The story of an innocent birthday cake that wasn’t and the expulsion of 15-year-old Kayla Kenney from Whitefield Academy, a private Christian school in Louisville, Kentucky, has been covered in multiple news outlets. Kenney’s mother, Kimberly Alford, took a photo of her daughter sitting in front of a specially designed rainbow-colored birthday cake, wearing a sweater adorned with rainbow stripes, and then posted it on Facebook. Shortly after the Facebook posting, the theologically orthodox Christian school notified the family that Kayla was expelled.

Here’s an excerpt from the Washington Post story:

Alford instructed a bakery to decorate a cake with colors that “pop,” [Alford] recalled. It just so happened that the cake’s rainbow motif mirrored the design on her daughter’s sweater. … Alford said she is aware that the rainbow-striped flag is a symbol of the LGBTQ community, but emphasized that her daughter’s matching rainbow cake and sweater were simply a coincidental aesthetic and not intended to mean anything more. … “Rainbows don’t mean you’re a certain gender or certain sex or sexuality,” Alford told The Washington Post, adding that she provided the school a receipt from the bakery listing the cake’s design as “assorted colors.”

“It just so happened” that the rainbow cake mirrored her daughter’s rainbow sweater as well as the symbol of the “LGBTQ” community? The rainbow cake and sweater “were simply a coincidental aesthetic and not intended to mean anything more”? A receipt from a bakery that identifies only what the cake decorator needed to know about decorating the cake provides proof of the motives of Kayla?

Someone really thinks Christians just fell off their proverbial turnip trucks while clinging with white knuckles to their guns and religion.

Louisville Courier Journal writer, Billy Kobin, who broke the incredible news story of a Christian school implementing its code of conduct policy, reported that Kenney’s mother “said her daughter is not gay and the cake was simply a fun treat.”

Well, that’s strange because, as author Rod Dreher reports on The American Conservative website, Kayla’s father Mark Kenney wrote this on his Facebook page, “My daughter got expelled from her church for being gay.”

The school responded to the secular press’ incomplete accounts:

Inaccurate media reports are circling stating that the student in question was expelled …  solely for a social media post. In fact, she has unfortunately violated our student code of conduct numerous times over the past two years. In the fall, we met with the student to give her a final chance to begin to adhere to our code of conduct. Unfortunately, she did not live up to the agreement, and therefore, has been expelled.

… All parents who enroll their children in our private school know up front that we ask the students to adhere to a lifestyle informed by our Christian beliefs.

The beliefs on which Whitefield’s code of conduct is based include explicit affirmation of theologically orthodox views of sexuality. Kayla and her parents knew the beliefs of the school and signed the code of conduct.

Dreher also reposted photos from Kayla’s Instagram account of Kayla dressed as a boy, taking a girl to a dance; a post from Oct. 16, 2019 in which Kayla announces, “Me coming out”; a post from months before her expulsion in which Kayla announces, “Me finally getting a GF [girlfriend]”; a photo of Kayla and a girl with the words, “But I was the one in her bed….”; and another photo of Kayla throwing her Bible in the clothes dryer.

While Kayla’s mom acknowledges that Kayla has had disciplinary issues, she misrepresented the nature and extent of those issues, and the mainstream press has been (not surprisingly) incurious about those issues. But Dreher reports the following:

When Alford says her daughter “is no angel,” and confirms that she has had “disciplinary issues,” she’s understating matters. My understanding is that Kayla Kenney had a long, specific list of repeated infractions — bullying, disrespecting teachers, vaping in school (as Alford acknowledges), and so forth. Part of what she has allegedly done is promoting LGBT consciousness in the school, including aggression on that front. I’m trying to be delicate here, but I can tell you that she has transgressed against other students on this front, to promote bisexuality. For example, she allegedly drew rainbows and wrote slogans like “bi pride” on other kids’ papers, and gave at least two different girls the impression that she was sexually harassing them.

The Chicago Tribune’s lifestyle expert and armchair theologian Heidi Stevens assures America “loudly and clearly,” that

If you identify as a Christian and you identify as gay, you don’t have to cleave off one part of yourself to remain true to the other.

How does she know this? She knows it because she consulted heretic John Pavlovitz whom she has long admired (not surprising) and about whom Stevens claims there is no one “better” to explain this heresy. Here’s Pavlovitz’s superior defense of heresy as cited by Stevens:

It’s ironic that someone would see the rainbow, which in the story of Noah was a symbol of God’s expansive love, and have that symbol become something they would weaponize. It just shows our complete lack of understanding of the heart of Jesus and what his teachings and what his life were trying to create in the world. A move like that gets cheap applause from others who want that same kind of vengeful religion. It’s the sort of easy win that people get when they exclude people, when they can try to claim some sort of moral high ground. It’s intoxicating. It makes people feel more spiritual. It’s short-hand religion without a deeper theology. If you don’t have a theology of empathy, there is not Jesus there. Even if you look at someone who is gay and you believe that’s not what God wants for people, Jesus encountered people throughout his ministry that would be doing things God wouldn’t want for them. And he always leaves them with more dignity than he found them.”

So many errors, so little time.

God’s rainbow has not been weaponized—well, at least not by Christians. Homosexuals have appropriated it, perverted it, and weaponized it against Christians.

The rainbow symbolized God’s promise not to again destroy the earth by a flood, which he had just done because of the sinfulness of man. It’s a reminder of God’s covenant with man and of his grace and mercy. God loves his creation and at the same time detests much that fallen humans feel, desire, believe, think, and do. God is loving, merciful, holy, and just. And Judgment Day is coming. He has told us in his Word that he will one day judge the world—not by water but by fire—and those whose names are not written in the Book of Life, will be cast into the “lake of fire” for eternity.

Those aren’t my words. They’re the words of the loving, empathetic, holy, and just God who Pavlovitz falsely claims to serve. (Stevens made clear that Pavlovitz doesn’t serve God: “Pavlovitz doesn’t believe being gay is a sin. He believes in and preaches radical inclusivity and believes Jesus did the same.”) God’s Word tells us what acts we must turn from or risk eternal separation from him. Homosexuality is one of those, so, no, you can’t be a Christ-follower and affirm homosexuality.

If Pavlovitz believes that theologically orthodox Christians applaud the expulsion of a troubled teen from a Christian school, desire vengeance against her, or feel “intoxicated” by such an expulsion, then he doesn’t know any theologically orthodox Christians. It appears the Whitefield Academy Administration tried for two years to avoid expulsion.

Why, when theologically orthodox Christians affirm the clear words of Scripture on homosexuality or marriage, are they guilty of “claiming the moral high ground,” but when Pavlovitz cites Scripture to condemn them, he’s not guilty of “claiming the moral high ground”?

I wonder if Pavlovitz believes those who affirm biblical prohibitions of consensual adult incest, polygamy, or bestiality are guilty of “claiming the moral high ground” and of “completely lacking understanding of the empathetic heart of Jesus”?

I wonder too what radical inclusivist Pavlovitz makes of this command from Jesus pertaining to exclusion:

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. (Matthew 18:15-17)

Or this:

Enter by the narrow gate. 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. (Matthew 7:13-14)

Or this:

“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. (Matthew 7:21-23)

Or this:

 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

Or this from Paul:

But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. (1 Corinthians 5:11)

The biblical goal of excluding unrepentant sinners from the body of Christ is not to be mean but, rather, to prevent the intentional embrace of sin from infecting the body of Christ (“Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?  Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened.”) and to have this separation result ultimately in repentance and restoration of fellowship. It’s ironic that Pavlovitz would accuse others of lacking a “deeper theology” in that he rips Scripture out of context and ignores inconvenient passages.

Of course, Jesus encountered people throughout his ministry who “were doing things God didn’t want for them.” Those are the only kind of people who exist. I’m not sure what Pavlovitz means when he claims Jesus always left those people “with more dignity than he found them.” Jesus called sinners to repent and follow him. He told the woman caught in adultery “go, and from now on sin no more.” Jesus told the rich, young ruler that in order to follow him, the young ruler would have to give up all his riches and give them to the poor. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” It appears that leaving sinners with “more dignity” entailed their repentance from sin. They couldn’t identify as Christians and identify with sin. Leaving people to wallow in or celebrate sin is not what Jesus did.

Kimberly Alford complained to ABC News that she “feels judged” and her daughter “feels judged.” Alford continued:

We teach our kids, “what would Jesus do?” What would he do here?

Christians should know the answer to that question. Christians are called to judge with righteous judgment. We are not permitted to judge the eternal status of others or to judge hypocritically. But we are to judge between right and wrong action and to express those judgments. Scripture commands Christians to “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.” How can we avoid participating in unfruitful works of darkness if we aren’t told what those are?

I doubt Alford really means Christians shouldn’t judge between right and wrong. I doubt she thinks that if Christians say bestiality is wrong, they’re committing an offense against God. What she’s saying is that she no longer accepts biblical teaching on homosexuality, and, therefore, no one else should either.

Regressives don’t object to private schools having rules of conduct that reflect moral beliefs. Nor do they object to private schools expelling students for violating rules of conduct. Regressives object to anyone holding the moral belief that homoerotic acts and relationships are immoral. Instead of trying to create the impression that this school expelled a teen for an innocently decorated cake, why don’t regressive news sites just be honest and say a teen was expelled for intentionally violating rules based on Scripture that leftists abhor.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Media-Misrepresents-the-Story-of-Christian-School-That-Expelled-Student.mp3

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.

As most breathing people now know, the Hallmark Channel, known for airing movies that families with intact moral compasses can watch with their children, upset its apple cart last week by secretly tossing in a poisoned apple for the kiddies to feast on. The apple came in the form of a commercial for the wedding planning website Zola that depicted a couple standing together at a glittering, Hallmark-worthy wedding altar at which they say their I do’s and then kiss. The poison was the smoochers were two women.

To be clear, I am not arguing that homosexual persons per se are poisonous. I am arguing that a glossy, prettified image of a deeply sinful type of union is poisonous to the minds and hearts of children who are especially vulnerable to propaganda.

Not surprisingly, parents and grandparents with intact moral compasses were shocked and angry. They felt blindsided and betrayed by a channel they had, heretofore, been able to trust. They expressed their anger and disappointment to Hallmark, many via a petition started by One Million Moms, a division of the American Family Association, which asked that Hallmark “reconsider airing commercials with same-sex relationships” and to refrain from adding “LGBTQ movies to the Hallmark Channel.” Hallmark removed the ad, and then the “LGBT” lobby took aim. Somehow, in just two days, those oppressed, silenced, marginalized, persecuted, powerless homosexuals we hear so much about were able to persuade Hallmark that it owes more to them than it does to conservatives.

On Sunday, Hallmark reversed course again and issued a sycophantic apology to men and women who mock the institution that God created to represent Christ and his bride, the church; who engage in erotic acts that the creator of the universe abhors; who indoctrinate children with a perverse sexual ideology; who seek to wash the public square clean of moral cleanliness; and who seek to punish those who hold fast to truth.

In a statement Mike Perry, Hallmark Cards president and CEO, said,

We are truly sorry for the hurt and disappointment this has caused. … We have LGBTQ greeting cards and feature LGBTQ couples in commercials. We have been recognized as one of the Human Rights Campaigns Best Places to Work. … Hallmark will be working with [the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation] to better represent the LGBTQ community across our portfolio of brands.

Note, there was no apology to theologically orthodox Christians whose identity is found in Christ and who are striving mightily to protect their children from ideas and images that violate what Scripture teaches.

This is what happens when people without an intact moral compass lead. They are buffeted about by the cultural winds and their own love of money.

After Hallmark (momentarily) pulled the ad, foolish people lost in spiritual darkness said and tweeted dumb stuff.  For example, California governor Gavin Newsome tweeted, “Same-sex marriage is the law of the land. There is no one way to love and be loved.” There is a kernel of truth in his tweet. There is not one way to love and be loved, and some of the ways to love and be loved should not include erotic acts.

Chicago mayor and lesbian Lori Lightfoot tweeted,

The holidays are a time of family, generosity and decency. @hallmarkchannel should reconsider their misguided decision to ban an ad featuring a same-sex couple. Representation is important in all forms of media—even advertising.

Lots of nonsense to unpack.

First, referring to same-sex couples as decent is indecent and, therefore, ironic. While each person in the couple may possess admirable qualities, the erotic aspect of the relationship is intrinsically indecent. Whatever love the partners feel for each other is corrupted by the misuse of their bodies.

Second, commitments to generosity do not require humans to affirm everything that other humans feel, desire, think, and do. In the spirit of generosity, would Lightfoot affirm the feelings and beliefs of theologically orthodox Christians on matters related to sexuality? In the spirit of generosity, would she agree to allowing even one streaming service to decline to show ads or programming that depict images of homoerotic relationships?

Third, Lightfoot does not really mean that all human phenomena or even all types of relationships should be represented in all forms of media. What she means is all phenomena or all types of relationships that she has concluded are morally acceptable should be represented in all forms of media.

The perpetually ignorant Chicago Tribune “lifestyle expert,” Heidi Stevens, wrote,

Movies and commercials are family-friendly when they include all sorts of families and when they acknowledge that love isn’t reserved for straight people.

Does Stevens think that in order for movies and commercials to be family-friendly, they should include polyamorous and polygamous families? What about families where the parents are two brothers who experience Genetic Sexual Attraction?

Stevens really ought to give wide berth to strawmen. No one argues that love is reserved for straight people. Many people, however, believe that sex is not only reserved for male-female relationships, but it can only occur within a male-female relationship, and they also believe that erotic acts should be reserved for only male-female relationships. Further, the source of that belief is not self-serving desire. The source of that belief is God’s holy word. And God’s word is no less legitimate than Steven’s self-originating blather.

Without defining love or proving that “love is love,” homosexual activists and their regressive allies either intentionally or ignorantly fail to distinguish between types of love. Those types are philia love (i.e., friendship), agape love (i.e., the love of God for man and man for God), storge love (i.e., familial love), and erotic love. While Stevens, GLAAD, Gavin Newsome, and all the entertainers squawking about “homophobia” last week may believe that sexual differentiation is irrelevant to erotic love, their views carry no more moral weight than the dissenting views of conservatives. What these oppressors carry is political power that they wield with gleeful abandon to stigmatize and “other” others.

In every society, some group will be oppressed. Some beliefs will be deemed anathema. Some actions will be viewed as immoral and stigmatized. There will never be a time or place when “judgmentalism”—that is, making distinctions about the rightness or wrongness of ideas and acts—will cease. Now, as faith in the one true God wanes in America, increasing numbers of people walk in the counsel of the wicked, stand in the way of sinners, and sit in the seat of scoffers.

Let’s see how Hallmark fares in the next year or so with only the “LGBT” crowd and its allies to support it. Oh wait, Hallmark is going to start offering family-friendly homosexual fare (now there’s an oxymoron if ever I heard one). With assistance from the “LGBT” division of Hallmark Cards, the Hallmark Channel shouldn’t find such brown-nosing too difficult.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Hallmark-Channel-Lesbians.mp3

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Leave it to Chicago Tribune lifestyle expert Heidi Stevens to come up with another dumb idea. In an essay titled “Who do we become if we give teachers guns?,” in which she ruminates on the proposal to allow teachers to volunteer to be trained to use a gun in those rare instances when a mass killer starts killing school children, Stevens offers this deep thought:

Asking teachers to die for our children is very different from asking teachers to kill for them.

When did parents or anyone else ask teachers to die for our children? And to my knowledge, no one has proposed even asking teachers to carry and be trained to use guns—or as Stevens puts it, “to kill” for our children. She obviously phrases it like this to imply that defensively killing someone who is attempting to murder innocents is no different from murder. Killing is killing in the Upside Down in which Leftists live and move and have their being.

Here’s a more accurate description of what some have proposed: Knowing that there are many teachers who are already licensed and trained gun owners, some have proposed asking teachers if they would like to carry and be trained to use guns at school.

Stevens’ fatuous statement implies that asking teachers to die for our children is acceptable but asking if they are willing to kill a murderer to protect our defenseless children is beyond the pale.

Stevens quotes Al Vernacchio, a Pennsylvania teacher whose “writings” she follows:

I would rather throw my body in front of one of my students than raise a gun against an assailant. I may lose my life, but I will have preserved my humanity.

Vernacchio signals his virtue by claiming that “preserving” his “humanity” demands he use less effective ways of protecting his defenseless students from a murderer than more effective ways. Somehow in his twisted world—and it is twisted—his humanity is preserved by not killing a murderer, thereby making it more likely his students will be killed.

I wrote about the troubling Al Vernacchio in 2011. He’s a 54-year-old homosexual “sex scholar” and former Catholic who is “married” to a man and teaches English and human sexuality at a private Quaker school in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, where he promotes Leftist views of sexuality to teens. Of course, Leftist Stevens would follow Vernacchio.

A 2011 New York Times article on sex education features Vernacchio and shares the topics he covers in his class on sexuality for teens. Vernacchio encourages kids to share and discuss colloquial metaphors relating to sex and explains their meanings. He discusses penis sizes, giving and receiving oral sex, and shaving pubic hair. He shows a “research video… of a woman ejaculating… and a couple of dozen up-close photographs of vulvas and penises.” Vernacchio has handed out worksheets “with the five senses printed along the top and asked the students to try and list sexual activities that optimized each. (There were examples to prod their thinking: under hearing, for instance, was ‘listening to your partner read an erotic story.’)” Vernacchio, who says he doesn’t “necessarily see the decision to become sexually active when you’re 17 as an unhealthy one,” also “rarely misses a chance to ask his students to examine gender bias in their sexual attitudes or behavior.”

This is the kind of person who Stevens looks to for insight.

Stevens urges Americans to carefully consider “what we sacrifice when we fill our classrooms with guns. What we sacrifice when we fail to examine, thoroughly and honestly, why this country has one of the highest rates of death by firearm in the developed world, why mass shootings have broken out in churches and movie theaters, college campuses and a nightclub, an outdoor concert and, again and again, schools.”

Stevens’ hyperbolic claim that allowing  gun-owning teachers to choose to carry at school constitutes “filling our classrooms with guns” is demagogic nonsense. Even having one armed teacher in every other classroom would not constitute “filling our classrooms with guns.”

Since this country has always had a significant number of armed citizens, Stevens is wise in asking why we are now seeing such high rates of firearm deaths and mass shootings at churches, theaters, college campuses, schools, and music venues. What’s changed over the past thirty or so years?

Could it be the breakdown or rejection of the nuclear family?

Could it be exposure to violence in our video games, television shows, and movies?

Could it be the loss of small community schools and the concomitant growth of large schools that breed social hierarchies and are inhospitable places for those who are different?

Could it be the rejection of transcendent meaning and objective truth by a post-modern culture that reveres subjectivism, relativism, nihilism, Gnosticism, and even solipsism?

Could it be the abandonment of faith in Jesus Christ?

Stevens characterizes the proposal to allow trained, gun-owning teachers as an admission of “defeat in the fight to keep guns away from our children and decide, instead, to forever link ‘school’ with ‘killing ground.’”:

Who do we become when we arm our teachers? We become a nation that no longer trusts our collective humanity to triumph over evil. We commit to being so enamored of guns, so inured to bloodshed, so unwilling to imagine a better way, that we’d weaponize our classrooms.

Nice platitudinous rhetoric that ignores reality. Because of doctrinaire Leftists, we can no longer collectively agree on something as obvious as it’s inhumane to force women to share private spaces with men.

Moreover, one way to triumph over evil is to stop it dead in its tracks, which guns do better than throwing one’s body over the body of one student and better than appealing to some vague notion of “collective humanity.”

How grotesque, dishonest, and—dare I say—inhumane of Stevens to suggest that arming willing, trained teachers against people with murderous intent against defenseless children constitutes being “enamored of guns” or “inured to bloodshed.”

Does the presence of armed security at parades, the Olympics, the Capitol, and the White House mean Americans are enamored of guns or are inured to bloodshed?

Acknowledging the reality in which we live is not the same as being inured to bloodshed. Wanting to provide willing teachers a better means than their own bodies for defending children against armed assailants is not equivalent to being enamored of guns.

Stevens closes by quoting a teen who made this statement at CNN’s anti-gun advocacy spectacle that was promoted as a townhall meeting: “If a kid throws a rock at another kid in a sandbox, you don’t give every other kid a rock.”

So much wrong with that analogy, so little time.

Let’s start with the obvious: rocks aren’t guns. Generally, rocks don’t kill.

Second, any adult present when a little child begins to throw rocks could physically stop the child because adults are more powerful than small children. In other words, the physical strength of adults provides a superior defense against the rock-throwing assault of a little child.

Third, let’s imagine a sandbox full of very young children who for some reason can’t escape. A young bully approaches and starts hurling rocks that have the potential to grievously harm or kill the young children. Also present is an adult, but she is confined to a wheel chair with no ability to physically stop the rock-thrower. The rock-thrower is pelting the little ones. They’re screaming and crying. Some are unconscious, some are bleeding. The adult now notices a pile of rocks beside her on the ground. Should she simply sit there, or should she use the rocks to try to stop the carnage? Which of these terrible choices poses a greater threat to her humanity: meeting force with commensurate force, or letting the little ones be mowed down?

Fourth, Nikolas Kruz is not a little child. He is a young adult.

Generally, it’s not wise to look to teenagers for wisdom. They have limited life experience. For the most part, they aren’t particularly well-read. If they’re in public schools, they’re likely not particularly well-taught. The impulse-control part of teenage brains is not fully developed. And they tend to be rebellious. It’s especially unwise to look to traumatized, grieving teens for wisdom or answers to complex social problems.

A commenter on IFI’s Facebook page asserted that arming teachers turns a non-violent place into a place of violence. No, it doesn’t. Killers turn non-violent places into places of violence. Arming teachers is one proposal for preserving schools as non-violent places.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Virtue-Signalling-from-Leftists-on-Arming-Teachers_01.mp3

RESCHEDULED: IFI Worldview Conference May 5th

We have rescheduled our annual Worldview Conference featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet for Saturday, May 5th at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Join us for a wonderful opportunity to take enhance your biblical worldview and equip you to more effectively engage the culture.

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

Chicago Tribune columnist, lifestyle expert, and purveyor of deep thoughts, Heidi Stevens, is taking singer Kelly Clarkson to task  for Clarkson’s admission that she spanks her children. Stevens makes her argument by use of an analogy (“Progressives” really need to work on that skill). Stevens wrote the following:

“Here’s where we play swap-the-person-getting-hit. Let’s say you’re talking to a friend, relative, neighbor, acquaintance from church — any grown-up, really — and you get on the topic of marriage. Let’s say you’re exchanging anecdotes about the ups and downs, the frustrations, the disagreements that occur when you’re sharing a home and a life with a spouse. And let’s say the grown-up tells you, “I just slap my wife when she’s really upsetting me.” Or, “When I really want to teach my husband a lesson, I hit him.” I would find a lot wrong with that. I think most of us would. No amount of domestic violence is socially acceptable. We frown on all of it. Why on earth should we accept a lower bar for children?… I’m frankly astounded that it’s not outlawed in the United States.”

How about we now play swap-the-consequence-for-misbehavior.

Let’s say you’re talking to any grown-up and you get on the topic of marriage. And let’s say the grown-up tells you, “I just put my wife in time-out when she’s really upsetting me. She must sit on a stool facing the wall until I tell her time-out is over. If she gets up before time-out is over, I physically return her to the stool.” Or, “when I really want to teach my wife a lesson, I take away her television privileges or prohibit her from leaving the house for two weeks other than to go to the grocery store or take the kids to school.” Or, “if my wife says something rude, I require her to apologize and give me a hug.  Then I draw up a behavior contract that establishes that further disrespect will result in the loss of her cell phone.”

I would find a lot wrong with that. I think most of us would. No amount of domestic oppression is socially acceptable. Why on earth should we accept a lower bar for children? I’m frankly astounded that time-out, grounding, compulsory apologies, and behavioral contracts are not outlawed in the United States.

It should be obvious that it’s silly at best to compare methods of discipline of children to modes of conduct between husbands and wives.

With faith-filled fervor, Stevens cited glowingly a 2016 meta-analysis of spanking research and solicited quotes from lead author Elizabeth  T. Gershoff who says that the “evidence against spanking is one of the most consistent findings in the field of psychology.” Curiously, Stevens doesn’t cite any criticism of Gershoff’s meta-analysis, like one appearing in Scientific American in which Melinda Wenner Moyer wrote this:

[A]lthough the new analysis did attempt to separate the effects of spanking from those of physical tactics that are considered harsher, research has shown that many parents who spank also use other forms of punishment—so “you’re still not really isolating spanking from overall abusiveness,” explains Christopher Ferguson, a psychologist at Stetson University in Florida. In other words, the negative effects associated with spanking could still be driven in part by parents’ use of other tactics.

The new analysis also did not completely overcome the lumping problem: It considered slapping and hitting children anywhere on the body as synonymous with spanking but these actions might have distinct effects. Some research also suggests that the effects of spanking differ depending on the reasons parents spank, how frequently they do so and how old children are at the time—so the conclusion from the meta-analysis that spanking itself is dangerous may be overly simplistic. “I think it’s irresponsible to make exclusive statements one way or another,” Ferguson says.

Finally, the associations reported in the meta-analysis between spanking and negative outcomes did not control for the potential mediating effects of other variables, which raises the chicken-or-egg question: Are kids spanked because they act out or do they act out because they are spanked—or both? (Even longitudinal studies don’t completely resolve this problem, because behavioral problems may worsen over time regardless of spanking’s effects.) To rule out the possibility that spanking is only associated with bad outcomes because poorly behaved kids are the ones getting spanked, researchers can use statistical methods to control for the influence of temperament and preexisting behavioral characteristics—but these methods are difficult to employ in meta-analyses, and the new analysis did not attempt such a feat. Ferguson did try to control for the effects of preexisting child behavior in a 2013 meta-analysis he published of the longitudinal studies on this issue; when he did, “spanking’s effects became trivial,” he says. As a further demonstration of the importance of careful statistical controls, Robert Larzelere, a psychologist at Oklahoma State University, and his colleagues reported in a 2010 study that grounding and psychotherapy are linked just as strongly to bad behavior as spanking is but that all the associations disappear with the use of careful statistical controls. 

For those who have a tad more confidence in Scripture than in woefully unstable social science—which has become the ever-shifting bible of contemporary American culture—here are some words of wisdom from New Testament professor Walter Frederick Adeney who died at age 71 in 1920:

The primitive rigour of the Book of Proverbs is repudiated by modern manners…. people reject the old harsh methods, and endeavor to substitute milder means of correction. No doubt there was much that was more than rough, even brutal, in the discipline of our forefathers. The relation between father and child was too often lacking in sympathy through the undue exercise of parental authority, and society generally was hardened rather than purged by pitiless forms of punishment. But now the question is whether we are not erring towards the opposite extreme… and failing to let our children feel the need of some painful discipline. We idolize comfort, and we are in danger of thinking pain to be worse than sin. It may be well, therefore, to consider some of the disadvantages of neglecting the old-fashioned methods of chastisement. 

A properly administered spanking (e.g., a swat on the bum) is neither an act of violence nor a beating, and children are not adults.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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Always tolerant, liberty-loving, diversity-desiring “progressives” are fuming about a Texas bill that would prevent child welfare services providers, foster families, and adoptive families from being penalized for their faith. While Leftists claim the intent of the bill, titled “The Freedom to Serve Children Act,” is to discriminate against non-Christians, homosexuals, and unmarried couples in child placement, it’s really about stopping discrimination against Christians for exercising their First Amendment rights.

Leftists who view the shifting sands of social science as their sacred texts for determining virtue and parental wisdom hold in contempt those who look instead to Scripture for guidance. Moreover, “progressives” are either ignorant, delusional, or deceitful when it comes to both the content and reliability of their sacred texts, including social science research that compares children raised by heterosexual parents to those raised by homosexual parents.

Heidi Stevens, who writes the “Balancing Act” column in the Chicago Tribune, which focuses on “work-life balance, relationships and parenting from a feminist perspective” provides a perfect exemplar of such “progressives.” Stevens issued a full-throated unequivocal condemnation of the Texas law that if passed would allow Christian foster care and adoption agencies to refuse to place babies and children in non-Christian homes and homes headed by homosexuals.

And what was her justification for this condemnation?

With startling certainty, absolutist Stevens proclaims that “the science is clear: Children raised by same-sex parents fare just as well as children raised by opposite-sex parents.” To prove that the science is clear, Stevens pointed to a review of studies conducted by Columbia Law School researchers that found that 75 of the 79 studies–that they selected–some dating back over 30 years, “concluded that kids whose parents are gay face no disadvantages.” According to the researchers Stevens cites, “‘Taken together, this research forms an overwhelming scholarly consensus, based on over three decades of peer-reviewed research, that having a gay or lesbian parent does not harm children.’”

Whoa, Nelly.

Based on analysis provided by Leftist researchers at Leftist Columbia Law School, Leftist Stevens proclaims that social science—as distinct from hard science—proves conclusively that no harm comes to children raised by homosexuals.

In addition to her absolute certainty based on woefully unstable social science that being deprived of either a mother or father has no effect on children, Stevens fails to define “harm.” For example, one of the studies cited found that “those [young adults] who had grown up in a lesbian family were more likely to consider the possibility of having lesbian or gay relationships, and to actually do so” than those who grew up with a mother and a father. Whether the increased likelihood of experimenting with homoerotic activity constitutes harm depends on one’s definition of harm.  Stevens seems to arrogate to herself the right to define harm for everyone.

So, let’s spend a moment looking at the one study that Stevens specifically singles out for the conclusiveness of its conclusions: the “US National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study: Psychological Adjustment of 17-Year-Old Adolescents”  (NLLFS) published in 2010 in the journal Pediatrics.

Stevens wrote that the study “found that children raised by two lesbian mothers actually scored higher by social and academic measures than kids raised by opposite-sex parents. And they scored significantly lower in social problems, rule-breaking and aggressive behaviors.”

Curiously, Stevens omitted even a cursory description of the study, so here’s a bit about the study that may help illuminate whether Steven’s absolute confidence in the current state of research is warranted [emphases added]:

Between 1986 and 1992, 154 prospective lesbian mothers volunteered for a study that was designed to follow planned lesbian families from the index children’s conception until they reached adulthood. Data for the current report were gathered through… interviews and Child Behavior Checklists that were completed by their mothers at corresponding times.

According to their mothers’ reports, the 17-year-old daughters and sons of lesbian mothers were rated significantly higher in social, school/academic, and total competence and significantly lower in social problems, rule-breaking, aggressive, and externalizing problem behavior than their age-matched counterparts in Achenbach’s normative sample of American youth.

…

Between 1986 and 1992, prospective lesbian mothers…were recruited via announcements that were distributed at lesbian events, in women’s bookstores, and in lesbian newspapers throughout the metropolitan areas of Boston, Washington, DC, and San Francisco.

The study’s own authors point to several study limitations that undermine Stevens’ claim that the research is conclusive:

1.)  It was a non-random sample.

2.)  “[S]ome…participants expressed fears that legislation could be enacted to rescind the parenting rights of lesbian mothers.” In other words, participants may be motivated to skew their answers out of fear they may lose their children.

3.)  “[T]he data did not include the Achenbach Youth Self Report or Teacher’s Report Form. A more comprehensive assessment would have included reports from all 3 sources.”

4.)  The study participants and the representatives from the “normative” group “are neither matched nor controlled for race/ethnicity or region of residence.”

If Stevens had bothered to read some of the comments following the study, she may have been surprised to learn that this study isn’t quite as conclusive as she assumes. Or perhaps she did read the comments, but for political reasons, chose to ignore the inconvenient ones. Here are two comments from physicians:

“The conclusions…that children of lesbian mothers demonstrate superior psychological adjustment compared to children of traditional families, even when the parents separate before the children are fully grown, are, on their face, a bit fantastic. Is the implication, that fathers are an undesirable component of the family, to be taken at face value? Such a conclusion, notwithstanding the caveats acknowledged by the authors in their discussion, begs for a better study with randomly selected subjects, objective measurement and followup, and appropriate control groups” (Robert P. Sundel, Pediatric Rheumatologist).

“I must take issue with the interpretation and conclusions of the authors as well as the decision by Pediatrics to publish the article. The study conclusions were based solely on the parental responses to the Child Behavior Checklist. Parents who complete CBCL’s on their own children for a study that could potentially report negative findings on the outcomes of children raised in lesbian homes have a clear, self-serving bias. The fact that the study chose not to include the self reported CBCL or the teacher CBCL is mentioned, but it begs the point? Why? Were the results contradictory? On the surface it appears that the study authors are only reporting data that supports a specific, predetermined view-point. I will not be referencing this article or results as valid until ALL of the data is made public for review” (Daniel Trementozzi, Pediatrician).

This study included an alarming statistic that Stevens didn’t mention: By 2009 when the study concluded, 56 percent of the lesbian couples were no longer together. While the study didn’t include divorce statistics for the traditional families, research shows that in 2009 the divorce rate in the United States was  somewhere between 3.5 percent – 16.9 percent. The average age of the lesbians at the conclusion of the NLLF study was 52. The divorce statistic for women ages 50-59 in 2009 was 41.1 percent. It appears that lesbian relationships are really, really  unstable.

Whenever studies emerge that undermine the sacred tenets of the homosexuality-affirming ideology, Leftists point to the organizations that funded the research to cast doubt on undesirable conclusions. So, who funded this particular study that Stevens finds as unassailable as evidence that Earth is round?  Here’s who:

1.)  The Gill Foundation: Tim Gill is the infamous multi-millionaire founder of QuarkXPress and homosexual activist who pours money into state legislative races around the country to transform state legislatures into pro-homosexual political machines.

2.)  The Lesbian Health Fund of the Gay Lesbian Medical Association

3.)  Horizons Foundation: A San Francisco grant-making organization whose motto is “Fueling the LGBTQ Movement.”

4.)  Roy Scrivner Fund of the American Psychological Foundation (which is a grant-making foundation associated with the American Psychological Association). To be eligible for a grant from this fund, one must “Demonstrate commitment to LGBT family issues” and provide a “description of” the “proposed work’s…expected outcomes.” This grant is named in honor of Roy Scrivner, a homosexual activist and the founder of “the APA division of Family Psychology’s Committee on Lesbian and Gay Family Issues.”

5.)  Special thanks were offered to Dr. Ellen Perrin, an activist in support of all things homosexual whom I mentioned in a recent article on the AAP; UCLA’s Williams Institute, an “LGBT” advocacy think tank; lesbian professor Esther Rothblum; and lesbian researcher Heidi Peyser who is raising twin sons with her partner. Peyser “holds a degree in LGBTQQ psychology, and has been a reviewer for the Journal of Lesbian Studies.”

Stevens dismisses research indicating that children raised by homosexuals suffer negative consequences and seems untroubled by the fact that some of the studies she cavalierly dismisses have fewer methodological flaws than studies she and her ideological compeers at Columbia Law School favor. As one would expect, Leftists critique research whose conclusions they don’t like with a vigor and rigor they don’t apply to research whose conclusions they do like.

For those who care about diversity and critical thinking, click here, here , here and here for more information.

Stevens, presumably a defender of diversity, is offended that theologically orthodox Christian foster care and adoption agencies might want to place children with families that affirm theological orthodoxy and that don’t affirm homoerotic behavior—behavior that is clearly condemned in both the Old and New Testaments:

As for the non-Christian part of the bill: We could take a look around the world, where Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and atheists have been successfully raising children for centuries. We could take a look around our country, where the same is true…. Christians don’t have a monopoly on kindness, understanding, commitment or unconditional love — all things children need from their parents. Neither do heterosexuals.

The problem with Stevens’ claim is that no one argues that Christians or heterosexuals “have a monopoly on kindness, understanding, commitment or unconditional love” or that homosexuals, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews or atheists are incapable of loving children. This is a quintessential straw man argument.

What theologically orthodox Christian child care organizations believe is that proper parenting requires more. Here again, we first need to define “successful.” Just as Stevens may believe that the successful raising of children includes more than just teaching them about kindness, understanding, commitment, or unconditional love, so too do many Christians (and Jews and Muslims). Many Christians believe that the successful raising of children includes teaching them about Jesus and teaching them moral virtues including virtues that pertain to sexuality.

Parents from the aforementioned groups will likely not raise up children in the way they should go with regard to faith in Christ as the only way to salvation and eternal life. And homosexuals will surely not teach children that homoerotic activity jeopardizes eternal life. Does it shock Stevens or anyone else that people who follow a faith tradition believe in its precepts?

Christians believe that great harm—indeed, the greatest harm imaginable—comes to those who do not accept the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross. Those in homosexual relationships will not teach children about the need of all to repent of sins articulated in Scripture.

Stevens believes that “there’s a problem with accepting state funding while discriminating against members of the public.” There is no problem with some child placement agencies helping children (and the state) by placing children in good homes. If Leftists really cared about the needs and welfare of children, they would not force organizations like Catholic Charities to stop serving children. How does increasing the burden on other agencies and making fewer homes available for children serve the needs of already suffering children? Once again, Leftists put the desires of homosexual adults above the needs of children.

The more serious constitutional issue pertains to the violation of First Amendment religious Free Exercise protections that Leftists pursue with an unholy passion. Denying state monies to only theologically orthodox Christian child placement organizations would be unconstitutional in that it would represent favoring either non-religious organizations over religious or favoring some religious organizations (e.g., “progressive” Christian organizations) over others. All child placement agencies “discriminate.” That is, they make distinctions about what criteria best serve the needs and rights of children. “Progressives” want the unilateral right to determine what those criteria are.

Stevens quotes from a 2013 statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) that says—and I paraphrase—while the number of parents is important (i.e., the magic number 2), parental sexual differentiation is not. Maybe Stevens could write a column “libsplaining” why either mothers or fathers are dispensable but having two parents is important.

Because AAP leaders are water carriers for “progressivism,” AAP statements have no credibility on matters homosexual and “trans.” As I wrote in April, fewer than two dozen AAP members create and vote on policy, and the vast majority of members see policy statements for the first time when the public sees them via press releases.

Stevens concludes with this amusing Deep Thought: “Children deserve devotion, not dogma.” Once more for the road, some definitions:

Dogma: A principle, belief, or statement of idea or opinion, esp. one authoritatively considered to be absolute truth.

Dogmatism: Unfounded positiveness in matters of opinion; arrogant assertion of opinions as truth.

Stevens looks to Columbia Law School researchers as the authoritative arbiters of truth. Others look to the Bible.

Children deserve devotion to Scripture, not “progressive” dogmatism.

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