Children’s Wisconsin hospital, located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has engendered anger after hiring as a chaplain an activist who has shared a poem titled “Jesus at the Gay Bar” and started a GoFund me page for her partner to have her breasts removed.
Fliers were posted reading “Meet Your New Chaplain: Kate Newendorp” with her pronouns listed as “she/her/hers” and her partner’s listed as “they/he.”
“Working in a pediatric hospital is a dream come true!!” Newendorp states on the flier, as The Federalist reported. “I am so excited to be working alongside everyone and am pumped to be part of the team. Think of me as your friendly next-door neighbor!”
“We have already seen that Children’s holds little value for respecting deeply held religious beliefs, given their recent COVID Religious Waiver Committee. But this feels like a step too far. This feels like they have actively recruited activists into this field to further their progressive agenda,” a former Children’s Wisconsin employee told The Federalist. “I think this situation really calls into question who do we want guiding the spiritual development of our children — especially children who are stuck in a hospital, isolated, sometimes alone, and extremely vulnerable and easily impressionable.”
The reference to Children’s past history vis-à-vis religious beliefs revolves around fellow chaplain Ian Butts, who interviewed Children’s staff members who had submitted religious exemption requests to avoid getting the COVID vaccine.
“The questions included the specifics of the employees’ personal religious convictions and their vaccination record, with Butts pressing on what he considered to be contradictions,” Kylee Griswold of The Federalist noted in February 2022. “Two particularly leading questions regarded the specifics of how the employees would keep their patients safe without being vaccinated, implying a moral implication of refusing a vaccine, as well as how they could square working for a hospital that mandated something so contrary to their personal convictions as a condition of employment.”
Last June, Newendorp enthused on Facebook, “Love Jesus. Be gay. Get ordained. What better way to celebrate Pride than being ordained?! Many thanks to my church and classes for being willing to stand for queer folks being included in ministry and for allowing me to follow God’s call.”
In October, she wrote, “Also your casual reminder that my validity as an ordained minister is currently under review by my denomination because of the love I feel for my fiancé. Do better Church, because I’m not going anywhere. I was called.”
Children’s also issued a flier presenting a “Spiritual Care Intern” named Meg Trimm. The Federalist noted:
Trimm has shared numerous TikToks of herself “deconstructing my white supremacy,” explaining that “gender is infinite,” proclaiming, “God is TRANSGENDER!!!” and saying, “God has a purpose for your life, and it might be fricken queer!”
The former Children’s employee told The Federalist:
I am deeply concerned with this new infiltration of trans activists into our chaplain and faith-based services. We have already witnessed the erosion and lost of public trust in fields of psychology, psychiatry, social work and general mental health counselors due to the rise of activists in these areas. Now parents have to worry about this as well?
We have many parents and families at Children’s who are deeply religious and hold traditional Judeo-Christian values. Will these new chaplains be able to serve the need of these families objectively? How will they properly support a grieving parent who is dealing with a child’s traumatic injury? How will they properly counsel a child who may be alone in the hospital due to a single parent working to make ends meet and maintain insurance?
