Today, Monday, December 19, 2011, the Chicago Tribune included not one, but three articles (click HERE,HERE, and HERE) on “transgenderism” by Rex Huppke, their designated proselyte for “progressive” views of homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder (GID). (In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the American Psychiatric Association uses the term Gender Identity Disorder to designate the phenomenon that Huppke refers to as “transgender issues.”)

In response to these articles, I sent this brief letter to Mr. Huppke and to the Tribune editorial board:

Dear Mr. Huppke,

Once again, you’ve written an editorial masquerading as a news story. Your lengthy article (or three articles) on “transgender” issues includes one mention of American Family Association’s dissenting views on Gender Identity Disorder and one quote from Focus on the Family’s position statement on Gender Identity Disorder.

Apparently, you didn’t solicit any comments from either public policy organizations or mental health professionals who hold different views on the nature of Gender Identity Disorder, the morality of cross-dressing, or the ethics of “sex reassignment” surgery. The absence of any substantive exposition of dissenting views is particularly notable in light of two articles written by psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow that lit up the blogosphere, particularly among those who identify as homosexual and transgender. (Read Dr. Ablow’s articles HERE and HERE.)

It would have been illuminating to interview some theologians and philosophers on the nature of reality. For example, is “reality” merely a construct of our minds or our subjective feelings, or does an objective reality exist?

Another interesting question concerns allowing people to change their birth certificates: Does such an act make the state complicit in fraud?

Or, what evidence do you have for your clear implication that “discrimination” is the cause of the the increased risk of suicidal ideation among those who experience Gender Identity Disorder. And what do you mean when you use the word “discrimination”? Do all expressions of moral disapproval of behavior constitute illegitimate “discrimination” or just those with which you disagree?

But alas, it’s abundantly clear that your mission is not to report or discuss, but to exploit your position as a journalist to write an extended apologetic for your personal moral, philosophical, and political views, painted over with a rhetorical patina of neutrality.

What is equally troubling is that your bosses find this acceptable.

Sincerely,

Laurie Higgins
IFI Cultural Analyst

Take ACTION: Chicago Tribune reporter Rex Huppke continues to write pro-homosexual opinion pieces, presenting them as “new” articles.

Send email complaints to the Tribune editorial board about Mr. Huppke’s lack of balance and failure to present views from mental health professionals who hold different views on the nature of Gender Identity Disorder, the morality of cross-dressing, or the ethics of “sex reassignment” surgery.

Illinois Family Institute
P.O. Box 88848
Carol Stream, Illinois 60188

Phone: (708) 781-9328
Fax: (708) 781-9376

Evil men don’t understand the importance of justice,
but those who follow the Lord are much concerned about it.
~Proverbs 28:5

On Dec. 6, 2011 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a speech in honor of International Human Rights Day which is celebrated on Dec. 10, the date in 1948 when the United Nations formally adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But as we should have expected from a representative of the fervently pro-perversion Obama Administration, Clinton used the occasion to promulgate unproven, liberal assumptions about homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder (GID).

With the usual cunning of the Left, Clinton begins her speech by referring to the “beating, terrorizing, and executing” of homosexuals, but then with some skillful bait-and-switch rhetoric, she starts talking about undefined “discrimination.” Such a speech would be justified if Clinton were actually concerned only with real human rights abuses such as draconian laws that call for the execution of homosexuals or for acts of violence ignored by police. But anyone familiar with the incoherent world of “progressivism,” understands that moral disapproval of homosexual acts becomes “discrimination” which ineluctably results in “bullying” or “terrorizing.”

Clinton’s repeated use of the absurd comparison of race to homosexuality reveals that intelligence is no guarantee of wisdom. Even really smart people often hold ignorant and foolish ideas. Whereas race is 100 percent heritable, in all cases immutable, and has no behavioral implications that are amenable to moral evaluation, homosexuality is not biologically determined, is in some cases changeable, and is constituted by volitional acts that are legitimate objects of moral evaluation. Someone should ask Clinton to explain the ways she believes race is analogous to homosexuality.

Clinton asserts that “Because we are human, we therefore have rights. And because we have rights, governments are bound to protect them.” Of course, she spent little time explaining exactly what rights she believes all people are entitled to because they’re human. She referred ambiguously to “the full measure of liberty, the full experience of dignity, and the full benefits of humanity,” [emphasis added] which sounds benign enough. To progressives, however, such noble phrases don’t mean only freedom from involuntary servitude, free speech, or the right to vote. To homosexual activists and their ideological allies, the “full measure of liberty, the full experience of dignity, and the full benefits of humanity” demands, for example, that they be given the unilateral right to reconstruct the legal definition of marriage.

Since Clinton can’t appeal to reason, she pulls on the heartstrings of those in her audience for whom “feelings” trump moral reason: “We need to ask ourselves, ‘How would it feel if it were a crime to love the person I love?'” If there are laws somewhere in the world that criminalize “love,” I haven’t heard of them. There are countries around the world that have unjust marital laws, but marital laws — just and unjust — prohibit acts, not feelings.

Here in the U.S., we have laws that prohibit polyamorists from marrying all the people they love, but there are no laws that criminalize their love. We have laws that prohibit close blood relatives from marrying, but there are no laws that criminalize their love. And most states have just and reasonable marital laws that prohibit men from marrying men and women from marrying women, but there are no laws that criminalize their love.

Clinton alludes to the Obama Administration’s troubling intention to withhold foreign aid from countries that don’t share the moral views of American “progressives” on homosexuality and cross-dressing and of the Obama administration’s creation of a Global Equality Fund which will use $3 million of taxpayer money to fund homosexuality-affirming efforts around the world. Peter Sprigg aptly describes this as “cultural imperialism.” The Obama Administration is using our taxes to disseminate non-factual, fallacious moral, philosophical, and political propositions throughout the world.

Clinton shared that she has experienced a “deepening” of her convictions about homosexuality as she has “devoted more thought to it, engaged in dialogues and debates, and established personal and professional relationships with people who are gay.” In the past, Secretary Clinton has been open about her Christian faith, and in this speech, she shared that her “religious belief and practice is a vital source of meaning and identity, and fundamental to who” she is. One wonders if in all her dialogues, debates, and thinking, she ever seriously studied the work of scholars throughout the history of the church on the topic of homosexuality. Since prior to the late 20th Century, no Old Testament or New Testament scholar affirmed what some refer to as “gay theology,” it’s surprising to see intelligent people like Clinton (and Obama) embracing what many of the best scholars, including contemporary biblical scholars, would consider heresy.

Clinton concluded with these words: “As it has happened so many times before, opinion will converge once again with the truth, the immutable truth, that all persons are created free and equal in dignity and rights.” Ever the diplomat, Clinton implies without explicitly stating that her beliefs about the nature and morality of homosexuality are “immutable truths.” Whereas it is true that all humans are equal in worth and dignity, it is not true that all beliefs and behavioral choices are equal in worth or dignity. The troubling notion that permeates Clinton’s speech is that a society that honors the dignity and liberty of all must embrace the ontological and moral beliefs of homosexuals.

For progressives, powerful, persistent feelings and volitional acts — at least powerful, persistent homosexual feelings and acts — are constitutive of identity and inherently moral. For progressives, to believe such feelings are disordered and such acts immoral represents an act of illegitimate discrimination against persons. But Christians understand that in this fallen world, our feelings are disordered, our will perverted, and our intellect corrupted — hence the need for laws.

And on that point IFI agrees with Secretary Clinton who accurately stated that “progress comes from changes in laws…. Laws have a teaching effect.” The question is, will America have laws that embody and teach truth — or not?

Southwest Airlines Official Airline of National LGBT Conference

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has announced that Southwest Airlines is the official airline of its National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change January 25 – 29, 2012 in Baltimore, Maryland. The low-cost carrier is the largest airline in the U.S.

“We believe that Southwest’s open embrace of a radical political agenda — an agenda that identifies itself by its sexual proclivities — undermines essential societal institutions, particularly, the natural family,” said David E. Smith, Executive Director of Illinois Family Institute (IFI). “By its action, Southwest Airlines violates the deeply held convictions of many of its customers. Through both funding and corporate policies, Southwest Airlines affirms and supports radical and culturally divisive anti-family principles.”

The Dallas-based airline operates more than 3,400 flights a day with 236 of those flights departing from Chicago, making the Windy City its top city served.

“At Southwest Airlines, we take pride in our outreach and commitment to the GLBT community,” the airline’s web site states. “We have community partnerships with a variety of local and national organizations who are dedicated to GLBT causes and initiatives.”

Interested participants are directed to www.southwestairlines.com/gaytravel. Here the company shares its support for the gay and lesbian community.

While IFI believes that those who self-identify as homosexual have a right to live and work in their communities free from harassment and are equal in dignity and worth to heterosexuals, this family advocacy group has great concern with the airline’s stated activism.

“IFI expects that Southwest Airlines, as a business enterprise, would refrain from taking positions on arguable, divisive cultural issues,” said Smith. “The solution should be obvious: conduct business and leave the transformation of public sentiments on controversial moral issues to others.”

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email to Southwest’s leadership: CEO Gary Kelly, CFO Laura Wright and COO Mike VandeVen to complain about its sponsorship and promotion of an organization that advances an immoral political agenda.

It would behoove conservative Illinoisans to hear from the proverbial horse’s mouth exactly what homosexual activists are pursuing here in Illinois.

Below is a recent email sent by Illinois’ most influential and destructive homosexual activist organization, Equality Illinois, to its subscribers (all emphases added):

Dear *******,

We value your support of Equality Illinois, and we wanted to give you a briefing on our aggressive lobbying efforts in Springfield.

Equality Illinois’ four-person advocacy team was in the State Capitol every day of the fall legislative veto session. Our Policy Director Randy Hannig, our lobbyists, and I held meetings with political leaders, dozens of State Senators and Representatives from both parties, and legislative leadership staff.

IMPLEMENTING CIVIL UNIONS. Among our lead items, we focused on the full implementation of the civil union law. We addressed with lawmakers patterns of glitches that civil union couples are experiencing in Illinois, and stressed the importance of ensuring that same-sex couples receive all the rights and protections that were previously denied to them – just as the lawmakers have intended. We asked every lawmaker – Republican and Democrat alike – about the feedback they hear on civil unions, and we are so proud that everyone reported only positive experiences.

DEFENDING OUR RIGHTS. Every legislative session, our opponents attempt to gut our hard-won rights. This veto session was no exception. We met with lawmakers to stress the harms of Senate Bill 2494, introduced by State Sen Kyle McCarter, which would allow publicly-funded child welfare agencies to reject perfectly qualified prospective same-sex parents using any religious pretext. No child welfare agency should be allowed to take public funds to care for the children, but then refuse to comply with the state’s best-interests-of-the-child standard. This is the FOURTH such attempt this year, and we defeated the previous three efforts. Our opponents are working to force a procedural maneuver to force the bill onto the floor for a vote, and we worked to ensure that their sneaky tactics failed.

FOCUSING ON FULL EQUALITY. The EQIL team also strategized with legislative allies about moving towards full equality. We’ve learned from our work that workplace legal protections have not translated to full workplace equality for LGBT people. And relationship recognition through civil unions leaves many gaps in reaching equal protection. To that end, we also held strategic planning meetings with our stakeholders, donors, and allies.

Furthermore, we met with executive branch officials and local leaders to discuss patterns of homophobic and transphobic discrimination, fiscal policy and budget crisis impact on the lives of LGBT individuals across the state, and expansion of our equality work across central Illinois. We are so grateful to Department of Human Rights Director Rocco Clapps, State Treasurer Dan Rutherford, and Springfield Alderman Cory Jobe for their leadership and commitment. You’d be pleased to know that our organizational partners at the ACLU of Illinois and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago were on the ground in Springfield also fighting for our rights.

The legislature will reconvene for a special session after Thanksgiving to discuss unresolved budget issues and will then adjourn until the start of the regular legislative session in 2012.

Our lawmakers recessed, but our work must go on. In fact, with legislators now back in their districts, we are going to be traveling to their field offices to organize constituent visits and continue to address our issues. Can we count on you, *******, to help us move forward with our assertive agenda? Please support our efforts now by making a contribution.

We must protect the rights we have achieved while we continue to fight for fairness and full protection of LGBT Illinoisans and our families. We cannot do our work without your support. Please show your support of our work now. And remember to forward this message to at least 5 of your friends or family members.

Let’s keep moving forward!

Very truly yours,

Bernard Cherkasov
Chief Executive Officer, Equality Illinois

Some comments on this troubling letter:

1. The concept of equality is grossly abused by homosexual activists. The central question regarding equality is, “To what conditions does the concept of equality apply?” Equality applies legitimately to only those conditions that are immutable* and not defined or constituted by volitional behaviors that are legitimate objects of moral evaluation. Society is not morally obligated to treat all conditions constituted by subjective attractions, impulses, or desires and by volitional behaviors as equal. Indeed, societies that refuse to make distinctions between moral and immoral behaviors will not survive, let alone flourish. Society ought not treat homosexuality and cross-dressing as equal to heterosexuality.

Moreover, those who identify as homosexual have equal access to marriage. They have the legal right to marry. They simply do not have the right to declare that marriage is no longer a sexually complementary institution. Similarly, polyamorists do not have the right to declare that marriage is no longer a binary institution. And adult siblings who are in love do not have the right to declare that blood kinship is irrelevant to marriage.

2. When Equality Illinois’ CEO, Bernard Cherkasov, refers to child welfare agencies taking public funds while refusing “to comply with the state’s best-interests-of-the-child standard,” he’s sneakily avoiding mentioning that the child welfare agencies to which he’s referring are the religious child welfare agencies that the state asked to partner with many years ago. Cherkasov also failed to mention that during floor debates on the “Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act,” the bill’s sponsor, Senator David Koehler, specifically stated that the freedom of religious child welfare agencies would be protected.

3. Conservatives are endlessly duped by the deliberate deceit of homosexual activists. Cherkasov bleats out the “public money” canard when in reality, homosexual activists will eventually challenge the right of religious child welfare organizations to refuse to place children with homosexuals even in the case of private adoptions in which no public money is involved. This is already the case in New York.

4. Equality Illinois dismisses the deeply held religious convictions and religious liberty of organizations like Catholic Charities and the Evangelical Child and Family Agency as “religious pretexts.”

5. Equality Illinois believes that public schools in Illinois do not demonstrate an “appropriate level of affirmation of LGBT and questioning youths….Unfortunately, many administrators within schools…have not ensured open affirmation of LGBT students and have not provided resources specifically tailored to the needs of those students.”

6. Equality Illinois thinks that gender is created in the mind and cross-dressing is moral. Conversely, they think that believing gender is an objective biological fact that cannot be changed and believing cross-dressing is immoral constitute the invented disorder “transphobia.”

7. Cherkasov states that Equality Illinois asked every Republican lawmaker about the feedback they received on the civil union law and that every Republican lawmaker reported only positive “experiences.” That’s an astonishing claim. Through IFI alone, thousands of Illinoisans have voiced their opposition to the civil union law to their lawmakers. Either our Republican lawmakers are lying to Equality Illinois or Cherkasov is lying to Equality Illinois’ subscribers.

7. State Treasurer Dan Rutherford, beloved by homosexual activists in Illinois, is a former Republican state representative and state senator, and the only GOP state senator in Illinois to vote for the so-called “Civil Union” law.

8. Department of Human Rights Director, Rocco Clapps, to whom Equality Illinois is also deeply grateful, served on the Illinois State Board of Education’s “anti-bullying” task force, which created recommendations on how public schools should implement Illinois’ disastrous “enumerated” anti-bullying law.

9. Equality Illinois’ policy director/lobbyist, Randy Hannig, used to work for House Speaker Michael Madigan and is the son of former State Representative and current Illinois Department of Transportation Director, Gary Hannig.

Illinoisans, if you value your parental and speech rights and religious liberty, get educated on issues related to homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder and demand that your lawmakers do likewise. Speak courageously in the public square and demand that your lawmakers do likewise. Act as if your convictions are true and good — because they are.

*Although many consider religious belief and practice to be mutable matters of choice, religious liberty is a special category unto itself and is the central liberty upon which this country was founded. In addition, religious practice is wholly distinct from sexual practice. While people may disagree about what constitutes a true religion, religious differences are not thought to be moral errors in the same way that society views, for example, polyamory as a moral error and not worthy of legal recognition.

I’m beginning to wonder if there are any public school administrators who understand the concept of hubris. LifeSite News reported that Hartford Public High School in Hartford, Connecticut is embroiled in a controversy following the administration’s decision to allow the homosexuality-affirming play Zanna, Don’t! to be performed. The play is set in a high school in the inverted (or perverted) world of Heartsville where homosexuals are the socially dominant group and heterosexuals are closeted social pariahs. One of the central characters is Zanna, a Puck-like “fairy,” who uses his magic to match-make. The play includes girls intramural mechanical bull-riding, lesbian infidelity, and a musical within the musical in which the ban on heterosexuals serving in the military is challenged. Apparently, this puerile inversion passes as a clever conceit in our contemporary literary scene.

Hartford Public High School is divided into multiple “academies,” two of which attended the first performance. When two teenage male characters kiss, a group of high school students attending the play audibly expressed their disgust and walked out of the performance. Subsequently the play, which was scheduled to be performed two more times for other groups of students, became a source of community and national outrage.

A local Connecticut news report stated that the principal of one of the school’s academies “noted the importance of accepting homosexual intimacy as society accepts heterosexual intimacy.” What right has a government employee acting in his official capacity as a school official to decide or state that students should accept the unproven, non-factual belief that homosexual intimacy is equivalent to heterosexual intimacy?

Well, at least he’s honest — not even a pretense of neutrality on the topic of homosexuality. School administrators who were committed to neutrality on the contentious moral issue of homosexuality would never even implicitly suggest that schools have the right or obligation to promulgate the subjective moral assumption that homosexual “intimacy” is ontologically or morally analogous to heterosexuality. Their specious comparison of homosexuality to heterosexuality exposes the absurdity in such comparison in that no one could ever rationally argue that heterosexual acts or relationships are inherently morally flawed. Clearly, the Hartford HS administration has come to the moral conclusion that homosexual acts are good and right, and are determined to inculcate other people’s children with their moral conclusions.

Nursing Academy principal, David Chambers, explained that “It’s a balancing act of individual values and the expectations of the school.” It’s curious that the “individual values” of parents and students who believe volitional homosexual acts are immoral rarely coincide with the “expectations” of schools.

It’s curious that diverse views on this controversial topic are rarely explored in academia, which so self-righteously espouses “diversity” and “tolerance.” It’s curious that students in public high schools rarely if ever read the work of scholars who oppose adoption by homosexuals, or who oppose the legalization of same-sex marriage, or who challenge the soundness of the comparison of race to homosexuality. It’s curious that the prevailing liberal views held by hubristic academicians and their student proselytes are so rarely challenged.

According to CitizenLink, Chambers “said he considered sending an opt-out letter home with students, but decided not to because in the health care field, they’ll be exposed to all kinds of people.” The problem is not that the school is exposing students to different “kinds of people,” but rather that the school is exposing them to a particular moral view –only one moral view — of homosexual relationships. The problem is not that different “kinds of people” are present; the problem is with which kinds of actions and ideas are presented and how these actions and ideas are portrayed.

The phrase “kinds of people” is deceitful rhetoric employed to conceal the espousal of particular ideas. It’s easier to make a specious civil rights argument if you attempt to base it on a purported heritable identity or ontological foundation rather than a subjective feeling/volitional behavior foundation. Principal Chambers, however, unwittingly opens a Pandora’s Box of problems once he implicitly argues that subjective feelings and volitional acts constitute a “kind of person.”

Here are some questions for Chambers et al at Hartford HS:

• Should high school students who may pursue healthcare careers be exposed to affirming depictions of every kind of behavior they may encounter in the future?
• Should students be exposed to positive portrayals of pedophilia — or “minor-attracted persons” as they prefer to be called — since surely healthcare workers will be exposed to them in their healthcare professions.
• What about positive portrayals of consensual adult incest, paraphilias, and drug addiction?
• To be intellectual consistent, should school administrators seek to have students accept polyamorous intimacy in the same way that they accept intimacy between two people?
• Since health care workers often encounter theologically orthodox Christians, Orthodox Jews, and Muslims, should students be exposed to positive portrayals of them, including their views of volitional homosexual relationships and acts?

Homosexual “kinds of people” are actually heterosexual people who experience disordered attraction to their same sex and often act out those disordered attractions sexually. Every human is objectively heterosexual in that their bodies are designed for heterosexual activity; they procreate heterosexually; and only heterosexual activity is moral sexual activity.

Minor-attracted “kinds of people” are people who experience a disordered attraction to children and sometimes act out those disordered attractions sexually. Aggressive “kinds of people” are people who experience aggressive impulses and sometimes act out those impulses. Apotemnophiliac “kinds of people” are people who experience the disordered desire to be amputees (i.e., they wish to align their bodies with their self-conception) and sometimes act out those impulses by amputating healthy limbs. Perhaps Chamber wants to positively portray all of these “kinds of people,” their desires, and their actions.

I suspect he would not want to positively portray such “kinds of people,” or more accurately, he would not want to expose students to positive portrayals of such desires, actions, and/or relationships. And why not? If he were honest, he would likely say that these desires, actions, and/or relationships are unhealthy and immoral, which is precisely the salient point. Many people believe that homosexual acts and relationships are unhealthy and immoral. In order for school administrators to allow a controversial play that positively portrays homosexual acts and relationships, they had to have concluded that such acts and relationships are moral.

Government employees like Chambers are using public funds in public schools to promote their particular moral conclusions. They did not choose this play for aesthetic reasons, or to foster critical thinking, or to explore diverse viewpoints. They chose this play for ideological reasons. School administrators allowed this play to be performed in the hope that it would result in students adopting liberal moral and political views, which is decidedly not the right of government employees.

Too many “educators” have become self-righteous about their own moral and political views and puffed up with pride in their perception of their role in the lives of other people’s children. They arrogate to themselves the right to preach their moral and political views to children on the public dime; to censor absolutely all resources that challenge their views; and to conceal both their proselytizing and their censorship.

One final point needs to be made in light of the students’ expressions of disgust at a homosexual kiss: People are entirely justified in feeling disgust at images of homosexual intimacy, including kissing. Government-paid “educators” have no business communicating that such feelings are inappropriate or morally wrong. The belief that homosexual acts are analogous to heterosexual acts is not a fact. Rather, it is a disputable assumption that no public school teacher has the right to promote in his capacity as a government employee. And if homosexual acts are, in reality, perverse, revulsion is as legitimate an emotional response to them as it is to polygamous intimacy or pornography.

It is entirely appropriate for children, teens, and adults to feel disgust at images of two teenage boys kissing. What the Hartford HS administration and homosexual activists seek to do is use publicly funded schools to eradicate the moral disapproval of students and the feelings that accompany moral disapproval. Whereas, loud disruptive expressions of disgust in the middle of a play are not civil expressions of moral opposition, walking out of play in which profoundly immoral behavior is being depicted positively is entirely appropriate.

Choosing to invite students to positive depictions of morally corrupt sexual behavior is the greatest offense of all in this regrettable incident.

I don’t know why the question of whether Christians should attend the “same-sex marriage” ceremonies of family members, friends, or colleagues is such a stumper for Christians. Although the decision not to attend may be fraught with uncomfortable social implications, it shouldn’t be a thorny theological or moral question.

If we understand God’s view of homosexuality and marriage rightly and if we understand that as Christians, our first obligation is to submit our lives to him who gave his life for us, we cannot attend a ceremony that intends to solemnize, sanctify, and celebrate that which God abhors.

Many people, including even those who aren’t Christians, tell us that unity and comity trump truth and that respecting others requires affirmation of all beliefs and all life choices–at least when it comes to sexuality.

But our chief goal should not be to please people at the expense of biblical truth. Our chief end is to glorify God–not man.

Dr. Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, offers a succinct answer to this important question:

Would you attend a same-sex wedding ceremony? That question was posed recently to Houston pastor Joel Osteen, and Osteen said that he would attend, if the wedding involved friends. This came just after Osteen indicated that he could not perform a same-sex marriage ceremony, since he believes that homosexuality is a sin.

I recently wrote about this exchange, suggesting that Osteen’s position is morally and theologically incoherent. As I said: “This is beyond mere incoherence. It is moral and theological nonsense. More than that, it is a massive statement of ministerial malpractice. . . . You cannot celebrate what you say you know to be sin. You cannot honestly say that same-sex marriage defies the law of God, and then join in the celebration of that ceremony.”

In recent days, Uri Scaramanga of “Out of Ur” and Leadership magazine posed the question to readers, using my comments as a point of reference. The question: “Is Al Mohler right? Is attending a same-sex marriage ceremony the same as performing one? Is it ministerial malpractice? What would you do?”

The responses to that question are revealing. I did not, however, argue that attending a same-sex marriage ceremony is the same as performing one. I did say–and I repeat–that it is incoherent and inconsistent to refuse to perform a same-sex marriage ceremony, and then to attend one.

The reason for this is deeply rooted in the nature and history of the wedding ceremony. The presence of witnesses at a marriage ceremony affirms the righteous nature of the union. The ceremony then becomes an occasion of shared joy and celebration.

The traditional Christian ceremony, as reflected in The Book of Common Prayer, asks if anyone present knows of any reason why the couple should not be joined in holy matrimony. That is not intended as a hypothetical question. It is intended to ensure that no one present knows of any reason that the union should not be solemnized, recognized, and celebrated.

To put the matter straightforwardly, any Christian who knows that same-sex marriage violates God’s Law and purpose for marriage knows–and cannot act as if he or she does not know–that a same-sex couple should not be joined in holy matrimony. To remain silent at that point is to abdicate theological and biblical responsibility. Even if the question is not formally asked in the ceremony, the issue remains. We cannot celebrate what we know to be wrong.

Given time, no church, no family, and no individual Christian will escape this question. This will lead, unquestionably, to hard decisions and awkward situations. The time to think about this question is now.

I will pose the question just as it is posed at “Out of Ur” by Uri Scaramanga: What would you do?

The ineptitude with which political candidates and the rest of us mere mortals answer questions regarding issues related to homosexuality is understandable given the vitriolic attacks with which truthful answers are greeted. But vitriol doesn’t justify ignorance, cowardice, or lack of preparedness.

Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum, two estimable candidates vying for the Republican nomination, have recently demonstrated the need for not only political candidates but all conservatives to understand more fully and express more articulately topics related to homosexuality.

Several weeks ago in an inquisition by the unnecessarily aggressive David Gregory on Meet the Press, Michele Bachmann performed ably on every question save the questions related to homosexuality. (Click HERE to watch.) Similarly, when questioned recently by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, Rick Santorum demonstrated an uncharacteristic inartfulness in some of his responses concerning homosexuals serving openly in the military. (Click HERE to watch — starting at 7:56) He is to be commended for at least stating the obvious fact that homosexuality is not like race, but so much more needs to be said and could have been said in response to some doors that Wallace’s questions threw open.

Polling shows that a majority of Americans support the repeal of the policy “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), which may point to the effectiveness of the homosexuality-affirming movement to dominate, often in via ethically dubious ways, the cultural debate. It surely points to the unconscionable silence and cowardice of the church, that is to say, Christians.

According to LifeSiteNews, last week at the Values Voter Summit, Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin, former Deputy Under Secretary for Defense Intelligence, lamented the failure of Christian leaders to publicly oppose the repeal of DADT:

Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin described…the exasperation of pro-family leaders in Washington who found themselves abandoned by church leaders unwilling to make a stand for the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Boykin, who spent the majority of his career in the Special Forces, was mission commander of the battle portrayed in the Hollywood movie “Black Hawk Down,” and accepted the surrender of Panama military dictator Manuel Noriega in 1989.

According to Boykin, “nobody in this country fought a greater fight” against normalizing homosexuality in the military than Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, himself a former Marine who joined forces with senator and fellow veteran John McCain.

“John McCain kept turning to Tony Perkins saying, ‘Where’s the church? Where are the spiritual leaders?” said Boykin.

“The answer was, they were silent. The church was silent.” [Emphasis added]

The disturbing polling data may also reveal the public’s failure to understand the role of major cultural institutions in shaping public opinion. In other words, although the military’s primary purpose is to defend and protect America, it also plays a role in promoting and sustaining particular beliefs and values.

Do Americans ever ask themselves why homosexuals are hell bent on talking about their homosexuality while serving in the military? Perhaps they desperately want to share the hopes, dreams, and weekend plans they and their homosexual partners share. But there are other likely reasons. Homosexual activists are determined to eradicate public disapproval of and opposition to homosexuality. And the means they use to eradicate such disapproval and opposition is by capturing the institutions that symbolically and actually espouse, promote, and sustain moral beliefs: churches, synagogues, marriage, public education, legislatures, courts, corporate America, mainstream press, Hollywood, and, finally, the institution most closely associated with male strength, the military.

Homosexual activists may couch their argument in the rhetoric of integrity, but their ultimate goal is not “honesty.” Their ultimate goal is the annihilation of moral opposition to homosexuality, which is still embedded in the policy and ethos of our military. Transforming the beliefs of young men and women through explicit indoctrination (i.e., diversity and sensitivity training) and through non-rational, emotional associative experiences will then affect the beliefs of the general population.

If a politician or anyone else takes a position on homosexuals serving openly in the military (or the legalization of same-sex marriage, or adoption by same-sex couples), they should learn how to defend their position.

Here’s my imaginary Q & A between an inquisitor and a conservative candidate running for political office, based on the questions Wallace asked Santorum:

INQUISITOR: Heterosexuals have served openly in the military for centuries without any problems. The repeal of DADT simply means that gays will be given the same rights as heterosexuals have always had. Don’t gays have the same right to serve in the military?

CANDIDATE:Actually, it is actually, the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) that says “There is no constitutional right to serve in the armed forces,” and that “Military life is fundamentally different from civilian life in that the military society is characterized by its own laws, rules, customs, and traditions, including numerous restrictions on personal behavior, that would not be acceptable in civilian society.”Still today, the UCMJ also states this:

• Military life is fundamentally different from civilian life in that the military society is characterized by its own laws, rules, customs, and traditions, including numerous restrictions on personal behavior, that would not be acceptable in civilian society.
• The worldwide deployment of United States military forces, the international responsibilities of the United States, and the potential for involvement of the armed forces in actual combat routinely make it necessary for members of the armed forces involuntarily to accept living conditions and working conditions that are often spartan, primitive, and characterized by forced intimacy with little or no privacy.
• The prohibition against homosexual conduct is a longstanding element of military law that continues to be necessary in the unique circumstances of military service.

The government has every right to establish requirements for membership in an institution like the military (or marriage) that has a particular character and serves particular purposes.

Civil rights are rights that cannot be denied based on non-behavioral, morally neutral conditions. The belief that volitional homosexual acts are moral acts is not an objective fact. It is a radical, a-historical, arguable moral belief.

You state that heterosexuals have served for years with no problem, overlooking two salient points: First, heterosexual men in the military do not sleep, shower, and toilet with the group of people to whom they are sexually attracted. Second, according to a recent report from the Guttmacher Institute female active-duty military personnel experienced twice the rate of unintended pregnancy as compared to the civilian population.

Your question also points to the problems inherent in the politically contrived term “sexual orientation,” which suggests that homosexuality and heterosexuality are equivalent, analogous, or flip sides of the same coin. They’re not. That is the non-factual proposition that homosexuals are promulgating. It is a subversive proposition that no one is obligated to accept as true, and I don’t.

Whereas homosexuality is constituted merely by subjective desire and volitional sexual acts, heterosexuality is constituted by subjective desire, volitional acts, biology, and anatomy. And in terms of biology, and anatomy, everyone is heterosexual.

And since homosexuality is principally constituted by volitional acts, society through its policies and institutions have every right to conclude it’s not moral conduct.

INQUISITOR:Do you think that gay soldiers are going to go after their male counterparts in the barracks?

CANDIDATE: If the question is, do I believe that men who state that they are sexually and romantically attracted to other men might be sexually aroused by and romantically attracted to other men with whom they shower and perform other intimate activities, the answer is “Yes.”
Do I think every homosexual soldier will “go after” fellow soldiers. No. But do I think it’s more likely that a homosexual soldier would pursue a fellow soldier than would a heterosexual soldier, the answer is “Yes.”

Further, I believe that relationships between homosexual soldiers will develop, including relationships between homosexual leaders and their subordinates, and that both types of relationships could undermine troop morale and unit cohesion.

INQUISITOR:You have said that we shouldn’t inject social policy into the military. Their job is to fight and defend. They’re not a social experiment. I want read a quote to you:

The Army is not a sociological laboratory. Experimenting with Army policy, especially in time of war would pose a danger to efficiency, disciple and moral and would result in ultimate defeat.

That’s a quote from Colonel Eugene Householder who is in the Army Adjutant General’s Office in 1941, arguing against racial integration in the military. Everything that many conservative say are problems that should prevent gays from serving openly in the military-living in close proximity, sharing bunks and showers-Colonel Householder claimed were problems that he used exactly the same arguments you use to argue against racial integration in the military in the 1940s.

CANDIDATE: Sound bite responses are woefully inadequate for complex, contentious issues. I should have been more precise. The military should not be allowed to be exploited and disrupted by homosexual activists to serve their moral and political goals. They are pursuing every major cultural institution to compel society to accept their false belief that homosexuality is by nature analogous to race and morally equivalent to heterosexuality.

The integration of the military was necessary in order to correct the false belief that black men and white men are by nature different. Correcting that false and destructive belief, though difficult as all cultural change is, was essential.

Homosexuality and skin color, however, are not analogous. The belief that homosexual acts are immoral is true. The claim that men who admit that they are sexually attracted to men might be sexually attracted to the men with whom they shower is true. That humans may not want to engage in private, intimate activities with those who might be romantically and sexually attracted to them is justifiable.

Since race shares nothing in common with homosexuality, the past policy of the military regarding race has no relevance to current military policy regarding homosexuality. The fact that the military (and society) was wrong in its understanding of race and its relevance to the military does not mean it is wrong regarding homosexuality.

Furthermore, this radical change in policy will usher in a whole slew of other problems, including threats to religious liberty.Here are just a few of the questions Chuck Donovan, Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society, asks:

1. What would be the impact of a full repeal on particular operational issues (e.g., fraternization, submarine service, field deployment, special forces, etc.)?

2. Some jurisdictions now license homosexual unions either as marriages, domestic partnerships, or civil unions. If Congress’s policy on homosexuals serving openly in the military is changed, and military personnel enter into officially licensed same-sex unions under state law, what would be the impact on military family policy with respect to benefits related to housing, insurance, and other compensation contingent on spousal or family status?

3. How would changing Congress’s military eligibility law affect other federal laws, including the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage as the union of husband and wife? Would a change to the current law make the U.S. military exempt from the application of DOMA? If Congress fails to make its intentions clear, could a later court interpret a change to the current ban on open homosexuality as an implicit repeal of DOMA? How would repealing the statutory ban on open homosexuality in the military affect constitutional litigation challenging the traditional definition of marriage at the state and federal levels?

4. What would be the impact on the personal moral beliefs and religious expression of other service members? Will the utterance of a belief that homosexual conduct is morally wrong be punishable in any manner as an expression of discrimination or intent to discriminate?

5. What would be the impact on service chaplains and counselors who may have specific denominational or personal views on the illicitness of same-sex conduct and same-sex relationships? Could they face punitive, administrative or remedial measures (e.g., sensitivity training) that impact their ability to perform their professional roles or infringe on their right to hold and express certain moral or religious views?

6. If military personnel express disagreement with changes to policy approving of homosexuality, how will that affect their careers?

7. Will homosexuality be considered a protected class for promotion or advancement purposes? Will the new law require that promotion boards include precept language requiring the promotion of homosexuals?

INQUISITOR: It is a fact that biology determines one’s sexuality, and it shouldn’t prevent someone from defending their country.

CANDIDATE: There is no proof whatsoever that homosexual impulses are biologically determined. But more important, the desire to serve and defend one’s country must never supersede the needs of the institution charged with that task: the military.

Some argue that the wishes of those who desire to serve their country as openly homosexual men and women should take precedence over the wishes of those who don’t want to serve with openly homosexual men and women. The argument is usually presented as homosexuals are acting unselfishly in their effort to be “out” in the military, while those who oppose serving with them are putting their own needs above the needs of the country. But how is it more selfish to say “I don’t want to serve in the military if I have to shower and toilet with men who tell me they are attracted to men” than it is to say “I don’t want to serve my country unless I can talk openly about my homosexual proclivities”?Homosexual activists try to elevate their desire to share their homosexual proclivities by couching it in ennobling rhetoric as in, “The government is forcing me to live a lie. I can’t live with integrity unless I’m free to express who I am.” Under DADT, no one was asked to tell a lie, because no one was asked.

Moreover, acting on homosexual impulses is the epitome of living without integrity, in both senses of the word. Volitional homosexual acts are degrading and constitute a rejection of the truth that men as sexual beings are complete. As Professor Robert Gagnonstates so eloquently:

There is a world of difference between erotic attraction to the sex that one belongs to and erotic attraction to the sex that one does not. So far as the erotic dimension is concerned, the former is sexual self-absorption and narcissism or, perhaps worse, sexual self-deception: a desire either for oneself or for what one wishes to be but in fact already is. It is a misguided attempt at completing the sexual self with a sexual same when true integration requires a complementary sexual other. “One-fleshness” is not just about intimacy. It is also about structural congruity. A person bearing the stamp of masculine essence is not completed sexually by joining with another who shares that essence.

Maybe this interview is not only imaginary but quixotic. Oh, well, a conservative girl can dream…

A freshman boy in Ft. Worth, Texas, Dakota Ary, was recently given an in-school suspension and two days out-of-school suspension because he told a classmate that because he’s a Christian, he believes homosexuality is wrong.

The German teacher in whose class this took place accused Dakota of “possible bullying” and wrote that the student’s comments should not be expressed in public school, even though the class discussion was on religion in Germany and another student had asked a question about homosexuality. How can the expression of a moral position about behavior, even a negative moral position, constitute bullying or even “possible bullying”?

Last week this same teacher put up a poster that depicted two men kissing, telling students that they should accept homosexuality. Put another way, this teacher has told orthodox Christian students that their moral positions on homosexuality are wrong. In doing so, has this teacher engaged in “possible bullying”?

According to student complaints, this teacher frequently discusses homosexuality. Apparently to this presumptuous teacher only conservative comments should be banned, and only liberal views are protected by the First Amendment.

Liberty Counsel, who is representing Dakota, has been successful in persuading the school to rescind the two-day suspension, and they’re working to ensure his formal record is clear.

But Christians should not be expecting organizations like Liberty Counsel, Alliance Defense Fund, and the Thomas More Society to do all the heavy cultural lifting. We need to actively and courageously work to restore sound pedagogy in the public schools that our taxes help subsidize. There are several things that parents and all other taxpayers can do:

1. Push for school policy that prohibits presumptuous educators like the German teacher in Texas from expressing their personal moral or political views through their comments, their curricula, or visual symbols in the classroom.

2. Push for a law (or at minimum a school policy) like the one that’s being promoted in Massachusetts (Click Here), which requires all schools that “present, implement or maintain a program that involves human sexual education, human sexuality issues or alternative sexual behavior ” to “adopt and implement a written policy ensuring parental/guardian notification of such school programs and a description of their content …. All such school programs shall be offered only in clearly identified non-mandatory elective courses or activities in which parents or guardians may choose to enroll their children through written notification to the school, in a manner reasonably similar to other elective courses or activities offered by the school district.”

The term “alternative sexual behavior” means “homosexuality, bisexuality, lesbianism, transsexuality , transgenderism , cross-dressing, pansexuality , promiscuity, sodomy, pederasty, prostitution, oral sex, anal sex, masturbation, polygamy, polyandry, sex re-assignment treatments, “bondage and discipline”, sado -masochism, bestiality, and similar behaviors. It also includes issues and relationships deriving from those behaviors, including but not limited to ‘sexual orientation,’ and alternative family, parenting, and marriage constructs.

This law (or a similar school policy) would prevent students from being exposed to any resource or activity that mentions any of these sexuality issues unless their parents are notified and give explicit permission for their child to enroll in the class or be present during the activity.

3. In addition, this law states that “No public school teacher or administrator shall be required to participate in any such school programs that violate his religious beliefs.”

4. Push for school policy that ensures intellectual diversity or parity. Taxpayers should ask school boards to create policy that requires teachers to spend equal time on and present equivalent resources from all perspectives on controversial issues. So, for example if a teacher assigns The Laramie Project or an article from a magazine that affirms “transgenderism,” he should be required to assign essays, commentaries, or journal articles written by conservative scholars on the issue of homosexuality.

I recently wrote about the persecution that Christian author and apologist, Frank Turek, has experienced because of his beliefs about homosexuality. Please watch the entirety of this short video in which he identifies the group that bears significant blame for the loss of our religious liberty: Christians.

At midnight on September 20, 2011, the repeal of the policy referred to as “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” (DADT) took effect. At 12:01 a.m. in Vermont, an active duty Navy lieutenant married his partner of eleven years, which means for the past eleven years, this Navy lieutenant has been knowingly violating military policy that prohibits homosexual activity.

How soon will it be before “married” homosexual partners start demanding spousal benefits, such as housing on military bases? Such benefits are currently prohibited by the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, which President Obama’s Department of Justice has said it will no longer defend.

Supporters of the repeal make the case that since what distinguishes soldiers is their unquestioning commitment to obey orders, this radical change in military policy will have no effect on troop morale or military readiness. Ironically, they simultaneously offer demagogic accounts of homosexual soldiers who have concealed their homosexuality, which constitutes deliberate deception and disobedience on the parts of soldiers who should never have enlisted in the military. Their primary act of enlisting constituted a violation of Article 125 of the Military Code of Justice and U.S. Code – Section 654 that strictly prohibits those who engage in homosexual acts or those who state that they are homosexual from serving in the military.

Despite what supporters of the repeal claim, military prohibitions against homosexuals serving in the military no more encourage deceit, than do laws prohibiting stealing encourage deceit. To claim that laws that prohibit certain behaviors encourage deceit is another way of saying people are always going to break laws. In this twisted logic, all laws encourage deceit because those who don’t want to abide by them willfully engage in deceit in order to do what they want without incurring the consequences.

The repeal of DADT came following biased media reporting of the findings of the Pentagon’s survey on military attitudes regarding the proposed repeal. The survey, which received only a 28 percent response rate, included not just soldiers but their wives and office personnel. The media largely ignored the fact that the survey did not include the question, “Should DADT be repealed?”

Homosexual activists have built their house of cards on the flawed comparison of homosexuality, which is constituted by subjective desire and volitional homosexual acts, to race. Homosexuals further assert that the idea of equality demands that society treat homosexual attraction and acts as morally equivalent to heterosexual attraction and acts. A just society committed to the principle of equality has no moral or constitutional obligation to treat all subjective feelings and volitional acts as morally equivalent.

The DADT repeal is one more example of sexual deviance trumping truth.

The ACLU finds itself in the midst of another controversial legal battle, this time in Missouri where they are suing a school district to allow K-12 students to access GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) websites. The ACLU’s Eastern Missouri chapter wrote to the school district in May telling it to stop using the sexuality blocker on its filtering software. But doing so would likely put the school in violation of the federal Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which requires public schools and libraries to protect children from harmful web content as a condition of receiving federal funding. The heros at the Alliance Defense Fund are taking up the school district’s case.

What’s disturbing about the ACLU’s demand is that it goes beyond the usual lines about tolerance and nondiscrimination to demand that the district stop filtering sexually graphic content. What about GLBT websites do kids need to be seeing if their content won’t pass a sexuality filter? The school’s policy is not discriminatory; children should be protected from all illegal pornography — especially when it is distributed on taxpayer funded computers — regardless of its sexual orientation. The federal government recognized this with CIPA.

The reason school’s Internet filters block GLBT websites isn’t because of the so-called “identity” of the people who run them, but that the sites contain inappropriate and sexually graphic material.

Decades ago, summer was the time that necessitated increased parental vigilance. School was the safe place. But the times they have a’changed. Self-righteous “agents of change” stand ready at the schoolhouse door to mold other people’s children into ideological replicas of themselves. So now the school year has become the time that necessitates increased parental vigilance.

One organization that warrants particular attention is “Teaching Tolerance,” which is laughingly called an “educational project,” but is, in reality, the pernicious propaganda project of the leftwing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). This is the organization that has listed the Illinois Family Institute, Family Research Council, and the American Family Association as “hate groups.”

The propagandists — I mean educators — at Teaching Tolerance are taking full advantage of the propensity of parents to remain blissfully unaware of what their children are being taught. These “tolerance teachers” count on parents remaining ignorant of their goal to undermine conservative moral and political beliefs.

Here is the newest resource spawned by the manipulators of children at the SPLC’s Teaching Tolerance of which parents should be aware:

Planning to Change the World: A Plan Book for Social Justice Teachers 2011-2012

This handbook for teachers begins with a quote from the Brazilian Marxist, Paulo Freire, who is the guru for “social justice teachers” and wrote their bible, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

The introduction makes clear that liberation from oppression supersedes sound, apolitical education:

Planning to Change the World is a plan book for teachers who believe their students can create meaningful social change. It is the product of a collaboration between two education networks — the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) and the Education for Liberation Network — and is published in partnership with Rethinking Schools. The information and ideas featured on its pages come from teachers, college students and activists who, like you, struggle daily to put their values into practice. As educators, our vision of teaching for liberation often gets buried under the everyday realities of teaching. Bombarded with paperwork, tests, curriculum mandates, we feel frustrated, overwhelmed, alone.

…Planning to Change the World is packed with important social justice birthdays and historical events, words of wisdom from visionary leaders, lesson plans, resources, social justice education happenings and more. [Emphases added]

The planning book includes quotes from radical historical revisionist Howard Zinn, homosexual activist Staceyann Chinn, and controversial labor leader Cesar Chavez. It also includes dozens of resources for teachers, most of which are extreme leftwing resources, including resources that promote far leftist assumptions about homosexuality, economics, religion, and American “imperialism.”

Here are some of the historical events honored just in November by the SPLC’s “educators” from Teaching Tolerance:

• Transgender Day of Remembrance
• The 50th anniversary of the first openly gay person to run for public office
• Eid al-Adha: an Islamic holiday
• Muharram, the first day of the Islamic calendar
• The 170th anniversary of the Creole revolt
• First day of Native American Heritage Month
• 80th anniversary of the beginning of the removal of the Choctaw Indians from their lands
• Thanksgiving: Teaching Tolerance recommends that teachers use resources from the anti-American organization, Oyate, about which I have previously written.

Teaching Tolerance also recommends an activity they created called Thanksgiving Mourning:

[S]tudents will review two written works by Native American authors. The first — a speech written by Wamsutta James in 1970 — gave birth to the National Day of Mourning, which is observed on Thanksgiving by some indigenous people. To them, Thanksgiving is ‘a reminder of the genocide of millions of their people, the theft of their lands, and the relentless assault on their culture.’ The Day of Mourning, on the other hand, is a day of remembrance and spiritual connection, as well as a protest of the racism and oppression that Native Americans continue to experience.”

I wonder if Teaching Tolerance would revise their list of important “social justice” historical events to include mention of Joseph Scheidler, father of the pro-life movement. He is the indefatigable pursuer of social justice for the most vulnerable in America: babies in utero, whose developmental immaturity or imperfections put them at risk of legalized extermination.

As I’ve written before, “teaching for social justice” is, in a nutshell:

repackaged socialism with its focus on economic redistribution. Social justice theory emphasizes redistribution of wealth and values uniformity of economic and social position over liberty. Social justice advocates seek to use the force of government to establish economic uniformity.

Its other dominant features pertain to race, gender, class, and sexual orientation/ identity/ expression. Social justice theory as I’m describing it encourages people to view the world through the divisive lens of identity politics that demarcates groups according to which group constitutes the “oppressors” and which the “oppressed.” Those who are identified as the “oppressors” need not have committed any acts of actual persecution or oppression, nor feel any sense of superiority toward or dislike of the supposed “oppressed” class. The problem with social justice theory is that it promotes the idea that “institutional racism,” as opposed to actual acts of mistreatment of individuals by other individuals is the cause of differing lots in life.

Social justice theorists cultivate the racist, sexist, heterophobic stereotype that whites, males, and heterosexuals are oppressors. This is an offensive, prejudiced stereotype that robs minorities of a sense of agency in and responsibility for their own lives, telling them that their lots in life cannot improve through their own efforts but only through an appropriate degree of self-flagellation on the parts of the purported oppressors. It cultivates a sense of perpetual victimization and powerlessness on the parts of minorities and an irrational and illegitimate sense of guilt on the parts of whites, or men, or heterosexuals.

Finally, social justice theory is distinctly anti-American and hyper-focuses on America’s mistakes and failings. Social justice theory diminishes or ignores the remarkable success America has achieved in integrating virtually every ethnic and racial group in the world, and in enabling people to improve their lots in life through economic opportunity and American principles of liberty and equality.

To learn more about the ethically and intellectually bankrupt Southern Poverty Law Center’s deeply troubling ideology, goals, and tactics, click HERE (this is a very recent and important article from an immigration reform organization on the SPLC’s “phony claims”), and HERE.

When you’re done, email your children’s teachers, some of whom likely subscribe to Teaching Tolerance’s free online newsletter for educators, asking whether they will be using any resources or activities from Teaching Tolerance. Then make it clear that should they decide to use any resources created by, or recommended by Teaching Tolerance, you want to be notified so you can opt your child out.

There’s troubling news coming out of Florida that provides evidence that the cultural movement to normalize homosexuality poses a serious threat to First Amendment speech and religious rights.

Mount Dora High School social studies teacher and winner of the 2010 “Teacher of the Year” award, Jerry Buell, wrote this on his private Facebook page during non-work time:

I’m watching the news, eating dinner, when the story about New York okaying same sex unions came on and I almost threw up.

If they want to call it a union, go ahead. But don’t insult a man and woman’s marriage by throwing it in the same cesspool as same-sex whatever! God will not be mocked. When did this sin become acceptable???

The administrative response to this veteran teacher’s condemnation of government-endorsement of abominable (God’s word, not Buell’s) relationships is to suspend him from the classroom and begin an investigation.

Society has become so desensitized to the offense of cesspoolish acts that calling them cesspoolish constitutes an offense. Our cultural moral compass has become so broken that citizens do not recognize that homosexual acts are, indeed, cesspoolish. In a very literal sense, the primary sexual act engaged in by homosexual men is cesspoolish in that a cesspool is a waste receptacle, but the term “cesspool” also refers to corrupt, depraved acts. Although Buell’s word choice was indelicate and politically incorrect, it strikes me as accurate. (For recent CDC information on HIV infections among Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM), click HERE, and for shigellosis information click HERE.)

Christians have become deluded into believing that saying that homosexual acts are cesspoolish is an unchristian act, and they have been bullied into self-censorship by exactly the kind of repercussions Buell is experiencing.

Americans, including leaders in government, education, and even the church, increasingly accept the dangerous notion that the First Amendment should be subordinate to the “feelings” of homosexuals. What next? Will speech rights and religious liberty be subordinated to the feelings of “minority-attracted” persons (aka pedophiles) and polyamorists? How long will it be before yet another group committed to normalizing their particular sinful proclivity starts talking about how marginalized, stigmatized, and “unsafe” they “feel”?

Some questions for Mount Dora High School administrators:

• If teachers are not permitted to express their moral and political beliefs during their free time on their private Facebook pages, should they be permitted to express their beliefs on blogs?
• Should they be permitted to express them in letters to their local press?
• Should they be permitted to express them in conversations in public restaurants where they may be overheard by others?
• Should they be able to express them in radio or print interviews?
• Was it the word “cesspool” that generated the investigation and suspension of Buell, or was it his disapproval of the legalization of same-sex “marriage” and homosexuality?
• If it was the word choice that got the administrators’ panties in a bundle, will these language-dictators provide a list of acceptable denunciatory words? Remember, it’s our educators who are promoters of diversity and the free exchange of ideas and defenders of even obscene language when it’s found in the books they teach our children.
• If it were not merely the word “cesspool” but rather any expression of disapproval of homosexuality, is it just homosexuality that teachers may not condemn in their free time or are there other topics of which they may only safely express approval? If so, what are those topics and who decides?
• The First Amendment was intended to protect the expression of even unpopular ideas. How does Big Brother — I mean the Mount Dora High School administration — reconcile its draconian response to Buell with the First Amendment?

The Mount Dora administration might defend their actions by citing the need to keep students “safe.” What school administrations rarely do, however, is define “safety.” The entire homosexuality-affirming juggernaut depends on the tricksy manipulation of rhetoric. “Safety,” which formerly meant the absence of physical threat, has now come to mean the absence of emotional or intellectual discomfort. Of course, liberal activists in public schools won’t admit this (and conservative teachers are too fearful to expose it).

Intellectual and ethical consistency — never the forte of liberals — is not found in public schools even on the topic of “safety.” Liberal activists have no problem making conservative students feel uncomfortable (i.e., “unsafe”) if it’s in the service of eradicating conservative moral beliefs. In so doing, increasing numbers of homosexual students and their “allies” (another rhetorical buzz saw in the homosexuality-normalizing tool box) are becoming presumptuous ideological dictators. They treat all encounters with dissenting moral propositions with high dudgeon and an expectation of administrative censorship.

The exaltation of subjective feelings through the self-actualization and self-esteem movements and the demonization of shame have collided with the tyrannical homosexual “rights” revolution, resulting in the cultural collapse that’s happening right in front of our eyes. (And what do conservatives do? Cover their eyes, plug their ears, and shut their mouths.)

My advice: exercise your right to express unpopular ideas while you can.

Post script:

1. A fellow conservative with whom I discussed this article prior to posting expressed concern over any mention of sexual acts, arguing that we should not “dwell” on them.

I completely agree: dwelling on sexual acts is neither necessary nor constructive. I wish we had a society that valued modesty and privacy, but we don’t and the other side is making public statements about sexual acts and promoting images and ideas about sexual acts that are shaping the beliefs of Americans.

The current cultural problem is not that conservatives dwell on sexual acts, but that we ignore them. In my approximately 800-words above, I have about 80 words that address sexual acts. That hardly constitutes “dwelling.”

We are derelict in this cultural battle if we cede through silence the battle about the true nature of homosexuality, including the sexual acts in which homosexuals commonly engage. Our silence — which the other side covets — leaves homosexuals free to create and promulgate an unchallenged message. Even our high school comprehensive sex ed classes, purportedly concerned with adolescent health, rarely provide to students information on the astonishing array and rate of sexually transmitted infections associated with what the CDC calls Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM).

2. Over the weekend, I was sent a Christian Post article in which Neuqua Valley High School math teacher, Hemant Mehta, weighed in on the suspension of Jerry Buell. IFI readers may remember Mehta, or as he refers to himself and his blog, the “friendly atheist,” about whom I’ve written several times.

Initially, Mehta, who, according to the Christian Post views Mr. Buell as a “bigot,” wanted to “join in the backlash,” but some soul-searching restored Mehta’s reverence for the First Amendment. In his statement, Mehta implied that a situation involving IFI’s response to his blog was analogous to the Buell situation.

Several clarifications are in order. As I wrote in 2009, I did, indeed, contact Mehta’s administration and school board regarding something he had written on his blog, but I did not contact them because of his moral views or in order to have him suspended. In fact, I specifically said, “Of course, teachers have a First Amendment right to blog or speak publicly about anything they want.”

I contacted his administration and school board because Mehta had suggested on his public and widely read blog that it would be a good thing if homosexuals came and kissed in front of my home. His entire blog is an expression of his controversial social, political, moral, and philosophical beliefs, and I had never previously contacted his administration or school board. His suggestion, however, that homosexuals come to my home — whether delivered in jest or not — constituted an irresponsible, unprofessional comment that may have violated school policy regarding employee-community relations.

In subsequent articles, I urged parents to think about whether a teacher who publicly uses obscene language and vigorously promotes polyamory and atheism is a good role model for their children. The First Amendment prohibits the government from abrogating the right of citizens to express even unpopular ideas. It does not prohibit parents from making choices about the people with whom their children spend 180 hours a week.

To read more about Hemant Mehta’s blog, click HERE, HERE, and HERE.

One final note: I have met Hemant and find him a very nice person. Many people believe that condemnation of actions or passionate intellectual disputes indicate dislike or hatred of our worthy opponents. That’s nonsense or worse.

It’s not only possible but commonplace to like, value, enjoy the company of, and even love those whose beliefs and behavioral choices we find foolish and destructive.

Click HERE TO SUPPORT Illinois Family Institute.
As little as $60 goes a long way toward protecting your values in Illinois!
Sign up as an IFI Ministry Partner for just $60/year, which is just $5 per month.

On Wednesday, August 17, child advocates Matt Barber, Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action, and Dr. Judith Reisman, a visiting law professor at Liberty University School of Law, attended a Baltimore, MD conference hosted by the pedophile group B4U-ACT. Around 50 individuals were in attendance including a number of admitted pedophiles – or “Minor-Attracted Persons” as they prefer to be identified (MAP “sexual orientation”) – as well as several supportive mental health professionals. World renowned “sexologist,” Dr. Fred Berlin of Johns Hopkins University gave the keynote address, saying: “I want to completely support the goal of B4U-ACT.”

Highlights of the conference:

• Pedophiles are “unfairly stigmatized and demonized” by society.

• There was concern about “vice-laden diagnostic criteria” and “cultural baggage of wrongfulness.”

• “We are not required to interfere with or inhibit our child’s sexuality.”

• “Children are not inherently unable to consent” to sex with an adult.

• “In Western culture sex is taken too seriously.”

• “Anglo-American standard on age of consent is new [and ‘Puritanical’]. In Europe it was always set at 10 or 12. Ages of consent beyond that are relatively new and very strange, especially for boys. They’ve always been able to have sex at any age.”

• An adult’s desire to have sex with children is “normative.”

• Our society should “maximize individual liberty. … We have a highly moralistic society that is not consistent with liberty.”

• “Assuming children are unable to consent lends itself to criminalization and stigmatization.”

• “These things are not black and white; there are various shades of gray.”

• A consensus belief by both speakers and pedophiles in attendance was that, because it vilifies MAPs, pedophilia should be removed as a mental disorder from the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), in the same manner homosexuality was removed in 1973.

• Dr. Fred Berlin acknowledged that it was political activism, similar to that witnessed at the conference, rather than scientific considerations that successfully led to the declassification of homosexuality as a mental disorder: The reason “homosexuality was taken out of DSM is that people didn’t want the government in the bedroom,” he said.

• Dr. Berlin appeared to endorse the politically maligned clinical practice of “reparative therapy” for homosexuals and pedophiles alike, saying, “If someone, for their own reasons, doesn’t want to live a homosexual lifestyle, I tell them that it’s hard but I’ll try to help them.”

• The DSM ignores that pedophiles “have feelings of love and romance for children” in the same way adult heterosexuals and homosexuals have romantic feelings for one another.

• “The majority of pedophiles are gentle and rational.”

• The DSM should “focus on the needs” of the pedophile, and should have “a minimal focus on social control,” rather than obsessing about the “need to protect children.”

• Self-descried “gay activist” and speaker Jacob Breslow said that children can properly be “the object of our attraction.” He further objectified children, suggesting that pedophiles needn’t gain consent from a child to have sex with “it” any more than we need consent from a shoe to wear it. He then used graphic, slang language to favorably describe the act of climaxing (ejaculating) “on or with” a child. No one in attendance objected to this explicit depiction of child sexual assault.

To schedule an interview with Matt Barber or Dr. Judith Reisman, send an email request to jmattbarber@comcast.net

Part I of this two-part article about Illinois’ new “enumerated” school anti-bullying law and its attendant Task Force exposed the bias and lack of diversity of the Task Force as well as the troubling recommendations made by it.

106-page Task Force recommendations refer to” broader cultural systemic issues of power, privilege and oppression,” “homophobia,” and “underlying power imbalances.” For the uninitiated, this language may sound benign or even positive, but those familiar with the jargon of the “teaching for social justice” movement will recognize the troubling ideas concealed beneath the deceitfully reassuring rhetoric.

The goals of the Task Force are consistent with the mission of the organization that created the law: the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance (ISSA). ISSA is a homosexual activist organization that was originally an affiliate of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). ISSA’s anti-bullying law was created specifically to add the terms “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” and “gender expression” to existing law, which in turn would provide liberal assumptions about homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder an even greater foothold in Illinois schools.

The Task Force recommends “all schools in Illinois immediately embark on a journey of complete school transformation,” which means all public and private schools in Illinois. Current law applies only to public schools and non-sectarian, that is, non-religious private schools, but the Task Force calls for an amendment to the existing law so that it would apply to religious private schools as well.

The Task Force recommendations include indoctrination plans for students, teachers, administrators, all school employees (e.g., maintenance workers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers), and future teachers enrolled in college and university teacher-preparation programs.

The Task Force asserts that “complete school transformation cannot be accomplished without adequate commitment, time, and resources,” stating that “nothing less than the complete overhaul of the education system in Illinois” will suffice, and that “the state of Illinois fully fund pilot projects to collect and evaluate data on the efficacy of the proposed school transformation model.”

Their recommendations include this troubling suggestion: “Many changes will need to be made to state laws, ISBE regulations and school policies.”

Many community members feel helpless to stop the usurpation of public education by liberal ideologues hell-bent on using taxpayer resources to advance their moral and political beliefs, but there are things taxpayers can and should do:

1. Email your local school administrators and request the following information:

a. Ask for detailed information about any “bullying prevention” activities that are planned for students.

b. Ask for detailed information about any “bullying-prevention” training (i.e., professional development) that is planned for administrators, teachers, and staff.

c. Ask if any of the “bullying-prevention” activities that are planned for any of these groups specifically mention “sexual orientation,” “gender-identity” (i.e., Gender Identity Disorder), or “gender-expression” (i.e., cross-dressing).

d. Request copies of any resources that will be used in “bullying-prevention” training for students, teachers, administrators, and staff.

2. If your administration is uncooperative, file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to access the information. FOIA requests are easy to file and cost-free for the first fifty pages of documents. Every Illinois school district has a FOIA officer who by law must be identified on the district’s website. Your district’s FOIA officer can provide instructions on how to file a FOIA. Click here and go to page 56 for a sample FOIA request. Taxpayers should be making use of FOIA requests. They provide invaluable (and often surprising) information about what takes place behind the scenes in schools.

3. Finally, tell your children’s teachers that under no circumstance is your child to be exposed to any resources or activities that mention “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” or “gender expression.” Tell them that you will provide “bullying-prevention” instruction at home. And ask them to notify you prior to any activities or presentations that address “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” or “gender expression,” so that you can opt your child out.

IFI is urging our readers to research how your school districts are implementing the Illinois Prevent School Violence Act (PSVA). Please do this if you’re a taxpayer. You don’t have to have students enrolled in school. All taxpayers are subsidizing what takes place in our public schools; and today’s students are tomorrow’s culture-makers. We all have a stake in public education.

We cannot afford to sit around fretting and whining about the corruption of public education by liberal ideologues who have transformed education into indoctrination. Please email your schools, and if anything troubling turns up, send the information and documentation to IFI. We would love to share with IFI readers what’s taking place in particular school districts around the state.

Click HERE TO SUPPORT Illinois Family Institute.
As little as $60 goes a long way toward protecting your values in Illinois!
Sign up as an IFI Ministry Partner for just $60/year, which is just $5 per month.

Illinois parents may soon begin to taste the diseased fruit of the Illinois “enumerated” anti-bullying act that Governor Quinn signed into law a year ago on the Sunday morning of the Chicago “gay pride” parade at a ceremony at Nettelhorst School, Chicago’s first public elementary school to march in the debauchery-affirmation parade, which is located in the city’s premier homosexual neighborhood “Boystown.” (And there are still gullible people who buy the deceit that this law is centrally about bullying.)

The term “enumerated” is an obfuscatory euphemism that means the law specifically includes homosexuality, Gender Identity Disorder, and cross-dressing. Of course our lawmakers wouldn’t dare use those terms out of fear that Illinoisans would see the pernicious truth lurking behind the civil rights argot. No, our lawmakers use the equally obfuscatory euphemisms of “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” and “gender expression.”

This law required our State Superintendent of Education, Christopher Koch, to appoint a Task Force to make recommendations about the implementation of the anti-bullying law. Here are just a few of the “unbiased” Task Force members:

Christopher Koch: Illinois State Superintendent of Education, who according to the Chicago Tribune, lives with his “partner.” Other public sources (here and here) reveal that partner to be Kyle A. Lentz.

In 2009, Koch was honored by the homosexual activist organization, Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, as “advocate of the year.”

Rocco Claps: openly homosexual Director of the Department of Human Rights (Read more HERE).

Shannon Sullivan: openly homosexual Director of the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, who seeks to exploit all public schools — including elementary schools — to normalize her own sexual proclivities.

Jennifer Nielsen: Associate Director of the Anti-Defamation League (pictured here in the homosexual newspaper Windy City Times, promoting the pro-homosexual film It’s STILL Elementary. Trailers of this film can be viewed HERE).

Lonnie Nasatir: Regional Director of the Greater Chicago/Upper Midwest area with pro-homosexual Anti-Defamation League. Nasatir had this to say about the civil union law: “In our eyes this is an issue of pure and simple fairness and equality; we knew representative [Greg] Harris would need a lot of help and we thought it would be a great opportunity to inform the community about what the bill means and other issues about the LGBT community to be informed and educated citizens.”

And this: “Today we celebrate the hard work of advocates and legislators, and specifically Representative Greg Harris, who worked tirelessly on this bill for several years to ensure all citizens are afforded the rights and privileges of married couples…. This is a proud day for the state of Illinois as we have recognized a fundamental inequality and taken steps to remedy it.”

Dr. Stacey Horn: assistant professor in the College of Education, University of IL at Chicago (former academic home of Bill Ayers). In an article co-authored by Horn she writes, “A final LGBTQ school safety strategy involves…integrating LGBTQ topics into the school curricula.”

According to the UIC website, Horn is “interested in factors (e.g., age, religion, school context, intergroup context) related to sexual prejudice among adolescents and adults….In her teaching, she….also examines how to use our knowledge about adolescent development in creating educational and social context that support and promote positive developmental outcomes for all youth, and specifically for youth who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.”

Click here, here, and here for more on Horn.

Dorothy Espelage: Professor of Educational Psychology, College of Education, University of IL at Urbana-Champaign. HERE are some words of wisdom from Espelage: “Kids are bombarded by homophobic messages….The kids’ attitudes in this state are homophobic in nature. They marginalize boys who don’t act like boys and girls who don’t act like girls….This is very controversial….It’s tied to religion, it’s tied to values, and we’re a very sexually repressed nation as it is, anyway.”

Ann Rangos: self-identified lesbian high school student who is described by David Fischer of the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance as “an incredible activist.”

Sukari Stone: self-identified lesbian high school student who writes the following on her blog:

I’m extremely passionate about human rights. More specifically gay rights. I work with an orginization that helps make schools safer and more welcoming to LGBTQA students. Equal rights are very important to me. Probably one of the most important things in my life at the moment (and hopefully for awhile). I have serious pride in who I am and honestly don’t care whether others accept me or not. And because of my ridiculous pride I’ll let you in on a little secret of mine…I’m a rainbow kid. Get it? I like girls. Cool right? (Source)

I was thinking gay thoughts as usual)….I promise to try to cut down on the ridiculous about of gay things in my posts. I really can’t help it. Most people have 2 parts of their brain, a logical side and an artistic side. I actually have 3 parts; an artistic side, a logical side and a gay side. (Source)

After reading [“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards], I honestly laughed. Seriously, this guy needs to be put away. I could just imagine a red-faced fat man screaming this sermon at the top of his lungs. “What’s his deal?” I asked myself.

What surprised me even more was the fact that people were so quick to believe this idiot. If they even read the Bible they’d know that the God portrayed in it was a good one. A loving caring and accepting one.

Personally, I am not religious. I don’t believe in God but I have read the Bible and studied religion a little bit. It’s just not my cup of tea. I could rant on and on about religion in general but I don’t want to ridiculously offend someone (for once in my life).

I think that Johnathan Edwards was trying to get his listeners to live a life of fear of paranoia. After all, if I believed that God was holding me by a string over a flaming pit I’d be pretty damn scared too. He’s using fear to force people to live their lives perfectly and not to make any mistakes. The God portrayed in the Bible was a forgiving guy so I’m not exactly sure what edition Edwards was reading. Maybe he knew that this wasn’t happening. That God was a hateful being that wanted to kill everyone. It could’ve been a pretty smart way to brainwash people into believing what you had to say.

Basically, Johnathan Edwards was either a ridiculously smart manipulator or a guy that was coming down from a serious acid trip while delivering his sermon. (Source)

Here are some of the recommendations made by the Koch-appointed Task Force (comments and questions in brackets are mine; all emphases are mine):

• education stakeholders in Illinois [should] commit to engaging in overall school transformation….To accomplish transformation, schools must:
• Recognize the impacts of systemic cultural issues such as racism, sexism, classism, adultism, disability discrimination andhomophobia that contribute to negative and hostile environments for youth and adults
• Provide effective youth programming with:
• Strong ties to theoretical constructs related to bullying…and behavioral change [Will any of the “theoretical constructs” used in “youth programming” dissent from liberal dogma regarding homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder?]
• An evaluation component [Will students be evaluated? If so, on what will they be evaluated? Will they be evaluated on the degree to which they have embraced the moral assumptions of liberal demagogues?]
• Methods and strategies for adapting programs to unique school contexts (e.g., race, age, gender) and ecological domains (e.g., peer relationships, family relationships)
• Provide professional development to all school personnel (including not only administrators and teachers, but bus drivers, maintenance workers, security, cafeteria workers, etc.) on issues of:
• School-wide expectations, as well as reporting and monitoring requirements when expectations are not met
• Impacts of systemic cultural issues such as racism, sexism, classism, adultism, ableism and homophobia that contribute to bullying and school violence, as well as hostile environments for youth and adults that inhibit learning and development
• In order to support schools in the school transformation process, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and other governmental agencies, where possible, should:
• Support amendment of the PSVA (the Illinois “enumerated” anti-bullying law) and implementing regulations to…cover all public and non-public schools, require more detail in mandated anti-bullying policies, and more effectively support school transformation efforts
• Develop two to four common indicators (e.g., incidence rates, discipline referrals related to bullying, overall school climate) that address bullying and school violence and require all schools and districts to report annually
• Establish an administrators’ academy to teach all school administrators ways to establish and maintain a positive school climate
• Make available quality technical assistance and professional development to schools engaged in the school transformation process
• Ensure all pre-professional education for school personnel prepare them to engage in and lead school transformation processes [“Pre-professional education” refers to students preparing to become teachers. In other words, the task force is recommending that all future teachers be indoctrinated with their subversive ideas about homosexuality.]
• Fully fund pilot projects to collect and evaluate data on the efficacy of the proposed school transformation model to comprehensively prevent and address bullying and school violence

Some random thoughts about this legislative debacle:

— It’s odd or ironic or hypocritical that an educational group that purports to embrace diversity and tolerance would apparently make no effort to create a diverse task force. It’s clear that the task force excluded anyone who opposes bullying but believes that affirming volitional homosexual acts harms children.

— It’s also odd that despite the fact that lesbians constitute less than 2% of the population, they comprise 100 percent of the student representation on the task force.

— According to research, the kids who are most frequently bullied are obese kids, and not one was included on the task force. In addition, I’ve never heard a single expert advocate the celebration and affirmation of obesity as a means to eradicate the bullying of obese students.

— I am loathe to refer, even indirectly, to particular students, but our state’s educational leaders have foolishly decided to make students public figures by including them on the task force. This reminds me of the equally foolish practice in District 113 of including students on committees that interview teacher candidates. Teacher candidates should be insulted by such a practice. However did we arrive at a cultural place where immature students who lack both knowledge and wisdom and who hold disordered moral beliefs serve on committees that make critical educational decisions for Illinois students? Clearly, Koch’s allegiance to homosexual kids is greater than his allegiance to conservative adults, sound pedagogy, or philosophical diversity. Perhaps he fears being accused of “adultism” if he doesn’t include students and “homophobia” if he doesn’t include homosexual students on the task force.

—Many conservatives fearfully, ignorantly, and, in some cases, self-righteously proclaim–at least publicly–that the homosexuality of educators and lawmakers doesn’t matter to them. Well, it better matter to them because when an educator or lawmaker affirms and embraces a homosexual identity, they are announcing precisely what they hold to be true about the nature and morality of volitional homosexual acts. And these non-factual assumptions about homosexuality will shape their decisions on a whole host of issues including laws, school policies, curricula, their own classroom comments, and professional development opportunities provided to school employees at public expense.

—How much will these complete “transformations” of all schools cost individual districts and the state?

It should be obvious that this anti-bullying law, like virtually all contemporary anti-bullying laws, policies, and activities, is centrally concerned with exploiting legitimate anti-bullying sentiment and public education to transform the moral beliefs of Illinois students. Part II of this article on Illinois’ “enumerated” anti-bullying law will focus on what community members can do in the hope of mitigating the law’s moral and pedagogical damage.

Click HERE TO SUPPORT Illinois Family Institute.
As little as $60 goes a long way toward protecting your values in Illinois!
Sign up as an IFI Ministry Partner for just $60/year, which is just $5 per month.