For Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, “Turn out the lights, the party’s over.” That’s particularly embarrassing for her because a sitting mayor is supposed to be reelected. She failed to impress voters, yet announced that Chicago moved forward during her term. Voters disagreed. Opponents pointed out the rise in crime and a consistently divisive leadership style.

So who is next up? We find out on April 4th when the top two vote-getters face a runoff election. Paul Vallas positions himself to be somewhat conservative in his approach to government. Brandon Johnson, the more liberal.

Both are experienced in the political arena. Paul Vallas is the former Chicago Public Schools CEO. He finished with almost 34% of the vote. Johnson is a Cook County Commissioner and drew 20.32% of the vote. He found heavy support from the educational community as a Chicago Teachers Union organizer.

Mayor Lightfoot finished third out of nine candidates. She garnered a weak 16.9% of the vote total. Lori was the first black female mayor in Chicago’s history and the first openly “gay” mayor.

Vallas is a family man. Paul and his wife, Sharon, raised three sons: Gus, Mark, and Paul Jr. Two of those men have gone on to public service careers.  The Vallas’s second born, Mark, died as a result of opioid abuse in 2018. Heartbreaking. His faith background is Greek Orthodox.

Brandon Johnson is also a family man. He resides on the west side of Chicago with wife Stacie and three children. He was born in Elgin. Brandon is the son of a pastor and one of ten siblings. It is said he was “raised on a foundation of hard work, faith, and service.” He ran as one of the most “progressive’ candidates on the ballot.

So both men “identify” with faith in the Christian tradition. However, that really does not tell us much. What we really need to know is how their faith shapes their worldview—which gives us a much better picture on how they will pursue political decisions that support (or do not support) healthy families.

For example, during the campaign, Paul Vallas was asked to clarify his views on abortion. To which he replied, “Fundamentally, I oppose abortion.” Then a spokeswoman for Vallas said he was referring to his Greek Orthodox faith, which opposes abortion.

When Vallas last ran for mayor in 2019, this was his posture on LGBTQ issues: “My approach has always been to embrace and support the LGBT community and let my actions speak louder than my words as I fight for rights and services for all Chicagoans.”

Here’s the other choice. On his brandonforchicago.com website, it was said “Brandon will transform Chicago into a national model for gender equity and reproductive rights, champion LGBTQ rights as human rights, and be a visible and vocal ally to creating safety and equal opportunity for the LGBTQ community.” Party line politics.

Same brandonforchicago.com website, this time on abortion. “There are three things I would like to make absolutely clear. One: abortion is health care. Two: abortion should be a constitutional right. Three: We will not accept an America – or a Chicago – that goes back in time. There is no middle ground on abortion.” He’s right on that last part!

Now the true colors are known of the moral positions of the two Chicago mayoral candidates. This defines their worldview. If you ask either candidate if they wish to govern with wisdom, no doubt they both would nod affirmatively. The writer of Proverbs makes it clear, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. (Proverbs 9:10, ESV)

Over the course of time in my role in talk radio, I would frequently ask political leaders or candidates this question: “What is your source of moral truth?” Several would stumble through their answer.

An important question, yes? I dare say, a critical question. Because that, in fact, identifies much about their worldview. We should not be afraid to ask our “leaders” (or candidates) about their worldview. Obviously, it will shape their public policy decisions.

What about your worldview? Does it need a tune-up? The Illinois Family Institute offers access to a number of worldview shaping events. There is one coming up on March 18th. You can find details on the IFI Events page.

Nine years ago when a hundred and fifty people walked at the March for Life Chicago, it was hard to imagine that they’d grow to thousands of people flooding the streets and echoing off the skyscrapers in celebration of Life.

But this year instead of a march they are planning a parade of cars.

Decorate your cars and line up at St. John Cantius Church (825 N. Carpenter St. in Chicago) on the Northside starting at noon. Bring diapers to drop off at the end of the parade at Southside Pregnancy Center (3759 W 95th St. Evergreen Park) at 2:30 PM.

The parade begins at 1:00 PM.

More details can be found HERE.

If you’re not from the Chicago area, check HERE to see if there’s an event near you.

Before you read this, you might want to have a fire extinguisher at the ready, because this news just may light your hair on fire.

State Representative La Shawn K. Ford (D-Chicago) held a press conference on Sunday in which he called for all Illinois schools to cease teaching history because he’s “Concerned that current school history teaching leads to white privilege and a racist society.”

In a press release titled a “Call for the Abolishment of History Classes in Illinois Schools,” Ford proclaimed from his high horse,

When it comes to teaching history in Illinois, we need to end the miseducation of Illinoisans. I’m calling on the Illinois State Board of Education and local school districts to take immediate action by removing current history books and curriculum practices that unfairly communicate our history. Until a suitable alternative is developed, we should instead devote greater attention toward civics and ensuring students understand our democratic processes and how they can be involved. 

Has Ford created and made public the criteria that would be used to evaluate the fairness of “history books and curriculum practices,” or does he just presume that all current history books and curriculum practices communicate history “unfairly”?

The press release announced that speakers would discuss “how current history teaching practices overlook the contributions by Women and members of the Black, Jewish, LGBTQ communities and other groups.” Take note of the implicitly racist bias in Ford’s press release that capitalized “Black” while not capitalizing “white.” Yes, persons of Color can be as racist as Colorless people.

Here’s a translation of Ford’s rhetoric: Ford wants schools to cancel all history classes until all textbooks can be reviewed by Big Brother to determine if they are sufficiently woke (i.e., leftist/revisionist) in their treatment of properly melanated persons, women (i.e., persons with DNA-determined vaginas), homosexuals, and opposite-sex impersonators. In the meantime, Ford proposes teaching “civics,” focusing on presenting BLM and Antifa riots as constitutionally protected intensely peaceful assemblies.

In the early stages of the pandemic, when most Americans were fretting about the Chinese Communist virus, leftists were hatching plans on how to weasel the widely criticized New York Times revisionist 1619 Project into Illinois public schools.

To achieve that goal, Ford first proposed the silly partisan bill HB 4954 to add yet more “commemorative holidays” to the school calendar and mandate the teaching of the Civil Rights Movement, which is already taught in schools everywhere.

Then just two weeks later, Ford, who in 2012 was charged “with eight counts of bank fraud and nine counts of submitting false information to the bank in a 17-count indictment,” filed an even more partisan and dangerous amendment that would require the following:

“The study of the pre-enslavement history of Black people from 3,000 BCE to AD 1619, including instruction about ancient civilizations, kingdoms, kings, queens, and warriors; their contributions to medicine, literature, technology, architecture, and economics; and their achievements,” and “The study of the reasons why Black people came to be enslaved.”

The amendment was the brainchild of community activist Meleika Gardner who also wrote the amendment.

According to Scene Chicago, Gardner attributes the murders of “her father, a stepfather, her nephew, and several friends to gun violence due to systemic racism,” which she seeks to eradicate through school indoctrination. I’m unable to find, however, any identification by Gardner of the systemically racist acts that allegedly killed her loved ones or explaining exactly how these racist acts killed them. It seems, for example, that her nephew, Xavier Joy, was the tragic victim of robbery in Woodlawn, a neighborhood on the South Side that is 98 percent black. Maybe some intrepid reporter will ask Gardner for some specific details on how systemic racism killed her friends and relatives.

Ford and Gardner were joined at the press conference by their collaborator, Evanston alderman Robin Rue Simmons, who tied the amendment that would mandate yet more leftist propaganda in government schools to both slave reparations and the riots destroying America:

Simmons, who has spearheaded the push for reparations in Evanston, called education “a key piece of what repair looks like.” Acknowledging the recent Black Lives Matter protests and nationwide “awakening” to the oppression black people face, she said “now is the time” to fight for this bill.

The collaborators know that it would be infinitely easier to get brown, yellow, red, and white Americans who have never owned slaves to support paying reparations to blacks who never were slaves if these Americans have been propagandized.

Ford, a former history teacher in Chicago Public Schools, made this jaw-dropping statement to Fox News:

We know that the history books that we have were written years ago, decades ago, centuries ago by pretty much one group of people, and that’s white men.

Does Ford think teachers are today using textbooks written centuries ago? Is he so racist that he thinks white people can’t write about historical events involving black people? Does he believe black people are similarly incapable of writing about historical events involving white people? I guess we should be glad Ford is no longer in the classroom.

Ford’s policies are likely shaped more by his desire for political power in a leftist city than by principle. When running for mayor in 2019, Ford was asked by the homosexual newspaper Windy City Times if he has any “experience working in LGBTQ-related issues.” Ford, who pretends to be Catholic while supporting abortion and issues related to homosexuality, acknowledged that his lesbian sister is a “strong adviser on issues.”

If this Trojan horse filled with 1619 Project swamp gas looks like it’s going to pass in the Springfield swamp, some good conservatives should file an amendment that would require a complete history of slavery throughout the world to be taught and would require that all resources used in history classes be ideologically balanced between conservative and leftist. So, if resources by 1619 Project author Nikole Hannah-Jones are used, then equal time must be spent studying resources by Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, and John McWhorter.

Let’s make sure Illinois children know that between 1501-1866, more enslaved Africans went to Brazil/Portugal (5,848,266), Great Britain (3,259,441), France (1,381,404), Spain/Uruguay (1,061,524), and the Netherlands (554,336) than the United States (305,326), and that “Less than one-quarter of white Southerners held slaves,” and that it is estimated that “3,776 free Negroes” owned slaves.

And let’s make sure they study the work of prolific black scholar Thomas Sowell who writes that,

Of all the tragic facts about the history of slavery, the most astonishing to an American today is that, although slavery was a worldwide institution for thousands of years, nowhere in the world was slavery a controversial issue prior to the 18^th century. People of every race and color were enslaved—and enslaved others. White people were still being bought and sold as slaves in the Ottoman Empire, decades after American blacks were freed. Everyone hated the idea of being a slave but few had any qualms about enslaving others.

Sowell further points out the hypocrisy of leftists on slavery:

The treatment of white galley slaves was even worse than the treatment of black slaves picking cotton. But there are no movies or television dramas about it comparable to Roots, and our schools and colleges don’t pound it into the heads of students.

Sowell offers a corrective to the myopic perspective offered by America-hating leftists—a corrective of which students should be made aware:

The inhumanity of human beings toward other human beings is not a new story, much less a local story. There is no need to hide it, because there are lessons we can learn from it. But there is also no need to distort it, so that sins of the whole human species around the world are presented as special defects of “our society” or the sins of a particular race.

If American society and Western civilization are different from other societies and civilization, it is that they eventually turned against slavery, and stamped it out, at a time when non-Western societies around the world were still maintaining slavery and resisting Western pressures to end slavery, including in some cases armed resistance. Only the fact that the West had more firepower than others put an end to slavery in many non-Western societies during the age of Western imperialism. …

Every American should be troubled by the goals of leftist demagogues and censors in government schools. Sowell makes clear that they are not interested in ascertaining truth but, rather, they seek to distort children’s understanding of America for power and money:

It is not just the history of slavery that gets distorted beyond recognition by the selective filtering of facts. Those who go back to mine history in order to find everything they can to undermine American society or Western civilization, have very little interest in the Bataan death march, the atrocities of the Ottoman Empire or similar atrocities in other times and places.

Those who mine history for sins are not searching for truth but for opportunities to denigrate their own society, or for grievances that can be cashed in today, at the expense of people who were not even born when the sins of the past were committed.

Why did Ford collude with other leftists to concoct this amendment? Leftists understand that it’s easier to forge 15-year-olds into good leftist foot soldiers than it is to forge 25-year-olds and easier still to squeeze malleable 5-year-olds into desired shapes by plunking them into government Play-Doh molds. Leftists want to prevent freethinkers who may later become incorrigibly resistant to leftist dogma and then have to be cancelled.

Conservatives best get their kids out of government indoctrination centers and re-education camps pronto. Leftists are not winning the culture war by the persuasive force and rationality of their ideas but by indoctrination and intimidation.

The Orwellian anti-freedom sharks smell and taste the blood of conservatives in the water. Every day that conservatives choose fear over courage, capitulation over resistance, and silence over bold dissent, they sacrifice the future freedom of their children for one more hour of uneasy peace.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact your state lawmakers and urge them to vote no on both HB 4954 and Rep. La Shawn Ford’s amendment, which would politicize the teaching of history in Illinois schools and foment more division.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Leftist-Lawmakers-and-Activists-Call-for-the-Cancellation-of-All-History-Classes_audio.mp3

Please consider supporting the work and ministry of Illinois Family Institute.

As always, your gift to IFI is tax-deductible and greatly appreciated!

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

Macy’s was once a symbol of wholesome American fun with its Thanksgiving Parades and visits with Santa Claus, immortalized years ago in the classic movie Miracle on 34^th Street. But this month the department store chain is busy promoting the debauchery associated with “LGBT pride” and pushing the new all-American tradition of encouraging children to interact with perverted drag queens.

Macy’s has been promoting “LGBT” activism for a while, undeterred by periodic protests from pro-family groups. This is the 10^th year for the chain’s annual “Pride + Joy” campaign and its June festivities for “Pride Month” are now on a scale similar to that of patriotic and holiday celebrations. With flags of its own, the “LGBT” movement has rapidly gained ground in the mainstream, thanks in no small part to the growing number of corporate and civic allies eager to outdo each other in the race to see who can be the most ingratiating toward the queer lobby. Apparently not wanting to be left behind by Target or any other store, Macy’s created a full calendar of special events for this month.

On Saturday, June 22, the flagship store in New York City in Herald Square will host a Drag Queen Story Hour. “Bring the whole family for a reading circle and sing along with the queens at this feel-good event!” reads the calendar posting. Macy’s on State Street in downtown Chicago will hold a “Pride” celebration this coming Saturday, June 15, to “celebrate family, friends and community” and offer “treats, performances by drag queens and more!”

Macy’s stores in Boston, Los Angeles, Houston, San Francisco, Minnesota, and Columbus, Ohio, are also holding “Pride” events this month. The chain is participating in “Pride” parades and festivals across the county and selling “Pride”-themed merchandise at more than 150 stores and online at macys.com. The New York City location earlier this month had a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new “Pride” shop within the department store. Macy’s boasts that the Manhattan store is “beaming with Pride as it lights up the night in rainbow colors every evening in June.”

This past November, “LGBT” activists celebrated when the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade featured a same-sex kiss between two actresses participating in the parade. Not everyone saw it as a sign of progress. “Macy’s has sexualized and lesbianized Thanksgiving in its iconic kids’ parade,” wrote conservative writer Rod Dreher.

Other once family-friendly companies are also stepping up efforts to push the “LGBT” agenda, including Disney, which held its first “Pride” parade at its theme park in Paris on June 1. In writing about the parade, the “LGBT” publication Out Magazine called Mickey and Minnie Mouse allies and described them sporting “brand new Pride looks, riding by in a car covered in rainbows.” For years, Disney has held unofficial gay events at its theme parks.

As “Pride” events have grown in size and begun touting themselves as family-friendly—making them even more vile—Christians have become more befuddled about how to react. It should be obvious to Christians that they shouldn’t join in the festivities, but some need reminders like that found in Dr. Michael Brown‘s recent piece, “Why I Do Not Celebrate Gay Pride.”

Even worse, some supposedly conservative Christians publicly endorse attending “Pride” events. In evangelical Protestant and Catholic circles, there’s a growing “gay but celibate” movement that encourages Christians with homosexual attractions to openly and unashamedly identify as gay and which allows for keeping one foot in the gay world so long as one does not act on same-sex desires. Last year, lesbian Catholic writer and Revoice conference speaker Eve Tushnet wrote in Patheos:

I was at the Pride parade this weekend. I have all kinds of issues with contemporary Pride celebrations but here is the thing: I know Christians, believers seeking to live obediently, who feel freed at Pride in a way they never feel in church. In so many of our churches, gay people’s shame is treated as a proof of their orthodoxy or personal holiness… I don’t feel especially liberated by Pride, but that is because I was never imprisoned in the ways that my friends have been. I’m always aware of the ways in which my faith makes me an outsider there. But my friends, who share my faith in spite of much greater suffering at the hands of Christians, feel liberated at Pride because it is a place where being gay does not separate you from others, but connects you to them. Being in a space where everyone is gay and just rejoicing in our community, flinging beads (I do love the beads), being gay in a million different ways, makes you see that being gay can mean community instead of silence, solidarity instead of judgment, beauty instead of barrenness, welcome instead of suspicion, and joy instead of despair.

Department stores bedecking “LGBT” depravity with rainbows and glitter and selling it to kids as well as adults deserve to feel the heat of righteous anger. But when Christians get this confused and compromised, they’re a lot less likely to send the right message.

IFI Banquet Speaker Announced!
We are excited to announce that at this year’s IFI banquet, our keynote speaker will be none other than Rev. Franklin Graham, President & CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christian evangelist & missionary. This year’s event will be at the Tinley Park Convention Center on Nov. 1st.

Learn more HERE.

Written by Pastor Ceasar LeFlore

The city of Chicago continues to experience persistent violence and crippling needs. As followers of Jesus, we acknowledge the urgency to prayerfully engage our region together with the love of Christ and to stand for peace and transformation in our local communities.

On Saturday, July 14​^th​, we are calling 40,000 Christians to come together across Chicago in united prayer to see an end to violence, healing for our city and region, and continued community transformation through the love of Jesus. This is another part of the ongoing faith-based movement of prayer, faithful presence in neighborhoods, and civic engagement by the Church—committed to building blocks for peace and making safer, healthier communities throughout Chicago.

Full details & promotional media available at ​www.handsacrosschicago.com

PRO-LIFERS,

AS PART OF THIS GREAT EVENT WE WILL PRAY FOR AN END TO THE VIOLENCE OF ABORTION IN FRONT OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD ON 112^TH & HALSTED.

JOIN US!

Written by Mike McMannus

On Sunday The New York Times published a front page story on a weekend of crime in Chicago with 64 people shot, six of whom died. With in-depth reporting on four inside pages, the Times said “It is a level of violence that has become the terrifying norm, particularly in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods.”

The Chicago Police Department with 12,000 officers, the nation’s second largest, is so distrusted that witnesses of crimes say they cannot remember what happened and victims drive themselves to hospitals rather than call the police.  In 2015 there were 470 homicides, few of which are solved. By June 3, another 239 were dead. Since the start of the year, Chicagoans have called the police 28,000 times to report gunfire.

Contrast this carnage with El Paso, a city of 679,000, a quarter the size of Chicago.  In 2010 El Paso had only five murders in the entire year – compared to six in one Chicago weekend.  El Paso had 23 murders in 2012, 11 in 2013 and 20 in 2014.

In fact, El Paso, America’s 18th largest city, had the nation’s lowest crime rate of all major cities for four straight years.

Why is El Paso’s murder rate a tiny fraction of Chicago’s?

Does Chicago have a much bigger percentage of blacks and Hispanics in its population?  No. A third of Chicago is white compared to only about 12% of El Paso, where 80% are Hispanic.

The city also has a high poverty rate, high unemployment and many school dropouts.  It is also across the river from Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, which suffered 3,500 murders in 2010.

I credit Barney Field, the leader of El Paso for Jesus, for the city’s success.  He took two major initiatives 20 years ago that transformed the city. (Full disclosure: I was involved with one of them – the creation of the El Paso Community Marriage Policy.)

Barney heard me interviewed on a radio show about our work at Marriage Savers to help a cross-section of churches in a city to better prepare couples for a lifelong marriage, enrich existing ones, and save those in crisis.  I asserted that if Catholic priests and Protestant pastors took these steps together, citywide divorce rates fall.

I was invited to make a presentation to El Paso clergy in 1996.  For example, I proposed that all churches require any couples getting married to take a premarital inventory in which the man and woman indicated whether they agreed or disagreed with statements like these:

1.      I am concerned that in-laws may interfere in our marriage relationship.

2.      I am concerned that my partner is more of a spender than I am.

I suggested training couples in healthy marriages to discuss 150 such items over six sessions and teach skills to resolve conflict, and consider becoming chaste till the wedding.

In addition, I proposed that churches hold an annual event to enrich existing marriages, such as “10 Great Dates,” in which couples come to church weekly, watch a brief DVD on such topics as “Resolving Honest Conflict” or “Becoming an Encourager.” Couples then go on a date to discuss that item! It is a fun way to strengthen marriages.

For troubled marriages, I proposed the pastor ask the congregation, “Are there couples whose marriages were once on the rocks, but who have healed them?  If so, meet with me after the service.” When that was first asked in Jacksonville, out of 180 people present, 10 couples met with the pastor.

He asked them if they would share their stories with each other.  Seven did so, which trained them to tell their stories to couples in crisis. Over the next five years, they met with 40 troubled marriages and saved 38 of them.

I suggested that if they agreed with such goals, that they sign an El Paso Community Marriage Policy. Thirteen Catholic priests and 45 Protestant pastors took this step in 1996.

An independent study by the Institute for Research and Evaluation reported that El Paso’s divorce rate plunged 79.5% by 2001 – the biggest drop of 240 cities that created a Community Marriage Policy. (On average, divorce rates fall 17.5% in seven years.)

The second initiative Barney Field took in 1997 was to persuade The El Paso Times to publish the entire New Testament with daily excerpts that took five minutes to read. Also, any reader could write for a free New Testament, and 70,000 people did so.

These initiatives to strengthen the faith and marriages of El Paso transformed the city. Few kids became delinquent.

That’s how El Paso became America’s safest big city.

Originally posted in Catholic World News.

Cardinal Francis George has criticized Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s recent comments on Chick-fil-A, a restaurant chain whose president said recently that he believes marriage is the union of a man and a woman.

“Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago values,” Emanuel said in response. “They’re not respectful of our residents, our neighbors and our family members. And if you’re gonna be part of the Chicago community, you should reflect Chicago values.”

Emanuel is also co-chair of President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign.

Cardinal George responded: 

Recent comments by those who administer our city seem to assume that the city government can decide for everyone what are the “values” that must be held by citizens of Chicago. I was born and raised here, and my understanding of being a Chicagoan never included submitting my value system to the government for approval. Must those whose personal values do not conform to those of the government of the day move from the city? Is the City Council going to set up a “Council Committee on Un-Chicagoan Activities” and call those of us who are suspect to appear before it? I would have argued a few days ago that I believe such a move is, if I can borrow a phrase, “un-Chicagoan.”

“The value in question is espousal of ‘gender-free marriage,’” he continued. “Approval of state-sponsored homosexual unions has very quickly become a litmus test for bigotry; and espousing the understanding of marriage that has prevailed among all peoples throughout human history is now, supposedly, outside the American consensus.”

“Was Jesus a bigot?” Cardinal George added. “Could Jesus be accepted as a Chicagoan? Would Jesus be more ‘enlightened’ if he had the privilege of living in our society? One is welcome to believe that, of course; but it should not become the official state religion, at least not in a land that still fancies itself free. Surely there must be a way to properly respect people who are gay or lesbian without using civil law to undermine the nature of marriage.”

Read Cardinal George’s full comments HERE.

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.

**WARNING — Graphic and Disturbing Content**

By now you’ve likely heard about Northwestern University professor, Dr. J. Michael Bailey’s invitation to “members of Chicago’s fetish community,” including an exhibitionist, to “educate” undergraduate students on the finer points of fetishism and sex toys.

With over one hundred students in attendance, the 25-year old female exhibitionist disrobed below her waist, thus enabling her 45-year-old fiance to insert into her a mechanical sex device and stimulate her to orgasm.

On WTTW’s Chicago Tonight, the exhibitionist, her fiance, and one of the lecturers from Weird Chicago Tours explained that when they arrived at Bailey’s class “a film was playing. It was a very graphic representation of a woman masturbating…. There was a woman’s vagina, probably ten feet tall on the screen. There was moaning. It would be porno, basically.” They shared that they had talked with Bailey about “doing a demonstration to show that the g-spot orgasm is actually real.”

One wonders how the United States flourished as a nation with so many young people having graduated from college without such an illuminating “education.”

Bailey’s chicanery likely won’t surprise Northwestern’s administration: apparently, Bailey’s been providing porn to students under the guise of “education” for years. Alice D. Dreger offers the following description of another sexcapade that Bailey offered his students, this time involving a male-to-female “transsexual” whose birth name was Chuck Kieltyka but who now goes by “Anjelica.”:

Kieltyka also arranged with Bailey opportunities to present to students in his Human Sexuality class herself, her history, and her understanding of transsexuality. She says her ”lectures were an opportunity to do ‘outreach’; to educate AND entertain” As in the case of other guest speakers, these presentations took place after the regular class session and were optional but heavily attended; between 1994 and 2003, a total of several thousand Northwestern University students saw Kieltyka’s annual appearances; In these presentations, held in a large auditorium to accommodate the class size, Kieltyka showed and explained a series of still images using overhead projection….Kieltyka also presented a short video compilation she had made….

No doubt to the surprise of Bailey’s students, that video compilation actually begins with a pornographic segment Kieltyka had made for herself pre-SRS. In it, as Donna Summer sings ”Love to Love You Baby” in the background, Chuck appears as a nude woman through use of prosthetics, including false breasts, a glued-on vulva (with his penis glued up inside his body), a female mask, and a platinum blonde wig.

The woman whom Chuck appears as masturbates through simulated finger-clitoral stimulation and through the use of a dildo attached to the floor; she straddles the dildo and thrusts up and down so that it looks as if the dildo is going in and out of her vagina. (It was actually going in and out of Chuck’s anus.) Kieltyka overlaid an audio clip from a porn video in this segment to provide the sound of a woman reaching orgasm. Immediately after this segment, the compilation cuts to a postop scene of Anjelica standing topless in a bikini bottom and moccasins, looking radiant and being dramatically bathed in a Rushing water fall. She brushes back her long dark hair with her hand and motions to two nearby women unknown to her to also take off their tops. They decline.

Bailey had this to say about his recent decision to allow a live sex show: “My decision to say ‘yes’ reflected my inability to come up with a legitimate reason why students should not be able to watch such a demonstration.” Any adult who is “unable” to come up with a legitimate reason not to host a live sex show for students is a moral ignoramus and unfit for teaching.

Bailey describes his students as “open-minded grown ups rather than fragile children.” Does Bailey seriously think that opposition to live sex shows in class grows out of the notion that college students are “fragile children”? Is he really that intellectually bankrupt? Or is this further evidence of his moral bankruptcy? Without making an explicit assertion, he is trying to divert attention from his corrupt and execrable decision by hinting that opposition derives from overprotective or puritanical impulses.

Most people believe “grown-ups” are distinguished from children in part by their maturity and wisdom. Bailey demonstrates the maturity and wisdom of an adolescent. Only someone lost in spiritual darkness, as Bailey clearly is, could defend this.

In his explanation as to why he proceeded with this controversial event, Bailey said he “was not in a mood to surrender to sex negativity and fear.” Apparently, he feels no obligation to provide evidence for his suggestion that opposition to public acts of perversion — in a classroom — is motivated by “sex negativity and fear.” A good argument could be made that it is “sex positivity” that drives opposition to live sex shows. Wisdom and respect for the sanctity of sexuality dictate that, among many things, sex acts are private acts.

Four questions pop into my fragile, fearful, sex-negative mind:

• What kind of perverse ideas did Bailey weave into classroom lectures and discussions?
• Does he bear any moral culpability for undermining the moral development of the young people whose parents paid thousands of dollars for a Northwestern education?
• Does he bear any moral culpability if this live sex show contributes in even a small way to a current or future porn addiction in one of his students?
• Is Bailey complicit in the exploitation, degradation,and objectification of the obviously troubled young woman who demonstrated this act in front of scores of strangers?

Bailey reports that “‘student feedback was uniformly positive.'” No surprise there. The burnished legacy of Alfred Kinsey and his cultural progeny, the sexual revolutionaries of the 60’s, burns bright at Northwestern University. The “Northwestern University independent student newspaper,”North by Northwestern, has included some articles that surely must warm the cockles of Bailey’s darkened heart. For example, there is the articlein the March 11 edition that offers suggestions for “eco-friendly fu**ing,” which include “showering together” and using natural lubricants.

And then there was the 2009 article that suggests students have sex to de-stress during finals week. The author of that article was kind enough to include a link to a porn website that provides diagrams of and instructions for a variety of sexual positions.

But that’s not all from one of our most esteemed academic institutions. There’s also SHAPE, which is, according to their website, a “student organization affiliated with Northwestern University Health Service that provides education, organizes events, and generates dialogue about sexual health and sexual assault. SHAPE’s mission is to increase students’ comfort surrounding sexuality, encouraging them to learn and adopt sexually healthy behaviors and to recognize and address unhealthy and dangerous behaviors and attitudes regarding sexuality.”

SHAPE members have contributed a sex column that appears in the North by Northwestern. In it, they have offered tips for having sex during menstruation; tips on how to make intercourse for virgins comfortable; explanations of bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism; help for college-induced decreased libido; descriptions of orgasms; instructions on how to prolong ejaculation, whether to swallow semen, and how to make dorm rooms more conducive to sex.

An initial feckless statement from the vice president for University Relations (no pun intended), Alan Cubbage, appeared to defend Bailey:

Northwestern University faculty members engage in teaching and research on a wide variety of topics, some of them controversial and at the leading edge of their respective disciplines….The University supports the efforts of its faculty to further the advancement of knowledge.

But perhaps wiser heads will prevail. On Thursday, Northwestern President Morton Schapiro issued this statement:

I have recently learned of the after-class activity associated with Prof. Michael Bailey’s Human Sexuality class, and I am troubled and disappointed by what occurred.

Although the incident took place in an after-class session that students were not required to attend and students were advised in advance, several times, of the explicit nature of the activity, I feel it represented extremely poor judgment on the part of our faculty member. I simply do not believe this was appropriate, necessary or in keeping with Northwestern University’s academic mission.

Northwestern faculty members engage in teaching and research on a wide variety of topics, some of them controversial. That is the nature of a university. However, in this instance, I have directed that we investigate fully the specifics of this incident, and also clarify what constitutes appropriate pedagogy, both in this instance and in the future.

Many members of the Northwestern community are disturbed by what took place on our campus. So am I.

Our nation’s best and brightest deserve better. They deserve an academic experience worthy of Northwestern’s motto: Quaecumque Sunt Vera, which comes from the New Testament and means “Whatsoever things are true.” Paul wrote in Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”

Northwestern should recommit to their motto, and dump Bailey.

Those who will do anything possible to quash dissent regarding the issue of abortion were foiled once again on Wednesday, August 18, 2010. The case against David Avignone, an MBA student at Chicago’s Loyola University, was dropped by the City of Chicago. Avignone was originally charged with disorderly conduct due to his alleged violation of a controversial ordinance referred to as a “Bubble Zone”. The ordinance applies outside local abortion clinics to prohibit approaching within eight feet of a person to present a leaflet, sign or oral message to that person. Avignone was arrested while praying the rosary in front of a near north side Planned Parenthood abortion mill.

“We are pleased that for the second time, the City of Chicago has dismissed the false charges of disorderly conduct against a man who was properly and legally exercising his First Amendment rights on the public way,” said Peter Breen, in a statement issued by the Chicago-based Thomas More Society. Breen is the organization’s Executive Director and legal counsel.

“We hope these two baseless cases involving alleged ‘Bubble Zone’ ‘infractions’ show the Chicago City Council why it should repeal this controversial ordinance altogether and cease efforts to scare pro-life people away from Planned Parenthood,” continued Breen who defended Avignone in the case.

The Thomas More Society won an historic Supreme Court decision where abortion facilities attempted to restrict any kind of sidewalk counseling, demonstrations or expressions of First Amendment free speech near facilities which provide abortion services. In the case of NOW v. Scheidler, the nation’s highest court ruled that the Pro-Life Action, headed by Joe Scheidler, was not in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. The Thomas More Society’s victory cleared the way for sidewalk counseling and protests in front of abortion clinics. However, many believe the City of Chicago with its “Bubble Zone” ordinance is attempting to circumvent the Supreme Court decision in the Scheidler case.

The case against Avignone is the third “Bubble Zone” case, all of which have been dismissed. The decision by the City of Chicago not to pursue the case against Avignone and two others who were previously charged with violating the “Bubble Zone” ordinance was a good one in the opinion of most experts in constitutional law.