Residents of the City of Victoria, Minnesota are fighting to keep an historic church included in their city’s logo.
Some city staff members claim they have received complaints that the city’s logo, which features a church and a cross, is “not inclusive” and are looking to rectify this by changing the city’s logo.
Victoria City Councilman Chad J. Roberts stirred up the controversy in an article in the local newspaper of the neighboring city of Chanhassen. Roberts told the Chanhassen Villager, “I’ve heard from a few residents in regards to the city logo. An upgrade to the logo to go along with the website might be a good idea for staff to look into.”
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Kendra Grahl, Victoria’s communications and public engagement manager, told the Chanhassen Villager that discussions with city staff indicated Roberts and other city officials were approached by citizens concerned with the current logo “and some of its imagery, with the church, maybe not appearing inclusive.”
The City of Victoria was named for St. Victoria’s Catholic Church, which was built in 1857. The city was built around the church. According to the website for St. Victoria, early pioneers of the city built a small wooden church and they chose Saint Victoria as the patron saint of this church as she was a favorite saint from their homeland. Throughout the early years of Victoria, European immigrants flocked to the area and found not only a land rich in resources, but also a new found freedom for their faith.
Removing God or anything remotely religious seems to be the latest rage among progressives, or rather, Marxists. Earlier in April, a pastor of a church in Alberta, Canada yelled at police officers who tried to interrupt a Passover service to enforce COVID-19 regulations. The pastor, Artur Pawlowski of the Street Church, told police to get out without a search warrant. He then told his congregation that “They (the government) want to enslave us all like the Egyptians did. They want to be Pharaohs today, that’s what they’re doing.”
Last May, The Deplorable Housewives of the Midwest reported that New Brighton, Minnesota Mayor Valerie Johnson appeared to be threatening citizens of her city with arrest for going to church during the early weeks of COVID-19, telling residents in a video, that went viral. that they should “wait for permission before going back to church.”
Victoria Mayor Debra McMillan said at the April 12th City Council meeting that the city did direct staff to explore a possible logo change, but has not made any commitment to changing the logo at this time and will seek input from the community.
Residents spoke out against removing the church from the city’s logo during the open forum portion of Monday’s city council meeting.
Victoria resident Julie Peplinski said, “I recognize that Councilman Roberts has stated that the image of St. Victoria can still hold a more subdued presence on a reimagined logo. It is my position that there is no need for a new logo and that we should be proud of the beautiful, historic building built 164 years ago, leading to the name of our town.”
Another Victoria resident, Jen Mulvihill also spoke to the council, calling the idea of changing the city’s logo “an embarrassing and divisive controversy”.
“To me, the biggest issue with changing a logo is an example of how cancel culture is rearing its ugly head and causing the professionally offended to run everyone else’s life,” Victoria resident Joe Berlinerblau said.
On his Facebook page, Councilman Roberts posted, “So, it appears I stirred things up a little bit with this new logo idea. I’m sorry there are people who feel this is non-sense (sic). People are correct, the town was named after a church. That doesn’t mean it needs to be the focus of our logo. No one is saying the town isn’t inclusive and I have not heard anyone say they are offended by the church in the logo. The idea is that we have a logo that shows who we are and what we are about. We are the City of Lakes and Parks. Why not have a logo that represents that?”
However a few weeks before, Roberts hinted to The Chanhassen Villager that he felt the logo was not inclusive. “People thought it might be time to have a logo that represents that we are the city of parks and lakes, and maybe that it (logo) could be more inclusionary of everyone in the community than our current one,” he said.
It is very typical of the left to manufacture a problem and then twist it into a controversy that needs to be solved by throwing lots of tax payer dollars at it.
At Monday’s meeting, Mayor McMillan read a statement from Victoria resident Martin Stang, “If the real reason for the logo change is to erase the church, then (council) members need to be honest about it and defend their position to the community. If the end goal is to remove the church entirely, that’s going to be a huge problem for many of us.”