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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Evanston, Illinois, a North Shore suburb of Chicago, has a reputation in the rest of the state as being affluent and liberal. Last year, its city council voted to levy a 3 percent tax, with a cap of $10 million, on recreational marijuana to go towards racial reparations. Now, the City’s Health and Human Service Committee has submitted a death with symbolic dignity resolution to the city council, which many believe clashes with the rights of the disabled.

On February 3, the committee voted to send the resolution supporting the “death with dignity” legislation, which is essentially a euphemism for legally assisted suicide.

Illinois State Rep. Robyn Gabel (D-Evanston), who has represented the 18^th District since 2010, attended the meeting. She indicated her support for the resolution and for such a bill at the state level. According to the local newspaper, Evanston Now, Gabel said she would be in a “far stronger position” advocating for such a bill if she is able to demonstrate “[her] hometown supports her.” Her district also includes the suburbs Glencoe, Northbrook, Northfield, Wilmette, and Winnetka.

Evanston Now reported that activists supporting what it called a “medical aid in dying measure” wore yellow T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Compassion and Choice.” Interestingly, the slogan sounds similar to that of pro-abortion advocates.

Disability activists from the Progress Center for Independent Living were present to oppose the resolution. Larry Biondi, an Evanston resident who has cerebral palsy, spoke for them from his wheelchair using a text-reading computer. If such legislation were to be legalized, he warned, it would be “the cheapest treatment available in our profit-driven health care system.” He also worried that there would be no safeguards against abuse.

A chaplain for a local retirement community, Three Crowns Park, argued against Biondi and the other disability activists. Chaplain John Lionberger said that in his talks with residents, they have expressed their support for “this kind of option, [which would] allow them the autonomy to make decisions about their own lives.”

Lionberger shared his feelings of watching his father dying, “screaming in pain,” and crying about the fear others feel of suffering a painful death.

The same committee debated a similar resolution in 2018 and decided not to bring it before the Evanston City Council.

One alderperson in favor of the resolution cited Oregon’s adoption of a similar statue in 1997, saying that she had heard no evidence of coercion or abuse. Another shared that he was not in favor of it based on his beliefs.

Ultimately, the resolution passed to go on to the full city council, with Alderperson Cicely Fleming stating that she does not believe it is  “within [their] capacity” to decide such an issue.

The next meeting of the city council is scheduled for Monday, February 24.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to Mayor Stephen Hagerty and all 9 Aldermen to ask them to respect the sanctity of human life and reject this resolution in support of assisted suicide.

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