At Vance rally, Marshall flier takes church graphic out of context
Graphic made by a Canadian teacher was shown once to Resurrection volunteers, never taught to children, church says
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Sign up freeA graphic Sen. Roger Marshall has been circulating as evidence that Adam Hamilton’s church “grooms” children was shown once at a volunteer meeting more than five years ago and was never part of its curriculum, according to the church.
At Monday’s rally with Vice President JD Vance, Marshall walked up and down the line of rally-goers, taking photos, shaking hands and handing out fliers. The fliers were a follow-up to a social media post he had made accusing his opponent, Hamilton, of facilitating grooming in his congregation at United Methodist Church of the Resurrection.
Marshall and Hamilton are in a tight race, with political rating agencies marking the U.S. Senate race as a “toss-up” and polling that has the two statistically tied. Both President Donald Trump and Vance have made stops in Kansas to promote Marshall.
The flier said “at Adam Hamilton’s church: boys aren’t ‘boys.’ Girls aren’t ‘girls,’” above a photo of a graphic listing gender-neutral terms to address groups. It then asked, “‘Morning glories?’ ‘Niblings?’ Is this grooming?” and urged readers to reject Hamilton and his “woke” ideas.
The photo, which the flier says came from a Sunday school training, first appeared on Breitbart News. However, Breitbart News did not reach out to the church for comment or verification before publishing its piece, according to a spokesperson for the church.
During his speech, Marshall held up the flier while talking about Hamilton’s campaign and beliefs.
“This is a bulletin board from his own Sunday school class,” Marshall said. “Let me tell you some of the names that you can call boys and girls. You can call them ‘goblins’ and ‘ghoulios’; you can call them ‘peeps’; you can call them ‘snickerdoodles’; you can call them happy people. Get this one; I hope this isn’t PG-13. You can call them ‘morning glories,’ or you can call them ‘niblings.’”
In American English, a morning glory is a flowering vine. Nibling is a gender-neutral term for a niece or nephew, thought to have been coined in the early 1950s.
Marshall’s description doesn’t match the church’s account.
“It’s inappropriate the way it’s been used to make an accusation that we are grooming children. That’s absolutely false,” Cathy Bien, a spokesperson for the church, said. “This is not part of our curriculum or our leader instruction … We do not teach lessons around gender identity.”
Bien said the graphic was shown once at a volunteer meeting after parents told church volunteers their child did not feel welcome, and the volunteers wanted to see what they could do. The graphic was never taught to children, she said.
“It was not something that we created, and it was not something we promoted,” Bien said.
The graphic, which has been in circulation for several years, was traced back by Citizen Journal to Sylvia Duckworth, a Toronto teacher who published the image in 2020.
Citizen Journal reached out to Marshall’s campaign and Breitbart News for comment, but did not receive a response. A spokesperson for Hamilton’s campaign called the flier “trash” and referred Citizen Journal to the church.
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