Voluntary enlistment in the military provides an honorable career to many individuals, both male and female. With the establishment of the Selective Service Act, obtaining replacement personnel in catastrophic warfare is possible. Traditionally the draft only included young men ages 18-25. The idea of including women in the draft is recurring, first suggested during World War II for conscripting nurses, Congress rejected the plan in 1945. President Jimmy Carter revised the idea in 1980, which again was denied by Congress. In 1981, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that allowing women in the draft was illegal since women could not serve in combat. 

However, women started serving in combat roles in 2015, meaning the U.S. Supreme Court ruling no longer applies. Because this ruling is no longer relevant, some argue that the government can now include women in the Selective Service Act. On July 21st, the U.S. Armed Services Committee passed the U.S. Senate’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which requires women between 18-25 to register with the Selective Service. If the NDAA bill passes and becomes law, and the draft is one day reinstated, young women would be eligible for the draft.

Women have served voluntarily for decades in non-combat roles. These women deserve respect and honor for the sacrifices made. Mandatory conscription of women, however, is neither honorable nor advisable. The idea of including women in a draft is, at best, an untried and risky experiment. 

Women who would be drafted would be forced into an environment fraught with sexual violence. According to the Department of Defense (DoD) in the 2018 Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, a 50 percent increase in women reporting sexual assault between 2016-2018 occurred. The report’s authors also state that only one-third of assaults are disclosed, meaning the rate of assault may be significantly higher. The odds of a woman in the military being sexually assaulted compared to her civilian counterpart are astonishing. The odds of sexual assault for a civilian woman is 1 in 17. Yet, it increases to a 1 in 11 chance for women in the military. 

Perhaps most concerning is the possibility of injury. By 2018 over 1,000 female US soldiers were injured in combat. Physical injury, however, is not the only concern. Another concern is mental health. Among all the female soldiers wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan, 40 percent developed mental health conditions. Of those women diagnosed with a mental health illness, 20 percent were explicitly diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Since mandatory conscription is solely for personnel replacement, the assignment of women draftees to combat is likely. Therefore, the probability of women draftees suffering physical or psychological harm is considerable. 

The next question is, where would draftees be sent? The enemy in a future conflict is unknown, but the U.S. has several adversaries that are likely candidates, including Muslim extremists who already oppress their own women. Women combatants are at significant risk of horrific treatment if captured by terrorists. Are we willing to send female draftees into a setting where torture occurs at the hands of radicals? 

What would a draft mean for women who prefer more traditional roles? Although some women thrive in the environment created by the rigors of the military, many women do not desire service in non-traditional roles. There are still many women who prefer the marriage and motherhood. Some women prefer a career that does not include the physical demands of war. Would women be forced to leave their children? How would expectant mothers be treated? Earlier this year, the U.S. Navy issued its first maternity flight suit. 

Women volunteered in the past on their own accord, and they deserve respect for the roles they have filled. A strong military will indeed include women, but their service should remain voluntary. We should avoid any steps that may lead to the social experiment of compulsory service. 

If the mandatory registration of young women with the Selective Service concerns you, please contact your U.S. Senators and Representatives and ask them to vote no on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).  

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to U.S. Senators Dick Durbin, Tammy Duckworth and your local U.S. Representative to urge them to reject this foolish version of the NDAA which would require women to register for the Selective Service. In this age of “social justice,” the radical left would have us ignore the biological, physiological and emotional differences between men and women. We cannot remain silent as federal lawmakers consider a legislative mandate that will likely lead to wives, daughters and sisters one day being drafted.

“I’ll go ahead and make an argument that I think is based in scripture, based in general revelation and based
in a review of human history. One of the achievements of civilization is that, under normal circumstances,
wives and daughters are not sent into war as are husbands and sons.”
~Dr. Al Mohler (8/11/2021 Briefing)

Between now and Labor Day, you can double the impact of your tax deductible donations to IFI!

A group of donors are working with us to offer a $40,000 dollar-for-dollar matching challenge
to help us raise $80,000 for “Rescuing the Children” initiative here in Illinois!

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has awarded the Trump Administration a victory by staying a lower court decision which blocked the administration’s attempts to restrict the military service of “trans”-identifying people who suffer from gender dysphoria. The court found that Trump’s new policy, which was based on the findings of former Secretary of State Jim Mattis, was in fact a more nuanced version of the original policy and should not have been summarily blocked by District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. The Trump Administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on its attempts to place restrictions on “trans”-identifying persons serving in the military.

Hanging in the balance are the last vestiges of Christian culture, and the marginalization of those who hold to the words of Jesus: “At the beginning of creation God made them male and female.”  We see this already in Canada, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is requiring employers to attest that they respect transgender “rights” in order to receive summer job grants. In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party LGBT+ adviser has argued for the right of children as young as 8 years old to choose their “gender” and begin “transitioning” to embrace their “true selves.” And in America, Christian parents in Hamilton County, Ohio, have lost custody of their 17-year-old daughter after they refused to support her “transition” to male.

LGBTQ groups, celebrities and politicians have expressed outrage over the administration’s proposal to define gender as biological and fixed. This self-evident understanding, unquestioned for millennia, was overturned by former President Barack Obama, who enshrined subjective feeling rather than biological sex as determining one’s “gender.” Thus, a man may decide that his “true gender” is female, and a woman may decide she is male. Further complicating this absurd notion–a notion that would have left our forefathers aghast–are those who refuse to consider themselves either male or female, instead inhabiting the bizarre realm of “gender fluidity.”

The field of battle for the determination of the meaning of “gender” is none other than the several branches of the U.S. military, which of necessity have strict standards for those charged with the vital role of defending the nation. In his memorandum to the president regarding transgenders in the military, former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis concluded: “Based on the work of the Panel and the Department’s best military judgement, the Department of Defense concludes that there are substantial risks associated with allowing the accession and retention of individuals with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria and require, or have already undertaken, a course of treatment to change their gender.”

That this studied judgment angers those who reject the immutable reality and meaning of biological sex defies comprehension, for it should come as no surprise that the military, which turns away diabetics, should decline those who may require major surgery and continual hormone replacement therapy—both of which carry serious health risks. This is recognized by the service members themselves, only 39 percent of which approve of “trans”-identifying troops.  Sergeant First Class Jamie Shupe, who identifies as “trans,” has had second thoughts and now feels he has “a duty to speak about the problems with transgender military service,” which “can seriously affect their duty performance. While they’re obsessing about their gender identity, they don’t have their head in the game.”

The military is all about maximum combat effectiveness. Soldiers do not serve in isolation, but work, eat, shower and sleep together.  No female unit should be required to sleep next to or bare themselves in front of an objectively male peer who insists that he is a woman.  As one commentator notes: “We can’t even agree on which bathrooms trans people can use, but somehow we’re safer if we’re all in the shower together? No distraction there.”

Author Walt Heyer lived as a woman for nearly a decade and suffered medical surgeries and treatments before “detransitioning” back to his true male gender. His book Trans Life Survivors tells the stories of 30 people gleaned from many hundreds of cases who “shared their lonely, surreal experiences falling down the trans rabbit hole, hoping to escape as he did.”  Sadly, our society will suffer dire consequences if it rejects the inborn nature of male and female, as designed by our Creator, which will result in a frightful descent into the “rabbit hole” of sexual anarchy.

Save the Date!

On Saturday, March 16, 2019, the Illinois Family Institute will be hosting our annual Worldview Conference. This coming year, we will focus on the “transgender” revolution. We already have commitments from Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians; Walt Heyer, former “transgender” and contributor to Public Discourse; Denise Schick, Founder and Director of Help 4 Families, and daughter of a man who “identified” as a woman; and Doug Wilson, who is a Senior Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho .

The Transgender Ideology:
What Is It? Where Will It Lead? What is the Church’s Role?
Click here for more information.

No corporation should profit from or facilitate sexual exploitation. 

Unfortunately, many well-established brands, companies, and organizations in America do just that. Since 2013, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation has published an annual Dirty Dozen List to name and shame the mainstream players in America that perpetuate sexual exploitation—whether that be through pornography, prostitution, sexual objectification, sexual violence and/or sex trafficking.

The Dirty Dozen List is an activism tool that gives back power to individuals who want a voice in the culture. People can participate by taking easy online actions, from sending emails to sharing social media messages.

The Dirty Dozen List has a track record of uniting thousands of individual actions and targeting them to create monumental changes, such as policy improvements at Google, Hilton Worldwide, Verizon, Walmart, and the Department of Defense.

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation works for a world where human beings are not bought and sold for sex, whether on seedy street corners or via the modern convenience of the Internet and where sexual violence or exploitation are not tolerated in any industry. They work for a world free from sexual exploitation in all its forms.

One way they do this is through the annual “Dirty Dozen List,” which names and shames those who contribute significantly to the normalization of pornography, prostitution, sex trafficking, and other forms of sexual exploitation. The groups, agencies, businesses (and this year, individuals) named to this list are among the nation’s worst for masquerading as mainstream entities with respectable reputations, while facilitating access to, or pandering and profiting directly from pornography and or prostitution. Others push policy agendas that normalize egregious forms of sexual exploitation. This list ensures that their participation and collusion with the various aspects of the sex trade becomes public knowledge, and equips concerned citizens with information and tools to hold them accountable.

We are grateful for the work of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation and will stand with them until the normalization of sexual exploitation ends and companies and others no longer stand in allegiance with pornographers, sex traffickers, and sex buyers.

Click HERE for a PDF flyer of “The Dirty Dozen List” for 2018.

Founded in 1962, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) is the leading national organization exposing the links between all forms of sexual exploitation such as child sexual abuse, prostitution, sex trafficking and the public health crisis of pornography.