There’s a grand act of un-creation taking place all across this nation. Leftists are busy with this ugly business of un-creating decency, order, justice, compassion, and beauty, and children play a central role in this ugly business. To leftists, children are both objects of un-creation and tools for un-creating society. If we want to see with greater clarity the plans leftists have for the nation, there is no better place to examine than Illinois. Let’s hover above Illinois for a few minutes to get a bird’s eye view of this dark project.

Abuse in Chicago Public Schools

On Jan. 1, 2023—a Sunday—the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Chicago Board of Education released its annual report on “investigations into allegations of waste, fraud, financial mismanagement and employee misconduct” between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022. This year’s report cost taxpayers $6.54 million.

(As a noteworthy aside, the CPS spent $97 million of federal pandemic relief money on “academic recovery + social and emotional learning supports.” Further, CPS plans on spending $430 million more of federal money over the next two years for the same academic, social, and emotional learning problems caused by the refusal of Governor J.B. Pritzker to open schools and the refusal of teachers to teach during the pandemic.)

What is revealed in this report should shock all parents of CPS students and all Illinois taxpayers:

The OIG received 1,825 complaints alleging misconduct, waste, fraud, and financial mismanagement at Chicago Public Schools, including allegations of adult-on-student sexual misconduct.” Of those nearly 2,000 complaints, the OIG opened investigations into fewer than half (39.7%).

Of those 1,825 complaints, 470 were sexual allegations.

Because of a 2018 Chicago Tribune exposé of sexual abuse in Chicago public schools, the OIG “created a special Sexual Allegations Unit” which “has grown exponentially into a team of more than 30 … staff responsible for handling hundreds of sexual misconduct allegations per year.” The OIG report describes the number of cases as “extraordinarily high case volume.”

The complaints include allegations of sexual grooming, sexual intercourse, sexual assault, sexual touching, and graphic sexual texts.

Since many victims are afraid to report sexual abuse, Illinoisans can justifiably assume that the numbers of adult-on-student sexual misconduct cases are far higher than 470.

CPS scores

Apparently, faculty are too busy abusing children to teach them how to read, write, add, and subtract. In September 2022, Wirepoints reported on the abysmal academic performance of CPS:

Student achievement remains badly sub-par at CPS. About 70 percent of CPS students in grades 4, 8, and 11 – and 80 percent or more of its tested black students – aren’t proficient in reading and math. In some schools, reading proficiency is still in the low single digits.

Sex Education Law

Shameful, sub-proficient, and stagnating test scores suggest that Illinois lawmakers—a super-duper majority of whom are leftists—don’t care about educating Illinois children, so where do their interests lie? A recent bill from Illinois Senator Ram Villivalam (Democrat from Chicago of course), points to the educational priorities of Illinois’ leftist ideologues. He proposed a tyrannical amendment to Illinois’ already offensive sex education law.

In 2021, Villivalam sponsored a bill mandating that K-12 schools that offer “health and safety” classes must include indoctrination with leftist gender theories and leftist views of homosexuality. But this bill, which became law, allowed schools to opt out of such indoctrination, which 70 percent of schools did. Can’t have that, thought Big Brother Villivalam.

So, he proposed an amendment during this recent lame duck session to remove the school opt-out option. It didn’t pass during the lame duck session, but mark my words, Big Brother Villivalam will, like the Terminator, be back.

Teachers often defend their teaching about sex by claiming they are “experts,” and by claiming what they teach is “age-appropriate,” so let’s spend a minute discussing purported teacher “expertise” and “age-appropriateness.”

Illinois teachers—including teachers in high performing suburban districts—are rarely “experts” in even the disciplines for which they were hired to teach. Don’t believe me? Ask your children’s teachers if they have advanced degrees, and if they do, ask what field their advanced degrees are in. Relatively few teachers pursue advanced degrees in biology, chemistry, physics, English literature, or history. They don’t, because it’s easier to get an advanced degree—and, thereby, increase their salary—in educational policy as opposed to biology, chemistry, physics, English literature, or history.

If they’re not experts in the field for which they were hired to teach, how are they experts in sexuality? What criteria do they use to establish their sexuality expertise bona fides?

And what criteria do they use to determine the “age-appropriateness” of sex education content. Who established those criteria. So many questions taxpayers never ask.

“Trans” policy

Sex is definitely where the “educational” interests of leftists lie, particularly deviant sexuality. Look no further than the Pritzker family that scurries about the world throwing their money and ample weight behind the effort to promote cross-dressing and child mutilation.

Governor Pritzker’s first cousin, whose transonym is “Jennifer” Pritzker, is the cross-dressing man in woman-face who tried to extort the GOP by proclaiming that if the GOP didn’t toe the line as he toes it in his lady pumps, he would take his money and move to the dark side—which he did.

He and the Pritzker family also use their money to fund university and hospital programs around the world to indoctrinate students into the “trans” cult and to mutilate the healthy bodies of children.

On a local level, upon his first election, J. B. Pritzker created a “trans” cultic task force composed of all lefties to socially construct a plan for “transing” public schools.

Now that leftists control public education in Illinois, our shameless governor/chief propagandist hopes to further diminish the influence of parents on their own children. In Pritzker’s second inaugural speech, he announced his evil plans: “I propose we go all in for our children and make preschool available to every family throughout the state,” and “let’s focus on making [college] tuition free for every working-class family.”

Get ‘em while they’re young and keep ‘em.

Research has long established that college and university faculty and administrations skew wildly left. Further, research has demonstrated that of those students who self-censor out of fear of repercussions, well over half are conservative. And this is the “learning” environment where Pritzker seeks to send more students and at taxpayer expense. Pritzker wants to cram as much propaganda into the minds of as many young people as possible, and wants you, conservative friends, to pay for this indoctrination.

To mix bird metaphors, Illinois is both a canary in a coal mine and a buzzard in a killing field.

Conservative parents, get your kids out of government killing fields now before the buzzards devour them.

Illinois prisoners should have the right to vote, a powerful lobbying group is arguing to the Illinois General Assembly. The effort nearly progressed in late January 2022, when the measure failed in the Illinois House by three votes.

If made law, SB 828 would make Illinois the third state to allow incarcerated citizens to vote while they’re in prison – after Maine and Vermont, and the District of Columbia.

Current Illinois voter law must be changed because it is racially unfair, the advocates say. Their proposed changes would add about 28,000 prisoners to Illinois’ voter rolls. Most importantly, nearly 55 percent, Illinois Department of Corrections’ records as of December 2021 show, are African-American:

Statewide population demographics would make Illinois the first state with a substantial percentage of black residents that allows felons the right to vote while they are serving their prison sentences.

It’s not a new movement. It’s just one that has been gaining steam in the past few years.

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont wrote in a 2019 USA Today op ed that allowing prison voting would begin correcting America’s broken criminal justice system he deemed as “systemically racist,” which enables “mass incarceration” as a “tool of voter suppression.”

But how appropriate is it for criminals to maintain the right to vote while they are in prison?

“Nearly every state recognizes the wisdom of preventing prisoners from voting,” former Heritage Foundation legal analyst Jason Snead wrote in a 2019 Chicago Tribune opinion on the issue. “There is simply no reason that those who have shown they cannot follow the law ought to have a say in crafting it or electing those who will enforce it.”

Snead wrote that felons show through their actions that they do not deserve society’s implicit trust.

“They do deserve a second chance, but the burden is theirs to demonstrate that they have become law-abiding and upstanding citizens in other words, the very people we want to be voting,” he said.

Illinois’ Department of Corrections records indicate the top ten crimes current state prisoners have committed range from homicide to robbery:

How comfortable should Illinoisans be to welcome imprisoned murderers, rapists, violent attackers, thieves and drug violators as making the crucial votes to determine who serves in the Executive Branch, in the Illinois General Assembly and on the state’s judicial benches?

Currently, Illinois is one of 21 states that returns voting rights to prisoners once they’ve completed their sentences. That is a liberal stand compared to sixteen states that restore voting rights only after prison, parole and probation are completed and another nine states that permanently deny voting rights to convicted felons.

Illinois, a state politically-controlled in all three branches by Bernie Sanders’ sympathizers, is the perfect place to stoke the voting rights’ fire, Chicago Votes representatives said in a recent WBEZ radio interview.

Lawmakers in general are interested in voting rights’ restoration, the representatives said.  They are much more open to the movement in Illinois than other states.

It matters who casts votes in Illinois. The state’s election rolls are in dire need of being scoured of former residents and deceased voters. Adding criminals still serving their time would not make Illinois a better place for law-abiding citizens to live and raise their families.

Share your thoughts with your state lawmakers as they most certainly will face another vote on SB 828 during the ongoing legislative session.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your State Senator and State Representative to ask them to vote NO to SB 828. The majority of voters in Illinois do not want violent prisoners casting ballots for candidates who are running for the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government.

If you don’t get involved on this issue, your voice and vote could be muffled by an imprisoned murderer.

It’s hard to fathom that for some people, facilitating human slaughter is the animating purpose of their lives. For some, ensuring that women are legally free to slaughter their own offspring is what gives their lives meaning. And unfortunately, many of them live in Illinois, thereby ensuring that the Illinois swamp is filled with not just fetid excrement coming from Springfield and the governor’s mansion but also with the blood of human fetuses.

Illinois’ human dismemberment and disposal industry has moved into high gear in preparation for Roe v. Wade to be overturned, at which point, more states will pass regulations limiting or eliminating abortion accessibility. On Jan. 21, 2022, the Chicago Tribune reported that “Each year, thousands of women cross state lines to have an abortion in Illinois—and that number could grow exponentially as pending U.S. Supreme Court decisions and new laws in various states challenge reproductive rights across large swaths of the nation.”

In anticipation of possible new laws to protect the right of tiny humans not to be exterminated, Hope Clinic in Granite City, Illinois and Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region have colluded to create the Regional Logistics Center, which is housed in the Planned Parenthood slaughterhouse in Fairview Heights, Illinois.

The anodyne-sounding Regional Logistics Center connects pregnant women—also known as mothers—with “various resources to help with everything from paying for the procedure to travel costs to finding a place to stay overnight.” Leftists want Illinois streets stained with the blood of babies from around the country.

(It is notable that human slaughter-related facilities are never located in affluent left-leaning communities like Highland Park or Glencoe. While Fairview Heights has a median household income of $49, 131 and Granite City of $43,759, Highland Park’s is $100,967 and Glencoe’s is $193,571. You would think liberal towns and villages would be eager to demonstrate their support for the “fundamental right” of women to off their offspring by welcoming abattoirs into their communities.)

Trib reporter Angie Leventis Lourgos leaps ungracefully over the human dimensions of the new project in efficiency:

[W]omen traveling here to terminate a pregnancy will have a new resource designed to make the process easier.

If ever there were a “process” in need of ease, it has to be having one’s child killed. Grease up that “process” so no woman has time to listen to any inner voices telling her to stop.

How embarrassing for reporters to resort to using euphemistic phrases like “terminate a pregnancy.” Is there anyone over the age of twelve who doesn’t know that “terminating a pregnancy” means terminating the life of a fellow human being?

The Regional Logistics Center celebrated its opening “just before the 49th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court abortion rights case Roe v. Wade.” The virtual ribbon-cutting ceremony was virtually attended by Illinois’ morally vacuous governor, J.B. Pritzker, who ironically called the center’s dark business, “‘lifesaving and life-changing work.’” Well, I guess when abortionists turn life into non-life, one could call the work “life-changing.”

Megan Jeyifo, Chicago Abortion Fund

Megan Jeyifo
Chicago Abortion Fund

In an effort to ensure that Illinois remains the Midwest’s premier killing field, this month Pritzker put his money where his mouth is, donating “$100,000 from his campaign to the Personal PAC Independent Committee, whose purpose is preserving reproductive rights in Illinois ‘by making independent expenditures to elect pro-choice candidates to state and local office.’”

One of the resources to which the Regional Logistics Center will connect pregnant women is the Chicago Abortion Fund, whose executive director Megan Jeyifo has ordered the killing of more than one of her own offspring. Finally, she allowed two of her offspring to survive the treacherous waters of her womb and now says this about them:

I honor my abortions when I hug my children. My abortions made their life possible.

Jeyifo sees child sacrifice as a noble deed, one about which she offers this advice to women as they prepare to end the lives of their children:

Wear comfortable clothes. Plan out and look forward to a yummy meal after. Text your best friend. Know that you are making a decision for yourself that is powerful.

Jeyifo has a two-part mission. The first part consists of helping women have their children killed, and the second part is persuading others that killing humans is a noble cause:

Destigmatizing abortion is a really critical component.

What Jeyifo doesn’t say is that destigmatizing human slaughter necessarily entails stigmatizing opposition to human slaughter. Leftists don’t really oppose stigmas, shaming, and judging as they claim they do. Rather, they just want to ensure that moral truths and the people who express them are judged, stigmatized, and shamed.

The morally repugnant Jeyifo who was encumbered in her quests to end her former children’s lives by travel obstacles argues,

I think about what it took for me to travel. … I make really clear to the callers that the difficulty you face in accessing an abortion has nothing to do with the morality of an abortion. It’s a systemic failure in this country. Abortion is health care.

For the umpteenth time, abortion ends the life of an innocent human being. That’s science. Killing innocent humans is not health care. And in no moral universe is the intentional ending of an innocent human life morally defensible. The participation of political leaders, medical professionals, and Big Business in this barbaric practice is a systemic failure in this country.

Anyone hell-bent on keeping human slaughter legal, anyone so ignorant as to believe the Founding Fathers embedded in the Constitution a “right” of mothers to have their children slaughtered lacks both knowledge and wisdom. And anyone who ardently supports and facilitates human slaughter is evil.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Pro-Human-Slaughter-Devotees-Help-Out-of-State-Abortion-Seekers.mp3

The compulsory sexual integration of private spaces here in the Land of Degeneracy Lincoln continues apace, aided and abetted by rich men with perverse sexual fetishes, academicians with disordered sexual desires, and unprincipled, ignorant Democrat Lawmakers.

Two months ago, I first warned about a screwball amendment (HB 3195) to the “Equitable Restrooms Act,” which has now been passed by the muck-making bureaucracy we call the Illinois House of Representatives by a vote of 63-43 and is now being considered by the Illinois Senate. Here’s a section of that screwball, privacy-denying amendment:

The purpose of this Section is to promote the privacy, safety, and gender inclusivity of all Illinois residents and visitors. …

Any multiple-occupancy restroom may be converted into an all-gender multiple-occupancy restroom. If a multiple-occupancy restroom is to be converted into an all-gender multiple-occupancy restroom and a multiple-occupancy restroom serving a different gender is located adjacent or in proximity to the all-gender multiple-occupancy restroom, then both multiple-occupancy restrooms must be converted into all-gender multiple-occupancy restrooms. …

If an all-gender multiple-occupancy restroom is newly constructed, a newly constructed or previously existing restroom located adjacent or in proximity to the newly constructed all-gender multiple-occupancy restrooms must also be designated as an all-gender multiple-occupancy restroom. (emphasis added)

If passed, this wholly partisan amendment will mandate that if an existing single-sex multiple-occupancy bathroom is converted to a co-ed multiple occupancy bathroom, any nearby single-sex multiple-occupancy bathroom must be converted to a co-ed bathroom as well.

Further, if a new co-ed multiple-occupancy bathroom is constructed, any bathroom nearby must also be a co-ed bathroom.

How long before the conscience-deformed swampsters propose a bill requiring that all new and existing multiple-occupancy bathrooms must be co-ed? Incrementally, the left will ban all single-sex multiple-occupancy bathrooms (and locker rooms) in deference to their overlords: “trans”-cultists.

As I have said repeatedly (and with increasing frustration), the end game for the “trans”- cult is not unrestricted access to opposite-sex private spaces for a handful of delusional cross-sex impersonators. The end game is the eradication of all public recognition of sex differences, which means no private spaces for anyone. No private spaces for girls and women. No private spaces for boys and men.

“Trans”-cultists believe girls and women should have no single-sex multiple-occupancy bathrooms (or locker rooms) available to them anywhere. And “trans”-cultists believe boys and men should have no single-sex multiple-occupancy bathrooms (or locker rooms) available to them.

This proposed amendment makes the fatuous claim that its purpose is to promote the “privacy” and “safety” of girls and women. How exactly are the privacy and safety of girls and women who live in or visit Illinois promoted by allowing biological males into previously all-female bathrooms?

Cross-dressing men like “Martine” Rothblatt and “Jennifer” Pritzker use their wealth and political power to normalize their deviant sexual fetishes. Some may remember that the big burly RINO “Jennifer” Pritzker published an editorial threatening that if the GOP didn’t capitulate to his demands that the GOP affirm “trans”-cultism he would take his filthy lucre and stomp home in his man-sized stilettoes.

Both Pritzker and the eccentric Rothblatt—who has created his own religion which teaches that “death is optional,” as well as a creepy “humanoid robotic” bust of his actual wife programmed with hours of his wife’s “memories, feelings, and beliefs”—are pouring money into academia to promote their “trans”-cultic beliefs and practices.

Unfortunately, they’re not alone in using academia to promote “trans”-cultism. Just this week, the Chicago Tribune—almost always on the wrong side of history—had a splashy piece announcing the opening of the Chicago-based Center for Applied Transgender Studies, which “aims to combat misinformation and lack of trans-led research.”

By now, many Americans know what leftists mean when they refer to “misinformation.” They mean information they hate. And I think many Americans know by now what leftists mean when they refer to “trans”-led research. They don’t mean well-constructed, objective research. They mean research whose results are pre-ordained, including poorly constructed “social” science research.

The founder, TJ Billard, is a foolish assistant professor at Northwestern University—a man who self-identifies as a “non-binary” “scholar of political communication and media activism” who wants adults to refer to him by the pronouns “they/them.” #eyeroll.

The managing director of the Center for Applied Transgender Studies is also a sexually confused man who goes by Erique Zhang (formerly Eric Zhang), who also expects to be referred to by plural pronouns.

In an interview with the equally foolish Joan Esposito, Billard expressed his hope that the center, composed of him, his two co-founders, “17 senior research fellows and 10 junior fellows” would influence public policy, presumably including policies pertaining to the sexual integration of private spaces.

“Trans”-cultists seek to impose on the world their metaphysical claims and dubious psychological beliefs in the hope of having their feelings and fetishes treated as healthy, normal, and essential components of their “authentic identities.”

Central to their science-denying de facto Gnostic religion are two beliefs: 1. human spirits merely inhabit manipulable bodies, and 2. physical embodiment as male or female—i.e., biological sex—has no intrinsic meaning and, therefore, sex-segregated spaces in which humans undress, shower, and tend to intimate bodily functions are nonsensical or worse.

But society has no obligation to act as if the false ontological and moral assumptions of “trans”-cultists and their ideological allies are true. And, by the way, we don’t have to capitulate to their language commands.

Please, fight this destructive bill.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your state senator to ask him/her to vote against HB 3195 and the foolish agenda that fails to recognize biological facts. Ask them to protect the privacy, dignity and safety of all Illinois citizens.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/IL-Dems-Seek-the-Abolition-of-Sex-Segregated-Bathrooms.mp3

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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

How far gone is Illinois? And by “gone,” I mean arrogantly and divisively leftist.

Well, despite statewide and even nationwide condemnation of the proposed “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards,”  the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) failed to stop the controversial standards.

In a vote delayed by one day, JCAR voted 6-5 along partisan lines to, in effect, approve these standards, which will infuse the assumptions of Critical Race Theory/ identity politics/BLM into 1. all teacher-training programs, 2. all Professional Education Licensing (PEL), and 3. indirectly into all public school classrooms.

Not even yesterday’s plea from the left-leaning Chicago Tribune Editorial Board to JCAR not to pass these controversial standards—standards that the editorial board described as politicized—was sufficient to stop the Democrats in JCAR from further exploiting government schools for leftist propaganda purposes.

Ideological diversity—already a rare commodity in government schools—will be now be further diminished in favor of promoting arguable leftist beliefs about identity, “systems of oppression,” “sex and gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, racism, sexism, homophobia, unearned privilege,” and “Eurocentrism.”

The standards were created by a committee hand-picked by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), which is controlled by leftists. While having the effect of law, these standards constitute an amendment to existing school code, so they did not have to go through the normal lawmaking process, which would involve more transparency, floor debates in Springfield, and every Illinois lawmaker publicly voting.

In the wake of nationwide criticism of the “woke” standards, the ISBE issued a statement with this chuckle-worthy, chuckleheaded claim:

The standards were developed by a diverse group of educators from around the state.

Just curious, how many in this “diverse group of educators” are critics of Critical Race Theory and BLM, or find fault with the ideas of Ibram X. Kendi, Ta-Nehesi Coates, and Robin DiAngelo?

The ISBE’s statement also said the following:

The Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards apply to teacher preparation programs, not to K-12 school curricula. ISBE also will offer optional professional development on the standards to current educators. Educators and school districts maintain local control over what professional development they choose.

This is a transparent effort to mollify and silence critics of the infusion of leftist beliefs on race, American history, homosexuality, and “trans”-cultism into curricula. But “deplorables” are not stupid. We all know that “teacher preparation” is intended to and will shape both professional development and curricula.

As a result of the widespread condemnation of the leftist-created standards, the ISBE begrudgingly tossed an insignificant sop in the direction of Illinoisans who oppose the divisive politicization of education. Nervous ISBE leftists changed the word “progressive” to “inclusive.” For example, here is an original pre-condemnation sentence from the standards:

The culturally responsive teacher and leader will … Embrace and encourage progressive viewpoints and perspectives that leverage asset thinking toward traditionally marginalized populations.

Here is the worthless, one-word, post-condemnation change ISBE wokesters threw to Illinois serfs:

The culturally responsive teacher and leader will … Embrace and encourage inclusive viewpoints and perspectives that leverage asset thinking toward traditionally marginalized populations.

As I wrote last week, the unelected wokesters on the ISBE committee that created these radical standards think Illinois conservatives are stupid. They think we don’t realize that their definition of “inclusive” excludes conservative viewpoints.

They also think conservatives won’t notice the inclusion of the adverb “traditionally,” which necessarily excludes contemporary marginalized populations, like the theologically orthodox Christian population, which is today excluded, hated, and cancelled.

This is what’s called a distinction without a difference—a distinction intended to dupe the deplorables.

In another document, the ISBE makes another chuckle-worthy, eye-roller of a statement about the effects of these new ideological diktats:

The standards will help combat the teacher shortage. They will help educators become better teachers and experience higher job satisfaction, which makes them more likely to stay in the profession.

No acknowledgment of the teachers who will leave the profession or of those future teachers who will no longer consider teaching in Illinois because they know that Illinois schools are places of oppression that require ideological submission.

Here are just a few of the controversial ideas that Illinois will now force teacher-training programs and professional licensure to impose on all future “teachers, school support personnel” and administrators. Please note, that “identities” include homosexuality, cross-sex impersonation, and “gender fluidity”:

• Value the notion that … there is not one “correct” way of doing or understanding something.

• “Assess how their own biases and perceptions affect their teaching practice and how they access tools to mitigate their own racist, sexist, homophobic, Eurocentric behavior or unearned privilege.”

• Be aware of the effects of power and privilege and the need for social advocacy and social action to better empower diverse students and communities.

• Encourage and affirm the personal experiences … students share in the classroom.

• Consistently solicit students’ input on the curriculum.

• Co-create, with students, the collective expectations and agreements regarding the physical space and social-emotional culture of the classroom.

• Create a risk-taking space that promotes student activism and advocacy.

• Invite family and community members to teach about topics that are culturally specific and aligned to the classroom curriculum or content area.

• Intentionally embrace student identities and prioritize representation in the curriculum.

• Implement and integrate the wide spectrum and fluidity of identities in the curriculum.

• Ensure text selections reflect students’ classroom, community, and family culture.

• Ensure teacher and students co-create content to include a counternarrative to dominant culture.

• Promote robust discussion with the intent of raising consciousness that reflects modern society and the ways in which cultures and communities intersect.

• Consider a broader modality of student assessments [i.e., grades and testing], such as … “social justice work.”

In my mind’s eye, I see more Illinois families planning their exit from public schools and more families planning their exit from this politically “woke,” intellectually slumbering, and morally vacuous state.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Illinois-Passes-Controversial-Leftist-Teacher-Training-Mandate.mp3

Please support the good work of Illinois Family Institute.

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

In an 804-word news article appearing in the Chicago Tribune on Friday, Jan. 10, the day before the Chicago March for Life, “reporter” Angie Leventis Lourgos provided these scant details about the event:

What: March for Life Chicago march and rally

When: Saturday, 1-3 p.m.

Where: Daley Plaza, 50 W. Washington St. The march will head east on Washington Street, then south on Michigan Avenue and end at the Congress Plaza Hotel & Convention Center, 520 S. Michigan Ave.

For more information: www.marchforlife-chicago.org

Contrast that with Lourgos’ 1070-word “news” article appearing in the Chicago Tribune on Friday, Jan. 17, the day before the Women’s March, and titled “What you need to know about the Women’s March”—which presumes that someone “needs” to know about the Women’s March—in which Lourgos provided these details about the event:

What: Women’s March Chicago 2020

When: Saturday. Grant Park opens for the event at 9 a.m. and the march begins at 11 a.m. (This year’s event is a march-only format, with no formal rally or other programming preceding the march.)

Where: Main entrance at Ida B. Wells and Columbus drives. Accessible entrance at Columbus Drive and Monroe Street.

March route: The march will begin at Columbus Drive and Jackson Street, ending at Federal Plaza. The city has asked that marchers disperse immediately afterward.

Social media: #WomensMarchChicago2020, #WomensMarchChi2020, #MakeItCount

March route [online version]: Participants will gather on Jackson Street at Columbus Drive. They will march west on Jackson to Michigan Avenue, then north to Adams Street and then west on Adams to Federal Plaza. Organizers expect marchers to disband at Federal Plaza.

Street closures: Columbus Drive from Monroe Street to Ida B. Wells Drive, and Columbus to Lake Shore Drive will be closed from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, according to the city. Once the march begins, rolling closures will be implemented along Michigan Avenue from Randolph Street to Van Buren Street, and closures on Jackson Street are expected to be implemented as far west as LaSalle Street. Additional street closures might be implemented to ensure public safety.

Public transportation: Metra isn’t adding any service but conductors have been notified that more patrons with disabilities might be traveling. The Chicago Transit Authority will have longer trains on the Brown, Blue, Orange, Green and Purple lines, as well as more frequent service on the Red Line. There will be additional bus service on the 147 Outer Drive Express route.

ADA Paratransit drop-off/pick-up: The location for participants with disabilities is on Monroe Street, east of Columbus Drive.

Ride services: Drop-offs and pickups are prohibited on Lake Shore Drive, and the city says this will be strictly enforced. Ride-share vehicles can’t stop, stand or park in bus or bike lanes, sidewalk crossings, bridges or any other areas.

Weather: Forecasts say several inches of snow accumulation is possible Friday. On Saturday, the high temperature is expected to be 37 degrees, with rain possibly mixed with snow showers before 2 p.m., according to the National Weather Service. The city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications has arranged for four CTA warming buses to be available at the event if conditions warrant.

Security: The Chicago Police Department will have uniformed and plainclothes officers at the event to ensure the safety of participants, pedestrians and motorists. The Office of Emergency Management and Communications will also be monitoring the event.

For more information: www.womensmarchchicago.org

Wowzer. Lourgos evidently thinks readers need to know a boatload of details about the Women’s Strut for Slaughter. Point of clarification, the word counts I provided do not include the details for each event.

Ironically, the Women’s March this year will “honor marchers with disabilities”—you know, those with the kind of imperfections that pro-feticide marchers use to justify killings in the womb.

Eric Tenfelde and wife

Another irony: Lourgos begins with a quote from a man—you know, the humans who are told by feticide-celebrants that they have no right to an opinion on the legalized slaughter of the unborn. I guess if men are all warm and tingly on the inside and spout creepy, unmanly stuff about celebrating human slaughter like Eric Tenfelde does, they have permission to speak. Here’s how he describes his first Women’s March:

Being outside in January and feeling warm on the inside from energy and people around me expressing their American freedom. Expressing myself with costume and signage and celebrating everyone else’s expressions. Praising others and being praised. Leading chants and shouting the chants of others.”

Andrew Clancey, another marching man like Tenfelde, demonstrated his unmanliness when recalling his first Women’s March three years ago at which he held a sign that said, “I [heart] Nasty Women.” He told Lourgos that “one of his favorite march memories was taking a picture with a woman wearing a shirt that said ‘Nasty Woman’ on it.”

Word to Tenfelde and Clancey, men are supposed to protect children—not celebrate the right to have them killed. And men are supposed to honor the dignity of women—not celebrate their “nastiness” or their slaughter of their own children—children who have fathers too.

Lourgos reports that “the march will also be led by many elected female politicians,” including lesbian Mayor Lori Lightfoot; eager recreational pot-purchaser Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton; and hate-crime hoax ally Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.

Well, at least no one can say our unscrupulous Chicago leaders lack diversity.

Lourgos included this tweet from Lightfoot—not in the article about the Women’s March—no, not there. There were no quotes from anyone critical of the Women’s March or its destructive goals. Lourgos included this quote from Lightfoot in her article about the March for Life:

I support a big tent but there’s no room under the flaps for anyone who is actively seeking to deny women control over our bodies.”

Lightfoot conveniently omitted mention of the other bodies—the tiny bodies of vulnerable innocents in the womb. Lightfoot’s tent is so small and so exclusive that only those who shout and celebrate the dismemberment of humans in the womb are allowed in. Do civilized people really want to set foot in a tent drenched in the blood of those deemed unwanted, inconvenient, or unworthy of life?

And Lightfoot pretends to support the marginalized among us. Yeah, right.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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“[F]or Precious Brady Davis,
getting her husband pregnant meant going off hormones.”

How’s that for a head-scratcher of a quote—a quote that actually appears on the no-longer reputable NBC 5 Chicago “news” website  in a story about two “trans”-cultists who are married and recently had a baby. The pretend-wife is “Precious” Brady Davis,” a biological man who pretends to be a woman. The pretend-husband is “Myles” Brady Davis, a biological woman who pretends to be a man. Myles-the-real-mother is the director of communications and press secretary for Illinois’ premier “LGBTQ” propaganda organization, Equality Illinois. This woman really knows how to spread propaganda.

The “trans power couple” are in the news again, and again they’re in the news for pernicious reasons. When Myles was 20 weeks pregnant, she learned that she would be listed as the baby’s mother on the birth certificate, because she is, well, the mother.

As “trans”-cultists and propagandists so often do, Myles contacted an attorney with Lambda Legal who contacted the Illinois Department of Public Health, which immediately cried uncle … or aunt … or something. Suffice to say, the state caved to the “trans”-cultists.

The birth certificate will now identify the mother—the biological woman who gestated and birthed the baby girl—as the “father” and will identify the father—the biological man whose sperm united with Myles’ egg and then implanted in Myles’ womb—as the “mother.”

According to the Chicago Tribune, Myles-the-real-mother “never even thought the birth certificate would have to misgender us.” Yeah, riiight. She never thought a legal document would include the objective fact that she is the mother.

The Tribune writer, Nara Schoenberg, evidently a propagandist for the “trans” cult who identifies as a news reporter, described the possible identification on the birth certificate of the biological father as the father as making “matters worse.”

Propagandist Schoenberg also wrote this nonsensical sentence:

To have biological children, they had to go off their gender-reinforcing hormones.

Schoenberg needs to take classes in both biology and leftist sexuality ideology. Does she know what hormones are? Does she know what “gender” is in the “trans” world she seeks to suck up to? Gender—according to “progressives”—is the aggregate of arbitrary, socially constructed conventions associated with maleness or femaleness. Hormones are chemical substances produced in the body that control and regulate the activity of certain cells or organs. Hormones can’t and don’t reinforce “gender.”

The website Mommyish—which claims to “take parenting seriously”—has an article about the self-glorifying, “trans”-cultist power couple titled “Trans Couple’s God-Like Pregnancy Photos Defy Stereotypes” which includes this photo from Myles-the-real-mother’s Instagram account:

A better title would be “Trans Couple’s Frankenstein-Like Photos Defy God.”

Word to Mommyish, while Myles’ cross-dressing and cross-sex hormone-doping is clearly an effort to conceal her sex (or as Mommyish calls it, “defy stereotype”), the photo of a mother heavy with child is the anti-thesis of a “stereotype.”

“Trans”-cultists use the fact that language changes over time to try to compel others to use their redefinitions of words and the neologisms they invent to advance their strange, science-denying, metaphysical ideology. Now they want to redefine the words “mother” and “father.” They no longer want those terms to be linked to biological sex. Instead, they want “mother” to denote humans who wish they were women and “father” to denote humans who wish they were men.

Well then, why not redefine the word “teenager”? Henceforth, it will no longer denote a human whose objective age is between 13-19 but, instead, denote humans who feel like, wish they were, or identify as teens?

What about “Latinx,” the neologism that refers to “people of Latin American cultural or ethnic identity in the United States”? Why not redefine “Latinx” to denote anyone who wishes they were or self-identifies as a person of Latin American cultural or ethnic identity—including those whose Puritan ancestors came over on the Mayflower?

While we’re thinking about language, let’s remember what George Orwell said about the abuses of language for oppressive political ends (i.e., Newspeak), which points to the importance of resistance to such abuses:

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of IngSoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all… a heretical thought… should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meaning and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meaning whatever….

[T]he special function of certain Newspeak words… was not so much to express meanings as to destroy them….

[W]ords which had once borne a heretical meaning were sometimes retained for the sake of convenience, but only with the undesirable meanings purged out of them. (emphasis added)

So, “trans”-cultists have struck another blow against science and reality. Illinois birth certificates will no longer “misgender” “trans”-cultists. They will now mis-sex them. (As an aside, the long-ridiculed flat-earthers must be so jealous.)

Some of us remember the good old days when teachers asked elementary school children to scour the newspaper for current events. If we want children to learn about reality, teachers better not ask them to do that anymore.

It’s remarkable that seemingly rational, sane people in academia, the professional medical and mental health communities, the arts, faith communities, and the press pretend to believe the emperor in a gown is an empress. We should no longer be baffled by the ignorant and destructive ideas people believed or, because of their cowardice, pretended to believe in days gone by.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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Last Sunday in an on-air, post-game interview and subsequent tweet, Chicago Bears kicker Eddy Piñeiro Jr. said, “If you don’t believe in God you better start believing he’s REAL.” Anyone watching the moment with eyes unclouded by hatred of and rebellion against God, could see the joy of a man who wants to share his joy with others. But what Chicago Tribune opinion columnist Eric Zorn saw was this:

Piñeiro’s post-game remarks—including a follow-up tweet—were a taunt, not an expression of humility. They implicitly derided nonbelievers and deployed his success as evidence of the superiority of his theological outlook.

Zorn mistook a wish for a taunt, joy for arrogance.

Zorn then meanspiritedly mocks and mistranslates (or transmogrifies) Piñeiro’s statements, twisting them beyond recognition:

I made a field goal, therefore Jesus is real and atheists and agnostics should get on board!

Serious, theologically orthodox Christians don’t believe Jesus is real because of the successes they experience or gifts they are given. In fact, the Bible teaches that Christ-followers like every other human in this fallen world will suffer: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.”

Maybe Piñeiro, who evidently loves Jesus and desires that all would come to know and love Him, wanted to take this opportunity to share some really good news—news about Christ. Maybe Piñeiro wants atheists and agnostics to one day see the kingdom of Heaven. Is that wish a taunt or an expression of love for the lost?

While Zorn may know a thing or two about writing, he’s as bad at theology as is his ideologue-in-arms Rex Huppke, so here’s a primer in theology (trigger warning for Zorn who may find Jesus’ belief “in the superiority of his theological outlook” off-putting):

• Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

• Jesus says, “For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

• Jesus commands his followers to “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

• Jesus says, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

• Jesus says, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

• Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

• Peter says to followers of Christ, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

Zorn’s beef is really with God.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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On August 15, I wasted a half hour of my day by agreeing to be interviewed by Chicago Tribune reporter Hannah Leone for an article she was writing on the “LGBTQ” school indoctrination bill that Governor J.B. Pritzker recently signed into law and which takes effect July 1, 2020. Before I talk about her article, I should explain more about the interview.

Leone asked what my primary concern is with the law, which is a difficult question because there are so many problems with it. I responded that my primary concern is that our culture-makers—including the Tribune, lawmakers, and “educators”—never discuss the arguable presuppositions on which this law depends, and which “progressives” simply assume are inarguably true.

Those presuppositions are that homosexuality and cross-sex identification are ontologically analogous to race and, therefore, the actions that emerge from homosexual feelings and the desire to be the opposite sex are morally benign or good. I told her that if “progressives” are asked to identify the specific points of correspondence between homosexuality or cross-sex identification per se and race per se, they come up empty.

I further said that “IFI supports the teaching of historically significant cultural contributions. We object, however, to teachers identifying the sexual predilections of historically significant cultural contributors and to basing the selection of cultural contributions on the sexual predilections of cultural contributors.”

She then asked me,

What about movements/milestones like the stonewall riots, HIV/AIDS epidemic, don’t ask/don’t tell, and legalization of same-sex marriage?

I responded,

Because of the complex and controversial nature of these cultural events, they should not be presented in elementary school at all. In middle and high school, they should be presented only if teachers are willing to spend equal time exploring fairly, neutrally, and comprehensively both sides of debates regarding whether these movements have served the culture in positive ways or corrupted culture. Such presentations must include discussions of foundational presuppositions. If teachers are unwilling to present the best resources on both sides of the debate or unwilling or unable to discuss neutrally foundational presuppositions, then they have a pedagogical obligation not to introduce the topics. If they present only affirming views of these movements, they transform education into indoctrination. If they believe reading criticism of these movements will make some students too uncomfortable, they should avoid the topics. If they believe students are too young to understand the foundational presuppositions, then the topics are age-inappropriate. I would argue that most public school teachers are intellectually ill-equipped to address the foundational presuppositions, which are critical to the entire project mandated by this law.”

I also addressed the reason we don’t see leftists fighting for the roles and contributions of polyamorists and zoophiles to be taught to children and teens, which is that lawmakers and “educators” understand that teaching about their roles and contributions would contribute to normalizing polyamory and zoophilia, which they don’t want to do because they’ve concluded polyamory and zoophilia are immoral. And there you have it: Lawmakers and “educators” are imposing their moral beliefs about homosexuality and opposite-sex impersonation on Illinois children.

Leone initially told me her article would be published sometime the following week. When it wasn’t, I asked her when it would be coming out. On Monday night, Sept.2, she told me it would be out Tuesday and told me this:

We had a limited amount of space to work with and your interview did not get included, but your perspective still helped inform the article, so thanks for your time anyway.

Then Monday, I read her front-page, lengthy, 2,136-word article. For perspective, the average newspaper article is between 600-1,500 words.

Here are just some of the nuggets of Fool’s Gold in Leone’s biased advocacy masquerading as a news story:

1. The Inclusive Curriculum Law, signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Aug. 9, mandates that by the time students finish eighth grade, public schools must teach them about contributions to state and U.S. history made by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Note that the law mandates that indoctrination must begin before eighth grade. And it must include contributions to state history made by homosexuals and opposite-sex impersonators, which tells you that the contributions chosen will not be based on historical or cultural significance but on the sexual predilections of contributors.

2. “This law will give more young people the opportunity to see themselves in those who came before us and recognize they are not alone,” [Chicago mayor] Lightfoot said in a statement to the Tribune.

What about the young people who experience other types of powerful, unchosen, seemingly intractable subjective, internal desires that they choose to act upon? What if they or their many parents identify as polyamorous? What if they identify as kinksters or zoophiles? Should people from those marginalized communities have an opportunity to see themselves in those who came before them and recognize they are not alone?

When I pose this question to “progressives,” they get all judgy-judgy, huffing indignantly that it’s offensive to compare homosexuality or opposite-sex impersonation to zoophilia or any other sexual identity they view as disordered or immoral. Their indignation reveals that the Leftists who run the Springfield swamp and public schools have, indeed, arrived at ontological and moral conclusions about homosexuality and opposite-sex impersonation and treat them as indisputable facts. And now they’re imposing their subjective beliefs on all Illinois families who have the misfortune of not having a choice on where their children are educated.

President of the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools, Mark Klaisner (who carries around a bit of baggage), who is “Helping compile resources for schools to draw from,” whines about the possibility that the “vagueness” of the law will result in schools not indoctrinating enough:

3. Being that vague could mean a simple unit or a few lessons at one grade level in the school, which I think is insufficient.

Can’t have positive portrayals of what many view as sexual perversion be foisted on other people’s children for a mere unit. That’s not nearly enough time for propaganda to take effect.

Imagine an “educator” saying, “a simple unit or a few lessons about polyamory or Genetic Sexual Attraction at one grade level is insufficient.”

Even more troubling is feckless Klaisner’s view on the appropriate age at which to introduce children to ideas about homosexuality and opposite-sex impersonation:

4. For younger students, it may make sense to introduce names and fewer details, and wait until around third grade to mention someone identified as gay or transgender. (emphasis added)

Third grade—an age at which children are wholly incapable of understanding the conservative and “progressive” foundational assumptions about homosexuality and opposite-sex identification—is the age by which Klaisner wants these topics introduced.

Michelle Vallet, mother of a daughter who “identifies” as (which in plain language means pretends to be) a boy, disagrees with Klaisner:

5. Vallet said she doesn’t think it’s ever too early to bring up [these topics]…. Normalizing these identities early is key.

There you have it in plain, unguarded English. The goal of Leftists is to use curricula, taxpayer money, and captive audiences to normalize abnormal, disordered sexuality.

Leone writes that one of the law’s sponsors, State Representative Anna Moeller (D-Elgin), is not yet satisfied:

6. [T]hough passing the law reflects an advancement in civil rights, more still needs to be done, Moeller said.

Then Moeller trots out the tired and absurd comparison of homosexuality and opposite-sex identification to race:

In the way schools have become required to teach about African Americans, Latinos, women and other marginalized communities, now they’ll be required to include… some discussion of LGBT.

Moeller doesn’t explain in what specific ways homosexuality and opposite-sex impersonation per se are like race or biological sex per se. Nor does she say whether she ultimately wants schools to be required to discuss all “marginalized communities” or just the ones whose volitional acts she deems morally acceptable.

Like Moeller, Garcia High School biology teacher Bryan Meeker has disturbing hopes for students:

7. Meeker said he’d also love to see students in English classes reading works by Harvey Milk, a San Francisco politician and one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States before his assassination in 1978.

Yikes! A high school teacher wants the works of an ephebophile (i.e., an adult who is sexually attracted to teens) to be taught in government schools in order to change the perception of teens toward homosexuality? Harvey Milk was a “short-tempered demagogue” and ephebophile who exploited multiple suffering teen boys for his own sexual gratification. And he was not a martyr for the cause of “equality.” He was murdered for “petty” political reasons by a supporter of “gay rights.” Milk was also a friend and promoter of cult leader Jim Jones. Are schools now going to teach positively about the “roles and contributions” of ephebophiles and murderous cult leaders?

Perhaps high school teachers should teach Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco. And English teachers who teach The Laramie Project should include as a companion piece The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard written by homosexual journalist Stephen Jimenez.

The only “opponent” of the law Leone cited in her article was retiring State Representative Margo McDermed (R-Mokena) who voted against the “LGBTQ” school indoctrination bill but only for fiscal reasons:

8. “It’s not … that it’s not a good cause…. I vote against mandates no matter how worthy the topic may be, and of course this is a worthy topic.”

With Republican friends like this, conservatives definitely don’t need enemies.

Leone reveals her bias when she refers to “milestones such as marriage equality.” “Marriage equality” is a Leftist term. Conservatives would refer to “marriage redefinition.” Defining marriage in law as the union of two people of opposite sexes is no more evidence of inequality than is defining marriage in law as the union of only two persons or of only persons not closely related by blood, definitions which exclude plural and incestuous marriage.

Experience both in my current job and my former job in the writing center at Deerfield High School has taught me that many—perhaps most—”progressives” violate with regularity their purported commitments to tolerance, respect for diversity, inclusivity, and critical thinking. They substitute epithet-hurling for argumentation and evidence, and they censor dissenting views. As everyone knows, this is most common when it comes to issues involving homosexuality and opposite-sex impersonation. What is remarkable and troubling is that the hatred of progressives is virulent and directed at those who hold theologically orthodox views, including those who are Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, and Orthodox Jews.

My views on these issues are historical, mainstream theologically orthodox views. They are not fringe positions. I’m just willing to express them publicly. And why do so few Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestants express their views as boldly and publicly as I do (and as progressives express theirs)? They recoil from being falsely called “haters” or losing their jobs. Toxic progressivism has led to religious discrimination of a kind never seen in America, and it’s getting worse.

It’s also remarkable and troubling that the Chicago Tribune seems so incurious about these topics. There are brilliant men and women writing about these issues eloquently, intelligently, and piquantly. I suspect most Trib writers and editors (and public school teachers and Springfield swampsters) haven’t heard of them, haven’t read their material, and don’t have any interest in interviewing them for articles, book talks, or festivals.

Perhaps the Trib’s incuriosity is bolstered by the bias evidenced by news reporters like Hannah Leone who must have thought I just tumbled off the proverbial turnip truck. She seemed to think I would believe that in a front-page, 2,100-word article, she had insufficient space to include anything from our interview or any comment from any other conservative opponent.

I’m not sure how my “perspective helped inform the article” as Leone claimed it did unless she’s referring to this one sentence about opposing positions: “But some detractors see the state forcing local districts to promote an agenda conflicts with their personal or religious beliefs.” If so, wow.

Word to presumptuous lawmakers and propagandists who identify as educators and journalists: It is not the role of government-employed teachers to make students feel good about their subjective sexual feelings—not even those sexualities that Leftists have deemed the darling identities ‘o’ the day.

Word to conservative parents: GET OUT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS!

Word to churches: Help parents get their children out.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Toxic-Schools.mp3

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A conservative meme circulating on Facebook recently asserted that a dystopian future isn’t in the future. It’s now and we’re living it.

For theologically orthodox Christians, and others who want to stay grounded in reality, the West has rapidly become a disorienting place to live. So a surreal article in the Chicago Tribune July 31 portraying workplace accommodations for “gender queer” and “nonbinary” employees as perfectly normal shouldn’t come as a surprise, even if it induces nausea.

It’s the kind of article that makes you despair not only about the collapse in traditional norms surrounding male and female, but also about the state of journalism. Written by a Tribune business reporter, the article is headlined “He, she or they: How companies are starting to address calls for a gender-neutral workplace.”

Devoid of critical thought, the article reads like a press release from an LGBTQ advocacy group. It’s fully sympathetic with those who “describe themselves as identifying as neither male nor female, identify as both, or reject gender labels entirely: gender fluid, gender neutral, gender queer or gender nonconforming.”

The reporter, Corilyn Shropshire, an experienced journalist with a master’s degree in social policy from the London School of Economics, apparently could think of no valid concerns about “nonbinary” employees causing tension and confusion in the workplace by insisting, among other things, that they be referred to individually with the pronoun “they,” normally used to refer to more than one person. The angle Shropshire took with her story was that all challenges posed by those who are “gender queer” should be met by catering to their whims. She wrote:

Redefining a workplace as some employees redefine themselves has meant challenges on both sides of the desk. For nonbinary workers, it’s explaining who you are to your bosses and colleagues and getting them to understand it, accept it and use the right pronoun. For employers, it’s making the office an environment that is accepting of nonbinary employees and in turn, changing workplace dress codes, the company directory, personnel manuals and longstanding forms that require employees to check off boxes identifying them as “male” or “female.”

What’s especially disconcerting is that at a paper the size of the Chicago Tribune, a story like this one goes through multiple layers of brainstorming and editing. No one thought this piece came across as lacking in how it presented a controversial issue? The story quotes not a single soul who finds pandering to “nonbinary” employees to be a troubling development.

The story quotes only proponents of “gender queer” accommodations, including an associate professor of history at Amherst College who complains that “human resources practices are usually very binary” and that for those who are “nonbinary,” “there’s not even a place for you to exist in the (HR) system.” But HR practices have historically been binary because until recently they tended to correspond with reality, that reality being that we are created male and female, and except in the cases of rare birth defects, the differences are obvious.

There also used to be an understanding that one’s personal proclivities and habits had to sometimes be put aside for the good of the organization, at least during work hours. Today the self reigns supreme, especially when it comes to sexuality, and all must bow down before it. The demands of “nonbinary” employees are so absurd that in a sane world such employees would be told to knock it off or encouraged to get help. That the business world and mainstream journalists now see such demands as legitimate is a disturbing sign that too many influential people in our culture are losing their minds. It’s not just those personally identifying as “gender queer” who are sick. It’s also their enablers.

The Tribune article relates the story of Avery Matthew, a young man who works at Brilliant Staffing in Chicago and pouts that “some colleagues still stumble over the appropriate pronoun to use” even though he’s been out as “nonbinary” for more than two years. “It becomes emotionally exhausting to have to correct people,” he says. But has Matthew tried thinking of his coworkers, who might be exhausted by having to remember during their busy day to use different pronouns with him or risk being labeled insensitive or worse? The reason it’s hard to remember is that it’s unnatural. The natural thing is to refer to people with words referring to their true essence as men and women. It wears on people to be forced into a lie and to be smooth in participating in the lie when there are many other stresses in the workday competing for their attention.

Matthew is also upset that there are no gender-neutral bathrooms at work. He uses both, but wants one he can “walk into without worrying about people’s reactions.” But of course there is one – the men’s restroom. Why can’t the male essence of his “gender fluidity” be content with that during work hours? What’s the big deal if he at least partly identifies as male? Unfortunately, the Tribune had no interest in digging deeper and pondering how immaturity and self-absorption might play in a role in the weird and nonsensical demands of the “gender queer.”

Dr. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, addressed gender confusion on his podcast The Briefing Aug. 9, calling on Christians to stand firm against calls to abandon reality. He said:

Christians have to speak sanity even if no one else does. It’s because our understanding of humanity and of identity begins with God, begins with a Creator who made us for his glory, who determined not only where and when we would be born, but that we would exist, putting us on this earth and giving us an identity as his gift. Of course, there is some extent to which every single individual develops a self and develops personality, but that is fundamentally different from understanding that we determine our own identity.

Too bad the Tribune didn’t see fit to give this perspective at least a passing mention. It’s one many Americans still hold, even if the Tribune treats them as if they don’t exist.

On Thursday Heidi Stevens, the Chicago Tribune’s foolish lifestyle writer, wrote in glowing terms about a noxious new Gillette razor ad that features “trans” -activist “Samson” Bonkabantu Brown, a young woman who pretends to be a young man, getting a face-shaving tutorial from her father. Stevens views the science-denying ad that implicitly affirms the chemical sterilization and surgical mutilation of children as evolutionary, helpful, and powerful. And here I thought we were supposed to love our bodies just as they are.

On the very same day, arts and entertainment writer (the Trib uses the words “arts” and “entertainment” very loosely) Steve Johnson did his level best to intellectualize, sanitize, and elevate a perverse new art exhibit titled “About Face: Stonewall, Revolt and new Queer Art,” describing it as an “ambitious…. Sweeping survey of queer art curated with an eye toward the transgendered, the intersectional, the ways in which sexuality is being more widely recognized as fluid and complex rather than binary and rigid.” Maybe if he had tried just a wee bit harder, he could have packed in a tad more “progressive” jargon.

It’s a bit unclear what Johnson means when he refers to sexuality. If he’s referring to hardwired biological sex, then it remains stubbornly “binary and rigid” no matter what “trans”-alchemists are widely pretending, er I mean, “recognizing.”

If, however, he’s referring to “sexual orientation” or sexual appetites, he’s right. They’re fluid and complex—not binary or rigid. Due to the fall of man, the sexual appetites of men and women are diverse, fluid, complex, malformed, misshapen, misdirected, misoriented, and disordered by all sorts of environmental and biological factors. It’s been dogmatic homosexuals who have tried to convince the world that “sexual orientation” is (relatively) binary (i.e., heterosexual or homosexual) and rigid. Scripture has long informed those with eyes to see and ears to hear that sexual appetites are fluid. Remember reading about incest, homosexuality, cross-dressing, and bestiality? Remember reading that there’s nothing new under the sun? Remember reading that “such were some of you”?

The exhibit’s curator, Jonathan David Katz, has had a remarkable career proselytizing for sodomy. According to Wikipedia, Katz is the former executive coordinator of the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies at Yale University, former chair of the Department of Lesbian and Gay studies at the City College of San Francisco, first tenured faculty in gay and lesbian studies in the United States, founder of the Harvey Milk Institute (the largest queer studies institute in the world named in honor of the despicable ephebophile Harvey Milk), co-founder of Queer Nation in San Francisco, and first artistic director of the National Queer Arts Festival in San Francisco.

To quote Howlin’ Wolf, Great Googly Moogly!

Our culture has become debauched enough that Katz is bold enough to admit that “for a lot of queer people, the goal was never to create a separate and polar gay community… that stood in opposition to straightness. Rather, the goal was to get rid of sexuality as a defining term of human difference.” Word to queer people, if by “sexuality” you mean, biological sex, your goal is quixotic and futile. Biological sex is the most fixed defining term of difference within the sexually dimorphic humans species. If by “sexuality,” you mean homoeroticism, your goal is equally quixotic and futile. Though you may be able to fool some people–perhaps even many people–into believing homoerotic acts are moral, you will never be able to fool all of them because truths about sexual morality are written on men’s and women’s hearts.

Here are some details Johnson offers about the exhibit:

“Chicago imagist icon Roger Brown is represented here, including transgressive paintings depicting ‘the relationship between a youth and an adult man, in which the younger partner is hardly a victim.’” (This is likely the painting, which you can zoom in on to read the captions.)

“Colombian artist Carlos Motta shows himself naked in a video* [warning: full frontal nudity], dangling in an upside-down crucifix position, moaning in seeming pain, or is it pleasure?”

“In one, walk-in work called ‘Self Service,’ you’ll find a wooden sex toy mounted on a bathroom wall between metal grab bars…. If a visitor was not previously familiar with the range of male genitalia, this show will fix that.”

“Joan E. Biren’s photographs on display depict an early lesbian collective at work; there’s a… 1977 image of a topless woman sawing wood.”

“A highlight of the show is the top-floor suite of Jerome Caja works, paintings mostly in nail polish on, seemingly, whatever material was on hand for the late San Francisco artist…. The miniature works…. confront Catholic…  iconography and drag queen tropes.” [If you’re curious about Caja, here’s his website, and here’s just one of his miniature works (obscenity warning): “Bozo Picks a Boyfriend”]

*Carlos Motta says this about Requiem: Mondo Invertito: “REQUIEM is based on a queer interpretation of the stories of the death and resurrection of Christ in an attempt to question their effect on the sustained exclusion of queer bodies and lives…. featuring bondage artists Stafano Laforgia and Andrea Ropes and Carlos Motta.”

Remember when kids would read newspapers for “current events” school assignments? Ah, those were the good old days. Now our newspapers should be wrapped in brown paper and sold in creepy stores in creepy urban neighborhoods frequented by creepy men in stained trench coats.

Steve Johnson and the Chicago Tribune should be ashamed, but shame is so yesterday.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Tribune-Promotes-Destructive-Deviance.mp3

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Recently, another purportedly Christian child welfare agency abandoned its commitments to Christ by agreeing to place children in the homes of people who affirm that which God detests. Faced with an ACLU lawsuit, Bethany Christian Services (BCS) in Michigan has agreed to place children for fostering and adoption in the homes of unrepentant homosexuals, who will provide to these children “the counsel of the wicked.” In so doing, BCS—the largest Christian foster and adoption agency in the country—has granted unto Caesar that which belongs to God. BCS follows in the sullied footsteps of its affiliate in Philadelphia and Illinois’ Lutheran Child and Family Services (LCFS). BCS should now remove “Christian” from its name.

BCS laughably claims they “are focused on demonstrating the love of Jesus Christ by serving children in need,” ignoring the inconvenient truth that the love of Jesus Christ is inseparable from his holiness. Does any theologically orthodox Christian believe Jesus would have placed orphans in the homes of unrepentant homosexuals who believe homosexual acts are pleasing to God? What do BCS and LCFS think families headed by homosexuals will teach their children about homosexual acts and marriage—which is a picture of Christ and his bride, the church? And what do BCS and LCFS think the implications of those beliefs for both the temporal and eternal lives of children are?

Lesbian Dana Nessel, Michigan’s recently-elected attorney general, tweeted her thanks to BCS. Such appreciation from the morally challenged Nessel should tell BCS they made the wrong decision. Nessel is infamous for her a vulgar campaign ad that said,

So when you’re choosing Michigan’s next attorney general. Ask yourself this: Who can you trust most not to show you their penis in a professional setting? Is it the candidate who doesn’t have a penis? I’d say so.

What kind of civics lesson did this teach children?

The deeply troubling trend of Christians jettisoning homosexual practice as a disqualifying criterion for child placement continues apace. This month, Katy Faust, founder and director of the wonderful children’s rights organization Them Before Us, posted a YouTube video in which she argues that hard-to-place children should be placed in the homes of homosexuals. Her claim raises some important questions:

• Would Ms. Faust’s position pertain if the adopting parents were two brothers in a consensual incestuous relationship or if the parents were five people of various sexes in a polyamorous relationship?

• What criteria does Ms. Faust use when evaluating the suitability of a home?

• Is there any type of adult relationship that is so intrinsically disordered and God-dishonoring that no truly Christian organization should place children in the care of those in such relationships?

• Is it wrong to place children in the homes of people who affirm wickedness as righteousness and who will teach their children body- and soul-destroying lies as truth?

• If the homes of self-identified homosexuals are suitable homes for hard-to-place children, wouldn’t they be suitable homes for any and all other children?

It is not solely the idea promulgated in this video that is problematic. It’s also the source. Since Faust is conservative and justifiably well-respected among conservatives for her commitment to the needs and rights of children, her support for placement of children in foundationally-disordered homes will carry significant weight among conservatives.

In researching this topic, I came across a story I missed when homosexual news outlets were reporting it in 2010. It’s a story they cast as a grievous injustice perpetrated by Lutheran Child and Family Services. The alleged grievous injustice was that LCFS declined to place a 15-year-old self-identified homosexual boy in the home of homosexual couple Matt Nalett (then 33) and Fred Steinhauer (then 64) (pictured to the right).

The now 72-year-old Steinhauer posts photos on his FB page of shirtless young men in their underwear. Steinhauer’s most recent FB post is an ad from a company called Nasty Pig that was founded 20 years ago by two homosexual men and geared toward homosexuals. The company’s founders describe Nasty Pigs as “a trailblazing brand that makes hot clothes that get you laid.” The ad Steinhauer posted shows only the chest and crotch of a shirtless man wearing a jockstrap.

On his Facebook page, Nalett recently posted a doctored photo of the Crown Fountain in Millennium Park that showed a naked man urinating.

Today LCFS would place a 15-year-old self-identified homosexual boy in the care of such a couple, and many Americans would cheer such a placement as a manifestation of social justice and evidence of progress.

Last summer in June 2018, the Chicago Tribune published a heartstrings-tugging profile of Bill Guest, a 40-year-old, unemployed homosexual man who lives at home with his parents and yet was able to procure a baby through an organization called Family Source Consultants that matched him up with a surrogate who chose him specifically because he’s homosexual (Guest and his daughter pictured to the right).

Family Source Consultants describes itself as “a leading authority in third party reproductive services” that “matches and facilitates Gestational Surrogacy and Egg Donation arrangements in the United States and Internationally” and “is pleased to assist individuals and couples of all… sexual orientations.”

No longer does American society believe what Obama once believed and proclaimed on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. He and virtually all other Americans once believed that mothers and fathers are essential to fulfilling children’s intrinsic needs and rights. Sadly, society no longer recognizes, respects, or protects children’s rights. Instead society slavishly serves the disordered, selfish desires of adults.

“Progressives” argue that only the number of parents is critical—not their biological sex, but they rarely if ever explain how they arrive at that number. Conservatives can explain why. The number two derives from the sexual dimorphism of the human species. Dismissing as irrelevant the natural way new humans come into being, Leftists simply assert that two is the magic number for an ideal home. For them, the source of that number poses an intellectual stickywicket they prefer to avoid.

As we move from a country shaped historically by a biblically-informed worldview to one opposed to values informed by theological orthodoxy and informed by the exaltation of absolute autonomy, moral relativism, and the sexual revolution, children suffer.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/GayAdoptions.mp3

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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Even many who are little disposed to viewing life’s vicissitudes symbolically found themselves wondering about the meaning of the inferno that consumed much of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris during Holy Week. What does the gutting of this magnificent architectural symbol of man’s adoration of the Creator of all things beautiful signify?

What we know is that France, indeed all Western Europe, has lost its spiritual way. While man-made symbols fashioned of wood and stone remain of a once-substantive and sustaining faith, the substance of that faith is long gone, burned away by impoverished philosophies and fallen man’s appetites. All that has remained of the fervent faith that animated the early church is a burned-out shell.

Truth was replaced with truthiness. Beauty was replaced with ugliness. Love that means death to our fallen natures and much that they desire was replaced with saccharine affirmation of any and all God-denying confusion and libidinous hunger.

America—always in thrall to all things European—is sashaying benightedly after our uber-cool Parisian brothers and sisters. Recent studies have revealed the tragic irreligiosity of Americans. Is it any wonder that as we have lost our faith, marriage—the picture of Christ and the church—has been destroyed; millions of women have ordered the deaths of their own babies; children are being raised without mothers and fathers; homosexuality is celebrated; teens are being chemically sterilized and surgically mutilated; perverse men are reading stories to toddlers in our public libraries; government schools teach our little ones that in order to be compassionate, they must undress in front of opposite-sex peers; obscene language and images pollute the American landscape; and the ravenous appetite to be rendered insensate grows.

Early this week, a writer in the Chicago Tribune wrote about the symbolism of Notre Dame, saying it “symbolizes survival” and “it connects people through the centuries and… from all over the globe.” She continued, “Even the most casual tourist can’t help but feel in the presence of something far greater than a building. At Notre Dame, you’re in the presence of time itself.”

Not once did she mention the Creator of time itself. Her glaring omission neutered her lament for the calamitous destruction of Notre Dame .

Maybe we don’t deserve such symbols of beauty and creativity that have their source in God, whom we have forgotten or worse, replaced with idols. Maybe we needed a shocking event to show us that the church in Western civilizations was gutted long ago.

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matt. 7: 24-27).

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/New-Recording-3.mp3

In the wake of the shocking Pennsylvania Grand Jury report which revealed that 301 priests sexually abused more than a thousand children, Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced that her office would investigate Catholic dioceses in Illinois in pursuit of “a complete and accurate accounting of all sexually inappropriate behavior involving priests in Illinois.”

We applaud this decision and her desire for truth, transparency, and accountability. Justice must be pursued and children must be protected.

But we want to encourage the attorney general not to stop there. Prior to the Pennsylvania revelation, the Chicago Tribune published a deeply disturbing report exposing similar abuses of our children in Chicago Public Schools. This report revealed that more than 520 cases of juvenile sexual assault took place in Chicago’s public schools over the past ten years. That is an average of one per week.

How many cases were prosecuted? Which cases were covered up and by whom? How many predators are still working in our schools and have access to our students? How many cases were not reported?

If the Pennsylvania scandal is the catalyst for an investigation in Illinois—and we agree that it should be—shouldn’t the Chicago Tribune exposé be the impetus for an investigation of all school districts in Illinois going back further than a decade?

A hotline has been set up to report incidents of child sexual abuse in Illinois: 888-414-7678.

Years of concealing crimes, ignoring victims and protecting abusers isn’t unique to one institution. All crimes against children demand a full accounting. Predators must be exposed, prosecuted and removed from positions of power that provide them access to minors.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact the Attorney General’s office to encourage them to investigate the sexual crimes against our children in public school systems across the state of Illinois.

If you have information that would help stop a predator from preying on children and put him behind bars, please call the hotline: 888-414-7678. The hotline is answered by trained staff during business hours, and messages will be returned if contact information is provided.

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois! 

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A majority of Americans including many mainline Christians support legal abortion, but many religious conservatives say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, according to the Pew Research Center.

Those religious conservatives are now hoping that Roe v. Wade will be overturned in light of President Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, a practicing Catholic, to the U.S. Supreme Court. They’re optimistic that having a fifth conservative on the bench could lead to a reversal of the 1973 landmark case that made abortion a constitutional right. Kavanaugh gave a speech last year in which he praised former Chief Justice William Rehnquist for dissenting in Roe v. Wade.

A Pew survey last year showed that 57 percent of Americans support legal abortion, while 40 percent believe it should be illegal in most or all cases. A Pew 2014 Religious Landscape Study found that evangelicals tend to oppose legal abortion while people in mainline Protestant churches, as well as Jews, atheists, and agnostics, tend to support it. While Catholics are divided, the Roman Catholic Church continues to speak out against abortion.

Sixty-six percent of Southern Baptists are opposed to legal abortion, compared to only 8 percent of Unitarian Universalists and 18 percent of Episcopalians. Other religious groups with a high percentage opposed include Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christians affiliated with the Assemblies of God.

In a January 2018 news release, Pew reported:

Among those who do identify with a religion, the majority view about abortion among members of a particular group often mirrors that group’s official policy on abortion. This is the case with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon church) and the Southern Baptist Convention – both churches oppose abortion, as do most members of those churches. And the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Unitarian Universalist Association, and Reform and Conservative Judaism, for example, all support abortion rights, in line with most of their adherents.

There are, however, cases where the views of a church’s members don’t align with its teachings on abortion. For instance, while the Roman Catholic Church is an outspoken critic of abortion, U.S. Catholics were divided on the issue in the 2014 survey, with 48% supportive of legal abortion and 47% opposed.  (See chart HERE.)

In June 2017, the Southern Baptist Convention at its annual meeting denounced Planned Parenthood and called on Congress to fully defund it. The convention passed a resolution that called out the “immoral agenda and practices of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates, especially their role in the unjust killing each year of more than 300,000 precious unborn babies, its use of particularly gruesome illegal abortion methods, and its profiteering from harvesting unborn babies’ tissues and organs.”

By contrast, representatives of mainline denominations have been vocal in support of legal abortion. This past March, 68 faith leaders in Iowa wrote a letter published in the Des Moines Register criticizing a bill in the state legislature that would make it illegal for a woman to get an abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected. The letter said in part:

Every person has the right to their own personal and religious beliefs and to live their life how they determine is best for them. The government does not have the right to infringe on the freedoms or privacy of Iowa women based on those religious beliefs. Every woman deserves to consult her values, faith, and doctor when making a decision about her body and her pregnancy. Any law that strips a woman of her faith and tries instead to legislate her values for her is immoral.

Republican state lawmakers in Iowa were able to pass the fetal heartbeat bill despite objections from Democrats. No Democrats supported the bill. It was signed into law by Republican Governor Kim Reynolds, but a judge blocked it from taking effect July 1 as a result of a lawsuit filed by abortion activists.

The Chicago Tribune has reported that more out-of-state women have been coming to Illinois for abortions because of less restrictive laws compared to those in surrounding states. The overall number of abortions had dropped, however, but is now on the rise, an increase attributed to a state law passed last year that expands taxpayer subsidies for abortions. Under the new law, which took effect January 1, Medicaid recipients and state employees and their dependents covered by state employee insurance can get taxpayer-subsidized abortions.

Read more:  Illinois Taxpayer Funded Abortions Increase at Least 274 Percent in First Six Months of 2018

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