Posted by Ed Folsom, March 21, 2026.
Why are certain Portlanders trying to silence evangelicals? Because hate has a home there.
(Photo from Portland Press Herald)
According to the top story, front page above the fold in Saturday’s Portland Press Herald, a controversy is flaring in Portland over the plan of Turning Point USA Faith to hold a gathering in May at the Portland Expo building, along with Calvary Chapel Greater Portland. Calvary Chapel originally booked the Expo last fall for what it described as a “faith event,” intended as an outreach/recruitment gathering in a venue larger than its Westbrook church.
The story reminded me of the 2019 book, “The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure,” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt.
The Press Herald story tells us, “As news of the event has spread in recent weeks, officials have seen public opposition over the divisive political nature of the organization, as well as concerns over the contract and public safety.” The paper also says, ominously, that city officials “are defending the city’s decision – as of now — to allow the event to take place.” As of now, mind you, as if the decision might change.
On what grounds would the City of Portland prohibit the event?
Well, it turns out that Turning Point USA Faith is running a cross-country “Make Heaven Crowded” tour. And if that, right there, isn’t enough for you, not only will the Portland event be a stop on the Make Heaven Crowded tour, but to cut straight to the heart of the matter: “The organization also states ‘eliminating wokeism from the American pulpit’ as its mission. The church has openly expressed anti-vaccine, anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ sentiments.”
Anti woke? Anti-illegal immigration? Critical of certain vaccine policies and of the unbridled celebration of all things LGBTQ? In Portland Maine? Can there be a greater sin? Or as City Counselor Wes Pelletier put it: “If they come, I think they’ll find that the people of Portland have no tolerance for people who preach hatred and fear of their neighbors.” Unless, that is, their neighbors happen to be the kind who associate with or have affinity for Turning Point USA. In that case, they and all they have to say are very much feared in Portland, and those who hate them are very much tolerated, and even encouraged to nurture and loudly express their hatred — for that is righteousness! Silence the infidels!
In 2019, when Lukianoff and Haidt wrote “The Coddling of the American Mind,” they were examining a relatively new phenomenon: college students who demanded “safe spaces,” who refused to allow the expression of viewpoints other than their own Woke viewpoints on campus, and who reacted violently and with almost total emotional dysregulation to the thought of anything else. In the authors’ view, this cohort of students had been taught at an early age to embrace and nurture certain cognitive distortions; a lesson that was harming them and everyone around them. Unfortunately, since 2019, a large segment of the non-college-age population has also come to embrace and nurture cognitive distortions and to call that embrace virtue.
What exactly could those Portlanders who claim to be concerned about public safety be concerned about? Do they fear that the evangelicals at Calvary Chapel or Turning Point USA will rampage violently? Hardly. Their concern has to be that certain people who oppose the event tend to be emotionally dysregulated and violent when faced with viewpoints that challenge the tenets of secular progressivism – you know, when they are faced with the stuff that the “Hate has no home here” crowd calls “hate.”
In that regard, it is true that Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was shot to death – some call it assassinated — last September while speaking at a college campus event in Utah. And a disquieting number of people in the Portland area felt safe expressing glee over Kirks’ murder, without push-back. Their hate was at least tolerated, if not encouraged in Portland, which does demonstrate the violence-sympathizing environment in the city where the Calvary Chapel/Turning Point event is slated to take place.
No doubt, the revulsion that some Portlanders feel toward the event is like the revulsion of a vampire confronted with a Christian cross. So, there might be realistic grounds for concerns about public safety. But the answer is not to silence the people who are likely to be targeted for violence.
Here we are in 2026, in the same place college campuses were in 2019, with the same concerns over public safety, due to the same emotionally dysregulated and violent reactions that are likely to be triggered by the same sorts of speech now having spread from the college campus to what city councilor, Kate Sykes calls, “a progressive city, Portland.”
Hate definitely has a home there. It’s just the trendy, chic hatred of today’s progressivism and its rigid orthodoxy.
