State House candidate Hois accuses Downers Grove leaders of silencing conservatives in Pride Month dispute
Downers Grove Mayor Bob Barnett said the village will move forward with its annual Pride Month proclamation despite opposition from several residents who urged officials during a May 5 Village Council meeting to discontinue the observance.
The debate over the proclamation continued as Republican state House candidate Laura Hois and other residents criticized the village’s support for Pride Month, while Barnett and other speakers defended the proclamation and its role in the community.
After the May 5 meeting, Hois, an attorney and former Downers Grove Township clerk, said some conservative residents object to political and cultural messaging they associate with local government, schools and libraries.
“I work with a group of conservative residents of Downers Grove that have for years felt annoyed by Pride Month because leadership is aligned with the schools and the libraries displaying progressive materials, including pornography, anti-Trump propaganda, LGBTQ books, not just on the shelves in the libraries at the schools and in our public libraries in Downers Grove, but also prominently displayed in an ‘I’m in your face’ style,” Hois told the DuPage Policy Journal.
Downers Grove first issued an official Pride Month proclamation for the month of June in 2022.
Hois is aligned with conservative advocacy groups including Awake Illinois, Moms for Liberty and Courage Is a Habit.
“I believe [those organizations] are aligned with traditional values on parenting and individual rights to raise a child as you see fit,” she said.
During public comments at the May 5 meeting, resident Eileen “Chick” Briner argued that the proclamation elevated LGBTQ perspectives while excluding religious viewpoints.
“This proclamation caters to only one genre of thought on sexuality and gender,” Briner said. “By elevating Pride Month as the village's signature June observance while issuing no comparable month-long celebration for Christian perspectives on family. Marriage or biological reality. The village is in effect discriminating against most everyone else.”
Briner claimed the issue was government neutrality, not opposition to LGBTQ residents.
“The issue is not people, it's government using its official voice and our public resources to celebrate and promote one set of ideas while sidelining all others,” Briner said. “This is especially troubling when it comes to our children. Young children are drawn to bright colors, parades, rainbows and celebrations.”
“They cannot comprehend complex debates about gender ideology or adult sexual politics, but they absorb the message that the village, their village officially endorses these celebrated ideas. That creates confusion and undermines the values parents are teaching at home. We should be strengthening families, not subtly undermining them.”
Hois echoed those concerns during the meeting.
“We the people don't want this anymore,” she told the council. “To the board, I support Ms. Briner’s call for the village of Downers Grove to act now to discontinue Pride Month in Downers' Grove. For years, we've witnessed the expansion of Pride in the village, it's everywhere. Not just here in the heart of town, but in the schools, in the libraries, it's harming our children, sometimes irreversibly. It violates parents' trust, it violates the law, and it's working against the will of the people.”
Hois said some conservative residents are “pleading for neutrality.”
“LGBTQ has been forced down our throats and what we want is neutrality,” Hois told the DuPage Policy Journal.
Hois also criticized local officials, saying “the mayor is not kind to conservatives.”
Despite opposition from some residents, Barnett said he will proceed with the Pride Month proclamation and defended his authority to issue proclamations.
“[Proclamations] are a mayoral privilege, period,” he said at the meeting.
Barnett said proclamations are personally written by him.
“I welcome that input but realize they are a mayoral privilege that I'm going to take and that's just the end of it,” he said. “So that's not a great way to act like an elected leader, I suppose, but there's a little reality behind proclamations. So it is what it is.”
Barnett later reiterated his position on social media.
“On this point, let there be no misunderstanding: mayoral proclamations are not subject to a vote,” Barnett wrote in a public Facebook statement.
Hois said the issue reflects broader concerns about schools, parental rights and cultural influence in Downers Grove.
“Downers Grove has become the lightning rod, or the village that is known in DuPage County for this movement,” she said. “It is divisive, and I believe it is. It is alienating Christians, conservatives and families that want to stay together and uphold traditional values.”
Hois, who describes herself as an “America-First” conservative aligned with Donald Trump, has campaigned on parental rights, religious values and opposition to policies involving schools, libraries and transgender-inclusive public accommodations.
She recently won a legal dispute over political speech that resulted in a cash settlement from the Downers Grove Park District and has criticized Illinois policies allowing transgender women to use women’s locker rooms under the Illinois Human Rights Act.
Hois said the continued focus on LGBTQ issues in local government is due in part to the influence of political leaders including Downers Grove Commissioner Leslie Sadowski-Fugitt and state Rep. Anne Stava-Murray, D-Downers Grove, whom Hois challenged unsuccessfully in 2020.
“Sadowski-Fugitt is a leader in the Pride LGBTQ influencing movement, as is my opponent, Anna Stava-Murray,” Hois said. “This has been going on for years and as more information comes out about what our kids are being taught in schools, the more concerning it becomes.”
Regarding Stava-Murray, Hois referenced House Bill 4876, which she said would have allowed the state to remove children from parents who objected to their child’s gender transition.
Hois said the bill reflected excessive government involvement in parental decisions regarding gender transition.
“[Stava-Murray] proposed legislation that would have allowed the state to take children away from their parents, even as young as 10, 11 or 12. If a child decided to transition, the parents would not have been informed,” Hois said. “The bill also included a $25,000 fine and jail time. The legislation was pending for about a year before widespread outrage and protests led her to withdraw it. All of this is working together in our community of Downers Grove.”
Hois said Downers Grove’s Pride Month proclamation is connected to broader debates over gender ideology. She also alleged a “free speech violation” by Sadowski-Fugitt over comments characterizing residents who oppose the proclamation.
“I admonish the mayor that he should put Leslie in her place and not allow her to, as an elected official, stand there and call us names,” Hois said.
Sadowski-Fugitt criticized anti-Pride comments during the meeting, saying remarks by Hois’ group were “atrocious” and amounted to “bigotry.”
“Calling someone out for just who they exist to be, that's not an opinion, that is bigotry,” Sadowski-Fugitt said at the council meeting. “And the reason why we need it and why it matters in this community, we have lost young people to suicide because of this rhetoric.”
Sadowski-Fugitt cited statistics stating that 39% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered suicide in the past year.
Advocates of gender-transition treatments for minors have argued that denying medical transition increases suicide risk among transgender individuals. Some medical organizations and studies have raised concerns about the evidence supporting gender-transition treatments for minors.
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons has recommended delaying transgender-related surgeries for minors until age 19, citing limited evidence of benefit, potential long-term harms and concerns about study quality and medical ethics.
The American College of Pediatricians has also called for ending gender-transition medical procedures for minors, arguing that supporting evidence is weak and citing European reviews and studies that it says suggest potential harm.
Other residents spoke in support of the proclamation.
Resident Gloria Walsh-Rock said Pride Month should continue because “there are many kinds of people here in Downers Grove.”
Resident Scott Richards, who identified himself as both gay and a veteran, criticized comments made by Hois, Briner and others.
“I was stunned and I'm insulted and I am ashamed of the community who feels that way,” Richards said.
Resident Ed Brainard defended the right of residents to oppose the proclamation.
“Please note, disagreeing with DG Pride Month does not make someone a homophobe or a hater, it makes them someone with a different point of view,” he said. “In a free country, people are allowed to question, decline, or simply not support certain movements. That's not intolerance. That's freedom.”