Illinois Thinks it is a Better Parent than You

Mandated Vaccines & the “LGBTQ” Agenda

A troubling trend is occurring in Illinois. It has happened mostly in the background but has become visible with the introduction of two new proposed laws concerning vaccines. If these proposed laws were to take effect, vaccines would be mandated by the state without religious exception. In addition, these bills apply to public and private schools, including Christian private schools and homeschools. Especially egregious would be the mandate for children to receive the HPV vaccine, a vaccine to protect a person from a sexually transmitted disease. Furthermore, and perhaps even more shocking, if this legislation passes, 14-year-olds will be able to receive vaccines without parental consent.

This isn’t the only erosion of parental rights in Illinois. “Progressives” in the Illinois legislature are also seeking to “teach” our children their “good news” on sex. Desiring to mandate a new curriculum on sex and sexuality through two new sex ed bills, there is a concerted push to normalize behaviors and a worldview starting in kindergarten that is anti-Christian. This includes teaching that novel “gender expressions,” pre-marital and non-marital sex, and non-monogamous heterosexual families are moral goods. If these bills become law, your kids will be indoctrinated with a new sexual ethic that is entirely different from that which has been taught for two millennia.

In Illinois, minors can receive an abortion without parental consent with only a judicial waiver. According to the ACLU, no judicial waiver has ever been denied.

If a minor enters into the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), the state will provide “gender transitioning” medical treatment, mental health “LGBTQ” advocacy, and placement in “affirming” households whether or not the parents agree. On their website, DCFS states that every child deserves these “rights,” and that these rights include children not in the DCFS system. For now, the law stops them from imposing their worldview on non-DCFS kids. Unless the state’s expansive powers are stopped, it’s not hard to imagine something that should scare all of us. We are on a trajectory where children will be removed from their parents because the parents will not embrace a child’s decisions on his sexuality or “gender identity.”

There are other examples, but these should suffice to show you what Illinois believes. In a new school guidance report that was ordered by Gov. JB Pritzker, the authors assert that schools have an obligation to act as a parent. DCFS also calls itself a parent, and the judge permitting an abortion without parental consent is acting as a parent. The state of Illinois believes it has a stronger claim to parent your child than you do, but the state of Illinois is wrong.

Biological parents are almost always better situated to parent than the state. In his essay “Of Paternal Power,” John Locke has written the strongest and most enduring Judeo-Christian argument for the preeminence of parental rights in modern society.

Parents have the freedom to raise their children as they see fit because this freedom is from nature and is not a right given by the state. Locke writes that parents have “a power over their children and have as much right to their subjection as those who are in the state of Nature.”

For Locke, Nature is the order of creation, and natural laws flow from this order. One of Nature’s laws is that the couple who births a child is a “temporary government” for that child. In other words, in the same way an adult is subject to civil authorities, a child is subject to his parents while he is a minor. The state of Illinois is usurping one of the most fundamental relationships in human society. Its intervention is about the indoctrination of children with a leftist worldview that stands diametrically opposed to a Judeo-Christian worldview. In a state that has more corruption than it does farmland, the last responsibility it should have is the right to indoctrinate our children.

According to Locke, this “temporary government” is built upon parental obligations. The parents have freedom in raising their child because at the end of the day it is their responsibility to do so. Locke writes,

The power, then, that parents have over their children arises from that duty which is incumbent on them, to take care of their offspring during the imperfect state of childhood. To inform the mind, and govern the actions of their yet ignorant nonage, till reason shall take its place and ease them of that trouble … .

This includes the healthcare and education of the child. As a parent, I do not want my children exposed to “LGBTQ” ideology that normalizes what our faith says is sin. Based on science and common sense, “gender” isn’t a personal opinion or a subjective feeling. I will raise my children as the “gender” that is expressed in their sex; this is based on my understanding of gender being a gift from God and a revelation of the image of God in humanity.

My children are vaccinated, but I find it deeply offensive that Illinois would mandate a drug to prevent a sexually transmitted disease. The mandate gives sexual license to my children that I deeply disagree with. These legal mandates are the height of hubris. We must not give away our obligation to parent to the state. If it’s not obvious, Illinois has no idea what it is doing.

In the most serious error of the Illinois parental state, the child is being given adult rights without parental oversight. In what world can a minor be expected to make informed, rational decisions on deeply complex moral and life-changing choices? Locke writes,

Commonwealths themselves take notice of, and allow that there is a time when men are to begin to act like free men, and therefore, till that time, require not oaths of fealty or allegiance, or other public owning of, or submission to, the government of their countries.

Children are not required to act as adults because they are not adults. Children need parents. This is because, according to Locke, they are in the period of “ignorant nonage.” Parents make the decisions “till reason shall take its place and ease them of that trouble.”

The idea that the state would empower kids to decide on invasive medical procedures or embrace novel sexual expressions reveals a society collectively jumping off a cliff. By the very fact of being a child, they lack mature rationality and the ability to understand the effects of decisions, and they have an underdeveloped moral system. When the state intervenes, it interjects its opinions on life, sexuality, and marriage that are radically contradictory to a Christian view of the world. Such interventions are outrageous.

Dear parents in Illinois, please take notice of what is happening. Call your state lawmakers and Governor Pritzker to stop the two pieces of legislation concerning vaccines and the sex education legislation. Then, it’s time to take back parental rights. Our children are our responsibility. Their future, their faith and their well-being are dependent on us pushing back the intrusions of the state. It’s time for parents to fight for our children. Right now, the state is fighting harder for them.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your state senator and state representative to ask them to vote against these bills: SB 3788, HB 4870 and HB 5012. Impressionable students in public schools should not be exposed to body- and soul-destroying messages that promote leftist beliefs about sexuality.

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

Yet Another Springfield Attack On Parental Rights and Religious Liberty

Late last week we sent an email alert about a dangerous Illinois House bill (HB 4870) mandating that ALL 6th grade students in Illinois receive the unnecessary and highly controversial HPV vaccine – both boys and girls. Politicians have no business mandating medical treatment for all children to prevent a disease that’s contracted solely through sexual activity. Parents should be outraged! But it gets worse.

On Friday the other shoe dropped, as Illinois Senator Heather Steans (D-Chicago) introduced SB 3668, which repeals all religious and medical exemptions for school immunizations and authorizes minor students, 14 years of age or older, to be vaccinated without parental consent. It also eliminates protections for parents who adopt children. From the synopsis of the bill, parents who do not immunize their children could be considered neglectful or abusive:

Removes language providing that the [Communicable Disease Prevention Act] does not apply if a parent or guardian of a child objects to immunization of his or her child for conflicting with his or her religious tenets or practices.

…

Removes language providing that a child shall not be considered neglected or abused for the sole reason that specified persons failed to vaccinate, delayed vaccination, or refused vaccination for the child due to a waiver on religious grounds.

The Illinois Department of Public Health lists 12 vaccine requirements for “Entering a Child Care Facility or School in Illinois, Fall 2019“: Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus, Polio, Measles, Rubella, Mumps, Haemophilus influenzae type b, Pneumococcal Conjugate, Hepatitis B, Varicella and Meningococcal Conjugate.

We cannot cede more authority to the state over the lives of our children and families, and we cannot remain silent in the face of these overt attacks on parental rights and religious liberty. This is not an issue for politicians! This is a decision that should be made by parents and their pediatricians.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your Illinois state lawmakers (House and Senate) to ask them to reject SB 3668 and HB 4870. Ask them to uphold parental rights and the right to freely exercise our federal and state religious civil rights. In addition to sending this email message, please also call the offices of both your state representative and state senator and leave a message stating your opposition to both of these bills. Look up their phone numbers HERE.

It is interesting to note: according to a Pew Research article, all states except Mississippi, California, Minnesota, West Virginia, Maine and New York allow parents religious exemptions for vaccinations. Illinois must fight to not become the seventh state to severely diminish parental and religious liberties.

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

Illinois Lawmakers Propose Bill Mandating HPV Vaccine for ALL Children

Illinois’ lesbian lawmaker Kelly Cassidy, arch nemesis of the good, the true, and the beautiful and creator of the worst legislation (e.g., the barbaric Baby Snuff Law) to come out of the fetid swamp in Springfield, and her collaborator Robyn Gabel have just sponsored HB 4870, a bill to require all children to mandate the HPV vaccine before entering middle school. And by all, I mean ALL.

This invasive, imperial diktat would apply to children in public and private schools—which includes all private religious schools (Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, and Muslim), and homeschools—no exceptions. Don’t be surprised, however, if an amendment is added to exempt homeschools, (maybe even religious private schools). There’s little that presumptuous, self-righteous Springfield swampsters with their super-majorities in both houses fear, but they do fear homeschool parents.

You public school parents are out of luck. You are not feared because the swampsters know that very few Christians in public schools will say or do anything in response to the outrageous diktats the swampsters pass. That’s why they’ve been able to pass their ignorant sex ed law, their ignorant “anti-bullying” law, their pernicious “LGBT” school indoctrination bill—all of which were really Trojan horses to get their pro-sexual deviance ideology into government schools.

Now that America is awash in sexual deviance, the same reprobates whose sexual ideology has caused the spread of sexually transmitted diseases are swooping in to try to fix their mess by interfering in the private lives of all parents.

Whether you choose to vaccinate your children with the HPV vaccine or not is irrelevant. This issue is about the usurpation of parental rights by a ravenous government behemoth seeking to devour not only your rights but also the minds, hearts, and bodies of your children.

Read the bill for yourself and weep—no, don’t weep. Get mad, and don’t take it anymore:

Provides that the Department of Public Health shall adopt a rule requiring students, upon entering the sixth grade of any public, private, or parochial school, to receive the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination and requiring confirmation that the student has completed the series of HPV vaccinations upon entering the ninth grade of any public, private, or parochial school. Provides that the Department shall adopt the rule in time to allow students to receive the vaccination before the start of the school year beginning in 2022. Effective January 1, 2021.

While Cassidy and Gabel are so sure that the HPV is completely safe that they are willing to command that other people’s children be vaccinated, many parents reviewing research like this are less certain:

Discrepancies in the evaluation of the safety of the human papillomavirus vaccine

Hypothesis: Human papillomavirus vaccination syndrome–small fiber neuropathy and dysautonomia could be its underlying pathogenesis.

Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia With Chronic Fatigue After HPV Vaccination as Part of the “Autoimmune/Auto-inflammatory Syndrome Induced by Adjuvants”

Chronic epipharyngitis: A missing trigger in chronic fatigue syndrome

Multiple Evanescent White Dot Syndrome after Human Papillomavirus Vaccination

Severe somatoform and dysautonomic syndromes after HPV vaccination: case series and review of literature

The epidemiological profile of ASIA syndrome after HPV vaccination: an evaluation based on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting Systems

It looks like Springfield swampsters are trying to shoo every last conservative out of Illinois.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your state representative to let him or her know that you object to political officials usurping parental rights, especially on medical issues. This is an issue that should be between parents and their pediatrician. Public officials have no moral authority mandating controversial health treatments. Ask him/her to vote against HB 4870 if comes up for a vote.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/HPV-Vaccine-for-ALL-Children.mp3

Time for Parents to Talk to Each Other – and Their Lawmakers

Twelve year old Kristin had a secret she wanted to keep from her parents. They just wouldn’t understand if she told them about what she and a 17 year-old neighbor had been doing before their parents got home from work.

But Kristin remembered her health teacher talking about things to watch out for after fooling around – and she feared she was in trouble.

“I think Ms. Wilson called them ‘genital warts,’ or something gross like that,” Kristin thought after discovering some unusual bumps in her private area. “I wonder if that’s what I’ve got.”

When she got off the bus that morning, Kristin headed to the school clinic, where the school nurse advised her what she should do. She could get the treatment and advice she needed, and she could also get the first of three shots that would be a protection against cancer from contacting HPV.

And she could do it all without her parents ever finding out.

While Kristin’s story sounds like a far-fetched horror story for parents, the whole scenario is realistic and is perfectly legal in Illinois.

In 1995, the Illinois legislature set into effect a public policy that says “A minor 12 years of age or older who may have come into contact with any STI may give consent to the furnishing of medical care or counseling related to the diagnosis or treatment of an STI.” [410 ILCS 210/4]

In June 2013, the Illinois General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR) added three words after “treatment,” – “or vaccination against.”

Minors in Illinois are now giving consent for vaccinations protecting themselves against four types of human papillomavirus (HPV) and against Hepatitis B. HPV is a virus transmitted only through direct sexual contact, while Hepatitis B, according to a FAQ page on the Center for Disease Control’s website, “is most commonly spread through sexual contact and accounts for nearly two-thirds of acute Hepatitis B cases.” Hepatitis B is also spread by blood and other body fluids.

This expanded public policy involving the treatment of minors’ sexually-transmitted infections (STI) is contradictory and deceptive.

For example, if a 12 year-old like Kristin fears she may have been exposed to an STI, a crime has been committed. Illinois law places the age of consent at age 17. Any sexual activity with a child 12 yea- old (or younger) through the last day of being 16 is a felony in Illinois.

Also, mandated reporters like school clinic nurses and medical personnel are normally required to report suspected criminal activity, but are allowed to treat, counsel and vaccinate without parental consent Illinois minors concerned they may have come into contact with an STI.

Gardasil can be harmful. Over 30,000 adverse reactions have been reported to the federal government’s reporting system after being vaccinated by the Merck Company’s HPV vaccine. At least 140 Americans have died and over 900 have been disabled after getting the Gardasil series.

Japan’s parliament recently lifted their country’s Gardasil mandate after teenage girls in wheelchairs testified how the vaccine had permanently detrimental effects. The country of Australia is considering following Japan’s lead.

Experts say 12 year-olds are unable to make informed consent medical decisions.

“Informed consent is the only humane way to administer vaccinations to anyone,” Barbara Loe Fisher, the president of the National Vaccination Information Center said.

“Twelve year-olds are not mature enough to object morally or ethically and are unable to be responsible for any negative reactions,” she said. “This policy is stunning, and very dangerous.”

Illinois parents should be made aware that their children can be getting secret STD vaccinations, Fisher said.

But no one in the state is taking that responsibility on.

Schools are not informing parents about the rights their children have to make medical decisions concerning sexually-transmitted infections.

The state is not informing parents. Indeed, the Illinois Department of Public Health spokesperson was adamant when she said, “It isn’t our job to tell parents about this.”

So, if it’s not the school’s nor the state’s job, the weight of telling parents what their children may be doing falls back on the very kids that are doing it, like 12 year old Kristin.

Perhaps Illinois parents learning about their state’s anti-parent policy should take on the task by telling other parents what’s going on – and then talk to their lawmakers.