In light of being accused of “intolerance” and “bigotry” on IFI’s Facebook page by purportedly tolerant and unbigoted “progressives,” I think some clarification of the meaning of tolerance and bigotry is in order. And while I’m at it, I’ll say a little sumpin’ sumpin’ about anger—again.

Save this. You may need it.

The first definition of “tolerance” in the Oxford English Dictionary is “the action or practice of enduring pain or hardship; the power or capacity of enduring.” Another definition is “the disposition to be patient with or indulgent to the opinions or practices of others; freedom from bigotry or undue severity in judging the conduct of others.” The American Heritage Dictionary defines “tolerate” as “to put up with.”

Note, that none of the definitions mentions approval, affirmation, or celebration. Nor do they  mention an obligation to refrain from expressing moral propositions with which someone else may disagree. If intolerance meant expressing moral views someone else doesn’t like, then wouldn’t “progressives” be equally guilty of intolerance?

Note too the qualifier “undue.” Someone who judges conduct to be immoral is not guilty of intolerance even if the judgment is severe. Only if it’s unduly severe is one guilty of intolerance. Leftists aren’t faulting conservatives for “undue severity” of judgment. They’re faulting conservatives for making any negative judgments about homosexual acts, cross-dressing, and other efforts to conceal one’s sex.

A “bigot” according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary refers to a person who is “obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially: one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.” Clearly, there is a distinction between bigotry and moral views. Bigotry cannot simply refer to holding opinions or being in possession of moral precepts, for if it did, everyone but sociopaths would have to be considered bigots because everyone but sociopaths holds certain behaviors as moral and others as immoral.

In addition, the word “obstinacy” in the definition of “bigot” warrants some discussion. First, “obstinate,” according to The American Heritage Dictionary, connotes “unreasonable rigidity.” I would argue that conservative views on homosexuality are completely reasonable, and that conversely, liberal views are woefully unreasonable.

In order to determine whether a tenaciously held conviction reflects obstinacy requires an evaluation of the content of the belief and the justifications for that belief. For example, very few would characterize the act of consistently, tenaciously, unrelentingly, and enduringly, holding the belief that infantilism, pedophilia, polyamory, genocide, racism, or female genital mutilation is wrong to be a manifestation of obstinacy or bigotry. Rather, holding unwaveringly to the moral conclusions that these behaviors are wrong represents legitimate and essential moral judgment.

Moreover, “obstinate” cannot be severed from the other parts of the definition. Bigotry is the obstinate devotion to uninformed or unintentional inclinations, especially ones that result in hatred of members of a particular group.

As such, moral views, even negative views, informed by reading diverse resources and thoughtful deliberation do not constitute bigotry.

Further, a bigot not only holds uninformed opinions but “regards or treats the members of a group… with hatred and intolerance.” Certainly, there are those in society who demonstrate this kind of behavior—including homosexual and “trans” activists—but any who have truly submitted their lives to Christ, do not treat anyone with hatred.

I, like countless other theologically orthodox Christians, not only do not treat people who self-identify as homosexual or “trans” with hatred or intolerance, but I also do not feel any hatred for them. My beliefs about homosexual conduct in no way diminish the love I feel for those who self-identify as homosexual or “trans,” the respect I have for their admirable qualities, the pleasure I take in their company, or the recognition I have of their infinite worth.

I do, however, often feel anger that adults are promoting body- and soul-destroying lies as truth to children. And I thank God for this proper feeling toward such iniquity.

In an article in Touchstone Magazine on “the Integration of Anger into the Virtuous Life,”  Dr. Leon Podles argues that “Christians have a false understanding of the nature and role of anger. It is seen as something negative, something that a Christian should not feel.”

This false understanding infects the church and prevents it from being salt and light in a fallen, suffering world, and that renders the church complicit in the destruction of countless lives.

He expresses what should be obvious: we should “feel deep anger at evil, at the violation of the innocent, at the oppression of the weak.”

Podles describes the suppression of hatred and anger as “emotional deformation” and exhorts the church to remember that “growth in virtue,” which must include the integration of “all emotions, including anger and hate,” is the “goal of the Christian’s moral life.”

Dr. Podles quotes Catholic psychiatrist Conrad Baars who had been a prisoner under the Nazi regime:

‘[T]here is a difference between a person who knows solely that something is evil and ought to be opposed and the one who in addition also feels hate for the evil, is angry that it is corrupting or harming fellow-men, and feels aroused to combat it courageously and vigorously.’

How often do we hear in our churches anything akin to the idea expressed by early church father John Chrysostom:

‘He who is not angry, whereas he has cause to be, sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices, it fosters negligence, and incites not only the wicked but the good to do wrong.’

Wouldn’t the church and society look very different if they embodied Dr. Podles’ conviction that “sorrow at evil without anger at evil is a fault.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/eftists-Have-Intolerance-and-Bigotry-All-Wrong.mp3

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.

Last week ten lawmakers from the Jewish Caucus in Springfield sponsored a resolution condemning Illinois Family Action (IFA) and Illinois Family Institute (IFI) for engaging in what they call “hate speech,” because IFA compared the abortion holocaust to the Jewish Holocaust. Titled “Illinois Family Action-Hate Speech” (HJR 55), the resolution uses subjective hyperbole, disreputable sources and unreasonable inferences that make the alleged offense seem overtly sinister.

If you want an exhaustive, well-argued refutation of the resolution, read “Left-Wing Partisans File Stunning Resolution Against Illinois Family.” HJR 55 is stunning for all the reasons that author Laurie Higgins identifies but also because of its glaring omission: any mention of abortion, the topic of the article that started it all.

There are always hazards when invoking the Holocaust, not least of which is overstating the parallel to a current situation. But that’s not the case here. It is indisputable that the Nazis dehumanized an entire class of human beings defined solely by their ethnoreligious heritage, then rounded them up and shipped them off to be exterminated with lethal efficiency in death camps across Europe.

It’s also indisputable that abortion providers—most notably Planned Parenthood—are also in the extermination business. They and their enablers—most notably regressive Democrats, who increasingly champion infanticide—have dehumanized an entire class of human beings defined solely by their stage of development in situ.

One significant difference between the Jewish Holocaust and our modern holocaust is that abortion clinics don’t have to round up babies and send them to a centralized abortion mill. Instead, Planned Parenthood has conveniently dotted the country with more than 600 of their own little death camps for easy access. It’s the children’s own mothers who—whether they gleefully “shout their abortion” or enter a clinic in desperation—play the role of Hitler’s Schutzstaffel.

The parallels between the two holocausts, made so often as to be in danger of becoming cliché, are strong and obvious—except to the willfully blind.

So why the extraordinary step of a resolution in the Illinois House condemning the comparison? Just this: by making the comparison, Illinois Family conferred personhood on the pro-choicers’ blob of tissue. IFI re-humanized them. The resolution’s assertion that IFI is “recklessly comparing those who disagree with their extreme agenda to Nazis” can only be true if babies aren’t human.

The resolution is a naked halogen bulb blinding observers to their real objective, which is to intimidate and shame IFI into submission. Accusations of unspecified threats, anti-Semitism, “hate speech,” “bigotry,” “homophobia” and “extreme rhetoric” are followed by a call for “a formal investigation” into such speech and asking the Secretary of State to suspend IFI’s lobbying credentials.

One of the resolution’s co-sponsors, State Representative Jonathan Carroll (D-Northbrook), took to Twitter to express his outrage. “This is hate speech and I demand a retraction. Comparing Democrats to Nazis to to [sic] promote your agenda is disgraceful.” He was later quoted as saying, “We call on the Illinois State Police to do a full investigation of these incidents.”

To summarize: the all-Democrat Jewish Caucus of the Illinois House of Representatives has circled the wagons and called for reinforcements because they don’t like a commonly-used analogy comparing the killing of 61,000,000 babies (and counting) to the killing of 6,000,000 Jews—and allegedly fear that they will now be the victims of violence. To address the threat, they are summoning the power of the state to crush IFI.

How very Hitler-esque.

Meanwhile, the State of Illinois is circling the drain. We are the least fiscally solvent state, but pay the highest state and local taxes in the country; we are the third most corrupt state in the nation and boast the worst-in-nation pension crisis; we’re unlikely to successfully weather a recession, we have one of the worst home foreclosure rates in the nation, and we lead the country in number of residents fleeing the state.

If regressives get their way, they’ll also bestow on Illinois the distinction of having the most radical abortion laws in the land. (We’re number one! We’re number one!)

Instead of wasting their time and taxpayer money weaponizing the state to kick around a tiny pro-family organization that enjoys First Amendment protections, how about getting busy fixing the national embarrassment that the land of Lincoln has become?

Instead of indoctrinating five freshman legislators on the finer points of virtue signaling (“Hate has no home here,” right, Rep. Sara Feigenholtz?), how about challenging Jonathan Carroll, Daniel Didech, Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, Yehiel Kalish, Karina Villa, Anna Moeller and Bob Morgan to balance a budget by reining in spending? Instead of demonstrating knee jerk outrage, how about demanding an investigation into how the most corrupt big city in the nation let Jussie “O.J.” Smollett skate after slandering half the country’s citizens and lying about it?

Regressives and their junior commies in the Illinois House have more pressing issues to deal with than some petty disagreement about whether legal abortion is like the Jewish Holocaust or not. Judging by the March 20 turnout to protest the proposed abortion legislation that “overtaxed Capitol security,” there are a lot of people who agree that it is.

The Hebrew prophet Isaiah wrote, “Woe to those who call good evil and evil good, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Isaiah 5:20). Jewish legislators should understand better than anyone the evil of taking innocent life. Rescind the resolution and do what you were elected to do: rescue Illinois.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact your state senator and representative to ask them to reject this dangerous resolution. Ask them to vote down HJR 55 and the unprecedented and tyrannical action being taken by extreme partisans in the Illinois General Assembly.

Read more:

Left-Wing Partisans File Stunning Resolution Against Illinois Family (Laurie Higgins)

Truth and Love or Hate? (Rev. Calvin Lindstrom)

SPOTLIGHT: Illinois’ Abortion Holocaust (Podcast)

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.