“This is what we do,” Rees said to Amy Pryor, Chamber manager of events and sponsorship, who escorted him to the Lakeshore Center door while attempting to block VoxPopuli from asking the mayor questions.

Winter Garden-specific statistics on religious affiliation are hard to come by — particularly since the city has never conducted any religious demographic surveys, according to a check of public records. But the 2023-2024 Religious Landscape Study done by the Pew Research Center found that within the Orlando metro area, 60 percent of adults identified as Christian while 7 percent claimed other religions and 33 percent had no religion. A Google search yielded listings for 34 churches in the greater Winter Garden area, including Horizon West.

But last year when Winter Garden ranked fourth on MoveBuddha’s list of 43 hot suburbs, the tech company wrote that it was the city’s “annual job growth over the August 2024 national average of 1.55%” that was attracting people to the area. And when Money magazine ranked Winter Garden on its 2019 list of Best Places to Live in the U.S., editors cited the city’s job growth, business community, bustling dining and shopping scene and proximity to Disney as the key reasons the suburb earned the number 10 spot.

“Winter Garden belongs to all of its residents — people of every faith and of no faith,” Chris Line, legal counsel for the Freedom From Religion Foundation in Madison, Wisc., told VoxPopuli in a Thursday email. “Mayor Rees should embrace that diversity and avoid casting the community in broad and inaccurate religious terms, which risks making nonreligious residents feel like outsiders in their own city.”

“To suggest that any community is better because it's "faith-based" is deeply offensive to the growing number of non-religious Americans across the country,” Hemant Mehta, editor of FriendlyAtheist.com said in an email Thursday.  

“It’s easy to be good without God. And to suggest that "faith-based" and "family friendly" go hand-in-hand is equally problematic given that surveys routinely show that the best countries in which to raise your families are also the least religious in the world. Mayor Rees should try exploring the world beyond his bubble before making ignorant proclamations. Winter Garden, which I've visited, appears to be a wonderful city. That's not because of what God the people believe in, but because of who they are. It's appalling that the mayor himself doesn't seem to understand that.”

Rees has a history of injecting his views on faith into Winter Garden city business. In 2014, he ordered the chief of police at the time to remove Winter Garden resident Joseph Richardson (now a VoxPopuli board member) from a commission meeting for not standing for the invocation and the Pledge of Allegiance, which is unconstitutional. Winter Garden meeting agendas now explain that attendees are not obligated to stand.

In April, Rees unilaterally denied Richardson’s request for a proclamation for a Day of Reason, which would have celebrated science, religious liberty, free speech and secular democracy. At the same time, he issued a proclamation for a Winter Garden Day of Prayer based on the National Day of Prayer, initiated in 1952 by the evangelist Rev. Billy Graham. The National Day of Prayer is recognized as a Christian event. Rees has disparaged those who don’t believe in God from the city commission dais.

After the mayor attended a Day of Prayer event at Winter Garden City Hall, in which speakers declared that “Winter Garden is for Jesus,” he declined to say whether non-Christians are welcome in Winter Garden.

Still, Rees’ comments found favor with others who attended the West Orange Chamber Of Commerce luncheon.

“When Mayor Rees speaks of Winter Garden as a faith-based community, he isn’t promoting a theocracy, where the government is a religion or where citizens are required to be part of one. He is simply recognizing what is plainly visible: that faith runs deep in the history and everyday life of this city. It is not the only thread, and not everyone here is faith-oriented, but faith is undeniably prevalent and continues to shape much of our civic life,” Winter Garden community advocate and co-CEO of Stars and Stripes Marketing Services Austin Arthur told VoxPopuli in a text message Thursday.

“What the mayor is acknowledging is that faith remains an undeniable thread in the fabric of our city … Winter Garden is a city made up of people of many faiths, including those of no faith at all. And those who have worked closely with Mayor Rees know that he serves all residents equally, without compromise, while staying true to his own convictions rooted in deep faith.”

 “While I can't speak for the mayor, I believe that Winter Garden is a place where people of all faiths and even people with no faith or just faith in themselves, can be,” City Commissioner Colin Sharman, who represents District 4, said by phone Thursday.

“We want to be inclusive, and I think that’s what makes Winter Garden good. When you can connect with someone regardless of religion and find something in common with them, that’s the Winter Garden I see. And that’s the Winter Garden I want to continue to build.”