On September 6, the Human Services Committee of Evanston City Council voted unanimously to send Alderman Devon Reid’s proposed ordinance to allow women to go topless in “all public places (forward to 51:25)” to the “Equity and Empowerment Committee.” Reid wants his proposed ordinance reviewed over concerns that “it excluded the transgender community.” How might it have done that, you may wonder. Well, apparently, someone objected to the ordinance’s “gender binary” language. Sex-deniers cannot tolerate any public acknowledgment that the human species is a sex-binary species.

Reid, is a “queer, 29-year-old” activist and former city clerk who was arrested in 2018 for driving on a license that had been suspended since 2013 and ticketed for “possession of under 10 grams of marijuana.” This was two years before Illinois legalized recreational marijuana. It seems Reid has little respect for either public decency or the law.

Here is what Alderman Devon Reid’s ideal transgressive world would look like: Women would be free to go topless in all public places. Men who identify as women and have received breast implants as part of their skin costume would be free to go topless in all public places. And women who identify as men but have chosen not to have their breasts excised would be free to go topless in all public places.

The committee meeting is well worth watching, especially from 3:15-8:14 during which time attorney and president of Evanston’s Parks and Recreation Board, Robert Bush, shared his opposition to the proposed ordinance as well as his concern about the lack of public input on it. Later in the meeting, “political consultant,” community organizer, and Human Services Committee member Bobby Burns unprofessionally described his colleague Mr. Bush as “irresponsible” for spreading “misinformation.” Ah yes, the “misinformation” ploy–the last refuge of a political scoundrel.

Reid believes that “equity” demands that if men may go topless in all public places, so too should women be allowed to go topless in all public places. The wokester opposes any ordinance that “regulates women’s bodies in a way that we do not regulate men’s bodies.”

According to WBBM, Reid says “he wants to treat men and women equally and eliminate ambiguity for trans people.” Perhaps Reid doesn’t understand that “equality” demands we treat like things alike. One would think the “queer” Reid would know that men and women are not alike in critically important ways. One important way they are unlike is in their sexed bodies.

While Reid’s ordinance will harm men, women, boys, and girls, the harm done to girls and women will be far greater.

This is the rotten fruit of both the ideology of “equity” and the ideology of the “trans” cult. And it serves both the anarchistic impulses of radical leftists who seek to destroy America by a thousand cuts and the prurient desires of men and women unmoored from morality.

Equity used to mean to treat something or someone fairly, justly, or impartially. The left now uses it to mean either to treat unlike things alike or to ensure identical outcomes for dissimilar people, acts, or other phenomena. To treat men’s bodies different from women’s is not unfair, unjust, or a manifestation of partiality. Treating men’s bodies different from women’s bodies grows out of the recognition that men and women are different. They are different in their bodies, emotions, desires, and their sexual responses to one another’s bodies.

Men’s chests are wholly different from women’s breasts. This commonsense statement shouldn’t need to be spoken, but in this time when society is awash in or in thrall to foolish doctrinaire ideologies, commonsense has no purchase and no home.

“Trans” cultism is assaulting commonsense, children, and families at every turn, preaching the poisonous (Gnostic) lie that sexed bodies have no intrinsic meaning and that male and female bodies are interchangeable. So, ignorant (or wicked) Evanston leaders say that female-sexed bodies have no intrinsic meaning and are interchangeable with male-sexed bodies.

Not coincidentally, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss—who is a member of the city council—is a “trans” cult collaborator. In June 2021, just a month after he became mayor of Evanston, he was asked, “What is your favorite charitable cause or causes.” Biss responded,

At the end of each year we sit with our kids and discuss what we want to focus on. We often donate to causes focusing on issues of racial justice or justice for the LGBT community especially transgender and non-binary people.

So, what do business owners and the Evanston Chamber of Commerce think about this ordinance? Will families stop taking their children to downtown Evanston, choosing instead to shop and go to restaurants in neighboring Winnetka, Glencoe, Highland Park, and Lake Forest, all of which have charming, family-friendly downtowns and plazas?

Will decent families want to move to Evanston? Will decent Evanston families consider moving out of Evanston?

What will happen to Evanston’s annual Art & Big Fork Festival held for three days every August? Will attendance by families decrease? Maybe the increase in attendance by anarchists and perverts will financially compensate for the loss of funds from decent people.

Where are Evanston church leaders on this issue? Do pastors and elders feel an obligation to lead on an issue of this magnitude?

What about Evanston Christians? Will they step up to oppose this assault on public decency?

Leftists don’t seem to understand that the structures of government have a purpose beyond facilitating the sexual desires of the deviant and transgressive among us. A good government protects the most vulnerable, promotes the public good, and maintains public order, in part by establishing boundaries that restrain the perverse impulses of fallen humans. Abandoning this function will make cities like Evanston unfit for human flourishing.

Former Illinois state senator Daniel Biss recently guest-hosted a culturally regressive radio program titled “Live, Local & Progressive” in which he sought to draw attention to yet another God-forsaken executive order (2019-11) from Illinois’ morally bankrupt governor, J.B. Pritzker, which was signed “shortly before the Pride parade.” The executive order establishes a 25-member “Affirming and Inclusive Task Force,” essentially to use government schools to advance the ideology and goals of the “trans” cult.

Lest anyone think the task force will be ideologically balanced between those who believe biological sex matters when it comes to, for example, private spaces and athletics and those who believe it doesn’t matter, here’s what Pritzker’s order dictates:

The Task Force shall consist of at least one representative from the Office of the Governor and no more than twenty-five (25) members, selected by the Governor, who have experience or expertise related to supporting transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming students in schools including, but not limited to, students, parents or guardians, teachers, school administrators, lawyers, medical professionals, and representatives from community-based organizations.

Note that members must have “experience or expertise” related to “supporting” students who embrace “trans”-cultism. The word “supporting” has nothing to do with assisting students in ways that move them toward accepting their immutable biological sex. It means facilitating their reality-denying feelings, their invasion of the privacy of their peers, their tyrannical linguistic demands of others, and the hijacking of hard-won girls’ athletic opportunities by objectively male students.

Any guesses which community-based organizations Pritzker will include? Could it be the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance? Equality Illinois? The Center on Halsted?

The order took effect on July 1, 2019 and its recommendations are due on the governor’s desk by Jan. 1, 2020.

Biss’ guests were the following:

Nat Duran, a young woman who pretends to be a man and works for the  “LGBTQ”-indoctrinating organization the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance.

Nicki Bazer, an attorney “who represents school districts in her day job, and also does pro bono work on behalf of transgender youth.”

Juliet Berger-White, Deputy General Counsel in the Office of the Governor and another activist for all things “trans”—particularly school issues—who helped craft Pritzker’s executive order.

Nat Duran exposed the lie that “gender identity” is fixed and immutable—a lie that some “trans” ideologues have tried to pass off to a gullible public:

[W]hen folks often think of trans and gender expansive young folks in school systems, they immediately go to restroom and locker room usage, right? Anyone who’s been in a public space and used these facilities know that they are really gendered, and so how do we make sure that students who maybe are exploring different aspects of their identity are able to use these spaces in a way that feels safe and supportive to them…. [E]specially as you think of younger grades, I think especially around middle school, students who are really just figuring out a lot of things about their lives, like allowing room for fluidity as well. I think sometimes… even if a school in the best of intentions enforces a really supportive practice, is it so rigid that it doesn’t allow for a student who’s like, “Well, I think I might be trans, or maybe I’m non binary, but I’m still figuring it out, and so I don’t know what restroom feels best to me right now.

Point of correction: restrooms and locker rooms aren’t “gendered.” They’re “sexed.” They correspond to objective, immutable biological sex.

Duran didn’t explain exactly why private spaces should correspond to “gender identity” as opposed to biological sex. Nor did she explain why it’s hateful for normal students to refuse to use restrooms with opposite-sex peers, but it’s not hateful for cross-sex passers to refuse to use restrooms with opposite-“gendered” peers.

And if, as “trans”-cultists assert, it’s impossible to know the authentic “gender identity” of a person by their clothing, hairstyles, or anatomy, “trans”-identifying students can’t possibly know whether their same-sex peers are male or female. Therefore, they shouldn’t care where they change their clothes or shower. Imagine a boy who identifies as a girl filing an expensive lawsuit to access the girls’ locker room only to discover all the girls identify as boys.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive—particularly when we do it based on an incoherent ideology.

Duran’s discussion of identity exploration and fluidity points to the end goal of the “trans” revolution. The end goal is the eradication of public recognition of sex differences everywhere. Identity exploration, gender expansiveness, and gender fluidity preclude the existence of anything other than the wholesale sexual integration of every space, activity, and context. No more sex-segregated anything for anyone. Even school practices that are “really supportive” of opposite-sex-identifying students is insufficient. Duran and most other “trans” activists seek locker room and restroom free-for-alls—literally, restrooms and locker rooms Free. For. All.

It is critically important to understand that if society is legally prohibited from “discriminating” based on both sex and “gender identity,” there remains no legal way to prohibit what leftists call “cisgender” persons (i.e., persons who accept their sex) from using opposite sex private spaces. If a public school allows biological male Bob who pretends to be Mary to use the girls’ locker room, there would be no way to prevent biological male Tom who accepts his sex from using it. The school couldn’t prevent him from using it based on his sex because they’ve already allowed another male access to it. And they couldn’t prevent Tom from using it based on his “cisgender” identity, because they can’t discriminate based on “gender identity.” Abracadabra, all private spaces become co-ed.

Duran’s discussion also reveals how young the children are whom cultural regressives seek to inculcate with the “trans” ideology.

Duran also longs for government schools to be complicit in concealing information from parents about their own children:

[H]ow do we think through parental communications? If I’m calling home to talk to a parent, [is the student] out, or safe and supported, at home? Am I going to be using a different name or set of pronouns when I do that?”

In the view of “trans” dogmatists, those parents who reject the unproven, arguable, doctrinaire assumptions of the “trans” cult are unsafe and unsupportive and, therefore, deserve to lose parental rights.

Attorney/activist Nicki Bazer deceived Biss’ audience by omission. Here’s what she said:

[T]he rights of transgender, gender expansive, non-binary students are already protected in Illinois…. [U]nder the Illinois school code, all students have a right to equal opportunity to all educational programs and services. And under the regulations that the state board of education has issued, they have defined that, and made clear that you cannot discriminate or exclude or segregate students based on their gender identity. [T]hat applies to all schools within Illinois that are public schools. The Illinois human rights act also touches all non-sectarian K12 schools, or pre-K12 schools, and that also prohibits discrimination in all schools on the basis of sex and sexual orientation. And under the Illinois Human Rights Act, sexual orientation, sex, is defined as including gender identity.

Interestingly, Bazer did not share these relevant words from the Illinois Human Rights Act, which is state law:

The Act permits schools to maintain single-sex facilities that are distinctly private in nature, e.g., restrooms and locker rooms.

Nor did she share this from the 2016 Transgender Students in School  guidelines posted by the Illinois Association of School Boards:

[F]ederal courts in non-school cases have recognized a fundamental right to privacy or acknowledged the legitimacy of safety concerns in cases involving individuals undressing, using the restroom, or showering in an area to which a member of the opposite birth sex has access. Moreover, a federal district court recently asked the question whether a university engages in unlawful discrimination in violation of Title IX or the Constitution when it prohibits a transgender male student from using restrooms and locker rooms designated for men on campus. The court concluded: “The simple answer is no.”

Juliet Berger-White inadvertently exposes the hypocrisy of cultural regressives who claim to value diversity:

The goal of the executive order is to ensure that we are bringing together a crucial group of stakeholders who have great experience on the ground…. These stakeholders have been doing this work on an ongoing basis, but the benefit of doing it from the perspective of a governor-appointed task force is that it can help these private stakeholders collaborate with the government, and the Illinois State Board of Education, to figure out what next steps should be, and what that looks like.”

In other words, outside “progressive” activists are going to collude with the government to advance their sexuality dogma. Who are these “crucial stakeholders”? Are any lesbians who object to the sexual integration of women’s private spaces included? Will the task force include members of the professional mental health and medical communities who in increasing numbers are concerned about “adolescent-onset gender dysphoria,” the effects of puberty blockers like Lupron, and how social “transitioning” at young ages may effect brain development? What about Muslims, Orthodox Jews, or theologically orthodox Christians who are taxpayers and have children in public schools? Are parents and students who object to the sexual integration of private spaces and athletics crucial stakeholders?

The name Berger-White may sound familiar to long-time IFI readers. Her husband, Jeff Berger-White, is a former colleague of mine from the years I worked full-time in Deerfield High School’s writing center on Chicago’s North Shore. He was at the center of a huge community controversy over his decision to teach the egregiously obscene play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.

The play revolves around two couples: married Mormon couple Harper and Joe whose marriage is disintegrating in large measure due to Joe’s repressed homosexuality, which he eventually acts upon; and a homosexual couple, Louis and Prior. Louis leaves Prior when he finds out Prior has AIDS, and then has a month-long affair with Harper’s husband Joe.

There’s the black, homosexual, ex-drag queen nurse with the heart of gold, Belize; and the Angel with “eight vaginae” whose visits prompt sexual arousal and orgasm. The play is replete with references to orgasms, fellatio, semen, ejaculation, and f***ing. It includes the line “Suck my ****, Mother Theresa.”

In the heat of the controversy, Mr. Berger-White sent a letter to our local press asserting that it is the responsibility of English teachers to “challenge the emotions and morals” of their students—a belief clearly shared by his wife. His assertion raises some questions:

• Is it really the responsibility of high school English teachers (or government lawyers) to challenge the emotions and morals of students (or other people’s children)?

• Who decided that and when?

• How does the pedagogical goal of challenging the emotions and morals of students square with “progressive” commitments to ensuring students feel “safe”?

• If society agrees that challenging the emotions and morals of students is the responsibility of high school English teachers, why do we never hear about materials being presented that challenge the emotions and morals of “progressive”/”LBGTQQAP” students?

In the Biss interview, Juliet Berger-White asserted that “the law sets the floor,” but that when it comes to government schools affirming “trans” dogma, “there’s no ceiling.” Echoing her husband’s sentiments, she acknowledges the moral implications of promoting the “trans” ideology and policies in government schools, arguing that taxpayer-funded schools should abandon respect for biological sex “not just because we’re legally obligated to do so, but because we’re morally obligated to do so.”

The presumptuous Berger-Whites are using their taxpayer-funded jobs to indoctrinate other people’s children with their sexuality ideology. Their views are premised on arguable assumptions that are rarely addressed and never proved. Neither compassion nor “inclusivity” requires the affirmation of arguable assumptions that deny reality or that deem subjective feelings of greater importance than biological reality, especially if those assumptions result in the sexual integration of private spaces and speech mandates.

Teachers, leave those kids alone.

Conservatives, teach your children well, which can’t be done in places where foolish adults don’t respect physical embodiment as male or female or by cowardly adults who passively acquiesce because they care more about themselves than the children who have been entrusted to them.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/trans-schools_audio.mp3

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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SB 1564 undermines the freedom
of conscience and invites intimidation and
legal action against pro-life healthcare providers.

Last year, State Senator Daniel Biss (D-Skokie) introduced SB 1564 to radically alter the Illinois Healthcare Right of Conscience Act.  This proposal was passed by the Illinois Senate on April 22, 2015 by a vote of 34-19. It then moved to the Illinois House where it was picked up by State Representative Robyn Gabel (D-Evanston).

Late in the afternoon of May 25th, the Illinois House debated and passed this ominous new mandate by a vote of 61-54.  (See roll call below.)  The bill now heads to the office of the governor.

SB 1564 would force doctors, nurses, pharmacists to distribute information to help a patients find objectionable medical services such as abortion, sterilization, and certain end-of-life care.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner to ask him to please uphold religious freedom and conscience rights for medical personnel in Illinois.  Ask him to veto SB 1564 and the tyranny it represents.

Emails are noticed, but we also need a flood of calls to the Governor’s office: (217) 782-0244 or (312) 814-2121.  Once you’ve taken action, please pray that he will understand how coercive this legislation is.

You may want to point out that according to the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, 95 percent of physicians in a national poll agreed, “I would rather stop practicing medicine altogether then be forced to violate my conscience.”

It is important to know that SB 1564 will also negatively affect crisis pregnancy centers that provide health care services by requiring that these life centers give referrals to Planned Parenthood or other venues that promote abortion.

IFI is deeply grateful to those lawmakers who spoke out during debate today, including:  State Representatives Peter Breen (R-Lombard), Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton), Barbara Wheeler (R-Cyrstal Lake), Tom Morrision (R-Palatine), C.D. Davidsmeyer (R-Jacksonville), Sheri Jesiel (R-Antioch), and Margo McDermed (R-Frankfort).

(Click HERE to learn more about the problems of SB 1564.)

Illinoisans might think that state lawmakers elected to fix the mess they created would be drowning in real work with nary a moment to surface for air. Allow me to disabuse you of that quaint, naïve notion.

Our “progressive” lawmakers have found time—actually a fair amount of time—to write, assign to a committee, discuss, and now reassign to another committee a resolution the likes of which I’ve never seen.

“Progressives” have written a partisan resolution specifically to express their self-righteous disapproval of a law passed by citizens in two states halfway across the country. You heard that right. Our “progressive” lawmakers, who by all objective measures have done a disastrous job of running Illinois and can’t figure out how to solve the problems they created, have decided it’s time to take a shot at running other states as well.

Senate Resolution 1752 calls on citizens of Mississippi and North Carolina to repeal their laws requiring restrooms to correspond to objective, immutable biological sex.

On May 3^rd, SR 1752 was assigned to the Illinois Senate State Government and Veterans Affairs Committee for a hearing. The committee has nine members, so five “yes” votes were necessary to pass this self-righteous, presumptuous resolution out of committee.

A few days before the hearing, IFI’s lobbyist Ralph Rivera met with the committee members who would likely vote “no.” During the committee meeting last Thursday, a courageous Illinois mother testified effectively against the resolution. Subsequently the bill’s sponsor, Illinois Senator Emil Jones III (D-Chicago), was informed that he didn’t have the five votes, and he chose not to call the resolution for a vote.

The celebration of this success was short-lived because the very next day, Illinois Senate President John Cullerton’s office took SR 1752 out of the Senate State Government and Veteran Affairs Committee and re-referred (i.e., reassigned) it to the Senate Human Services Committee, a committee which the resolution’s sponsors view as a more, shall we say, sympathetic committee.

While under the Illinois Senate rules this kind of committee-shopping is permitted, it undermines the purpose of the committee process and further undermines the public’s trust in Springfield (is that even possible?).

If SR 1752 has hit the committee jackpot and gets out of committee next week, it still must be approved by the full senate sometime in the next two weeks.

As you write to express your opposition to this resolution, remember that State Representative Tom Morrison’s Pupil Physical Privacy Act, which had more sponsors and bipartisan support in the Illinois House, was sent—not to an education committee where, as an education bill, it belonged—but to the Human Services Committee where it was then assigned to a subcommittee that everyone knew would never even meet.

Perfect illustration of Illinois’ leftist lawmakers: arrogant, deceitful, and manipulative.

This proposal is cosponsored by Senators Heather Steans (D-Chicago), Daniel Biss (D-Skokie), Laura Murphy (D-Park Ridge), Linda Holmes (D-Aurora), David Koehler (D-Peoria), Michael Noland (D-Elgin), and Iris Martinez (D-Chicago).

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your state senator, asking him or her to reject this futile resolution which not only seeks to ridicule duly elected lawmakers in other states, but also to normalize gender deception in our culture.

You can also call the Capitol switchboard at (217) 782-2000 and asked to be transferred to your state senator’s office, where you can leave a comment with his/her legislative aide.

Written by David E. Smith and Laurie Higgins

How did they vote?

Yesterday afternoon, the Illinois Senate voted 34-19-1 to pass HB 217, a bill that will censor professional therapists who want to help children who suffer from unchosen, unwanted same-sex attraction. Republican State Senators Christine Radogno (Lemont) and Chris Nybo (Hinsdale) voted with the majority of Democrats to pass this tyrannical legislation. Five state senators did not vote, while State Senator Bill Haine (D-Alton) voted present — which is as good as a “no” vote.

This bill was introduced by LBGTQ activist and State Representative Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago), and sponsored in the Illinois Senate by Senators Daniel Biss (D-Chicago), Andy Manar (D-Bunker Hill), Iris Martinez (D-Chicago), Toi Hutchinson (D-Chicago Heights), Don Harmon (D-Oak Park), Michael Noland (D-Elgin), David Koehler (D-Peoria), Dan Kotowski (D-Park Ridge), William Delgado (D-Chicago), Martin Sandoval (D-Chicago), Heather Steans (D-Chicago), and Emil Jones III (D-Chicago).

Click HERE to see how your state representative voted on this legislation, or look at the graphic below. (Look up your state senator HERE.)

The bill now moves to Governor Bruce Rauner. While he campaigned as a “no social issues” candidate in 2014, he now has to face the reality that the Illinois General Assembly is filled with politicians who want to advance radical legislation dealing with social issues–many of whom want to champion a far left social agenda agenda. Gov. Rauner will now be compelled to reveal his position on this highly divisive and controversial “social” issue.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email or a fax to Governor Bruce Rauner’s office, asking him to allow licensed and professional therapists to do their job.  Urge him to veto HB 217.

Background

It is stunning to realize that legislation suppressing the speech of professional therapists would get this much support. Thankfully, the bill received robust deliberation and criticism on the floor during debate yesterday. State Senators Kyle McCarter (R-Vandalia), Dale Righter (R-Mattoon), Jim Oberweis (R-Aurora), Tim Bivins (R-Dixon) and freshman Neil Anderson (R-Moline) did a great job questioning the sponsor of the bill and/or speaking against HB 217.

IFI is grateful for the moral fortitude displayed by the members of the Illinois Senate who vocally opposed this unwarranted, unethical, and poorly written legislation.

It is important to note, HB 217 makes no distinction between coercive aversion therapy and “talk therapies” that would allow minors a measure of autonomy in constructing an identity that does not affirm unchosen, unwanted same-sex attraction.

The bill’s sponsors never addressed whether minors whose same-sex attraction or “sexual orientation” confusion may be the result of sexual molestation will be able to receive counseling to address the potential connection between molestation and same-sex attraction.

The bill’s supporters never explained why gender-confused minors should be able to access medical help in rejecting their unchosen, unwanted physical embodiment but those who experience same-sex attraction should be prohibited from accessing medical help in rejecting their unchosen, unwanted same-sex attraction.

Those who voted in favor of this bill ignored the urgent warnings of scientists who argued in an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune and LA Times that there is insufficient evidence to justify the passage of bans on reparative therapy for gender dysphoric minors. (Read more HERE.)

The bill’s supporters never addressed the galling way the bill was passed in the house, when the acting speaker allowed less than 5 seconds of time for floor debate before he called for a vote.

This bill is not a reasoned attempt to protect children. It’s a political maneuver that serves the strategic interests and profoundly selfish desires of adults committed to perverse activity and delusional thoughts. Once again, corrosive Illinois political chicanery in the service of some privileged coterie comes before wisdom, truth, knowledge, and even the needs and rights of hurting children.

While “progressive” Americans view the desire of those who suffer from Body Integrity Identity Disorder to amputate healthy limbs as barbaric, they ignorantly view the desire of those who suffer from Gender Identity Disorder to amputate healthy breasts and penises as sound medical practice. What a stupid, barbarous culture we’re becoming. Maybe when the lawsuits against doctors who facilitate barbarism, mutilating bodies and rendering young men and women sterile, start arriving on our crumbling cultural doorstep, this madness will stop. Too bad so many young people will have to suffer before that happens.

Please pray that Gov. Rauner does the right thing, and rejects this terrible policy.

Written by Anna Paprocki, AUL Staff Counsel

Sunday’s Chicago Tribune article, “State bill seeks to mandate disclosure,” is terribly misleading.  It implies SB 1564* merely requires a healthcare provider to disclose that she has a conscientious objection, that the bill is simply about not having patients be “blind-sided” that a Catholic hospital/provider doesn’t perform abortions, elective sterilizations, etc. The bill does not require mere transparency about objections, but creates new obligations for healthcare providers, including pregnancy resource centers that offer women alternatives to abortion, to promote and participate in conscience-violating activities. Sponsored by State Sen. Daniel Biss (D-Skokie), the bill promotes the coercive anti-conscience agenda of his abortion-industry backers, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU.

Pregnancy resource centers that offer “health care” such as ultrasounds, and perhaps even pregnancy testing, would be required under the bill to violate their core mission by discussing “benefits” of abortion and providing information on where to obtain abortions.

The article heavily quotes OSF ethicist Erica Laethem for irrelevant points. While Ms. Laethem explains that providers in her healthcare system do not have a moral objection to discussing any “topic” with patients, the bill is not about permitting doctors to talk about what they don’t object to, or providing information to what they don’t object to. It literally does the opposite. It creates duties on all healthcare providers regardless of his or her conscientious objection.

There is a fundamental difference between Ms. Laethem’s role in advising those in her healthcare practice about her view on complicity and a government-imposed mandate that all healthcare providers must, regardless of sincerely held moral convictions, promote and participate in conscience-violating services.

Notably, federal law does not share Ms. Laethem’s view that there is an appreciable “distinction” between a technical referral and effectively facilitating one that makes mandating the latter acceptable. Federal law prohibits discrimination against those who object to referral, in the technical sense, and also when she “refuses to make arrangements for” referral.

By violating federal law, SB 1564 could jeopardize Illinois’ federal financial assistance, including reimbursements through federal Medicaid, Medicare, and other federal health programs.

SB 1564 is detrimental to both healthcare providers and patients in Illinois.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your Illinois state senator to ask him/her to please uphold religious freedom and conscience rights for medical personnel in Illinois.  Ask them to reject SB 1564.

*SB 1564 is co-sponsored by State Senators Julie A. Morrison (D-Deerfield), Toi W. Hutchinson (D-Chicago Heights), Linda Holmes (D-Chicago), Kimberly A. Lightford (D-Chicago), Michael Noland(D-Elgin), Heather A. Steans (D-Chicago), William Delgado (D-Chicago), Iris Y. Martinez (D-Chicago), Jacqueline Collins (D-Chicago), and Emil Jones III (D-Chicago).

SB 1564 undermines the freedom
of conscience and invites intimidation and
legal action against pro-life healthcare providers.

Earlier this year, State Senator Daniel Biss (D-Skokie) introduced SB 1564 to radically alter the Illinois Healthcare Right of Conscience Act — an Act that allows medical personnel and health care facilities to avoid participating in morally dubious medical procedures such as abortion, sterilization, and certain end-of-life care.  Doctors, pharmacists, and other medical personnel have been protected from having to violate their beliefs and values for almost twenty years under this Act.

This week, State Senator Biss introduced Amendment No. 3 in hopes of  assuaging opponents of this bill. However, Amendment 3 does nothing to secure conscience rights.  According to the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, 95 percent of physicians in a national poll agreed, “I would rather stop practicing medicine altogether then be forced to violate my conscience.”

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your Illinois state senator to ask him/her to please uphold religious freedom and conscience rights for medical personnel in Illinois.  Ask them to reject SB 1564.

IFI, Americans United for Life, the Christian Medical and Dental Association, Illinois Citizens for Life, and Lake County Right to Life all agree: The changes to SB 1564 are woefully inadequate.  The bill would still require pro-life doctors to participate materially in actions that violate their deeply held beliefs, such as helping patients find abortion-providers or securing other similarly objectionable procedures.

Background

American’s United for Life Analysis of SB 1564
Detrimental to Both Healthcare Providers & Patients
Written by Anna Paprocki, AUL Staff Counsel

AUL RECOMMENDATION: Vote NO

SB 1564 as amended by Senate Amendment 3 erodes the freedom of conscience for healthcare providers—including the right not to counsel or refer for conscience-violating services—which has been statutorily protected in Illinois for nearly 20 years. Instead, it creates new obligations for healthcare providers to participate in conscience-violating activities.

Under current law, healthcare providers are protected against participating in any phase of a healthcare service that would violate their sincerely held moral convictions, including “counselling, referrals, or any other advice …” The law respects a healthcare provider’s conscientious determination of what constitutes his or her complicity.

That same existing law already ensures patient safety is not compromised by clarifying that physicians are not relieved from a duty to “inform his or her patient of the patient’s condition, prognosis, and risks…” The law also clearly provides that healthcare personnel are not relieved from “obligations under the law of providing emergency medical care.”

SB 1564 as amended by Senate Amendment 3 uses the force of government to impose new and unnecessary obligations that are contrary to this longstanding law that appropriately protects both the freedom of conscience and patient care.

Contrary to existing law, SB 1564 as amended by Senate Amendment 3 obligates a healthcare facility, physician, or healthcare provider to participate in potentially conscience-violating services by requiring the provider to refer or transfer a patient or provide information to the patient regarding other healthcare providers who the provider reasonably believes offer the objected-to healthcare service. While this may be the existing practice for many healthcare facilities and providers, mandating it as a legal obligation would eliminate the law’s respect for the sincerely held moral convictions of a healthcare provider for whom these actions constitute complicity with the objected-to service.

The bill further creates a duty to inform patients of “legal treatment options” and “benefits of treatment options.” This is an unnecessary and potentially dangerous new obligation that may later be used by abortion advocacy groups as the basis for a lawsuit against healthcare providers whose consciences are violated by suggesting abortion—a “legal treatment option” service—to pregnant patients.

The bill additionally requires that this information on “legal treatment options” be given in a “timely manner” without defining what constitutes “timely.” All abortions, whether accomplished by invasive surgery or potent chemicals, pose significant risks to women’s health. It is also undisputed that these risks increase with gestational age. Therefore, “timely” may be construed by abortion advocacy groups to mean “immediate” with regards to abortion information, as any delay would potentially increase abortion’s risks.

Although not expressly applied to the new duties regarding referral, transfer, and information, the bill does contain a definition of “undue delay” that is defined as “unreasonable delay that causes impairment of the patient’s health.” Problematically, it fails to define “health.” In the context of abortion, federal courts have defined “health” expansively. In Doe v. Bolton, decided the same day as Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court created an unlimited definition of maternal “health.” The Court wrote, “[T]he medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age—relevant to the well being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health.” The Court held that the abortionist alone was allowed to make this judgment.

Abortion proponents such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), and Planned Parenthood already frequently file lawsuits aimed at intimidating and discriminating against pro-life healthcare providers and facilities. SB 1564 as amended by Senate Amendment 3 provides fodder for their coercive litigation and intimidation tactics, as well as their anti-conscience agenda.

SB 1564’s attack on the freedom of conscience advances a radical ideology and fails to meet any demonstrated need.

There is no demonstrated need for SB 1564’s erosion of the freedom of conscience that has been protected by Illinois law for decades. Rather, the bill fits a nation-wide pattern of ideological discrimination advanced by abortion proponents.

For example, the factual findings in Stormans v. Selecky, a challenge to anti-conscience Washington State Board of Pharmacy rules, document that purported “refusal stories” used to advance the coercive rules were not the result of natural encounters with access problems, but were “manufactured” by Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocates. In fact, the court in Stormans found, “no Board witness, or any other witness, was able to identify any particular community in Washington—rural or otherwise—that lacked timely access to emergency contraceptives or any other time-sensitive medication.”

SB 1564’s attack on the freedom of conscience would be counterproductive for patient access to care in Illinois.

Protecting the freedom of conscience of healthcare providers and institutions is necessary to avoid added stress on an already overtaxed healthcare system.

Experts project that current shortages of physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals will worsen, failing to meet future requirements. There is an important public health interest in ensuring the protection of conscience rights; forcing healthcare professionals to choose between their consciences and their careers will only heighten the current healthcare provider shortage.

In a survey conducted in 2008, 91 percent of faith-based physicians agreed with the statement, “I would rather stop practicing medicine altogether than be forced to violate my conscience.”

Protecting the freedom is critical to slowing, not exacerbating, shortages of healthcare professionals and ensuring access to quality health care in Illinois.

(Click HERE for the PDF version.)

*SB 1564 is co-sponsored by State Senators Julie A. Morrison (D-Deerfield), Toi W. Hutchinson (D-Chicago Heights), Linda Holmes (D-Chicago), Kimberly A. Lightford (D-Chicago), Michael Noland(D-Elgin), Heather A. Steans (D-Chicago), William Delgado (D-Chicago), Iris Y. Martinez (D-Chicago), Jacqueline Collins (D-Chicago), and Emil Jones III (D-Chicago).

Illinois doctors, nurses and medical personnel could be forced to make ethical choices between serving God and obeying the State with a bill being considered in the Illinois Senate.

Imagine for an instance that you’re a neurologist, and a patient comes to you for help with painful, paralyzing, never-ending headaches. You do everything you can to help him, but after months of experimental drug concoctions and nutritional experiments, the headaches worsen. Depressed and distraught, the patient decides he wants to end it all. He wants you to help him end his agony once and for all.

As a doctor, you’ve been trained and have sworn to “Do No Harm,” as Greek philosopher Hippocrates taught. Your pastor, church and the Scriptures say it is a mortal sin to end or assist with ending another human life.

But suppose that the state says that you must ignore your conscience or moral standards and deliver to the patient exactly what he wants. Your conscience and your religious beliefs are irrelevant. Or, it’s possible that a doctor refusing to assist with something as radical as suicide could be the basis for a lawsuit.

That’s what could happen with doctors, pharmacists, any medical personnel if SB 1564, State Senator Daniel Biss’ (D-Chicago) amendment to Illinois’ Health Care Right of Conscience Act, become law, says First Amendment attorney Thomas Brechja.

The proposal stipulates that a medical facility or physician must have an established protocol in place, printed to distribute to patients in response to any condition that the physician may find the patient seeking.

The legislation does not state that the protocol must include only legal recourses.

The idea of such a scenario may seem impossible to imagine, but that’s what Senator Biss’ plan in SB 1564 would set into place, Attorney Brechja said in an interview.

Even delaying the treatment by one day beyond what the patient demands could imperil an objecting doctor’s practice.

“If you’re impairing the patient’s health by delaying his or her access to a suicide pill, [for example], that may be ‘Brave New World,’ but we’re already living in ‘Brave New World,’” Brechja said. “Who knows what some court somewhere is going to decide. With this bill, you’ve certainly started down that path, and into the abyss.”

Once the law says a person’s conscience must yield to state or federal law, there’s no prediction where that may lead, Brechja said.

While Illinois’ Religious Freedom Restoration Act allows citizens to act upon their religious beliefs, Biss’ law would supersede the state’s RFRA.

Nationwide, some states’ conscience clauses explicitly cover abortion, contraception, sterilization, and the withholding or withdrawing of life-sustaining treatments.

Some clauses cover local conditions. For example in Oregon, a conscience clause describes a physician’s right of refusal concerning physician-assisted suicide, which is legal in that state.

Biss’ proposal contradicts the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, Brechja said, the first part of which says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …”

The legislation would overrule the religious beliefs of American citizens that practice medicine and encumber their constitutionally-guaranteed free exercise of religion.

The medical personnel would be required to have on hand printed information that can be immediately distributed to the patient with referrals to the desired service.

“This is dangerous legislation,” Brechja said.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your Illinois state senator to ask him/her to please uphold religious freedom and conscience for medical personnel in Illinois.  Ask them to reject SB 1564

The Illinois Medical Society and the Illinois Citizens for Life lobbyists agree. They are opposing SB 1564.

Thus far, only the Illinois Social Workers have signed on in support of Biss’ legislation.  However, the bill is co-sponsored by State Senators Julie A. Morrison (D-Deerfield), Toi W. Hutchinson (D-Chicago Heights), Linda Holmes (D-Chicago), Kimberly A. Lightford (D-Chicago), Michael Noland (D-Elgin), Heather A. Steans (D-Chicago), William Delgado (D-Chicago) and Iris Y. Martinez (D-Chicago).

SB 1564 may be heard on March 17, 2015 in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Biss’ office said.

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Homosexual activists, intent on using every cultural institution—including public schools, the courts, and legislatures—to advance their non-factual beliefs, have been successful in their efforts in large measure because they have lied to Americans. How have they lied to Americans? Let us enumerate just a few of the ways:

• They have said that moral disapproval of homoerotic activity and relationships constitutes hatred of same-sex attracted persons.

• They have said that those who experience homoerotic attraction are “born that way,” meaning that homoerotic attraction is 100 percent heritable, like skin color.

• They have said that homoerotic attraction is in all cases immutable, like skin color.

• They have said that because same-sex attraction is 100 percent heritable in and in all cases immutable, it must be affirmed as central to identity in order for those who experience it to be happy.

• They have said that because a homosexual “orientation” is 100 percent heritable and in all cases immutable, any efforts to help same-sex attracted persons change their “orientation,” diminish same-sex attraction, or construct an identity that doesn’t include affirming same-sex attraction, activity, or relationships are cruel, harmful, and futile.

What’s remarkable about these claims is not just that they are patently false but that they are rejected by “LGBTQ” academicians.

The Conversion Therapy Prohibition Act (HB 217 and SB 111) sponsored by lesbian activist State Representative Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago) and State Senator Daniel Biss (D-Skokie) relies on gullible acceptance of these beliefs. When considering Cassidy’s ill-conceived anti-identity-choice bill, lawmakers should take into account the following comments that our anti-intellectual mainstream press commonly overlooks. These are not outlier views but commonly held views among scholars, including homosexual scholars and devotees of Queer Theory.

Author, feminist scholar, social critic, and lesbian Camille Paglia writes this in her book Vamps & Tramps:

Responsible scholarship is impossible when rational discourse is being policed by storm troopers . . . who have the absolutism of all fanatics.

…

Is gay identity so fragile that it cannot bear the thought that some people may not wish to be gay? The difficulties in changing sexual orientation do not spring from its genetic innateness. Sexuality is highly fluid, and reversals are theoretically possible. However, habit is refractory, once the sensory pathways have been blazed and deepened by repetition….

…[H]elping gays learn how to function heterosexually if they so wish, is a perfectly worthy aim. We should be honest enough to consider whether homosexuality may not indeed be a pausing at the prepubescent stage when children anxiously band together by gender.

John D’Emilio, homosexual professor of history and of women’s and gender studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago explained in an interview what many—perhaps most—homosexual academicians think about homoerotic attraction and biological determinism:

What’s most amazing to me about the “born gay” phenomenon is that the scientific evidence for it is thin as a reed, yet it doesn’t matter. It’s an idea with such social utility that one doesn’t need much evidence in order to make it attractive and credible…. queer theory asks us…to be skeptical of seeing both gender and sexuality as fixed categories. Who can argue with that?

In a post on the website Social (In)Queery, Jane Ward, who admits to being voluntarily homosexual, disputes the entire pseudo-intellectual edifice upon which Cassidy has built her teetering bill:

But the fact that the “born this way” hypothesis has resulted in greater political returns for gay and lesbian people doesn’t have anything to do with whether it is true.  Maybe, as gay people, we want to get together and pretend it is true because it is politically strategic….But still, it wouldn’t make the idea true.

…

People like to cite “the overwhelming scientific evidence” that sexual orientation is biological in nature.  But show me a study that claims to have proven this, and I will show you a flawed research design.

…

People like to use the failure of “gay conversion” therapies as evidence that homosexuality is innate.  First of all, these conversions do not always fail….the point is that we can and do change.  For instance, in high school and early in college, my sexual desires were deeply bound up with sexism.  I wanted to be a hot girl, and I wanted powerful men to desire me. I was as authentically heterosexual as any woman I knew.  But later, several years into my exploration of feminist politics, what I once found desirable (heterosexuality and sexism) became utterly unappealing. I became critical of homophobia and sexism in ways that allowed these forces far less power to determine the shape of my desires.  If this had not happened, no doubt I’d be married to a man….But instead, I was drawn to queerness for various political and emotional reasons, and from my vantage point today, I believe it to be one of the best desires I ever cultivated. [emphasis added]

Trudy Ring, writer for the homosexual magazine The Advocate  openly admits the flawed nature of the central argument that homosexual activists have used to insist on special treatment based on their mutable erotic desires and volitional erotic activity—something which other groups similarly constituted do not enjoy:

For years, much of the case for LGBT rights has been based on the argument that sexual orientation is fixed and immutable…..

But an increasing body of social science research posits that a sizable number of people experience some degree of fluidity in their sexual and romantic attractions: being drawn to the same gender at one point in their life, the opposite gender at another.

David Benkof explores the common view of homosexual scholars that the notion of an immutable “gay identity” is false and a-historical, a social construct of the last 150 years:

Are gays indeed born that way? The question has immense political, social, and cultural repercussions. For example, some of the debate over applying the Constitution’s equal protection clause to gays and lesbians focuses on whether gayness is an inborn characteristic….

Thus, if it’s proven sexual orientations are not innate, much of the scaffolding upon which today’s LGBT movement has been built would begin to crumble.

…

According to the experts on homosexuality across centuries and continents, being gay is a relatively recent social construction. Few scholars with advanced degrees in anthropology or history who concentrate on homosexuality believe gays have existed in any cultures before or outside ours, much less in all cultures. These professors work closely with an ever-growing body of knowledge that directly contradicts “born that way” ideology.

Journalists trumpet every biological study that even hints that gayness and straightness might be hard-wired, but they show little interest in the abundant social-science research showing that sexual orientation cannot be innate….

[H]istorian Dr. Martin Duberman, founder of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, said “no good scientific work establishes that people are born gay or straight.” And cultural anthropologist Dr. Esther Newton (University of Michigan) called one study linking sexual orientation to biological traits ludicrous: “Any anthropologist who has looked cross-culturally (knows) it’s impossible that that’s true, because sexuality is structured in such different ways in different cultures.”

…

Gay and lesbian historians aren’t just claiming that before the 19th century nobody was called “gay.” They’re saying nobody was gay (or straight). While various societies had different ways of thinking about and expressing gender, love, and desire, homosexuality was generally something one could do, not something one could be.

Nicholas Cummings, a former president of the American Psychological Association, shared his experiences in a USA Today column:

When I was chief psychologist for Kaiser Permanente from 1959 to 1979, San Francisco’s gay and lesbian population burgeoned. I personally saw more than 2,000 patients with same-sex attraction, and my staff saw thousands more. We worked hard to develop approaches to meeting the needs of these patients.

…With clinical experience, my staff and I learned to assess the probability of change in those who wished to become heterosexual.

…Of the patients I oversaw who sought to change their orientation, hundreds were successful.

…

Since then, the role of psychotherapy in sexual orientation change efforts has been politicized. Gay and lesbian rights activists appear to be convincing the public that homosexuality is one identical inherited characteristic. To my dismay, some in the organized mental health community seem to agree, including the American Psychological Association, though I don’t believe that view is supported by scientific evidence.

Gays and lesbians have the right to be affirmed in their homosexuality. That’s why, as a member of the APA Council of Representatives in 1975, I sponsored the resolution by which the APA stated that homosexuality is not a mental disorder and, in 1976, the resolution, which passed the council unanimously, that gays and lesbians should not be discriminated against in the workplace.

But contending that all same-sex attraction is immutable is a distortion of reality. Attempting to characterize all sexual reorientation therapy as “unethical” violates patient choice and gives an outside party a veto over patients’ goals for their own treatment. A political agenda shouldn’t prevent gays and lesbians who desire to change from making their own decisions.

Whatever the situation at an individual clinic, accusing professionals from across the country who provide treatment for fully informed persons seeking to change their sexual orientation of perpetrating a fraud serves only to stigmatize the professional and shame the patient.

Lisa Diamond, lesbian professor of psychology and gender at the University of Utah believes that both men and women experience sexual fluidity. Sexual fluidity means a change in “sexual orientation” from being sexually and romantically attracted to persons of one’s same sex to being attracted to persons of the opposite sex or vice versa.

While Diamond believes that “sexual orientation” can and does change, she bristles at any suggestion that humans may have any capacity to participate in their own “sexual orientation” change. Oddly, however, she also argues that “‘Either we are a society that protects people’s rights to sexual expression…or we’re not.’” Does protecting “people’s rights to sexual expression” include protecting minors’ “rights to sexual expression”? If so, wouldn’t Kelly Cassidy’s bill violate the rights of those teens who desire help from mental health providers in constructing a sexual identity that does not affirm unchosen and unwanted same-sex attraction?

Dr. Howard Fradkin, homosexual psychologist who treats adult victims of childhood molestation, stated on The Oprah Show that childhood molestation can result in “sexual orientation confusion.”

Even the American Psychological Association was forced to admit this about the hypothetical causes of “sexual orientation”:

There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles…

When groups as disparate as homosexual scholars and conservatives agree that same-sex attraction is not biologically determined; that it can and does change; that environmental factors—including molestation—can contribute to the development of same-sex attraction; and that in some cases “conversion therapies” do work, it would be intellectually and ethically indefensible to use the law to ban forms of counseling that some homosexual activists don’t like.

The central motivation of this sloppily written, politically driven, dishonest bill is not to help children, but to advance the pernicious goal of mainstreaming Leftist beliefs about homosexuality even if that means undermining autonomy and liberty for families and mental health providers, and harming children and teens.