The Wisconsin pastor was once a political pariah. But now his book is being quoted by politicians and former Trump officials. One activist is using it to disrupt elections.
by Phoebe Petrovic, Wisconsin Watch
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Wisconsin Watch.
Wisconsin Pastor Matthew Trewhella has an affable routine when he’s trying to persuade government officials to abolish abortion, ignore gun laws and question election results.
The 63-year-old opens his talks with a photo of “Trewhella nation”: his wife of over 40 years, their 11 home-schooled children and dozens of grandchildren. He cracks jokes. He quotes history and scripture. He floats secession as a regretful possibility. With half-rim glasses and collared shirts, Trewhella looks and sounds more like a professor than a provocateur.
But when addressing his congregation at an Embassy Suites in suburban Milwaukee, he sneers and shouts, deriding his enemies as wicked dogs, whores and tyrants.
“When you see sodomy running rampant, when you see women in government, when you see men behaving like effeminate little squirrels, judgment is in the land,” Trewhella said during a 2020 sermon.
Last year, he said homosexuality should be treated as a crime, noting that the Bible called for the death penalty for “the filth of sodomy.”
