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He’s just had enough, first deputy leader Viken KrF and local team leader in Asker KrF, Kristin Walstad. After three years at the party, it is appreciated. What she experiences as open opposition to, among other things, gay rights, means that it is no longer possible for her to continue at KrF.
– It has been a process over the last year, I have longed for other political priorities than the ones Ropstad is doing. I feel like I have given the party a real chance after the 2018 elections, but I no longer have the strength and motivation to participate in the election campaign, Walstad tells Dagbladet.
In a post Thursday, he strongly opposes what is almost a farewell letter to his own party. In it, he highlights the debate on the so-called conversion therapy, which aims to change a person’s orientation from queer to heterosexual.
Read the full post at the bottom of the case
– Very painful
– I worked in the KrF parliamentary group when the case of conversion therapy was discussed at the Storting, and I felt that the case was difficult to take on. I have 15 years of experience in church policy work at Open Folkekirke, who finally won the church elections in 2015 and has had a strong commitment to the rights and freedoms of LGBTI people, says Walstad and continues:
– It hurt a lot to go to defeat and see Krf break with the point of view of the other government parties. We end up standing alone with our vision. Freedom of religion must take priority over the rights of gays and lesbians.
The outgoing home team leader also directs harsh criticism of the party leader, Ropstad. However, she emphasizes that she believes “there is nothing wrong with him” but remains critical of the way the party is now run after Hareide disappeared from the chair.
– Ropstad supports people who come out of the closet, but I believe that under their leadership, their practical politics and appointments show that they want a change in a conservative Christian leadership that affects, among other things, LGBTI people and the rights of women. women to self-determined abortion, says Walstad.
Fear the death of KrF
– sit loose
The hours after she went out in public and thanked herself have been filled with what she describes as respectful greetings from her local colleagues. However, she does not expect the same to happen from a central level.
Leaving local politics is also what she describes as the worst thing about resigning from the party and its positions. Now she fears that more people will follow her chosen path.
– Today I have received many inquiries and some are loose in Krf. Others, with the same point of view as me, have not given up the fight. As it is now, we are with the attitudes that I represent so strongly in the minority and without the opportunity to make an impact. There are so many talented people who have been missing from this party since 2018, Walstad says.
Dagbladet has been in contact with KrF on Thursday for a comment on the outgoing county leader’s proposal. In an email, Viken KrF County Leader Britt Egeland Gulbrandsen writes the following:
– It’s a shame to lose Kristin as a member and elected representative in KrF. She has done a good job in the game. I respect your decision to opt out, but I do not fully acknowledge what KrF describes. KrF is the same Christian Democratic center party that we have been, regardless of who we cooperate with.
Kristin Walstad Post
The clarification of the cooperation that the color red, yellow or blue gave us was not just a political choice of direction. With the purchase, the party obtained a completely new leadership that has promoted political priorities away from the broad Popular Party that it wanted.
KrF defines itself as a Christian Democratic party. Central is the Christian vision of humanity, the idea of charity and the responsibility of stewardship. KrF will be a party of value with an important voice in the political conversation, and it has had special significance in the field of biotechnology and family politics.
There are also other important symbolic elements that have colored the KrF brand. Issues that KrF itself has not chosen, but that are important to voters. I am thinking in particular of the rights and liberation of gays and lesbians in society. A group of people who, in our time, are oppressed, which is clearly seen in health statistics, especially in mental health.
We teach our children tolerance and equality based on Christian and humanistic values at school. KrF now stands alone, as the only political party in the Storting, in an unsafe policy for LGBTI people. I will mention some examples of that.
KrF is ridiculed after this.
In 2018, it was made public that the then head of the organization in the youth organization KRIK was not hosting gay leaders. In 2020, he was recruited to the position of head of organization in the national KrF office. The NRC documentary on conversion therapy revealed serious human abuse and rape, and the case became politically relevant in the Storting in 2019-2020. KrF landed, contrary to its governmental partners, on its main point of view. KrF wanted to protect the possibility, at least within the framework of religious communities, to continue to have the opportunity to reorient queers and gays, for example, through prayer. A completely incomprehensible position for my 11, 13 and 15 year old children and myself. – Mom, gays are not sick.
KrF has never used the term “queer.” It cannot be understood otherwise that the party will not recognize that a group of people knows a person belonging to this category.
Former members of the queer network at KrF have told me that they have had two key supporters. Knut Arild Hareide and Geir Jørgen Bekkevold. Now they are both coming off the Storting lists, that makes it unsafe. They no longer trust the extreme attitudes of the party rostrum to be corrected.
From this point of view, it is understandable that neither the conservatives nor the liberals gave the field of equality to the new leader of the KrF party when he became minister, because in several media cases he had sown such a strong doubt as to whether he could defend an active policy of support for the rainbow.
I worked in church politics for 15 years to help LGBTI people experience equality in employment and be able to marry the person they love. Then I became a member of KrF and had to go back five steps. Here the dialogue was weaker and the preconditions were not in place to reach a secure community of disagreement.
Labor leader Jonas Gahr Støre is right. KrF has become a conservative Christian party. “KrF will be on the side of the poor and marginalized,” he said from the podium at my first national conference three years ago. The litmus test of society’s ability to live up to values like human dignity, charity, and equality is how we treat the undocumented.
The undocumented can live the harshest lives in our country, without rights, income and the right to work. People who have tried to defend their human rights are being prosecuted, and the trials of Bishop Emeritus Gunnar Stålsett and human rights activist Arne Viste are terrifying examples of this. While these lawsuits have developed, KrF in government has been uncomfortable. KrF has played tactically to show “ownership of the case” but cannot point to actual political advances. Despite the historical support of civil society and the media, KrF in government has failed to change deeply unjust social structures.
KrF should better manage the place of religion in society than the party does today. The party leader often defends the free church, Christian denominations. Much rarer for other religious groups. If the Koran is burned in Kristiansand Square, it is invisible.
If a school in Rjukan tries to make an open-minded and safe event for all students with different beliefs and views, he points out, “This is too stupid. In Norway we celebrate Christmas.” Then I contacted a theology teacher to verify my theory that the party was now developing in a more conservative Christian direction. But his answer was: “Such a claim is not marked by traditionally conservative ideas, but rather by extreme nationalism.” I have chills and even more at what think.
As first vice president of Viken KrF and member of the national board, I believe it will be impossible for me to give legitimacy to the KrF that I am experiencing now. I have therefore rejected an application to the Storting. I want to resign from all positions and also withdraw my membership. What hurts the most is saying goodbye to local political work in the municipality of Asker.
But because we have such different interpretations of human dignity, equality and charity, I find it difficult to stay in KrF, as the party now defines and practices Christian Democratic values.
My conscience is twisted and stretched. I have come to terms with my vision of humanity. Because all human beings are equally valuable by virtue of their existence.
Therefore, I must say “goodbye”.
