The U.S. Center for Disease Control is sending out an LGBTQ inclusive self-assessment guide to all schools in the country. The agency wants to find out how committed schools are to providing a safe and inclusive environment for these students. The CDC’s school health division believes that when schools provide such an environment for gay and transgender students, it will improve the health and success of all students.

What makes them think this?

Obviously, someone at the CDC put in a lot of time and effort to developing the full color 32 page guide. But how does an organization whose mission is the control and prevention of diseases find the justification to create such a document? And why do they think they are qualified to deal with this issue? Do they consider homosexuality, transgenderism, queerness a disease?

Of course not. The disease they are attacking is our culture. This takes a little explanation to understand.

For years it has been known that members of the LGBTQ community suffer from mental illnesses at higher levels than heterosexuals. In fact, anxiety, depression, alcohol and drug dependence are problems that are 2.5 times greater among homosexuals and transgenders. Prior to 1973, being a homosexual was, itself, considered a mental illness. That changed when the American Psychiatric Association decided to remove homosexuality from the DSM-II, the bible for mental illness.

At the time, most of those who voted for this change did not believe that homosexuality was normal. Instead, because homosexuality was listed as a disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, homosexuals could be denied employment. This was not right, they thought. So the condition was removed as an illness.

Removing homosexuality from the manual did not change the frequency of mental illness experienced by the LGBTQ community, however. It was higher before 1973, and it was higher after 1973, right up to 2023.

Since 1973 there has been a continuing campaign to view homosexuality as a normal variant of human sexuality. That effort started to dramatically increase after 1985, when Division 44 of the American Psychological Association was established. Division 44, also known as the Society for the Study of Lesbian and Gay Issues, is the APA’s subgroup focused on LGBTQ issues. Today, that group has 1,500 members spread across 50 states, the District of Columbia and eleven other countries. Most of the members are, themselves, LGBTQ.

From the beginning, Division 44, operating behind the scenes and largely in secret, worked to restructure the culture to be more affirming of the LGBTQ lifestyles. That started to ramp up significantly in 2004 when Judith Glassgold was president of that division. In the Fall, 2004 newsletter for the division, she published a portion of her remarks at the APA annual convention that past summer.

Glassgold endorsed what she called “Liberation Psychology.”

Liberation Psychology cannot be considered science, or even social science. It was the brainchild of Ignacio Martin-Baro, a Spanish born Jesuit priest. He also was a University of Chicago trained social psychologist who had been assigned by the Jesuits to El Salvador. In El Salvado he promoted liberation theology, which was Christian theology merged with promoting liberation of the oppressed.

Combining his radical theology with his expertise in social psychology (a discipline that views the source of many psychological problems as being directly caused by oppressive social norms) he came up with “Liberation Psychology.” Liberation Psychology combines elements of Marxism, feminism, liberation philosophy, liberation theology, critical psychology, critical theory, critical gender and critical race theories, critical pedagogy, as well as other ideological streams.

Essentially, it is more a religious cause than a scientific endeavor. It is a theory that, in practice, has no successes it can trumpet. And it is a theory that was built on a jumbled mass of speculation.

Glassgold writes: “Liberation psychology is necessary because we are oppressed . . .  Thus, understanding oppression is essential for understanding the psychological difficulties our community faces, for much of the behavior that ends up being termed ‘psychopathology’ is not simply an individual trait, but the outcome of social forces.” 

She proposed that the work of the profession is not merely to heal, but to reshape society.

For years after 1973, many psychologists and psychiatrists continued to work with homosexuals to help them conform to the social norm of heterosexuality. Some of the therapeutic efforts involved mostly talk therapy. But other approaches involved aversion therapies or other abusive types of treatments. The more abusive approaches have since been discredited for all change efforts, whether it was used to neutralize homosexual urges or to stop overeating, drug or alcohol abuse, or any other unwanted behavior.

Since 1985, Division 44 has been hard at work to discredit all efforts to convert homosexuals to heterosexuality, not only the aversion therapies. These psychologists claimed that children were born gay or born trans. For years they searched for and tried to prove there was a gay gene. But there is none. Now they insist homosexuality is inherent, a natural occurring identity on the sexual continuum.

Behind the “born that way” claim for homosexuality, there is an anti-science, blind refusal to seek understanding about how a person becomes gay. When a child says “I’m gay” or I’m lesbian” or I’m trans” we must accept it without question. It makes no difference that more than half of the LGBTQ community self-report as having been sexually abused or having experienced some other sexual trauma. Anyone who dares to explore the origins of a child’s declared homosexuality is branded a heartless homophobe. Of course, this has allowed countless predators who abused many of them to get away scot-free.

Division 44 demands that every segment of society conform to their view that LGBTQ is normal and should be affirmed by everyone. This effort started in their own professions by forcing changes in the ethical standards for psychologists, social workers and other helping professions. It has become unethical for therapists to question a person’s gender identity. Several states have incorporated these standards into law, even if the person wants help to change.

Today we all are just supposed to accept and affirm a person’s self-proclaimed gender identity. In fact, the preferred response is to celebrate the person’s gender identity.

This philosophy has been pushed into every element of our culture—media, entertainment, sports, education, government, churches, everywhere. Almost every school has a GSA (originally Gay Straight Alliance, now Gender and Sexualities Alliance) or GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network) clubs. Originally sold as an antidote to bullying, these clubs work within the schools to normalize homosexual and transgender identities. The claim was that it was only gay students who were being bullied. Which is preposterous on its face.

Now the effort is taking the next step. The activists are working to normalize the sexual activities of the homosexual community even among children. Through the GSA’s and GLSEN, the students themselves are demanding LGBTQ focused sex ed which includes instruction on how to engage in all manner of same sex sexual activities, unisex locker rooms, trans girls on girls sports teams, puberty blockers, transgender hormones and surgeries.

Through guile, manipulation, infiltration, threats, demands, cancellations, demonstrations, lies, Division 44 and its minions have bludgeoned almost the whole of society to conform to the false narrative it has created: children are born gay and we must all affirm and celebrate them. Society must conform. It is the only path to improved mental health for the LGBTQ community. Division 44 started off by focusing on adult homosexuals, but in the last 20 years, they have turned their focus toward children.

So this is the cause that the CDC now has taken up. Indoctrinate children and change the culture in a single generation. When the change has been accomplished, the increased mental illnesses experienced by the LGBTQ community will vanish. When everyone accepts varying and constantly changing sexual identities as normal, an infinite number of self-determined pronouns as the standard, the ever increasing number of gender identities, there will be no differences in the prevalence of mental illness experienced whether gay or straight. So they say.

To the CDC, as with Division 44, the culture we have forged in the United States, a culture that serves as a beacon of freedom to the world, a culture that produced the greatest generation, that created the greatest nation in the history of the world . . . that culture, that culture is the disease the CDC is out to cure.

This is happening before our eyes.

As society decays and moves away from God, morality, and truth, more and more people — especially children — are being put on dangerous psychiatric drugs such as antidepressants. Meanwhile, a new study confirms once again that there is a strong correlation between school attendance and child suicide. What is going on?

A leading expert in the field who spoke with the Illinois Family Institute, Harvard-trained psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin, is sounding the alarm about these escalating crises and the enormous threat they represent. The world-renown author and critics also warned that leaving public schools was now the “only real hope” for families concerned about the horror.

The data from across the Western world paint a troubling picture no matter how you look at it. The numbers consistently show, for instance, that prescriptions for antidepressant drugs have surged in recent years. In fact, data shows more than one in six Americans now take psychiatric drugs, mostly antidepressants, with numbers continuing to rise.

According to data highlighted by the American Psychological Association, the number of Americans on antidepressants surged by almost two thirds in just fifteen years. The rate of suicides among American children is soaring, too. The phenomenon was almost unheard of prior to a few decades ago, and yet now it is a leading cause of death in American children and still surging.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Illinois Family Institute, Dr. Peter Breggin, a psychiatrist trained at Harvard who is also one of the world’s leading critics of the psychiatric industry, said Americans should be very concerned about what is happening. “I think it’s terrible in every way,” he said about the growing use of antidepressant drugs.

“Antidepressants cannot change a person’s attitude toward life or how they treat other people, it can’t change or improve their capacity to love or make them more concerned parents, or more well-disciplined children,” he explained. “Almost all psychoactive substances have one common effect: they blunt the emotional response of the individual.”

The problems that are being diagnosed psychiatrically, Dr. Breggin continued, “are never biochemical in origin,” something that runs counter to conventional wisdom. “The problems we call psychiatric are based on our human experiences — our suffering, our loves and hates. They are psychological, spiritual, political, and emotional issues: the stuff of life.”

Psychiatrists, continued Dr. Breggin, “are unfit to deal with these complex problems.” In fact, the prominent expert compared the field to a “biological, materialistic, humanistic religion — in the worst sense of humanistic.” This is why psychiatry and its tools “are so beloved by communists to control people, because they have the same godless materialistic religion,” he added.

Speaking of how the drugs work, Dr. Breggin, who served as an expert in multiple high-profile cases involving antidepressants, said they “cause multiple biochemical imbalances where there were none before.” Beyond that, these chemicals are basically classes of “neurotoxins” that cause long-term harm to the brain, he added.

Perhaps even more alarming, there is “no question” that the drugs “increase rates of violence and suicide, in every age group, not just children,” continued Dr. Breggin, who wrote the hugely influential book Talking Back To Prozac and led the push to end psychiatric lobotomies. He also served as medical expert in multiple cases involving antidepressants and murder, and “the cover up is just amazing.”

Asked why rates of antidepressant use were increasing so rapidly, he said it was not clear to what degree there was, in fact, a “mental health” crisis ripping through the U.S. population in recent decades. While he acknowledged that the actions of “predators” during COVID caused widespread disturbances, Dr. Breggin pointed to public schools and Big Pharma as potential sources of what is being observed.

Among other concerns, the psychiatrist suggested marketing and advertising by the pharmaceutical industry was a big part of the problem. “A lot of fear and turmoil is created by elites, and then those same elites turn around and make a lot of money selling drugs to deal with that,” he said, blasting Big Pharma and the industry’s “indifference” to the harm caused. The FDA serves as the industry’s “accomplice,” Breggin argued.

Interestingly, two separate studies in recent years have found a very strong link between attending school and suicide. The latest, from the National Bureau of Economic Research, noted that child suicides surge when children are back in school, and slow down by large margins when school is out for the summer. Covid lockdowns and re-opening confirmed the trends.

Dr. Breggin was blunt. “I do believe the only real hope is for families to get out of the public school system,” he said, noting that parents could do a far better job of providing or securing education with the money spent by the state on schools. “We’ve got to get people out of the public schools and into institutions that support God, their religious beliefs, the Constitution, and so on.”

But the problem goes far beyond just public schools. “Right now all institutions serve Mammon, the totalitarians, and Big Government,” he said, noting that he “did not talk like this before I started studying what was going on with COVID.” The institutions, he added, “are designed to serve the rich and powerful and make them more rich and powerful.”

Dr. Breggin, who forced authorities and the industry to investigate the link between antidepressants and suicide and violence, is hardly the only expert sounding the alarm. In fact, a report by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights citing dozens of examples and over 30 studies concluded that psychiatric drugs “create violence and suicide,” including school shootings.

The epidemic of mental and spiritual issues plaguing America went into overdrive in the 1960s, as Bible and prayer were expelled from school. Today, by throwing fuel on the fire in the form of dangerous “medications” to deal with the fire this created, a raging inferno threatens to consume even more lives and families.

On Monday, December 5, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court began hearing 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, another case that pits the purported rights of same-sex couples to force Christian business-owners to create products (or provide services) that express messages related to same-sex “weddings” in violation of the Christian business-owners’ First Amendment rights.

The Court case is a challenge filed by Coloradan Lorie Smith, a wedding website designer who, in expanding her business, understandably wants to include a statement clarifying that she does not create websites for same-sex weddings. But Colorado’s boneheaded pro-religious discrimination, pro-censorship law “that bars businesses that are open to the public from discriminating against gay people or announcing their intent to do so” mandates both what Smith must do and may not say.

Smith has made clear the intent of her work:

As a Christian artist, I want to create freely and create messages that glorify and honor God. And for me, this means designing for weddings and telling the story of a couple through God’s lens of marriage. But the state of Colorado is forcing me to celebrate messages about marriages that are inconsistent with my faith. There’s a lot of misconceptions about my case and what it is that I’m asking for. I love everyone and my faith has taught me to love everyone, and I have worked with those who identify as LGBT. There are just certain messages that I cannot promote because of my faith.

While Smith originally challenged the Colorado law based on its violation of both speech and religious protections, the U.S. Supreme Court has taken it up only on free speech grounds. The threat posed to religious liberty, however, is at least as grave.

This case follows on the judicial heels of cases in which those who choose to place their homoerotic desires at the center of their identities have sued bed and breakfast inns, videographers, florists, cake bakers, and calligraphers. The plaintiffs in those cases like to pretend they are the Rosa Parks of the sexual revolution—the oppressed victims of irrational hatred based on a condition equivalent to skin color.

Anyone with an ounce of rationality should be able to see that this whole “LGBTQIAP+” political movement is based on a big fat, slimy lie—a lie not unlike a Guinea worm that works from deep inside the body politic, worming its way painfully through the muscles and sinews of its host. The only difference is the Guinea worm rarely leaves permanent damage.

For the millionth time, there are no points of correspondence between skin color per se and homoeroticism per se.

Skin color is an objective, 100 percent heritable, in all cases immutable, environmentally unaffected condition with no behavioral implications—and, therefore, morally neutral.

In contrast, homoeroticism is a subjective condition, with little to no genetic involvement, shaped in many cases by one’s environment, and constituted centrally by volitional acts that are appropriate objects of moral assessment. Making judgments about the morality of homoerotic acts and relationships is as legitimate as making judgments about any other erotic acts and relationships constituted by such acts.

Saying homoerotic acts and relationships are immoral no more constitutes hatred of “gay” persons who believe differently and act in accordance with their beliefs than does saying polyamory and plural unions are immoral constitute hatred of polyamorists.

Refusing to make floral arrangements, bake cakes, or create websites for weddings of two men is no more unjust or hateful than refusing to make floral arrangements, bake cakes, or create websites for weddings of five polyamorists, three brothers, or a man and his horse.

And refusing to create products or provide services for “weddings” of two men or two women is in no way akin to refusing to allow blacks to sit at a lunch counter. Only fools and deceivers would claim it is.

Here’s one way to know that that these cases have nothing to do with discrimination or hatred of persons and everything to do with the religious bigotry and discrimination of people who seek compulsory approval of their deviant sexual desires: Virtually every one of the Christians sued by homoeroticists, including Christian florist Barronelle Stutzman and cake baker Jack Phillips, happily made products for and served homoeroticist customers.

Theologically orthodox Christians do, indeed, sell their wares and services to homoeroticists. They simply will not use their gifts, time, and labor in the service of an event that violates their deeply held religious convictions, mocks marriage, and offends God.

Ignorant of both the meaning of the First Amendment as well as the nature and role of Christianity in the lives of Christ-followers, many non-Christians harbor (at least) two fallacious ideas. First, they believe Christians should exercise their religion only within the confines of their church building. And related, they believe the First Amendment protects only what takes place in church buildings.

Leftists want no protections for the exercise of religion outside the confines of church on Sunday. But here’s the cultural rub: For Christians, the exercise of their religion encompasses the totality of their lives, including their work.

Just as skin color, homoeroticism, and religious exercise have natures, so too does marriage. Marriage is something. It has a nature that does not change based on the legislative whims or prurient desires of humans. The law can no more change the nature of marriage than it can change the nature of horses by redefining them.

Until very recently, sexual differentiation has been central to any definition of marriage throughout history and cultures. In fact, jettisoning sexual differentiation is far more radical a change than would be jettisoning criteria regarding blood kinship, number of partners, or age of partners.

Of course, those changes are coming because—ya know—”love is love.” All that polyamorists, sibling-lovers, and hebephiles need to do now is organize, pressure the American Psychological Association to designate their erotic predilections “sexual orientations,” and abracadabra, their unions will be covered by anti-discrimination law and legalized.

When that day comes, will Christians who refuse to provide goods and services for sibling weddings, poly weddings, and hebephile-teen weddings be hauled before courts for discriminating based on “sexual orientation”? Will they be accused of bigotry and hatred?

The ceremony solemnizing an erotic relationship between two men or two women is not a wedding. Such a relationship is by nature and design non-reproductive, so it is neither sexual nor uniting. Since the central constituent feature of a true wedding is the sexual differentiation of partners, a ceremony recognizing and solemnizing a non-sexual, non-uniting relationship is not a wedding. It is the antithesis. It is an anti-wedding. And it harms all involved.

Leftists are trying to force Christian photographers, florists, bakers, calligraphers, and wedding website designers not only to create and sell products that violate their religion but also to create products that they have never before created: Anti-wedding cakes, anti-wedding floral arrangements, and anti-wedding websites.

Many cultural critics argued that widespread approval of homoerotic acts and the legal revision of marriage to include non-marital relationships would inevitably lead to the erasure of other cultural taboos, specifically, taboos against plural relationships, consensual adult incest, and adult-minor sex, including pedophilia. Those critics who so warned were mocked by the scoffers who came following their own evil desires. “What rubes, paranoiacs, and bad thinkers,” screeched the scoffers. “Those are fearmongering, fallacious slippery slope, stupid arguments,” pontificated those with evil desires and strategies to match. But, once again, conservative critics were right.

The pro-poly movement is growing. News about “consensual non-monogamy” is everywhere including on mainstream news outlets. The American Psychological Association even has a task force composed of perverts to normalize this form of sexual deviance. Throuples and other sexually and numerically diverse unions are emerging from the dark fringes into the klieg lights that now highlight perversion.

Still in the dark fringy margins are the other two groups who, like polyamorists, have their own spanking new euphemistic names. Those who are in sexual relationships with close relatives have renamed incest “consanguinamory.” Following the logic of the “love is love” crowd, the blog “Full Marriage Equality” is dedicated to

“Advocating for the right of consenting adults to share and enjoy love, sex, residence, and marriage without limits on the gender, number, or relation of partners.”

Another blog that promotes incest is “Consanguinamory” whose creator, “Jane Doe,” describes her experience with and support for incest:

I am a woman in my early 30s, I used to be in a relationship with my dad on and off for a few years from when I was almost 20 up until I was in my late 20s. It wasn’t [Genetic Sexual Attraction], just straightforward incest, and it was the most deep, beautiful and loving relationship I’ve ever had. …

I clearly remember the confusion I felt when I first began to see him that way, I knew that society said that incest is bad, sick, disgusting and profoundly wrong, and yet the idea didn’t feel even remotely like that to me, it felt so right. Truth is, I fell in love with him and I chose to go with my heart and not my head. … I knew it wasn’t a crush or a phase, I’d had these feelings for a little while, but long enough to know the difference. I knew that what we had together was something real, and something very special. We were able to talk to each other for hours and never run out of things to say, and at other times just a glance could say a million words. We just understood each other so well, in a way it probably would have been more weird NOT to pursue the relationship, because it was the natural extension of our very strong family bond. …

A few years ago my dad broke off the relationship with me, he was afraid of us getting caught out, and he also still felt that it was somehow wrong for us to be together. Yet I loved him and he loved me, both in the romantic sense of the word and as family. I’ve tried non-incest relationships and they just don’t feel right to me, half the bond is missing… the family aspect of the bond. …

I still miss him so much and hope one day he has a change of heart, because even after so much time I am still in love with him. I miss everything from us going on the supermarket run to falling asleep in his arms at night. He just wasn’t able to get over the taboo against incest, so despite the obvious strength of our feelings he could not stay with me. I’ve tried so hard to just get on with my life, but it still hurts knowing that our relationship wasn’t just viable, it would have been thriving if that ridiculous taboo hadn’t been there in the first place. (emphasis added)

As I have written many times, getting the term “sexual orientation” added to anti-discrimination policies and laws was a stroke of genius by the libertines among us. Now all they need do is recast all the diverse manifestations of sexual perversion as sexual orientations, and, abracadabra, they become legally protected categories. And so, we see Jane Doe writing, “consanguinamory is an orientation, not a perversion.”

Six years ago, senior correspondent at The Week, libertarian Damon Linker, warned libertarians and leftists that leftist arguments used to defend “gay marriage” will be used to defend incest “rights”:

Once a person, couple, or group of people make a sexual-partnership claim based on autonomy and consent, there is increasingly no basis on which to legally reject it. And once it becomes legally accepted, there is increasingly no basis on which to morally reject it. Which means that, sooner or later, incest is likely to be legal and morally accepted in the United States.

It’s not just incest that is going to be legalized. Oh no, incest is not at the bottom of the well of moral sewage. Pedophilia is comin’ to town soon.

The first step in eradicating taboos is to whitewash the morally repugnant act, getting rid of its icky connotations. So, pedophilia has been renamed. First it was renamed “intergenerational love” or “intergenerational intimacy,” and now it’s been renamed again. Now it’s “Minor Attraction.”

The next step was to distinguish attraction to children from acts with children—an important distinction to be sure— but it’s temporary.

Recently, philosophy and ethics professor from the State University of New York at Fredonia and author of the book Pedophilia and Adult-Child Sex: A Philosophical Analysis, Stephen Kershnar, got in hot water for arguing that he finds no justification for a “threshold” age of child below which sexual engagement with adults would be wrong. For example, Kershnar argues that society’s belief that there is something “deeply wrong” about an adult man having sex with a consenting 12-year-old girl is both “wrong” and a “mistake.”

SUNY Fredonia Professor questions the widely held sociteal belief that it’s deeply wrong for an adult man to want to have sex year with a 12 year old girl. pic.twitter.com/qUAbSexFxp

— Mythinformed (@MythinformedMKE) February 2, 2022

To be clear, Kershnar is not arguing that sex between an adult and preteen is “wrong” and a “mistake.” He’s arguing that societal disapproval of such a sexual encounter is both wrong and a mistake.

From his sullied Ivory Tower, Kershnar continues with his morally untethered philosophical ruminations:

The notion that [sex is] wrong even with a one-year-old is not quite obvious to me.

It gets worse. Much worse: pic.twitter.com/OV8Zuk2qg1

— Mythinformed (@MythinformedMKE) February 2, 2022

Kershnar speculates that there are “evolutionary” advantages conferred on pedophilia, citing, among other things, studies showing that a “surprising number” of college age men show attraction to “prepubescent individuals, I assume, mostly girls.” What a cultural mess, Darwin created.

This is what happens when a society abandons God as the transcendent source of objective moral truth. Corrupt (and sometimes brilliant) minds devise intellectual rationalizations to justify virtually anything, buttressed by woefully unstable social “science” studies.

Just wait, the heartstrings-pulling anecdotes, young adult novels, graphic memoirs, and picture books about unjustly stigmatized love are comin’ down main street soon.

**Viewer Discretion is Advised**

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Incest-and-Pedophilia-Comin-to-Town.mp3

Written by Patience Griswold

Amid growing international pushback on the transgender movement’s so-called “gender affirmative” approach to gender dysphoria and the rush to give minors experimental treatments including puberty-blockers, cross-sex hormones, and irreversible surgeries, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) has released new draft guidelines recommending a less radical approach than they have held to in the past.

Rather than immediately rushing adolescents into a lifetime of hormone “treatments” and surgeries, the draft guidelines recommend mental health evaluation and several years of monitoring for adolescents with gender dysphoria, although they continue to encourage harmful and irreversible procedures after that.

WPATH, an international organization headquartered in Minnesota, plays an extremely influential role in the use of so-called “treatments” such as cross-sex hormones and “gender transition” surgery. Throughout the rest of the draft guidelines, WPATH continues to recommend so-called “gender affirmative treatments” that have caused permanent harm to young people and adults, yet the proposed draft offers slightly more protection to adolescents struggling with gender dysphoria than recommendations from major medical associations in the U.S. WPATH’s shift, slight though it is, also shows that on an international level, the transgender movement is recognizing that they may be held accountable for the damage they have caused.

WPATH’s draft guidelines added a chapter on adolescents requiring a full mental health evaluation and several years of monitoring before receiving cross-sex hormones or surgery. The guidelines continue to recommend irreversible surgeries for minors, including mastectomies for girls as young as 15 and “bottom surgery” for 17-year-old girls, although they do not recommend similar surgery for boys under 18. The guidelines also removed requirements that adults receive mental health evaluation, despite the fact that many adults who have detransitioned have spoken up about how the mental health struggles that were driving their gender dysphoria were not adequately addressed when they sought help.

At the same time, if WPATH adopts these guidelines, multiple major medical associations in the U.S., including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and the Endocrine Society will be out of step with international standards, advocating an even more radical approach than WPATH. These associations encourage a so-called “gender affirmative” approach known as the “Dutch protocol,” originated by a doctor in the Netherlands who has since cautioned against his own approach. This protocol encourages medically “transitioning” children, disregarding the fact that puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones can lead to dangerous complications including stunted bone growth, pulmonary embolisms, increased risk of heart attacks, and permanent loss of fertility.

Attempting to live in denial of biological reality is always harmful. No amount of surgery or cross-sex hormones can ever change the fact that a man is a man, and a woman is a woman, down to every single cell. People struggling with gender dysphoria deserve compassion, and true compassion never reinforces lies.

The New York Times’ coverage of WPATH’s new guidelines claims that “transition” improves mental health outcomes. However, the best studies show that this is not the case, and the studies that have been used to prop up this narrative are riddled with methodological flaws. One study claiming to show that “transition” improved mental health actually showed the opposite, a fact that the authors of the study eventually acknowledged.

Sadly, the LGBT lobby is actively working to penalize counselors and mental health professionals who would offer compassionate support to minors struggling with gender dysphoria. 20 states have implemented so-called “conversion therapy” bans and, and the five largest cities here in Minnesota have adopted them. These counseling bans interfere with the client-patient relationship and deny help to kids who are struggling with gender dysphoria, insisting that the only option that should be available to them is to be rushed to “transition,” even as a growing number of young people and adults who have detransitioned speaking out about how they have been harmed by transgender ideology.

Children and teens with gender dysphoria deserve better than to be treated as guinea pigs for the sake of advancing radical gender ideology. WPATH’s guidelines, while they offer slightly more protection than they have in the past, are dangerous and recommendations from the AAP, APA, and ES are even more so.

This article was originally published by the Minnesota Family Council.

While claiming they don’t believe homoerotic attraction is biologically determined, far too many conservatives act as if they do so believe. If conservatives really disbelieved the assertion by leftists that homoerotic attraction is biologically determined, they—that is, conservatives—would be far more vigorously opposed to their children being “educated” in public schools. If conservatives really believed that a child’s environment can contribute to the development of homoerotic attraction (and later to volitional homoerotic activity), then they would remove them immediately from any context that introduces them to positive ideas and images of homoeroticism, including especially public schools.

Here in Illinois, such propaganda starts in kindergarten and continues every year throughout elementary, middle, and high school. How do conservative parents think a 5-year-old will process the lies their teachers spread about homoeroticism, including through heartstrings-pulling tales about children with two mommies, or about allegedly homosexual penguins, or about “gay” children being bullied? Are conservative parents absolutely sure their young children won’t start wondering if the natural love they feel for their best same-sex buddies is a sign that they are “gay”? Ideas have consequences, folks.

Don’t be duped by the mockers who will claim it’s absurd to think ideas about homoeroticism can create feelings. Ideas absolutely can create feelings that then shape actions. By allowing young children to be exposed year after year to homosexuality-affirming ideas, parents are playing with fire—the fire of sexual desire ripped from its moral moorings.

In the book Male Colors: The Construction of Male Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan, Gary Leupp demonstrates the effect of culture in constructing homoerotic desire:

Nanshoku [male homoeroticism] … arose largely to compensate for men’s lack of female companionship, but at some point its culture came so to influence the structure of male desire that its vitality no longer required the absence of women. Indeed, it remained a vigorous tradition in Tokugawa [Tokugawa period: 1603-1868] cities even as the institution of the female courtesan throve. … The iro [sexual desire] of most Tokugawa men was bisexual.

This eros was specifically constructed to mirror the hierarchical relations specified in Confucian thought and in feudal society; males were socialized to desire to penetrate younger males and to be penetrated by older males.

Anyone who believes homoerotic desire cannot be constructed or created by culture is naïve or ignorant.

Homoerotic desire can be shaped not only by childhood sexual molestation, early exposure to pornography, peer ostracism, and familial dysfunction but also by cultural values that spread like disease contagions. In fact, there is a term for such a phenomenon: “social contagion” or “group contagion.”

“Social contagion” or “group contagion” is defined by the American Psychological Association as,

the spread of behaviors, attitudes, and affect through crowds and other types of social aggregates from one member to another. … [S]tudies suggest that social contagion is sustained by relatively mundane interpersonal processes, such as imitation, conformity, universality, and mimicry.

Social contagions include anorexia, bulimia, cutting, and even suicide. Homoeroticism and cross-sex identification (i.e., “transgenderism”) are the newest contagions to emerge in our deviant sex-saturated public square and infect our children.

There’s a reason the rates of homosexual, bisexual, and “trans”-identification are rising, and the reason is not that humans are biologically evolving or that these higher percentages always existed but were hidden due to cultural disapproval. The reason is that culture is constructing disordered sexuality.

In 2018, The Telegraph reported  that this social contagion had infected children in the United Kingdom, leading a member of Parliament to call for an investigation into the reasons for the shocking increase in children rejecting their biological sex:

An explosion in the number of children wanting to change sex has prompted an inquiry by ministers.

Penny Mordaunt, the Minister for Women and Equalities, wants to understand the reasons behind a 4,400 per cent increase in girls being referred for transitioning treatment in the past decade.

Officials will look into the role of social media and the teaching of transgender issues in schools as part of their inquiries. …

In 2009/10 a total of 40 girls were referred by doctors for gender treatment. By 2017/18 that number had soared to 1,806. Referrals for boys have risen from 57 to 713 in the same period. …

Some educationalists have previously warned that the promotion of transgender issues in schools has “sown confusion” in children’s minds and that encouraging children to question gender has “become an industry”.

Dr Joanna Williams, author of the book Women vs Feminism, has said that schools are “encouraging even the youngest children to question whether they are really a boy or a girl”.

Just as in England, government schools in the United States play a significant role in sowing gender confusion.

The government schools Americans fund are an integral part of the metastasis of these social contagions. Schools are providing a distorted lens through which children are misinterpreting experiences, and this in turn can lead to the construction of disordered desires and “identities.” Socially distancing our children from those who would intentionally mainline contagions into them is the best way to protect them during their most vulnerable developmental years.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/A-Plea-to-Exit-Public-Schools-ASAP.mp3

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When I came to faith as a 16-year-old, drug-using, hippie rock drummer, I was told that Jesus was returning very soon. The end of the world was near. Very near. Today, there is a new religious narrative, especially among young people, with a new “end of the world” scenario. But this one is depressing and grim, with nothing redemptive about it.

I’m talking about the new religion of manmade global warning.

It has it unique gods (like Mother Earth).

It deifies the created world (with seminarians confessing to plants in a chapel service).

It has its high priests and religious leaders (the climate change gurus and radical environmentalists).

It has its patron saints (like Sweden’s Greta Thunberg).

And it has its own doomsday scenario: The end of the world is near. Very near.

To be clear, I do not have the credentials to comment on scientific questions related to global warming.

But I do have the credentials to comment on the effect that environmental activists are having on our culture, especially the younger generation.

An Australian website offers counsel to help people (especially young people) deal with stress and anxiety related to climate change. It notes that, “There are lots of reasons why young people might feel stressed about climate change.”

These reasons include: 1) They feel like planning for the future is hopeless. 2) They are angry that the people around them aren’t doing anything to help. 3) They are frustrated that there’s nothing they can do now to change things. 4) They are worried about whether it’s responsible to have children. 5) They feel like everything is out of their control.

A May 2 headline on Science News for Students states, “Climate change poses mental health risks to children and teens.”

And a September 19 article on Conversation.com warned that, “Ignoring young people’s climate change fears is a recipe for anxiety.”

In fact, as far back as 2016, the American Psychological Association (APA) claimed that, “Climate change is threatening mental health. A federal report that tapped psychologists’ expertise outlines the ways climate change affects us all.”

But herein lies the rub. It is not “climate change” that is “threatening mental health.” It is the apocalyptic way it is being reported that is threatening mental health.

After all, when I was told in 1971 that Jesus was coming back soon, it was an exciting prospect. The end of the age is fast approaching and we will be with the Lord forever! This world is falling apart, but God will come to redeem us!

But there is no such hope in today’s gloom and doom climate change reporting. Instead, it produces fear and provokes frustration, especially for young people: “Our world is being destroyed, and you’re not doing anything about it! Don’t you care?”

To quote Greta Thunberg directly,

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. . . . We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth – how dare you!”

But there’s a reason for her fears.

An October, 2018 headline proclaimed: “We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN.”

Six months later, in March, 2019, the UN website echoed these sentiments:

“Only 11 Years Left to Prevent Irreversible Damage from Climate Change, Speakers Warn during General Assembly High-Level Meeting. Ambition, Urgency Needed to Address Global Emergency, Secretary-General Says.”

No wonder teenaged Greta and her generation are up in arms. No wonder they are so stressed. No wonder they are angry. “It is your policies and your greed and your selfishness that have stolen our future!”

As reported on September 26,

“Around climate-change protests, tears linger. Youthful activists cite all-too depressing science and develop angst. They grieve for a future they worry they’ll never have.

“Many young climate activists say they feel hopeless and overwhelmed. . . . ‘It’s really hard to grow up on a planet full of ifs,’ said This is Zero Hour co-founder Jamie Margolin, a 17-year-old from Seattle, who is finding hard to buckle down and apply to colleges. ‘There’s always been a sense that everything beautiful in this world is temporary for my generation.’”

How very, very sad – but not because it’s all true.

Instead, as John Nolte pointed out,

“For more than 50 years Climate Alarmists in the scientific community and environmental movement have not gotten even one prediction correct, but they do have a perfect record of getting 41 predictions wrong.

“In other words, on at least 41 occasions, these so-called experts have predicted some terrible environmental catastrophe was imminent … and it never happened.”

Consequently, he asks, “Why would we completely restructure our economy and sacrifice our personal freedom for ‘experts’ who are 0-41, who have never once gotten it right?”

So, young people are being stressed about something that may never happen. They are growing up waiting for the shoe to drop, not being able to enjoy because of fear for tomorrow.

The innocence of youth is being robbed from them, and everyone is to blame. Yet an article on the Teaching Tolerance website urges that, “Teachers’ Silence on Climate Change Violates Students’ Rights.”

I would urge instead that there needs to be a lot of soul searching and circumspection, from our children’s educators to the popular media. Are you sure the information you are sharing is accurate? Are you positive the fears you are instilling are warranted? Are you certain that you are not playing with the emotions of impressionable young people?

From my perspective (and leaning into my areas of expertise), I would rather say this: It’s true that this world will not endure forever. One day, Jesus will return and make a new heaven and earth. So, live your life here with passion, in expectation of His return, making every moment count. That way, whether you live to be 100 or if He comes back in 10 years, your life will be full and blessed.

I challenge a climate change religionist to come up with a better message than that.

This article was originally published at AskDrBrown.org.

Written by Greg Morse

The American Psychological Association recently contributed its thoughts on traditional masculinity, telling us that it’s mainly a semi-harmful social construct. This week, Gillette has added its two cents on “toxic” masculinity in a now-viral advertisement. The main point: men must hold other men accountable “in ways big and small,” especially as it pertains to sexual harassment and bullying. This is important because, apart from the incentive of selling shaving products, the boys watching today will be the men of tomorrow.

Backlash has ensued. The commercial has almost half a million likes with twice as many dislikes. Many decry the characterization that men today are sexual harassers who sit around at barbecues and let kids beat each other up, mumbling between beers that “boys will be boys.” The commercial, some say, promotes a view that all men are rapists and bullies.

Others heard it as yet another call to be less rugged, more domesticated, more conceding to the feminism of our time. Another attempt to paint us as unstable in order to take away sharp objects. The virtue that men and women have equal value has devolved into the vice that pretends men and women are the same.

But many embrace the message because it calls out a strain of men that do exist in our society — brutes who use their strength and power toward corrupt ends. Whether that end entails touching a female inappropriately or harassing someone smaller, God’s people — like God himself — will confront such violence and abuse.

Narrowly speaking, the message that seeks to protect our women and children deserves our hearty amen, regardless of whether Balaam speaks it. We too stand firmly, unequivocally against that imposter called brutality. But this is one perversion today that is profitable to stand publicly against. Another distortion, less financially beneficial, has slipped quietly under the radar.

When Men Wore Pants

This less-popular strain of toxic masculinity was documented a decade ago by Dockers in its Man-ifesto campaign. Its commercial, worth quoting in full, reads as follows:

Once upon a time, men wore the pants, and wore them well. Women rarely had to open doors, and little old ladies never crossed the street alone. Men took charge because that’s what they did. But somewhere along the way, the world decided it no longer needed men. Disco by disco, latte by foamy nonfat latte, men were stripped of their khakis and left stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny.

It continues,

But today, there are questions our genderless society has no answers for. The world sits idly by, and cities crumble, children misbehave, and those little old ladies remain on one side of the street. For the first time since bad guys, we need heroes. We need grown-ups. We need men to put down the plastic fork, step away from the salad bar, and untie the world from the tracks of complacency. It’s time to get your hands dirty. It’s time to answer the call of manhood. It’s time to wear the pants.

The pants company rightly observes that cities crumble without men living as men. We need heroes that do not beat up those they swore to protect, and heroes who are willing to take off their superman pajamas, put down their frothy drinks, and act more like Clark Kent — the very thing our sexless society is trying to make harder than ever.

Too often we swing from decrying chauvinism and abuse to producing a society of plastic forks, nonfat lattes, and men who don’t mind going to church because of the free babysitting. When our children look at men today — the kind in television shows, homes, and the classroom — what do they see? What is this masculinity of tomorrow we are all concerned with?

Manicured Manhood

Just having returned from a visit to “the greatest place on earth,” my wife and I were shocked at how many men boldly acted like women. Lispy sentences, light gestures, soft mannerisms, and flamboyant jokes were everywhere to be seen — on display for a park flooded with children. No hiding it. No shame. No apologizing. This perversion of masculinity warranted no commercials.

Instead, our society celebrates what Paul calls literally “soft men” (Greek malakoi), a group that will not enter the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9). And discomfort at this will-not-inherit-the-kingdom version of manliness is exactly a symptom of what the APA finds malignant in traditional manhood. But as much as the APA and LGBTQs protest it as hate speech, the effeminate shall not enter the kingdom of God, and it is unloving not to say so.

While men who brutalize and manipulate represent one form of perversion (the kind companies now put their dollars into supporting), men who sit passive, complacent, spiritually and emotionally frail, represent another. So also do men who rebel against their sex by acting like women. And too many classrooms that celebrate this perversion act as accomplices to confusing the boys (and girls) of today. Paul commands all men, “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13), and offers them the hope of the gospel that they too might be washed, sanctified, and justified “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11).

David Mathis rightly tells us that the strongest men are gentle. But do not hear him saying that godly men are soft, fragile, weak, or effeminate. They do not faint in the day of adversity. They dress for war every day against forces of evil. They are sacrificial initiators, not limp deferrers. Men who charge against enemy gates, leading from the front, and refusing to take cover behind their wives and children. They lead. They protect. They initiate. They love. They sacrifice. They work. They worship. They are men.

When Men Killed Dragons

Godly men are neither severe nor effeminate. They have a sword, but use it against the dragon, not the princess in the castle. They are safe to those God calls them to protect, dangerous to the flesh and the kingdom of darkness. They have more to do than restrain themselves; they live for the glory of God. They mount their horse, gird up their loins, and “ride out victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness” (Psalm 45:4). And their General, instead of handing them plastic forks, “trains their hands for war, so that their arms can bend a bow of bronze” (2 Samuel 22:35).

They are like Moses, not Pharaoh. They do not lord their power in hopes of cowardly self-preservation. They stand against an empire with the Lord over all empires, calling for tyrants to heed the God of heaven and earth. They are assertive and yet comprise the meekest men on the planet. They make unpopular decisions, meet regularly with their God, and constantly insist, “Thus saith the Lord.”

They are like David, not Saul. They do not hide when duty calls. They gladly go into battle, when others will not, in the venture of their God’s fame. They kill tens of thousands of sins, and fight the more fearful enemy than Goliath. They dress in armor too big for them: God’s (Ephesians 6:13). They know much warfare and yet can testify that God’s gentleness makes them great (2 Samuel 22:36). Battle-tested, yet they may give themselves to things such as poetry. And should they ever shirk their duty and do wickedly, they repent before God and trust in his mercy and steadfast love to restore them.

The Best a Man Can Get

Such men are like Jesus, not the world’s soft-serve substitute. The smiley, flowy-haired, manicured Jesus is an idol. The Jesus of the Bible is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who will return with a sword in his mouth and heaven’s army in his wake. He is the thrice holy man of war, the great redeemer, the sinner’s friend, who calls all to repentance, faith, and obedience. Vengeance is his; he will repay.

And yet, he also calls children to himself. He washes disciples’ feet. He speaks gracious words to the oppressed, champions the widow’s cause, and calls the contrite near. A bruised reed he does not break, and a faintly burning wick he does not snuff. Tough, yet tender.

Satan hates such biblical masculinity. He pressures men like never before to apologize for being what God has made him. He hands him androgyny, effeminacy, passivity, and pornography. He calls it a social construct and sends the Delilah of feminism to strip him of his passion, ambition, and strength, laughing as men ache while watching Braveheart. But while he hates that God made them both male and female (Genesis 1:27), we can show the world the best a man can get: gentleness and strength, holy compassion and holy aggression. In a word, Christ.

This article was initially published on DesiringGod.org

So much good news from the U.S. Supreme Court this week, including the announcement of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s impending retirement and the 5-4 decision in the NIFLA v. Becerra case, which asserts that the speech of pro-life crisis pregnancy centers is, indeed, protected speech.

Justice Kennedy surprised the nation by announcing his retirement at the end of July, giving President Donald Trump another opportunity to continue to restore respect for constitutional principles and historical American values. Perhaps we will see that proverbial long arc of justice bending more often toward justice.

Justice Kennedy surprised again, this time in NIFLA v. Becerra. Fascistic California lawmakers eager to impose their beliefs by any unethical means at their disposal passed “The California Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency Act” (FACT Act) which requires the following:

Clinics that are licensed must notify women that California provides free or low-cost services, including abortions, and give them a phone number to call. Its stated purpose is to make sure that state residents know their rights and what health care services are available to them. Unlicensed clinics must notify women that California has not licensed the clinics to provide medical services.

Several crisis pregnancy centers sued, claiming that the law abridged their First Amendment speech protections. A district court voted against them, they appealed the decision, and then the nightmarish 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals voted against them as well. That decision was appealed to the Supreme Court, and in a 5-4 decision with Kennedy joining the majority, the Court decided in favor of the crisis pregnancy centers.

In his concurrence in NIFLA v. Becerra, Kennedy ridiculed and scolded the California legislature:

The California Legislature included in its official history the congratulatory statement that the Act was part of California’s legacy of ‘forward thinking.’ But it is not forward thinking to force individuals to ‘be an instrument for fostering public adherence to an ideological point of view [they] fin[d] unacceptable.’ It is forward thinking to begin by reading the First Amendment as ratified in 1791; to understand the history of authoritarian government as the Founders then knew it; to confirm that history since then shows how relentless authoritarian regimes are in their attempts to stifle free speech; and to carry those lessons onward as we seek to preserve and teach the necessity of freedom of speech for the generations to come. Governments must not be allowed to force persons to express a message contrary to their deepest convictions. Freedom of speech secures freedom of thought and belief. This law imperils those liberties.

This decision means, among other things, that pro-life crisis pregnancy centers cannot be forced to communicate information that violates their beliefs.

Kennedy used this teachable moment to educate lawmakers on the constitutional limits on their pernicious efforts to abuse the law to advance their ideological views. It’s a lesson children should be taught repeatedly in government schools but aren’t.

Buried within the NIFLA decision is something even more remarkable. According to Curtis Schube, Legal Counsel for the Pennsylvania Family Policy Institute, “NIFLA also overturned speech restrictions on therapists who assist people with unwanted same sex attraction.” Schube continues:

Laws which ban sexual orientation change efforts (“SOCE” for short) have increasingly entered the national conversation, most recently in California. Before California’s recent attempts to ban all forms of SOCE at any age, California already had such a law in place for minors. The law considered it “unprofessional conduct” to “seek to change sexual orientation” for a minor. Any counselor who violated the law faced professional discipline.  

California’s more recent SOCE laws take an even more extreme position. These laws ban all therapy that aims to change, or even reduce, sexual attraction to the same sex. Therefore, a patient who wants SOCE therapy cannot receive that service without risk to the professional counselor.

In Pickup v. Brown, same sex attracted minors and their parents, as well as counselors who wished to provide their services, claimed that this law violates their First Amendment rights to free speech and free expression. The Ninth Circuit, in 2013, determined that counseling is not speech, but rather professional “conduct.” The “First Amendment does not prevent a state from regulating treatment,” the Ninth Circuit concluded.

The Third Circuit upheld a similar law in New Jersey using the same logic in the 2014 case, King v. Governors of New Jersey. In relying partly upon Pickup, the Third Circuit concluded that counseling is speech (rather than conduct) but classifies that speech as professional speech. The Third Circuit states that a “professional’s services stems largely from her ability to apply… specialized knowledge to a client’s individual circumstances… Thus, we conclude that a licensed professional does not enjoy the full protection of the First Amendment.”

In the NIFLA case, the Ninth Circuit had justified the requirement for pregnancy centers to advertise for abortion as “professional speech,” just like the Ninth and Third Circuits had done for SOCE laws. The Supreme Court opinion overturning the Ninth Circuit’s NIFLA opinion, specifically identified Pickup and King as examples of “professional speech” protected by the First Amendment. Writing for the majority, Justice Thomas… stated: “Some Courts of Appeals have recognized ‘professional speech’ as a separate category of speech that is subject to different rules.” However, “speech is not unprotected merely because it is uttered by ‘professionals.’”

This is a paradigm shift in the existing precedents for SOCE bans.

Thomas seized the opportunity to provide protections to many other professions as well. “Professionals might have a host of good-faith disagreements, both with each other and with the government, on many topics in their respective fields.” He identifies doctors and nurses who disagree on the prevailing opinions on assisted suicide or medical marijuana as examples of good faith disagreements. So too are lawyers and marriage counselors who disagree on prenuptial agreements and divorces, and bankers and accountants who disagree on how to commit money to savings or tax reform. One would have to conclude that Justice Thomas’ intent is to protect all professionals from being regulated on matters of good faith disagreement.

There is no settled judgment within the mental health community regarding the efficacy and value of counseling for minors or adults who experience unwanted same-sex attraction. There is no settled judgment about the cause or causes of such attraction. Even the liberal American Psychological Association acknowledges that causation is unknown and is likely—in its view—a result of both nature and nurture. There is, however, fairly broad consensus within academia—including among homosexual scholars that “sexual orientation” is fluid. Kudos to Justice Thomas for providing a constitutional pathway to overturning bans that restrict the First Amendment speech rights of mental health professionals.

And kudos to Justice Anthony Kennedy for his week of surprises.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Might-NIFLA-Help-Overturn-Bans-on-Same-Sex-Attraction-Counseling.mp3

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IFI received a return-request letter via priority mail this week from Dunner Law, a law firm based in Washington D.C. that specializes in intellectual property law. The letter came from Adam Sikich, senior counsel with Dunner Law (and according to his bio, a “Star Wars aficionado”) on behalf of Dunner’s “Client,” the American Psychological Association (APA). In this letter, Sikich kinda, sorta implied Dunner might slap IFI with a $150,000 lawsuit if we don’t remove three illustrations we used in recent articles about a children’s picture book celebrating “pride” parades titled This Day in June by lesbian author Gayle E. Pitman.

Star Wars aficionado Sikich first told us how very important his “Client” is:

We represent the American Psychological Association, Inc. (“our Client”) in its intellectual property matters. We write to you regarding your organization’s use of protected illustrations from the copyrighted work This Day in June.

As you may be aware, our Client is the largest and most prestigious publisher in the field of psychology, mental health and development. Our Client’s children’s book division, Magination Press, publishes books that help children deal with the many challenges and problems they face as they grow up.

How have so many people for so many decades not realized how desperately little children need picture books about “pride” parades to help them face the challenges and problems they face—you know, the problems created for them by adults who sought to mainstream sexual deviance?

Then Aficionado Sikich informed IFI of the seriousness of our potential crime and the potential penalties for our potential lawbreaking:

Your organization’s use and posting of illustrations from This Day in June without our Client’s permission and without attribution to our Client or the book’s illustrator, Kristyna Litten, violates our Client’s exclusive rights in its work, including the right to control the publication, reproduction and distribution of the illustrations within the work. These actions subject your organization to copyright infringement liability under the U.S. Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § I 06, entitling our Client to injunctive relief as well as statutory damages in an amount up to $150,000 if your organization is found to have willfully infringed the protectable rights in the illustrations. [emphasis added]

Clearly, Aficionado Sikich and the “Client” are miffed that the “Client” and illustrator were not given their due attribution. Well, Sikich’s command is my command, which I with subservience and alacrity hereby fulfill: The talented illustrator of Gayle E. Pitman’s rhetorically banal and offensive picture book This Day in June, which is published by the American Psychological Association’s Magination Press, is Kristyna Litten.

Oddly, Aficionado Sikich never mentioned the Fair Use Law which is used to determine whether copyright infringement has taken place:

Under the doctrine of “fair use,” the law allows the use of portions of copyrighted work without permission from the owner…. [T]he fair use of copyrighted material without permission is allowed when used for the following purposes: criticism; comment; news reporting; teaching.

What a coinkydink! Those were IFI’s–a non-profit organization–exact purposes. I just bet that impish Sikich knew that.

(Why, oh, why couldn’t he be a Harry Potter aficionado, so I could say “that impish Quidditch-pitchin’ Sikich”?)

Even odder was this remark from Sikich:

That your organization has used this work to support an anti-tolerance, anti-gay rights agenda makes the unauthorized and unattributed use all the more troubling.

How does IFI’s disagreement with Leftist assumptions about the nature and morality of homosexuality and the “trans” ideology or our views on what constitutes age-appropriate material for young children make our potential copyright infringement “all the more troubling”? How is Sikich’s angst about IFI’s moral views legally relevant?

Aficionado Sikich conveniently casts our views as “anti-tolerance, anti-gay rights.” How does Sikich or the “Client” define “tolerance”? Is Sikich or the APA (or the American Library Association for that matter) “tolerant” of conservative views on the nature and morality of volitional homosexual activity or the “trans” ideology? If so, how does their tolerance manifest? What specifically are the “gay rights” to which Sikich or the “Client” refers?

And this brings me to the most remarkable part of Aficionado Sikich’s letter: In it I learned that Magination Press is the children’s publishing arm of the American Psychological Association.

Wowzer!

To remind IFI readers, Magination Press is the publishing company that published This Day in June as well as conducted an interview in which Pitman was asked what her book is “really about.” She said this:

I LOVE this question! This Day in June is really about being who you are, and not apologizing for it. When I wrote this story, I wanted Pride to be featured as realistically as possible. I wanted to see drag queens, guys in leather, rainbows, political signs, the Dykes on Bikes —everything you would see at Pride. I didn’t want any of it to be watered-down or sugarcoated. Lots of people have asked me, “Do you think that’s appropriate for children?” And my answer always is—YES. There’s something very powerful about allowing something to be portrayed authentically, because it teaches children in an indirect way to be as authentic as they can. It’s also important to recognize that children respond to Pride very differently than adults do. When adults see people wearing leather, they make certain associations to that. Children see people wearing leather and think they’re just wearing a costume, or playing dress-up. What I love most about This Day in June is that the illustrations are age-appropriate AND authentic at the same time.

With Pitman’s fervent belief in the power of “authenticity” and her absolute opposition to “watered-down or sugarcoated” illustrations, why are all the illustrations actually watered-down, sugarcoated, and whitewashed images of the inappropriate things children really see at “pride” parades? And why aren’t there any cartoon-y pictures of topless women, bare-bottomed men playing dress-up in chaps and mouth gags, or men engaged in simulated sex acts? What are her criteria or the “Client’s” criteria for determining age-appropriateness?

Isn’t it even a wee bit troubling to the APA that this picture book exposes children to watered-down images of people wearing leather without understanding the perverse “kink” culture with which it is associated? Doesn’t this constitute a form ideological grooming? In other words, through these illustrations, aren’t Pitman, Litten, and the APA normalizing homosexuality, the “trans”-ideology, and “kink” long before children are able to understand the authentic reality and critically examine the assumptions embedded in the watered-down, sugar-coated, inauthentic illustrations?

Imagine if a children’s author were to offer this rationalization for including sugar-coated illustrations of a KKK rally: “When adults see people in white robes and pointy hats, they make certain associations, but when children see people wearing them, they think they’re just wearing a costume or playing dress-up.”

The moral of this creepy tale is that the APA, the “most prestigious publisher [or is it most litigious publisher?] in the field of psychology, mental health and development,” cannot be trusted with children. The “Client”—foolish and cruel step-sibling of Big Brother—demonstrates a malformed understanding of child development, a grotesque view of age-appropriateness, and no sense of sexual morality.

Listen to Laurie read this article in this podcast:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/The-Creepy-Tale-of-a-D.C.-Law-Firm-the-APA-and-IFI.mp3

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