You know you’re living in the dark, deceitful, and depraved Upside Down when a U.S. Senator—a woman no less—says what inveterate liar Elizabeth Warren recently said:

Crisis pregnancy centers … are there to fool people who are looking for pregnancy termination help. … We need to shut them down here in Massachusetts, and we need to shut them down all around the country. You should not be able to torture a pregnant person like that.

Nope, crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) do not “exist to fool people who are looking for pregnancy termination help.” Crisis pregnancy centers exist to help women who believe the only one way to deal with a crisis pregnancy is to terminate the life of their child. Crisis pregnancy centers exist to shine light into the shadowy, deceptive “reproductive health services” propaganda leftists like Warren spew.

CPCs offer ultrasounds in order to provide women with objective, conclusive proof that a human is growing inside them—not a nothing as the left deceitfully suggests. Crisis pregnancy centers offer resources like diapers, maternity clothes, and parenting classes to help young mothers and fathers feel less overwhelmed.

It’s ironic that Warren—the fake Native American—would bring up fooling people. It’s doubly ironic that the fake Native American would bring up “fooling people” in the context of abortion.

The human slaughter lobby has made an art of trying to fool people. They used to call the human fetus “a blob of tissue” and a “clump of cells.” Well, to be fair, I suppose all humans at any stage of development, born or soon-to-be-born, could be deemed blobs of tissue or clumps of cells, but we human blobs and clumps are special kinds of blobs and clumps. And when each of us was in our mother’s wombs, we were blobs and clumps composed of rapidly dividing and differentiating cells with a complex design.

When the blobs and clumps tomfoolery was exposed and became unsustainable, the Warrens of the world began referring to human fetuses as tumor-analogues and parasites. Then leftists admitted that fetuses growing in women’s bodies are human, but they’re not—in the view of leftists—persons.

Deceivers like Warren are trying to fool people into believing that some people who become pregnant are not women, hence Warren’s deceitful term “pregnant person.” All pregnant persons are women. So committed to deception is Warren that she won’t admit that a human in a woman’s womb is a person but will pretend that some men are pregnant “persons.”

Warren tries to fool people when she refers to “pregnancy termination.” That, obviously, is a euphemism, for human termination—the leftist final solution to a crisis pregnancy.

Of Warren’s many grotesque deceptions, perhaps the worst is describing what takes place in a CPC as torturing pregnant persons. While Warren supports, celebrates, and promotes procedures that dismember the bodies and crush the skulls of tiny, innocent humans in their mothers’ wombs, she calls efforts to persuade mothers not to do this “torture.”

The social justice warrior and human rights activist Warren does what all cultural regressives do when faced with speech they hate: She has called for the cancellation of all CPCs in the entire country.

Not yet able to shut down all CPCs, ironist Warren and some U.S. Senate collaborators (Bob Menendez, Mazie Hirono, Brian Schatz, Cory Booker, Tina Smith, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Patty Murray, Jeff Merkley, Richard Blumenthal, Diane Feinstein, Ron Wyden, Kirsten Gillibrand, Ed Markey, and Mark Warner) have an interim plan. They have sponsored a bill to punish CPCs.

One of the ironic reasons they offer for the bill is that “CPCs target under-resourced neighborhoods and communities of color, including Black, Latino, Indigenous, Asian American, Pacific Islander, and immigrant communities.” The bill doesn’t, however, mention the reason CPCs are located in those neighborhoods. They are located there because Planned Parenthood clinics—founded by racist, eugenicist Margaret Sanger—has long targeted impoverished communities of color.

The bill, titled the “Stop Anti-Abortion Disinformation Act” (SAD Act) would “direct the Federal Trade Commission to prescribe rules prohibiting disinformation in the advertising of abortion services.”

The bill accuses CPCs of “routinely … disseminating inaccurate, misleading, and stigmatizing information about the risks of abortion and contraception, and using illegitimate or false citations to imply that deceptive claims are supported by legitimate medical sources.”

Maybe while they’re at it, the FTC could require abortion clinics to advertise that they routinely kill humans.

Elsewhere in the bill, Warren and her fellow abortion cheerleaders refer to the purported use of “misleading statements” by CPCs. Non-profit CPCs that are found to include “misleading” information—as defined by leftists—will be fined up to $100,000 or “50 percent of the revenues earned by the ultimate parent entity” of the non-profit charity.

Warren and her collaborators are trying to transform the FTC into their much longed-for Ministry of Truth/Disinformation Board.

While Warren blathers on about “reproductive rights,” she says nothing about the right of humans in the womb merely to exist. After all, no woman has to raise a child she finds inconvenient or burdensome, or a child who interferes with a mother’s plans for living an authentic life, or a child whose life the mother believes is unworthy of life.

In the conflict between a woman’s “reproductive rights” and a living human’s right to continued existence, it should be obvious that the right to exist is a right of a higher moral order. In fact, it’s the right upon which all other rights depend.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your U.S. Representative and Illinois’ U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth to urge them to vote against S. 4469, the SAD Act. Pro-life crisis pregnancy centers help women through stressful, emotional trials. They not only provide free spiritual/emotional/health care for women, but food, clothes and whatever help is needed. Some CPCs help women find jobs, child care, provide living arrangements and vehicles. They do that so that women don’t feel forced by circumstances or abortion cheerleaders to abort a baby.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/SEN-Warren-Wants-to-Ban-All-Crisis-Pregnancy-Centers.mp3

The 2020 post-election plot thickened on Sunday when Trump legal team attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis announced that Sidney Powell was not a member of the Trump legal team. Naturally, questions and theories about the reason for the separation flooded social media full of sound and fury but signifying nothing.

It is hoped that within a few weeks, we will learn much more about the nature and degree of voter “irregularities” and electronic malfeasance, which in an ideal political world would be a bipartisan issue.

In the past Democrat U.S. Senators Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tammy Duckworth, Ron Wyden, Richard Blumenthal, Edward Markey, Tammy Baldwin, Sherrod Brown, Michael Bennett, and Patty Murray were deeply concerned about the danger posed to election integrity via computer hacking. Ron Wyden sponsored a bill that was co-sponsored by those Democrats that would require,

election bodies to conduct audits of all federal elections, regardless of how close the election, by employing statistically rigorous “risk-limiting audits.”

There are currently no mandatory standards for election cybersecurity, which has resulted in some states operating election infrastructure that is needlessly vulnerable to hacking. The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) sets voluntary standards for voting machines, but states can and do ignore these standards. There are no standards at all for voter registration websites or other parts of our election infrastructure.

Can’t we all agree that our voting systems must be fixed before the 2022 midterm elections?

Wyden’s words echo the words of a mysterious Dominion Voting Systems security expert who seems to be missing. Just days before representatives from Dominion Voting Systems abruptly cancelled last Friday’s scheduled appearance before a Pennsylvania House Government Oversight Committee hearing, the name of their Director of Product Strategy and Security, Eric Coomer, began popping up on the Internet. Before being hired by Dominion, Coomer was the Chief Software Architect at Sequoia Voting Systems, he has his Ph.D. in nuclear physics, he loves Antifa, and he detests President Trump (just wondering, are Antifa ruffians Antiffians)?

Since he is an expert in cyber security who works at Dominion and has a dozen patents and pending patent applications pertaining to voting systems, Coomer may be someone lawmakers and reporters should talk to about voting integrity in this recent and future elections. Dominion Voting Systems website and social media, however, seem to have been scrubbed of a lot of information by and about Coomer, so finding him may prove challenging. Maybe Mando the Mandalorian can find him.

As I’ve said before, I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of a conspiracy theory group. For that reason, I’ve ricocheted between wondering if Trump’s legal team and/or Sidney Powell has the goods to prove the diverse about election integrity that have been alleged and the sense that there are sufficient reasons for concern to justify the pursuit of all legal challenges.

Watergate was unthinkable until it wasn’t.

The decades-long secret government UFO program, now called the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, was unthinkable until it wasn’t. Gaslighting by the government about that was intense and sustained.

Corrupt collusion between the Democrat Party, the FBI, the CIA, and mainstream press outlets to manufacture and propagate a hoax in order to impeach a duly-elected president would have once been deemed the fever dream of tinfoil-wearing conspiracy theorists. And now we know that not only did it happen but also that the colluders then engaged in a widespread, massive campaign to gaslight all of America into believing this widespread massive coup attempt didn’t happen.

The powerful and the uber-cool that strut among us are trying to prevent a full investigation into possible vote-tampering by mocking and intimidating those who say, “Wait just a doggone minute, bub. Let’s take a peek behind the papered-over windows and inside all those Bozoputers.”

Coomer may be a familiar name to some Illinoisans. On September 1, 2016, Sharon Meroni writing for Defend the Vote summarized the now-underground Eric Coomer’s appearance before an Illinois State Board of Elections (ISBE) meeting:

On Friday, August 26^th, during a meeting at the Illinois State Board of Elections, the Vice President of Engineering for Dominion Voting, Dr. Eric Coomer, was asked if it was possible to bypass election systems software and go directly to the data tables that manage systems running elections in Illinois. His response was, “Yes, if they have access.”

Bypassing the election systems software means whoever has access can potentially manipulate the vote without many risks of detection. 

When asked who might have such access, Coomer responded, “‘Vendors, election officials, and others who need to be granted access.’”

Meroni explained what such access means:

Dr. Coomer’s statement is an admission that various vendors, election officials, and others have access to the back end data tables that permit bypassing the operating system’s configuration. It is notable that when someone accesses these systems from a data table, their actions are not logged by the system; thereby making detection much more problematic.

Coomer also shared this troubling information with the ISBE:

We are constantly assessing different threat models against all of our systems we have fielded across the US and internationally as well. Due to the certification environment … we are not allowed to do routine updates without having to go through re-certification efforts, but we do … give guidance on how to best secure systems and … the final mitigation against all of this is a robust auditing canvasing process which all of our jurisdictions have implemented.

According to Meroni,

Dr. Coomer’s statement brings to light a very serious issue all voters should understand. Voting systems must be re-certified each time they make changes to the hardware or software. Recertification is … expensive and time consuming. … What Dr. Coomer told the Board is that Dominion Voting does not go back for recertification of software when threats to their code are discovered. Rather, they rely on post-election audits and providing advice to election jurisdictions about security. …

This is the reality of the security of your vote. Software systems that count and record the vote across Illinois and throughout the USA are not updated to address security problems, and even if they were, the software can be completely bypassed by going to the data tables that drive the systems.

In light of Coomer’s statements, those with the ability to thrash their way through the weeds on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s voluntary voting system certification process, may find these website pages illuminating: Click HERE and HERE.

As Darryl Cooper wrote about the dubious and mysterious Eric Coomer for The American Conservative,

[I]f it was Joe Biden contesting the election results, and the Director for Strategy & Security at a major voting machine provider turned out to be a Proud Boy with decades of involvement in extremist, even violent, right wing political groups. … [Democrats] would ask how such a person ended up in such an important position of public trust.

If everything is on the up and up, why the massive freak-out by leftists (and some Never-Trumpers) over millions of Americans wanting all available legal and constitutional means pursued to ensure the election was fair and honest? Surely, tolerant, inclusive, fair-minded leftists don’t care about cost or inconvenience; they were willing to spend $38 million of taxpayer money on their elaborate ruse to get rid of a man they detest with unhinged intensity.

Maybe, just maybe the deplorables and ugly folks would believe the words of presumed-but-not-elected Joe Biden’s calls for “unity” if his string-pullers would calm down and let all investigations and court proceedings proceed—oh, and maybe get rid of their blacklists.

If you see this man, have your camera at the ready. Ask him some hard-edged questions, like “What kind of milkshakes do you like,” and then run for your life. He may be an Antiffian armed with a black satchel full of Molotov cocktails.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/The-2020-Post-Election-Plot-Thickens.mp3

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One of the more grotesque demonstrations of leftist non-sense and hypocrisy was demonstrated a week ago following an episode of the wildly popular Disney show The Mandalorian when “Baby Yoda” eats the unfertilized eggs of a Frog Woman who is transporting her eggs to her husband so he can fertilize them thereby preventing their species’ imminent extinction. Fans of Baby Yoda freaked out, incensed at the lighthearted treatment of what they deemed genocide by the beloved Baby Yoda.

The moral incoherence and hypocrisy should be obvious. In the Upside Down where leftists live, when a human mother hires someone to dismember her own fertilized human egg—aka human fetus/embryo/baby—they demand that society affirm, celebrate, and shout the execution of those tiny humans. In fact, the voluntary dismemberment of fertilized human eggs at any gestational age is so morally innocuous and such an unmitigated public good that leftists think all Americans should pay for the executions of humans in utero.

In the Upside Down, the genocidal killing of all fertilized human eggs with Down Syndrome is at best morally neutral if not morally good, but the fictional devouring of unfertilized Frog Critters’ eggs is morally repugnant. Just wondering, if fertilized human eggs are parasites so devoid of personhood as to render them morally legitimate objects to kill, if it’s okay to dismember them because they’re imperfect non-persons, would there be anything wrong with eating their remains?

Leftists views on the slaughter of fertilized human eggs is just the most grotesque of their many morally incoherent views. Here are a few more:

• According to leftists, concerns of conservatives about possible 2020 election “irregularities”—including via computer malfeasance and malfunction—are evidence of paranoid conspiracy theories, but when leftists express such concerns, they’re sound, reasonable, and legitimate. In 2019, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden proposed an amendment titled “Protecting American Votes and Elections Act” to the “Help America Vote Act of 2002.” His proposed amendment was signed by 14 co-sponsors—all Democrats—including a who’s who of presidential wannabes: Richard Blumenthal, Edward Markey, Jeff Merkley, Tammy Duckworth, Brian Schatz, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tammy Baldwin, Bernie Sanders, Maria Cantwell, Kamala Harris, Sherrod Brown, Michael Bennet, and Patty Murray. Wyden provided a summary of his amendment that includes the following:

Votes cast with paperless voting machines cannot be subjected to a manual recount, and so there is no way to determine the real election results if they are hacked. H.R. 1 …  mandates paper ballots.

In order to detect hacks, this bill requires election bodies to conduct audits of all federal elections, regardless of how close the election, by employing statistically rigorous “risk-limiting audits.”

There are currently no mandatory standards for election cybersecurity, which has resulted in some states operating election infrastructure that is needlessly vulnerable to hacking. The Election Assistance Commission (EAC) sets voluntary standards for voting machines, but states can and do ignore these standards. There are no standards at all for voter registration websites or other parts of our election infrastructure.

• Leftists heartily endorse bodily damage and disfigurement as sound “treatment” protocols for those who experience a mismatch between their internal feelings and their sexual embodiment as male or female, but bodily damage and disfigurement of those who experience a mismatch between their internal feelings and their whole or healthy bodies (i.e., those with Body Integrity Identity Disorder who identify as amputees or paraplegics) are considered barbaric and ethically prohibited.

• Leftists condemn conservatives as “science-deniers” for disagreeing with them on the degree to which climate change is caused by human action or on how to respond to climate change. At the same time, the purported science-worshippers claim that men can menstruate, become pregnant, and “chestfeed,” and they claim that the product of conception between two persons is not a person. Anyone who refuses to concede to such nonsense is mocked, reviled, de-platformed, and fired. Just ask Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling or Wall Street Journal writer and author of Irreversible Damage, Abigail Shrier.

• Leftists claim that marriage has no connection to either sexual differentiation or reproductive potential. They vociferously claim that marriage is solely constituted by love, and that “love is love.” And yet most leftists don’t think two brothers in a consensual loving relationship should be able to legally marry.

• Leftists claim there’s no story behind or within Hunter Biden’s emails and texts that prove Joe Biden straight up lied to the American public, and yet they claimed there was a story of such magnitude and enormity within Christopher Steele’s imaginative “dossier,” that it necessitated 24-hour coverage for years.

• Leftists claim that eliminating the Electoral College and filibuster and packing the U.S. Supreme Court constitute necessary changes to enhance “democracy,” but implementing legal processes to ensure an election was fair undermines democracy.

• Every gathering of leftists, including mostly violent protests, a takeover of six city blocks, trips to hair salons (Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi), a post-election street celebration (Lori Lightfoot), a holiday boating excursion (attempted by husband of Michigan Governor Christine Whitmer), restaurant dining (California Governor Gavin Newsom, CNN narcissist Chris Cuomo), a funeral/Democrat campaign event (i.e., John Lewis’ faux-funeral) are COVID-immune and justifiable. But an Orthodox Jewish funeral, an entirely peaceful protest of draconian COVID restrictions, and a march in support of a transparent and fair election are denounced as super-spreader events.

• Serial killer of senior citizens, Andrew “Quietus” Cuomo, commands citizens to “admit” their “mistakes” and “shortcomings” with regard to how they responded to the Chinese Communist virus even as he refuses to apologize for his policies that killed scores of elderly.

• To leftists, social science is the god that determines all moral truth, and yet despite social science demonstrating repeatedly that children—especially boys—need fathers, the left refuses to discuss how fatherless families may be contributing to the anti-social behavior that is destroying our cities.

• Leftists claim to value free speech, religious liberty, inclusivity, diversity, tolerance, and unity while condemning not just the beliefs of those with whom they disagree, but also the persons themselves. Many leftists share an uncharitable, presumptuous, ugly, tyrannical, oppressive, and scary desire that those who believe homosexual acts are immoral, who believe marriage has an ontology, who believe biological sex is immutable and meaningful, and who believe bodily damage and disfigurement are improper treatment protocols for gender dysphoria should be unable to work anywhere in America.

To create the illusion that they’re not hypocrites and to defend their intolerance, exclusion, divisiveness, hatred of persons, book banning, speech suppression, demand for ideological uniformity, and efforts to circumscribe the  exercise of religion—which for Christians extends far outside the church walls—leftists resort to fallacious reasoning. The fallacies they employ are too numerous to list, but two of their faves are the ad hominem fallacy and the fallacy of circular reasoning.

Ad hominem is an informal fallacy in which an irrelevant personal attack replaces a logical argument. It proves nothing about the soundness, truth, or falsity of a claim. Instead it appeals to emotion and silences debate through intimidation.

The fallacy of circular reasoning occurs when the conclusion presumes the premise (i.e., the initial claim) is true without proving it true. So, for example, leftists–ignoring their purported commitment to the First Amendment–argue that homosexual acts are moral acts and, therefore, there is no need to tolerate the expression of dissenting views. But the intolerance they are trying to defend is based on the truth of their premise that homosexual acts are moral—a premise they simply assume without proving is true.

Here’s another: Leftists assert that marriage is constituted solely by subjective romantic and erotic feelings, and, therefore, the government has no reason not to recognize unions between two people of the same sex as marriages, because such couples can experience love and erotic desire. But the premise—i.e., that marriage is constituted solely by subjective romantic and erotic feelings—hasn’t been proved.

And here’s yet another claim about marriage based on circular reasoning: Leftists argue that the reason government is involved in marriage is to grant public legitimacy or provide “dignity” to erotic/romantic unions and, therefore, the government has an obligation to recognize homoerotic unions as marriages. The problem is that those who make this argument fail to prove their claim that the reason government is involved in marriage is to recognize, provide, or impart “dignity” to unions. Those who make this argument just assume their premise is true.

After employing fallacious circular reasoning and hurling ad hominem epithets at their opponents, leftists sanctimoniously wipe the dust off their dirty hands and assert that their hypocrisy isn’t really hypocrisy after all.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Ideological-Non-Sense-and-Hypocrisy-of-Leftists.mp3

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Well, they dusted off those colorful “Handmaid’s Tale” outfits that were so visible at Brett Kavanaugh’s U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 2018.

Even before Amy Coney Barrett’s hearing on Monday before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, the Democrats were being cheered on by permanently angry women (and maybe some men) dressed in red cloaks with white duckbills extending from their hoods.

This is the uniform of the oppressed women in Hulu’s serialization of Margaret Atwood’s dystopic, anti-Christian novel. If you thought atheist crusader Philip Pullman’s thinly disguised depiction of church authorities as evil in “The Golden Compass” book and movie were bad, Ms. Atwood runs circles around him.  In her 1985 book and TV series, the polygamous men cite Bible verses and treat the women as sex slaves.

Braving the rain on Monday, the demonstrators held signs festooned with messages such as a giant NO! in rainbow colors over “Trump/Pence Must Go!”

This time around in the U.S. Senate star chamber, the Democrats who pretend to honor religious liberty while assailing nominees’ faith think they have a smoking gun. The word “handmaid.”

Mrs. Barrett and her husband have long been members of an ecumenical charismatic Christian group begun in 1971 called People of Praise, based in South Bend, Indiana, home to Notre Dame University and its law school, from which she graduated summa cum laude and taught constitutional law.

Women leaders in the group, including Mrs. Barrett, previously held the title of “handmaid,” which is derived from Jesus’s mother Mary’s own description of herself in Luke 1:38 as “the handmaid of the Lord.”

The group dropped that title in favor of “women’s leader” because “the meaning of this title has shifted dramatically in our culture in recent years,” a spokesman said.

Mrs. Barrett, 48, now serves on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, to which she was nominated by President Donald J. Trump in 2017.  At that time, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California said at a hearing that Mrs. Barrett’s religious beliefs worried her because “the dogma lives loudly within you.”

Wow. Talk about open religious bigotry. But it’s OK because the senator is a Democrat, and they get to do this sort of thing. It’s not as if the media would have a problem with it.

Here’s a front-page headline from last Wednesday’s Washington Post:

Barrett long active with insular Christian group: Community preached subservience for women, former members say.

Ah, those “former members.” You can always dig up a dissident or two to make the point you want, unless you’re reporting on Black Lives Matter or the Democratic National Committee, which are pretty much the same thing.

As for People of Praise, here’s more from their own media statement provided to Heavy.com:

A majority of People of Praise members are Catholic, and yet the People of Praise is not a Catholic group. We aim to be a witness to the unity Jesus desires for all his followers. Our membership includes not only Catholics but Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, Pentecostals and nondenominational Christians. What we share is a common baptism, a commitment to love one another and our teachings, which we hold in common.

Freedom of conscience is a key to our diversity. People of Praise members are always free to follow their consciences, as formed by the light of reason, experience and the teachings of their churches.

As the Apostle Paul instructs, and many biblically sound churches teach, men are to be the spiritual leaders in the church and in their own households and they are to love their wives as they love themselves. This is considered scandalous by our cultural commissars.

In Ephesians 5:25, Paul writes: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for her.” That means laying down your life if necessary.  It’s why when things go bump in the night, the guy should be the one who goes downstairs with the baseball bat or the Sig Sauer.

Democrats are terrified of the attractive and articulate Mrs. Barrett, a mother of seven, just as they were threatened by Clarence Thomas, who destroyed their narrative that blacks belong on the leftist plantation.

Mrs. Barrett has impeccable credentials that the U.S. Senate already examined when she was nominated for the appeals seat.  At that time, the “handmaid” reference didn’t get traction, since the TV version of “The Handmaid’s Tale” only debuted in April of that year.

In the meantime, we’ve seen U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) take a page from Bernie Sanders and grill Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo in 2018 about sex and marriage, strongly implying that his traditional Christian views are a form of bigotry. Booker likes to make much of his own Christian faith, which apparently is free of the burden of having to abide by crystal clear biblical principles regarding sex.

Also hewing to “smarter than God” theology is Kamala Harris, who has embraced all things LGBTQ, plus taxpayer-funded abortion and Marxist economics. On December 5, 2019, Harris asked Brian Buescher, President Trump’s nominee for district court in Nebraska, “Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?” And, “Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed marriage equality when you joined the organization?”

During Monday’s hearing, Mrs. Barrett had to face the likes of Booker, Feinstein and Harris, plus the troupe of “Handmaid” harridans.

After the process is over and Associate Justice Barrett is sworn in, the “ladies” can make further use of their costumes.

After all, Halloween is right around the corner.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com. Follow Robert Knight on is a His website is robertHknight.com.

From the president on down, we’re seeing a welcome pushback against Marxist indoctrination in our colleges, government agencies, and even the military.

It had better happen soon, too, because in K-12 schools, hapless children are being subjected to the awful, anti-American 1619 Project and Black Lives Matter curricula. But at least there is movement at the top of the academic and government food chains.

In Maine, Republican state State Senator Lisa Keim has written a forceful letter to the University of Maine System board, objecting to University of Southern Maine President Glenn Cummings’ order for everyone on campus to “align” with Black Lives Matter.

After explaining that “racism, in any form, has no place in our state,” she lays out BLM’s radical agenda, which is “antithetical to many Americans’ political and religious views.” She quotes anti-police statements from BLM’s website such as: “law enforcement doesn’t protect or save our lives. They often threaten and take them.”

She adds, “These slurs are fueling hate and violence all over our country.”

BLM, which is openly Marxist and demonizes white people and America, calls for defunding the police and “disrupting the Western prescribed nuclear family structure.”

In Washington, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos recently shocked the academic community by outing Princeton University’s embrace of BLM’s agenda.  She cited Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber’s open letter declaring Princeton full of “systemic racism.”

On Sept. 22, President Donald J. Trump let the other shoe drop by signing an executive order barring federal funds from contractors who employ Critical Race Theory in diversity training, including in the military, where unity and trust are paramount.

“It is difficult to imagine a more demoralizing course of instruction for officers who will soon lead soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines into combat,” writes Center for Military Readiness President Elaine Donnelley in The Federalist. “Unresolved accusations and suspicions of racism eviscerate mutual trust and team cohesion, two things essential for survival and mission accomplishment.”

Since 1971, the Defense Race Relations Institute has conducted racial sensitivity training. Among the materials were Robert Terry’s 1970 book “For Whites Only,” which “taught militant black separatist ideas to white audiences,” according to Capital Research Center filmmaker Joseph (Jake) Klein.

Other federal entities such as the FBI used the Southern Poverty Law Center as a source for materials and identification of “hate groups” until their far-Left agenda was exposed.  It took an SPLC-inspired gunman attempting mass murder at the Family Research Council in 2012 to alert people to the SPLC’s smear campaign against Christian groups that continues to this day.

Contempt for religion and family is a major part of BLM and the Left’s culture war on America, as explained by Maine State Senator Keim in her letter opposing BLM’s inroads.

“A family unit of one man married to one woman is not only a Western prescription for family; it’s a Biblical one,” she writes. “Therefore, mandating the University’s faculty, students and staff to subscribe to BLM’s political message arguably violates those individuals’ freedom of religion.” Spot on.

If America is going to rise beyond the current climate of Marxist race-baiting, it’s going to take more leaders like State Senator Keim and Russell Vought at all levels.  Plus, a president who gets it and keeps doing something about it.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com.
His website is roberthknight.com.

The intellectually incoherent U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) sought to apply an unconstitutional religious test for office today when interrogating nominee to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Neomi Rao. Perhaps hoping everyone listening were idiots, he first attempted an indirect tactic by asking her this irrelevant question, the answer to which is none of his business: “Are gay relationships in your opinion immoral?”

Word to the seriously unwoke Booker: Americans—including judicial nominees and judges—are entitled to think sexual activity between persons of the same sex is immoral.

When Ms. Rao questioned the relevance of his inquiry, the smug Booker responded,

I think it’s relevant to your opinion. Do you think African American relationships are immoral? Do you think gay relationships are immoral?

Seriously, he actually said Rao’s opinion on the morality of homosexual relationships is relevant to her opinion on the morality of homosexual relationships.

But his reasoning—if it can be called that—is worse than circular. His questions imply an analogy between race and homosexuality when there are literally no points of correspondence between the two conditions. Does he understand what an analogy is and what it requires?

Here’s a primer regarding this particular and particularly unsound analogy for the dull-witted “progressives” among us: Race—as understood in such analogies—is a 100% heritable, non-behavioral condition, immutable in all cases, and objective. In contrast, homosexuality is a non-heritable, and in some—perhaps many–cases mutable condition that is constituted by subjective feelings and volitional behaviors that are legitimate objects of moral assessment.

A far better analogue for homosexuality would be polyamory, so, if Booker wants to continue his  moralistic and judgmental line of questioning on irrelevant matters with judicial nominees, he should ask them if they think polyamorous relationships are immoral, to which nominees should respond, “What possible relevance are my beliefs on the morality of particular types of sexual unions?”

Then Booker transmogrified from arbiter of morality to constitutional ignoramus by asking Rao,

Do you believe [“gay” relationships] are a sin?

Whoa, hold up there, cowboy.

The Constitution expressly prohibits religious tests for office, so what the heck was he doing asking Rao for her theological position on homosexual relationships?

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) took Booker to task for his egregious line of questioning:

The Senate Judiciary Committee should not be… an avenue for persecution.

We’ve seen a growing pattern among Senate Democrats of hostility to religious faith…. I was deeply troubled a few minutes ago to hear questioning of a nominee, asking personal views on what is sinful.

In my view that has no business in this committee. Article Six of the Constitution says there should be no religious test for any public office. We have also seen Senate Democrats attack what they have characterized as religious dogma, we’ve seen Senate Democrats attack nominees for their own personal views on salvation.

I don’t believe this is a theological court of inquisition. I think the proper avenue of investigation is a nominee’s record. So let’s look at your record, which is what this committee should be looking at, not our own personal religious views, or your religious views, whatever they may be.

Presidential-hopeful Booker nervously responded to Cruz’s remarks, defending himself with this patently absurd claim:

I would defend—die for—to protect the ideals of religious freedom in our country. And I was in no way trying to attack the nominee’s religious freedom. I was simply saying that discrimination under any standpoints, whether it’s religion, someone’s race, someone’s sexual orientation, should not be tolerated….[R]eligion was used as a ruse to discriminate against African Americans.

For someone who wasn’t trying to attack the nominee’s religious freedom, he did a pretty darn good job of doing just that by framing his question in a way that implied her unfitness to serve on the court. The hubris of Booker’s attempt to reframe his accusatory question about Rao’s moral and theological beliefs is mind-boggling. He would no more die for the right of theologically orthodox Christians to freely exercise their religion than CNN would fact-check anti-Trump news stories.

As Cruz alluded to, Booker’s not alone among U.S. Senate Democrats who engage in open religious discrimination. U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Bernie Sanders (D-VT) Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) have all revealed their brazen religious bigotry and attempted to apply a religious test for public office during U.S. Senate hearings over the past two years.

During the campaign, someone should ask armchair theologian Booker if he thinks theologically orthodox views of homosexuality are immoral and sinful.

This isn’t Booker’s first religious-test rodeo. Remember the Booker inquisition of Mike Pompeo in which Booker asked Pompeo if he thinks “it’s appropriate for two gay people to marry,” and asked, “Is being gay a perversion,” and asked, “Do you believe gay sex is a perversion? Yes or no.”

Someone should also ask Booker what he thinks should happen in cases where the rights of those whose Christian, Orthodox Jewish, or Muslim beliefs are central to their identity come into conflict with the purported rights of those whose homoerotic desires are central to their identity.

Lesbian Chai Feldblum, until recently a commissioner on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission whose reappointment was thankfully blocked by U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT),  said this about such conflicts long before the Obergefelle decision legalized same-sex faux-marriage:

[L]et us postulate that the entire country is governed – as a matter of federal statutory and constitutional law – on the basis of full equality for LGBT people….

Assume for the moment that these beliefs ultimately translate into the passage of laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation… [G]ranting this justified liberty and equality to gay people will likely put a burden on… religious people….

Let me be very clear…in almost all the situations…I believe the burden on religious people that will be caused by granting gay people full equality will be justified….

That is because I believe granting liberty to gay people advances a compelling government interest, that such an interest cannot be adequately advanced if “pockets of resistance” to a societal statement of equality are permitted to flourish, and hence that a law that permits no individual exceptions based on religious beliefs will be the least restrictive means of achieving the goal of liberty for gay people….

In blocking Feldblum’s reappointment Lee, said, “Don’t think for a second that you, your family, and your neighbors will be left alone if Feldblum gets her way.” The same can be said about Booker.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Booker-4.mp3

Christian Life in Exile
On February 22^nd, IFI is hosting a special forum with Dr. Erwin Lutzer as he teaches from his latest book, “The Church in Babylon,” answering the question, “How do we live faithfully in a culture that perceives our light as darkness?” This event is free and open to the public, and will be held at Jubilee Church in Medinah, Illinois.

Click HERE for more info…

Written by Alex Berenson

Over the past 30 years, a shrewd and expensive lobbying campaign has made Americans more tolerant of marijuana. In November 2018, Michigan became the 10th state to legalize recreational cannabis use; New Jersey and others may soon follow. Already, more than 200 million Americans live in states that have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use. Yet even as marijuana use has become more socially acceptable, psychiatrists and epidemiologists have reached a consensus that it presents more serious risks than most people realize.

This article was originally published at The Wall Street Journal.

There is no hiding the ugliness of Louis Farrakhan’s latest antisemitic comments, in which he likened Jews to termites. There is one thing you do with termites. Exterminate them!

Termites are destructive. Termites are nasty. Termites survive by destroying. Termites do nothing good. Rid the earth of them!

My good friend, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, was therefore right to tweet this in response: “Louis Farrakhan calling Jews termites is a virtual call to genocide. The Nazis regularly referred to Jews as roaches and pests who needed to be exterminated. I call on African-American leaders like my close friend @CoryBooker to immediately condemn this vile and loathsome attack.”

These were Farrakhan’s exact words from a speech on October 14 in Detroit where he mocked his Jewish adversaries: “I can go anywhere in the world and they’ve heard of Farrakhan…I’m not mad at you, because you’re so stupid.”

Then, a little later in his speech, he said, “when they talk about Farrakhan, call me a hater, call me anti-Semite…I’m anti-Termite. I don’t know nothing about hating somebody because of their religious preference.”

He then reinforced his message with this tweet, linked to a video from his message: “I’m not an anti-Semite. I’m anti-Termite.”

Remarkably, Twitter has declined to act, leaving Farrakhan’s tweet intact. This is beyond crazy. This is immoral.

In 1943, the Nazis printed an educational pamphlet titled, “The Jew as World Parasite.” (In German, “Der Jude als Weltparasit.”)

It begins by saying:

“In this war for the very existence of the German people, we must daily remind ourselves that Jewry unleashed this war against us. It makes no difference if the Jew conceals himself as a Bolshevist or a plutocrat, a Freemason or uses some other form of concealment, or even appears without any mask at all: he always remains the same. He is the one who so agitated and spiritually influenced the peoples that stand against us today such that they have become more or less spineless tools of International Jewry.”

You can imagine just how ugly the whole pamphlet is.

Better still, don’t try to imagine. Just read it. How much Jewish blood was spilled because of these lies?

But this rhetoric is far from dead.

On January 2, 2018, BBC News reported that, “A self-proclaimed Nazi told gatherings of far-right activists that Jewish people were parasites who should be eradicated, a court has heard.”

On July 28, 2018, a headline in Haaretz stated, “’Jews Drink Blood:’ Britain’s Labour Party Suspends Councillor for Facebook Post.”

Reference was then made to Facebook posts containing language like this: “Talmud Jews are parasites! . . . All Talmuds need executing!”

Last year, on December 15, 2017, the Times of Israel reported that, “A professor emeritus from an esteemed university in the Netherlands whose father was a Nazi called Jews ‘parasites’ in a televised interview.”

Jan Tollenaere, described as “a lecturer on medicinal chemistry who retired from the Utrecht University in 2001, is the son of Raymond Tollenaere. His father “was in charge of propaganda for the Belgian pro-Nazi collaborationist government of Flanders during the German occupation of Belgium in World War II.”

According to Jan, “Jews ‘are not a nice people, I don’t feel any warmth toward them.’ They are, he added, ‘parasites, speculators and mean people.’”

Parasites should be exterminated!

They suck your blood and drain you and eat you alive.

They are obnoxious and insidious and hard to get rid of.

Special efforts must be taken to destroy them before they destroy you!

Such is the mentality of violent antisemitism. And with full knowledge and clear intent, Louis Farrakhan played right into this mentality by likening Jews to termites.

Shame on Twitter, infamous for its overzealous censoring of conservative views, for letting this tweet (and Farrakhan’s account) remain intact.

And shame on all people of conscience who do not distance themselves from such remarks. (Can  you be a person of conscience and not denounce them?)

It is spineless passivity like this that leads to the shedding of blood. Jewish blood.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com

Introduction by Laurie Higgins

One of the joys and blessings of working for IFI these past ten years has been meeting remarkable people from across the country. One very special friend is Dr. Daniel Boland who has master’s degrees (one in theology and one in education), a PhD in psychology, and three years of post-doctoral training and research in human behavior and applied behavioral science. He taught, supervised and counseled at the University of Notre Dame and, later, at Arizona State University. After teaching, he opened a private practice as consulting psychologist in Scottsdale, Arizona and eventually moved to Southern California, where he enjoys the atmospheric climate much more than the political one. Dr. Boland now studies and writes about the radically secular trends and de-moralizing ideas which are eroding the influence of traditional Judeo-Christian principles, beliefs and practices. His wise, compassionate, and edifying essays are available on his blog to which you can and should subscribe. Here’s his essay on the meaning of the Kavanaugh imbroglio:

Beyond the Kavanaugh Event: America’s Fading Traditions
Written by Dr. Daniel Boland

A vast divide now exists among Americans. It is far more than a political rift between Democrats and Republicans. It is not merely a struggle between conservatives and liberals. The true nature of this conflict centers on how we shall live as individuals and what values we shall uphold as a nation. The facts at hand are not encouraging.

The Kavanaugh Event highlights the rabid polarization in the struggle for survival of our fundamental values, our American identity and even our national security.

“Progressivism’s” Errant Values

“Progressive” Leftists seek to create a nation without national boundaries, moral traditions or constitutional restraints. “… Let people do what they want. Let them have their way, no matter what price we pay for unhindered progress or what age-old laws and time-honored customs of dead-white-men we banish along the way…” say “progressive” Leftists.

America’s national character and moral coherence are based on 230+ years of constitutional stability inspired by Judeo-Christian mores. These legal and spiritual codes emphasize individual accountability and define the natural and lawful limits of human behavior.

Until recently, individual rights have always been balanced by personal responsibilities—and by accountability to God and to other human beings—for the common good, starting with the first natural right of all persons, the right to life, which includes the unborn.

Until recently, these codes have restrained government abuse and tempered the fads and foolishness to which humans are attracted. Today, the “progressive” Left jettisons these norms as outmoded, offensive, restrictive—the stale product of male/sexist/white/Christian/conservative dominance.

To advance their vision of unhindered “progress,” Leftists seek to eradicate our American system. Thus, many of our sacred traditions and boundaries are being overthrown by practitioners of Marxist political correctness and moral relativism, mental and moral distortions to which many Americans are in militant, yet ignorant, thrall.

And now comes the Kavanaugh Event where accusation and condemnation—rather than civility and restraint—are common. The dignity and achievements of a good man’s lifetime are expunged in favor of flimsy rumor and deliberate exaggeration (if not outright lies) in service to manipulative power.

Memory’s Weak Links

The Kavanaugh hearings quickly devolved into character defamation, focusing not on the nominee’s professional qualifications but on whether he was a teenaged drunkard, so afflicted by alcoholic blackouts that he was forgetfully capable of anything, including violent rape.

Politically correct character assassination is the goal of the Kavanaugh Event, with the threat of impeachment ever hovering. To the Left, solid reputations of moral probity earned over an adult lifetime are relative.

Judge Kavanaugh is accused of a felony. But the preponderance of evidence assuredly does not support this charge. However, many Leftists hope the ensuing FBI probe will unearth additional dirt about Kavanaugh’s college drinking and belligerency, and a subsequent charge of perjury they hope to pin on him—dirt with which they expect to bury Judge Kavanaugh.

It is crucial to note that dissociative amnesia and the validity of recovered memories—the bases of his accuser’s charges—carry scant weight in research psychology and forensic testimony. The validity and credibility of recovered memories is highly unreliable.

Research tells us that recovered memories are by no means credible and carry no probative value. Yet Democrats grant eager assent to the accusations, which originated in trauma forty years old. Despite this, the “progressive” Left celebrates the accusation as “proof” of Judge Kavanaugh’s guilt. (If you wish to review these accusations and, more to the point, read the report of Rachel Mitchell, the prosecutor who interviewed Dr. Christine Ford during the proceedings, click here.

The Progressive’s Approach 

To the “progressive” Left, accusation alone cancels reasonable doubt. It “proves” Judge Kavanaugh is unworthy. Henceforth, he shall be known and dishonored as a liar, drunk and rapist.

For the “progressive” Left, even a reckless, fact-less accusation that anyone is a racist or a homophobe, a chauvinist-pig or a sexist, a bigot or a promoter of hate speech or, worse, a faithful Christian baker or florist (with all the attached spiteful, religious baggage), even a mere accusation is sufficient to cast shadows over good people to justify punitive wrath and budget-busting fines.

Such is the “progressive” politically correct ethic in our morally-wounded, rationally-bereft culture.

The Behavior of Some Senators

The insults and “gotcha” posturing by Democrat Senators were, to many observers, way over the edge. It was deeply disquieting to watch our elected representatives leverage Judge Kavanaugh’s plight for their own unsavory political agendas, their unseemly grandstanding and their appeals to financial donors.

For example, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) declared his resistance to Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination less than half an hour after the announcement. Mr. Schumer’s rush to pre-judgment was startling in its alacrity and vehemence.

U.S. Senator Kristen Gillibrand’s opportunistic “anti-males-in-power” feminist screeds were wearisome in their denial of historical and biological reality—which is nowhere better explained than in this brief, must-watch Prager U video.

U.S. Senator Mazie Hirono’s advice to men to “shut up and step up” was simply incoherent and outlandish.

U.S. Senator Kamala Harris’ fumbling, all-too-obvious attempts to trap Judge Kavanaugh into contradictory testimony were feckless and amateurish.

U.S. Senator Cory Booker indulged in several episodes of self-promoting rodomontade a’brim with cringe-worthy virtue-signaling and martyr-ish rhetoric. His performance was out of sync with his own teen-age sexual excesses, about which he wrote in a college column proclaiming his conversion to feminism.

One could also mention U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal’s needless slur that Judge Kavanaugh’s appointment will “stain” the Supreme Court. This is the same Blumenthal who claimed to have served in Vietnam when, in fact, he did not.

There are other embarrassing and unstatesman-like (or, if I must, unstateswoman-like) examples from our national leaders in this unfortunate inquisition, but the point is evident and disturbing.

The Stunning Absence of Honesty

The intemperate name-calling and adversarial behavior of Democrats did indeed shock. Such behavior compels us to recognize with heavy heart that politics and far too many politicians no longer exemplify responsible civility, moral and intellectual clarity, human courtesy or simple fairness.

Some will counter with a challenge: “Yes, but how ‘bout Trump and his ranting, blathering incivilities?”

Yes, many Americans vehemently condemn President Trump’s tweety indiscretions. In fact, many loathe our president for his tactless style and his tasteless crudities.

Many people also criticize Republicans for their hesitant, tradition-bound approach to their exercise of their congressional majorities and for their failure to reach effectively across the aisle and seek unity with Democrats. “… After all, Republicans have the power…”

Fair enough.

But “progressivism’s” defamatory strategies and divisive energies—now on grim public display—clearly reveal how they are deliberately eroding our American ideals and how responsible these “progressive” Leftists are for the toxic state of affairs we now face.

To this day, the story of America is a record of human nature’s best attempts at limited governance and the evolution of justice. Sadly, today’s destructive Leftist politics reveals that power-grasping can overshadow the good will and highest hopes of human nature which defined American exceptionalism.

Political Life and Reality’s Bite

Our Declaration of Independence declares that our laws are codifications of rights and responsibilities granted by our Creator—except to the “progressive” Left.

Our nation’s historic struggle for a balance between human laws and their divine origin are summed up in the admonitions of John Adams, who cautioned that our form of governance relies not only on law but also on the virtue of citizens and their representatives—except to the “progressive” Left.

We can see that American politics today is no longer a unified struggle for a common goal. Party politics is now a bitter, morally divisive enterprise. Americans are separated according to our vision of human life, its origins, its rights and its inherent value.

These differences are nowhere more definitively clarified than with the issue of abortion. The divisions in our country relate to our beliefs about life itself—about the “right” of individuals to live and the “right” of both the state and private persons to take life away from its own citizens, especially from the unborn and the elderly.

It is the taking and giving of life which threaten our Republic’s very survival. It is abortion, its moral consequences and its political leverage which are at the dark core of the Kavanaugh Event. 

Threats to American Stability

The corrupting intrusions of Marxist political-correctness, the ascendance of moral relativism in the American consciousness and the denigration of Judeo-Christian principles now inspire character assassination as a mainstream political tool. But there is also much more to worry about.

Our national malaise is exacerbated by Leftist propagandists in the media and entertainment industries to the grave detriment to our entire culture. One has only to listen to some late-night hosts to realize how foul “humor” has become, as Jimmy Kimmel’s disgusting comment affirms.

To the Left, factual reportage and decency in speech are relative to the desired outcome.

The impact of the “progressive” Left’s relativism on American politics, education, family life, law enforcement on our entire culture is difficult to face but impossible to deny:

• erosion of speech and religious exercise protections and the concomitant ongoing denigration of Judeo-Christian traditions

• triumph of non-judgmental, “anything goes” moral madness

• acceptance by medical professionals and parents of gravely misguided “transgender” “identity” change therapies over natural sexuality

• destruction of moral codes that respect the unborn and the elderly

• increased taxation and subsequent re-distribution of income and opportunity, regardless of talent, work ethic or experience

• perpetuation of welfare without qualification

• the support for open borders and further influx of unregistered non-citizen “sanctuary” seekers demanding care and comfort for all entrants—this added to an illegal population which is twice what experts previously estimated

• increased control of industry, commerce and systems of distribution, psychological and medical services and educational institutions

There is also the mortal danger of Islamic militancy which promises violence and death to America. In fact, violence is now occurring throughout Europe, a continent made victim by its own twisted sense of giving aid to its destroyers and welcoming its enemy in the names of suicidal empathy and false altruism.

Do We Get It Yet?

The un-making of America in accordance with the desires and will of the “progressive” Left proceeds apace as self-restraint is diminished and counterfeit, artificial “freedoms” are let loose among us. The public destruction of Brett Kavanaugh is but one of countless tragic events ahead for America and for many Americans.

History tells us that disturbing outcomes are increasingly probable unless we take seriously the facts at hand. The facts at hand attest to the demise of our moral traditions, truth and civility in the “progressive” Left’s politically correct, socialist America and to the continuing destruction of American exceptionalism and identity.

It can’t happen here? Really?

It is unfolding before us every day.

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

-and, please-

Thursday, we witnessed again an arrogant Leftist lawmaker demonstrate his disregard for constitutional principles—specifically for the First Amendment’s religious protections and the prohibition of a religious test for holding office.

In the U.S. Senate inquisition confirmation hearing for Secretary of State nominee and current CIA Director Mike Pompeo, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) both interrogated and lectured Director Pompeo on sexual ethics.

Here is the astonishing exchange:

Booker: I do want to give you a chance to speak on your comments about gay and lesbians. You said in a speech that morning in America that endorses perversion and calls it an alternative lifestyle.” Those are your words. Is being gay a perversion?

Pompeo: Senator, when I was a politician, I had a very clear view on whether it was appropriate for two same-sex persons to marry. I stand by that.

Booker: So, you do not believe that it’s appropriate for two gay people to marry?

Pompeo: Senator, I continue to hold that view.

Booker: So, people in the State Department… that are married, under your leadership, you do not believe that that should be allowed.

Pompeo: We have married gay couples at the CIA. You should know that I treated them with the exact same set of rights…

Booker [interrupting Pompeo]: Do you believe gay sex is a perversion? Yes or no.

Pompeo: Senator, if I can…

Booker [interrupting again]: Yes or no. Do you believe that gay sex is a perversion, ‘cuz it’s what you said…? Yes or no? Do you believe gay sex is a perversion?

Pompeo: Sir, my respect for every individual regardless of sexual orientation is the same.

Booker: I will conclude by saying, Sir, that you’re going to be Secretary of State of the United States at a time when we have an increase in hate speech and hate actions…. You’re going to be representing this country and their values abroad in nations where gay individuals are under untold persecution, untold violence. Your views do matter. You’re going to be dealing with Muslim states and on Muslim issues. And I do not necessarily concur that you are put foring [sic] the values of our nation when you believe there are people in our country that are perverse….

If you can stomach it, you can watch the inquisition:

It would have served Booker well to watch the speech from which the quote about homosexuality came. The words were not Pompeo’s. They were Pastor Joe Wright’s words and well worth repeating.

Booker did what Leftists everywhere do when discussing conservative views on homosexuality, which is lie by changing someone’s moral claim about volitional behavior to an indictment of people. So, while Pompeo believes that homosexual acts are immoral (i.e., perverse), Booker reframes Pompeo’s claim, saying that Booker thinks people are perverse.

Then Booker suggests the ludicrous notion that the values of America include believing that homoerotic activity is not perverse. How did he arrive at that bizarre belief? From reading the Declaration of Independence? The U.S. Constitution? The Federalist Papers?

Presumably, Booker worships at the altar of diversity—or at least pretends to worship at the altar of diversity. If that’s the case, surely he knows that theologically orthodox Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims believe volitional homoerotic activity is perverse. And surely he knows it’s possible for people of faith to love and respect those who believe differently and act in accordance with their beliefs. Respecting persons does not require affirming all their beliefs, feelings, and actions.

As a professed respecter of “the values of our nation,” does Booker think he should be condemning the theological beliefs of many people of faith?

And what does Booker think about the untold persecution and violence that theologically orthodox Christians experience abroad? Is Booker concerned about how his very public condemnation of theologically orthodox views of sexuality and marriage may affect Christians here and abroad? The Center for the Study of Global Christianity “estimates that between the years 2005-2015, 900,000 Christians were martyred—an average of 90,000 Christians each year.”

Since all theologically orthodox Christians–both Catholic and Protestant–believe that homosexual activity is perverse and that marriage has a nature central to which is sexual differentiation, is Booker suggesting that no theologically orthodox Christians are fit to serve in the Cabinet? What about holding office?

Booker also criticized Pompeo for not challenging Frank Gaffney’s and Brigitte Gabriel’s statements on Islam. Apparently, candidates for high offices now have a moral obligation to not only hold Booker’s views on everything from what constitutes a false religion to sexual ethics but must also criticize anyone who doesn’t hold those views. I wonder if Booker has criticized every person with whom he has spent time for views with which he disagrees.

Ironically, in this self-righteous criticism of Pompeo for not challenging Gaffney and Gabrielle—and presumably every other human with whom Pompeo has come in contact—Booker said this:

Well, I believe that special obligation that you talk about for Americans to condemn things that are attacking our Constitution, our ideals, would obligate you in your own definition to speak out.

Pompeo tried to defend himself against the implied accusation that he hasn’t sufficiently confronted the expression of offensive ideas:

Senator, if I might, I have called out. We had a terrible fellow in Kansas named Fred Phelps [Booker tried to cut Pompeo off], and I called him out.

Booker interrupted him again saying, “Sir, I have a minute left.” It became obvious that all the condescending Booker really wanted to do was scold Pompeo.

Booker said one right thing in his interrogation: Views do matter.

#nooneexpectstheBookerInquisition

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email to U.S. Senator’s Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth to urge them to confirm Mike Pomeo’s nomination. Ask them not to ignore the fact that U.S. Constitution specifically forbids religious tests for office.

Listen to Laurie read this article:

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This afternoon, we witnessed again an arrogant Leftist lawmaker demonstrate his disregard for constitutional principles—specifically for the First Amendment’s religious protections and the prohibition of a religious test for holding office.

In the U.S. Senate inquisition confirmation hearing for Secretary of State nominee and current CIA Director Mike Pompeo, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) both interrogated and lectured Director Pompeo on sexual ethics.

READ MORE

Written by Ryan T. Anderson

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of gay marriage, a question arises: Should we protect the rights of Orthodox Jews, Roman Catholics, Evangelical Christians, Latter-Day Saints and Muslims who believe that marriage is a union of husband and wife? Two bills recently introduced in Congress show diverging answers. One seeks to promote tolerance and peaceful coexistence; the other adds fuel to a culture war by treating that traditional belief as racism.

Last week, U.S. Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., and U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.; Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.; and Cory Booker, D-N.J., introduced what they call the “Equality Act.” The legislation would add “sexual orientation and gender identity” to more or less every federal law that protects against racism.

Do we really need the federal government to coerce every last baker, florist and adoption agency to violate their beliefs about marriage? The market is already sorting these things out. The Human Rights Campaign reports, for example, that 88 percent of Fortune 500 companies voluntarily do not consider sexual orientation in employment decisions.

The bill also requires that biological males who identify as women be able to use women’s bathrooms and locker rooms. Shouldn’t these decisions be made closer to the ground? By parents, teachers, principals—not federal bureaucrats? Most outrageously, the bill specifies that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act cannot be used to defend people against its requirements. Rather, it treats decent people of faith as irrational bigots, simply for believing that we’re created male and female, and that male and female are created for each other in marriage.

Whether you agree with this belief or not, it’s easy to see that the “Equality Act” is bad public policy. It fuels the culture war rather than seeking peaceful coexistence.

As I argue in my new book, “Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom,” there is an alternative.

The First Amendment Defense Act would prevent the federal government from discriminating against citizens or organizations because they believe that marriage is the union of husband and wife. It would ensure that no federal agency will ever revoke non-profit tax-exempt status or deny grants, contracts, accreditation or licenses to individuals or institutions for following their belief that marriage is a union between a man and a woman.

This bill simply continues the practice of the United States for all of our history. It takes nothing away from anyone. It changes nothing. It protects pluralism amid disagreement.

And it is necessary. In the oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year, Justice Samuel Alito asked Solicitor General Donald Verrilli whether a school might lose its tax-exempt status because of its conviction that marriage is the union of husband and wife. Verrilli’s response was chilling: “It’s certainly going to be an issue. I—I don’t deny that. I don’t deny that, Justice Alito. It is—it is going to be an issue.”

This shouldn’t be an issue. Schools should be eligible for non-profit tax status, government contracts, student loans and other forms of support as long as they meet the relevant educational criteria.

As I explain in Truth Overruled, government policy should not trample on the consciences of citizens who dissent from official policies on sexuality. Government discrimination against social service providers who believe marriage is a male-female relationship undermines our nation’s commitment to reasonable pluralism and diversity. The First Amendment Defense Act would prevent this.

Predictably, the left has attacked this bill. The Sunday after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling, Mark Oppenheimer wrote a column for Time magazine headlined “Now’s the Time to End Tax Exemptions for Religious Institutions.” Oppenheimer, the New York Times’ religion columnist, argued: “Rather than try to rescue tax-exempt status for organizations that dissent from settled public policy on matters of race or sexuality, we need to take a more radical step. It’s time to abolish, or greatly diminish, their tax-exempt statuses.”

But it has long been understood that the power to tax is the power to destroy. Americans who believe that marriage is a union of husband and wife should be free to live and work in accord with their convictions.

When he “evolved” on the issue in 2012, President Barack Obama insisted that there were reasonable people of goodwill on both sides of the marriage debate. Supporters of marriage as the union of a man and a woman “are not coming at it from a mean-spirited perspective,” he insisted. “They’re coming at it because they care about families.”

He added that “a bunch of ’em are friends of mine … you know, people who I deeply respect.” But as the stories of bakers, florists, photographers and adoption agencies show, there’s good reason to worry about the government’s respect for the beliefs of all Americans.

America is in a time of transition. The court has redefined marriage, and beliefs about human sexuality are changing. Will the right to dissent be protected? Will our right to speak and act in accord with what Americans have always believed about marriage—that it’s a union of husband and wife—be tolerated?

Most Americans say yes, they want ours to be a tolerant, pluralistic nation. They want peaceful coexistence. We must work together to protect these cherished American values, despite the ideologues and activists who would sow disharmony by having the government coerce those with whom they disagree.

The First Amendment Defense Act is one way of achieving civil peace even amid disagreement. To protect pluralism and the rights of all Americans, liberals should forswear coercion and embrace tolerance.

Originally published in National Review Online.