, White Christian Nationalist, openly bigoted and homophobic, religious organization.”
Ratte also appeared to take issue with the face that a Calvary Chapel pastor deigned to oppose Gov. Mills’ COVID lockdowns.
Landon Fake wrote, “I’m very disappointed in your decision to sell the Hutchinson Center to a right wing fundamentalist church group, and I hope you will reconsider.”
Fake claimed Calvary Chapel pastors have “denounced traditional education, science and anyone not cis-gendered.”
Elizabeth Garber, a Belfast-based writer and acupuncturist wrote, “I have read letters from students who attended this church school and suffered under the hateful teachings of the church and its pastor, with their beliefs that ‘gay marriage is wrong,’ that ‘humanism and Satanism go hand in hand,’ while promoting conspiracy theories instead of teaching science or history to it’s students.”
Bruce Pratt, a professor in the UMaine Orono English department, wrote to the UMaine trustees that to proceed with the sale of the Hutchinson Center to the church would be a “sham.”
“Supporting an ultra right wing church hostile to LGBTQ people by selling a valuable property is egregious and antithetical to all I believe Umaine stands for,” the English professor wrote. “UMS could have partnered with one of the other bidders in ways that could have benefited the university and the midcoast.”
“This was a shameful sellout of what we claim t stand for [sic],” he wrote.
What happened to COEXIST? Talk about hate and intolerance, UM should be ashamed facing to this bigotry. I hope they get sued and lose, big time.
So the tolerant leftists don’t want a church in town because they have different beliefs from the alphabet people Mafia.
How tolerant of those tolerant tyrants.
The left is the Borg.
Absolutely disgusting. A prime example of the malice that cost them the election, btw.
“Bingo
14 hours ago
What happened to COEXIST? Talk about hate and intolerance, UM should be ashamed facing to this bigotry. I hope they get sued and lose, big time.”
COEXIST, tolerance, compromise, only exist when it benefits the left.
Funny just the opposite in my area. 2 churches converted to an agency (probably funded by the Maine State taxpayers) who tend to recovering addicts and 1 church taken over by L La Mena P’s.
Is anyone really surprised? Belfast has been trying to out San Francisco, San Francisco for longer than I care to recall. The commie, libtards to too stupid to look acrost the Contenant and see what a shithole S.F. has become, and Belfast is on the fast track following in their wake.
UM has been anti-Christian for years. Remember the memo of no Christmas trees, or the teacher that was told to remove a Garfield the Cat statue because it had a Christmas tree (with presents) which is how they knew it wasn’t a Yule tree. Evidently Pagen religions are just fine. Better still recall that ““Allahu Akbar,” (God is Greatest) is a religious prayer and protected by the 1A on university campus HOWEVER Deus vult (God wills it) is racist, xenophobic, and student caught using it can face disciplinary action.
Fuck Belfast and University of Maine. Even though I live in Waldo County I do no business in Belfast. I’ll drive out of my way to go to Agusta, Waterville, Bangor. Same goes for UM. NOT ONE PENNY even though my granddaughter goes there, and a grandson wants to.
The city of Waterville has chosen to limit the options of the First Church of Waterville to use their own land…. and everyone knows that if Colby College had asked for the same zoning change they would have gotten it immediately. The hatred towards God and his church is palpable on the Waterville City Council. The church has been forced to file a federal lawsuit against the city.
Ph.D. Piled High and Deep
Reading these emails is a real eye-opener. It is unethical and unfair for the University of Maine to use a bidding process, decide they don’t like who placed the winning bid, and negate the sale. I am making my will, and because I took English classes at UMaine/Orono, I decided to leave them part of my estate. I am relieved I haven’t signed the document yet—no money for the University of Maine. They are unethical.