Leftist boomers and their ideological spawn together have created the worst generations, shameful heirs of a noble legacy hard-won by our forebears. Leftist boomers, taking their cues from pervert Alfred Kinsey, hedonist man-child Hugh Hefner, and addled Timothy Leary, ushered in the drug and sexual revolutions. Satiating primitive urges, escapist longings, and self-centered desires while eschewing self-denial and God are the driving forces of these generations. They believe their Deep Thoughts, intense feelings, and overactive groins determine morality (which they incoherently claim is subjective while trying to force others to believe leftist morality is objective, inarguable truth). And so we see the child-sacrifice cult growing, particularly here in Illinois, the former breadbasket/current killing fields of the country.

According to Chicago Sun-Times columnist leftist crank Rich Miller, Illinois House Speaker Democrat Chris Welch “strongly indicated recently that a state constitutional amendment guaranteeing reproductive rights was a very likely prospect” (emphasis added).

Miller acknowledged the troubling reality that the manifestly failing state of Illinois is ruled by a de facto single-party system:

Welch will soon have more members of his party than any speaker since the state constitution was revised to reduce the chamber’s membership by a third. He said there were a number of explanations for his caucus’ expansion, but the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was “monumental.”

It’s ironic that leftists who have conniptions about the possibility of Republicans controlling both the U.S. Senate and House and about the somewhat-conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court don’t seem to mind the super-majority of leftists in Springfield who are ruining the state in every measurable way. (Nor did leftists seem exercised about the Warren and Burger Courts, which are both considered liberal Courts.)

But enough about “progressive” inconsistency. Back to the nefarious plans of Illinois’ Springfield miscreants.

Welch told Miller that “the Republican Party, not just here in Illinois but across the country, is wrong on those issues. They’re just wrong.”

“Those issues” seems to be one issue: the legal right of women to choose to kill their gestating children. I’d love to hear more from moral absolutist Welch on his justifications for asserting the wrongness of protecting human life.

State Senator Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) also dismissed the concerns of those who believe incipient human life has value:

I think that voters who would traditionally vote for Republican candidates turned out and said, ‘I’ve had enough of this nonsense. I’m going to vote for a Democrat, or I’m certainly not going to vote for the crazy Republicans’ and skipped a race.”

I’m not sure exactly what Deep Thinker Harmon believes is nonsensical and crazy. Is it “nonsensical” and “crazy” that Republicans believe a new human being comes into existence when sperm and egg unite?

Is it “nonsensical” and “crazy” that Republicans believe more powerful humans ought not have a legal right to order the extermination of weaker humans?

Is it “nonsensical” and “crazy” that Republicans support the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which “progressive” legal scholars have long argued had no basis in the Constitution?

Miller cited the new president of Personal PAC, Illinois’ most powerful pro-genocide lobbying organization, Sarah Garza Resnick, who hopes to “work with legislative Republicans to recruit pro-choice candidates.”

What is the “choice” she wants Republicans to support—the one she avoids identifying? That would be the “choice” of women to have their human offspring dismembered at any stage of development for any or no reason with no restrictions: no limits on gestational age, no parental notification, no mandatory waiting periods, no informed consent (and no limits on scientific experimentation on human embryos).

Garza offers some unsolicited advice to Republicans:

“I think that any smart political strategist would need to read the tea leaves of what is going on and what the voters are sending a very clear message on. And if you want to stay relevant and get the other important issues that you care about discussed, then I think it would make sense to recruit and run pro-choice Republicans. …

If you look at what happened in Kansas, and if you look at what happened where [abortion] was on the ballot in five states … on November 8, the people of this country overwhelmingly want choice to be protected and codified and they don’t want it to be dismantled.”

Well, anyone who’s anyone knows how important it is to “stay relevant.”

This seems a good moment to remind Americans who favor truth and justice over political expedience that sometimes the madding crowd is on the way wrong side of history. We should have learned that lesson from the history of the slave trade all around the world. And at one time, there were countless numbers of Americans who did not want the institution of slavery dismantled. It’s a good thing Garza wasn’t around then to offer unsolicited advice to political leaders.

Sunny Hostin, co-host of The View—a show whose leftist hosts are so intolerant and hostile they drive away all co-hosts with distinctly conservative views—recently compared white suburban women who would vote for Republicans to “roaches voting for Raid.” The steaming pile of ironies keep mounting.

First Hostin, a person of color and member of the diversity-loving, anti-racist crowd, refers to white women as roaches. And then she claims that voting to outlaw the extermination of tiny, weak humans is equivalent to voting for extermination. Hmmm …

Near as I can tell, Hostin is suggesting that outlawing the intentional serial extermination of tiny humans will result in deaths of women, so let’s examine Hostin’s claim to see how sound her analogy is.

In legal abortion, the dead victims are intentionally killed by the choice of their mothers aided and abetted by the law. In illegal abortions, the rarely dead women die accidentally as a result of choices they made.

Thousands of women choose to have their human offspring killed—nearly one million humans annually. Compare that to the statistics for the number of women who accidentally died from illegal abortions a decade before Roe legalized prenatal genocide. According to the liberal Guttmacher Institute, by “1965, the number of deaths due to illegal abortion had fallen to just under 200.”

Who do leftists treat like roaches? Who do they want to exterminate? (As an aside, would leftists support the daily serial killing of actual roaches via dismemberment? I’d say there are two chances of that: slim and fat.)

It’s not surprising that apparatchik for the prenatal genocide industrial complex Sarah Resnick Garza believes “codifying” human slaughter “on the constitutional level would make sense.” Let’s hope and pray that there are enough decent Illinoisans left in Illinois and the General Assembly to keep that from happening.

The 103rd General Assembly begins on Jan. 11, 2023 and runs for two years. IFI will alert our subscribers about any proposal regarding an abortion amendment to the Illinois constitution and urge them to contact their lawmakers to dissuade them from supporting it.

Chicago Sun-Times education reporter Nader Issa offers a classic example of biased opinion writing masquerading as objective reporting in his “news” narratives about a recent controversy in the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove over an obscene “graphic memoir.” The memoir, titled Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, may sound familiar to IFI readers. I wrote this about her memoir in early August 2021:

Maia Kobabe, author of Gender Queer: A Memoir, which is carried in high school libraries, tells the peculiar tale of her journey to her “identity” as a genderqueer, asexual woman with a lesbian aunt and a sister who dates a woman who pretends to be a man.

The far-left American Library Association awarded Kobabe an Alex Award for her “graphic” memoir. Her memoir is graphic in both senses of the word. It’s a sexually explicit, 240-page comic book about her journey into sexual confusion and perversion. Kobabe, who uses the “Spivak” pronouns ey/eir/em, also teaches art workshops to middle school children, mostly, she says, “AFAB” girls, which means “assigned female at birth.” Kobabe evidently doesn’t know that children aren’t assigned either a sex or “gender identity” at birth. That’s not a thing obstetricians do. Obstetricians identify the objective sex of babies at birth, a characteristic that never changes.

Public school kerfuffles over Kobabe’s obscene memoir have been justifiably emerging as parents learn that their children’s schools carry it, and one of those kerfuffles took place at a Downers Grove School Board meeting on November 15.

Issa mischaracterizes community criticism of the book as an “attack on literature” about “gender.” What in Issa’s view distinguishes an attack from criticism? And does he think that books about “gender” that don’t include obscene language and images would be under similar “attack”?

Issa continues his sly editorializing. He says the “attack” was perpetrated by “conservative protesters” and “some parents.” Notice the adjective “some,” which suggests that the attack was perpetrated mainly by conservative protestors with just a few parents. Issa, however, doesn’t provide any details. How many of the “conservative protesters” were district taxpayers? How many of the attendees approve of Gender Queer? How many of the attendees who approve of Gender Queer were parents? How many of the attendees who approve of Gender Queer were district taxpayers as opposed to outside leftist agitators? And why does Issa identify opponents of Gender Queer as “conservative” five times in the two articles he has written but doesn’t refer to supporters of the obscene book as “progressive” even once?

Issa then said that “Some critics have claimed children were being exposed to ‘homoerotic’ or ‘pornographic’ language and images.” Issa could have written “some critics oppose children being exposed to homoerotic and pornographic language and images,” but instead he wrote “some critics have claimed children were being exposed to” such language and images. Some have “claimed”? Seriously? Can any honest person deny that Kobabe’s comic book includes homoerotic and pornographic language and images? If images of two women engaged in sex using a dildo is not homoerotic and pornographic, what is?

The paranoid Issa implies critics are part of a vast right-wing conspiracy of “conservative politicians, activists, commentators and small networks of parents” to “denounce and ban progressive teachings in school.” He’s unfortunately right on two things; “progressives” are the peddlers of deviant and graphic sexuality, and they are using public schools to disseminate their sexuality ideology.

If Issa is bothered by the shared goals of conservative politicians, activists, commentators, and small networks of parents who are working toward cleansing schools of controversial leftist materials, he must really be troubled by the shared goals of leftist politicians, activists, academicians, commentators, and large networks of parents to systemically entrench leftist ideas about sexuality (and race) in curricula, resources, professional development, and activities.

Just as Issa referred to “some” parents and said some critics have “claimed” in order to discount the views of critics of Gender Queer, he also referred to “small” networks of parents. Perhaps Issa isn’t aware of the intimidation, bullying, mockery, name-calling, and shaming conservative taxpayers experience when they criticize pro-“LGBTQ” resources used in schools to advance leftist assumptions.

And perhaps Issa didn’t realize that “small networks” of conservative parents are now the minority, and minority voices are all the rage. Maybe Issa is an ideological neanderthal who believes might and numbers make right.

Issa dismisses the offensiveness of Gender Queer by saying it’s only “A few pages that include illustrations of sexual acts” that “have drawn the bulk of the ire.” First, it’s not just obscene drawings about which critics are angry. It’s also obscene language.

Second, how many pages of obscene images would it take to render a novel, memoir, or comic book inappropriate for purchase with taxpayer dollars for minors?

Issa calls attention to the “other students, parents and community members” who see the book as a “vital tool for youth discovering their identity and any efforts to ban it as censorship.”

Please note that Issa did not say a “few other students, parents, and community members” or “some other students, parents and community members” think Gender Queer is a “vital tool.” The diminishing qualifiers “some” and “few” are reserved for conservatives.

Vital? Really? Gender Queer is necessary to the continuation of life? However did kids survive before Kobabe wrote her obscene comic book?

The accusations of censorship and book-banning are curious. When leftist teachers decide that a book’s content is offensive or age-inappropriate and choose not to teach it, it’s called “text-selection.” When conservatives decide that a book is content- or age-inappropriate, leftists call it censorship or book-banning.

I wonder how many books the Downers Grove high schools have that critique leftist gender theory? How many resources do they have about detransitioners? If the answer is none, why would that be?

Issa didn’t mention whether there are any leftist politicians, activists, commentators, and networks of parents who share the goal of keeping Gender Queer and other obscene novels and plays in school libraries.

Issa mentioned that three students spoke in favor of keeping Gender Queer in the library. One student defended it by saying, that “it’s not being forced upon” students. Well, I guess Downers Grove parents should be thankful that teachers aren’t forcing their children to read it, but that comment fails to address the issue. The issue is, should taxpayer subsidized schools purchase and make available to minor students obscene material. Any parents who want their child to read Gender Queer can buy it for them, or kids can buy it themselves.

An 18-year-old student shared that Gender Queer “has scenes in it that are mature and sexual … [but] it’s not like we haven’t been given books with sex in them before.” Ain’t that the truth. School libraries and curricula are chock full of Young Adult (YA) books with graphic sex. Gender Queer is not an isolated library purchase. I would, however, dispute the claim that the obscene scenes in Gender Queer are “mature.” In this context, “mature” is a euphemism for vulgar and obscene.

The 18-year-old, Josiah Poynter, continued: “Inclusion matters to young people. … This is why we must have this book in our school’s library. Inclusion brings an opportunity to grow in a safe environment.”

Poynter is right. Teens and virtually every other human want to feel included, but inclusion must not trump truth. Inclusion must not entail affirming all feelings, beliefs, and acts. Neither inclusion nor the provision of a safe environment should entail the eradication of all moral boundaries.

According to Issa, Superintendent Hank Thiele said Gender Queer “met the district’s requirements for inclusion in its library.” Yikes. Someone better take a close critical look at those requirements.

In Issa’s second article on the Downers Grove dust-up, Democrat U.S. Representative Sean Casten made this asinine comment:

Let’s be really blunt about this. If you are a grown adult and you are walking through a library in an elementary school or high school and having sexual thoughts, you are the problem. It ain’t the book.

Let’s be really blunt about Casten. If he thinks adults who oppose taxpayer-funded schools spending taxpayer funds to make obscene garbage like Gender Queer available to minors are “having sexual thoughts,” then he’s ignorant, creepy, and unfit for office. But this is what we should expect from a man who admires Dan Savage.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Downers-Grove-HS-Obscene-Books-Biased-Journalism.mp3

*Updated to include Joe Biden’s Friday comparison of Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley to Nazi Joseph Goebbels.

Another tempest is brewing in the Land of the Lost, formerly known as the Land of Lincoln. It all began when, in a speech to Moms for America, newly elected U.S. Representative Mary Miller quoted Hitler’s infamous assertion from Mein Kampf about the indoctrination of children. Miller said,

If we win a few elections, we’re still going to be losing unless we win the hearts and minds of our children. This is the battle. Hitler was right on one thing. He said, “Whoever has the youth has the future.”

The political world came unhinged.

In a D.C. minute, Illinois’ foolish Democrats (I know, I know, redundant) U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth and U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky—both on the wrong side of, well, everything—with unsheathed claws, pounced, calling for Miller’s resignation.

I forget, did Duckworth and Schakowsky call for the resignation of colleague Jim Clyburn when he first compared Donald Trump to Hitler in March 2019? Did they call for Clyburn’s resignation in March 2020 when for the second time he compared President Trump to Hitler and then for good measure compared Trump supporters to Germans under Hitler’s reign, saying this:

I used to wonder: How did the people of Germany allow Hitler to exist? But with each passing day, I’m beginning to understand how.

*Have Duckworth and Schakowsky yet called for unifier Joe Biden to resign as president for his despicable comparison on Friday, January 8 of Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley to Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels?

Did Duckworth and Schakowsky call for the resignation of Michigan Democrat, U.S. Representative Brenda Lawrence when in September 2020, she compared Trump to Hitler and his supporters to supporters of Hitler?

Did Duckworth and Schakowsky call for the resignation of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when she called border detention facilities that Obama used to separate children from parents “concentration camps”?

In February 2020, did Duckworth and Schakowsky urge the firing of the history teacher in a government-subsidized school in Maryland “who showed a picture of Trump above pictures of a Nazi swastika and a flag of the Soviet Union” with captions that said ‘wants to round up a group of people and build a giant wall’ and ‘oh, THAT is why it sounds so familiar!’”

Lynn Sweet, longtime writer for the lying leftist rag the Chicago Sun-Times oddly and falsely described Miller’s comment as “praise of Hitler,” when all decent, fair, non-bigots understood Miller’s comment as criticism of Hitler and anyone else who seeks to inculcate children with evil ideas, as all tyrants do.

With his chest puffed up with the air of the self-righteous, busy beaver U.S. Representative from Illinois, Adam Kinzinger—a self-identifying Republican who is always eager to condemn conservatives—jumped aboard the smite Miller bandwagon, saying, “I outright condemn this garbage.” Yeah, that took courage.

Setting aside Godwin’s over-used law, I think it’s time for the faux-outrage from politicians about comparisons to Hitler or Nazism to stop. Both sides use such comparisons. Some comparisons are more apt than others. For example, the comparison of the Democrat view that defective humans are legitimate targets for government-sanctioned extermination to the Nazi view of “life unworthy of life” seems apt.

I’m climbing in bed with a strange fellow for a moment, the very liberal Michael Hiltzik, writer for the LA Times who in a July 2019 commentary challenged the leaders of the U.S. Holocaust Museum’s “unequivocal rejection” of any and all “efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary.”

While I disagree with Hiltzik’s apparent motive—that is, his desire for “progressives” to be free to compare Trump to Hitler—I agree with the view that the use of Holocaust analogies is not intrinsically sinful or off-limits.

Hiltzik explains his dissent from the Holocaust Museum’s absolute prohibition of the use of Holocaust analogies:

[T]he Holocaust Museum’s view of its mission as communicating the “history” of the Holocaust seems crabbed and narrow. Its real mission is to communicate the lesson that, unique as the Holocaust was in scale, the evil that brought it about lurks in the psyche of humans in groups, and may not be visible from the outset.

He goes on to cite Yale Holocaust historian Timothy Snyder who argues,

A monopoly on historical interpretation, claimed by a single institution, is a mark of authoritarianism … one of the dangers of placing a taboo on analogies … ensures that we never learn what we need to know.

Doesn’t that reflect the oft-cited view of philosopher George Santayana who famously warned, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”? Don’t we teach the evil events in history in part so that we recognize the shadows of those past events in current events? When we recognize those shadows—those contours—are we not to speak of them?

Don’t be naïve or gullible. Politicians don’t really take offense at the use of Nazi analogies. Political animals without principles—particularly animals who don’t believe in objective moral truth or the source of such truth—lack even a grounding for moral outrage. Like everything else within their grasp, their faux-outrage is a political tool for influencing people and winning power. Faux-outrage—fauxrage—emanates from whichever political side is being gored by the analogy.

Don’t fall for it. Don’t be intimidated by it. It’s a tall tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Freshman Rep. Mary Miller, a Christian, mother of seven, grandmother of 17, and farmer, under withering and indefensible attacks from around the country and next to no support from colleagues, has issued a gracious and humble apology for an alleged sin she did not commit:

Earlier this week, I spoke to a group of mothers about the importance of faith and guarding our youth from destructive influences. I sincerely apologize for any harm my words caused and regret using a reference to one of the most evil dictators in history to illustrate the dangers that outside influences can have on our youth. This dark history should never be repeated and parents should be proactive to instill what is good, true, right, and noble into their children’s hearts and minds. While some are trying to intentionally twist my words to mean something antithetical to my beliefs, let me be clear: I’m passionately pro-Israel and I will always be a strong advocate and ally of the Jewish community. I’ve been in discussion with Jewish leaders across the country and am grateful to them for their kindness and forthrightness.

Oh, btw, Hitler—the evil monster—was right on one thing: Whoever has the youth, has the future. As Christians seek to train up their children in the way they should go, they would do well to remember that supremely evil men understand the long-term effects of indoctrinating children. Hitler was not the first, nor will he be the last evil monster to pursue our youth. There are other monsters prowling around, seeking whom they will devour.

Listen to this article read by Laurie: 

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/MaryMiller.mp3

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In the early morning hours of August 9th, looters ransacked stores along Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. Known for its high-end retail shops, the 13-block stretch along North Michigan Avenue filled with people, quickly descending into chaos and overwhelming the Chicago Police Department (CPD).

Early reports claimed the rioting and protests were in response to police shooting and killing a child Sunday afternoon in the Englewood neighborhood. That was quickly proven false when police reported the actual incident involved a shootout with a 20-year-old man who was wounded, but not fatally, and had fired first at officers in an hours-long standoff.

But that did not matter to leaders of the group Black Lives Matter Chicago. The Chicago Sun-Times reported the group warned the City’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot in a statement that the unrest would not end until “the safety and well-being of our communities is finally prioritized.”

The statement continued, “The mayor clearly has not learned anything since May, and she would be wise to understand that the people will keep rising up until the [Chicago Police Department] is abolished and our Black communities are fully invested in.” True to their word, the group has continued to hold protests around the city.

CPD Superintendent David Brown said that police have arrested over 100 people, two were shot that night, and 13 officers were injured. Brown described the looting as “pure criminality.” BLM Chicago countered that people were just “protesting.”

According to the BLM Chicago statement, “Over the past few months, too many people — disproportionately Black and Brown — have lost their jobs, lost their income, lost their homes, and lost their lives as the city has done nothing and the Chicago elite have profited. When protesters attack high-end retail stores that are owned by the wealthy and service the wealthy, that is not ‘our’ city and has never been meant for us.”

The next morning, Superintendent Brown said the shooting led to a wave of overnight looting downtown and on the Near North Side that resulted in two people being shot, over 100 arrests, and 13 injuries to officers. Though Brown characterized the looting as “pure criminality,” Black Lives Matter Chicago again claimed that those involved were protesting.

Ariel Atkins

That same day at a demonstration in the city, Ariel Atkins, a Chicago BLM organizer, encouraged looters to take “anything they want to take” as “reparations.”

“I don’t care if somebody decides to loot a Gucci, or a Macy’s, or a Nike,” Atkins said, “because that makes sure that that person eats. That makes sure that that person has clothes. That’s a reparation. Anything they want to take, take it, because these businesses have insurance.”

Atkins doubled down on her previous statement the following day, telling WBEZ radio that BLM supports the looters 100% and they should take “anything they want” as “reparations.”

When questioned about the looters who tried to break into a nearby Ronald McDonald House where frightened sick children and their parents were staying, Atkins defended them, stating, “I will support the looters ’til the end of the day. If that’s what they need to do in order to eat, then that’s what you’ve got to do to eat.”

It’s not just Atkins and BLM Chicago who feel that way. In June, CNN’s Christine Amanpour interviewed Nikole Hannah-Jones, the lead writer for the New York Times’ 1619 Project. Amanpour asked Hannah-Jones about a statement she had made about the act of taking being symbolic for restitution. Hannah-Jones replied,

When we see someone killed by the police, that is the worse manifestation of police violence,”  “but it doesn’t get to the daily violence that doesn’t end in death, or the daily degradation that black Americans face. The fact that these communities have been preyed upon by predatory lenders, it goes on and on. When we think about someone taking something from some big-box name store, it is symbolic. That one pair of shoes that you stole from Footlocker is not going to change your life, but it is a symbolic taking.

Columnist decries looters

Liberal Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell came out against the looters in her August 10th column. “Sunday night’s assault on downtown businesses was a brazen display of criminal behavior, pure and simple,” she wrote.

Countering the BLM organizer’s statement, Mitchell wrote,

The people who smashed their way into luxe boutiques didn’t do it because they were fed up with police shootings, or because they are out of work and desperate.

They did it because they saw an opportunity to steal stuff they couldn’t afford to buy and because they have no respect for the rule of law.

More than a week has passed since BLM Chicago made its demands. CPD has bolstered efforts to track down looters through social media. Officers are working 12-hour shifts and days off are canceled. Businesses downtown are boarded up and some retailers have announced plans to leave the city. And the protests continue.

Will the mayor acquiesce to their demands? What exactly will it take for BLM Chicago to feel “the safety and well-being of our communities is finally prioritized?” Could the city see the violence get even worse as the November elections approach? Will President Donald Trump send federal intervention? Could the religious community unite and stand as one to push back the evil that’s overtaken Chicago? So many questions… no clear answers.

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The unholy trinity of J.B. Pritzker, creepy State Representative Kelly Cassidy, and her creepy “wife” Candace Gingrich (who goes by the pronoun “they,” #eyeroll) continue in their efforts to destroy whatever good remains in Illinois. (And yes, people who promote feticide, taxpayer-funding of feticide, homosexuality, and cross-sex impersonation are creepy—uber-creepy.) Now, through the legalization of recreational marijuana, Pritzker, Cassidy and their ideological allies are trying—by sucking money out of Illinoisans’ pockets while keeping them stoned—to dig Illinois out of the fiscal gorge liberals  have dug.

If it’s not bad enough that Gingrich has worked for the Human Rights Campaign for 23 years, the Chicago Sun-Times reported on July 31 that she,

will serve as vice president and head of business development for Revolution Florida, a sister company to Illinois-based Revolution Enterprises. Revolution makes a variety of cannabis products, including food, beverages, topicals and pet products…. Gingrich… will also serve as the company’s ambassador to the LGBTQ community. Gingrich… plans to establish LGBTQ-focused medical cannabis treatment centers and increase economic opportunities for LGBTQ people in the sector.

Gingrich’s fake-wife Kelly Cassidy was the lead sponsor of the “massive marijuana legalization measure signed into law last month,” which followed close on the heels of the massive human slaughter bill that Cassidy led the charge on. But the creepy couple assert that since Gingrich was hired after the bill passed in late May, there’s nothing to see here folks, so just move along.

Pritzker too scoffs at the idea that there is any connection between his support for the pot bill and the business interests of relatives, in his case his second cousin Joseph “Joby” Pritzker and Joseph Pritzker’s father Nicholas J. Pritzker who head up a capital investment firm “that has… poured money into a pair of cannabis-related ventures, PAX Labs and MJ Freeway.”

Tao Capital Partners, which Nicholas Pritzker co-founded, was an early investor in the e-cigarette company JUUL, which “was developed by the cannabis vaporizer company PAX.” Due to the concerns of many that the slow death of the tobacco industry will result in JUUL moving into the burgeoning cannabis industry, on June 7, U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, chair of the House Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, sent a letter to JUUL requesting, among other things, this:

All documents, including memoranda and communications, referring or relating to proposals, plans, and/or intended partnerships or collaborations between JUUL and any cannabis-related companies, including but not limited to Cronos Group [a Canada-based cannabis company].

Last year, Pritzker’s campaign claimed “the governor had not spoken” to his relatives “about marijuana policy or anything else ‘in a long time.’” First, how long is a long time? Second, not speaking to family members about policy pertaining to business interests related to marijuana that he knows they have is hardly a defense.

Oh, but there’s more. The Sun-Times quoted Dr. Kevin Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, who exposed that the Chicago way of profiting while harming Illinoisans thrives:

Governor Pritzker worked to buy off legislators during the budget process in closed door meetings and now his family will now vastly benefit. Senator Van Pelt was putting plans in place to obtain a marijuana license while the bill was being written.

According to a May 21 article in the Sun-Times, starting last January “Van Pelt was marketing… investment seminars and leading a company that intends to obtain licenses to grow and sell marijuana in the state, she also was named as co-sponsor of a bill to legalize the drug statewide.”

Last January, Senator Patricia Van Pelt (D-Chicago) began advertising on social media her $100 seminars on how to profit from recreational pot once it was legalized. According to the Sun-Times, “Less than four months later, those seminars and another cannabis-related business Van Pelt is involved with are being investigated by the Illinois Secretary of State’s office.”

A damning news report from WCIA in Springfield on Van Pelt’s “scheme,” reveals that scheming isn’t new to Van Pelt:

In 2015, while in office, she promoted a multi-level marketing pyramid scheme that later ended abruptly when its owners were convicted for dodging taxes and defrauding investors of $4 million dollars.

The Sun-Times reported the extent of Van Pelt’s troubling entanglements with the cannabis industry:

In addition to charging nearly $100 to watch her online cannabis investment seminars, Van Pelt also serves as the president of WaKanna For Life. The multilevel marketing company… aims to win licenses to grow and sell pot, according to company CEO Melissa Boston-Atoyebi.

On April 20, considered a holiday among pro-pot advocates, Van Pelt and her co-investors sold tickets to a seminar they held on the cannabis industry at the Harold Washington Cultural Center in Bronzeville.

According to WCIA, Van Pelt’s actions represent not only a violation of ethics guidelines for lawmakers but perhaps even state law:

Undeterred by ethics laws that prohibit public officials from using their office to enrich themselves, Van Pelt uses her personal Facebook page to post images of her private meetings with Governor J.B. Pritzker, including images of March 21st Legislative Black Caucus meeting agenda which outlined how the state should prioritize marijuana shop licenses for black business owners…. Van Pelt’s personal involvement in a company that could reap handsome profits in the wake of legalization has raised ethical questions about the potential for a conflict of interest. Several members of the Legislative Ethics Commission, who are legally restricted from discussing open investigations, said they were unaware of Van Pelt’s activities, but acknowledged that her actions were troublesome, and that they could easily trigger an ethics complaint to the Legislative Inspector General.

Van Pelt signed on to the recreational marijuana bill as a co-sponsor in early May. The WCIA exposé came out on May 14. The Sun-Times reported that shortly after her scheme was exposed,

New conflict of interest provisions were added to the marijuana measure just before the Illinois Senate passed it, banning lawmakers and their family members, as well as state employees, from being able to get a cannabis business license for two years.

Then on May 15, Van Pelt was removed as a co-sponsor of the bill.

The creepy actions of creepy leaders like Pritzker, Cassidy, and Van Pelt help explain the growing movement to have Chicago go its own way, that is to become a separate state. And they help explain the mass exodus of Illinoisans to places with green pastures rather than fetid swamps.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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“Progressive” extremists, who are growing in number, volume, and oppressiveness, are managing to divide even “progressives.”

They’re dividing homosexuals from gender-pretenders (i.e., L’s and G’s from T’s) by claiming that anyone who cares about the genitalia of their sexual partners is “transphobic.”

They’re dividing feminists from gender-pretenders by claiming that women must allow objectively male persons in their restrooms, locker rooms, showers, and shelters.

And now they’re dividing the theater community by attacking critics who criticize plays—even tepidly—that espouse Leftist ideas.

A particularly virulent attack on one long-time Chicago theater critic has revealed the nastiness, intellectual myopia, and fascistic tendencies of actors who have deified themselves as paragons of tolerance, advocates for diversity, and free-thinkers. No joke. They believe that about themselves.

Hedy Weiss, who has been the dance and theater critic for the Chicago Sun Times since 1984, has been accused by Steppenwolf Theatre’s artistic director Anna D. Shapiro and Executive Director David Schmitz of ignorant bigotry in a Steppenwolf Facebook post dripping with histrionics and Leftist bias:

Some of the critical responses from this work have been shocking – not because of the actual critique of the art, but in the way that the responses revealed at best the ignorance of the critic and at worst, a racial bias that, when captured in print, wounded many people of color in this community and their allies, and served as a horrendous reminder of how far we still have to come in terms of racial equity in this community.

We denounce the viewpoints expressed in some of these reviews as they fail to acknowledge the very systemic racism that PASS OVER addresses directly. Particularly egregious are the comments from Sun Times critic Hedy Weiss, whose critical contribution has, once again, revealed a deep seated bigotry and a painful lack of understanding of this country’s historic racism.

Many wonder how Weiss’ deep-seated bigotry and ignorance of this country’s racist history could have escaped the notice of the liberal Sun Times management for over three decades.

What prompted this accusation—a pernicious accusation if false—were these purportedly “wounding” words Weiss wrote about the play Pass Over by Antoinette Nwandu, which uses a Waiting for Godot-like conceit to examine the plight of young black men in Chicago:

But, for all the many and varied causes we know so well, much of the lion’s share of the violence is perpetrated within the community itself. Nwandu’s simplistic, wholly generic characterization of a racist white cop (clearly meant to indict all white cops) is wrong-headed and self-defeating. Just look at news reports about recent shootings (on the lakefront, on the new River Walk, in Woodlawn) and you will see the look of relief when the police arrive on the scene. And the playwright’s final scenes — including a speech by the clueless white aristocrat who appears earlier in the story — and who could not be more condescending to Steppenwolf’s  largely white “liberal” audience — further rob the play of its potential impact.

Yes, these are the “shocking” words that Shapiro and Schmitz believe “wounded people of color and their allies.”

Weiss was making the point that the play offers a simplistic view of the causes of violence in Chicago’s black community by ignoring endemic problems, stereotyping police as racist, and ignoring the indispensable role police play in curbing violence. For that she is deemed an ignorant bigot.

Theaters have a longstanding practice of offering complimentary tickets to critics. Because of Weiss’ alleged racism, a coalition of theaters called Chicago Theater Accountability Coalition (ChiTAC) started a Change.org petition that urges theaters to stop giving complimentary tickets to Weiss. ChiTAC is also reportedly putting the squeeze on other theaters to join this effort to punish Weiss for expressing ideas that hurt the finely tuned feelings of Leftists.

ChiTAC is to the world of theater criticism what Will H. Hays was to the film industry.

Other theaters are going further. According to the Chicago Tribune, “Second City CEO Andrew Alexander on Monday requested the Sun-Times send an alternate theater critic to review its performances,” and Writers Theatre in Glencoe warned, “those who do choose to use language that espouses hate or ignorance will not be invited to attend as guests.” The problem, as conservatives know, is that “progressives” have redefined hate and ignorance to mean “moral or ontological propositions that ‘progressives’ dislike.”

In an open letter to the Goodman Theatre, Chicago actor Bear Bellinger expressed his discomfort with and unwillingness to perform if Weiss is in the audience, saying the theater should provide an understudy to replace him if she were in the audience. Some call this principle. Others call it self-indulgent, self-righteous, petulant “virtue-signaling.”

To put Weiss’ allegedly “racist” words in context, here’s a bit more from her review of Pass Over:

The essential premise of Antoinette Nwandu’s play, “Pass Over,” now in a brilliantly acted world premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre, is unquestionably inspired.

…

To be sure, no one can argue with the fact that this city (and many others throughout the country) has a problem with the use of deadly police force against African-Americans.

…

Hill and Parker are such sublime actors — possessed of wonderful physical grace and finely honed tragicomic instincts — that watching them bicker, tease, wrestle, put on Masterpiece Theatre-like British airs, and above all, dream of making it to the “Promised Land” (just as in the Bible story they learned as kids in Sunday school) is like a master class in dramatic interplay. (Parker is particularly charismatic — an actor who can make you hear his brain humming.) And Nwandu has written terrific, alternately playful and heartbreaking dialogue for them.

Does anyone think an actual racist would write those words?

Chicago theater “progressives,” practiced at the art of ferreting out speech that expresses ideas they don’t like, have had Weiss on their radar for some time. The theater community was beside itself with moral outrage when Weiss (aas well as Chicago Tribune theater critic Chris Jones) found fault with the Steppenwolf’s 2015 production of the play for teens titled This is Modern Art for its glorification of graffiti and its inclusion of a tutorial on how to vandalize property and elude authorities.

Weiss wrote:

I lived in New York throughout the 1970s, when graffiti became the medium of protest. I watched as thousands of subway cars, street signs, historic bridges and building walls were defaced — becoming a sort of visual virus that the city could neither control nor afford to erase.

That graffiti (which later surfaced as America’s “gift” to European cities, too) became the most self-destructive marker — a warning sign that a neighborhood was dangerous, infected with crime, on the decline, and a bad place to set up a business. In short, it was a form of grand-scale urban self-inflicted mugging, even if people like Norman Mailer tried to ennoble it. And while you might have been able to pick out a few bits of truly “artful” scrawl, most of the stuff was desecration, pure and simple. And the scourge of graffiti continues: After a recent reconstruction of the Diversey Harbor area, graffiti ruined a beautiful new wall, and the shadows of removed paint still linger.

…

No amount of classroom discussion will scrub clean the irresponsible ideas promulgated in this play. 

It’s an odd moral universe that the theater community has constructed in which homosexuality, transvestism, and public nudity are celebrated while criticism of graffiti is condemned.

Particularly obtuse, deceitful, and/or kooky theater blogger Mark Schreppe, who calls Weiss’ review of Pass Over “vomit-inducing,” accuses Weiss of a whole host of nasty things including “body-shaming” an actress in Weiss’ positive review of a “gender-bending” play in which females played male historical characters. This is the only comment I could find in Weiss’ review that even touches on an actress’ appearance:

Kelli Simpkins, the tall, reed-thin actress with an easily androgynous bearing and brainy aura, 

That’s it. That description of Simpkins as tall and reed-thin constitutes body-shaming in the rhetorical police state occupied by Leftist language vigilantes.

Schreppe goes on to make this truly baffling comment in reference to Weiss’ review of the play Monster: “Hedy seems unwilling to believe that a young black boy could be talented.” To ascertain the soundness of this charge, you must read the review by Weiss on which this allegation is based (Click here). Trying to find even a hint of justification for the allegation that Weiss is unwilling to believe a young black boy could be talented is like trying to find Waldo in a Richard Scarry book.

Schreppe excoriates Weiss for racism in her review of the play Gloria because Weiss described an Asian American character as Asian American and an African American character as African American. Oddly, he didn’t criticize Anne Spiselman for using the exact terms to describe those characters in her review in the Hyde Park Herald. Nor did he criticize Paul Taylor who described the Asian American character as a “work-shy Asian-American rich kid.”

Unfortunately, the theater world has long been an insular echo chamber in which deviant ideas and images flourish to the detriment of human flourishing. With this attack on the not-really-conservative Hedy Weiss, it’s clear just how little room there is in the arts for dissenting views of human nature and human flourishing to be expressed. The theater community is a body of believers so thoroughly infected with systemic bigotry that it has no healthy organ of discernment left: no eyes to see, no ears to hear, no mind capable of clear thinking.

For those who love theater, there is a theater company well worth supporting: Provision Theater, whose mission is to produce “works of hope, reconciliation and redemption; works that challenge us to explore a life of meaning and purpose.”

IFI depends on the support of Christians like you. Donate now

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The effort to to redefine marriage and family is shifting into high gear. The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that the proponents of same-sex “marriage” plan to attempt to pass their disastrous  legislation in the Illinois Senate on Valentine’s Day. One would hope that our state lawmakers wouldn’t be susceptible to this type of emotional manipulation, but I am not so sure. From the article:

Valentine’s Day might wind up being more than just a day of romance for Illinois’ gay and lesbian couples.

Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) wants Feb. 14 to be the day his legislative chamber votes to legalize gay marriages in Illinois.

“I’d like to pass it out of committee next week and pass it on Valentine’s Day,” Cullerton told the Chicago Sun-Times in a meeting Thursday with the newspaper’s Editorial Board.

Cullerton said he believes the legislation, Senate Bill 10, has the necessary 30 votes to pass and move to the House, clearing a major hurdle in making Illinois the 10th state to legalize same-sex marriages.

IFI Cultural Analyst Laurie Higgins notes the appropriateness of Cullerton’s proposal: “Cullerton’s statement epitomizes the Left’s approach to serious moral and legislative issues which is to divert the public’s attention from reason, logic and evidence by appealing to emotion. Yank on the heartstrings of an intellectually lazy public and voilà another victory for sexual anarchists and marriage nihilists.”

Now is the time to make your voice heard!

With the beginning of a new General Assembly — which includes 27 new state representatives, 16 new state senators and many new district boundaries — it is imperative that each of us again reaches out to our state lawmakers on this issue. There is a good chance that  your lawmakers have changed. We need you to contact your legislators today. Tell them that it is unconscionable to be complicit in the destruction of marriage and family in Illinois. They must hear from us! 

Take ACTION: 1. Click HERE to email your state lawmakers today, urging them to uphold natural marriage and not to cave to the culturally destructive groups that are intent on altering society’s definition and understanding of marriage. Tell them you do not support the legalization of gay “marriage,” and that studies show same-sex marriage is bad for children, families and society. Let them know that with all of the problems we face as a state and nation, the General Assembly should not be harming the institution most essential to the social and economic well-being of society.

2. Join us on February 20th in Springfield for a “Defend Marriage Lobby Day.” (Read more HERE.) Plan to bring your family and friends AND organize your church to support this lobbying day to defend marriage.

3. Pray that God would give wisdom to our state lawmakers. Pray that God would convict the hearts of our lawmakers. Pray that God would give courage to our lawmakers to do the right thing in the face of tremendous pressure to do otherwise. Pray that God would have mercy on the families of Illinois.

4. Ask your pastor to share this bulletin insert with the congregation. 

5. Share this message with family, friends and on social media. Forward this email to like-minded contacts. Ask them also to send emails and make calls.

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

Help expand our reach by forwarding this email
to like-minded family and friends.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, with his finger ever on the pulse of “progressives”—I mean, Chicagoans—has discerned that two of the top three problems facing the city are the absence of casinos and legalized “same-sex marriage.”

The city’s failing schools, gang activity, murder rate, debt, unemployment, poverty, family breakdown, child abuse, and drug use pale in significance when compared to the absence of casinos. Perhaps Mayor Emanuel sees casinos as the solution to all those problems.

One of his top priorities is bringing casinos to the city, casinos that will disproportionately harm those of lesser incomes because they have less financial padding to sustain the ineluctable losses on which predatory casinos rely.

Judging from his letter to the Chicago Sun Times, his de facto top priority is same-sex marriage, which will further erode the institution of marriage, the erosion of which has already disproportionately harmed the black community.

But why should these inconvenient truths bother Emanuel when he’s got fat cat casino-backers and wealthy homosexuals in his corner.

Emanuel in a display of “progressive” ignorance and uncharacteristic mushiness claimed that “gays and lesbians are still denied one essential freedom: the right to make a lifelong commitment to the person they love.” Say what?

Every unmarried person of major age is free to marry as long as he or she is seeking to marry one person of the opposite sex who is not closely related by blood. Homosexuals are not denied the right to marry. They choose not to participate in this sexually complementary institution.

Homosexuals are simply not permitted to unilaterally jettison the central defining feature of legally sanctioned marriage: sexual complementarity.

Similarly, polyamorists may not unilaterally jettison the requirement regarding numbers of partners, and those in love with their siblings or parents may not unilaterally jettison the requirement pertaining to close blood kinship.

Moreover, homosexuals are not denied the right to make a lifelong commitment. Homosexuals may, indeed, love, have sex with, set up households with, and commit for life to any person they wish.

Mayor Emanuel seems to have adopted the view that marriage is an institution centrally or solely concerned with the loving feelings of those involved. But if that’s the case, if marriage is solely about love and has no intrinsic connection to procreation, then why does the government limit it to two people? And if marriage is solely about love, why not permit two loving brothers to marry?

If marriage were centrally or solely about the recognition of love, there would be no reason for the government to be involved. The government has no vested interest in “recognizing” subjective feelings. The government has a vested interest in the objective connection of sexually complementary coupling to procreation.

The government is in the marriage business because a two-person, sexually complementary union is how children are produced, and the government has a vested interest in recognizing, regulating, and promoting the type of relationship that can produce children—whether or not any particular couple has children.

In describing Chicago’s diversity, Mayor Emanuel paired race and “sexual orientation” revealing that he’s also bought into the intellectually vacuous comparison of race to homosexuality, which is the flawed analogy upon which the entire homosexuality-affirming house of cards is built. Whereas race is 100 percent heritable, in all cases immutable, and has no behavioral implications whatsoever, homosexuality is constituted by subjective feelings, volitional sexual acts that are legitimate objects of moral assessment, and is not 100 percent heritable.

Despite exploiting the language of the civil rights movement by trumpeting his defense of “equality,” Emanuel is not advocating for equality. He’s advocating for the unilateral redefinition of marriage by homosexuals to serve their desires.

Emanuel, envisioning himself as the Martin Luther King Jr. of the homosexual movement, proclaims “Marriage equality is the next step in our nation’s march forward. Illinois must lead the way.” Emanuel would do well to remember these words of Martin Luther King Jr.:

“How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law….An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.”

Illinois has certainly proved itself capable of leading the way, leading the way to fiscal insolvency, educational malpractice, and incomprehensible murder rates. Why not lead the way to the destruction of real marriage by pretend marriage.

Rep. Lou Lang is drafting an amendment to a (shell) bill passed in the Senate, according to the Chicago Tribune. If the bill passes in the House, the bill would go back to the Senate for a vote, but no amendments will be added according to Rep. Lang.

The Chicago Sun-Times recently published an editorial supporting a casino in Chicago and slots at six racetracks. The new Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, has expressed interest in a city-owned casino, and Governor Quinn is “open to discussing proposals” that raise revenue, create jobs and lead to greater investment in schools, as noted in the editorial.

Gambling interests promise more than they can deliver. The 10th casino license is scheduled to open in July, and promised to bring in about $9 million in revenue each year for the city of Des Plaines. The Daily Herald reported that based on the latest projections by a bipartisan state commission and the city’s own independent research, the city will only receive $2 million to $4 million — the cost of one fire truck!

The legislative session is scheduled to end on May 31. Legislators still have many issues to address. Gambling is an unstable source of revenue. Ramming a massive gambling expansion bill through in the final days of the session will not solve the revenue problems for Chicago or the State, and the cost, harm, and impact on communities are not even being considered.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send your lawmakers an email or a fax to encourage them to oppose any bill to yet again expand gambling in the Land of Lincoln.

More Action:

1. Call your State Representative and Senator at             (217) 782-2000       and ask them to Vote NO on ALL gambling bills.

2. Call Governor Quinn at             (800) 642-3112       to ask him to OPPOSE a Chicago casino, slots at race tracks, and ALL gambling expansion.

3. Write a Letter to the Editor

4. Share this Alert with your faith community and PRAY.

5. Forward to 10 others.

On Sunday, June 27th, one of the largest “Gay” Pride Parades in the country took place in the city of Chicago. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, supposedly 450,000 people lined the streets in the city’s Lakeview neighborhood for the 41st annual parade. The Chicago Tribune in its hard news section wrote, “While maintaining its reputation as a lively, often flashy event, the parade has also come to reflect broader acceptance of gays and lesbians. Marching politicians were followed by dancers from gay nightclubs and floats filled with employees of major corporations.” See complete article HERE.

The Tribune comments were more appropriate as commentary because the failing newspaper suggests the homosexual lifestyle is receiving “broader acceptance” from the general public. In reality, homosexuality and the alternative lifestyle represented by those who participated in and supported the parade is not a demonstration of wider support by the American people.

The truth of the matter is, if the establishment media, including the Chicago Tribune, related all the facts concerning homosexuality’s impact on our culture, the public would look at this behavior from a perspective other than something seen through rose-colored glasses.

For example, one of the major issues facing Illinois in 2010 concerns the $13 billion budget shortfall. Homosexuality is a very unhealthy lifestyle which costs taxpayers literally hundreds of millions of dollars in added health care costs. Yet you would be hard-pressed to find a story in the mainstream media in any major metropolitan area and especially Chicago which provides information on how homosexuality is taxing our economic system in a time of deep recession.

Would such a story be appropriate in a discussion of the unhealthy alternative lifestyles represented in the “Gay” Pride Parades held across the nation? In contrast, the establishment press goes out of its way to give the impression those who practice homosexuality live a carefree life, filled with boundless joy and “gaiety”.

To illustrate my point, the homosexual characters in nearly every television series are portrayed as happy, well-adjusted individuals who have a true grasp of the meaning of life. In reality, the homosexual lifestyle is very painful for those who are caught up in it. Studies conducted by the Center for Disease Control say male same-sex partners often die early. Rampant infidelity among those who practice this type of decadence leads to a hollow existence, compounded by the moral judgments this group applies to themselves.

Both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times say the police estimate 450,000 people lined the parade route in support of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals. However, many of those who looked upon the parade were there for prurient interest. Often the event features what a majority of Illinois residents would refer to as obscene behavior which is in clear violation of the city of Chicago’s obscenity and decency laws. The Chicago Police look the other way while parade participants and on-lookers perform simulated and actual sex acts in public and flaunt their nudity, all in the attempt to either titillate those along the parade route or draw the ire of innocent members of the public who are subjected to an x-rated display of the most vile and perverse behavior. And it is behavior. If every human being on the planet Earth suddenly became a homosexual, the human race would die out within a generation. In addition, there is evidence, as with any addictive behavior, individuals can and do overcome the curse of homosexuality, contrary to claims by gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals who assert they are “born that way”.

Holy Scripture tells us we are to love the sinner, but hate the sin and we are all sinners in God’s eyes. But if not for the precious gift of Christ’s salvation because of the blood He shed on the cross for the remission of sins, all of us, homosexual or not, would be without hope.

Many homosexuals claim their existence and purpose for living is more than simply a choice concerning how they have sex. Yet the image presented to the public by the establishment media and those who supported and participated in “Gay” Pride Parades–not only in Chicago, but across the country–sent a very different message. So, if it is not about the sex, what was the purpose for the parades? The clear message is that homosexuality is all about the sex. And it has to be. After all, it’s the “Gay” Pride Parade.

A blogger, called Red Blooded American, put it most succinctly when replying to a Chicago Sun-Times article by writing:

They certainly hurt themselves every time they dress up in @$$less chaps and a Speedo and scream to the top of their lungs “I’m no different from you”. If you want your lifestyle to be accepted as normal, then act normal. Until then, you will struggle with acceptance.

An excellent column was written by David Smith, Executive Director, Illinois Family Institute, prior to the parade. For complete article, click HERE.

Smith lists which politicians, corporations and media organizations supported the “Gay” Pride Parade by either marching or having a float in the parade or simply financially supporting the day’s activities. Those who support the pro-family agenda should take special note of this list. Are these politicians and groups representing all of us? Or do they have a politically correct agenda which is in stark contrast to the Judeo-Christian ethic which a vast majority of Americans still embrace?

The media is supposed to be a neutral observer, reporting on the facts. However, in recent decades, commentary has blended its way into the hard news sections of news entities which cross the lines of journalistic integrity. The media’s coverage of Chicago’s “Gay” Pride Parade, by some members of the press, was a perfect illustration of tainted journalism. Sadly, when this occurs, we are all losers.

In a recent article, Chicago Sun-Times’ columnist Neil Steinberg criticizes the Illinois Family Institute’s website for not “addressing what an individual could do to improve his own family.”

While Mr. Steinberg would love to see our organization relegated to self-improvement, family entertainment and leisure activities, IFI is a public policy organization that addresses policy issues that are substantial and consequential to the families of Illinois. If Steinberg bothered to look past the home page of our website to the “About Us” section, he may have understood our mission and purpose.

The Illinois Family Institute is a nonprofit research and education organization committed to protecting and defending the family by influencing policy and promoting timeless values consistent with Judeo-Christian teachings and traditions.

Disagreeing with our mission and our positions on these issues is fair. Mr. Steinberg obviously disagrees with our position on homosexual behavior and specifically our statement that “volitional homosexual acts are immoral,” calling them “superficial, silly, ad hominem non-arguments.” He is right: that statement is not an argument. It is a moral claim for which there are both religious and secular justifications. Similarly, the view that homosexual acts are moral is not an argument. It is a moral claim that requires justifications.

Unfortunately, Mr. Steinberg offers nothing to substantiate his criticisms other than name-calling. While he waxes poetic about tolerance, Mr. Steinberg describes opposition to so-called same-sex marriages and civil unions as “sick,” “twisted sexual” obsessions, “creepy, fixated” fundamentalism, “religious prejudice,” “intolerant,” and “inhuman.”

He compares opposition to the radical, subversive, a-historical effort to jettison the central defining feature of marriage — sexual complementarity — to teeth flossing and clean underwear checks.

In his anti-IFI article, Mr. Steinberg points out that he doesn’t want to impose his values on other people or “write an amendment into the Illinois constitution” to impose his beliefs. Since he feels so strongly about the immorality of imposing values on others, will Mr. Steinberg write a column critical of the efforts of homosexuality-affirming organizations to impose through public education and legislation their unproven ontological claim that homosexuality is equivalent to race and their unproven moral claim that gender is irrelevant to marriage?

And in his self-righteous advocacy of absolute moral neutrality in the public square, will he defend polyamorists’ right to marry?

Mr. Steinberg ends his tirade with an emotional appeal saying that our country “is a vast, varied place where people from all sorts of races, religions, creeds and, yes, differing sexuality, dwell together in harmony…” I guess this sentiment applies to everyone except religious conservatives.

If the superficial, silly, ad hominem non-arguments that constitute the sum total of Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg‘s indictment of conservative positions on homosexuality were not so dangerous, they would be laughable.

In a rant in the Sunday Feb. 14 Sun-Times, Mr. Steinberg describes opposition to faux same-sex marriages and civil unions as “sick,” “twisted sexual” obsessions, “creepy, fixated” fundamentalism, “religious prejudice,” “intolerant,” and “inhuman.”

He compares opposition to the radical, subversive, a-historical effort to jettison the central defining feature of marriage–sexual complementarity–to teeth flossing and clean underwear checks.

Ah, yes, I can hear the mellifluous tones of tolerance wafting through his rhetoric.

One wonders if Mr. Steinberg applies these same epithets and feckless analogies to opposition to jettisoning any of the other defining features of marriage, like the binary requirement, or the blood kinship requirement. Are those who oppose adult consensual incest or polygamy sick, twisted sexual obsessives, and creepy, fixated fundamentalists?

Mr. Steinberg’s cliche non-arguments lead me to wonder if he has ever engaged with the substantive arguments of real intellectuals, either in person or through a thorough study of the best writing of conservative scholars. I think not because nary a substantive counter- argument can be found in his thicket of epithets.

Here are some questions for the moral philosopher, Mr. Steinberg:

• Is homosexuality ontologically equivalent to race or skin color? If so, what is your evidence for that claim?
• Is homosexuality morally equivalent to heterosexuality? If so, what are your justifications for that belief?
• What is the basis of the government’s involvement in marriage?
• Is the government in the business of simply affirming affection and sexual desire?
• If so, why not affirm through legal mechanisms like marriage or civil unions the affection and sexual attraction some siblings feel for each other, or the affection and sexual attraction polyamorists feel for multiple people?
• Is marriage an utterly private institution, or does it impact the public good?
• If marriage is an utterly private institution with no impact on the public good, then why is the government involved at all?
• If the government’s involvement in the marriage business is wholly severed from supporting the type of relationship into which children may be born, why limit it to two biologically unrelated people. (After all, in Mr. Steinberg’s moral universe, no one should be permitted to impose his intolerant, inhuman moral views on others. How very sick and prejudiced it is for anyone to prohibit those who love and want to express that love sexually to their siblings or multiple people. Moreover, how could a marriage between two siblings or five people hurt anyone else’s marriage?)

Islam, Orthodox Judaism, The Roman Catholic Church, and many Protestant denominations believe that volitional homosexual acts are immoral, and that marriage is by nature a heterosexual union. Before writing another anti-religious screed devoid of intellectual substance, it would behoove Mr. Steinberg to spend some time studying the work of the following scholars:

Hadley Arkes, Francis Beckwith, Henri Blocher, Joseph Bottum, Michael L. Brown, Don Browning, D.A. Carson, Charles Chaput, Mark Dever, Anthony Esolen, Douglas Farrow, John S. Feinberg, David F. Forte, John Frame, Robert Gagnon, Robert George, Arthur Goldberg, Wayne Grudem, John Finnis, Harold James, Stanton Jones, Walter Kaiser, Meredith Kline, Peter Kreeft, Daniel Lapin, Al Mohler, Douglas Moo, Russell Moore, Jennifer Roback Morse, Mark Noll, David Novak, J.I. Packer, John Piper, Patrick Henry Reardon, Leland Ryken, Thomas Schreiner, Roger Scruton, Janet E. Smith, Katherine Shaw Spaht, John Stott, Seanna Sugrue, Bruce Ware, Thomas Weinandy, W. Bradford Wilcox, Christopher Wolfe, N.T. Wright, and Ravi Zacharias.