Last week, the Daily Herald published a deceptive and disingenuous letter from Kim Cavill, the worst school board member of the District 211 School Board, five of whose members—including Cavill—are being sued by an unjustly fired teacher.

In her letter, the controversial sexpert Cavill complains about being unprepared for the enraged and hateful messages she has received since becoming a District 211 board member in 2019:

In April of 2019, I ran for a seat on District 211’s board of education and I won. I ran as who I am: a person who cares deeply about my community and the young people who live in it. I didn’t hide that I’m an experienced sex education teacher who specialized in teaching teen pregnancy prevention and an expert in health education, because I couldn’t feel prouder of my nationally recognized work.

Though I certainly anticipated heated disagreement on issues coming before me as a board member, I did not anticipate getting Facebook messages telling me to kill myself. I did not anticipate emails littered with curse words and hateful slurs. I did not anticipate people posting satellite images of my home on social media alongside dangerous, evidence-free accusations too disgusting to summarize. I did not anticipate people who find my work so reprehensible that they twist it into something monstrous and publicly slander my character.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time I’ve experienced this kind of treatment. The abuse I am open about surviving did not break me, and neither will enraged emails from people who’ve forgotten how to disagree with any kind of decency. But using dehumanizing language in person or on social media gives implicit permission for others to use that same kind of language against all of us and that is unacceptable.

We can and must be able to disagree with one another without forgetting that we are neighbors. We are all humans with families to look after, friends to hug, jobs to work, and people to love. If we let our passions twist into shapeless hatred, it corrodes the connections that bind us together. Our connections to our neighbors and our communities are too important to lose.

I agree with Cavill on little, but she argues rightly that slurs and threatening messages are “unacceptable” and give “implicit permission for others to use that same kind of language.”

In preparation for serving on the D211 School Board, perhaps Cavill should have talked to former District U46 board member Jeanette Ward, whom Cavill publicly called the “High Priestess of the Order of Moron” in 2018. Ward too has been the recipient of enraged, vulgar, and hateful messages.

In 2017, Cavill described three fine candidates for the District 211 Board as the “hate slate” because they opposed the sexual integration of locker rooms for minors. Like Ms. Ward, these three received hateful messages and were publicly slandered.

In her letter describing “enraged” emails, Cavill didn’t mention any of the reasons community members might feel anger toward her. For example, she didn’t mention that 11 days before that 2017 election, she and her sister set up a sham PAC to launder over $26,000 collected by a “transgender” PAC from “LGBTQ” activists from outside the community to defeat the slate of excellent candidates, two of whom were women of color. One wonders, are Cavill and her sister racists?

In her letter, Cavill describes herself as “an experienced sex education teacher who specialized in teaching teen pregnancy prevention and an expert in health education.” That vague, whitewashed description omits that Cavill’s expert “health education” includes presenting polyamorous “family structures,” anal sex, and porn positively in her podcasts for young adolescents.

On August 28, 2020, while a sitting D211 board member, Cavill tweeted that those who vote for Trump would be choosing to make the United States a “white nationalist fascist state.” Is that what Cavill calls decent disagreement?

Community members might want to ask Cavill why she has shut down her Twitter accounts since I started reporting on her tweets.

I too receive obscene, threatening, hateful messages “from people who find my work so reprehensible that they twist it into something monstrous and publicly slander my character.” So too does every theologically orthodox Christian and political conservative who publicly expresses his or her views on sexuality, marriage, and the sexual integration of private spaces and women’s sports. While Cavill no more deserves hateful or threatening messages than do political conservatives and theologically orthodox Christians for expressing their views on sexuality, her words and actions do merit righteous anger.

Cavill closed with these words: “We … must be able to disagree with one another without forgetting that we are neighbors.” Well, neighbors don’t call neighbors morons for holding different beliefs on sexuality. And neighbors don’t call neighbors fascists for their electoral choices.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Letter-in-Daily-Herald-from-D211s-Worst-Board-Member-Kim-Cavill.mp3

 Written by Andrew Willis, IFI Intern

Not only was there no room for Baby Jesus in the inn, but for a few a days it appeared there was also no place in a public park.

In Arlington Heights, the Illinois Nativity Scene Committee attempted to place the familiar symbol of the holy family in the North School Park. However, after filling out the appropriate permit papers, the group’s request was denied by the local park district.

The Illinois Nativity Scene Committee, an independent organization, has made it an annual tradition to place Nativity Scenes in public places, most notably the Illinois State Capitol Rotunda and the Daley Plaza in Chicago.

When asked for a reason for the denial, the Arlington Heights Park District stated that they wished to stick to their traditional theme of children’s toys. The park currently has multiple seasonal decorations such as Frosty the Snowman, a lighted tree, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, and even Hanukkah-themed dreidels.

All of the adornments are publicly funded. The Nativity Scene would be the only privately funded display in the park.

Jim Finnegan, the chairman of the INSC, told CBS news, “[the park is] missing the most important thing, the real soul of Christmas, and that’s the birth of Christ.”

On November 20th, Attorney Thomas Brejcha of the Thomas More Society sent a letter to the park district and village officials stating that the INSC’s objective is “a timely, genuine, and fully legitimate request to include a Nativity Scene, a constitutionally protected private expression of religious belief.” He further wrote that “The Nativity Scene would also fit thematically with the other displays, in the sense that all of them honor the holiday season, whose religious aspects cannot lawfully be discriminated against, in deference to its purely secular (sleigh, frosty, etc.) aspects.”

Brejcha also added that the “inclusion of dreidels, moreover, already injects the religious symbolism of Hanukkah among the displays, and we can think of no legally defensible reason why the Nativity Scene identified as privately sponsored and funded, should be barred.”

The Thomas More Society threatened a lawsuit if the Arlington Heights Park District refused to concede.

Last week, attorneys from the Thomas More Society and the park district were able to reach an agreement, and the Nativity Scene has been approved. Finnegan anticipates that the Nativity Scene will become an annual display in the park.

When asked about the whole situation, Finnegan told the Daily Herald, “We have a right to this so we need to stand up for our rights.”

On Saturday, December 15th, the group plans to unveil the nativity scene. A small dedication ceremony is planned to begin at 1 PM at the North School Park and is open to the public. 

Wheaton College President Philip Ryken sent a letter to alumni today to share that the Wheaton College Board of Trustees has filed a lawsuit in opposition to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act mandate which “requires the insurance plans of religious institutions (except churches) to cover all government-approved contraceptives,” including abortifacients, or pay significant fines.

Wheaton College is joining the Catholic University of America in this lawsuit because of its concern for both the sanctity of life and religious liberty.

President Ryken has also written a letter to the Daily Herald in which he recounts the unresponsiveness of Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius to the thousands of comments the HHS has received in opposition to the mandate. 

In his letter to the Daily Herald, President Ryken exposes not only the outrageous threat to religious liberty that the mandate poses but also the inadequacy of the “accommodations” that the Obama administration is offering to religious institutions and the consequences for Wheaton College students and employees.

President Ryken explained that “penalties ‘would amount to $1.4 million in fines annually for faculty and staff alone.’”

We should be deeply thankful to President Ryken and the Board of Trustees of Wheaton College and to the other religious institutions that are willing to pursue the onerous and regrettable path of litigation. Let’s hope and pray that other religious institutions follow their lead.

And please pray for their victory in preserving First Amendment rights.