On Tuesday afternoon, radio host Mark Elfstrand interviewed IFI’s Laurie Higgins about her recent article addressing the Black Lives Matter movement and the foolish and false statement made by Chicago Urban League president Shari Runner on the “root cause” of gang-on-gang and black-on-black violence.

Mark and Laurie also discussed her article about Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s decision to join other liberal states in filing an amicus brief in a federal district court in Texas in support of mandatory coed restrooms and locker rooms in all public schools.

Additionally, Mark asked Laurie about IFI’s letter of warning written by attorney Jason Craddock that was sent to Illinois State Board of Education Superintendent Dr. Tony Smith and Board Chairman Rev. James Meeks in June.  In this letter, we warned them of anticipated lawsuits (which could cost our school districts millions) and asked them to prohibit school administrators from implementing a policy that would permit gender-dysphoric students to use opposite-sex restrooms and/or locker rooms.

We also have an important call-to-action for this issue:

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send  Superintendent Smith and Board Chairman Meeks an email or a fax to let them know that you are resolutely against any policy that would have male and female students sharing restrooms or locker rooms.

You can also call Dr. Smith’s office at (312) 814-2220 and/or Rev. Meeks’ office at (217) 557-6626 to leave a message of concern.

To listen to this 10-minute interview, please click the link HERE or the graphic below:

IFI Faith, Family & Freedom Banquet

We are excited to have as our keynote speaker this year, former Congresswoman and Tea Party Caucus Leader, Michele Bachman!

Please register today, before the early bird special expires…

In an astonishing act of hubris, abrogation of local control over education, and obsequiousness to Barack Obama, Obama-handmaiden Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has filed a “friend of the court” brief” (i.e., an amicus curiae brief) begging for Illinois to be subject to Obama’s illegal command that public schools allow boys in girls’ restrooms and locker rooms and vice versa.

Following the “guidance” from Obama’s Department of Education via the Office for Civil Rights to integrate sexually all restrooms and locker rooms in government schools, eleven states led by Texas filed a lawsuit in late May requesting that an injunction be issued to stop the implementation of Obama’s “guidance.” This lawsuit includes a 1975 quote from current U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who said that “‘[s]eparate places to disrobe, sleep, perform personal bodily functions are permitted, in some situations required, by regard for individual privacy.’”

Then leftist attorneys general stepped in on behalf of not only their own states but all 50 states to insist on having the federal government rob citizens in every state of their right to decide if they want their local schools to have coed, sex-integrated restrooms and showers for children and teens.

The brief Madigan signed describes concerns of those states opposed to Obama’s diktat as “speculative and inaccurate claims of harm,” adding that “respecting the civil rights of transgender individuals will cause Plaintiffs no harm. Their allegations of safety risks are unsupported hyperbole.”

The sex of humans cannot change. Boys who wish they were girls remain unalterably boys no matter what chemical, surgical, or sartorial changes they make. And boys have no “civil right” to invade the private spaces of girls.

The suggestion by Madigan et al. that claims of harm are “speculative and inaccurate” requires a definition of “harm.” If “harm” is defined solely as physical assault, the risk is low and posed primarily by boys pretending to be girls. But certainly when boys have easy access to girls’ private facilities the risk is not nil.

Under the Obama diktat, all that’s required for a boy to use girls’ private facilities is his claim to be “transgender.” No parental confirmation needed. No medical diagnosis required. No treatment of any kind required. All that’s required is for a boy to claim that he is “trans” or “bi-gendered” or “gender-fluid,” which I guess means he can float fluidly between those binarily fixed facilities until such time as leftists complete their revolution to destroy all public recognition and accommodation of sex differences. On that day, all restrooms, locker rooms, shelters, and hospital rooms will be coed—and not just for those who reject their sex.

Moreover, not even a “medical” diagnosis of “gender dysphoria,” surgical mutilation, and cross-sex hormone doping can turn a boy into a girl or vice versa. And none of these alchemical protocols justify allowing objectively male or female students into opposite-sex facilities.

But harm is not limited merely to physical assault. Included in the concept of “harm” is the violation of modesty and privacy that takes place when unrelated persons of the opposite sex intrude into restrooms and locker rooms. It is likely that Orthodox Jews, Muslims, theologically orthodox Christians, and even some secularists would find these experiences harmful. For those who know that biological sex per se has profound meaning and is the source of feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy, seeing unrelated persons of the opposite sex partially or fully unclothed as well as being seen partially or fully unclothed by unrelated persons of the opposite sex constitutes harm.

Though it’s incomprehensible to morally deadened leftists, many—perhaps most—men and women prefer not to urinate or defecate in stalls with unrelated persons of the opposite sex doing the same in the stall next to them. These feelings of modesty derived from sex differences are the very reason we have separate restrooms in the first place. What possible difference should it make to girls if the boy in the stall next to them wishes he were a girl or not? Being forced to do their business with unrelated persons of the opposite sex in the neighboring stall also constitutes harm.

Madigan et al. are justifiably concerned about the safety of cross-dressing boys using sex-appropriate restrooms. Now that parents and administrators allow boys to wear lipstick, dresses, and Victoria Secret lingerie with their penises taped down to school, they have put these boys at risk in boys’ locker rooms and restrooms. But the solution to the problem leftist created must not include allowing these boys into girls’ restrooms or locker rooms, or to room with girls on overnight school-sponsored functions as Obama’s diktat requires.

The only reasonable accommodation of such tragically disordered thinking (or egregious rebellion) is single-occupancy facilities. If boys who wish they were girls have the purported right to use facilities with only girls, then surely girls have that right.

The federal government—largely controlled by liberals—has been gobbling up vast swaths of American cultural life, including the education of our children. In so doing, leftists are imposing their subjective and arguable assumptions about, among other things, sexuality on other people’s children as well as violating the 10th Amendment which makes clear that public education is the purview of states—not the federal government:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Liberals make the specious argument that federal intrusion with regard to sex-integrated restrooms and locker rooms is warranted just as it was warranted with regard to racial integration of schools. But that comparison is based on the absurd comparison of the behaviorally neutral condition of race to the disordered subjective desire to be the opposite sex accompanied by futile behavioral choices in the service of pretending to be the opposite sex. For an analogy to be sound, there must be points of correspondence between the analogues. What precisely are the points of correspondence between race and sex-rejection?

In order to impose his radical sexual revolution on our nation’s children, Obama—master violator of the Constitution and the separation of powers—is attempting to unilaterally and illegally change the definition of the word “sex” in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include the rhetorical contrivance “gender identity” (i.e., subjective feelings about one’s sex). And apparatchik Lisa Madigan is helping.

Parents, notify your school administrators and your children’s teachers that under no circumstances may your child or teen use restrooms or locker rooms with persons of the opposite sex, and under no circumstance is your child or teen to be required to use opposite-sex pronouns when referring to any student, staff, or faculty member.

At the DNC Convention, Michelle Obama made this presumptuous statement:

[T]his election and every election is about who will have the power to shape our children for the next four or eight years of their lives.

Her husband’s non-legal attempt to do just that—to exploit his power to shape the lives of other people’s children—is no more evident than in his command to every government school to allow boys in girls’ locker rooms and restrooms and vice versa. His order, delivered via the Department of Education’s Office for (un)Civil Rights, commands schools to allow students who reject their sex to use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms and to do so based on nothing more than their claim that they feel like the opposite sex—or both sexes.

In order to attempt to undergird this diktat with a patina of legal authority, the Office for (un)Civil Rights falsely claims that when Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination based on “sex,” the word “sex” includes “gender identity.” If this redefinition of the word “sex” by unelected government bureaucrats prevails, schools will be prohibited from discriminating based on either sex or “gender identity” (i.e., subjective feelings about one’s objective, immutable sex) in even school facilities in which intimate, personal activities take place.

So, what will this mean? It means that eventually all restrooms, locker rooms, and showers will be co-ed. There will remain no way for schools to prevent non-“trans” students (i.e., normal students) from using opposite-sex locker rooms or showers. Schools will not be able to prohibit boys who accept their sex (i.e., normal boys) from using girls’ locker rooms based on the fact that they are objectively male because schools will have already have allowed other objectively male persons in girls’ locker rooms. And schools will not be able to prohibit normal boys (aka “cisgender” boys) from using girls’ locker rooms, showers, or restrooms because they are not “trans,” because that would constitute discrimination based on “gender identity.” The end game is the obliteration of all public recognition and accommodation of sex differences even in private areas.

If Obama’s pernicious goal is realized, people of faith will no longer be able to justify keeping their children in public schools. Parents cannot ethically place their children under the tutelage of teachers, administrators, and school board members so foolish that they don’t understand the meaning of biological sex and who will not protect the physical privacy of children and teens.

In the service of preventing this abuse of power and the destruction of respect for sex differences in our taxpayer-funded schools, IFI has sent this letter of warning, written by attorney Jason Craddock, to the Illinois State Board of Education Superintendent Dr. Tony Smith and Board Chairman Rev. James Meeks.

(Click to enlarge)

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send  Superintendent Smith and Board Chairman Meeks an email or fax asking them to please prohibit school administrators from implementing a policy that would permit gender-dysphoric students to use opposite-sex restrooms and/or locker rooms.

Let these school officials know that under no circumstance will your child be permitted to share a restroom or locker room with students of the opposite sex. Let them know that as a taxpayer, you are concerned about the modesty, privacy, and safety of students and about the liability of school districts for failing to protect students.

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When Target announced its transgender-friendly restroom and fitting room policy in April, the American Family Association (AFA) almost immediately called for a boycott. (You can sign the petition here.) What alarmed us in particular was Target’s eagerness to allow grown men into dressing rooms that historically had been reserved for the exclusive use of the fairer sex.

While Target emphasized that its policy was just about transgenders, we immediately saw citizen videos in which grown men who were making no pretense to be women asked Target personnel if they were free to use whatever restroom or dressing room they chose, and they were enthusiastically told that of course they could.

This represented – and still does today since Target has not changed course – a dangerous loophole. Target is allowing any male to use a women’s dressing room if he simply self-identifies as a female, and even if he doesn’t. He is not required to show any evidence of his femaleness, whether with a driver’s license, a note from his doctor, or even his attire. His word is his bond. If he says he’s a woman trapped in a man’s body, Target will simply take his word for it, regardless of how obviously ridiculous the claim may be.

This is exceedingly irresponsible, as it exposes our wives, daughters, and granddaughters to invasion of privacy at a minimum and to sexual assault at the worst. Video voyeurism, we predicted, would increase, for the simple reason that any man can go into any dressing room or restroom he wishes without being challenged or even questioned by Target employees. Once he’s in, he’s in, and if he does something indecent while he’s in there, too bad. Thanks to Target, it’ll be too late for the victim. He might even wind up getting arrested, but the damage will have already been done.

At the time, we were told ad nauseam that we had nothing to fear from those who claim to be transgendered because no transgenders had ever abused their privileged access to little girls’ rooms. Well, that ruse has now been blown to bits.

Here is a case in point, which perfectly illustrates why the Target boycott must continue until Target management gets its collective mind right. In my home state of Idaho, police arrested a 46-year-old man who claims to be a transgender woman. His crime? Filming an 18-year girl as she tried on swimwear in a Target dressing room. His legal name is Sean Smith, even though he claims to be going by the name Shauna Smith. He used an iPhone to film the victim from an adjacent booth, simply by sticking the phone over the top of the divider.

Smith was attired in a dress and a blonde wig, either as an expression of his own sexual confusion or as a clumsy disguise to avert suspicion. But his mugshot makes it clear that he’s a male regardless of what he thinks he is.

During questioning by Bonneville County detectives, Smith admitted that he has done this thing repeatedly in the past. One investigator wrote, “[Smith] eventually admitted to me that she [sic] had made videos in the past of women undressing. The defendant told (the detective) that she [sic] makes these videos for the ‘same reason men go online to look at pornography.’”

We’re not told why he picked a Target store, but unchallenged and unquestioned access to intimate settings would have made it irresistibly tempting. Misguided corporate leadership has turned Target into a virtual chain of do-it-yourself porn sets and peep shows for would-be video voyeurs and pedophiles.

Target will soon be releasing its second quarter financial statement, and the news will not be good. Shareholders have every reason to be restive about management risking their investment on a doomed-to-fail social experiment.

Perhaps shareholders can get the attention of Target’s CEO, since, at this point, he seems impervious to the voices of alarmed American families who are taking their shopping dollars to friendlier climes.

Bottom line: Target either needs to get a new dressing room policy or a new CEO. And the sooner the better.

This article was originally posted at AFA’s blog.

Written by Carl R. Trueman

Last week, Chad Vegas, a good friend of mine and the Reformed Baptist pastor in Bakersfield, California emailed me as follows:

As you know, CA has mandated this [school transgender policy] for the whole state. I have served on the largest high school board in CA, and the nation, for 12 years. I basically lead that board. Our board voted to adopt the new law into policy. I voted against it. I was breaking the law for doing so. I could be personally sued and our attorney tells me the board insurance won’t cover me because I am breaking the law and I am a bigot. Anyway, I announced I would not seek reelection. The community came unhinged when I announced that. I remain the most popularly elected official in the history of our school board. Thousands of parents filled our board room in protest of the law. Thousands are pleading with me to reconsider and keep fighting. My elders are still considering what to have me do…. [T]he board and administration, and even some leaders in the liberal teacher’s union, are asking me to reconsider.

On Thursday, he announced that he would not seek re-election in a letter to his congregation.

There you have it: A popular, longstanding, and effective member of a school board has had to stand down—not because he does not enjoy the confidence of the community, but simply because he does not accept the latest demands that every knee must bow to whatever the political taste of the moment has decided is non-negotiable.

It reminded me of my review of John Inazu’s new book on confident pluralism and his response. Essentially, I argued that confident pluralism depended upon a balance of cultural and political power. As that balance no longer existed, pluralism was effectively dead. John responded that I was too pessimistic and that my own tone in my review was not entirely conducive to promoting pluralism.

Well, the fate of Chad Vegas in Bakersfield is a great example of precisely my point. He is a popular member of the schoolboard, perhaps the most popular. Even his liberal opponents acknowledge that and want him to stay. But he cannot. He has already broken the law by voting his conscience. He could be sued for that. And how many of those who want him to stay would be willing to stand shoulder to shoulder during a long, exhausting and punitively expensive legal action?

This cultural moment has been taking shape for some time. A few years ago my oldest son was running track for an Ivy League school. One of the team came out as a lesbian and it was decided that all athletes should wear a rainbow armband in support. My son did not want to comply but also did not wish to cause unnecessary offense to his friends and so he called me and asked what argument he should make against the idea. I told him to say that, as one of America’s greatest virtues was its freedom, he should tell his teammates that he absolutely respected their right to wear the armband in solidarity with their friend. They were free to do so and he rejoiced to live in a nation where they could do so. But by the same token, they should respect his right not to wear the armband in accordance with his personal religious convictions. That’s a good argument, I said, and I told him he should make it modestly and politely and then simply not wear the band without drawing any great attention to his act. But I also advised him that it would not be greeted with approval because the issue was not really about the freedom to be tolerant and diverse, whatever the rhetoric. It was about the intolerant political demand that all should be the same. Sure enough, he was decried as a bigot and homophobe.

Thus it is in modern America. To repeat myself: Confident pluralism assumes either a balance of power or a basic common decency between the various sides in any of the cultural debates. The balance and the decency no longer exist. Nor does it matter that there might be a democratic majority supporting the dissenter in whatever public-square conflict occurs. Power is not a function of numbers any more, if it ever was. It is a function of organization and of having one’s hands on the levers of cultural and legal power. Expect no quarter in the conflicts that are already upon us, however many of your neighbors may initially express sympathy with you.

The long Gramscian march of the activist bien pensants through the institutions is reaching its conclusion. It really is. And it is time to face that fact and abandon the myth that the world is run by people who respect difference and diversity, and that all we need to do is behave decently in order to win their respect and earn their favor. They do not think that way. They will never think that way. And they will crush those who do. By any means necessary.

Carl R. Trueman is Paul Woolley Professor of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary.

This article was originally posted at FirstThings.com

“War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.”

This was the slogan of George Orwell’s fictional English Socialist Party (INGSOC) of Oceania, from his timeless dystopian novel “1984.”

Orwell depicted a mind-control technique employed by INGSOC called “doublethink,” which “describes the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts.”

If the malleable masses could be made to believe self-contradictory, patently absurd and empirically impossible concepts as true, went Orwell’s thesis, they could then be made to believe, or do, anything.

We have entered an age that George Orwell might never have imagined. Today’s “American Socialist Party” (the secular left) has applied the doublethink mind-control technique on a grand scale.

Its slogan?

“Male is Female; Female is Male; Evil is good.”

Indeed, not only do secular leftists like Barack Obama stubbornly maintain that objective morality be treated as relative – that evil is good and good evil; they now demand that the immutable laws of physics and biology be similarly repealed.

There are things true and things untrue. It is true, for instance, that water is composed of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen (H20). No amount of wishful thinking, angry foot-stomping, or even a tyrannical presidential edict issued to America’s public school chemistry classes can change this unchangeable reality.

It is likewise true that a person born with XX chromosomes is, and shall always be, female, while a person born with distinct X and Y chromosomes is forever male. Again, no amount of self-delusion, gnashing of teeth, cross-dressing, genital mutilation surgery, or utterly bizarre presidential doublethink dictates can alter this unalterable fact.

While we would call a person who subjectively insists that water is comprised of pure hydrogen either ignorant or insane, we incongruously call the person who similarly insists that a man can somehow “transition” to a woman, “progressive.”

Even so, it is neither ignorance nor insanity that drives the progressive goal of a creating a “genderless” society. It is something far more sinister.

It is temporal control.

And it is spiritual defiance.

Progressive efforts to “legalize” genderless “marriage” by way of extra-constitutional judicial fiat do not make it legitimate marriage any more than “legalizing” abortion makes it not murder. Likewise, calling a sexually confused man a “trans-woman” makes him no more a woman than cutting the stem off a banana makes it a cantaloupe.

Yet, this “Emperor’s New Clothes” agenda moves ahead at breakneck speed. The necks to be broken, of course, are possessed by those who embrace the biblical sexual ethic and the morality of modesty.

There are multiple layers within progressivism’s pseudo-utopian, truly dystopian philosophy. The left’s lust for redistributionist statism is well-known. Less understood is the progressive rush toward cultural Marxism. With the fast-burgeoning and well-organized push to open girls’ bathrooms and showers to sexually confused men, the menace of cultural Marxism has reached unprecedented levels.

Cultural Marxism entails, among other things, that secularist aspect of left-wing statist ideology that seeks, within society, to supplant traditional values, norms and mores with postmodern moral relativism. It endeavors to destroy innocence, sexualize children, desensitize them to sexual perversion of every stripe and, quite literally, expose as many young girls as possible to adult male genitalia.

Cultural Marxists aim to scrub America of her Judeo-Christian, constitutional-republican founding principles and take, instead, a secular-statist Sharpie to our beloved U.S. Constitution.

Historian and U.S. military affairs expert William S. Lind describes cultural Marxism as:

“a branch of Western Marxism, different from the Marxism-Leninism of the old Soviet Union. It is commonly known as ‘multiculturalism’ or, less formally, Political Correctness. From its beginning, the promoters of cultural Marxism have known they could be more effective if they concealed the Marxist nature of their work, hence the use of terms such as ‘multiculturalism.’”

Pastor, attorney and former Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Scott Lively is globally admired by liberty-loving traditionalists. Conversely, he’s universally reviled by cultural Marxists. He drills down a bit deeper:

“Cultural Marxism is a variation of the Marxist strategy to build a utopian socialist order on the ashes of Christian civilization, but through subversion of the moral culture, especially the elimination of the natural family, rather than solely through destruction of capitalism.”

True though this may be, the ideological seeds of contemporary cultural Marxism nonetheless sprout from deep within the dead soil of historical communism. It is not economic redistributionism alone through which progressives seek to both “fundamentally transform America” and otherwise conquer the world, but rather, and perhaps primarily, it is through victory over the pejoratively tagged “social issues” (i.e., sin-centric “gay marriage,” “gender identity” and “neutrality,” perverting human sexuality, morality and the natural family structure, child sacrifice via abortion on demand, abolishing religious liberty and so on).

Regrettably, today’s “low-information voters,” as Rush Limbaugh calls them – to include the useful idiots within the GOP’s “moderate” and libertarian wings – are simply too lazy, shortsighted or both to learn the facts. “Surrender on the ‘social issues’!” demands the GOP’s cultural Marxist-enabling kamikazes.

Still, as the American Family Association’s tremendously successful boycott of Target, which has cost that gender-bending company billions of dollars and millions of customers, coupled with the dozen or more states that have rejected Obama’s open bathrooms and showers edict reveals: We Americans who happen to be tethered to scientific and moral reality will never, ever surrender.

In the temporal realm, secular leftists’ chaotic crusade to destroy marriage, the family and create a “Brave New World” of despotic androgyny is a revolt designed to bring down Western civilization – an oppressive patriarchy, as they view it, which stems from the archaic precepts of Judeo-Christian morality.

In the spiritual realm, the gender agenda represents fist-shaking rebellion against the very Creator who, “at the beginning … ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’” (see Matthew 19:4-5).

It remains to be seen how the temporal battle will play out.

The spiritual battle is a foregone conclusion.

Written by Kirk Smith

We’ve learned several things since President Barack Obama dictatorially demanded that public school restrooms now be co-ed or risk federal funding. The first thing we learned is that in spite of well-intending parents saying their school is “different from all the other schools,” we now know they will all be the same with regard to restroom and locker rooms practices. Follow the money to D.C.

Second, regardless of how sincere Christian teachers are in their desire to bring Christ into the classroom, they are spiritual eunuchs, who were long ago emasculated and their message muted.  To give true testimony of Christ in their classroom is to suffer termination, a risk that is too great for most to take.

Third, local school boards are powerless as Washington D.C. controls every facet of education down to dictating bathroom policy.

Finally, Christian parents are in a showdown with the state with regard to whose will is absolute in the raising of their children, as they seek to answer, “How important is eternity for our children?”

One upset public school parent recently declared, “Obama’s mandate won’t stand!” Of course, this is the same sentiment embodies in an earlier claim that Christianity could not be taken out of the classroom, Obama could not get re-elected, and Mrs. Clinton had no real chance at the White House.  And here we are. Naïveté is a luxury we can no longer afford. The price is way too high.

The Scriptures make it undeniably plain: “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40). Statistics bear out this truth as the church is losing between 64% – 88% of her professing youth after their first year in college. Others studies reveal that the compromise which leads to this departure begins as early as junior high.

Public school students receive around 15,000 hours of indoctrination in the religion of secular humanism, while Christian parents seek to counteract this avalanche with pizza parties at youth meetings and a thirty-minute weekly sermon. Our children are leaving the faith by the tens of thousands, and we can’t figure out why?

Sadder yet, many will go into eternity unprepared. How long can we Christians elicit the grace of God for our children while sending our children into a culture that we know is spiritually destructive?

How much spiritual carnage do we have to witness before we say, “Enough is enough. This is the last straw. There must be an alternative!”

Not only is there an alternative, it’s been proven to work experientially, statistically, and historically.  It’s called homeschooling.

While homeschooling is not a silver bullet, 94% of homeschooled children do keep the faith of their parents, and 93% stay active in their local church after graduation. These numbers alone should motivate parents to train their impressionable children at home in accordance with Deuteronomy 6.

While many parents feel overwhelmed at the magnitude of this task, there are innumerable resources to help, not the least of which is God.  Ignorance and feelings of inadequacy are no longer justifiable excuses, especially since a parent’s level of education has been found to be a non-factor in their children’s academic success.

I was a public school teacher as was my wife. When we started to homeschool twenty years ago, I shared that I was not anti-public schooling, just pro-homeschooling. That is no longer the case. I know far too much. The public school system is not broken. On the contrary, it is doing exactly what it was designed to do: indoctrinate the next generation into a socialist perspective of voluntary slavery. Consider what educational leader John Dewey wrote:

The moral responsibility of the school and of those who conduct it is to society. [A]part from participation in social life, the school has no moral end or aim. [In religious terminology] the moral trinity of the school [is] the demand for social intelligence, social power, and social interests.

Can the point be made any clearer than that?

I call on all parents who profess the name of Christ to reevaluate their decision to send their children to government schools. We will each stand before God Almighty and have to give an account for the stewardship of our children’s souls. What will we say on that day when we knowingly sent them into a system that rejects His name and teaches doctrines that are diametrically opposed to His Word?

For those of you who feel this tug but don’t know where to start, I want to personally invite you to attend the Illinois Christian Home Educators’ Annual Convention in Naperville, June 2-4. For the past 17 years, my wife and I have made the five-hour trip north in order to be encouraged, instructed, and equipped to raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. For more information and to register, go to www.iche.org and click on the convention icon.

Kirk and Joely Smith have been married since 1991. Kirk graduated from Greenville College, teaching and coaching for two years at the high school level before founding the House of Prayer church in Albion, IL, which he pastored for almost 25 years. Joely graduated from the University of Southern Indiana and taught first grade for two years before the birth of their first child after which she stayed home. 

The Smith family live in southeastern Illinois with their 11 children who range in age from toddler to young adult.  They are looking forward to building new relationships and spreading the home discipleship vision of ICHE to all corners of Illinois.

When Loretta Lynch succeeded Eric Holder as U.S. attorney general a year ago, some harbored the tiniest hope that she wouldn’t be quite as radical.

After all, Mr. Holder had done his best to gin up racial resentment, dismiss a clear case of voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party, attack voter photo ID laws, refuse to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, threaten a congressman trying to get to the truth of the Fast and Furious Mexican gun-running scandal, and ignore the Internal Revenue Service’s mob-like persecution of conservative groups.

Mr. Holder also managed to sidestep or slow down any action regarding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server, or the massive irregularities of the $2 billion Clinton Foundation, the golden cash cow of open graft by the Clintons and their cronies. Meanwhile, Mr. Holder staffed the Justice Department civil rights division with hard-core leftists, as amply documented in J. Christian Adams’ book “Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department.”

The partisan corruption under Mr. Holder was so patently obvious that his departure made some folks cautiously optimistic that Ms. Lynch would put “justice” back into the Justice Department.

No such luck. She’s not only buried that hope but driven a monster truck over it.

In February, for example, Ms. Lynch’s Justice Department sided with radical groups that sued to overturn requirements for proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia and Kansas. The DOJ attorneys’ conduct was so outrageous that it drew a rebuke from a federal judge.

Last Tuesday, the Justice Department revealed that it won’t seek the death penalty for terrorist suspect Abu Khattala if he’s convicted of orchestrating the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012 that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens.

This past week, Ms. Lynch outdid herself, proclaiming that forcing schools and cities to grant transgender males access to girls and women’s restrooms and locker rooms is right up there with the noble claims of the black civil rights movement. Seriously.

So, Ms. Lynch filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against North Carolina and its Republican governor, Pat McCrory. Their offense? Enacting and enforcing a “bathroom” law that requires people to use facilities that match their sex at birth. The state law came in response to the city of Charlotte’s wacky statute opening up all facilities based on feelings rather than objectively defined sex.

Immediately, many corporate America titans like PayPal, General Electric, Pepsi and Dow Chemical joined Hollywood leftist bullies, the NCAA, and even the National Basketball Association in threatening to boycott the state.

Citing the nation’s “founding ideals,” which now apparently include protecting the “right” of certain males to enter women’s restrooms, Ms. Lynch compared their plight to Jim Crow laws and school racial segregation. Anyone opposing the transgender agenda is by her definition a hater and a bigot.

In a spectacular case of reverse logic, she said, “None of us can stand by when a state is in the business of legislating identity and insists that a person pretend to be something they are not.”

Say what? Isn’t it the men who are pretending to be women and vice versa who are forcing the issue?

“If there is no more difference between men and women than there is between blacks and whites — as Ms. Lynch seems to think — then why not eliminate all single-sex restrooms, locker rooms and dressing rooms everywhere?” asks Illinois Family Institute writer Laurie Higgins, an astute critic of cultural trends. “Why not allow all men and all women to use the same restrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms, showers and shelters? After all, blacks and whites do.”

The answer, of course, is that unlike skin color, the differences between male and female, rooted firmly in biology, including DNA, brain and body structure, are profound and meaningful. The distinction between male and female is at the heart of marriage, family life, morality and social order.

For Ms. Lynch to suggest that anyone who recognizes these differences and understands the need for privacy and modesty based on sex is a hateful bigot reveals her own contempt for nature and nature’s God, upon which the legitimacy of our laws rest, as stated in the Declaration of Independence.

Fortunately, Gov. McCrory and the legislature are standing firm, with Mr. McCrory and Republican General Assembly leaders filing countersuits in federal court over Lynch’s “baseless and blatant overreach” and “radical reinterpretation” of the Civil Rights Act.

Pundits who dismiss all this as a silly distraction miss the point. This is about far more than bathroom access. Beneath the economic wars, the left is using this issue as a spear point to test how far the average American can be pushed by government into relinquishing not only our God-given rights but our grasp of reality.

As the nation’s chief law enforcer, Loretta Lynch is putting the weight of the federal government against millions of Americans who just want to maintain some level of decency — and normalcy. God help us.

This article originally published on WashingtonTimes.com.

The last two weeks have been, of all things, about bathrooms. First, the U.S. Department of Justice notified the state of the North Carolina that HB2, or the bathroom law, violated the Civil Rights Act. Now to be clear, HB2 requires people to use public bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to the sex listed on their birth certificate. Note the word “public.” The law allows businesses to determine their own bathroom policies. And, individuals who have undergone sex reassignment surgery can have their birth certificate changed to reflect their transition.

But according to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the common sense protections of HB2 is akin to Jim Crow laws. Sex specific restrooms are like segregated restrooms, water fountains, entrances, and lunch counters of the racially segregated south.

North Carolina responded to the DOJ’s threats to withhold federal funding by filing a lawsuit. And the DOJ responded by filing a lawsuit back of its own.

Then on Friday, lest we think North Carolina is an isolated case, Obama administration officials — specifically the assistant secretary of education for civil rights and the head of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department — directed schools, including “all public schools and most colleges and universities that receive federal funds,” to — as the Washington Post described it — “provide transgender students with access to suitable facilities — including bathrooms and locker rooms — that match their chosen gender identity.”

Schools that fail to comply with this edict from on high are, the officials announced, in violation of Title IX, the federal sexual anti-discrimination act, and would therefore — you guessed it — risk losing federal funding. Comply or you don’t get the money. It’s ideological extortion, not policy making. Please visit BreakPoint.org and we’ll link you to a legal analysis of this decree from our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom.

So how should Christians respond? We have to start by understanding the issues at stake. Did you catch all the references to civil rights in these stories? Transgender rights, like gay and lesbian rights before them, have been placed in the historical narrative of overcoming discrimination and bigotry. We aren’t dealing with just a policy issue; we’re dealing with a fundamental view of what it means to be human.

Also, many have long pushed to separate concepts of sex and gender. Sex is how you were born, they say, but gender was self-determined and therefore flexible. But in citing the Civil Rights Act, the administration is saying that the right of self-determination is sacred, akin to non-chosen traits such as ethnicity and race. And by citing Title IX the administration is going even a step further, saying that sex discrimination legislation now applies to gender. In other words, our biological sex should be considered as malleable as our conception of our genders.

Now if all of this sounds like a strange exercise in denying reality, well, it is. That’s the power of worldview. Like prescription glasses, worldviews will either clarify reality or distort reality. The ideas at work here are reality-denying.

Here’s an example of what I mean by reality-denying. Again quoting Attorney General Lynch, “None of us can stand by when a state enters the business of legislating identity and insists that a person pretend to be something or someone they are not.” Now in light of Friday’s edict, who exactly is legislating identity and insisting that persons — now school children across the nation — pretend to be something they’re not?!

You’ve heard us say on BreakPoint ideas have consequences, and they certainly do. But we must also say ideas have victims.

In this case, an edict advancing the sexual revolution will make victims by granting special rights to the few while trampling the rights of the rest. And those who resist will be victims of name-calling and public shaming. And precious, gender-confused children, taken deeper into their confusion, will be made victims of our illusions of moral progress.

This article was originally published on Breakpoint.org

In my eight years with IFI, I have had good experiences with journalists, including even leftist journalists. They have largely treated me graciously and chosen comments from our interviews that accurately represented IFI’s positions on issues. Last week, however, that streak came to a screeching halt. I had an experience that bore out the charges of bias leveled against the mainstream press.

After reading my article on the Chicago Public Schools new “guidelines” that permit gender-dysphoric students and teachers to use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms, Bettina Chang, a writer for Chicago Magazine, interviewed me for some twenty minutes on IFI’s views of the guidelines. When her article came out two days later, I was, to put it mildly, surprised.

The bias of Chang is evident not only in the space allotted to quotes from leftists but also in the particular quotes from our 20-minute interview she chose to include and in her remarkable defense of her bias.

Amount of space allotted to leftists vs. conservatives

Chang included quotes from representatives of four far-left, pro-“LGBT” organizations: The Center on Halsted, Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, Chicago Gender Society, and Howard Brown Health.

Chang included quotes from one conservative organization: Illinois Family Institute.

She used 33 words from The Center on Halsted, 101 words from the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, 86 words from the Chicago Gender Society, and 75 words from Howard Brown Health. She also paraphrased additional ideas from these organizations.

From our 20-minute interview, Chang used 8 words.

The 8 words she chose from our interview represented two points, one of which had nothing to do with the substance of the arguments against the use of opposite-sex restrooms by gender-dysphoric students, and the other misrepresented what I said.

Interview comments to Chang

To better understand the problems with her article and her defense of it, it’s important to know more about my initial answers to her questions.

I explained that IFI believes restrooms and locker rooms should correspond to students’ objective, immutable sex rather than their feelings about their sex because physical embodiment as male or female is profoundly meaningful and is the source of feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy.

I asked rhetorically why gender-dysphoric boys should be permitted to go to the bathroom, change clothes, or shower with only girls but girls should be denied that right.

I suggested that if curtains and stalls provide sufficient privacy to separate objectively male students from females, then there remains no reason to maintain any single-sex restrooms for any students.

I asked how the Left can be sure that if there is a mismatch between mind and body, the error rests with the body and not the mind.

Chang asked me to respond to the Leftist belief that prohibiting gender-dysphoric students from sharing restrooms with opposite-sex students is equivalent to prohibiting blacks from sharing restrooms with whites, which I did both in our initial conversation and an email that followed. Here was my response:

The only difference between blacks and whites is skin color, which is analogous to eye or hair color. So, would skin color (or eye or hair color) be relevant to restroom, locker room, shower, or shelter usage? Of course not. Even whites have diverse skin, eye, and hair colors. No one suggests that any of those color differences are relevant to feelings of modesty or the desire for privacy. So, any imposed separation was generated not by feelings of modesty or the desire for privacy. Rather, imposed separation of races in restrooms was motivated by racism.

Now with regard to sex, virtually everyone—including gender-dysphoric persons and homosexuals—acknowledge that men and women are substantively and significantly different. When homosexuals claim they are attracted only to persons of the same sex, they are implicitly and necessarily saying men and women are different, and those differences include bodily differences. When gender-dysphoric persons say they don’t want to use restrooms or locker rooms with persons of their same sex, they are saying there are fundamental and significant differences between men and women, and those differences include bodily differences. In fact, the intense desire to have an opposite-sex body is the central desire of virtually all gender-dysphoric persons. They are necessarily saying that their desire to use opposite-sex restrooms is based on those physical differences. They are demanding privacy based on sex differences while denying that privacy to others.

And if the demand for privacy based on objective sex differences is equivalent to racism, then why is the demand of gender-dysphoric persons for privacy based on sex differences not equivalent to racism? If separate restrooms for men and women are analogous to separate restrooms for blacks and whites, then are separate restrooms for gender-dysphoric males and non-gender-dysphoric males analogous to separate restrooms for blacks and whites as well? They are acknowledging sex differences and demanding to have those desires accommodated. So, why are sex differences meaningful only for those who have gender dysphoria but not for those who don’t?

So, from all those comments, here is what Chang wrote:

But acknowledgement remains an obstacle for conservative groups. Suburban-based Illinois Family Institute posted a blog this week decrying the CPS policy. The author, Laurie Higgins, says she does not believe the medical consensus that transgender people are mentally healthy, adding that “physical embodiment” of a sex should dictate bathroom use—though the group has no plans to petition CPS for changes to the policies because “that’s for community members to do,” she says.

That’s it.

While she got IFI’s position correct that we believe restroom use should correspond to physical embodiment as male or female, she conveniently omitted the reasons we believe that. She also omitted the points about the incoherence and inconsistency of the CPS guidelines that I raised through rhetorical questions. She did, however, manage to include six words about the unimportant point that IFI is not getting directly involved in efforts to overturn the CPS guidelines.

Chang’s defenses of her bias 

Even more interesting are Chang’s defenses of her imbalance.

First she told me “Sadly my editor has cut down the portion where I quoted you because he wanted me to focus on Chicago-only groups.”

Then she told me this stunner, which oddly has nothing to do with the location of IFI’s office:

[I]n writing the story, I could not ignore that your opinion is based on factual inaccuracies.

We address the question of balance by looking at accuracy as well as representation. It is your personal belief that transgender people are mentally ill, which is why you are against the policy. I think that’s important for our readers to know, and I included that in the article. I asked follow up questions to get a better view of how you came to that conclusion, but the reasoning you provided was too far outside the facts to responsibly report. [emphasis added]

Her rationalization of bias is remarkable for two reasons, the first of which is that I never said that “transgender people are mentally ill.”

Second, Chang is factually and absolutely incorrect when she claims that my opposition to gender-dysphoric persons using opposite-sex restrooms is based on my “personal belief that transgender people are “entally ill.” In point of fact, I told her specifically that IFI opposes gender-dysphoric persons in opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms because we believe objective, immutable physical embodiment as male or female is deeply and profoundly meaningful and is the source of the desire for privacy and feelings of modesty.

Here’s what I said when she went fishing for a statement from me about the mental health of gender-dysphoric persons: I asked how leftists can be sure that if there’s a mismatch between mind and body, the error rests in healthy, normally functioning bodies. And I said that the highly politicized mental health community is prescribing protocols that do not advance health.

What’s more remarkable still are the opinions of leftists that Chang evidently believes are based on factual accuracies and, therefore, suitable for print:

• From the Center on Halsted: “It’s a great day for gender-diverse students in CPS.” What is the “fact” on which this opinion is based? Gender-diverse students may have the opinion that it’s a great day, but what is the objective and accurate fact upon which that opinion is based? What is the objective factually accurate definition of “great”?

• From the Center on Halsted: “This is an affirmation of their viability as human beings.” What does this even mean? And what is the objective factual accuracy on which the opinion that affirmation of viability of gender-dysphoric persons as “human beings” requires allowing them in opposite-sex restrooms? What is the objective factual accuracy supporting the implicit opinion that people who oppose opposite-sex persons in their restrooms view gender-dysphoric persons as not viable human beings?

• From the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance: “Obviously it’s helpful when people have the support of their parents, but if it’s not possible, it’s great that a student can still be who they are in school.” What is the objective factual accuracy on which the opinion that it’s “great” that a student can pretend he or she is the opposite sex at school? What is the objective factual accuracy on which the opinion that parental support requires affirmation of the desire to be the opposite sex is based?

• From the Chicago Gender Society: “You’re not born with hate. You have to be taught hate. Like we’ve seen in North Carolina and Mississippi in recent months.” What is the objective factual accuracy on which the opinion that people who oppose opposite-sex persons in restrooms hate them?

• From Harold Brown Health: “So for kids to have the option to be in a safe environment…it’s a new day. A clean slate.” What is the objective factual accuracy on which the opinion that allowing gender-dysphoric girls in boys restrooms and locker rooms enhances school “safety.” What is the objective factual accuracy on which the opinion that allowing gender-dysphoric students to use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms creates a “clean slate”?

Apparently, leftists believe that opinions must be based on “factual accuracies” as defined by them. Hint: These factual accuracies are actually assumptions with which leftists agree.

So much for fair and balanced reporting and intellectual diversity.

There was good news from North Carolina Monday morning, when Governor Pat McCory announced North Carolina would be suing the Department of Justice (DOJ). That news was followed by bad news from the Department of Justice, announced in a stunning statement from Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who compares those who believe that restrooms should correspond to sex to racists who supported separate restrooms, restaurants, drinking fountains, schools, libraries, and parks for blacks and whites.

Here is an excerpt from the ignorant, bigoted, and demagogic statement from Lynch:

Today, we are filing a federal civil rights lawsuit against the state of North Carolina, Governor Pat McCrory, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety and the University of North Carolina….

This action is about….the dignity and respect we accord our fellow citizens and the laws that we… have enacted to protect them–indeed, to protect all of us. And it’s about the founding ideals that have led this country–haltingly but inexorably–in the direction of fairness, inclusion and equality for all Americans.

This is not the first time that we have seen discriminatory responses to historic moments of progress for our nation. We saw it in the Jim Crow laws that followed the Emancipation Proclamation. We saw it in fierce and widespread resistance to Brown v. Board of Education…. Some of these responses reflect a recognizably human fear of the unknown, and a discomfort with the uncertainty of change….This is a time to summon our national virtues of inclusivity, diversity, compassion and open-mindedness. What we must not do–what we must never do–is turn on our neighbors, our family members, our fellow Americans, for something they cannot control, and deny what makes them human. This is why none of us can stand by when a state enters the business of legislating identity and insists that a person pretend to be something they are not, or invents a problem that doesn’t exist as a pretext for discrimination and harassment.

…This law provides no benefit to society–all it does is harm innocent Americans.

Instead of turning away from our neighbors, our friends, our colleagues, let us instead learn from our history….[S]tate-sanctioned discrimination never looks good in hindsight. It was not so very long ago that states, including North Carolina, had signs above restrooms, water fountains and on public accommodations keeping people out based upon a distinction without a difference….Let us not act out of fear and misunderstanding….

Let me also speak directly to the transgender community itself. Some of you have lived freely for decades. Others of you are still wondering how you can possibly live the lives you were born to lead….[T]he Department of Justice and the entire Obama Administration wants you to know that ….history is on your side.

Just a few thoughts about her remarkable piece of sloppy and insulting thinking:

• Lynch’s pernicious comparison of Americans who believe that objective, immutable sex matters and is the source of feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy to hateful, ignorant bigots is both morally indefensible and intellectually vacuous.

• Neither inclusivity, fairness, equality, diversity, compassion, open-mindedness, dignity, nor respect requires humans to ignore the objective, immutable sex of others. None of these qualities requires humans to treat objective, immutable sex as if it has no meaning. None of these requires women to share restrooms, changing areas, or showers with persons of the opposite sex. None of these requires Americans to make restrooms, changing areas, and locker rooms co-ed. None of these requires Americans to accept the view that restrooms should correspond to the feelings of people about their sex rather than their sex.

• Equality demands that we treat like things alike. It does not require us to treat unlike things as if they are alike. Men and women are substantively different as even gender-dysphoric persons and homosexuals acknowledge.

• Lynch urges Americans not to “turn” on friends, neighbors, and colleagues for “something they cannot control.” In her view, requiring restrooms to correspond to objective sex constitutes “turning” on gender-dysphoric persons. Does Lynch apply that odd principle consistently? Does she believe that a compassionate society must accommodate all behaviors impelled by powerful, persistent, unchosen, and seemingly intractable feelings, including those feelings that deny objective reality? Being loving and welcoming does not require women to share restrooms with objectively male neighbors, friends, and colleagues or vice versa. In fact, a case can be made that it is profoundly unloving to facilitate a desire to be the opposite sex.

• Lynch asserts that not allowing men in women’s restrooms is tantamount to denying “what makes them human.” Her claim is based on an arguable assumption about what makes a person human, which seems to stand far outside her professional bailiwick. Many would argue that physical embodiment as male or female is central to humanness—indeed, more central than feelings about physical embodiment.

• Lynch rightly states that separate facilities for blacks and whites were based on a “distinction without a difference,” implying that the difference between men and women is similarly insubstantial. This statement reveals a profound ignorance. Blacks and whites are distinct by virtue of their skin color, which is, indeed, a distinction without a difference. But men and women are substantively and significantly different. They’re so different, in fact, that gender-dysphoric men insist that they must use restrooms, changing areas, and showers with women only. If the difference between men and women constitutes a “distinction without a difference”—like the difference between blacks and whites—then why must gender-dysphoric men share private facilities with women only? Surely the differences between objectively male persons and objectively female persons are more significant than the differences between objectively male persons and objectively male persons who experience gender dysphoria.

  If there is no more difference between men and women than there is between blacks and whites—as Lynch seems to think—then why not eliminate all single-sex restrooms, locker rooms, and dressing rooms everywhere? Why not allow all men and all women to use the same restrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms, showers, and shelters? After all, blacks and whites do.

• Since Lynch suggests that the unwillingness of women to share restrooms with gender-dysphoric men is evidence of fear, disrespect, misunderstanding, closemindedness, unfairness, lack of compassion, unjust regressive discrimination, and the denial of equality, how would she characterize the unwillingness of gender-dysphoric men to share restrooms with non-gender-dysphoric men?

• How can Lynch possibly know that those who experience gender dysphoria were “born” to lead lives pretending to be the opposite sex? How can she possibly know with certainty that when there’s mismatch between one’s objective sex and one’s feelings about his sex that the error rests with his healthy, normally functioning body?

• America’s founding ideals did not include a commitment to deny objective ontological distinctions that have profound meaning.

North Carolinians and Americans everywhere better not treat this issue like they have treated every other incremental advance of a sexual ideology corrosive to truth and thus to human flourishing. They better be prepared to fight this with every fiber of their objectively male and female beings.

The federal government through its highly partisan Department of Justice (DOJ) is attempting to make law—again—by attacking North Carolina’s so-called “bathroom bill.” Last Wednesday, the DOJ sent a letter to NC governor Pat McCrory demanding that he rescind the law within three working days or face legal action and loss of federal funds.

The DOJ letter erroneously states that the NC law violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination based on sex. In its infinite ignorance and hubris, the DOJ, has proclaimed that the word “sex” includes “gender identity.”

By attacking North Carolina’s law that requires restrooms in government buildings, state colleges and universities, and highway rest stops to correspond to sex and which does not apply to any private sector entity, the DOJ seeks to make law for the entire country.

This is the same stratagem the Department of Education (ED) is using to blackmail public schools into allowing gender-dysphoric students into opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms. While the DOJ is using the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the ED is using Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Both departments—neither of which have law-making authority—have unilaterally redefined the word “sex” in such a way as to make law.

If successful, the DOJ’s effort will be even more profound and destructive because of the scope of the applicability of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Whereas Title IX applies only to schools, Title VII applies to every business in the private sector with over 14 employees; every government entity; and every religious organization, including private elementary, middle, and high schools, private colleges, and churches.

Religious organizations and churches are exempt from Title VII only with regard to the prohibition of religious discrimination and only in hiring practices. Churches, synagogues, and mosques and religious organizations may discriminate based on religion in hiring. In other words, churches, synagogues, and mosques may not be forced to hire persons of other faiths. But how would this redefinition of “sex” in Title VII affect restroom or locker room usage in religious organizations or businesses owned by Christians like Hobby Lobby?

Would the redefinition of the word “sex” to include “gender identity” and “gender expression” require religious organizations, colleges, and churches to allow gender-dysphoric persons to use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms? Would this fanciful reinterpretation of Title VII require that a gender-dysphoric father visiting his daughter at a Christian college or a gender-dysphoric woman attending a wedding in a church be allowed in opposite-sex restrooms?

Don’t let deceivers distract you with mocking arguments about how few gender-dysphoric people will be using opposite-sex restrooms; or how few incidents there are of gender-dysphoric men assaulting women or are likely to assault women; or how few predators are pretending to be gender-dysphoric in order to access women’s restrooms, locker rooms, showers, dressing rooms, or shelters.

And certainly don’t be distracted by the stupid comparison of separate restrooms for blacks and whites to separate restrooms for men and women. While there are no substantive differences between blacks and whites, there are substantive differences between males and females,  which even gender-dysphoric persons and homosexuals acknowledge.

The central issue is with the meaning of physical embodiment as male and female.

• Policies and laws mandating that gender-dysphoric persons be allowed to use opposite-sex restrooms embody and teach the lie that objective maleness and femaleness do not have objective meaning or value.

• These policies and laws teach that it is not one’s objective, immutable sex that matters but one’s feelings about one’s sex (“gender identity) that matter.

• These policies and laws teach that modesty and privacy have no intrinsic link to objective maleness and femaleness.

Leftists dismissively claim that anatomical parts are irrelevant when it comes to “gender identity,” modesty, and privacy. They’re demanding that everyone in society treat gender-dysphoric persons in all contexts and ways (including grammatical ways) as if they are in reality the sex they wish they were. So, what are the logical out-workings of this pernicious ideology?

Ultimately, if this view prevails, society will be unable to maintain any separation between men and women—including between normal men and women—in any context. If sexual anatomy has no intrinsic meaning, if privacy and modesty have no connection to objective sex, if objective males must be allowed in women’s showers and restrooms, then there remains no rational justification for separate facilities for men and women or girls and boys.

Since, in the mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world of lunatic leftists, all that matters are feelings about one’s sex, there is no need for surgery, cross-sex hormones, or cross-dressing. So, that “transwoman” (i.e., an actual man) walking naked past your 14-year-old daughter in the health club locker room just might have a chest full of hair, a wooly beard, and a penis. Remember “gender identity” has no fixed meaning, and sexual anatomy is only important if people feel it’s important, so that “transwoman” in the locker room may even have a penis and furry breasts.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your U.S. representative, urging him or her to rein in the unelected, leftist federal bureaucrats in the Departments of Justice and Education. Demand that the federal government remove itself from issues of local control and stop misusing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972.

On Wednesday afternoon, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and the Thomas More Society filed a lawsuit in federal court against School District 211 and the Department of Education (DOE) on behalf of 51 district families who rightly claim that the district and the Department of Education “trample students’ privacy” rights and create an “intimidating and hostile environment” for girls who are being forced to share the girls locker room and restrooms with a boy who wishes he were a girl.

The lawsuit claims that the DOE’s reinterpretation of Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, is unlawful. The DOE through its Office for Civil Rights claims that the word “sex” in Title IX actually includes “gender identity” and “gender expression,” thereby prohibiting schools from maintaining separate restrooms and locker rooms for boys and girls.

There’s only one wee little problem with that fanciful interpretation. Title IX specifically states the following:

[T]itle IX of the Education Amendments of 1972…is designed to eliminate (with certain exceptions) discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program….A recipient [of federal funds] may provide separate toilet, locker room, and shower facilities on the basis of sex, but such facilities provided for students of one sex shall be comparable to such facilities provided for students of the other sex. [emphasis added]

For those who may not remember, several months ago the ACLU represented a gender-dysphoric boy in District 211 who was seeking the right to use the girls locker room and restrooms. Actually, he was seeking the right to unrestricted access to the girls locker room and restrooms. Though he and the ACLU lost the right—for now—to unrestricted access, he won the right to use the girls restrooms and locker room, which has been fitted with a privacy changing area.

While this boy—and he is a boy—demands the right to change clothes and go to the bathroom with only girls, he seeks to deny actual girls the right to change clothes and go to the bathroom with only girls.

According to the Chicago Tribune, ACLU spokesman Ed Yohnka waxed indignant over opposition to a boy in the girls locker room and restrooms and to the conventional and proper use of pronouns to denote objective, immutable sex:

Ed Yohnka…called the lawsuit a “sad development by groups opposed to fair and humane treatment of all students, including those who are transgender.”

He also bristled at the lawsuit’s repeated reference to the transgender student as “he.”

“It’s pretty offensive that they don’t even fundamentally acknowledge that our client is a girl,” Yohnka said.

I regret being so graphic, but Yohnka’s idiotic statement makes it necessary: Girls don’t have penises.

The Left takes umbrage if anyone dares to dissent from their doctrinaire notions about sex and grammar. Tyrannical Leftists demand that biological males who wish they were female be treated as if they are in reality female—even in womens showers. The Left demands that everyone join them in their delusional charade.

District 211 superintendent Daniel Cates said “students have shown acceptance, support and respect of each other,” evidently meaning that students don’t object to sharing restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex students. If true, is that a good thing? Has the culture successfully indoctrinated all our young people with the lie that acceptance and respect of those who suffer from gender dysphoria require sharing restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex persons? Doubtful.

Should the delight of teens in sharing restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex students determine policy? If physical embodiment matters and if modesty is a virtue derived from physical embodiment, shouldn’t schools create policies that reinforce those truths?

And does anyone believe that in this cultural climate, teens who don’t want to share restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex peers would feel comfortable admitting it? Or to use Leftist jargon, does anyone believe it is “safe” for students to express opposition to sharing restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex peers?

The issue of objectively male students using girls private facilities is not solely about the risk of assault—though that risk exists. The central issue concerns the meaning of physical embodiment as male or female, particularly as it pertains to modesty and privacy.

Virtually everyone—including gender-dysphoric persons and homosexuals—acknowledges that men and women are substantively and significantly different. When homosexuals claim they are attracted only to persons of the same sex, they are implicitly and necessarily saying men and women are different, and those differences include bodily differences.

When gender-dysphoric persons who wish they were the opposite sex say they don’t want to use restrooms or locker rooms with persons of their same sex, they are saying there are fundamental and significant differences between men and women. Further, they are necessarily saying that their desire to use opposite-sex restrooms is based on objective bodily differences. They are demanding privacy based on objective sex differences while denying that privacy to others.

Questions Leftists must answer:

• Why are sex differences meaningful for those who have gender dysphoria but not for those who don’t?

• Do the desire for privacy and feelings of modesty derive from objective sex differences or from desires about one’s sex?

• If gender-dysphoric persons are allowed to use restrooms with only those whose “gender identity” they share, why shouldn’t non-gender-dysphoric persons be allowed to use restrooms with only those whose sex they share?

• If there is a mismatch between a person’s sex and their feelings about their sex, why would anyone assume the problem is with the healthy, normally functioning body and not the mind?

How refreshing and encouraging it is to see parents boldly challenging the incoherent and indecent actions of “progressives” in government schools. Please pray for these families and the success of their lawsuit.

The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) just issued guidelines that allow gender-dysphoric students and teachers to use restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to the sex they wish they were rather than the sex they actually are. In public schools, staff and faculty regularly use student restrooms, so adult men who wish they were women may now use girls’ restrooms, and adult women who wish they were men may now use boys’ restrooms.

These new guidelines apply to all schools from elementary through high school, and they apply not just to restrooms and locker rooms but to overnight school trips as well. Now boys who wish they were girls will be able to stay in rooms with girls and vice versa.

These morally and intellectually incomprehensible guidelines also apply to “gender non-binary” students who don’t “identify” as either male or female and to “questioning” students who aren’t yet sure which sex they would like to be. In other words, these students may make their restroom, locker room, and hotel room selections in accordance with their fluid, unfixed sexual confusion.

The CPS guidelines also require faculty and staff to use opposite-sex pronouns when referring to gender-dysphoric students. Since pronouns correspond to one’s sex–not to feelings about one’s sex–this means that the government is requiring staff and faculty to lie.

CPS erroneously believes that these guidelines are necessary to create “an environment of complete tolerance and respect” for every “student and adult” and promote “safe and inclusive schools.”

The CPS is decidedly not, however, tolerating or respecting those who believe that physical embodiment as male and female is profoundly meaningful and is the source of feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy. These guidelines will not ensure the inclusion of those students, parents, staff, and faculty who believe it’s immoral to share restrooms, locker rooms, or hotel rooms with persons of the opposite sex.

If safety is defined as the absence of uncomfortable feelings, then these guidelines do not ensure the safety of those who don’t want to do their business with an unrelated person of the opposite sex doing his or her business in the stall next to them.

CPS needs to explain why gender-dysphoric persons have the right to use restrooms with only those who share their “gender identity,” but other students have no right to use restrooms with only those who share their objective, immutable sex. Why should restrooms, locker rooms, and hotel rooms correspond to feelings about one’s sex rather than one’s actual sex?

In the service of inclusivity, why not make all restrooms, showers, and hotel rooms completely co-ed? Why not allow all boys and girls to make these choices? Why should only students who wish they were the opposite sex or aren’t sure if they want to be a boy or girl be allowed in opposite-sex restrooms? Isn’t that discriminating based on “gender identity”?

The truth is it is not the feelings of students about their sex that make girls and boys not want opposite-sex students in their restrooms, showers, and hotel rooms. It is the actual sex of students that makes girls and boys not want opposite-sex students in their restrooms, showers, and hotel rooms. What possible difference does it make to girls if the boy in their restroom, shower, or hotel room wants to be a boy or not?

Parents of CPS students are once again ill-served and disrespected by the Chicago Public School system.

Target recently announced its new restroom policy, which embraces the absurd notion that in order to be inclusive, sex differences cannot be acknowledged or respected. In light of Target’s sex-integrated, co-ed restroom policy, I called my local Target and had this enlightening conversation with the store manager:

Me: Is it true that all Target restrooms are now co-ed?

Store manager: That’s not exactly how I would describe them.

Me: Well, are your women’s restrooms now open to people who are objectively male, and are your men’s’ restrooms now open to people who are objectively female?

Store manager: The restrooms are available to “transgenders” who identify as the opposite sex.

Me: But humans have both a “gender identity” and a sex, so your restrooms are now co-ed because co-ed means “having or including both men and women.”

Store manager: Our customers can use the restroom of the sex with which they identify.

Me: If a person who appears to be a man enters a women’s restroom, how do you determine whether he’s gender dysphoric or not.

Store manager: If a female customer reports that a man is in the women’s restroom, we would follow-up.

Me: What is your procedure for following up?

Store manager: I don’t know.

Me: So, if I and my three-year-old granddaughter are in the women’s restroom, a man enters, and I report it to store management, you don’t know what would happen next?

Store manager: Well, if this person were not bothering you, he could be in there.

Me: But sharing a restroom with someone of the opposite sex bothers me.

Store manager: Well, Target believes people should be able to use whichever restroom they feel comfortable in.

Me: What if non-gender-dysphoric men—you know, men who share the same sex as “transgenders”— feel more comfortable in women’s restrooms? May they use them? And how would you stop them anyway? You evidently have no procedures to determine if males in women’s restrooms have been diagnosed as gender-dysphoric.

Store manager: (silence)

Me: So, your restrooms are in reality co-ed because people have a sex that cannot change.

Store Manager: Yes, it can.

Me: Are you a science-denier? Even gender-dysphoric persons know they can’t change their sex.

Store Manager: I’m not going to argue with you. 

So, there you have it folks. If women don’t want to use restrooms with men, they will have to use the family restroom, but if gender-dysphoric men don’t want to use restrooms with men, they don’t have to use the family restroom. They get to use the women’s restroom. Gender-dysphoric men are permitted to use restrooms with only women, while women are not permitted to use restrooms with only women.

Many conservatives perplexed by the lies and dragooned by the tactics of body-rejecting activists and their “progressive” allies do nothing when there is much to be done. And they get little help from conservative punditry who seem not to grasp the significance of allowing objectively, immutably male persons in women’s restrooms and vice versa.

Last week the estimable Charles Krauthammer dismissed the so-called “bathroom wars” as “a solution in search of an issue,” suggesting that because those who suffer from gender-dysphoria are few in number, laws requiring that restrooms correspond to sex are silly. Astonishingly, Krauthammer blamed these laws on conservatives:

[D]o we really have an epidemic of transgenders being evil in bathrooms?

Krauthammer…said transgenders using public bathrooms has become a problem “precisely because Republicans in North Carolina decided it was a problem.”

Though it is true that Republicans proposed and passed the North Carolina law that Krauthammer was discussing, they were merely responding to the efforts of gender-dysphoric activists to access opposite-sex restrooms. In other words, Republicans didn’t “decide” that men in women’s’ restrooms was a problem. It is in reality a problem created by gender-dysphoric activists.

As a percentage of the population, there are few gender-dysphoric persons, and until recently, they were using restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their actual sex, so of course we have no “epidemic of transgenders being evil in bathrooms.”

Further, the concern is not centrally about gender-dysphoric persons “doing evil,” but of male predators pretending to be gender-dysphoric in order to easily view, record, or assault women and girls.

The other and at least as serious concern is with what these policies teach about physical embodiment as male or female. Arguing that because few “transgenders” have been “doing evil in bathrooms,” there is no problem, Krauthammer ignores the fact that men in women’s restrooms is the problem, and it is evil.

An uncharacteristically superficial Krauthammer ignores the radical ideas that are embedded in and taught by liberal “bathroom” policies:

• Such policies teach that if people are uncomfortable with their sex, the problem is with their sex—not their feelings.

• Such policies teach the arguable belief that subjective feelings about one’s sex are more important, indeed more real, than objective physical embodiment as male or female.

• Such policies teach that while gender-dysphoric men should be permitted to use restrooms with only women, objectively female persons should not be permitted to use restrooms with only women.

• Such policies teach that in order to be compassionate, one must treat gender-dysphoric persons as if they are in reality the sex they wish they were.

• Such policies teach that feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy derive not from physical embodiment as male or female but from desires about one’s sex.

• Such policies teach that stalls and curtains provide sufficient privacy to separate women from gender-dysphoric men but not sufficient privacy to separate gender-dysphoric men from normal men.

If we define “evil” as reductively as Krauthammer seems to when he says there is no “epidemic of transgenders doing evil in restrooms,” he’s right. If evil is understood as direct physical harm to another, there is no epidemic. But for many, evil is defined as “morally wrong,” and “harmful” and includes doing violence (i.e., “injury, as from distortion of meaning or fact”) to the idea that objective, immutable biological sex carries profound meaning and is the source of feelings of modesty and the desire of privacy that men and women naturally experience. This epidemic of philosophical violence is infecting not just corporate policies but school policies and thereby the minds and hearts of children far too young to comprehend the evil being done.

Take ACTION:  So, here are three things that conservatives must do:

1.) Those with children in public schools must tell their administrators that under no circumstance are their children permitted to share restrooms or locker rooms with children of the opposite sex. If gender dysphoric children have the right to refuse to use locker rooms and restrooms with those whose “gender identity” they don’t share, then other children have the right to refuse to use locker rooms and restrooms with those whose sex they don’t share.

2.)  DO NOT use Leftist language. Language matters:

Do not call them “gender neutral” restrooms. Call them sex-integrated or co-ed restrooms to keep attention on the objective reality the Left seeks to deny.

Do not use the term “transgender.” Use gender dysphoria or gender-dysphoric persons.

Do not use opposite-sex pronouns when referring to gender-dysphoric persons. Using opposite-sex pronouns does not constitute an act of love. It constitutes participation in and facilitation of a destructive fiction.

3.) As much as possible, avoid using Target. It is not possible to boycott every business that violates true principles, but policies as egregiously offensive as Target’s sex-integrated restroom policy demand a response. And while you’re boycotting Target, call the store manager of your local Target to ask about their co-ed restrooms. Ask management the hard questions, and don’t use liberal language. Use precise, clear, reality-based language. And consider signing on to the AFA Boycott Target pledge.

In this brave new world remade in the image of the Godless, confused, solipsistic, and sexually anarchical, objective, immutable biological sex is meaningless. Please stand for truth and reality publicly, courageously, perseveringly, and unapologetically—and not just when it’s cost-free.