On February 9, Faytene Grasseschi posted a statement on X “to clarify a few things regarding [her] positions and beliefs as it [sic] relates to possible future public service.” Unfortunately, her clarification doesn’t clarify very much.
Let’s start with the first sentence. Her intention, she asserts, is to clarify her positions and beliefs insofar as they relate to her possible role as an MLA. Otherwise, they’re off the table. That leaves us scratching our heads, wondering what we are to make of her belief in witches. Seriously. I’m not making it up. In Marked: A Generation of Dread Champions Rising to Shift Nations, she claims to have contracted autoimmune hepatitis in 2000 after preaching “at a coffee shop where a witches’ coven was meeting.” The disease resulted, she writes, from “some direct witchcraft that had been done against me.”
Next, Grasseschi says that “one of her least favourite things in politics is mudslinging.” Fair enough. It’s my least favourite thing too. Let’s agree to stick to the issues. And let’s agree to stick to the facts, including the fact that abortion does not lead to cervical and breast cancer and the fact that it does not lead to depression. As the Bible says, “A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish” (Proverbs 19:9).
Maybe it’s me, but I’m incredulous when Grasseschi promises “to cultivate civility and kindness in public dialogue at all times” because Marked lacks civility and kindness, especially when she worries about “the gay agenda,” “sodomistic strongholds,” and “legalized sodomy.” At one point, she openly muses in a “cheeky” kind of way – to use her word – that same sex marriage could lead to interspecies marriage – and presumably bestiality – in the form a man marrying a dog and a woman a fish. Cheeky is one word for it. Uncivil is another. And unkind is yet another.
According to Grasseschi, her book was written many years ago. While we can debate the definition of “many,” it was 2009 and she was 34, meaning she was an adult.
Indeed, she refuses to clarify, or even acknowledge, any of this. And she certainly doesn’t apologize for it because, I suspect, she doesn’t think that she has anything to apologize for. Same-sex marriage and homosexuality – or what she calls “legalized sodomy” – dishonours “the Lord’s divine order in sexual relations,” and that order – at once cis and heteronormative – is outside of history and therefore not subject to change over time.
Finally, Grasseschi states – “without reservation” – that she respects our laws and that she respects “every person for who they are”: “each person,” she writes, “is worthy to be treated with honour, kindness and dignity.” But that’s the bare minimum. I mean, it’s expected that lawmakers will respect the law. And it’s expected that they will value everyone for who they are. For that matter, it’s expected from all of us. “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:39).
Grasseschi’s non-clarification clarification appears to draw on the injunction, common in some Christian circles, to hate the sin, but love the sinner. However – and I can’t believe that I need to say this – homosexuality and same-sex marriage are not sins.
Until Grasseschi clarifies her statements in Marked, and until she acknowledges that abortion does not lead to higher incidences of some cancers and higher rates of depression, her statement on X only leads to more questions about her beliefs, including her belief that a coven of witches put a hex on her in some coffee shop.
Donald Wright is a professor of political science at the University of New Brunswick.