While many Republicans are celebrating Tulsi Gabbard’s exit from the destructive Democrat Party, Illinois Family Institute is taking a wait-and-see approach to yet another political incarnation of Gabbard. While rejecting the Democrat Party and its baleful policies is always a good thing, not every exit from the Democrat Party constitutes an embrace of conservative principles.

Two decades ago, Gabbard rightly opposed the legal recognition of homosexual relationships as marriages. Later, as a Democrat, she issued not one but two groveling apologies for her prior conservative views on marriage. Here is her most recent apology released in Jan. 2019 when she began her failed quest to be the Democrat candidate for president:

In my past I said and believed things that were wrong, and worse, they were very hurtful to people in the LGBTQ community and to their loved ones. Many years ago, I apologized for my words and, more importantly, for the negative impact that they had. I sincerely repeat my apology today. I’m deeply sorry for having said them.

My views have changed significantly since then, and my record in Congress over the last six years reflects what is in my heart: a strong and ongoing commitment to fighting for LGBTQ rights. …

I … grew up in a socially conservative household where I was raised to believe that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. … While many Americans may be able to relate to growing up in a conservative home, my story is a little different because my father was very outspoken. He was an activist who was fighting against gay rights and marriage equality in Hawai‘i, and at that time I forcefully defended him and his cause.

…

When we deny LGBTQ people the basic rights that exist for every American, we’re denying their humanity denying that they are equal. We’re also creating a dangerous environment that breeds discrimination and violence. Because when we divide people based on who they are, or who they love, all we’re doing is adding fuel to the flames that perpetuate bigotry and hatred. I’m so grateful to my friends, my loved ones, both gay and straight, who have patiently helped me see how my past positions … were causing people harm. I regret the role that I played in causing such pain, and I remain committed to fighting for LGBTQ equality.

Again, for the dull of mind, homosexuals always had the right to marry, just as polyamorous people, sibling lovers, and “minor-attracted persons” have a right to marry today. Homosexuals were legally unable to marry people of the same sex, just as consensual non-monogamists can’t marry multiple people, sibling lovers can’t marry their siblings, and pedophiles can’t marry minors. What homosexuals sought was the unilateral right to redefine in law the parameters of marriage. (And now, polyamorists are doing likewise.)

Does Gabbard want to “divide people based on” their love for multiple people, or close blood relatives, or minors? Does she want to add “fuel to the flames that perpetuate bigotry” against consensual non-monogamists, incestuous couples, or adults who love children? Does she want to deny that they are equal? Does she want to hurt them and their loved ones by continuing to exclude them from legally marrying the person or persons they love?

Someone should pose those questions to Gabbard.

In addition to throwing her father under the political bus driving her ambition, Gabbard said that by opposing the legal redefinition of marriage, conservatives deny “LGB” and “T” people their humanity and that conservatives create a dangerous, discriminatory, violent, bigoted, and hateful environment. Now that she’s no longer a Democrat, let’s see how she zigs and zags her way out of that rhetorical ugliness aimed straight at conservatives.

From the website Vote Smart, Americans can learn a boatload of information about Gabbard that may surprise them.

For example, they will learn that Gabbard is a strident advocate for abortion who said,

The very real possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned terrifies me. I am sick of women’s bodies being used as pawns so politicians can score cheap political points at the expense of their freedom and safety. I am wholly committed to abortion remaining safe, legal and rare. We must commit to defending a woman’s right to choose.

Vote Smart cites Gabbard’s office boasting about her human slaughter bona fides:

Tulsi has a 100% voting record with both Planned Parenthood and NARAL. Tulsi is committed to defending a woman’s right to choose, which government has no place infringing on.

More questions for Gabbard:

If humans in the womb are fair game for extermination, if they have so little intrinsic worth that powerful humans can order their deaths for any or no reason, then why should abortion be rare?

If, on the other hand, humans in the womb are, indeed, humans with, therefore, intrinsic worth, why should abortion be legal?

And if the right of a woman to control her reproduction comes into direct conflict with a less-developed human’s right to exist, which right does Gabbard believe is a right of a higher moral order?

Gabbard’s compassion and sense of justice don’t seem to extend either to the unborn or to citizens and illegals who are suffering on our southern border due to our de facto open border. Vote Smart reports that Gabbard opposes the construction of a wall along the Mexican border and opposes requiring illegal immigrants to return to their country of origin before becoming eligible for citizenship.

Conservatives may want to ask Gabbard if her views on gun issues have changed since her office released this statement in 2018:

Tulsi … has long called for reinstating a federal ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, requiring comprehensive pre-purchase background checks, closing the gun-show loophole, and making sure that terrorists are not allowed to buy guns. Tulsi has an F-rating from the NRA, a 0% rating by the Hawaii Rifle Association, and a 100% rating by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Then there are Gabbard’s troubling statements on energy production, which would put a smile on the clucking faces of climate Chicken Littles everywhere—if chickens could smile:

I also support a ban on fracking, ending the $26 billion/year in fossil fuel subsidies, ban offshore drilling … and ban all subsidies or waivers to the nuclear power industry.

Gabbard’s political shapeshifting may point more to the presence of political ambition than to principled conservative convictions. We’ll just have to wait and see.

PragerU, Christopher Rufo, and Blaze TV publicly congratulated Dave Rubin and the man to whom he is legally married on the impending births of two babies via two surrogates. With friends like that, conservatives don’t need enemies.

They’re not alone. Matt Whitlock, senior advisor for communications and digital at the National Republican Senatorial Committee and volunteer faculty member at the Leadership Institute, which “teaches conservatives of all ages how to succeed in politics, government, and the media,” also congratulated Rubin.

And both Meghan McCain and Megyn Kelly enthusiastically congratulated Rubin and his faux-husband. That’s not surprising in that both women are long-time enthusiastic activists for the cause of normalizing homosexuality. While no one will be surprised by their “LGBTQ” “progressivism,” we should be troubled because McCain identifies as a Republican and “lifelong conservative,” and Kelly identifies as a Catholic. Conservatives ought not be indifferent to the presence of “LGBTQ” collaborators within the GOP or the church. They are corrupting both the Republican Party and the church from within.

How many leaders in the GOP, Republican members of Congress, or members of the pundit class who identify as conservative are willing to say that no one is entitled to a baby?

How many will say babies are not commodities? How many will say genetic material ought not be bought and sold?

How many will say babies deserve and have a right to both a mother and a father, preferably the man and woman who produced them?

Who will say publicly that it’s wrong for women to rent out their bodies, and it’s wrong for anyone to pay women for the use of their bodies for the illicit project of gestating a baby?

Who in the GOP will say that if two men (or women) reject true marriage in favor of a naturally—that is, by design—non-reproductive relationship, they should live with the consequences? Sodomy is not equivalent to sexually complementary intercourse. And by design, sodomitic mimicry of intercourse is non-reproductive. All efforts to mimic intercourse and to obtain the fruit of such unions–including shopping for eggs as Rubin shared he did–by homosexuals are morally repugnant and selfish.

While the desire to procreate is natural and good, it is unnatural and evil to reject the procreative act as ordained by God for marriage and then demand its fruits.

In describing his exit from the Democrat Party, Dave Rubin has in the past cited the intolerance of the left as his reason. With some true conservative Twitter commenters criticizing Rubin’s selfish pursuit of his own desires at the expense of the needs of the children he is acquiring, some leftists are suggesting that such criticism reveals the intolerance of conservatives. Evidently, they don’t understand the meaning of “tolerance” or the claims of conservatives.

First, tolerance refers to enduring or putting up with something one finds objectionable. Tolerance does not mean affirmation, approval, or celebration.

Second, membership in the GOP or in the kingdom of God necessarily entails holding principled convictions. Both groups hold principled views on what constitutes the good. They hold views on which acts should be prescribed or proscribed, tolerated or not tolerated, celebrated or denounced. While Christians and conservatives must forbear the expression of the view that homosexuals make “good parents,” we are entitled to say—and should say—that children need, want, and deserve a mother and father.

While all children are blessings to those who raise them, not all family structures are blessings to children. Being a kind, loving person is necessary but not alone sufficient to be a good parent. Being able to provide materially for a child is necessary but not alone sufficient to be a good parent. Choosing to embrace a homosexual identity, choosing a person of the same sex as an erotic/romantic partner makes one a poor parent notwithstanding any admirable qualities.

If all that were necessary and sufficient to make a good parent were the ability to love and provide materially for a child, then society should affirm sibling unions. And to be logically and morally consistent, anyone who celebrates the purchase of two babies by not-in-reality-married Dave Rubin should celebrate the purchase of babies by close-kin lovers.

Those who claim to be Republican or conservative and either celebrate Dave Rubin’s baby acquisitions or refuse to criticize his actions are harming the GOP, the conservative movement, the church, children, and America.

Cultural commentator Allie Beth Stuckey once said, “if conservatives aren’t willing to conserve the most fundamental fact of life—the reality of male and female—then we’re not conserving anything.” The same goes for the most fundamental natural institution: the nuclear family, central to which is a mother and father.

If conservatives don’t stand boldly and perseveringly for true marriage and the rights of children, choosing instead cowardly or foolish genuflection to Log Cabin Republicans and Republicans obsessed with fiscal matters, the GOP will become unworthy of support.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Celebrate-Gay-Libertarian-Dave-Rubins-Purchase-of-Two-Babies.mp3

Written by Ryan Scott Bomberger

I’m half white and half black. My melanin doesn’t change my worth or my propensity to sin. Yet we live in a culture where we are told that our skin color confers upon us a status that is fixed, assigned by an elite class of humans who call themselves “scholars.” They want us to see everything through the broken lens of “race”—a human construct that has only served to dehumanize us throughout history. As a person with brown skin, I reject my assigned “status” and refuse to see everything through that distorted prism.

It leads to blindness.

Instead, I choose to see through the breakthrough filter of Scripture that opens our eyes to the truth of our identity, the perfect bond of love, our oneness through Christ, and the freedom of forgiveness. Our human condition, and the frailty that marks us, can never be illuminated by the darkness of tattered theories.

And that’s exactly what Critical Race Theory (CRT) is.

How can a theory derived from anti-Semites who were virulent racists hell-bent on abolishing the family and religion bring healing to the sin of racism? Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels saw Christianity as an impediment to their socialist ideology. How can a godless theory be used as an “analytical tool” to address issues needing a Godly solution?

I’m particularly irked by Christians who don’t want the struggle of wrestling with solutions but simply hop aboard the latest bandwagon sponsored by an insanely profitable victimhood industry. Racism is evil as is every other sin known to humankind. Sin diminishes and destroys us. It is a brokenness that cannot be remedied by more brokenness. But for many, the goal is not to offer a solution but a continual subscription.

Famed educator and leader Booker T. Washington, a former slave, explained this industry well on page 144 of his book “My Larger Education”:

“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”

Today, that class of people is of varying hues and NY Times bestsellers capitalize on a form of activism that seeks to divide us, erase equality, and offer forced redistribution in the form of “equity”. Dr. Carol Swain, the brilliant former (black) professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University, offers a helpful definition of Critical Race Theory:

“Critical race theory is an analytical framework to analyze institutions and culture. Its purpose is to divide the world into white oppressors and non-white victims. Instead of traditional forms of knowledge, it holds up personal narratives of marginalized minority “victim” groups (blacks, Hispanics, Asians) as evidence (considered irrefutably by its nature) of the dishonesty of their mostly white heterosexual oppressors.”

As someone who is “biracial,” I’m both the “oppressed” and the “oppressor.” Through no fault of my own, since no one controls the circumstances of his or her conception, I’m foisted into perpetual perplexity simply based on the sins or the sufferings of my lineage. Just to further illustrate the absurdity of this deeply prejudiced CRT approach to classification, I can simply highlight my own origin story. I was conceived in rape. So, am I responsible for my (black) biological father’s heinous act? Of course not. Interestingly, my white father—who chose to adopt and love ten children (of varying beautiful hues) that other men abandoned—is branded as part of the “white supremacist patriarchy” that is guilty of every negative outcome of black Americans. My dad, Henry Bomberger, recently passed away. The only legacy he left behind was one of unconditional love and self-sacrifice. His devotion to us proved that it’s not color that binds us; it’s love.

Despite Scripture’s insistence on the unity of believers and how Christ makes us one (Galatians 3:28), CRT diabolically separates us using the deeply flawed human construct of race. Ironically, in a culture that rejects the science of binary gender the progressive priests of CRT demand we can only be the “oppressed” or the “oppressors”. How nihilistic. It also preaches perpetual “guilt” and undeserved “privilege” based solely on one’s skin color.

Fake guilt will never erase real problems.

As Christians, we are all privileged to know and worship a God who could’ve merely condemned us but chose to redeem and rescue us (John 3:16-17). We are privileged to no longer be slaves to sin (Romans 6:6). We are privileged, through Christ’s strength, to be more than conquerors (Romans 8:37).

The Bible tells us to no longer conform to the pattern of this world in Romans 12:2, yet this is exactly what we do when we embrace the warped worldliness of CRT. Blame, Deceive, Repeat. This destructive pattern is recognizable throughout Scripture. Satan is the accuser, and he constantly coaxes us to embrace the lie instead of the Light.

CRT is a debilitating disease. Its malignancy in the body of Christ is spread by pastors who don’t believe the Word is enough. Some of these leaders apparently think the World has the answers to the temporal and eternal devastation of sin.

Mainstream media gave voice to a handful of black pastors who support using CRT and several who left a major denomination over it. Pastor Charlie Dates, of the Progressive Baptist Church in Chicago, exited the Southern Baptist Convention over SBC Seminary presidents’ rejection of Critical Race Theory, despite their clear denouncements of the sin of racism. I thoroughly agree with their statement. I’m not a Southern Baptist, so I have no interest in defending a denomination but merely want to uphold the Truth. Pastor Dates, who embraces unbiblical Black Liberation Theology and the Black Lives Matter movement, issued a defiant (and historically challenged) OpEd sharply condemning those who oppose CRT. He claims the rejection of CRT is due to “fear of liberalism.” I don’t fear liberalism. I wholeheartedly disagree with it because of its dependence on deception and division. Dates strangely then attributed certain social movements to “liberalism” (aka the Democrat Party) such as abolition, women’s suffrage, and civil rights. On all three, Republicans led the fight. But CRT and its advocates value feelings far more than facts.

I don’t think there’s any more eloquent a pastor speaking about cultural issues and Biblical authority than Pastor Voddie Baucham. As a black adoptive father, he embodies what many Christians should aspire toward—Godly character and critical thinking. He exposes and denounces CRT—not with emotionalism (like Pastor Charlie Dates) but with factualism.

Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw, credited as a co-founder of “Critical Race Theory” (of course, derived from Marxist Critical Theory) is a leading proponent of this poison. Never mind this accomplished black woman was the recipient of Ivy League education at Cornell and Harvard Law School. But, you know, systemic racism. She sees it in everything…well except the abortion industry which massively and disproportionately kills black lives. Crenshaw, who is radically pro-abortion, pro-LGBT, anti-nuclear family and denies the clearly evident consequences of fatherlessness, blames racism for everything that victimizes black people and other “marginalized” groups. Her organization, the African American Policy Council, is holding an event on April 29th featuring Crenshaw, Brad Sears (Executive Director of UCLA’s dubious and radically pro-LGBT The Williams Institute) and Planned Parenthood’s President, Alexis McGill Johnson, as keynote speakers.

But sure, let’s use Critical Race Theory—an ideology that is hostile to Christianity in countless ways—as a means by which Christians should see the world. CRT activists claim to fight for justice but regularly reject truth and morality. Psalm 89:14 says: “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne. Mercy and truth go before Your face.” You cannot have justice without mercy (the compassion or forgiveness toward an offender) and truth. To ignore this is to welcome a cancer instead of the cure.

This article was originally published at TheRadianceFoundation.org.

Join us in Collinsville on Saturday, May 22nd for an IFI Worldview Conference about CRT!

The dust that racist bullies tried to kick in the face of the honorable U.S. Senator Tim Scott for his crime of delivering a far superior speech in response to Biden’s lackluster recitation before a sparsely attended joint session of Congress has not quite settled.

In addition to delivering a poignant, inspiring speech, Sen. Scott committed the crime of rejecting the dogma spewed by leftists who detest tolerance, inclusivity, and free-thinking—especially from blacks whom they desperately need to keep chained to the Democrat Party.

In order to malign Sen. Scott, MSNBC’s oft-deceitful Joy Reid had to misrepresent what he said. In a scornful tone, she imitated Scott, saying, “This isn’t a racist country. There’s no racism here.”

The first problem is Sen. Scott never said, “There’s no racism here.” He said America is not a racist country—big difference that apparently escaped Reid.

America is constituted and defined centrally by the principles delineated in our founding documents—documents which assume the existence of God–and Americans can be justifiably evaluated in terms of how they align with those principles. The Left is now moving America at a precipitous pace away from the Constitution and God and toward racism and other forms of oppression.

Since there are racists in every country in the world, and racist acts—including speech acts—are committed in every country in the world, does Reid believe every country in the world is racist?

There are liars in this country (including at MSNBC and CNN) and every other country. Does that, in Reid’s view, make America and every other country lying countries? In Reid’s view, are MSNBC and CNN lying companies?

There are lazy people in this and every other country. Does that make America and every other country lazy countries?

There are egregiously selfish people in this and every other country. Does that make America and every other country egregiously selfish countries?

There are lawless anarchists who loot and burn private businesses in America. Is America, therefore, a lawless, anarchical country?

Joe Biden said America is not a racist country, and Kamala Harris said Americans are not racists. In Reid’s view, are they racists?

“Progressives” have spewed virulently racist comments at Sen. Scott in the hours and days since his response. In Reid’s view, is “progressivism” racist?

Not to be outdone by Reid in the creepy racism department, MSNBC host Tiffany Cross described the “inside” of Sen. Scott’s head as “hollow,” asserting that he represents “no one but the sleepy, slow-witted sufferers of Stockholm syndrome who get elevated to prominence for repeating a false narrative about this country that makes conservative white people feel comfortable.” Cross called him Mitch McConnell’s “tap dancer,” and a “token” who is “thirsty for white approval.”

That’s rhetoric that would make a KKK grand wizard smile.

Cross claimed that when blacks speak “an uncomfortable truth, like Nikole Hannah-Jones [author of the 1619 Project], the party that Scott claims is not racist gets big mad and tries to silence you.” Her evidence for the outlandish claim that Republicans try to silence black “progressives” was that “Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell asked Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to scrap teaching of the 1619 Project.” Perfect encapsulation of the “progressive” belief that their freedom to do (or have) anything requires government subsidization.

Not using tax dollars or providing federal support for a particular curriculum does not constitute silencing it. And Republicans don’t object to the 1619 Project being taught in government schools because it articulates “uncomfortable” truths. They object to it because it’s a biased load of propaganda that many historians—including historians of color—find historically inaccurate.

While we digest the unsavory tripe that racist “progressives” are force-feeding us, trying to gaslight Americans into believing the freest, least racist country in the history of the world is “systemically racist,” let’s ruminate on a few questions.

Which political party supports the sale and purchase of humans (or genetic material to create humans)?

Which party separates children from mothers or fathers?

Which party declares some humans to be non-persons?

Which party denies children the freedom to go to good schools?

Which party tries to command persons of color what to think and say?

Which party is obsessed with skin color, averring that skin color matters more than character?

Are “progressives” like Reid and Cross concerned about the disproportionate number of black babies being slaughtered in their mothers’ wombs every year? Black Arizona State Representative Walt Blackman sure is:

Abortion impacts African Americans at a higher rate than any other population group. In 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released an Abortion Surveillance Report. According to that report, black women make up 14 percent of the childbearing population. Yet, 36 percent of all abortions were obtained by black women. At a ratio of 474 abortions per 1,000 live births, black women have the highest ratio of any group in the country. …

A study by Protecting Black Lives, in 2012, found that 79 percent of Planned Parenthood’s surgical abortion facilities are located within walking distance of minority communities.

In the past, we criticized the tobacco industry for targeting young people with their advertising. Recently, the nicotine vape industry has been criticized for similar practices. The prevalence of abortion providers in African American and Hispanic neighborhoods indicates the abortion industry is targeting too. It smacks of the eugenics-linked past of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger and her views of contraception and abortion as ways of diminishing the black population.

What do Reid and Cross call “progressive” support for the killing of black babies? What do they call “progressive” support for Planned Parenthood, which plants most of its abattoirs in the heart of black communities? What do they call “progressive” endorsement of fatherless families and the policies that incentivize them when studies show one of the chief predictors of success is being raised in a home with a father? What do they call “progressive” refusal to offer school choice to disadvantaged families of color? What do they call it when “progressives” teach children of one skin color that children of another skin color are “lesser than”? What do they call it when “progressives” hurl the epithet “Uncle Tim” at a black man for thinking freely?

I call the whole stinking mess systemic racism.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/systemicRacismProgressives_mixdown.mp3

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This is how it’s going down, my friends—the eradication of speech rights for conservatives, that is. The stage was set years ago when “hate speech” laws were passed.

The Left argues that any rhetoric that is or may be in any distant way at any time related to acts of violence should be banned. So, if I say that volitional homosexual acts and relationships are abhorrent to God as Scripture teaches, and a lone, crazed, alienated, Godless sociopath or a few hundred alienated fatherless, Godless anarchists—people who may or may not have read my words—commit acts of heinous violence against homosexuals—my words should be banned. Of course, the banning of my words necessarily requires the banning of God’s Word as well as the words of any theologically orthodox Christian since the inception of the church.

If I say that humans born with healthy, normally functioning penises are male and can never be female, and some man deceived into having sex with a man who pretends to be a woman kills the deceiver, my expression of a moral proposition must be banned.

When Lila Rose, founder of the pro-life organization Live Action, tweeted, “Abortion is violence,” abortionist Dr. Leah Torres tweeted back this:

This is violent rhetoric. It is objectively false and meant to incite others to commit crimes against clinics, patients, and health care providers. This is what domestic terrorism looks like.

Note the three arguable claims Torres makes: 1. She says Rose’s claim is false, 2. She says Rose’s claim is meant to incite others to commit violent crimes, 3. She says Rose’s tweet constitutes domestic terrorism. How convenient that those claims are precisely the type of claims leftists now say are not protected by the First Amendment. See how that works?

Torres is also the author of this since-deleted tweet:

You know fetuses can’t scream, right? I transect the cord [first] so there’s really no opportunity, if they’re even far enough along to have a larynx.

She later claimed the “cord” was not referring to babies’ vocal cords but, rather, to their umbilical cords. So much better. So much less violent.

Those with eyes to see recognize that leftists are using their special skill in manipulating language—also known as sophistry—to turn good into evil and protected speech into violence requiring censorship.

Leftists argue that saying the election was “stolen” should be banned because some far-right anarchists who hold similar views engaged in violence. Therefore, a few words about the phrase “stolen election”—the newest bugbear used by dishonest leftists to crush the civil rights of conservatives—are in order.

The claim that “an election was stolen”—you know, like Hillary Clinton has claimed for four years—means that an election lacked integrity. Some may claim it was stolen via, for example, Russian interference, or algorithmic manipulation, or ballot-harvesting, or voting irregularities regarding signatures, or unconstitutional changes in election requirements, or the counting of late ballots, or Big Tech’s censorship of the Biden crime family’s corruption that likely affected votes, or dead people voting, or a combination of shady acts by shady actors. Someone needs to tell the liars and paranoiacs in the Democrat Party that the term “stolen election” is not a code word for “attack the Capitol.”

If, however, “stolen election” is a secret code word used to initiate violent lawlessness, then surely Hillary Clinton should be thrown in the slammer—a lot. Here are two of her many seditionist/insurrectionist statements:

You can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you.

and,

[T]here was a widespread understanding that this election [in 2016] was not on the level. We still don’t know what really happened. … you don’t win by 3 million votes and have all this other shenanigans and stuff going on and not come away with an idea like, “Whoa, something’s not right here.

The fact that her alleged attempts to incite insurrection and/or sedition failed shouldn’t matter. The law prohibits even attempts to incite insurrection or sedition.

Trump and many other Americans said the election was “stolen” in the sense that myriad dubious acts took place that cast doubt on the fairness and integrity of the election. Some anarchists—angry about a boatload of corrosive leftist words and deeds, including election malfeasance—breached the Capitol. Therefore, leftists argue, anyone who attended the pro-Trump protest or voted for Trump must be banned from all social media, kicked out of elected office, lose their private sector jobs, or never be hired. Social media newbie Parler must lose all access to the Internet. Americans must lose their medical insurance and recording contracts.

Via a Royal Proclamation, Randall Lane, Forbes Magazine editor, has threatened to harm any company that hires Kayleigh McEnany, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kellyanne Conway, Stephanie Grisham, or Sean Spicer—Trump’s former press secretaries:

Let it be known to the business world: Hire any of Trump’s fellow fabulists above, and Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie. We’re going to scrutinize, double-check, investigate with the same skepticism we’d approach a Trump tweet. Want to ensure the world’s biggest business media brand approaches you as a potential funnel of disinformation? Then hire away.

He actually wrote, “Let it be known.” Can the left get any more arrogant and oppressive? Rhetorical question.

Trump (again, like Hillary before him) and many decent, law-abiding citizens claimed the election was “stolen.” Some far-right anarchists also believe the election was stolen. Those far-right anarchists stormed the Capitol. Ergo, in the mad, mad, mad, mad world of cynical leftists, Trump is responsible for the storming of the Capitol. Anyone who attended the protest is responsible for the violence—including even those grandmas who abhor violence and didn’t know the violence was happening. Anyone who has prepared food for Trump is responsible because they helped sustain the life of a man who caused a 90-minute seditious violent protest. Anyone who sold food to anyone who prepared food is responsible for the violence. And any of Trump’s kids’ college friends who may have met Trump and thought he was not Hitler is responsible for the violence—obviously.

So, why aren’t YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter being tossed off the Internet, since all were used to organize both the Capitol riots and the BLM riots of 2020?

Why isn’t Kamala Harris who didn’t condemn BLM violence until late August, three months after it began, being accused of fomenting violence?

When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi waited until three months after the BLM riots began to condemn them, did she facilitate violence and property destruction through her silence?

What about Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the inaccurate, leftist 1619 Project, who said in the middle of the BLM riots that “Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence.” Was she guilty of inciting more property-destruction?

The goal of leftists isn’t really to prevent violence. Appeals to thwarting violence are merely stratagems for preventing the dissemination of ideas leftists hate. They must link ideas they hate to violence in order to undermine foundational American principles. How do I know? Because the linguistic ground is shifting. We are now hearing calls for banning or “reining in” “disinformation,” “misinformation,” and discourse that “harms,” because—the argument goes—such information may lead to violence.

AOC recently said,

We’re going to have to figure out how we rein in our media environment so that you can’t just spew disinformation and misinformation.

So, who determines what constitutes “disinformation and misinformation”? Remember Dr. Leah Torres calling Lila Rose’s statement “false”—in other words, disinformation or misinformation? And remember when just before the election CNN asserted—without conducting any investigation—that the New York Post story about Hunter and Joe Biden was “disinformation,” and then conveniently, after the election, declared it a legitimate news story?

If leftist rhetoric about violence, disinformation, misinformation, harm, and hate leads eventually to imprisonment of dissidents—i.e., conservatives—no problem. All conservatives need to do to avoid the inconvenience of imprisonment or “enlightenment camps” is agree with Big Brother, take some Soma, burn some books, and shut up.

At least leftist rhetoric won’t lead to violence—will it?

The arc of the shady leftist universe is long, convoluted, and bends toward injustice, tyranny, and a senile old man who’s shuffling around looking for his moral compass and a milkshake.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/audio_Leftists-Exploit-Violence-to-Cancel-Conservatives-.mp3

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Written by Ryan P. Burge, Eastern Illinois University

It’s become almost a trope at this point among people who study and write about American religion and politics – evangelicals punch way above their weight. Their voter turnout has stayed relatively steady despite their drop in population share. But, I was working through some data today and noticed something that I don’t think that I’ve seen reported on much – atheists are incredibly politically active – more so than any other religious group.

The Cooperative Congressional Election Survey asks a series of questions about political activity in the last 12 months. Respondents simply answer yes or no to each of the six. Here are the results from the 2018 data.

In all six scenarios, atheists are right near the top in likelihood to participate. A quarter attended a march or protest compared to just 4.4% of white evangelicals. Four in ten atheists have contacted a public official or donated money to a candidate. That’s tied with Jews, but is much higher than most Christian groups in the sample. Agnostics are not far behind, either. They usually trail atheists but just a few percentage points for each of the political actions.

I know that atheists have high levels of income and about 45% have a four-year college degree, so SES might explain one of the reasons that they are so politically active. So I put together a simple model with a few controls for race, gender, and age.

At every level on the education spectrum, atheists and agnostics are more politically active than Protestants or Catholics. More education leads to higher levels of political activity among all religious groups, but the relationship is even stronger for atheists than other groups. An atheist with a graduate degree participated in 2.1 political activities in the last year. It was 1.8 activities for agnostics. For Catholics and Protestants it’s between 1.3 and 1.4 activities. That’s not a small difference.

But, are atheists just generally more politically engaged – or is it a function of the fact that many of them align with the Democratic Party? To test that I ran another model that divided each of the four religious groups up into Democrats and Republicans. Clearly partisanship accelerates political activity much more for Democrats than those who affiliate with the GOP. This conjures a bevy of questions: has the Republican Party become anathema to educated voters? Have the GOP failed to target educated voters in a meaningful way? Is this a function of the geographic polarization that is happening across the country? These questions are of tremendous importance to electoral politics.

If you look at just those with high school diplomas in each of the four traditions, Democrats are more likely to engage in political acts than Republicans. Sometimes, much more so. For instance, an atheist with a graduate degree who is a Democrat engages in twice as many political activities in a year compared to a Republican atheist. For Protestants, it’s just half a political activity. However, an atheist who affiliates with the Republican Party is no more likely to engage in politicking than any other religious tradition. So, while being a Democrat does prove as a spur for political activity, having high levels of education has a multiplicative effect.

So, why did Democrats engage in politics at much higher rates than Republicans in 2018? Well, when your party is in the minority in both the House and the Senate and does not hold the White House, that can serve as good motivation to get out there and try to win one chamber back. And, you can see that in the data, too. I calculated the total number of political activities for the four religious groups going back to 2010 – and something fascinating happened in 2018.

In 2016, an atheist engaged in 1.45 activities compared to 1.4 for an agnostic. Christians were slightly lower at 1.28. But, by 2018 the landscape had changed. Both Protestants and Catholics saw a tremendous decline down to .90 or .95 actions. For agnostics, there was no statistically significant change. But for atheists, there was a noticeable uptick to 1.58. The gap between Christians and atheists is huge now, with atheists about ten percent more politically engaged in 2018.

This could be one of the reasons that the Blue Wave happened in 2018 – a very agitated base of atheists who got politically involved. But, here’s a bit of caution I would urge – while atheists are often identified with the Democratic party, they have a fair amount of political homogeneity. In 2018, 77.3% identified as Democrats, 11.7% were independents, and 10.9% were Republicans. That’s a solid core, but there is some diversity there. For comparison, 73% of white evangelicals are Republicans. White evangelicals make up 15.6% of the population, atheists and agnostics combined are 11.4%. With that level of political activity, it’s fair to say that these nones might be a bigger political force in the next presidential election than we give them credit for – they just have to stay angry and stay engaged.

Ryan P. Burge teaches at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois. He can be contacted via Twitter or his personal website. The syntax for this post can be found here.

This article originally posted at ReligionInPublic.blog

If you have logged on to Netflix, Amazon, and other places recently, you have probably seen some of corporate America’s virtue signaling via banners in support of Black Lives Matter. By itself, it is a powerful slogan which no one can disagree with, even if you’d prefer to say all lives matter. However, there’s more to this than just a slogan.

The organization Black Lives Matter has some very specific goals and views that many casual observers may not know: it was founded to dramatically change America, and its leaders have not been shy about where they stand. Here are just a few of their policy positions with a couple of my comments in parentheses.

• Black Lives Matter supports abortion. It states: “We deserve and thus we demand reproductive justice that gives us autonomy over our bodies and our identities while ensuring that our children and families are supported, safe, and able to thrive.” (Aborted babies don’t thrive nor are they safe. Black babies are disproportionately terminated by the abortion industry which has racist roots stemming from Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood.)

• Black Lives Matter supports the radical LGBT agenda. It states: “We foster a queer-affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking.” (Two of the three founders of BLM describe themselves as “queer,” a rather radical term for a homosexual activist.)

• Black Lives Matter opposes the traditional nuclear family which is a vital sociological part of overcoming crime and poverty. It states: “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.” (Villages without fathers are poor [literally] substitutes for communities with intact families.)

• Black Lives Matter supports reparations. It states: “Reparations for full and free access for all Black people (including undocumented and currently and formerly incarcerated people) to lifetime education…retroactive forgiveness of student loans, and support for lifetime learning programs.”

• Black Lives Matter supports the abolishment of police. It states: “We believe that prisons, police and all other institutions that inflict violence on Black people must be abolished…”

• Black Lives Matter claims to oppose racism, but it is an organization with anti-Semitic leanings. In 2016 BLM adopted derogatory policy statements about Israel. It described the nation of Israel as an “apartheid state” committing “genocide” and supports the boycott, divest and sanction (BDS) movement against Israel. BLM opposes any support of Israel by the United States government.

• Black Lives Matter’s activism is helping the presidential campaign of Joe Biden. If one goes to the BLM website and chooses to donate, he is redirected to a site hosted by ActBlue and prompted with the message: “We appreciate your support of the movement and our ongoing fight to end state-sanctioned violence, liberate Black people, and end white supremacy forever.” Joe Biden is the top beneficiary of ActBlue’s fundraising efforts.

This article was originally published by AFA of Indiana.

Written by Peter Heck

How he managed to say it without choking on his own tongue I will never know. As President Trump began to dress down the hostile press that was attempting to use his Monday White House briefing to smear him as negligent, CNN cut away immediately to anchor John King who managed to prattle out these words without even a sniff of irony:

“To play a propaganda video at taxpayer expense in the White House briefing room is a new — you can insert your favorite word here – in this administration.”

For anyone at CNN to feign objection over “propaganda” is as convincing a testimony you will ever see to the staggering lack of self-awareness capable by seemingly coherent human beings.

This is, after all, the network of Jake Tapper, who just days ago allowed socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to repeat without correction the now widely debunked rumor that President Trump called coronavirus a hoax. Tapper actually defended his own silence saying that while he knew it was a lie, he let it slide by because President Trump lies about other things. Seriously:

I guess that’s the problem with a politician who lies so often; while I agree that Democrats are mischaracterizing what he said, what he did say was also false so it’s tough to justify taking the time for a fact check when it’s not taking a stand defining the truth.

— Jake Tapper, long-suffering Philly sports fan (@jaketapper) March 22, 2020

Tapper also allowed Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi to accuse Trump of “fiddling” without ever holding her to account for “fiddling” herself when she single-handedly delayed the coronavirus relief bill for a week.

This is the network of Brian Stelter who anchors a program unironically called “Reliable Sources,” and utilizes that platform to peddle misinformation on behalf of the Democrat Party:

I RT’ed a former LA Times reporter who had tweeted pics that mistakenly ran on the ABC local news broadcast. When I found out the story was erroneous, I deleted the tweet. Gosh, Brian, why does your tweet omit the MSM error that started it? Or does CNN only exist to attack GOP? https://t.co/ehvPHPMrGh

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) April 13, 2020

It is also Stelter who turned disgraced lawyer and convicted felon Michael Avenatti into a mainstay on his program in order to attack Trump, and even encouraged the Stormy Daniels attorney to think about running for president himself. With Avenatti in jail now, Stelter fills his time regularly attempting “gotcha” moments with President Trump that end just about as well. Like this:

Admin officials "say the White House has made a deliberate political calculation that it will better serve Trump’s interest to put the onus on governors — rather than the federal government — to figure out how to move ahead."

Let that quote sink in… https://t.co/v2QVZBXslD

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) April 11, 2020

Yes, let it. Because there’s a name for the concept articulated in that quote, of course. It’s called “federalism,” the central pillar around which our constitutional order and system is constructed. Let the fact that CNN’s chief media corresponded didn’t realize that sink in for a minute.

Besides, it isn’t too difficult to figure out what Stelter and company would be saying if Trump had seized power and claimed emergency authority to dictate nationalized policies to “move ahead.”

This is the network of Don Lemon, an activist masquerading as a newsman who is so sharply partisan that long-time journos cringe at the damage he continues to do not only to CNN’s credibility, but the industry itself.

This is the network that breathlessly covered every potential angle of every perceived accusation against U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings, yet now remains the only major news organization that has not even mentioned the credible allegations of sexual misconduct leveled against presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden by one of his former employees.

This is the network that at the very same press briefing that John King couldn’t bear to air another second of, allowed a staffer manning the chyron machine to post these on-screen Democrat talking points with the apparent blessing of both editors and producers:

I’m almost impressed with how hard the CNN chyron writers of my former network effort to get their revulsion for Pres Trump just right!

I don’t miss it… pic.twitter.com/FLQr2Nwz8a

— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) April 14, 2020

Incredible. As in, lacking in all credibility.

After recently surviving a bout with COVID-19, CNN host Christopher Cuomo made some startling remarks, indicating that he was re-evaluating his career at the network. Among other things, Cuomo called out CNN for trafficking in “ridiculous things.”

He not wrong in that assessment, even though I’d choose a different, more precise term for what this low-rated televised rumor mill peddles: propaganda.

This article was originally published at Disrn.com.

It wasn’t so long ago that such a thing would be unthinkable: a standing ovation for abortion in the New York State Senate chamber with the passage of legislation permitting abortion for any reason up until the moment of birth. Already in New York City, one in three babies are aborted. The bill goes so far as to drop the requirement that doctors perform abortions and decriminalizes acts of violence that result in the deaths of unborn babies. In other words, if an unborn baby dies in the commission of an act of violence against his or her mother, the perpetrator will no longer be held criminally liable for the baby’s death.

So much for “safe, legal and rare.” With this patently facetious mantra, it took Democratic president Bill Clinton only two days into his presidency to reverse policies restricting abortion instituted by his Republican predecessors Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

Virtually all Democratic candidates in recent memory, from candidates for president on down, have campaigned on their commitment to preserving the legal right to kill the unborn. It wasn’t always this way. In 1937, in response to doctors performing abortions during the Great Depression, the National Federation of Catholic Physician’s Guild issued a statement condemning abortion. In those days the opponents of abortion were more likely to be Democratic than Republican. President Roosevelt’s New Deal drew considerable support from the Catholic Church’s desire to protect and nurture all life–including the unborn.

Some of the first vocal proponents of abortion were, surprisingly, Republicans. Moderate Republican governor Nelson Rockefeller shepherded through his state’s abortion reform law in 1970. In 1967 in California, that icon of conservatives, a then “moderate” Ronald Reagan, signed a similar bill loosening restrictions on abortion. But the issue was gaining steam, and by the 1970’s conservative Republicans, campaigning on opposition to abortion after the disastrous Roe vs. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1973, were able to wrest control of the GOP.

The battle lines were drawn in 1976 when the first presidential election since Roe vs. Wade brought the issue to the forefront. Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter, despite his Evangelical Christian bona fides, walked a tightrope trying to appeal to both sides. From then until the present, Democratic politicians have declared, despite massive evidence to the contrary, that they only wish to have abortion “safe, legal, and rare.” In 1976, the outrage against such duplicitous arguments produced a successful effort to end Medicaid funding for abortion with the Hyde Amendment, the first significant legislative victory for anti-abortion activists after Roe vs. Wade.

While abortion activists argue for unrestricted access to abortion throughout pregnancy, polls show that support for late-term abortions continues to decline, with a paltry 13 percent of Americans supporting abortion during the third trimester. The enthusiastic crowds at the annual March for Life are further evidence of the widespread desire to protect innocent human life in the womb. The most recent March for Life saw an unprecedented show of political firepower, with addresses by the president, vice-president and House speaker, all heralding the gains that the movement has made under the presidency of Donald Trump, who stated: “Under my administration, we will always defend the very first right in the Declaration of Independence, and that is the right to life.”

The new Democratic mantra: “While personally opposed to abortion, the U.S. Supreme Court is the law of the land, and thus I must respect Roe vs. Wade” is beginning to wear thin. As we lament the 45^th anniversary of that calamitous legal decision, the effect of this assertion wanes and the abortion issue is becoming an even more highly charged issue.

Democratic leaders have used the 45th anniversary of Roe v. Wade to reiterate their support for legal abortion and launch new onerous legislation in Illinois and other states–hoping to expand so-called “reproductive rights” and access at the expense of innocent human lives. Now is the time for people of faith–Democrats and Republicans alike–to raise their voices in defense of the most vulnerable among us: the unborn.