I recently had a Facebook debate with Leftist government employee (is that redundant?) Jeffery Moore, Senior Department Coordinator at Illinois Housing Development Authority. Moore alleges that I and the Illinois Family Institute are divisive, unloving, un-Christlike advocates for “Christian sharia law.” Wowzer.

I felt a response was in order, so here’s how it went down.

Jeffery Moore:

“You are so divisive. How about working together for one Illinois?”

Laurie:

I hope your comment is directed at “progressives” who are the most divisive force in America today and have been for the last 40-50 years.

Legalized human slaughter is divisive. Forcing taxpayers to pay for human slaughter is divisive. Identity politics is divisive. Critical Race Theory is divisive. Judging people by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character is divisive. Demands for “reparations” are divisive. Legally recognizing intrinsically non-marital unions as marriages is divisive. Introducing leftist assumptions about homosexuality and gender dysphoria to children in government schools is divisive. Forcing owners of small businesses to use their labor in the service of celebrations that violate their religious convictions is divisive. Forcing Christian adoption agencies to place children in the homes of men and women who affirm as good that which God condemns is divisive. The absurd, science-denying “trans”-ideology is divisive. Sexually integrating private spaces is divisive. Forcing people to use incorrect pronouns (i.e., to lie) when referring to men and women who pretend to be the sex they are not is divisive. Allowing men to ruin women’s athletics is divisive. Allowing Illinoisans to obtain falsified birth certificates and driver’s licenses is divisive. “De-platforming” conservative speakers is divisive. Misnamed “safe spaces” are divisive.

It’s fascinating that if conservatives refuse to roll over and submit to the jackbooted and divisive efforts of “progressives” to recreate America in their own ideological image, they are deemed divisive.

Jeffery Moore:

Laurie Higgins, your Christian sharia law is unconstitutional.

Laurie:

So, you lost the “divisive” argument and are lodging a new and equally hilarious complaint. Specifically what “unconstitutional Christian sharia law” have I proposed, and how specifically does this law violate the Constitution?”

Jeffery Moore:

Laurie Higgins, you are still divisive and you are putting your religious views into civil matters. Our founding fathers had you in mind when they separated church and state. When I was sworn into the Peace Corps I took a pledge to defend the Constitution from all threats foreign and domestic. You know, people like you and the “Family” institute. Be careful, your religious dogma has turned you away from being Christlike. God bless you. I hope you find your way back to love.

Laurie:

Duly noted that you did not identify one “Christian sharia law” proposed by me or anyone else.

You evidently assume that love has no intrinsic connection to truth, but such a view is not biblical. Are those who oppose legalizing polygamous or polyamorous marriages dogmatic and hateful? Are those who oppose allowing two loving brothers to marry dogmatic and hateful? When the bill comes down the polluted pike to legalize incestuous homosexual marriage, what if some of the people who oppose it are atheists and some who oppose it are religious? Do only atheist opponents get to vote against the bill?

The phrase “separation of church and state” is not in the Constitution. It’s in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists. He was assuring them that the government would not intrude into their free exercise of religion. People of faith are not constitutionally prohibited from having their faith shape their political decisions. I never heard “progressives” argue that those who attend churches that affirm same-sex marriage were prohibited from supporting the legalization of same-sex marriage. I never heard “progressives” argue that religious opposition to the Vietnam War constituted a violation of church and state. And I never hear “progressives” caterwaul that Dr. MLK Jr. violated the separation of church and state when he opposed civil rights violations for explicitly religious reasons. Nor do they berate him for saying this in “Letter from Birmingham Jail”:

How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God.

As I have written before, people from diverse faith traditions and no faith could all arrive at the same position on a particular public policy. For example, although Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Baptists, and atheists may all oppose abortion because they value human life, the reasons for that valuation of life differ.

If there is a secular purpose for the law (e.g., to protect incipient human life or to support the inclusion of sexual differentiation in the legal definition of marriage–neither of are necessarily or exclusively grounded in religion), then voting for it does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The source of the various parties’ desires to protect incipient life or defend a view of marriage is no business of the government. It would be not only absurd but also unethical for the government to try to ascertain the motives and beliefs behind anyone’s opposition to abortion or same-sex “marriage” and equally unethical for the government to assert that only those who have no religious faith may vote to oppose abortion or same-sex “marriage.” Such an assertion would most assuredly violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

What is prohibited are laws pertaining to matters that are strictly and exclusively religious, which neither marriage nor human slaughter are.

It’s Leftists like you who pose a threat to the Constitution—particularly to the First Amendment.

Final thoughts

I believe Moore and all Leftists who share his vision for America do, indeed, want divisiveness to end. Moore and his ilk want to achieve national unity via conservative submission to Leftist ideological assumptions, particularly their assumptions about sexuality—assumptions that affect religious freedom, speech rights, association rights, marriage, adoption, foster care, parental rights, physical privacy, public education, employment, public libraries, tax policy, private Christian colleges, and women’s athletics.

Remember when sexual anarchists promised Americans that all they sought was tolerance for their wholly private sexcapades—sexcapades that never affect anyone, no way, no how? Ah, those were the days, my friends. We thought they’d never end. But then Big Brother marched in, draped in a rainbow flag and wearing a bustier, commanding Christians to call him “her” and bake a cake for his “wedding” to a man—or else.

The “or else” has emerged. It’s called The Equality Act.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois! 

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