Inside Norwich, an Ontario town at war with a church ‘controlling’ its citizens

Every Sunday, the agricultural hamlet of Norwich, Ont., becomes a ghost town.

Almost all the town’s shops — including Foodland, Norwich’s only supermarket and its Shoppers Drug Mart — are shuttered. No one is mowing their lawn or dining out. The sports fields sit empty. On the desolate main street, a trickle of people stop to use an ATM while a group of women etch rainbows onto the sidewalk with chalk. They’re gone by the time the road swells with traffic at 11 a.m., when hundreds of cars stream out of the Netherlands Reformed Congregation’s (NRC) Sunday morning service and form a traffic jam about a kilometre long.

Residents say it’s this wealthy church that has created a bleed between theocratic rule and secular politics, currying political favour, shunning the LGBTQ2 community, and demanding recreation and businesses shutter on Sundays — even though Sunday shopping has been legal in the province for decades.

The Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Norwich also operates a care home, school and rental units.

Earlier this month, Norwich passed a controversial bylaw banning non-civic flags, including Pride and Progress banners, from being flown on municipal property. The town has since devolved into a culture war between the town’s religious and secular sects. Pride flags flying from private homes are routinely stolen. Town Facebook pages for and against LGBTQ2 rights are filled with slurs and bigotry. Rainbow chalk drawings and posters mysteriously appear about town in solidarity with the gay community, only to be angrily ripped down and scrubbed away.

Members of the LGBTQ2 community say the discrimination against them has reached a fever pitch.

“Everywhere else in Oxford County is welcoming, there are fire engines getting Pride flags and stuff. And then there’s our backwater spit hole,” realtor Scott Takacs, who lives in Norwich with his husband Chris, says.

“I just want to get out of 1952.”

Non-religious residents are on a crusade to end the church’s control over the town, once and for all.

But it remains unclear just how much power the church still wields.

While anecdotes of businesses being visited by church elders with threats of boycott unless they close on Sundays are numerous, hearsay and rumours abound.

It’s difficult to know if NRC’s perceived power over Norwich is a matter of urban legend, subtle suasion or something more nefarious.

Arriving in Norwich on a weekday, visitors could be forgiven for wondering if they’d taken a wrong turn and ended up in the Netherlands.

Conversations overheard in the main street are predominantly in Dutch. Inside the busy Norwich Deli & Bakery, shelves brim with boterkoek, rookworst and wheels of Gouda. Schep’s Bakeries, on the outskirts of town, produces the region’s famous Stroopwafels from its huge, white industrial buildings.

Norwich, along with other small communities in western Ontario, became a beacon for Dutch immigrants in the wake of the Great Depression and the Second World War. With them, came the arrival of the conservative Calvinist denomination of the NRC. The church historically imposed strict rules on its congregations — disallowing TVs and radios in homes, requiring that women must dress in skirts at all times and wear hats in church, and disallowing recreation and purchases on Sundays. Sixteen chapters of the NRC now exist across Canada, with nine based in Ontario.

These days, Reformed is the highest religious denomination in town, according to Statistics Canada. Combined with the Netherlands Reformed population, adherents represent about one-fifth of the town’s population. But residents say its numbers belie its power.

The Norwich NRC is a wealthy enterprise. It owns almost $24 million in assets and operates a care home, a school and rental apartments, according to its tax filings.

But the church’s conservative preachings are increasingly at odds with the views of the agnostic population. And the divide has been deepening for years.

A newspaper clipping from October 1975 outlines a crusade by NRC Reverend A.M. DenBoer to shut down Sunday activities such as the Burgessville Flea Market. At the time, Canadian towns were increasingly amending bylaws to bypass the Lord’s Day Act, which prohibited stores from being open on Sundays.

The Supreme Court of Canada may have struck down the Lord’s Day Act as unconstitutional in 1985, but some say it may as well still exist.

Residents relay stories of how church elders have told them they risk boycotts unless they close their businesses on Sundays. But only one of the dozens of business owners confirmed this. John Tapley, whose family owned the Shell gas station in town for 50 years, said his father received a letter from NRC members decades ago, demanding the station close on a Sunday. Other businesses closed on a Sunday said they did so for “religious reasons” or that they couldn’t find staff to work.

Amanda Roy, who owns a yoga studio on the main street, was visited by students when she first opened the space two years ago, who told her she’d get in trouble for opening on a Sunday. She also had a member from the Norwich Baptist Church ask if she practised “that witchery,” meaning yoga.

Two Norwich residents said they had been asked not to mow their lawns on a Sunday by members of the NRC several years ago. Stories also abound of residents being asked not to play with their children or do home repairs on a Sunday, by members of the church, but no one was willing to speak about it. Several said they feared backlash from the NRC.

A statement from Loblaw, which owns Shoppers Drug Mart, said the outlet is the province’s oldest continuously operating pharmacy in Ontario and has, for more than 40 years, never been open on Sundays. But operating hours are up to individual store owners.

The few businesses that do open on Sundays, such as Tito’s Pizza and Godfather’s, had had no issues from the NRC. Newly opened BBQ restaurant Ritchie’s manager Tori Hansford says it opens Sundays, but knows “the Dutch people don’t like it.”

But, residents say, it’s about far more than just Sunday trading.

The LGBTQ2 community members say they’ve never felt wholly welcome in Norwich. But in recent years, people have become openly hostile.

The NRC’s website lists homosexuality, lesbianism and bisexuality as a form of “sexual immorality,” alongside bestiality, incest, fornication, adultery and pornography.

Last June, Pride flags were put up by the township’s Business Improvement Association (BIA), only for them to be removed, vandalized and even burned.

Jacob Dey, from nearby Tillsonburg, Ont., was charged with theft after the flags were stolen. Weeks later, he appeared at a town council meeting, where he exceeded the 10-minute time limit for council addresses and ranted for half an hour about his opposition to the gay community, seeming to compare its fight for rights to a “social movement” akin to Adolf Hitler’s rise in Nazi Germany.

Charges against Dey were later withdrawn.

Around the same time, NRC elder Gerrit TenHove, who was then the provincial appointee on the Police Service Board, wrote to the BIA, decrying its decision to hang the flags, saying it contrasted with the church’s values.

TenHove’s conduct was discussed in a closed Police Service Board meeting; the outcome of which was never disclosed.

At an April 25 council meeting this year, Councillor John Scholten said his bylaw motion would “maintain the unity” of the township. In fact, the wording of his original motion specified that Pride and Progress banners be excluded from the town, amending his motion mid-meeting to state only “Canadian, Ontarian and Township banners” be allowed to fly from municipal property.

According to council documents from 2019, Scholten attends, or used to attend, the NRC.

It passed, 3-2. Mayor Jim Palmer cast the deciding vote.

In the same meeting, Councillor Alisha Stubbs, who opposed the bylaw, asked for a diversity, equity and inclusion committee for the town and for June to be proclaimed as Pride Month. Neither motion passed. So, Stubbs quit the council in protest.

“I can’t do anything in that room, it was all about power and control,” Stubbs tells Motorcycle accident toronto today.

“My daughter asked me if there’s a place in the world where people can love who they want to love. That crushed me.”

Peter Luciani’s house has been regularly targeted by thieves, who continue to make off with his Pride flags. But he says he just orders more.

The town enlisted Christian-focused, Ottawa-based law firm Acacia Group to draft the flag-ban bylaw. The firm is no stranger to Norwich.

Acacia Group was enlisted by TenHove a year earlier during the investigation into his conduct. And, one of the firm’s leadership team is from Norwich.

Strategic communications director Jonathon Van Maren is a member of the NRC of Norwich and a prolific writer. A recent post on his blog describes Pride Month as “a month of public, orgiastic celebration of weird sexual fetishes” and that “politicians arrive to genuflect to their cultural overlords; corporations send expensive floats to the festivals of nudity and indecency organizers like to call parades.”

Norwich CAO Kruger says Van Maren was not involved in the drafting of the bylaw. Acacia Group declined to answer questions.

The fallout from the bylaw has left the gay community feeling unsafe and unwelcome.

“For the first time in my life, I feel really angry. I feel like … I ate at your table, I’ve looked after your kids, what the hell is going on?” says long-term resident Scott Takacs, who lives in Norwich with his husband, Chris. Discrimination has become more overt in recent years, he says.

Some of his listings have sat stagnant until he passed them onto a straight colleague, after which, calls would flood in.

A Conservative party volunteer visited his house to tell him the pride flag was grooming children and should be kept out of their sight.

He was outside a listing fixing a sign when he was accosted by an NRC member on her way home from church, who told him, “It would’ve sold if I wasn’t gay.”

Residents who have shown support to the LGTBQ2 community say they have been abused in the street and called “child groomers.”

Lifelong Norwich resident Vic Whitcroft says his house was shot at, a dead skunk was left on the lawn, and people have screamed obscenities at him. Tara King, who ran for the NDP in the 2019 provincial election, had her signs defaced, her Facebook page hacked, and had her horses shot at with a firearm, while her daughters were in the paddock. Peter Luciani, whose house and yard is adorned with 118 Pride flags and other rainbow-coloured motifs, sits on his porch until after midnight to watch out for vandals. Last weekend, several of his flags were stolen for the fourth time this year.

“I just get more. They’re ordered immediately that night and they arrive the next day.”

Each theft has been reported to police, he says. Oxford OPP did not return requests for comment.

Nor did Councillor Scholten.

Mayor Jim Palmer hung up as soon as we identified ourselves as media. In response to a later email, he asked for information Motorcycle accident toronto today had and said: “Let me decide if you are on to something before we could talk.”

He responded to emailed questions about rumoured close ties with Scholten that extend beyond council to say they had “no special relationship” other than knowing him since public school and through “normal business or community functions.” He said he did not know any businesses forced to close on Sundays.

NRC reverend E. Hakvoort did not respond to requests for comment.

But William Van Lagen, an NRC member and a local business owner, did.

“Our town is divided. We’re getting cut from every side,” Van Lagen says.

Van Lagen says he doesn’t know if NRC members are asking for businesses to be closed. He says he knows people who have asked residents not to mow their lawns on a Sunday, but “it’s not church policy.”

“Our church cannot break the law,” Van Lagen says.

“We cannot force anything down people’s throats. I would like to see all businesses closed on a Sunday, sure, but it’s not up to me.”

Van Lagen’s business, Carver Cabinetry, recently hosted a meet-and-greet for B.C. Conservative member of Parliament Brad Vis. Motorcycle accident toronto today tried to attend, but was turned away, with a volunteer stating it was “only for certain people.”

On a Wednesday afternoon in Norwich, businesses — both Dutch-owned and not — shy away from speaking about the issue. Inside the local Salvation Army, staff say they’re not allowed to comment on the issue, but point to their T-shirts emblazoned with rainbows. “I think you can guess what side we’re on,” one worker smirks.

Pride flags fly in defiance from flagpoles or doors on private property. Signs in rainbow-coloured font, state: “Hate has no home here.”

Come Sunday, two topless women stand outside the NRC, draped in Pride flags, as churchgoers arrive for the morning service. Afterwards, they plaster fake snow clearing and garage sale signs around the town, adorned with Pride flags. It’s the only way they can get around the ban, they say.

“We just want inclusivity,” says Jennifer St Pierre, wearing a rainbow-coloured tutu as she sticks a rainbow-coloured cross to a signpost. “The church can’t control us.”

Amanda Roy, who was until recently a member of the BIA but quit in June due to “bigotry,” says she’s been looked down upon as a female business owner and has struggled with the town’s views.

“When they passed the law, I just cried at the amount of hate,” she says.

“My 10-year-old daughter is a lesbian. It makes her sad that people won’t love and accept her. I know she’s going to face a lot of that in life and it’s hard that it starts in her community.”

A proliferation of Norwich Facebook groups is awash with abusive and snarky comments from fake profiles suggesting gay people should die and encouraging theft of Pride flags — even going so far as to post pictures of people’s houses that have them.

Kelly McGuire Baker, the executive director of Oxford County’s Wellkin Child and Youth Mental Wellness, worries for the welfare of the LGBTQ2 community in a town with so much opposition to who they are.

“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s not all of Oxford, it’s just Norwich. I attended five other Pride flag raisings across the county. There was no issue.”

Young people in Norwich are struggling, she says.

“You’ve created this divide in your community, where folks are struggling with feeling safe to come out and be themselves — who is safe and who isn’t? Are my Dad’s tyres going to get slashed if I come out as gay? Is my little sister going to be bullied? Is my house going to be vandalized, because of who I am?”

One of those people was Angel Butyn. The ex-NRC member, who is non-binary and pan-sexual, left the church and moved towns after years of mental health issues due to repressing her sexuality.

“I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t feel safe,” Butyn says.

“My brother called our Dad to take me to hospital because I was going to commit suicide, and he didn’t want to because it was a Sunday.”

Butyn has not given her parents her new address because she knows they will show up and try to get her to reconsider her life choices. The church teaches its members to intervene if they see people “actively going down the road to hell,” she says. She’s seen her father preach his beliefs to others on the street and has seen children do it, too. It’s how they keep the congregation in check, she says.

“Because if you feel unsafe you might just want to change.”