I wrote this last Friday:

Regressives got a pledge from the thoroughly corrupt Mike Madigan, who rules Madiganistan with a blood-stained fist, to speedily advance Cassidy’s radical abortion bill by any unethical means possible, preventing due deliberation and preventing those who seek to defend life a chance to marshal their forces against it.

When I wrote those words, I had no idea how low Madigan and State Representative Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago) would stoop in their unholy quest to make Illinois the Land of Liquidation—baby liquidation, that is.

On Sunday night during Memorial Day weekend when most Illinoisans took time to honor the men and women who have sacrificed their comfort, time, safety, and lives to secure our freedom, Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago) revealed again the fetid rot that has devoured him and much of the Illinois General Assembly. He suddenly scheduled a meeting of the Appropriations-Human Services Committee to vote on Cassidy’s loathsome Kill-Babies-Bill—deceptively named the “Reproductive Health Act”—with only one hour’s notice. This bill will, among other things, legalize human slaughter throughout the whole nine months of pregnancy (It repeals the partial-birth abortion ban) for any reason—including sex selection—and encode in law the repugnant notion that unborn humans have zero rights.

Early Tuesday afternoon, the Illinois House passed Cassidy’s Kill-Babies-Bill by a vote of 64-50 (with four voting present). It now moves to the Illinois Senate, which has a greater percentage of liberals. (See roll call graphic below.)

Here are some of the stinking rotten details of the egregious violation of public trust that took place Sunday night and of which many Illinoisans may be unaware:

• Cassidy introduced her original Kill-Babies-Bill (HB 2495) on February 13 but it never received even a hearing, so she tweaked it a bit to make it more offensive to the consciences of decent people, including specifically denying that humans in the womb have any legal rights.

• On Sunday, May 26, Cassidy and her accomplices then gutted a different bill (i.e., The Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Code: SB 25) that had already moved through the first three of the five steps of the legislative process, replacing it with her Kill-Babies-Bill as an amendment to the now-gutted bill. This enables Cassidy’s bill to circumvent the regular lawmaking process before the legislative session ends on May 31.

• Madigan’s House rules require a minimum of one hour’s notice between the posting of a bill and its hearing and vote in committee. Cassidy and her accomplices posted the new 126-page “amendment” at 6:08 p.m. on Sunday night during a holiday weekend and scheduled the hearing at 7:08 p.m., thereby preventing opponents from attending and speaking out against it. The “suddenness” of the meeting explains why Cassidy had an ACLU attorney present with a polished 4-minute disquisition and an abortionist with a 5-minute presentation while opponent speakers Ralph Rivera representing Illinois Right to Life Action and Zachary Wichmann representing the Catholic Conference of Illinois were able to make only extemporaneous comments.

• At the beginning of the meeting, committee members were given a thick packet of letters from only proponents of the Kill-Babies-Bill.

• The spanking new Kill-Babies-Bill/amendment was assigned to the House Appropriations-Human Services Committee—chaired by State Representative Robyn Gabel (D-Chicago), who is a former training coordinator for Planned Parenthood. The bill did not belong in this committee because it contained no appropriations. It was assigned to that committee because that’s the committee where it was assured to pass.

In an inspiring, must-see statement, State Representative Tom Demmer (R-Dixon) succinctly addressed the violations of the public’s trust and the spirit of laws intended to increase the transparency of the lawmaking process that took place Sunday night. Please watch Rep. Demmer in this short video.

Far-left freshman State Representative Bob Morgan (D-Deerfield) tried futilely to dismiss the ethical implications of what Madigan did in calling this hearing by saying the Reproductive Health Act has been out for months, so constituents had plenty of time to make their voices heard.

Yeah, riiight.  Nothing to see there. Pay no attention to Madigan hiding behind the curtain. It’s completely unimportant that Leftists gutted an existing bill to substitute in Cassidy’s radical and pernicious Kill-Babies-Bill. And it’s completely unimportant that the hearing was suddenly scheduled on Sunday night during a holiday weekend. And it’s completely unimportant that Cassidy’s 126-page “amendment” was posted the minimum amount of time required by law (one-hour) before a hearing commences making it impossible for constituents or experts to show up to testify in opposition to this proposal.

State Representative Tony McCombie (R-Savanna)—a woman—responded that the issue wasn’t whether constituents had sufficient time to express their views to their lawmakers. The issue was that because of Madigan’s decision to suddenly call the committee meeting on Sunday night on a holiday weekend with only one hour’s notice, Illinoisans were denied the opportunity to express their views at the committee hearing. Unlike the ACLU attorney and abortionist, Rivera and Wichmann were denied the opportunity to develop and present polished presentations.

Another hero of the evening was State Representative Darren Bailey (R-Louisville) who asked how many of the 39,832 abortions performed in Illinois in 2017 were “medically necessary” to preserve the health or life of pregnant women—which are the reasons emphasized by abortion-shouters to justify the slaughter of humans in the womb. (Watch the video here.)

Cassidy admitted she has no idea because the state does not collect such information. Of course, it’s a moot issue, since allowing abortion to protect the “health” of the mother is so wildly expansive that it includes any and no reason.

In an effort to silence Bailey, Cassidy demonstrated—again—how manipulative and deceitful she is, saying in an increasingly hostile and aggressive tone,

I will tell you that my abortion was medically necessary. It saved my life. It preserved my fertility. It allowed for the creation of my family, my children who are my world.

Cassidy knew that no white man in this anti-white, anti-male climate would dare ask any follow-up questions following her faux-indignant and irrelevant “revelation.”

Here’s what Cassidy didn’t say in her exploitative and misleading response but has said publicly to the Chicago Sun-Times. Her “abortion” followed fertility treatments that resulted in a “blighted ovum” implanted in her uterus and in an ectopic pregnancy, which is when a fertilized egg implants in a fallopian tube rather than the uterus. The termination of an ectopic pregnancy is not referred to as an abortion, and with a blighted ovum, there is no embryo, so her personal story is irrelevant.

As McCombie was graciously expressing her sympathy for Cassidy’s experience, Cassidy, oozing open hostility at the lawmaker’s compassion, interrupted her to say, “I’m not sorry. I’m deeply grateful that that option was available.”

We’re all grateful that women can have ectopic pregnancies terminated—which need not involve the intentional killing of a fetus—and we’re all grateful that anembryonic (i.e., no embryo) blighted ova can be removed via a D & C, but women would have those ethical options even if abortion were banned.

Perhaps Cassidy would compromise with Republicans and agree to limit the termination of pregnancies to ectopic pregnancies and the removal of blighted ova—or as she referred to hers, “abortions.” Ectopic pregnancies account for 1-2% of pregnancies and 93% of that 1-2% result in miscarriages, so such a compromise would reduce the number of humans killed in the womb by a LOT.

Bailey—who urged a “NO” vote on what he rightly called “this disgusting bill”—noticed something odd in the changes Cassidy made to her Kill-Babies-Bill, something that exposes Cassidy’s anti-science/anti-reality ignorance. He asked her why she replaced the word “woman” with “individual” when referring to those seeking an abortion. Cassidy, obviously in thrall to the science-denying “trans” ideology, defiantly refused to answer Bailey’s easy-peasy questions:

Bailey: We’ve changed “woman” to “individual.” Who else can get pregnant besides a woman?

Cassidy (answering stiffly): Anyone with a uterus and ovaries can become pregnant.

Bailey: So, someone other than a woman can get pregnant?

Cassidy: Anyone with a uterus and ovaries can become pregnant.

Bailey: Does anyone other than a woman have a uterus?

Cassidy: Anyone with a uterus and ovaries can become pregnant. (Watch the video here.)

It’s a good thing Cassidy-the-Stepford-lawmaker who robotically repeated the “trans” mantra isn’t also a biology teacher.

Cassidy said, “These efforts [to outlaw abortion] have the greatest impact on the most vulnerable populations.” Say what? Was Cassidy about to express her concern for “fetuses” with Down Syndrome? Was she about to express her concern for babies aborted because their mothers don’t like their sex? Was she about to express her concern for black babies who are being targeted by Planned Parenthood?

Nope. No compassion for those vulnerable populations from Cassidy. Her concern was purportedly for “women of color and the poor.” Of course, everyone knows Cassidy’s central concern is about preserving the legal right of women to hire people to kill their offspring, whether those women are poor women of color or wealthy, colorless women.

Please take the time to watch State Representative Avery Bourne (R-Raymond) in this short video, as well as this short video of State Representative Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro) who spoke out boldly in committee. Illinois desperately needs more lawmakers like Demmer, Bailey, Bourne, McCombie, and Bryant.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your state senator, state representative and to Gov. JB Pritzker. Urge them to stop targeting innocent pre-born children and vulnerable women in Illinois. Ask them to vote against the grotesquely misnamed “Reproductive Health Act.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/SB-25-House.mp3

SB 25 Roll Call

In a stunning public admission during a debate on the future of marriage in Illinois, the chief sponsor of SB 10, the proposed bill to legalize same-sex “marriage,” homosexual State Representative Greg Harris (D-Chicago) acknowledged that the bill does not provide religious liberty or conscience protections for individual Christian business owners. Further, it was clear that both he and homosexual Chicago Alderman Deb Mell (a former state representative and co-sponsor of of SB 10) oppose any such protections.

In the unfortunately titled “Marriage Equality” debate, sponsored by the Chicago Tribune, moderator Bruce Dold asked Harris about the absence of conscience protections in the bill:

Dold: The bill specifically protects churches, but it does not have any language about individual conscience…. Would the bill not have a better chance if it had an individual conscience protection in it?

Harris: [D]ecades ago when the Human Rights Act was passed, it said, we the people of Illinois have decided not to allow discrimination based on race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, veteran’s status in housing, employment, or public accommodations. The question of should we treat all of our citizens equally in all of those three areas has been answered. But also there are exemptions for religious institutions in the Human Rights Act. There’s also the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and specific language in this bill…that explicitly protects freedom of religion for those churches and denominations which do not want to consecrate same-sex marriages.”

Harris publicly admitted that this bill protects the religious liberty of only religious institutions, churches, and denominations—not individuals. It was clear that Harris has no desire or intent to include such protections.

That said, the inclusion of such protections would not make this a good bill. It would simply make it a less terrible bill.

Harris tried to claim that SB 10 poses no threat to religious liberty, but was challenged by both Robert Gilligan, Executive Director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, and Peter Breen, Vice President and Senior Counsel with the Thomas More Society, who talked about the Illinois bed and breakfast owner who is being sued for his refusal to rent out his facility for a same-sex civil union ceremony  (read more HERE).

Mell, who earlier had claimed that warnings about future religious persecution were dishonest “scare tactics,” responded “But [the bed and breakfast] is a business that does business in the state of Illinois, and in Illinois, we don’t allow discrimination.” While claiming that warnings about loss of religious liberty were deceptive and false “scare tactics,” she vigorously defended this religious discrimination. She apparently didn’t notice her own contradiction.

Neither she nor Harris seemed to notice that while they obsess about Illinois’ prohibition of discrimination based on “sexual orientation,” they pay no attention to its prohibition of religious discrimination. They don’t care if the bed and breakfast owner is discriminated against because of his religious beliefs.

Former Georgetown University law professor and current EEOC Commissioner, lesbian activist Chai Feldblum has written that when same-sex marriage is legalized, conservative people of faith will lose religious rights. She argues that it’s a zero-sum game in which a gain in sexual rights for homosexuals will mean a loss of religious rights for conservative people of faith, which she finds justifiable. She, Mell, and Harris share the view that the sexual “rights” of homosexuals trump religious rights.

Harris cited the Illinois Human Rights Act as his justification for not protecting the rights of people of faith to refuse to use their labor and goods in the service of an event that violates their deeply held religious beliefs. Well, the Illinois Human Rights Act also prohibits discrimination based on religion; hence the conflict of which Chai Feldblum spoke. Harris finds discriminating based on religion tolerable and justifiable but not discrimination based on sexual predilection.

By the way, choosing not to participate in a same-sex “wedding” does not reflect discrimination against persons. It reflects discriminating among types of events. The elderly florist who is being sued by the state of Washington for her refusal to provide flowers for a same-sex “wedding” did not discriminate against a person. She made a judgment about an event. She had previously sold flowers to one of the homosexual partners. She served all people regardless of their sexual predilections, beliefs, sexual activities, or relationships. She just wouldn’t participate in an event that she (rightly) believes the God she serves abhors. She takes seriously Jesus’ command to “Render unto Caeser what is Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”

Prior to the debate, I had a conversation with one of the event planners in which I predicted Harris would refuse to answer the critical question regarding why marriage should remain a union of just two people. Dold twice asked, if marriage is a right, why should it be limited to two people? Twice Harris obstinately refused to answer.

It was an embarrassingly obvious and intellectually dishonest dodge. Harris tried to use the language of the current bill to deflect the question saying in essence that the bill’s language says nothing about plural unions. This is the same embarrassing dodge ACLU spokesman Ed Yohnka used in a program on which both he and I were guests. Three times I asked him why marriage should be limited to two people, as he claimed it should be. Three times he awkwardly refused to answer.

It doesn’t take much intellectual wattage to understand that once the ideas that marriage is just about love and has nothing to do with sexual complementarity or reproductive potential are embedded in law, there remains no reason to restrict marriage to two people. The legalization of plural unions becomes not merely possible but inevitable.

Harris also said, “All families should be created equal,” to which I would have asked, “Even polyamorous families?”

And he said marriage law should “expand to reflect the reality of society,” to which I would have said, “But there exist polyamorous families in society.”

A few additional thoughts on the debate:

1. “Progressive” language police: At one point Mell attempted to compel Breen to use the term she wanted him to use for her partner (whom she “married” in Iowa). She attempted to compel him to use the term “wife.” She correctly insisted that “terminology is important.” But the law is not the ultimate arbiter of truth and reality. Compelling Breen to use the term “wife” would rob him of the right to use the term he wanted to use and believes reflects truth and reality. Conservatives have the ethical right and obligation to use the language they believe reflects truth and reality. Conceding terminology to the Left, as conservatives too often do, is not smart, not truthful, not helpful, and not compassionate.
   
   In reality, a wife is the spouse of a man (and each partner must actually be the sex they claim to be). No one is ethically obligated to participate rhetorically in any fiction the government has foolishly decided to join.

2. Media bias and the “equality” chimera: The importance of terminology is the reason I described the title of the debate, “Marriage Equality” as unfortunate. “Marriage Equality” embodies and reflects assent to “progressive” assumptions. Conservatives recognize that the notion of “equality” in this context is strategically effective non-sense.  Treating different things differently does not reflect unjust, unequal treatment. Equality demands we treat like things alike. When homosexual men and women say they are attracted only to persons of their same sex, they are acknowledging that men and women are fundamentally and significantly different. As such, a union composed of two people of the same sex is fundamentally and significantly different from a union of two people of opposite sexes. Society has no reason to treat them as if they are the same.
   
   
3. The connection between marriage and children: Both Mell and Harris talked about children deserving, in Mell’s words, “the label” of marriage. Inconsistencies abound. While homosexuals claim that marriage has no inherent connection to reproductive potential, they use arguments about children as justifications for the legal recognition of same-sex unions as marriage. This points to the fact that homosexuals are pursuing the acquisition of children, which necessarily means that in their view, children have no inherent, unalienable right to be raised by their biological parents. Homosexual couples are creating children who will be wholly unconnected to either their biological mother or father or both. In addition, they are creating intentionally motherless or fatherless children, which means homosexuals believe children have neither a right to be raised by both their mother and father, nor a right to be raised by a mother and father.
   
   The issue of children naturally and inevitably arises because marriage is centrally about the next generation. If marriage weren’t centrally about the procreation of children, if children weren’t procreated via sexual unions, there would be no such thing as marriage. The government has no more vested interest in recognizing inherentlysterile homosexual relationships as marriages than it does in recognizing platonic friendships as marriages. The government simply has no vested public interest in recognizing or affirming loving, inherently non-reproductive relationships. If it does, Harris and Mell need to explain what it is. And remember, they cannot include children in their answer, because the Left says marriage has no inherent connection to children (and by extension, their rights).
   
   If the government is compelled to recognize as marriage any loving relationship that involves the raising of children, then, for example, a grandmother and aunt who are raising the children of their deceased daughter/sister, should be permitted to marry.

4. Appeals to emotion and redefining marriage: Mell’s “arguments” amounted to little more than appeals to emotion: She really loves her partner. She and her partner have been together for nine years. Her partner has stuck with her through difficult times. Therefore, the government should legally recognize their relationship as a marriage.
   
   Say what? If marriage has an inherent nature, it doesn’t change simply because she and her partner wish it were different. Harris and Mell have concluded that because they are not attracted to people of the opposite sex, marriage has nothing inherently to do with sexual complementarity or reproductive potential.
   
   What’s interesting is that they don’t deny marriage has a nature that is inherent and immutable. They believe marriage is inherently and immutably constituted solely by the presence of love between two people. But then they can’t provide a single reason for their stubborn insistence that marriage is an inherently binary institution. Harris and Mell need to provide reasons for jettisoning sexual complementarity from the legal definition of marriage while retaining the less essential requirement regarding number of partners in a marriage. Simply asserting that marriage is a union of two people is not an argument.

5. Catholic Charities and religious discrimination: During the debate, a brief discussion arose about Catholic Charities being forced to drop out of the adoption business following the passage of Illinois’ civil union law—a change that Harris views as serving the “best interests” of children. Neither Harris nor Mell expressed concern about the clear presence of religious discrimination—something which deeply concerned Princeton University law professor Robert George. In a 2011 CNN debate among candidates running in the Republican primary, George asked the following question and in so doing, told congressmen and women what they should do:
   
   

   In Illinois, after passing a civil union bill, the state government decided to exclude certain religiously affiliated foster care and adoption agencies, including Catholic and Protestant agencies, because the agencies, in line with the teachings of their faith, cannot in conscience place children with same-sex partners.

   Now, at least half of Illinois’ foster and adoption funds come from the federal government. Should the federal government be subsidizing states that discriminate against Catholic and other religious adoption agencies? If a state legislature refuses to make funding available on equal terms to those providers who as a matter of conscience will not place children in same-sex homes, should federal legislation come in to protect the freedom of conscience of those religious providers?

There is no more critical legislation pending than SB 10. Despite what some lawmakers and pundits fecklessly claim, this issue is more important than even pension reform. The rights of children, parents, and people of faith are at risk.

Demonstrate that you care more about preserving marriage than the Left does in destroying it. Demonstrate your willingness to endure hardship and even persecution in the service of truth.

Please call your lawmaker, and please try to attend the Defend Marriage Rally in Springfield on Oct. 23. The Left will be marching on Oct. 22. 

Click HERE to make a donation to the Illinois Family Institute.

This week, a bipartisan group of 11 members of the Illinois General Assembly filed an amicus curiae brief defending the constitutionality of Illinois law defining marriage as the union of a husband and a wife. Led by Senator Kirk Dillard (R-Westmont) and Senator Bill Haine (D-Alton), the legislators’ brief supports a motion to dismiss the ACLU and Lambda Legal lawsuits filed by Thomas More Society attorneys, on behalf of downstate county clerks who were allowed into the case to defend the law.

“We welcome the bipartisan support for Illinois’ marriage law offered by this respected group of legislators,” said Peter Breen, executive director and legal counsel for the Thomas More Society. “They rightly point out that under our constitutional system, the issue of how the government treats domestic relationships is reserved to the General Assembly.”

The legislators assert that the judicial branch should not rewrite the state’s marriage laws, stating that “to do so would be to place the court in a position of acting as a super-legislature, nullifying laws it does not like. That is not our proper role in a democratic society.” They also claim that such action would, “Dramatically interfere with the constitutional guarantee of separation of powers by which the general assembly is empowered to make public policy….”

The legislators also cite several sociological arguments stating that “… the marriage structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents ….” The legislators also supported the religious liberty concerns raised by the amicus brief of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, also filed this week, indicating that “of great concern to us is hostility that may be shown to Illinois’ religious minorities” who oppose same-sex marriage.

The amicus curiae brief is available HERE.

The proposed amici curiae, Senator Kirk Dillard, Senator William Haine, Senator Matt Murphy (R-Palatine), Senator Darrin LaHood (R-Peoria), Senator Bill Brady (R-Bloomington), Representative David Reis (R-Olney), Representative Joseph Lyons (D-Chicago), Representative Michael Connelly (R-Naperville), Representative Richard Morthland (R-Moline), Representative Patti Bellock (R-Westmont), and Representative Paul Evans (R-Highland), all of the Illinois General Assembly, are represented by retired Cook County Chancery Court Judge, Robert V. Boharic.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to contact your state representatives and state senators, urging them to support HJR 95 and its call for an amendment to the Illinois Constitution that clearly defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman.