The problem of child sexual abuse in the United States is far greater than most people realize. Sixty million American adults are sexual abuse survivors. Twenty percent of us. Thirty-nine million of the victims were abused before turning twelve years old. Because most of them will never tell anyone about their experiences, the scope of the problem remains largely a hidden evil.

One in four girls and one in six boys are sexually abused before reaching eighteen.

Why is so little being done to stop it?

During the 70’s and early 80’s I worked for the Illinois Legislative Investigating Commission, eventually becoming the Chief Investigator. More commonly known as the Illinois Crime Investigating Commission, the agency was created to attack organized crime and official misconduct. Because of that focus, we were directed to investigate the rising instances of child pornography and child prostitution that we were seeing throughout the country.

It was well known that vice activities were dominated by organized crime. So it stood to reason that the outfit was responsible for sexually exploiting growing numbers of children as well. That theory proved to be untrue.

Ninety percent of abuse victims are abused by someone they know. Sixty percent are abused by a family member. Almost twelve percent of students who graduate from high school are victims of educator sexual misconduct sometime between kindergarten and twelfth grade. The mob was not behind it.

The sexual exploitation of children turned out to be something beyond what anybody thought.

Our investigation uncovered a range of horrors none of our investigators ever expected and it led to an almost eight-year investigation into every aspect of the issue—the victims, the families, the perpetrators, the social service agencies, the health workers, the police and detectives, the prosecutors, the entire judicial system. It was all a mess. Nothing worked smoothly. There was little or no cooperation or coordination between and among agencies. Every facet of the system was riddled with incompetence and indifference.

There is no easy solution.

We contacted every police department in the state and interviewed scores of detectives about sex abuse cases they handled. What became very clear immediately was most detectives did not like being assigned these cases. A downstate detective told me one time he heard over the radio the call come in about a child being sexually abused. Immediately, he said, he hid under his desk until the supervisor assigned it to someone else.

The cases were depressing, even more so than homicides. And because the conviction rates were so poor and because they sometimes involved prominent people in the community, they were seen as career killers. Today, these cases generally are handled by specialists. But there are not enough of them.

As a way to improve the overall system, we drafted the initial enabling legislation for what has now become known as the Child Advocacy Centers. There were none back then. Today there are over 800 around the country and, for a time, they were performing a coordinating function that was very effective. Based on indicators I’ve seen recently, I am not sure that is true anymore. In Illinois they seemed to have lost touch with the original intended purpose. I have seen a similar erosion of purpose in other states as well.

During the 70’s, prosecutors were reluctant to take on cases involving child sexual abuse because convictions were hard to get. That remains the situation today. Prosecutors often take plea deals that don’t involve the perpetrator admitting to a sex offense. Or, they agree to a less serious offense that has less jail time.

Social workers for DCFS and contract agencies remain ill equipped to handle any serious cases as they remain hamstrung by rules that prevent adequate triaging of the caseload. Often, then and now, they will spend more time on easy cases where parents and caretakers are cooperative, than they will on much more serious cases where the parents actively resist and evade the caseworkers.

You would think that at least the health care workers would be universally committed to the protection of children. Not always. They generally are pretty good at reporting suspected cases of abuse, at least physical abuse. But underage girls who are pregnant sometimes are not reported as victims of abuse, despite the prima facia evidence that the child was sexually abused. Children legally cannot give consent.

In some cases, health workers help arrange, or provide, abortions without notifying the police, DCFS or any other official.

This is also sometimes true when there is evidence boys have been sexually abused, and the boys refuse to cooperate.

No report.

When a case overcomes all the hurdles, and the prosecutor secures a conviction, there is no guarantee justice will be served. Too often, judges minimize the sentencing.

Recently, a teacher in Michigan engaged in sexual intercourse repeatedly over several months with her 13-year-old student. She was convicted of multiple counts of first-degree and third-degree criminal sexual conduct, for which she could have received life imprisonment. She was sentenced to 3 to 20 years. Period. She probably will be out much earlier. She’s not the only one. It’s the same as it was 50 years ago.

In the 70’s, one of our first cases involved a man who was sexually abusing a girl for three years, starting when she was 6. We got him cold on child pornography charges and he gave a full confession. He was sentenced to five years.

Pathetic.

Those immersed in the system know all this is true, but for one reason or another are not inclined to do anything about it. Those outside the system are largely oblivious, and very often want to remain ignorant.

This leaves our next generation condemned to evade the predators as best they can largely on their own. The consequences? More and more children will become victims of child sexual abuse. In thirty years maybe there will be 90 million adult survivors. By then, twenty five percent of us?

Unless we step up and start doing something much more effective, the numbers are going to keep growing.

(Next time, some things that are working and what you can do.)

Sexual Abuse of Children in Public Schools

In an excellent essay by journalist, Alex Newman published on January 5, 2022, entitled, Illinois Public Schools Battle Plague of Violence, Sexual Abuse, the author points out the deplorable scandal of children being physically and sexually abused in Illinois’ public schools. Another similar article ran on January 14, 2022.

The sexual abuse of children has been happening in Chicago’s public schools for years. Consider the Chicago Public School scandal that was exposed by the Chicago Tribune and others in August 2018. There were thousands of reports of sexual harassment (including many sexual assaults against children by school staff), in just one school year, in one city! Not only were there thousands of reports made to the Department of Child & Family Services (DCFS) of students suffering sexual harassment and abuse from other students and school faculty, during school hours, on public school property, but it was revealed DCFS didn’t even follow up on most of the reports (claiming they were understaffed and underfunded).

That certainly does not fit the narrative the media wants parents to believe: That public schools are safe havens against all child abuse. In fact, liberals often suggest that homeschooled students are at serious risk for abuse because they have no public school officials to watch over them and keep them safe.

They use this argument despite conclusive research that demonstrates that (1) there is absolutely no connection between the degree of state regulation of homeschooling and abuse of children, AND (2) the fact that students who are homeschooled are actually 257% LESS likely to be sexually abused than students who are in public schools! It truly baffles the mind that people want more regulation of homeschooling when it neither improves academic performance nor provides any additional protection for students.

According to the Chicago Tribune:

“The report describes how understaffed and underfunded CPS investigators struggled to process reports of potential sexual harassment, notifications sent to the Department of Children and Family Services, employee misconduct allegations and altercations between students and staff – thousands of reports during the 2016-17 school year alone.”

If we are to suppose this is the true state of DCFS, it would be the height of lunacy to suggest, as some liberal lawmakers have, that there should be mandatory home visits for all children who are not in a brick-and-mortar school to ensure they are not being abused. And suppose the state happened to find a situation here or there where some sort of abuse was occurring; what remedy would they seek? Sending them to a brick and mortar public school where abuse rates are the highest of all! These witch hunts against parents simply seek to deflect attention away from the greatest source of child sexual abuse, the public schools themselves, and divert resources from investigating the public schools where the majority of the physical and sexual abuse of these children is taking place.

When lawmakers and members of the media make these arguments, they reveal their bias: That parents cannot be trusted and government employees can. There are absolutely zero studies that support such a statist notion. To be clear, we are against all forms of child abuse and condemn it whenever and wherever it occurs. Sadly, abuse of children happens in every single sector of society, without exception. If anyone, including a parent, is truly abusing a child they should be prosecuted by the perfectly adequate child abuse laws that already exist in every state in America. No one should ever cover for abuse or seek to conceal it but should instead expose it. The problem is the exploitation of children is taking place every day (at a higher rate than almost any other sector in society) on government school campuses and it is being hidden by these very institutions who claim to care about and protect children the most. A November 19, 2019 article in Chalkbeat Chicago announced:

“Twelve employees and a volunteer at a school in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood had inappropriate relationships with students — including sexual abuse — or helped cover up that misconduct in a years-long ‘stunning’ and ‘colossal failure,’ Chicago Public Schools’ CEO announced Friday.”

That doesn’t even include the sexual perversion they are teaching children in the classroom through sex ed programs and even pipe virtually into homes through distance learning programs.

Many Public-School Teachers Send their Own Children to Private Schools

Here’s the dirty little secret liberals don’t want you to know. Those who shout the loudest for public schools often secretly avoid them. Consider that Barak Obama, when he lived in Chicago, sent his daughters to the elite University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. Likewise, Rahm Emmanuel also enrolled his son and two daughters in the U of C Lab Schools. Jesse Jackson (a supposed advocate of Chicago Public Schools) sent his sons, Jesse and Jonathan, out of the city of Chicago (out of the state actually!) to a prestigious boarding school called LeMans Academy in LaPorte, IN during their middle school years. And another boys’ boarding school in Washington, DC for high school.

Chicago’s first lesbian mayor, Lori Lightfoot, while pushing for Chicago residents to send their children to physical schools in the city, personally sends her adopted daughter, Vivian to Frances Xavier Warde Catholic Cathedral School.

This is true for many politicians. According to a survey by the Heritage Foundation:

“40 percent of those in the U.S. House of Representatives who have school-aged children, and 49 percent of those in the Senate who have school-aged children, send or have sent at least one of their children to private school.”

Only 11% of American students have traditionally attended private schools (and only 5% of black students). But one study revealed whopping 46% of all public school teachers in Chicago have sent their own children to private schools, and refused to send them to the very schools where they themselves teach! Why is this? They know better. They work there every day and unlike the naïve parents who close their eyes and choose to ignore the facts, hoping it will all work out okay, these teachers know what actually happens each day in the school. There is no way they want their own children exposed to that kind risk.

Now don’t get me wrong, I applaud them for making a better choice for their own children. However, I can’t applaud the hypocrisy of those who keep telling the average citizens to keep their children in the government schools. Honestly, would you eat at a restaurant where the employees refuse to eat? It’s time for anyone who cares about their children to perform a mass exodus and get their children out of these cesspools.

Mandated Vaccines & the “LGBTQ” Agenda

A troubling trend is occurring in Illinois. It has happened mostly in the background but has become visible with the introduction of two new proposed laws concerning vaccines. If these proposed laws were to take effect, vaccines would be mandated by the state without religious exception. In addition, these bills apply to public and private schools, including Christian private schools and homeschools. Especially egregious would be the mandate for children to receive the HPV vaccine, a vaccine to protect a person from a sexually transmitted disease. Furthermore, and perhaps even more shocking, if this legislation passes, 14-year-olds will be able to receive vaccines without parental consent.

This isn’t the only erosion of parental rights in Illinois. “Progressives” in the Illinois legislature are also seeking to “teach” our children their “good news” on sex. Desiring to mandate a new curriculum on sex and sexuality through two new sex ed bills, there is a concerted push to normalize behaviors and a worldview starting in kindergarten that is anti-Christian. This includes teaching that novel “gender expressions,” pre-marital and non-marital sex, and non-monogamous heterosexual families are moral goods. If these bills become law, your kids will be indoctrinated with a new sexual ethic that is entirely different from that which has been taught for two millennia.

In Illinois, minors can receive an abortion without parental consent with only a judicial waiver. According to the ACLU, no judicial waiver has ever been denied.

If a minor enters into the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), the state will provide “gender transitioning” medical treatment, mental health “LGBTQ” advocacy, and placement in “affirming” households whether or not the parents agree. On their website, DCFS states that every child deserves these “rights,” and that these rights include children not in the DCFS system. For now, the law stops them from imposing their worldview on non-DCFS kids. Unless the state’s expansive powers are stopped, it’s not hard to imagine something that should scare all of us. We are on a trajectory where children will be removed from their parents because the parents will not embrace a child’s decisions on his sexuality or “gender identity.”

There are other examples, but these should suffice to show you what Illinois believes. In a new school guidance report that was ordered by Gov. JB Pritzker, the authors assert that schools have an obligation to act as a parent. DCFS also calls itself a parent, and the judge permitting an abortion without parental consent is acting as a parent. The state of Illinois believes it has a stronger claim to parent your child than you do, but the state of Illinois is wrong.

Biological parents are almost always better situated to parent than the state. In his essay “Of Paternal Power,” John Locke has written the strongest and most enduring Judeo-Christian argument for the preeminence of parental rights in modern society.

Parents have the freedom to raise their children as they see fit because this freedom is from nature and is not a right given by the state. Locke writes that parents have “a power over their children and have as much right to their subjection as those who are in the state of Nature.”

For Locke, Nature is the order of creation, and natural laws flow from this order. One of Nature’s laws is that the couple who births a child is a “temporary government” for that child. In other words, in the same way an adult is subject to civil authorities, a child is subject to his parents while he is a minor. The state of Illinois is usurping one of the most fundamental relationships in human society. Its intervention is about the indoctrination of children with a leftist worldview that stands diametrically opposed to a Judeo-Christian worldview. In a state that has more corruption than it does farmland, the last responsibility it should have is the right to indoctrinate our children.

According to Locke, this “temporary government” is built upon parental obligations. The parents have freedom in raising their child because at the end of the day it is their responsibility to do so. Locke writes,

The power, then, that parents have over their children arises from that duty which is incumbent on them, to take care of their offspring during the imperfect state of childhood. To inform the mind, and govern the actions of their yet ignorant nonage, till reason shall take its place and ease them of that trouble … .

This includes the healthcare and education of the child. As a parent, I do not want my children exposed to “LGBTQ” ideology that normalizes what our faith says is sin. Based on science and common sense, “gender” isn’t a personal opinion or a subjective feeling. I will raise my children as the “gender” that is expressed in their sex; this is based on my understanding of gender being a gift from God and a revelation of the image of God in humanity.

My children are vaccinated, but I find it deeply offensive that Illinois would mandate a drug to prevent a sexually transmitted disease. The mandate gives sexual license to my children that I deeply disagree with. These legal mandates are the height of hubris. We must not give away our obligation to parent to the state. If it’s not obvious, Illinois has no idea what it is doing.

In the most serious error of the Illinois parental state, the child is being given adult rights without parental oversight. In what world can a minor be expected to make informed, rational decisions on deeply complex moral and life-changing choices? Locke writes,

Commonwealths themselves take notice of, and allow that there is a time when men are to begin to act like free men, and therefore, till that time, require not oaths of fealty or allegiance, or other public owning of, or submission to, the government of their countries.

Children are not required to act as adults because they are not adults. Children need parents. This is because, according to Locke, they are in the period of “ignorant nonage.” Parents make the decisions “till reason shall take its place and ease them of that trouble.”

The idea that the state would empower kids to decide on invasive medical procedures or embrace novel sexual expressions reveals a society collectively jumping off a cliff. By the very fact of being a child, they lack mature rationality and the ability to understand the effects of decisions, and they have an underdeveloped moral system. When the state intervenes, it interjects its opinions on life, sexuality, and marriage that are radically contradictory to a Christian view of the world. Such interventions are outrageous.

Dear parents in Illinois, please take notice of what is happening. Call your state lawmakers and Governor Pritzker to stop the two pieces of legislation concerning vaccines and the sex education legislation. Then, it’s time to take back parental rights. Our children are our responsibility. Their future, their faith and their well-being are dependent on us pushing back the intrusions of the state. It’s time for parents to fight for our children. Right now, the state is fighting harder for them.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your state senator and state representative to ask them to vote against these bills: SB 3788, HB 4870 and HB 5012. Impressionable students in public schools should not be exposed to body- and soul-destroying messages that promote leftist beliefs about sexuality.

THIS SATURDAY! IFI is hosting our annual Worldview Conference on March 7th at the Village Church of Barrington. This year’s conference is titled “Thinking Biblically About Our Corrosive Culture” and features Dr. Michael Brown and Dr. Rob Gagnon. For more information, please click HERE for a flyer or click the button below to register for the conference.

Illinois is making national news again, and again for destructive public policy.

In an act of stunningly brazen wickedness, foolishness, and hubris, the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services (DCFS) has made radical revisions to policies regarding children who experience homoerotic attraction and/or gender dysphoria.

The DCFS, controlled—like every other government agency in Illinois—by ignorant “progressives,” has declared war on children and potential foster and adoptive families by changing rules to make affirmation of children’s homoerotic attraction and/or sexual confusion an absolute condition for employment, fostering or adopting, volunteering, or contracting with the DCFS.

Last night, DCFS director George Sheldon–Rauner’s pick in 2015–resigned, becoming the 8th director or acting director to leave the DCFS in the past five years. Sheldon leaves while still a subject of an ethics investigation and while the DCFS faces sustained and intensifying criticism for actions that have resulted in incomprehensible suffering for and even deaths of children under their care. In the midst of this turmoil, DCFS bureaucrats see fit to make radical rules changes that will further harm children.

If you can stomach it, read Appendix K of the DCFS procedures document titled “Support and Well-Being of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) Children and Youth.” It promotes every doctrinaire and arguable assumption of the far Left’s sacred sexuality ideology and even includes a Leftist lexicon for use in their indoctrination efforts.

Appendix K includes the following:

1.)  A statement of purpose which mandates that everyone who works directly or indirectly with or for the DCFS—including all staff, volunteers, potential foster or adoptive families, and private agencies that contract with the DCFS—must affirm the homoerotic desires and/or biological sex-rejection of children under the care of DCFS (and I use the word “care” loosely).

2.)  Directives on how the DCFS will impose Leftist beliefs about homoeroticism and biological sex-rejection,  including through “mandatory training in LGBTQ competency. Specifically, LGBTQ training will be part of the retraining Child Welfare license, will be included as part of PRIDE training, and will be included in DCFS core training. DCFS and POS staff must complete additional, mandatory standalone LGBTQ training at least once per year. Agencies must include LGBTQ training in their training of volunteers. Annual training in LGBTQ competent care is required for all child welfare providers; whether or not they believe they have care for [sic] or currently care for any LGBTQ child/youth.”

3.)  Dictionary of Leftist sacred sexuality Newspeak, including the terms asexuality, bisexual, cisgender, coming out, culturally competent, gay, gender expansive, gender expression, gender identity, lesbian, LGBTQ, “preferred gender pronoun (PGP),” queer, “sex assigned at birth,” and transgender.

4.)  A directive on child placement which emphasizes in boldface that “In no instance should LGBTQ children/youth be placed with a non-affirming caregiver who is opposed to sexual orientations that differ from the caregiver’s own. Nor should LGBTQ children and youth be placed with caregivers who are unwilling/unable to support children and youth whose gender identity or gender expression differs from traditional expectation.”

5.)  A directive for caregivers on “choice of clothes, make-up, hairstyle, friends, and activities within appropriate boundaries (e.g., if a caregiver permits a cisgender heterosexual child/youth to date at a certain age, the caregiver may not prohibit a gay or transgender child/youth from dating). The child/youth’s chosen name and preferred gender pronoun (including gender-neutral pronouns such as “they” or “ze/hir”) must be respected.”

6.)  Advice regarding school restroom and locker room usage: “[T]ransgender students have the right to use the gendered school facilities (e.g., restrooms and locker rooms) that correspond to the student’s gender identity. Caseworkers and caregivers should assist children/youth in obtaining their school’s permission to use these facilities.” To help caregivers force schools to allow gender-dysphoric students into opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms, the DCFS refers them to two of Illinois’ most vigorous promoters of sexual deviance: the ACLU and Illinois Safe Schools Alliance.

7.) A directive on body searches that states that “If a DCFS child/youth is to be body searched, cross-gender searches of transgender youth are prohibited. The child/youth most be searched by someone of the same gender as the child/youth’s gender identity unless the child/youth requests otherwise.” To clarify, this means that if a girl who identifies as a boy must be body-searched, the search must be conducted by a man—unless she objects because, you know, she’s actually a girl.

These changes are rationalized by the DCFS as serving the welfare of self-identified “LGBTQ” children. In the view of DCFS, these children cannot flourish unless their homoerotic desires or rejection of their sex is affirmed. In the view of DCFS, safety requires non-judgmentalism—well, except for their judgmentalism that permeates these changes and which, like arsenic in a cup of tea, is undetectable and lethal.

This is a government experiment based on Leftist theories being performed on children who can neither understand what is being done to them nor offer informed consent. And we taxpayers are footing the bill for an experiment that harms children.

The DCFS evidently doesn’t see the irony in its command that “Staff may not impose personal, organizational or religious beliefs on LGBTQ children, youth and families, and in no way should personal beliefs impact the way individual needs of children/youth or families are met.”

The entirety of the DCFS changes constitutes the imposition of arguable, leftist “personal and organizational beliefs” on children, youth, and families that will “impact the way the individual needs of children and youth are met.” The fact that the DCFS is imposing a set of beliefs through policy is revealed in its absurd, reality-denying reference to a “child/youth’s sex assigned at birth.” That is Leftist language. No child is “assigned” a sex at birth. The objective sex of children is identified at birth, and that sex can never change.

There is no research proving that children are best served by having gender dysphoria affirmed. The best research to date suggests that if gender dysphoria is not affirmed in young children, it diminishes over time. Do the omniscient powers that be at the DCFS believe it’s better for children to endure castration or double mastectomies, a lifetime of cross-sex hormone-doping with its unknown health risks, and social struggles than to accept their immutable sex? And do these government bureaucrats know with absolute certainty that when children experience a mismatch between their bodies and their subjective, internal sense of being male or female that the error rests with their healthy bodies?

Quite obviously, these changes preclude people of theologically orthodox Christian faith from fostering or adopting children who experience same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria. Denying people of theologically orthodox faith the opportunity to foster or adopt these children constitutes the antithesis of a commitment to diversity and puts the lie to DCFS’s claim to care about the needs of children. The number of available foster and adoptive families for these children who are in desperate need of love, guidance, and wisdom, will decrease. Children will be deprived of truly good families, families with mothers and fathers who can distinguish truth from falsehood. Through these changes, the DCFS has proven that the desires of adults supersede the needs of suffering children.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact Governor Rauner, your state senator, and state representative to express your opposition to the outrageous revisions made by the DCFS, which impose a far left-wing sexuality ideology under the cover of a purported effort to help children. In reality, these revisions harm children and families who would otherwise be willing and able to foster and adopt children who struggle with issues related to sexuality.

Listen to this as a podcast HERE.

Recent articles by Laurie Higgins:

Birth Certificates and the Cultural Extinction of Biological Sex

Questions About Restrooms and Locker Rooms Leftists Must Answer

“Trans”-Cultism and Sex-Selection Abortions

Dove Ad Features Real Dad Pretending to Be Real Mom

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Three of Illinois’ Catholic dioceses have decided to drop their lawsuits against the State of Illinois regarding the termination of foster care and adoption services contracts with their Catholic Charities affiliates.

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services announced that it was revoking its contracts with the Catholic agencies because they refused to place children with same-sex and cohabiting “couples.”  The state action followed passage by the Illinois Legislature of a new law legalizing same-sex “civil unions.”

The bishops of the Springfield, Joliet, and Belleville dioceses announced they were abandoning their legal action against the state because of the financial toll involved.

“The decision not to pursue further appeals was reached with great reluctance, but was necessitated by the fact that the State of Illinois has made it financially impossible for our agencies to continue to provide these services,” says Belleville Bishop Edward Braxton.  “Since we now need to close offices and lay off employees, further appeals would be moot.”

Catholic officials estimate that the state’s decision will affect approximately 1500 foster children.  “While the State has forced the Catholic Church out of state-supported foster care and adoption services, the losers will be the children, foster care families, and adoptive parents who will no longer have the option of Catholic, faith-based services,” the bishops said in a joint statement.

However, the bishops also noted:  “The silver lining of this decision is that our Catholic Charities agencies going forward will be able to focus on being more Catholic and more charitable, while less dependent on government funding and intrusive state policies.”