It's astounding that a small town in New Hampshire who listened to one right-wing bigoted idiot who wanted to incite hatred, division and intolerance. She succeeded by splitting the town. This week's idiot, Carrie Gendreau, an evangelical Christian, said that a building mural of birch trees and flowers were spreading the "gay agenda." It's amazing how 1 psycho can use religion to destroy personal relationships in a small town. This is a lesson to all people- Don't listen to these "evangelical" wackos. They're out to destroy people's lives. Here's the story.
How 1 reaction to a mural tore a New Hampshire town apart
The 6,000 residents of Littleton had found a way to coexist despite their differences — until a town official’s words set off a conflagration.
John Tully /Jenna Russell The New York Times April 29, 2024
LITTLETON, N.H. — Few were present at the select board meeting in Littleton, New Hampshire, in August when Carrie Gendreau, one of its members, began to talk about a mural that had recently been painted on the side of a building downtown.
Until that moment, it had not attracted much attention. Its subject matter — a blooming iris, dandelions, birch trees — did not seem controversial.
But for Gendreau, 62, who was also a state senator representing northern New Hampshire, the mural had set off alarms. She was certain there were subversive messages in its imagery, planted there by the nonprofit group that had planned and paid for it.
(Photo: the painting of 2 Birch trees that Gendreau apparently thinks is offensive. )
The group was North Country Pride, founded four years ago to build more visible support for LGBTQ+ people in the rural region.
“We need to be very careful,” Gendreau said at the meeting. She urged residents to “research” what the mural “really means,” and called for closer oversight of other public art. “I don’t want that to be in our town,” she said.
Long before Gendreau raised her concerns, igniting an uprising against her, people in Littleton knew they did not all think alike. Half had voted for Joe Biden in 2020; half supported President Donald Trump. Still, they thought they had an understanding: that they would do their best to get along, often by keeping their politics or religious beliefs to themselves. This was New Hampshire, after all, where the state motto is “live free or die.”
As word spread about Gendreau’s comments, many in the town of 6,000 saw them as a jarring break in protocol.
“I was friends with Carrie,” said Kerri Harrington, an acupuncturist who had followed local government and respected Gendreau’s diligent work on the board. “I knew our politics were different, I knew she was religious, but there are a lot of religious people here.”
“This was the first time I realized she had that agenda,” Harrington said.
Gendreau, an evangelical Christian who said she got calls from as far away as Australia denouncing her in profane language after news outlets reported on her comments, clung to her convictions.
“I told them, ‘I hope God opens your vision,’” she said of her detractors. “I told them, ‘I love you, and I don’t want to fight back.’”
Harrington, 52, had helped start North Country Pride and served as one of its leaders. The group had built on the area’s long-standing reputation as a welcoming destination for gay travelers, at a moment when the pandemic had infused Littleton with a diverse influx of newcomers.
Her first instinct was to reach out to Gendreau. When they met to talk about the mural, she said, Gendreau urged her to read a book, “The Return of the Gods,” by doomsday evangelist and bestselling author Jonathan Cahn. It warns of America’s descent into evil, citing gay rights as an example of moral decay destroying the country.
The book helped her see why Gendreau was upset, Harrington said. And it left her deeply worried about what might come next.
As in other small towns across the country, the people of Littleton had found a way to coexist despite their differences — at times by avoiding topics likely to divide them. Now, the divide was front and center. And as the anger rose, and the split grew wider, many wondered how it would ever mend.
Before she made the comments that plunged Littleton into tumult, Gendreau had occasionally injected her religious faith into municipal business. When the board hired Jim Gleason as town manager in 2021, he was startled by the words she used to offer him the job.
“God wants you in Littleton,” he recalled her saying. Not long after that, Gendreau began starting select board meetings with a prayer.
It had not been easy for Gleason to leave his home in Florida. His wife of 44 years, a teacher nearing retirement, had stayed behind. They were still grieving the loss of their oldest son, Patrick, who died of pancreatitis at age 35 in 2016.
Gleason had embraced his son when he came out as gay at 16. He had never expected open homophobia from elected leaders in New Hampshire.
Soon after Gendreau’s remarks about the mural, residents began flooding the local paper with angry letters. A local bank asked her to resign from its board of directors, she said, pointing to the “hurt” she had caused; she complied. Encouraged by North Country Pride to raise their voices, hundreds of people showed up to condemn Gendreau’s views at select board meetings in September and October.
Many hoped she might apologize, or step down from the select board — or that the other two board members would publicly reject her views. Instead, they said little, and Gendreau doubled down. (Editor's note; Look what this hateful bitch said - yes, I said bitch) In October, in an interview with The Boston Globe, Gendreau called homosexuality an “abomination” and warned of “twisted preferences” she saw “creeping into our community.” She also spoke out against a well-known musical about a gay couple, “La Cage Aux Folles,” that was being staged at the Littleton Opera House by a local theater group that had made the town-owned building its home for a decade.
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