Hebron, local church recognize Pride Month

About the only negative feedback the Rev. Char Hoffmann, pastor of Hebron United Methodist Church, has seen about the church’s annual Pride Sunday is a letter once tacked to the front door.

The unsigned letter made a comment about her being a bad Christian and told her to “go home and ask her husband” about women talking in church, Hoffmann said, a suggestion she scoffed at.

Parishioner Stephanie Claussen noted that the church on Route 47 in downtown Hebron had its first female pastor in the 1970s, and that Sunday – also Pentecost Sunday – included its fifth annual Pride service. Overall, Claussen said, Hebron residents have been accepting of the church’s stance.

“They do love freedom of speech” in Hebron, she said, adding that most people in the tiny town near the Wisconsin border “just want to be a good neighbor.”

The church isn’t the only organization recognizing Pride Month. During a special meeting May 27, the Hebron Village Board voted 4-1 to declare June as Pride Month, and 3-1 with one abstention to place a LGBTQ flag on a pole outside Village Hall. It is not hanging with the American flag, but on a pole attached to the wall near the front door.

Trustee Mark Shepherd voted against both motions. Trustees Ed Gentry, Josh Stevens and Dawn Milarski voted for both the declaration and the flag. Trustee Jonathan Mindham voted in favor of the declaration but abstained from the flag vote.

As the only LGBTQI+ person on the board, he did not want residents to feel “that I was pushing an agenda of my own,” Mindham said Sunday.

“As a member of that community, I didn’t want people to feel it was something I was pushing. I was trying to remain neutral but still going with what the board wanted,” Mindham said.

According to the meeting’s unofficial minutes, four people spoke to the board before the vote: two for the declaration and flag, and two against.

One of those who spoke in favor of the motions was Melissa McMahon, the coordinator of Woodstock’s Pride Fest. She donated the Pride flag flying at Hebron Village Hall.

“By taking this stand the village of Hebron can set an example for all of McHenry County,” McMahon, also a member of the Woodstock City Council, said.

Hebron is known in part for the northwest corner of Routes 173 and 47. Co-owned by Hebron businessmen Steve Vole and John Vole, the empty lot has many many flags on poles, including several featuring pro-President Donald Trump messages and flags with anti-Joe Biden messages in the past.

A zoning change in early 2024 banned booth-style sales at the corner, requiring village businesses in its downtown to operate only out of traditional brick-and-mortar locations.

Steve Vole said he feels the rule is retaliatory, adding he started putting up his pro-Trump flags after the former owners of the Hebron Dari Bar put up a Pride flag.

Since the village’s Pride Month declaration, a sign with a Confederate flag and reading “Southern Pride” has been set up on the corner. The flag is in response to the village’s Pride flag, as well as to honor his family from Alabama, including an ancestor who served in the Confederacy, Vole said.

If the village and the church want to put up Pride flags, “I will go with my Confederate flag. Freedom of speech,” Steve Vole said.

Claussen said it’s “been sad, that this has been the tone around here,” adding she believes most people are respectful of their neighbors regardless of their differences. “The bulk of people in Hebron are not hateful people.”

She and other congregants know it can be a divisive issue. In 2024, the United Methodist Church lifted its ban on LGBTQ clergy and overturned its ban on same-sex marriages in the church. According to published reports, about a quarter of the denomination’s churches have split off since 2019, unhappy with the direction it was taking on LGBTQ issues.

“We are an inclusive church,” Hoffmann said, adding she came out of retirement to pastor at Hebron because of that message. “We really are accepting you as you are.”