Top stories of 2022: anti-gay River Valley speech sparks outrage – Marion Star
A local high school graduation speech sparked outrage and made national headlines after the distinguished alumni speaker encouraged River Valley graduates to pursue heterosexual relationships.
In the May 27 speech, where River Valley alum and local business owner Jim McGuire recommended the Marion County, Ohio students continue to learn, ask questions and spend time learning God’s word, he made the following statement on relationships:
“Choose a spouse, I suggest. I also strongly suggest to make sure to choose Biblical principles, you know, a male with a female and female with a male,” he said.
From there, community upheaval and division began.
Across the country and Marion alike, debate sparked with staunch supporters of McGuire defending his right to free speech while others asked for an apology and his removal from his county commissioner-appointed position on the Marion County Board of Developmental Disabilities.
“I can only look to the future and hope that people will start thinking about those they are hurting when they make comments that are not inclusive,” he said.
The Marion County Commissioners ultimately chose to not remove him from this position even as leaders of the county board were asking for his resignation or removal. He also refused to resign.
Community response
In the first board meeting after these decisions were finalized, the president of the DD board’s board of directors, Gary Branson, said he hoped the “bigoted” comments could yield conversations about acceptance and tolerance.
“I can only look to the future and hope that people will start thinking about those they are hurting when they make comments that are not inclusive,” he said.
Commissioners Ken Stiverson and Kerr Murray later both said they didn’t believe McGuire did anything wrong or said anything “anti-gay” in his speech.
In emails to the commissioners and the district, McGuire referred to the backlash from the community as a “fringe” phenomenon. He assured the commissioners he would not cave under the fringe pressure from the community to resign.
“As you all mentioned we can not give into woke social media fringe, so I will be staying on the Board till term(s) are complete,” McGuire wrote to the commissioners.
At River Valley, the district sent a letter the day after the speech to graduates and their parents maintaining they did not review the speech beforehand and the words did not speak for the district.
Still, even upon the prompting of its community expressing its hurt, River Valley announced its decision to not apologize.
A former student who graduated in the May 27 commencement and is gay, Kade Ebert, rose to speak in the June board of education meeting explaining while the district apologized to him and his family in private, the decision to not publicly apologize made the private apology not matter.
“An apology will not fix the damage that has been done, however it is a start to creating a more inclusive tomorrow. I am asking you now, as your former-student representative, to apologize,” Ebert said.
Other members of the LGBTQIA+ community in Marion, while hurt and angry, used the situation to take action and organize.
By the end of June, a pride group launched to give people of Marion and the surrounding areas who identify as LGBTQIA+ a safe community.
The group’s founder and current co-director Shannon Pegg said she had already been thinking of starting such a group, but McGuire’s speech was the final push to do it.
“After everything went down at the school, at River Valley, that was kind of the last straw for me, you know, and I talked to my friends and family and said, ‘Should I do this?’ knowing it could be a little challenging in this area, and everybody was like, ‘Yeah, do it,’” Pegg said.
Over 200 people had joined in the first several weeks.
By the end of November, the Marion Area LGBTQ+ Coalition had over 500 members in its Facebook group, had connected with over 20 agencies both locally and statewide. The group has also begun a process of bringing on two chaplains and starting a faith outreach group along with collecting donations for the community.