Last Sunday in an on-air, post-game interview and subsequent tweet, Chicago Bears kicker Eddy Piñeiro Jr. said, “If you don’t believe in God you better start believing he’s REAL.” Anyone watching the moment with eyes unclouded by hatred of and rebellion against God, could see the joy of a man who wants to share his joy with others. But what Chicago Tribune opinion columnist Eric Zorn saw was this:

Piñeiro’s post-game remarks—including a follow-up tweet—were a taunt, not an expression of humility. They implicitly derided nonbelievers and deployed his success as evidence of the superiority of his theological outlook.

Zorn mistook a wish for a taunt, joy for arrogance.

Zorn then meanspiritedly mocks and mistranslates (or transmogrifies) Piñeiro’s statements, twisting them beyond recognition:

I made a field goal, therefore Jesus is real and atheists and agnostics should get on board!

Serious, theologically orthodox Christians don’t believe Jesus is real because of the successes they experience or gifts they are given. In fact, the Bible teaches that Christ-followers like every other human in this fallen world will suffer: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.”

Maybe Piñeiro, who evidently loves Jesus and desires that all would come to know and love Him, wanted to take this opportunity to share some really good news—news about Christ. Maybe Piñeiro wants atheists and agnostics to one day see the kingdom of Heaven. Is that wish a taunt or an expression of love for the lost?

While Zorn may know a thing or two about writing, he’s as bad at theology as is his ideologue-in-arms Rex Huppke, so here’s a primer in theology (trigger warning for Zorn who may find Jesus’ belief “in the superiority of his theological outlook” off-putting):

• Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

• Jesus says, “For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

• Jesus commands his followers to “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

• Jesus says, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

• Jesus says, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

• Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

• Peter says to followers of Christ, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

Zorn’s beef is really with God.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

IFI depends on the support of concerned-citizens like you. Donate now

-and, please-

Leftists, controlled by “LGBTQ” activists and in thrall to their dogma, have redefined yet another term: bullying. They seek to impose their redefinition on all of society in their relentless quest to socially condition everyone into affirmation of their sexuality ideology. There’s no better evidence that they have redefined “bullying” than their claim that Melania Trump’s campaign against cyberbullying is hypocritical because her husband allegedly cyberbullies.

The often-foolish Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank recently made that claim in a column in which he argued that President Donald Trump cyberbullied former CIA director John Brennan by calling him a “political hack.” Milbank also accused Trump of cyberbullying special counsel Robert Mueller, former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, John Dean, U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Charles Schumer (D-NY), Governors Andrew Cuomo, (D-NY) and John Kasich (R-OH). Milbank’s evidence that Trump cyberbullied these people? He called them names on Twitter.

Milbank’s argument raises the question “What is a bully?”

My Random House Dictionary defines a bully as “a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people.”

My American Heritage Dictionary defines it as “a person who is habitually cruel, esp. to smaller or weaker people.”

My Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “a tyrannical coward who makes himself a terror to the weak.”

My Oxford American Dictionary defines it as “a person who uses strength or power to coerce others by fear.”

Is calling famous adults in positions of cultural power names “cruel”? Are John Brennan, Robert Mueller, Chuck Schumer weak? Are they terrified by Trump’s tweets? Does tweeting mean things about famous adults in positions of cultural power constitute the use of coercive strength and power?

Apparently, the spanking new Leftist definition of “bully” omits all references to smaller or weaker people, which means that untold numbers of people—including countless “progressive” pundits, politicians, professors, teachers, and actors—are guilty of bullying.

If all epithets constitute bullying, then was former Obama press secretary, Jay Carney a bully when he called Milbank a “hack.”

When Milbank called U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) a coward and said the president is “surrounded by hooligans,” was Milbank bullying?

When perpetual power-seeker Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters “deplorables,” was she bullying?

When Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn called opponents of the legal recognition of homosexual unions as marriages sophomoric Bible-thumpers, hankie-twisters, and poisonous debaters, was he bullying?

When the editor and publisher of the “progressive” magazine The Nation, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, said former president George Bush was incompetent, untrustworthy, and dishonest, was she bullying?

When former President Barack Obama called Kanye West a “jackass,” was he bullying? When Obama called a segment of the population bitter Bible-clingers was he bullying?

Are “progressives” bullies when they call theologically orthodox Christians ignorant, hate-filled bigots for their belief that homosexual acts are immoral?

Was Jesus a bully when he called the Pharisees a “brood of vipers?”

If someone is a hack, a jackass, or a viper, is it bullying to say so?

If we use the true definition of bullying, it becomes clear who the bullies are. Bullies are those who possess cultural power—and by cultural power, I mean our dominant cultural institutions—and wield it against those with little or no cultural power.

It is “progressives” who control government schools, academia, the arts, professional medical and mental health organizations, mainstream media, social media, and corporate America. When Trump tweeted that John Brennan is a “political hack,” he was not guilty of bullying. When Carney called Milbank a hack, he was not bullying. When cultural power-brokers call an elderly florist a bigot, they’re bullying.

For tactical reasons, “progressives” have decided that when it comes to adults talking about adults, bullying no longer refers to coercive, threatening, cruel treatment of weaker people. They do that all the time. Now it refers to any speech by conservatives that’s not pleasant, sufficiently obsequious, or ideologically aligned with their views. But remember, no one has an obligation to acquiesce to Leftist language rules.

This is not an endorsement of speech that is uncivil or intemperate, but not all unpleasant speech is uncivil or intemperate. There is even a cultural place for expressions of hatred. Decent people with properly formed consciences will hate wicked acts and will say so even in the face of coercive bullying by the culturally powerful.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Leftists-Redefine-Bullying.mp3

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois! 

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.

If I had a nickel for every time a liberal said it’s a slippery slope fallacy to claim that the legalization of homoerotic marriage would necessarily result in the legal recognition of plural unions, I would be a very rich woman.

The juxtaposition of two recent Chicago Tribune editorials provides an almost-comical illustration of both “progressive” deceit and ignorance about marriage.

Eric Zorn inveighed against conservative claims about the inevitability of legalized polygamy, describing such claims as “desperate” and “sophomoric,” and then a few days later, Steve Chapman made the sophomoric claim that legalized polygamy is “not so scary.”

I guess this is how the Tribune demonstrates diversity. They’ve got far Left columnists and far, far, Left columnists.

Chapman writes that society should “reconsider” bans on plural marriage, arguing that “the case for legalizing polygamy builds on the case for legalizing same-sex marriage.”

He asks, “ If a man is living, procreating and raising children with two or three women, what do we gain by saying he can’t easily formalize his obligations to them?”

In an earlier attempt at deep-thinking about the moral imperative of redefining marriage to serve the desires of homosexuals, Chapman offered a journey through the history of marriage. He was attempting to show that marriage has never had a stable form, but ironically every form of marriage he presented had one constant feature: sexual complementarity.

Much of Eric Zorn’s “argument” consists of a thicket of epithets and generalizations. To him anyone who believes marriage has an ontology central to which is sexual differentiation necessarily regards same-sex couples with “contempt” and “disgust.”

Conservatives in Zorn’s evidently insulated world are “Bible-thumpers and hankie-twisters” who seek to “engage in poisonous debates.” That unseemly crowd includes, I guess, Princeton University law professor Robert George.  Surely, Zorn knows that no defenders of true marriage twist hankies with the kind of vigor that homosexual activists do.

Zorn’s real knee-slapper is his claim that “legalizing plural marriage” would be a “far bigger leap” than the legal recognition of homoerotic unions as “marriages.” He argues that there is a “vast difference between same-sex marriage and plural marriage when it comes to social and legal implications and…civic reverberations.”

That he believes this is astounding.

Jettisoning sexual differentiation from the legal definition of marriage is a leap of far greater enormity than eliminating the criterion regarding numbers of partners. It is, in fact, the most radical redefinition of marriage in history. Its civic reverberations have been already and will continue to be profound, shaking the very foundations of America. At no time in our history have First Amendment religious, speech, and assembly protections been threatened as they are now.

Zorn goes on to spew more foolishness:

[T]his is not one of those rare issues like abortion that will never resolve and fade away no matter what the Supreme Court says. It’s more like the issue of integration of public schools, an idea that was deeply polarizing at the time of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling but opposed today only by the most virulent racists.

There are, indeed, parallels to be found between Brown v. Board of Education and Obergefell. Both Court majorities were wrong. The majority in Brown erred in affirming a false and destructive understanding of race. The majority in Obergefell erred in affirming a false and destructive understanding of marriage.

Zorn predicts that the marriage issue will “fade away.” Other “progressives” predict that the marriage issue will not fade away for the same reason that controversy over abortion has not faded away. Those liberals believe that because the democratic process was usurped and because the legal reasoning was deeply flawed, division over Obergefell will remain.

Both Zorn’s prediction and the other “progressive” prediction are wrong.

The marriage controversy will remain, and it will remain only in part because of the usurpation of the democratic process and lousy legal reasoning in Obergefell. It will also remain because eradicating First Amendment protections tends to provoke conflict.

But more fundamentally, cultural turmoil will remain because the philosophical assumptions that justify the legal recognition of non-marital unions as marriage are wrong. Just as preborn babies have a nature that sophistry can never fully conceal, so too does marriage. As with legalized feticide, opposition to same-sex faux-marriage will continue because the assumptions upon which it depends are false.

Homosexuality is not analogous to race. Zorn continually compares homoeroticism to race but doesn’t explain what constitutes either. Until recently, most people understood that race was a biologically heritable condition that carried no inherent implications regarding feelings or volitional acts. In contrast, homosexuality is constituted centrally–if not solely–by subjective feelings and volitional acts. Moreover, as conservatives learned over the past year, even homosexual scholars assert that “sexual orientation”–unlike race–is fluid.

The post-Dolezal understanding of race as a social construct opens up a can of intellectual worms for “progressives” because if homosexuality is analogous to race and, therefore, merely a social construct, one cannot appeal to biological immutability as a strategic way to condemn moral disapproval of homoeroticism. Clearly not all social constructs—which are self-evidently constructions of flawed humans—can be inherently good.

Oh those darn tangled webs.

So, why oh why do progressives get away with perpetually exploiting race as an analogue for homoeroticism? Why aren’t the Zorns of the world compelled to explain precisely the points of correspondence between race per se and homoeroticism per se? Do they even care if there are no ontological points of correspondence so long as they are winning in the public square?

I think we all know the answer to that. They don’t care any more about intellectual soundness than they do about the natural right of children to be raised by a mother and father.

The cool kids are wrong again.

If only liberals would listen to Pope Francis on marriage.

Plural marriage is a’comin’, folks. No doubt about it. Time to teach your children well.

Please support IFI as we fight for liberty & work to advance the truth
about the sanctity of life & importance of marriage in our culture!

Constitutional revisionists within our mainstream press claim that First Amendment religious protections extend only to churches and homes. So, why is it that they become silent as church mice when President Barack Obama publicly appeals to his Christian faith in defending his political positions?

Obama, who claims to be a Christian (and whom many in the press proclaim with dogmatic certainty he is), cites the Golden Rule and the Sermon on the Mount to justify his “evolution” on marriage.

Obama now embraces and promotes a definition of marriage that contradicts explicit Old Testament moral laws that, unlike ceremonial laws, still pertain. And he conveniently ignores more salient New Testament passages related to both homosexuality and marriage that would have be wildly distasteful to his party base. But nonetheless, according to Obama, it is his religious beliefs that shape his political support for the legal recognition of homoerotic unions as marriages. Usually, when liberals in the press are within earshot of a conservative politician citing Scripture, they become a cacophonous pack of baying hounds. In contrast, when Obama cites Scripture, they become stridulating crickets.

While Obama cherry-picks Scripture, plucking verses way out of context to defend his “evolution” on marriage, nary a liberal pundit screams “VIOLATION OF CHURCH AND STATE” as they do when conservatives mention Scripture to defend their political views. That I know of, neither Chris Matthews, nor Eric Zorn, nor Frank Bruni has accused Obama of imposing his religious beliefs on all of America or of violating the separation of church and state when Obama dared to walk his faith out of his pew, home, and heart and into the glaring light of the public square.

While transitioning to his now more fully evolved position (watch for more evolution to come), Obama said this in defense of civil unions:

I believe in civil unions….If people find that controversial, then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans. [emphasis added]

Obama’s mind notwithstanding, all Scripture is God-breathed, so Paul speaks only truth. And Romans 1 is not in the least obscure. Romans 1 is clear, unequivocal, and consistent with passages in Genesis, Leviticus, 1 Timothy, and 1 Corinthians regarding God’s view of homosexuality.

When Obama’s transition to an even more advanced evolutionary but less biblically-consonant position was complete, he added this strained hermeneutical defense:

[Michelle and I] are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated. And I think that’s what we try to impart to our kids and that’s what motivates me as president and I figure the most consistent I can be in being true to those precepts, the better I’ll be as a as a dad and a husband and, hopefully, the better I’ll be as president.

In addition to dismissing passages in the Old Testament and the words of Paul in Romans, 1 Timothy, and 1 Corinthians, Obama ignores Jesus’ own words regarding the true nature of marriage:

Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.

Bearing in mind Obama’s odd use of Scripture, read these illuminating excerpts from Obama’s speech at the recent  National Prayer Breakfast:

There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.

… I believe that the starting point of faith is some doubt — not being so full of yourself and so confident that you are right…that somehow we alone are in possession of the truth.

Our job is not to ask that God respond to our notion of truth — our job is to be true to Him, His word, and His commandments.  And we should assume humbly that we’re confused and don’t always know what we’re doing….

And so, as people of faith, we are summoned to push back against those who try to distort our religion…for their own nihilistic ends.  And here at home and around the world, we will constantly reaffirm that fundamental freedom — freedom of religion — the right to practice our faith how we choose….and to do so free of persecution and fear and discrimination.

There’s wisdom in our founders writing in those documents that help found this nation the notion of freedom of religion…. They also understood the need to uphold freedom of speech, that there was a connection between freedom of speech and freedom of religion.  For to infringe on one right under the pretext of protecting another is a betrayal of both. [emphasis added]

Obama’s sinful perversion of and misuse of Scripture to defend non-marriage as marriage and the eager willingness of “progressives” to undermine religious liberty in deference to sexual libertinism render these words all the more compelling—and ironic.

Progressive pundits ought to admit their double standard when it comes to appeals to Scripture: Politicians can appeal to Scripture so long as their religious appeals never lead to policies that liberals don’t like.

And Obama ought to admit that he doesn’t study Scripture to inform his leadership. Rather he distorts and exploits Scripture to defend his political positions.

Of course, such admissions would require a commitment to honesty.

The secret, which is a dirty secret only to “progressive” pundits, is that it is constitutionally permissible for theologically conservative Christians to allow their religious beliefs to shape their political decisions.

So, brothers and sisters in Christ, step out of your homes  and pews and speak truth in the public square. Bring your coats. It’s chilly out there.

Please support the work of Illinois Family Institute.

How do we know that Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn is foolish? Well, let’s take a look at Sunday’s column and count the ways:

1.) He believes that the same-sex marriage debate will “fade into history.” 

2.) He believes that “ten years from now, when a betrothed or married couple is same-sex, it will be just as matter of fact as to a couple today being interfaith or interracial.” 

3.) He apparently thinks the elimination of sexual complementarity from the legal definition of marriage can change non-marriages into real marriages as opposed to merely unions recognized as marriages. 

4.) He has a fanciful notion that it is “progress” for the government to recognize same-sex unions as “marriages.”  

5.) Zorn’s belief that if six, or seven, or 40 judges overturn the will, knowledge, and collective wisdom of thousands of Americans—many of whom could likely run intellectual circles around these hubristic judges—means next to nothing in regard to the ontological reality of marriage. What judicial hubris tells us is that we’re fast becoming a nation untethered to either the Constitution or truth. And in the process, we the people are losing both our freedoms—chief among them the free exercise of religion—and our capacity to govern ourselves. 

6.) Those former supporters of true marriage who, in Zorn’s words, “have quietly folded up their tents” should be ashamed and are as culpable for the cultural damage done, including the impending persecution of dissidents and the suffering of children, as Zorn and his accomplices. While Zorn and his ideological ilk foolishly gloat, children, like the “banished babies of Ireland” are intentionally severed from their mothers or fathers. Christians have a responsibility to stand boldly for the rights of children no matter the personal cost. 

More important, any church leader or lay person who folds up his tent, either abandoning God’s design for marriage and sexuality or abandoning a persistent and courageous explication of them will eventually lose respect for the authority of Scripture in other areas of life. And the abandonment of faith in the authority of Scripture undermines the entire American project which, as Eric Metaxas and others explain, depends on virtue, which in turn depends on faith.

Here are some other truths of which Zorn (and scores of foolish Americans like him) seems profoundly ignorant:

• Homosexuality per se bears no points of correspondence to skin color. In other words, they are not analogous. 

• Legalized same-sex “marriage” per se bears no points of correspondence to interracial marriage. In other words, they are not analogous. 

• The belief that marriage is inherently sexually complementary is no more hateful than the belief that marriage is inherently binary. 

• The government’s legal recognition of only sexually complementary unions as marriages no more denies citizens the “right” to marry than does the government’s legal recognition of only unions between two people not closely related by blood denies citizens the right to marry. 

• Claiming that marriage is solely about who loves whom with no connection to reproductive potential  necessarily means legalizing plural marriages and incestuous marriages. Actually, if marriage is solely constituted by the presence of intense loving feelings with no connection to reproductive potential, then there is no reason for government involvement at all. The government has zero vested interest in recognizing, affirming, regulating, or promoting deeply loving inherently non-reproductive types of relationships. 
  
  There is no more government interest or public value in affirming and recognizing as marriages those sterile homoerotic unions than there is in affirming other deeply loving relationships like platonic friendships. Homosexual couples cannot suddenly justify their unions as “marriages” simply based on the presence of children, because they’ve already argued that marriage has no connection to children. There are many people in all sorts of relationship configurations that are raising children. If it’s the mere presence of children that makes a union deserving of being called a “marriage,” then any two or more people raising children together should be allowed to marry—or at least any two or more who really love each other.

No, the debate will never go away. Legally recognizing homoerotic unions as marriages is as profoundly wrong as were legal prohibitions of interracial marriage. While prohibitions of interracial marriage were based on the false belief that blacks and whites are inherently different, prohibitions of same-sex “marriage” are based on the true belief that men and women are different and that those differences have meaning for the public good.

No, the debate over the nature of marriage and the government’s recognition and regulation of marriage will never go away. If “progressives”—our current public censors—don’t ban dissent on issues related to homoerotic identity politics, this debate, like the one over legalized feticide, will persist.

Protecting true marriage is second only to protecting the lives of the least among us in terms of its importance to the health and welfare of this once great nation. The twin moral crimes of legalizing the slaughter of the unborn and legally recognizing homoerotic unions as “marriages” are dramatic manifestations of the enmity between unsaved man and God.  

This issue will remain until the end of this great nation or the end of redemptive history, whichever comes first. 

Stand with Illinois Family Institute! 

Truthiness:
the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true;
a quality characterizing a ‘truth’ that a person making an argument or assertion claims to know intuitively ‘from the gut’
or because it ‘feels right’ without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.

A disgraceful column in the Chicago Tribune by the often disingenuous Eric Zorn serves as a reminder of how essential dishonesty is in the ultimately tragic effort to normalize homosexuality.

Zorn censoriously castigates Christians who seek to honor God in all that they do, including their work, describing them as “censorious photographers….sour and judgmental looking with revulsion” at homosexual “wedding” partners, and “saying bitterly to the guests ‘Smile, somehow.’” He further censoriously imagines a “reproachful caterer, slamming dishes down to express her contempt” and “an opprobrious deejay or sanctimonious florist grumbling darkly throughout the festivities.”

While glibly imagining these ugly and implausible scenarios, Zorn admits to a complete inability to “imagine that the fuss about gay weddings and their potential to impinge on religious freedom of service providers is a real-life problem.”

While providing not a single case in which a sour and judgmental Christian photographer looked with revulsion at homosexual “wedding” partners, or a reproachful caterer contemptuously slammed dishes, or a deejay or florist grumbled darkly during a reception, he did provide a case in which an actual Christian photographer was sued and fined for her demurral from photographing a lesbian commitment ceremony. And then there are the bakers and florist who are being sued. Oh, and let’s not forget about the fertility specialists who were sued for refusing to inseminate a lesbian, and the bed and breakfast owners who have been sued for not renting their facilities to homosexual couples.  

Zorn’s solution to the problem of the loss of religious liberty is to endorse yet another of obscene sex columnist Dan Savage’s harebrained schemes. Savage, the homosexual activist who describes orthodox Christians as “bat sh**, a**h***le, do***ebags,” has proposed establishing a database of “gay-hostile wedding service providers” whom Zorn describes as embodying a “we don’t serve your kind here” sentiment.

By now the lies of Zorn should be obvious: First, he posits hypothetical scenarios involving imaginary Christians for which he apparently has no evidence. Then he implies that actual Christians refuse to serve homosexuals when he likely knows—or should know—that the photographers, bakers, florists, and fertility specialists do provide their products and services to homosexuals, unless the particular service being requested violates their religious beliefs. In other words, Zorn lies when he suggests that Christians “don’t serve” homosexuals.

Contrast Zorn’s and other “progressives’” lies and ugly ad hominem attacks with Baronelle Stutzman’s response to this debate. She is the Washington florist who declined to provide floral arrangements for the same-sex “wedding” of a homosexual client whom she had served for nine years knowing full well that he was homosexual.

Please watch this moving video and send it to friends (click here).

Zorn rightly presumes that Christians who believe that both the Old and New Testaments condemn homosexual acts (while imploring all sinners to repent and “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness”) will not sign on to such a dubious database. There are countless numbers of Christians who trust the scores of theologians trained in exegesis, including contemporary theologians, who teach that Scripture does indeed condemn homosexual acts. These Christians also believe that Scripture offers those who experience same-sex attraction the same freedom from bondage to sin (which is different from absence of sinful desires) that is offered to sinners who experience other sin predispositions. These Christians would not sign on to such a database.

And why not? (I’ll answer this question as if Savage and Zorn were serious and not merely snotty in their proposal.)

First, orthodox Christians wouldn’t sign on to such a database, because they’re not “gay-hostile.” They don’t hate those who experience homoerotic attraction and affirm a homosexual identity.

Second, they wouldn’t sign on, because those on the Left whose mission is to eradicate conservative moral beliefs will stoop to lies and slander to achieve their pernicious goal.

Without a shred of evidence, “progressives” continually assert the following non-facty, truthies:

• Homosexuality is biologically determined.
• Homosexuality is analogous to race or skin color.
• Homosexuality is in all cases immutable.
• All those who believe homosexual acts are immoral are stupid and ignorant (It is astonishing that “progressives” continue to assert this. I’d like to see Zorn or any other “progressive” debate N.T. Wright, Andrew Wilson, Doug Wilson, Elizabeth Scalia, Patrick Henry Reardon, John Piper, Nancy Pearcey, Robert George, Robert Gagnon, Anthony Esolen, William Lane Craig, D.A. Carson, J.Budziszewski, or Michael Brown on topics related to homosexuality).
• All those who believe that homosexual acts are immoral and that marriage is inherently sexually complementary are motivated by animus (I guess that includes Time Magazine’s Person of the Year: Pope Francis).
• Marriage has no inherent connection to sexual complementarity. (Then whence cometh the “twoness” of marriage?)
• Marriage has no inherent connection to reproductive potential.
• Marriage is constituted solely by love. (Then why not allow five people to marry? Why not allow two brothers to marry? And why should marriage be conceived of as a union between those who experience erotic/romantic love? Why not expand the definition of marriage to include platonic friends?)
• Children have no inherent right to know and be raised by their biological parents whenever possible (If biological heritage is so irrelevant as to render the creation of intentionally motherless or fatherless children justifiable, how do “progressives” account for the fervent public interest in genealogy?)

In a recent Public Discourse essay titled “The Culture of Dishonesty: Abortion, Divorce, and Obamacare,” Carson Holloway questions Americans’ tolerance for deception:

Americans’ acceptance of President Obama’s lies reveals how dangerously comfortable we have become with dishonesty. It will take a profound renovation of our culture to restore truthfulness to its proper place and establish political freedom on a more secure foundation. How did American culture grow so dangerously accustomed to falsehood?

In order to know whether an idea embodies love, one must first know if it’s true. The idea that volitional homosexual acts are morally neutral or morally good is not true and, therefore, promoting it is not loving. Promoting such an idea to young children—as is happening in our publicly subsidized schools—is downright evil.

 Click HERE to support the work and ministry
of Illinois Family Institute.

Yesterday I wrote about the question Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn posed to me regarding the potential effects of legally recognizing same-sex unions as marriages. He asked for specific research on which to base “gloomy” predictions and asked what “animated” groups like ours to oppose same-sex “marriage.” It’s important to note that his question was premised on the implicit assumption that predictions about the effects of changing the legal definition of marriage should only be justified by sociological or objectively-measured research. But such an assumption must itself be justified. There are other warrants or justifications for predictions, including both those that derive from logic or history.

It’s not only arbitrary to say predictions should be justified only by sociological research or data, but it’s also an idea not widely or consistently held by the Left. For example, lesbian attorney and former Georgetown University law professor, Chai Feldblum has predicted that once same-sex “marriage” is legalized, conservative people of faith will lose religious rights. And she did not base her prediction on sociological research. She based her prediction on her knowledge of the law and how the establishments of legal precedents under one set of facts are later used to expand into other areas of the law. I included that in my email to Mr. Zorn, but that wasn’t a quote he chose to include in his column.

The Left has made fervid claims about the salubrious (i.e., favorable to health or well-being) cultural effects of the legalization of same-sex “marriage” with very little evidence. In fact, they made those claims long before there was any evidence.

Zorn seems concerned solely about marriage and divorce rates, whereas conservatives are “animated” by a whole host of cultural effects. He spends some time exploring marriage/divorce statistics from Massachusetts which has had legalized same-sex marriage for a mere nine years. He also mentioned Europe. Zorn might want to look at the sobering marriage and divorce rates  in the European Union, in which a number of countries legalized same-sex “marriage” or civil unions prior to Massachusetts. I’m certainly not suggesting that the legalization of same-sex marriage is the cause of these dispiriting rates, but it may be a contributing factor.

One of my reasons for writing this follow-up to yesterday’s article is that an attorney wrote me, disagreeing with my assertion that “the legalization of same-sex marriage will not affect my marriage.”  He felt that I left out something important. Here’s an excerpt from his email:

Every citizen in the country is harmed by the erosion of personal rights such as the freedom of religion, which includes the freedom to choose—based on religious beliefs—not to partake in celebrating gay marriages by choosing not to do business related to them. It is much the same way that all Americans are harmed when a person of color is discriminated against. Our country is less free and less what it was intended to be when such things happen. 

It’s surprising that “progressives” claim they can’t see any potential negative cultural effects from the legalization of same-sex “marriage.” In the corporate world, it’s easy to express the view that marriage has no inherent connection to sexual complementarity. If an employee expresses a dissenting view, professional repercussions are possible if not likely. Human resources and the ironically named “diversity officer” assert that such views make homosexuals feel “unsafe”—(another proposition inconsistently applied). So already, we’re seeing the loss of religious freedom and speech rights.

It’s one thing to say, “Yes, those liberties will be diminished, but they’re justifiable losses,”—a claim with which I would disagree. It’s entirely different to say there will be no ill effects, which seems to be the view of Zorn and his ideological compeers.

I’ve not yet heard “progressives” offer reasons why their newfangled definition of marriage that says marriage is just about love would allow for the retention of the requirement that marriage be composed of only two people. Already polygamists of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints variety and polyamorists are using the very same definition to fight for their “equal marriage rights.”

Finally, I think it would be helpful to public discourse and, therefore, the common good, if the Left would refrain from asserting that the only reason to oppose the legal recognition of same-sex unions as marriage is animus toward homosexuals. It’s simply a false claim. It’s no more true than claiming that the only reason for opposition to the legalization of plural unions is animus toward Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints or animus toward polyamorists.

Those on both sides of the same-sex “marriage” debate believe marriage has a nature that the government merely recognizes but does not create out of whole cloth. Conservatives assert that central to marriage is sexual complementarity (which accounts for the “twoness” of marriage), without which it’s not marriage.

Most “progressives,” on the other hand, claim that marriage is centrally constituted by the presence of erotic/romantic love between two people of any sex (of course, they can’t account for the “twoness” that they claim is essential to marriage and should not be jettisoned).

We would do much better at discussing this issue, which (like abortion) will never go away, when the Left ceases to impute false and ugly motives to their opponents—motives that they don’t impute to themselves as they seek to maintain marriage as a binary institution. Continuing to spew poison for political gain is the sole cause of the new form of bullying that is emerging and is described by a father in this email I received yesterday:

My family, specifically my daughter, has been verbally attacked by friends and classmates accusing her and our family as being Christian bigots because of our position that marriage is between one man and one women and should not be redefined by politicians, many of whom have been elected in a corrupt political environment.

 Some liberal and “progressive” friends state that we are anti-gay and bigoted because we choose to exercise our 1^st Amendment rights to express these beliefs in the public square.

My older children who attend a public school are being labeled as “narrow-minded” freaks. Would these “enlightened” public officials allow my family to file an anti-bulling claim and seek damages against the school district?

Unfortunately, these are the signs of the times that we face today and the more reason that we must pray for those who ‘hate’ Christians for our beliefs. They will come to know the truth only by our love and how we live our faith.

The Left mistakenly believes this issue will eventually go away because they mistakenly believe homosexuality is analogous to race. And it is this foolish and indefensible analogy that they use to justify intolerance, censorship in schools, the usurpation of parental rights, and the diminution of First Amendment speech and religious protections.

Click HERE to make a tax-deductible donation to support IFI.

In response to the passage of Illinois’ same-sex “marriage” law, Francis Cardinal George wrote a letter that appeared in church bulletins in which he said that “there will be consequences for the Church and society that will become clearer as the law is used to sue for discrimination …It will contribute over the long run to the further dissolution of marriage and family life, which are the bedrock of any society.” 

In preparation for today’s column on same-sex  “marriage,” Mr. Zorn emailed me this question: “What if any practical, difference will this make to those of us who are happily married mothers and fathers? I can’t think of any, but given the animation of groups like yours I thought you surely can.”

Here is my response:

Hi Eric,

With all due respect, the question, “How will the legalization of same-sex ‘marriage’ affect any particular existing marriage” is a silly question. Of course, the legalization of same-sex marriage will not affect my marriage. Similarly, the legalization of plural marriages or marriages between close blood relatives would not affect my marriage.

Some of us have concerns about the radical redefinition of marriage that go beyond the personal and parochial. We’re concerned about the rights of all children, the rights of parents five, ten, or twenty years in the future. And we’re concerned about religious liberty for our children and our children’s children. What “animates” us—to use your term—is far greater than our immediate self-interests.

But jettisoning the central constituent feature of marriage will affect society’s understanding of marriage. It will affect how and what public education teaches about marriage (and homosexuality). It will affect children, in that the redefinition of marriage necessarily and implicitly denies that children have a right to a mother and father.

Obama has issued multiple Mother’s and Father’s Day proclamations in which he asserts that mothers and fathers are essential to the lives of their children, and then he incoherently endorses a form of marriage that embodies the fanciful assumptions that mothers or fathers are interchangeable or irrelevant.

Predictions can be based on research—and by research, I assume you mean sociological research—but they  can also be based on reason. One of the problems with not just “progressives” but many on both the Left and Right is their failure to think philosophically. We don’t take the time to think through the logical outworkings of an idea (as opposed to a fallacious slippery slope).

For example, those who argue that marriage has a nature but that nature does not include sexual complementarity and further that marriage is centrally or solely constituted by intense romantic feelings have to offer reasons why plural unions should not be legal. In fact, they need to justify with reasons why marriage should be limited to only those in romantic relationships.  Why should government-sanctioned marriage recognize only romantic unions as marriages? What is the relevance to the common good of inherently sterile romantic/erotic unions? If marriage has no inherent connection to reproductive potential and it’s constituted solely by love, then there is no more reason for the government to be involved in it than there is in the government being involved in recognizing other types of non-reproductive loving relationships. There is a logical outworking of the idea that marriage has nothing to do with reproductive potential and is only constituted by love.

Predictions about the future of marriage, family life, and religious liberty can be based both on sociological research and logical thought. So, for example, there are decades of studies that show that children fare best when raised in an intact family with a mother and father. The Left likes to say that the sex of caretakers is wholly irrelevant and that all that matters is the number of parents, but that’s an assumption based on virtually nothing. Why is the number two essential to marriage while sexual complementarity is not?

It’s frustrating to see the poor research the Left trots out in support of, for example, homosexual parenting or the etiology of same-sex attraction, while they trash much larger better constructed studies that arrive at conclusions that don’t suit their political ends. No social science research is flawless, but the studies that homosexual activists and their many friends in the media extol are by and large much worse than the studies that contradict their biases.

Chai Feldblum who is a lesbian, former Georgetown University Law professor, and current member of the EEOC, has written—that is to say, predicted—that when same-sex marriage is legalized conservative people of faith will lose religious rights She argues that this is a zero-sum game in which a gain for homosexuals means a loss for conservative people of faith (“Moral Conflict and Liberty: Gay Rights and Religion”). In her prediction, she used as an illustration, Christian bed and breakfast owners who will suffer a loss of religious liberty for their refusal to rent their facilities out to homosexuals, an issue we’re seeing right here in Illinois.

It seems reasonable to predict that encoding in law the idea that marriage has no inherent connection to sexual complementarity or reproductive potential will increase the practice of homosexuals creating children to be intentionally motherless and fatherless. It seems reasonable/logical to predict that some years from now, these children will feel the kind of sorrow and resentment at being denied their birthrights that adults who were products of anonymous sperm or egg donations now feel. We are commodifying children, and that is fraught with tragic cultural implications. Read what Alana Newman says in her article, “What Are the Rights of Donor-Conceived People?”

Here’s a NY Times article on free speech case that provides evidence for the claim that the legalization of same-sex “marriage” will affect society negatively–well, that is if you value free speech.

I know that you believe religious discrimination is justifiable and permissible once someone enters the marketplace, but there are two important distinctions that must be addressed: First, providing services to homosexuals is different from providing services for a same-sex union ceremony. It is an inconvenient truth for “progressives” that the elderly baker in WA who is being sued by the state because she wouldn’t provide a cake for a homosexual “wedding” had sold baked goods to the homosexual man who had sought her services for his “wedding.” She didn’t refuse to serve a homosexual. She refused to use her goods and gifts in celebration of something that violates her religious convictions.  

Second, it is profoundly foolish ever to have included “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” in anti-discrimination policies and laws. “Sexual orientation” is merely a rhetorical invention of the Left created to render equivalent homosexuality and heterosexuality, which are not equivalent. The idea that homosexuality and heterosexuality are flipsides of the sexuality coin is an assumption that homosexuals and their ideological allies hold. That assumption is not a fact. 

Heterosexuality has an objective biological/anatomical component, which homosexuality does not. Homosexuality (unlike race) is constituted solely by subjective feelings and volitional (sexual) acts. Are “progressives” willing to add all other conditions similarly constituted to the list of protected categories?

In addition, since homosexuality (unlike race) is constituted by feelings, desires, and volitional acts, it is perfectly legitimate to assess morally.

There is zero evidence that same-sex attraction is genetically determined, and even homosexual researchers say there never will be a gene for a complex behavior like sexual attraction. But let’s hypothesize that there may be some biochemical influences in some cases for the development of same-sex attraction. Is it your argument that any behavior that is driven by an impulse or desire that is shaped to some degree by biochemistry is necessarily moral? That strikes me as a very dangerous proposition, but that’s precisely the assumption that inheres the Left’s central argument. 

Here are some other predictions based on logic:

• Once marriage is severed from any inherent connection to reproductive potential, once the revisionist view of marriage as a private relationship constituted solely by the deep feelings of those seeking to marry, it becomes meaningless as a public institution. Eventually even heterosexual investment in it will decrease as Scandinavian countries have found. Read some of the work of Stanley Kurtz on this topic.

   

• As fewer heterosexuals choose to marry and increased numbers of children are raised by single mothers or lesbians, greater numbers of children will grow up fatherless, which will increase the myriad and tragic harms that result from being deprived of fathers (click HERE  and HERE  for more information). 

   

• The law will support and propagate the radical, destructive, and fallacious idea that children have no inherent right to know and be raised by their biological parents. 

   

• The law will support and propagate the radical, destructive, and fallacious idea that mothers and fathers are interchangeable and that mothers or fathers are expendable.  Increasing numbers of children will be deliberately deprived of either a mother or father, which will harm children in incalculable and numerous ways.

   

• Public schools —including elementary schools—will expose children to non-objective homosexuality-affirming beliefs about homosexuality. 

   

• Public schools will censor all competing (i.e., conservative) views of homosexuality.

   

• Children will be taught that traditional beliefs about what marriage is are hateful, bigoted, and ignorant.

   

• Parents of children in public schools will lose the right to be the sole determiner of what their children learn about homosexuality and when they learn it. 

   

• Laws currently presume that the spouse of a woman who has given birth is the father. When homosexuals are allowed to marry that presumption becomes irrational. The government will become ever more entangled in issues related to legal parentage. Economist Jennifer Roback Morse has written extensively about this effect.

   

• For many homosexual couples, particularly male couples, sexual monogamy isn’t part of marital fidelity—not even in theory. Their ideas about what marriage is will permeate the culture. Homosexuals like Andrew Sullivan and the morally vacant Dan Savage have explicitly stated that heterosexual couples should learn from homosexual couples about the value of non-non-monogamy.

Years ago we were fed another deceit about marriage. We were told that no-fault divorce would be good for marriages and good for children. It has been disastrous for both. As Richard Weaver wrote, “Ideas have consequences.”

On what basis does the Left predict that severing marriage from sexual complementarity and reproductive potential will have no deleterious effects on marriage, children, or religious freedom?

Those who don’t believe that radical ideas shape culture over time in profound ways don’t read enough history or philosophy.

One final comment: The Left continually spews the ugly and destructive lie that everyone who believes homosexual acts are immoral hates homosexuals. Not only is that false, it’s pernicious, especially when told to children or teens. It destroys any possibility for relationships and dialogue between people of good will who disagree on what leads to human flourishing. Most of us who live in a diverse world are fully capable of enjoying the company of, admiring the good qualities of, and loving those who hold beliefs or make life choices with which we disagree. Most of us do it every day.

 Click HERE to make a tax-deductible donation to support IFI.

Politicians and pundits are making mincemeat of marriage, faith, and religious liberty.

Rumors are circulating that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) and homosexual activist, State Representative Greg Harris (D-Chicago) may call for a vote on the marriage redefinition bill (SB 10) next week. Because their ideological accomplices in the political and punditry spheres are promoting this effort with fervor and tenacity, it’s essential that Illinoisans understand the specious nature of the arguments that animate them. The Chicago Tribune once again provides a cornucopia of lousy — that is to say, false and destructive — ideas about marriage, ideas which, unfortunately, extend beyond the narrow boundaries of the Tribune and the narrow minds of newly installed Chicago Alderman Deb Mell, Tribune columnist Eric Zorn, and Governor Pat Quinn.

Lesbian activist Deb Mell’s recent Tribune commentary isn’t actually a rational argument for the redefinition of marriage. Rather, it’s an extended piece of demagoguery that embodies and conceals a troubling set of assumptions and an absurd conclusion. And it’s the only thing Mell’s got, so she repeats it ad nauseum.

To summarize her “argument”: She and her partner have been together for nine years, they own a home together, they do household chores together, they are raising a child together, they assume extended familial roles together, they attend a church that rejects orthodoxy together, they care for one another during illness, and they manage their finances together. Therefore, marriage has no inherent connection to sexual complementarity.

Yes, folks, that’s what passes for an argument in the alternate universe called “progressivism.” No attempt to define marriage. No attempt to justify why marriage is restricted to two people. No attempt to explain why platonic friends, siblings, or polyamorists — all of whom can do all the things listed above — should not have their unions legally recognized as marriages. No attempt to justify the deliberate denial of children’s inherent right to be raised by both a mother and father, preferably their own biological mother and father. No attempt to explain what the government interest is in inherently non-reproductive types of relationships.

While Mell replaces sound logic with appeals to emotion, Eric Zorn replaces it with ad hominem arguments and condescending dismissals, starting with calling business owners who make distinctions between right and wrong actions “intolerant.” To business owners like the Christian photographers who have been fined $6,637 for declining to photograph a lesbian commitment ceremony, Zorn offers these tolerant and compassionate responses: “Tough,” “Please,” “Yawn,” and “Then don’t open a business.”

Zorn believes that anyone who makes moral judgments with which he disagrees is intolerant. One wonders, would Zorn similarly malign a photographer who refused to photograph a commitment ceremony between a father and his 30 year-old consenting daughter? And let’s complicate the question by hypothesizing this refusal comes during a time when laws prohibiting incestuous acts between consenting adults have been repealed. After all, the government has no business in our bedrooms.

Out of either ignorance or dishonesty, Zorn fails to address the fact that the photographers did not decline to photograph homosexuals. They declined to photograph a homosexual ceremony. They were not discriminating against people. They were making legitimate ethical distinctions among types of activities—an inconvenient truth for “progressives.”

Zorn seems to believe that the ultimate arbiter of all matters moral is THE LAW. Yes, laws like the Illinois Human Rights Act, which was created by Left-leaning Illinois politicians in cahoots with homosexual activists, are the ultimate arbiters of moral truth. Regarding religious liberty, Zorn says:

“You want to open a business that serves the public? Then you can’t practice discrimination on the basis of…religion…sexual orientation and so on….The law [the IL Human Rights Act] doesn’t care what you think about customers in these protected categories.”

Zorn doesn’t seem to see his inconsistent application of both a principle and a law. He uses the law that prohibits discrimination based on “sexual orientation” and religion to compel business owners to engage in an activity that violates their religious beliefs.

Further, “sexual orientation” is merely a dishonest term concocted to disguise the fact that a condition constituted by subjective sexual desires and volitional sexual acts has no similarity to other protected categories. Zorn with unequivocal eagerness subordinates religious liberty to the newly minted sexual “rights” of homosexuals. Methinks there’s some rollicking grave-rolling roiling the cemeteries of our Founding Fathers.

Zorn harrumphs that the religious protections in the proposed marriage revision bill that protect the right of churches to refuse to solemnize homosexual “weddings” are all the protections conservative people of faith deserve. This exposes Zorn’s ignorance of what it means to be a Christian and what the First Amendment was intended to protect. The totality of the life of a Christian is informed by his or her faith. There is no distinction between the sacred and the secular spheres for true followers of Christ, a point Martin Luther King Jr. eloquently expressed in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Governor Quinn, who claims to be a Roman Catholic, reveals, like Zorn, a troubling measure of theological ignorance. Quinn defends his defiance of the teachings of the Catholic Church on marriage by stating that he is acting in accordance with his “conscience.” Zorn and Quinn share a strange and stunted view of faith, doctrine, and religious liberty. Zorn wants to keep religion out of the public square. Quinn wants to keep it out of the public square and his conscience.

IFI is extending an urgent plea to our readers to take a few moments to express your opposition to SB 10, the bill that will permit the government to recognize non-marital unions as marriages, will harm children, and will further undermine religious liberty. It’s not just homosexual activists in Illinois who are watching this vote. Homosexual activists and their ideological allies throughout the country are watching Illinois. So too are conservatives in other states in which marriage is now or soon will be under attack. Defeat of this bill will offer hope to them.

Take ACTION: Send an email or a fax to your state representative.  Encourage your him/her to uphold marriage, family and religious freedom in Illinois by voting against SB 10.  Then take a moment to call the Capitol switchboard at (217) 782-2000 and ask your state representative to vote NO to SB 10.

 Please help your Illinois Family Institute remain strong in this fight.  
Please, click HERE to contribute what you can today.

Thank you.

The Left, energized by feckless Republicans wheedling conservatives to set aside those pesky social issues, is poised to make a run at marriage again this week in Springfield. It’s time to retrieve our creaky spines from storage and return them to their proper places, holding our gelatinous bodies upright. We must exceed the fervor and tenacity of those who seek to pervert marriage and rob children of their birthrights. Don’t allow homosexual demagogues and bullies cow you into submission through lies and name-calling. Stand for truth and children’s rights even if doing so is costly.

Republican State Representative Ed Sullivan from Mundelein just announced his support for same-sex “marriage,” presumptuously explaining   that “because my mother-in-law is gay, I have more of an understanding and familiarity with same-sex couples.” Clearly, however, he has virtually no understanding of what marriage by nature is or why the government is involved.

Sunday morning on Fox 32 Sunday, House Minority Leader Tom Cross said “I think you’re going to see 3 or 4 Republicans…probably be supporting [same-sex ‘marriage’].

Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn fulminating against conservatives again reveals the Left’s profound ignorance of marriage and the reason for the government’s involvement in marriage. He exposes his ignorance through his baseless comparison of homosexuality to race and his equally foolish assertion that “opponents [of legalized same-sex ‘marriage’]…rage incoherently about tradition, biology and scriptural condemnation of sodomy.” (It’s curious that Zorn dismisses biology without even an attempt at defending his dismissal. Why are reasons emerging from biology, that is to say, hard science, less legitimate than reasons emerging from the ever-fluid world of social science that the Left relies on even when it’s bad social science?)

Zorn, and other “progressives” would be well-served by studying the important book What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense by Ryan T. Anderson, Sherif Girgis, and Princeton Law Professor Robert George. It may surprise the self-righteous Zorn to learn that they don’t rage, their arguments are non-religious, and they’re coherent.

If Zorn wants to talk about incoherence, he needs to look no further than President Obama who every year issues Mother’s Day and Father’s Day proclamations that affirm the essential roles that mothers and fathers play in the lives of their children, and then endorses a form of “marriage” which says, in effect, that mothers or fathers are expendable. Now that’s incoherent—and pernicious.

Zorn prophesies that “40 years from now, opposition to gay marriage will be an embarrassing relic of our Puritan past” and that those who yet believe marriage is inherently sexually complementary will be a “hateful and fundamentally irrelevant minority.”

Is homosexual marriage analogous to interracial marriage?

The basis for his ugly prophecy is his comparison of homosexual “marriage” to interracial marriage, which is based on the baseless comparison of homosexuality to race. Race is, of course, a lousy analogue for homosexuality. Race is 100% heritable, in all cases immutable, and has no inherent connection to subjective feelings, desires, or volitional acts. Homosexuality, in contrast, is not 100% heritable, is in some cases fluid, and is constituted centrally by subjective feelings, sexual desire, and volitional sexual acts.

Here are some differences that the Left refuses to acknowledge:

• Bans on interracial marriage were wrong because they introduced a criterion wholly irrelevant to the nature and purpose of marriage, which is a sexually complementary relationship naturally ordered to reproduction and childrearing.
• Bans on interracial marriage were wrong because they were based on a flawed understanding of human nature. The erroneous assumption was that white men and black men were by nature different. Bans on homosexual marriage are based on the true belief that men and women are fundamentally different—a fact that homosexual men and women openly acknowledge.
• Bans on interracial marriage were wrong because they discriminated based solely on who someone was, whereas bans on homosexual “marriage” make distinctions among behaviors—which all laws do. A black man who wants to marry a white woman is seeking to do the same action that a white man who wants to marry a white woman seeks to do. A law that prohibits an interracial marriage is wrong because it is based on who the person is, not on what he seeks to do. But, if a man wants to marry a man, he is seeking to do an entirely different action from that which a man who wants to marry a woman seeks to do. A law that prohibits homosexual marriage is legitimate because it is based not on who the person is but rather on what he seeks to do.

What is marriage and why is the government involved? Some non-religious reasons

Zorn, like his fellow dogmatists, simply declaims that marriage constitutes “legally formalizing the love and commitment of same-sex couples.” That’s a contention—not an argument. And it’s a revolutionary idea. The government has no vested interest in “formalizing” love. The government couldn’t care less if those seeking to marry love each other.

The Left argues that marriage has no inherent connection to sexual complementarity or reproductive potential and that it’s just about who loves whom. If that’s the case, then why the magic number two?

What our presumptuous “progressives” don’t discuss is the inconvenient truth that children have an inherent, inalienable right to know and be raised whenever possible by their biological mother and father—a right of which they are illegitimately denied when society formally severs marriage from sexual complementarity and reproductive potential.

Marriage is the union of one man and one woman, which is the type of relationship that naturally results in children. The government doesn’t compel reproduction or ascertain fertility. It merely recognizes and regulates the type of relationship from which children naturally ensue.

And what are the essential elements for the procreation of children? You need one man and one woman in a sexual union. This is the only reason the binary criterion of legal marriage makes sense. There are two sexes. When two people, one from each sex, come together in a sexual union, children may and often do result. Sever marriage from any inherent connection to reproductive potential and the binary requirement becomes irrational.

Eliminate sexual complementarity from the legal definition of marriage and eliminate reproductive potential from our understanding of marriage, substituting love as the central constituent feature, and not only does the prohibition of plural marriage become irrational but so too does the prohibition of incestuous marriage.

The government is involved in marriage to protect the developmental needs and inherent rights of children—which ultimately also serve the future health of any civilization. The Left in transmogrifying marriage into a virtually unrecognizable shape is changing the central focus of marriage from the needs and rights of children to the desires of adults. As the French who oppose the legalization of same-sex “marriage” (and that includes atheists and homosexuals) say, the rights of children trump the rights to children, who are being objectified and commodified as they’re bought and sold to homosexual couples that are by design sterile.

Please don’t allow battle fatigue to get the better of you. Religious liberty, speech rights, parental rights, and, most important, the rights and needs of children are at stake.

Take ACTION: Please take a few minutes to email or a fax to your state representative — it is time to speak up now!  Click HERE to contact your Illinois Representative and tell him/her to oppose the effort to redefine marriage!  Even if you have previously contacted your representative, please do so again. Tell your representative in no uncertain terms that you want him or her to oppose same-sex “marriage.” 

Please take a few minutes to also call him/her through the Capitol switchboard at (217) 782-2000.

Help us continue the fight for natural marriage by donating $15, $25, $50 or $100 or more today.   

Click HERE to support the work and ministry of Illinois Family Institute.  With your support we can continue our vital work!

In early November 2010, suburban St. Charles North High School became embroiled in a controversy during yet another public school event designed to affirm homosexuality.

In response to “Ally Week,” a pro-homosexual week sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), three students wore t-shirts that said “Straight Pride” on the front and had a verse from Leviticus on the back that read, “If a man lay with a male as those who lay with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination and shall surely be put to death.”

Administrators asked the students to cross out parts of the verse, but the next day when two students wore shirts that simply read “Straight Pride” with no Bible verse, administrators asked them to cover their shirts with sweatshirts because they deemed the phrase disruptive. Space does not permit a discussion of First Amendment speech rights, diversity, tolerance, fairness, or disruptiveness, all of which deserve a full discussion.

Instead, I want to respond to an editorial by homosexuality-affirming demagogue, Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn, who wrote the following:

“Gay Pride” is an antidote to gay shame – the sense of alienation and otherness in adolescence that prompted writer Dan Savage to start the It Gets Better project to reduce the incidence of suicide among gay teens; kids who kill themselves in part because they’re treated unmercifully by the sorts of peers who would wear shirts to school consigning them to being murdered at the command of an angry God.

…the expression “Straight Pride” can only be read as a gratuitous and contemptuous response to the suggestion that gay people not be marginalized.

…Most of us long ago got our minds around the idea that “Black Power,” a slogan calling for dignity and opportunity for historically oppressed African Americans, is not the bland mirror image of “White Power,” a slogan employed by bigots clinging fearfully and often violently to the vestiges of Caucasian prerogative.

School administrators have not just the right but also the obligation to quell such hate speech within their walls.

Before responding to Zorn’s comments, I want to say that the verse from Leviticus was unnecessarily provocative. For a proper understanding, this verse requires context and theological exposition–two things in which liberal journalists seem little interested even as they pontificate on things theological.

Also, I hope readers will research the man to whom Zorn refers: Dan Savage is a homosexual writer and speaker who uses sophomoric, hateful, and obscene rhetoric to promote sexual perversion and denigrate Christians.

Zorn is wrong in asserting that “Straight Pride” can “only be read as a gratuitous and contemptuous response to the suggestion that gay people not be marginalized.”

Although “gay pride” may signify a proclamation against shame, it also implies that conservative views are wrong, hateful, and must be silenced. Zorn implicitly affirms this when he compares those who hold conservative moral beliefs about homosexuality to hateful, fearful, violent, bigoted oppressors. That’s a lot to impute to teens who wear “Straight Pride” t-shirts. And it’s a message they don’t need to hear from Mr. Zorn, because they likely hear it repeatedly at school.

“Straight pride” is not contemptuous of the message that homosexuals should not be marginalized. “Straight pride” rebels against the idea that only pro-homosexual messages have a right to be spoken in public schools. “Straight pride” conveys the idea that conservative moral beliefs are right, true, and entitled to a place in public discourse, including schools.

Adolescents don’t take kindly to authoritarianism or censorship, which is what many conservative teens rightly perceive in the endless implicit and explicit criticism of traditional moral beliefs in public schools. Again and again, conservative kids hear that their moral beliefs about behavior constitute hatred of persons and must be silenced. The phrase “Straight pride” is not a contemptuous message of hatred for persons who identify as homosexual; nor is it a threat. It is an act of non-conformity that conveys the message that conservative students have as much a right to express their moral beliefs as liberal students and teachers have to express theirs.

Teens can see what many taxpayers don’t want to see: activist ideologues inside and outside public schools are imposing their unproven political, moral, and philosophical beliefs on students.

And some teens have had enough.

If taxpayers would oppose this sustained and systemic propaganda, teens wouldn’t feel the need to.

Those who truly love children–parents, grandparents, public school teachers and administrators, church leaders, and legislators–should no longer tolerate government employees preaching homosexuality-affirming dogma in schools that their taxes subsidize.

In schools that purport to care about diversity, the free exchange of ideas, and critical thinking, students are entitled to study competing ideas about, for example, whether homosexuality is analogous to race; whether disapproval of homosexual acts constitutes hatred of persons; whether homosexuality is biologically determined; whether homosexuality is fixed; whether interracial marriage is analogous to homosexual marriage; and whether children have an intrinsic right to a mother and a father.

Don’t avoid discussions about homosexuality. Talk to your neighbors, friends, teachers, and church leaders. Write letters to your local press and elected legislators. Ask your pastors and priests to speak up in the communities in which they live. Ask them to teach adults and teens in your church how to think through the secular arguments used to normalize homosexuality. Don’t flee from persecution. Persevere for the sake of our children, our schools, our freedom, and truth.

Support IFI’s Division of School Advocacy!

Would you prayerfully consider pledging a monthly gift of $25 or more to support this important division of IFI? A promise of this kind will help us form a strategic plan that budgetary constraints often makes impossible. You can become a Sustaining Member with automatic monthly deductions from your checking account or credit card. Click HERE to access the Sustaining Member form.

If a monthly pledge is not feasible at this time, perhaps you could send a one-time, tax-deductible gift. Click HERE to donate today!

If you believe in the mission and purpose of Illinois Family Institute, please send your most generous contribution today. IFI is supported by voluntary donations from individuals like you across the state of Illinois.

Donations to IFI are tax-deductible.

Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn asserts that the “stench of history” lingers in the air following the cancellation of a high school prom in Mississippi. It isn’t the “stench of history” but rather the stench of Zorn’s ignorance that hangs over his diatribe and pollutes both thought and discourse.

By suggesting that the virulent racism of the South in the 1960’s is morally equivalent to societal disapproval of homosexuality, Zorn perpetuates the ludicrous and offensive assumption that race is ontologically (i.e., by nature) equivalent to homosexuality. Zorn conveniently omits any discussion of this unproven assumption upon which his analogy depends. By omitting any such discussion, he frees himself from the burden of providing evidence or justification for the proposition that homosexuality is by nature analogous to race or for the proposition that disapproval of homosexuality is analogous to racism.

The only thing racism shares in common with the belief that volitional homosexual acts are immoral is that Zorn hates both. If that’s all that’s required for Zorn to see equivalence, then I guess in Zorn’s strange moral universe, disapproval of polyamory, adult consensual incest, or paraphilias is equivalent to racism, which in turn would make polyamory, adult consensual incest, and paraphilias ontologically equivalent to race. In reality, race or skin color is ontologically equivalent to biological sex–not to homosexuality.

The racist belief that African Americans were inferior and ought not to have interacted socially with whites was a malignant falsehood that needed to be exposed and eradicated. In contrast, the belief that boys ought not to have sex with boys or girls with girls is true and should be both publicly expressed and affirmed. This moral belief has nothing whatsoever to do with ignorance, bigotry, or hatred.

There are, broadly speaking, two categories of conditions: immutable conditions with no behavioral or moral implications, like race and sex; and conditions that are centrally defined by behaviors that are legitimate objects of moral assessment even if biological factors influence impulses. Such conditions would include polyamory, promiscuity, selfishness, drug use, aggression, pedophilia, Body Integrity Identity Disorder, Gender Identity Disorder, and homosexuality. From the behavioral/moral category, Zorn has plucked out homosexuality and decided to treat it like conditions from the immutable, non-behavioral category with no justification for doing so.

Implying an analogy between traditional beliefs on homosexuality and racism is specious in that the latter reflects negative judgments based on 100% heritable, immutable conditions that carry no behavioral implications. In contrast, it is widely debated, even within the homosexual community, whether homosexuality is immutable. Indeed, “queer theory” holds that sexuality is a fluid social construction. In addition, there is no research proving that homosexual attraction is biologically determined. Finally, homosexuality inherently involves acts that can be justifiably deemed immoral. Such moral conclusions do not constitute hatred of persons or bigotry.

Zorn errs not merely in assuming without proof that homosexuality is ontologically analogous to race, but in suggesting that the racist act of secretly relocating a prom in Birmingham, Alabama in 1965 in order to exclude an African American girl is analogous to openly canceling a prom because one student sought to violate morally legitimate policy regarding homosexual and cross-dressing behaviors.

Zorn concludes his commentary by deeming school policy that prohibits homosexual and cross-dressing behaviors as hatred of persons. Even identifying people as “homosexual” reveals ontological and moral assumptions. For those who share Zorn’s unproven assumptions about the nature and morality of homosexuality, identifying someone as homosexual means not only that same-sex desire and homosexual acts are experienced, but that they are central to and affirmed in his or her life.

In contrast, for those who hold conservative assumptions about the nature and morality of homosexuality, stating that someone is homosexual would mean only that someone experiences same-sex attraction and perhaps engages in homosexual acts. Traditional ontological and moral assumptions about homosexuality would not, however, suggest that those attractions are central to identity or worthy of affirmation.

Most people believe that polyamorous attractions, though unchosen and likely shaped by biology, should not be considered either central to identity or worthy of affirmation. And just as it would not constitute hatred of persons to prohibit polyamorous behavior at a school dance, it does not constitute hatred to prohibit homosexual and cross-dressing behaviors at a school dance.