Houghton Country Commissioner Joel Keranen's statement

As posted to Facebook:

This was my complete statement about the Traprock Valley parade at the Houghton County Board of commissioner's meeting on Tuesday, July 14, 2026.

Good Evening.

It’s nice to see a roomful of people here tonight. It would be great if they were all here to discuss the matters of Houghton County, such as the Health Department, Houghton County 911, our public defenders, or the possibility of a new jail and how to pay for it. Unfortunately, I’m guessing they are not here to discuss any of those things. They are here because of the nonsense surrounding the traprock valley parade.

I will tell you about parade. It started in 2020, and the purpose of the parade is to celebrate freedom and liberty. Our only rules are, we do not allow commercial advertising or campaigning politicians. If you were to attend the parade, you would find floats that are patriotic, clever, humorous, or involve political satire. One such float from this year’s parade caught the attention of those on social media. I am going to venture to guess that none of those people actually attended the parade; rather they made assumptions about the float based on social media posts. I did not build this float, nor did I have anything to do with it. However, some have determined that because I did not ban the float from the parade, this means that I am a white supremacist, among other things. Let me address this. Recall-the purpose of the parade is to celebrate freedom and liberty. So I am not going to ban a float when freedom of speech is one of the core freedoms that is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Someone’s free speech doesn’t end where the next person’s feelings begin. It begins and ends with our Constitution.

But let’s be honest. This isn’t about a float. What this is about is a world view. It goes back to my stance on gender. This is clearly evident by the flyer that the “non-partisan” Keweenaw Indivisible group shared over social media calling for me to resign. The group incorrectly, and frankly irresponsibly, defined a simple 4th of July parade as an event that glorified ICE and white supremacy. That statement was completely false. They also used the flyer to reference my 2-genders proposal from December. They went back to something that had absolutely nothing to do with a parade float.

However, they also made a statement that I actually wholeheartedly agree with. They called for the community to show me that hate has no home in the Keweenaw. This is true. Hate has no home in the Keweenaw, or anywhere for that matter. Let me be clear. I have never said I hated anyone. You have never heard from me any name calling, profanity, or threats. Go back and read my statement from December. You won’t find anything other than a clearly stated biblical based world view. My world view is shaped by my faith and by the truth of the Bible. YOU may find the values and beliefs that stem from my faith offensive. But I didn’t define them, God did. And I have the absolute right to hold to these beliefs because of our great constitution.

On the other hand, I am now going to show you where you WILL hear hate. Here is just one of the communications (voicemail) I have received over the past few days.

Audio clip

(To be clear the text and words in “ “ are from a phone call I received. They are not my words, just the words of a concerned citizen. If you would like the audio I would be happy to text it to you) “Hello, I am a Michigan Tech alum and a Yooper by blood, although from Sault Ste. Marie and you are a racist piece of shit, and you should kill yourself. You should, you really should. That would be great. Thanks. F**k you.”

Our country was founded on Godly principles because our great founders stated (in case you forgot) our rights are unalienable. Translation- they come from GOD! They don’t come from a king (even though some say we have one). They don’t come from any elected official. Not 5 county commissioners, not from Lansing, or from 545 people in Washington DC. I have the right to bring my biblical worldview into the public square just as much as the extreme left has the right to bring their secular worldview in.

But let’s be clear. The people here today calling for my resignation do not want my world view in Washington DC, Lansing, or Houghton County. And because I dared to do that in December, that is why they are here again today. That is why I’m being called all kinds of nasty, mean spirited, profanity laced names, and am facing threats and character assasination. This is what the extreme left does. It’s pretty much the only play in their playbook.

The intolerance and hateful rhetoric is coming from the extreme left -not from me. I will not allow my character to be smeared by my political opposition, and by people who have never even spoken to me or spent any time with me. I will trust the people who know me or have worked with me to be the ones who judge my character.

So what you will most likely hear tonight during our public comment time will be more false assumptions about my character, riddled with profanity and hate. I hope I am wrong.

What’s ironic about all this is, I am 100% supportive of you having the right to believe whatever you wish. You can believe in atheism. You can believe there are 27 genders, or there is no such thing as gender. You can believe in illegal immigration or open borders. You are free to be a Socialist, Marxist, or Communist. You are free to believe whatever you wish; because again, we have unalienable rights.

But what you are NOT free to do is to RESTRICT ME from being a God-fearing conservative with values and morals that Americans have treasured for 250 years.

It has become obvious that the extreme left feels it is reasonable to attack any other Houghton County resident who holds the same values as me and dares to speak up. They’ve been pressuring their affiliations and even threatening their livelihoods. This is completely unacceptable. If you believe in what I’m saying and you dared to speak up, or plan to speak up tonight, thank you. I know it’s not easy.

Click here for my analysis