Some Michiganders were already tiring of the stay-at-home orders by mid-April. | stock photo
Some Michiganders were already tiring of the stay-at-home orders by mid-April. | stock photo
Thousands of Michiganders rallied against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's stay at home orders, saying they are tired of being treated like small children, Fox News reports.
Matt Seely, a volunteer with the Michigan Conservative Coalition, was part of the protests.
"It's just ridiculous," Seely said during an April 16 interview with Fox News' Laura Ingraham. "I mean, ultimately, everyone that came out is so fed up with being sequestered and treated like small children, in that we can't social-distance and be diligent about personal hygiene, follow CDC guidelines and safe practices."
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
| Michigan.gov
Seely said the protesters just want to take their lives back.
"One thing we've learned through this is that this is going to be the new normal," Seely told Ingraham. "COVID-19 is going to be in our lives for at least the next year, until there is going to be a vaccine, and we need to figure out a way to get back to as normal of a life as possible while this plays out in the background."
Seely said the solution is not to lock Michiganders into their homes.
Whitmer commented on the protest, saying that it was never about the stay-at-home order, but rather a political statement.
"It was essentially a political rally, a political statement... A small group of people that came together without masks on, brandishing their weapons, who were having posters of being anti-choice," Whitmer said, according to Fox News. "This was a political rally."
Seely disagreed. "No, in fact, we went out of our way to make this bipartisan," Seely said during the interview. "This is not a political issue to us. We would've come out and had the same protest with a Republican governor or an independent governor."
Seely said his group simply wanted to be heard.
"We just think that our civil liberties are being violated and decided that the only way that we could have our voices be heard was to engage in basic civil disobedience," Seely told Fox News.
Seely claimed this was a very well-attended event.
"We had a lot of unity," Seely told Ingraham. "There were over 10,000 vehicles. We had over 600 trucks from the construction industry, including cement haulers. We had people from the landscaping industry, heating and cooling."