Schools throughout Illinois have implemented rules that require students to be allowed to use the restrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity, but it is not clear exactly how many schools. So a trans boy, who is really a girl, is allowed to use the boys’ restroom and locker room. While a trans girl, who is really a boy, is allowed to use the girls’ facilities. The requirement is based on a guidance document from the Illinois State Board of Education.

The guidance document claims that the Illinois Human Rights Act requires schools to allow trans students to use the facilities based on their claimed identity.  The document points out the law specifically states “transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming students have the right to use a school’s physical facilities consistent with their gender identity.” The general public is largely unaware of this legislation.

There are a couple of problems with this law, not the least of which is that there is no such thing as gender identity. That term is based on a fraudulent theory proposed in the 50’s by John Money. He theorized that our gender identity could be different than our biological sex, that it was independent and fluid. It remained a theory until he was given the opportunity to test it out on the Reimer twins. One twin, Bruce, had his penis catastrophically damaged by a horribly botched circumcision as an infant. His entire penis was burned off due to medical incompetence. The parents refused the procedure for the other twin.

Sometime later, the parents reached out to Dr. John Money, a psychologist from Johns Hopkins University, who had put forward the theory that any child born a boy could be raised as a girl, or vice versa. Nurture, not nature, determined a child’s gender identity, he claimed, and he convinced the parents that Bruce could have a normal life as a girl. Money enthusiastically took on the case and treated the boys for several years. He began writing articles about the case, underscoring how well the children were doing, pointing out that Bruce, being raised as a girl, had taken to her identity very well. The success of his experiment received international attention.

The real story was that the experiment was an utter failure. You can read about the case in a book by John Colapinto, “As Nature Made Him.” The bottom line is instead of proving gender identity was real, it proved the opposite. Money never acknowledged the failure and continued to pretend gender identity was real. One of the twins died of a drug overdose and Bruce committed suicide. I would say that was a failure, spectacularly so.

Despite this failure being made public in 2000, the psychological community ignored it. The idea that the theory of gender identity was real took on a life of its own and continued to gain adherents even with no evidence to support it and with two dead boys from the study that was used to confirm the theory. Who needs evidence, right?

Our Illinois State Board of Education and many of our local schools just roll over and conform to the fraud that is gender identity.

Some students at Waterloo High School in Waterloo, Illinois rebelled against this invasion of their privacy. Earlier this year, high school principal, Lori Costello, wife of Illinois Department of Agriculture Director, Jerry Costello II, allowed trans students to use the restroom of their choice.  According to Ryan Cunningham of the nonprofit organization, “Speak for Students,” several students at the school identify as trans, boys and girls. Students told him that one of the trans boys (a girl) regularly uses the boys restroom. She reportedly stands at the urinal and uses a funnel which she washes out in the common sink. At least one student claimed that was not true. Whether it is or not, many of the boys were uncomfortable using the restroom with girls being allowed free access to the facility.

The students were told if they felt uncomfortable, they should use the nurse’s restroom which is for one person at a time. On March 17^th approximately 150 students lined up to use it. The administration didn’t like that at all.

Brian Charron, the Superintendent of CUSD #5, issued instructions that any student in line who was late to class was to be marked tardy. If the protest continued, he directed that the students be disciplined. Reportedly, some students were. Cunningham said he helped several parents appeal and succeeded in having the discipline withdrawn. He is not sure what happened with the other students. However, to his knowledge the directive stands.

I sent a message to Charron asking the status, but so far have received no response.

The Biden Administration last summer proposed revisions to Title IX regulations which would redefine the meaning of the term “sex” to include gender identity. During the public comment stage over 240,000 comments were received. It is not known whether these comments will affect the final regulations. We will see in May, when the revised regulations are released publicly.

If the rules change the definition of sex to include gender identity, it is unlikely they will withstand a challenge which most certainly will be filed immediately. In West Virginia v. EPA the U.S. Supreme Court decided last summer that:

“Precedent teaches that there are ‘extraordinary cases’ in which the ‘history and the breadth of the authority that [the agency] has asserted,’ and the ‘economic and political significance’ of that assertion, provide a ‘reason to hesitate before concluding that Congress’ meant to confer such authority.”

In the case of redefining sex in Title IX to mean “gender identity,” Congress could not possibly have intended to give the Department of Education the power to redefine a foundational characteristic of all humanity since the dawn of time. This is exactly the same reasoning that the Illinois Human Rights Act is flawed.

Another case, in November last year, in Neese v. Becerra, a U.S. District court ruled that sex did not equal sexual orientation or gender identity. And in December, the 11^th Circuit Appellate Court ruled in Adams v. St. Johns County School Board that a school board policy requiring students to use the bathroom that corresponded to their biological sex did not violate Title IX.

Since the idea of “gender identity” emanated from the deranged mind of John Money, and has no science that supports the alleged identities, the most prudent course for all school boards would be to reject the guidance on this issue from the Illinois State Board of Education.

One stumbling block for school boards could be the lawyers they are selecting to advise them. It seems many lawyers are advising boards to cave to the guidance. Apparently, they are too timid to challenge the misguided Illinois Human Rights Act. That is a mistake. While it may save the boards money in the short term, in the long run these misguided rules are going to destroy the schools.

School boards, when choosing lawyers to advise them, would be better off if they followed J.P. Morgan’s philosophy. Reportedly, his position was: “I don’t hire a lawyer to tell me what I can’t do, I hire a lawyer to tell me how to do what I want to do.”

In this case school boards need lawyers who can tell them how to implement policies that align with common sense. Obviously, Waterloo High School does not have such a lawyer. It’s a quality that appears to be lacking in the school leadership and in the district administration as well.

Time to clean house.

Get your children & grandchildren OUT of government schools as soon as possible!

An Illinois Appellate Court just ruled that Hobby Lobby violated the Illinois Human Rights Act by refusing to allow a male employee who masquerades as a woman and goes by the name of “Meggan Renee” Sommerville to use the women’s restroom. If this decision is not appealed and overturned, it will mean the end of sex-separated private spaces in all companies in Illinois, including stores and restaurants.

Mark Thomas Sommerville was hired as the man he is and always will be by Hobby Lobby in 1998. In 2009, he began cross-sex hormone-doping to conceal his biological sex, and in 2010, he began cross-dressing. That same year, he legally changed his name and obtained a falsified driver’s license and Social Security card that wrongly identify his sex as female. He also “formally informed Hobby Lobby of her [sic] transition and her [sic] intent to begin using the women’s bathroom at the store.”

Hobby Lobby, justifiably and wisely, told him he could not use the women’s bathroom that was available to both female employees and female customers. Hobby Lobby, however, foolishly changed Sommerville’s personnel records and benefits information to reflect his “gender identity” rather than his sex.

Despite Hobby Lobby’s restroom directive, the self-absorbed Sommerville continued to use the women’s restrooms which resulted in Sommerville being written up. After “breaking down in tears,” he sashayed over to Illinois’ leftist Human Rights Commission to file a complaint. The Chicago Tribune reported,

The commission found Hobby Lobby violated the Illinois Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity in both workplaces and places of public accommodation, such as public restrooms. The commission determined that the company owed Sommerville $220,000 in damages, at the time the highest amount ever awarded by the commission for emotional distress.

The three Appellate Court justices, Ann B. Jorgenson, Mary S. Schostok, and Kathryn E. Zenoff, who decided this case are all Republicans. (But are they women? And what is a woman?)

So colossally self-centered is Sommerville that he was willing to forsake his marriage for his masquerade. By choosing an appropriated false identity over his marriage, Sommerville, who self-identifies as a Christian, clearly violated his marriage oath.

Forbes reports that “According to her [sic] lawyer, the decision applies statewide to every transgender individual and every public bathroom.”

The lawyer to whom Forbes refers is homosexual Jacob Meister, who is the founder of an “LGBTQ” advocacy organization. Meister ironically said, “To use the bathroom at work, without being humiliated and frightened … is a fundamental right.” Well then, are biological women entitled to use bathrooms free of the presence of biological men when the presence of those men makes them feel humiliated and frightened?

The Tribune also reported this:

There’s a woman’s restroom at the East Aurora Hobby Lobby where Meggan Sommerville works, but for 10 years, she’s [sic] been barred from using it because she [sic] is transgender. She [sic] has had to punch out of work and cross a parking lot in the rain or snow to access the bathroom at a fast-food restaurant, she [sic] said.

In 2013, Hobby Lobby installed a single occupancy unisex restroom to accommodate Sommerville’s ontological fiction, so he did not have to cross the parking lot in rain or snow for the past eight years.

The ruling by the triumvirate of female GOP justices includes this fanciful, science-denying statement:

Sommerville, who was born in 1969, was designated as male at birth.

Surely, three bright appellate court justices know that babies aren’t “designated” a sex at birth. Surely, even attorneys know enough science to understand that the sex of babies is identified and recorded at birth. And surely, they know that one’s sex never changes.

The triumvirs continued with their non-sense:

In 2007, Sommerville began transitioning from male to female. In 2009, she [sic] disclosed her [sic] female gender identity to some staff at Hobby Lobby

Do chemical and surgical cosmetic alterations really “transition” humans from male to female? If so, can such cosmetic alterations transition other mammals from male to female? Can such cosmetic alterations (e.g., human growth hormone injections, fillers, facelifts, knee lifts, tummy tucks, laser and chemical treatments) transition old humans to young? If not, why not?

The ruling inadvertently admits an inconvenient truth: The justices write that Sommerville felt “embarrassed and humiliated” by having to use the men’s bathroom because he identifies as a woman. If his embarrassment and humiliation when having to use a bathroom with those whose “gender identity” he doesn’t share is justification for the sexual integration of bathrooms, then why isn’t the embarrassment and humiliation of women when having to use a bathroom with those whose sex they don’t share justification for sex-segregated bathrooms?

Since the Illinois Human Rights Act that prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodation specifically exempts private spaces such as restrooms and locker rooms, many wonder how this queer, inequitable ruling came about. It came about via some rhetorical chicanery—some leftist sleight-of-tongue. Here’s what happened when too few were paying attention.

1.) Leftists passed laws that allow men and women to obtain legally falsified drivers’ licenses, birth certificates, and Social Security cards that misidentify their sex.

2.) The Illinois Human Rights Act that bans discrimination based on “sexual orientation,” declared that “sexual orientation” includes “gender identity”—something virtually no state had done and something which “progressives” ordinarily feverishly proclaim is wrong. They ordinarily proclaim that sexual orientation and gender identity are wholly different phenomenon. Any disagreement is considered ignorant, hateful bigotry. So, why did they make this queer conflation? We shall see shortly.

3.) The rights-trampling trio used the falsified drivers’ licenses, birth certificates, and Social Security cards—rather than objective reality—to define “sex.”

Here’s what they wrote:

Hobby Lobby contends that an individual’s “sex”—the status of being male or female—is an immutable condition. However, the plain language of the [Illinois Human Rights] Act does not support this conception. There is simply no basis in the Act for treating the “status” of being male or female as eternally fixed. … Illinois law has explicitly recognized in a variety of ways that gender identity is a primary determinant of a person’s “sex” for legal purposes. … under Illinois law, an individual’s gender identity is an accepted basis for determining that individual’s legal “sex.” … Given the interrelationship between “sex” and gender identity in Illinois law, the record establishes that Sommerville’s sex is unquestionably female.

Hobby Lobby contends that, rather than applying the definition of “sex” provided by the Act, the Commission should have imported a definition of “sex” found in a dictionary, namely: one of two “forms of individuals” that “are distinguished especially on the basis of their reproductive organs and structures.” …  However, it is unnecessary to resort to dictionary definitions where a statute itself defines a term. … Here, the Act provides a clear definition of “sex,” eliminating any need to look further.

While “sex” is not eternally fixed in the Upside Down formerly known as the Land of Lincoln, the Illinois Human Rights Act—our state bible—is.

When the justices say that the Illinois Human Rights Act does not recognize sex as an eternally fixed, immutable condition and when they say that Illinois law recognizes subjective feelings about maleness or femaleness (i.e., “gender identity”) as the determiner of “sex” for “legal purposes,” they have severed laws and the practices required by law from reality.

The justices make clear that objective reality has no bearing on their decision. Henceforth, leftist-constructed, science-denying statutory law determines what “sex” is.  No need to consult science or reality. No need to consult even a dictionary—well, not until our sex-impersonators change dictionaries. Then we will be free to consult them.

This constitutes a despotic attempt to manipulate language in the law to impose “trans”-cultic practices on all of America and results in dogmatic claims like this from “Ethan” Rice, senior attorney at the destructive law firm Lambda Legal:

Meggan Sommerville is a woman, full stop. … Well-established state and federal law says so, but most importantly, Meggan Sommerville says so.

Nope, not a woman, full stop. And saying so isn’t what determines someone is a woman. Science does. And that’s why “Ethan” Rice is a woman–a woman who pretends to be a man and is married to another woman who pretends to be a man. In other words, Rice is a lesbian in a faux-marriage.

The foolish justices wrote this foolishness:

The presence of a transgender person in a bathroom poses no greater inherent risk to privacy or safety than that posed by anyone else who uses the bathroom. …  In arguing that Sommerville’s use of the women’s bathroom will cause a legitimate intrusion upon privacy, Hobby Lobby “ignores the reality of how a transgender [person] uses the bathroom: ‘by entering a stall and closing the door.’” … We will not prioritize fears or discomfort that have no factual basis in the record. “Private biases may be outside the reach of the law, but the law cannot, directly or indirectly, give them effect.”

If the presence of a biological male who wishes he were or falsely believes he is a woman poses no greater inherent risk to the privacy of girls and women than that posed by women who use the bathroom, then why prohibit non-cross-dressing biological males from using women’s bathrooms? How does cross-dressing change women’s feelings about privacy?

Wouldn’t “entering a stall and closing the door” be sufficient to prevent intrusion of a “cisgender” man upon the privacy of women?

Why should the law give effect to the “discomfort” or “private biases” of women who oppose the presence of “cisgender” biological men in their private spaces?

The problem of where cross-dressing humans in cosmetically altered skin costumes engage in bodily functions is a problem of their own creation. The solution must not be demanding that normal girls, boys, women, and men relinquish their privacy to accommodate the disordered desires of persons of the opposite sex.

I hope by now, people realize that it is both foolish and dangerous to capitulate to the “trans” cult ever—not even in seemingly trivial things. Hobby Lobby agreed to change Sommerville’s sex on forms and then that capitulation was used against it by the justices:

[Sommerville’s] status of being female has been recognized not only by the governments of this state and the nation but also by Hobby Lobby itself, all of which have changed their records to acknowledge her [sic] female sex.

I hope by now, people also realize that once the terms “gender identity” and “gender expression” are included in anti-discrimination law, there remains no legal way to maintain any sex-separated private spaces for anyone anywhere. These laws spell the end of all public recognition of sex differences. If cross-dressing men must be able to use women’s restrooms and locker rooms, then so too can “cisgender” men. Why? Because prohibiting “cisgender” men from using women’s spaces while allowing biological men who identify as “transgender” to use women’s spaces would constitute discrimination based on both sex and “gender identity.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Hobby-Lobby-Loses-Right-to-Maintain-Sex-Separate-Bathrooms-80.mp3

Between now and Labor Day, you can double the impact of your tax deductible donations to IFI!

A group of donors are working with us to offer a $40,000 dollar-for-dollar matching challenge
to help us raise $80,000 for “Rescuing the Children” initiative here in Illinois!

Former Illinois state senator Daniel Biss recently guest-hosted a culturally regressive radio program titled “Live, Local & Progressive” in which he sought to draw attention to yet another God-forsaken executive order (2019-11) from Illinois’ morally bankrupt governor, J.B. Pritzker, which was signed “shortly before the Pride parade.” The executive order establishes a 25-member “Affirming and Inclusive Task Force,” essentially to use government schools to advance the ideology and goals of the “trans” cult.

Lest anyone think the task force will be ideologically balanced between those who believe biological sex matters when it comes to, for example, private spaces and athletics and those who believe it doesn’t matter, here’s what Pritzker’s order dictates:

The Task Force shall consist of at least one representative from the Office of the Governor and no more than twenty-five (25) members, selected by the Governor, who have experience or expertise related to supporting transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming students in schools including, but not limited to, students, parents or guardians, teachers, school administrators, lawyers, medical professionals, and representatives from community-based organizations.

Note that members must have “experience or expertise” related to “supporting” students who embrace “trans”-cultism. The word “supporting” has nothing to do with assisting students in ways that move them toward accepting their immutable biological sex. It means facilitating their reality-denying feelings, their invasion of the privacy of their peers, their tyrannical linguistic demands of others, and the hijacking of hard-won girls’ athletic opportunities by objectively male students.

Any guesses which community-based organizations Pritzker will include? Could it be the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance? Equality Illinois? The Center on Halsted?

The order took effect on July 1, 2019 and its recommendations are due on the governor’s desk by Jan. 1, 2020.

Biss’ guests were the following:

Nat Duran, a young woman who pretends to be a man and works for the  “LGBTQ”-indoctrinating organization the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance.

Nicki Bazer, an attorney “who represents school districts in her day job, and also does pro bono work on behalf of transgender youth.”

Juliet Berger-White, Deputy General Counsel in the Office of the Governor and another activist for all things “trans”—particularly school issues—who helped craft Pritzker’s executive order.

Nat Duran exposed the lie that “gender identity” is fixed and immutable—a lie that some “trans” ideologues have tried to pass off to a gullible public:

[W]hen folks often think of trans and gender expansive young folks in school systems, they immediately go to restroom and locker room usage, right? Anyone who’s been in a public space and used these facilities know that they are really gendered, and so how do we make sure that students who maybe are exploring different aspects of their identity are able to use these spaces in a way that feels safe and supportive to them…. [E]specially as you think of younger grades, I think especially around middle school, students who are really just figuring out a lot of things about their lives, like allowing room for fluidity as well. I think sometimes… even if a school in the best of intentions enforces a really supportive practice, is it so rigid that it doesn’t allow for a student who’s like, “Well, I think I might be trans, or maybe I’m non binary, but I’m still figuring it out, and so I don’t know what restroom feels best to me right now.

Point of correction: restrooms and locker rooms aren’t “gendered.” They’re “sexed.” They correspond to objective, immutable biological sex.

Duran didn’t explain exactly why private spaces should correspond to “gender identity” as opposed to biological sex. Nor did she explain why it’s hateful for normal students to refuse to use restrooms with opposite-sex peers, but it’s not hateful for cross-sex passers to refuse to use restrooms with opposite-“gendered” peers.

And if, as “trans”-cultists assert, it’s impossible to know the authentic “gender identity” of a person by their clothing, hairstyles, or anatomy, “trans”-identifying students can’t possibly know whether their same-sex peers are male or female. Therefore, they shouldn’t care where they change their clothes or shower. Imagine a boy who identifies as a girl filing an expensive lawsuit to access the girls’ locker room only to discover all the girls identify as boys.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive—particularly when we do it based on an incoherent ideology.

Duran’s discussion of identity exploration and fluidity points to the end goal of the “trans” revolution. The end goal is the eradication of public recognition of sex differences everywhere. Identity exploration, gender expansiveness, and gender fluidity preclude the existence of anything other than the wholesale sexual integration of every space, activity, and context. No more sex-segregated anything for anyone. Even school practices that are “really supportive” of opposite-sex-identifying students is insufficient. Duran and most other “trans” activists seek locker room and restroom free-for-alls—literally, restrooms and locker rooms Free. For. All.

It is critically important to understand that if society is legally prohibited from “discriminating” based on both sex and “gender identity,” there remains no legal way to prohibit what leftists call “cisgender” persons (i.e., persons who accept their sex) from using opposite sex private spaces. If a public school allows biological male Bob who pretends to be Mary to use the girls’ locker room, there would be no way to prevent biological male Tom who accepts his sex from using it. The school couldn’t prevent him from using it based on his sex because they’ve already allowed another male access to it. And they couldn’t prevent Tom from using it based on his “cisgender” identity, because they can’t discriminate based on “gender identity.” Abracadabra, all private spaces become co-ed.

Duran’s discussion also reveals how young the children are whom cultural regressives seek to inculcate with the “trans” ideology.

Duran also longs for government schools to be complicit in concealing information from parents about their own children:

[H]ow do we think through parental communications? If I’m calling home to talk to a parent, [is the student] out, or safe and supported, at home? Am I going to be using a different name or set of pronouns when I do that?”

In the view of “trans” dogmatists, those parents who reject the unproven, arguable, doctrinaire assumptions of the “trans” cult are unsafe and unsupportive and, therefore, deserve to lose parental rights.

Attorney/activist Nicki Bazer deceived Biss’ audience by omission. Here’s what she said:

[T]he rights of transgender, gender expansive, non-binary students are already protected in Illinois…. [U]nder the Illinois school code, all students have a right to equal opportunity to all educational programs and services. And under the regulations that the state board of education has issued, they have defined that, and made clear that you cannot discriminate or exclude or segregate students based on their gender identity. [T]hat applies to all schools within Illinois that are public schools. The Illinois human rights act also touches all non-sectarian K12 schools, or pre-K12 schools, and that also prohibits discrimination in all schools on the basis of sex and sexual orientation. And under the Illinois Human Rights Act, sexual orientation, sex, is defined as including gender identity.

Interestingly, Bazer did not share these relevant words from the Illinois Human Rights Act, which is state law:

The Act permits schools to maintain single-sex facilities that are distinctly private in nature, e.g., restrooms and locker rooms.

Nor did she share this from the 2016 Transgender Students in School  guidelines posted by the Illinois Association of School Boards:

[F]ederal courts in non-school cases have recognized a fundamental right to privacy or acknowledged the legitimacy of safety concerns in cases involving individuals undressing, using the restroom, or showering in an area to which a member of the opposite birth sex has access. Moreover, a federal district court recently asked the question whether a university engages in unlawful discrimination in violation of Title IX or the Constitution when it prohibits a transgender male student from using restrooms and locker rooms designated for men on campus. The court concluded: “The simple answer is no.”

Juliet Berger-White inadvertently exposes the hypocrisy of cultural regressives who claim to value diversity:

The goal of the executive order is to ensure that we are bringing together a crucial group of stakeholders who have great experience on the ground…. These stakeholders have been doing this work on an ongoing basis, but the benefit of doing it from the perspective of a governor-appointed task force is that it can help these private stakeholders collaborate with the government, and the Illinois State Board of Education, to figure out what next steps should be, and what that looks like.”

In other words, outside “progressive” activists are going to collude with the government to advance their sexuality dogma. Who are these “crucial stakeholders”? Are any lesbians who object to the sexual integration of women’s private spaces included? Will the task force include members of the professional mental health and medical communities who in increasing numbers are concerned about “adolescent-onset gender dysphoria,” the effects of puberty blockers like Lupron, and how social “transitioning” at young ages may effect brain development? What about Muslims, Orthodox Jews, or theologically orthodox Christians who are taxpayers and have children in public schools? Are parents and students who object to the sexual integration of private spaces and athletics crucial stakeholders?

The name Berger-White may sound familiar to long-time IFI readers. Her husband, Jeff Berger-White, is a former colleague of mine from the years I worked full-time in Deerfield High School’s writing center on Chicago’s North Shore. He was at the center of a huge community controversy over his decision to teach the egregiously obscene play Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.

The play revolves around two couples: married Mormon couple Harper and Joe whose marriage is disintegrating in large measure due to Joe’s repressed homosexuality, which he eventually acts upon; and a homosexual couple, Louis and Prior. Louis leaves Prior when he finds out Prior has AIDS, and then has a month-long affair with Harper’s husband Joe.

There’s the black, homosexual, ex-drag queen nurse with the heart of gold, Belize; and the Angel with “eight vaginae” whose visits prompt sexual arousal and orgasm. The play is replete with references to orgasms, fellatio, semen, ejaculation, and f***ing. It includes the line “Suck my ****, Mother Theresa.”

In the heat of the controversy, Mr. Berger-White sent a letter to our local press asserting that it is the responsibility of English teachers to “challenge the emotions and morals” of their students—a belief clearly shared by his wife. His assertion raises some questions:

• Is it really the responsibility of high school English teachers (or government lawyers) to challenge the emotions and morals of students (or other people’s children)?

• Who decided that and when?

• How does the pedagogical goal of challenging the emotions and morals of students square with “progressive” commitments to ensuring students feel “safe”?

• If society agrees that challenging the emotions and morals of students is the responsibility of high school English teachers, why do we never hear about materials being presented that challenge the emotions and morals of “progressive”/”LBGTQQAP” students?

In the Biss interview, Juliet Berger-White asserted that “the law sets the floor,” but that when it comes to government schools affirming “trans” dogma, “there’s no ceiling.” Echoing her husband’s sentiments, she acknowledges the moral implications of promoting the “trans” ideology and policies in government schools, arguing that taxpayer-funded schools should abandon respect for biological sex “not just because we’re legally obligated to do so, but because we’re morally obligated to do so.”

The presumptuous Berger-Whites are using their taxpayer-funded jobs to indoctrinate other people’s children with their sexuality ideology. Their views are premised on arguable assumptions that are rarely addressed and never proved. Neither compassion nor “inclusivity” requires the affirmation of arguable assumptions that deny reality or that deem subjective feelings of greater importance than biological reality, especially if those assumptions result in the sexual integration of private spaces and speech mandates.

Teachers, leave those kids alone.

Conservatives, teach your children well, which can’t be done in places where foolish adults don’t respect physical embodiment as male or female or by cowardly adults who passively acquiesce because they care more about themselves than the children who have been entrusted to them.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/trans-schools_audio.mp3

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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

At Monday night’s board meeting in School District U-46 about the controversial and secret decision to permit a co-ed locker room for a gender-dysphoric middle school student, it is estimated that of the 53 people who spoke, 43 opposed the decision, while only 10 approved of it. Approximately 29 of the speakers who spoke against co-ed locker rooms were from within the district, while only 5 of the speakers who spoke in support of co-ed locker rooms were from within the district.

A close look at the comments of a senior student (referred to henceforth as student X) from Elgin High School who spoke (and was quoted in both the Daily Herald and Chicago Tribune) provides evidence of the ignorance and hubris of “progressive” teens who are the products of the ignorant and tyrannical anti-culture that pervades taxpayer-subsidized schools. Her comments encapsulated many of the flawed arguments Leftists use to defend co-ed restrooms and locker rooms.

Legal landscape

Student X began by incorrectly claiming that “transgender individuals are…by law allowed to use the bathroom or locker rooms that corresponds with their gender identity. Illinois provides nondiscrimination protections on the basis of both gender identity and sexual orientation”

There are no such federal or state laws. In fact, the Illinois Human Rights Act specifically states that “The Act permits schools to maintain single-sex facilities that are distinctly private in nature, e.g., restrooms and locker rooms.”

Unjust discrimination

Requiring restroom and locker room usage to correspond to biological sex is no more unjustly discriminatory than is requiring school showers to be sex-segregated—which U-46 and every other school district does.

By requiring the U-46 student at the center of the controversy to change in a privacy cubicle under the supervision of a staff member, the board is implicitly acknowledging that biological sex matters deeply. Parents who oppose gender-dysphoric students using opposite-sex locker rooms are saying the very same thing. They’re just applying the principle rationally.

If prohibiting gender-dysphoric students from using opposite-sex locker rooms is unjustly discriminatory, then why is requiring them to use a separate changing cubicle acceptable? And if prohibiting gender-dysphoric students to use opposite-sex locker rooms is unjustly discriminatory, why should they be prohibited from showering with opposite-sex students? That is, after all, what the ACLU is seeking for the gender-dysphoric student in District 211. The ACLU is seeking unrestricted access for gender-dysphoric students to opposite-sex locker rooms.

Suffering of gender-dysphoric persons

Student X then listed a litany of truly sad afflictions that plague the gender-dysphoric population, including high rates of physical and sexual assault, bullying, depression and suicidal ideation, all of which suggest that gender-dysphoria is profoundly disordered and that in some cases—perhaps many—the cause of gender dysphoria may be external (e.g., sexual assaults or other trauma)—rather than innate.

What student X did not explain is how co-ed locker rooms and restrooms would solve the many problems she listed. If her chief concern is ensuring that gender-dysphoric students are not bullied or assaulted in restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their sex, U-46 can provide them with access to single-occupancy restrooms.

But ensuring safety isn’t the chief goal of student X or “trans” activists. Their chief goal is compelling everyone to treat those who rebel against their sex as if they are in reality the sex they wish they were. But the desire and demand of gender-dysphoric persons to be treated as if they are the sex they are not does not supersede the rights of others to physical privacy. And despite what “progressives” claim, gender-dysphoric boys have no moral right to use girls’ facilities, and gender-dysphoric girls have no moral right to use boys’ facilities.

Safety

Student X finds fault with community concerns over student safety if gender-dysphoric students are allowed into opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms. Student X and others imply that prohibiting gender-dysphoric students from using opposite-sex facilities puts them at risk, but as already discussed, that is a a risk that can be eliminated by providing access to single-occupancy restrooms.

What student X and others ignore is that if Leftist locker room and restrooms policies are permitted, there remains no way to limit co-ed restrooms/locker rooms to gender-dysphoric students only. If the public is forced to accept the absurd idea that it is unjustly discriminatory to separate restrooms and locker rooms by sex, then there remains no rational argument for maintaining any sex-separated facilities. And the elimination of sex-separated restrooms and lockers rooms does, indeed, put girls at risk.

Biological sex, modesty, and privacy

But an equally or more important argument against co-ed restrooms and locker rooms pertains to the intrinsic meaning of biological sex from which feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy derive.

Girls and boys ought not see unrelated persons of the opposite-sex unclothed nor be seen unclothed by unrelated persons of the opposite sex. Boys and girls ought not engage in private bodily activities in the presence of unrelated persons of the opposite sex. The fact that some teens in our confused and corrupt culture have already lost their feelings of modesty and are comfortable changing clothes in the presence of unrelated opposite-sex students is no justification for government schools participating in the erosion of modesty.

Deception, gender dysphoria, and intersexuality

Student X concluded her comments by challenging the audience to guess her sex (I’m guessing female, hence my use of female pronouns). She was trying to make the point—and again, I’m guessing—that if a person’s sex is in some cases difficult to discern, biological sex is unimportant.

She reinforced her belief that it is impossible to discern the sex of some students by pointing out that gender-dysphoric students often disguise their sex through cross-dressing, cross-sex hormone-doping, and surgery. Apparently her point was that if humans can masquerade as the opposite sex so successfully that others are deceived, then biological sex has no intrinsic meaning. She was evidently suggesting that if, for example, a gender-dysphoric boy can through clothing, chemicals, and surgery successfully convince girls that he is objectively female, those actual girls have no right to physical privacy.

Student X also made this ludicrous statement: “Biology, psychology, sociology and any other science that has to address sex differences all support the idea that sex is a spectrum.” Student X declared imperiously that “Sex is a spectrum! Fact!”

Interestingly, she then cited intersex conditions—which are wholly different from gender dysphoria—as evidence for her claim. She specifically mentioned trisomy conditions in which children are born with extra chromosomes that result in a host of serious health problems including ambiguous genitalia, heart problems, and sterility.

In stark contrast, self-identified “trans” persons have no genetic anomalies. Therefore, with male or female brains that determine the release of male or female hormones, their bodies develop and function normally as males or females.

The problems of sexual development caused by missing or extra chromosomes are no more normal or good than are the sterility and heart problems caused by missing or extra chromosomes. These problems of sexual development are not proof of the existence of a sex-spectrum. Would student X argue that genetically caused blindness is evidence of a vision-spectrum?

Student X demanded that the board tell her how the school could possibly enforce single-sex bathroom and locker room policies: “How are you going to enforce that? Have students carry their birth certificate around? Require them to show you their genitals before entering? Put “F” or “M” on student I.D.s?”

In bygone years, decency, honesty, and respect for sexual differentiation existed and were sufficient to ensure widespread compliance with bathroom expectations.

Perhaps student X could explain how school administrators will ensure that only students who are gender-dysphoric will use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms?

What kind of proof will gender-dysphoric students be expected to provide to prove they are “trans”?

Which restrooms and locker rooms will “gender fluid” or “gender non-binary” students use?

And what about the estimated 70-88% of children with gender dysphoria who will come to accept their sex by adulthood? Should other children be forced to share restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex students who experience a temporary period of discomfort with their sex?

What should conservatives do?

The U-46 School Board has stated that it has no intention of revisiting the secretly adopted practice of allowing students who reject their biological sex to use opposite-sex private facilities—no matter how the community feels about this decision.

The majority on the board believe that inclusivity and compassion demand that girls and boys relinquish their privacy. Girls and boys who don’t want to share locker rooms or restrooms with students of the opposite sex must seek special accommodations from the anti-science ideologues who run the district. Girls who don’t want to change clothes near a boy in the girls’ locker room will have to move elsewhere—oh, yes, and be labelled hateful, exclusionary, discriminatory, heartless bigots.

“Progressive” and cowardly administrators respond to three things (none of which is reason):

1.) A huge public outcry: Administrators couldn’t care less if 2, 12, or 22 parents object to a practice, policy, activity, or resource. They care if 200, 300, or 400 parents object.

 2.) Bad PR: To be effective, press coverage of a controversial story needs to be extensive and sustained. Local press coverage is far less effective than national press coverage of a school controversy.

 3.) Lawsuits: Lawsuits are the Big Kahuna. Lawsuits speak with the loudest voice to school boards and administrations. Unfortunately, progressives are much more willing to sue school districts than are conservatives—particularly naïve Christians who think words of reason winsomely expressed will effect change. Conservatives need to disabuse themselves of that quaint and quixotic notion. The well-being of children is at stake. Leftists pursue their perverse goals for a more comprehensive sexual revolution with a fervor unmatched by conservatives. It’s time conservatives match Leftist fervor, boldness, tenacity, perseverance, and ingenuity. Parents of U-46 students should contact the Thomas More Society at (312) 782.1680 and pursue a lawsuit just as 50 families in District 211 are doing.

The Left wants to end the historical and commonsense practice of requiring that restrooms and locker rooms correspond to objective, immutable biological sex. Instead, Leftists want restrooms and locker rooms to correspond to subjective, unfixed, and unverifiable feelings about one’s sex. And the Left will not cease until the wobbly knees of every school administrator bow before this anti-science, anti-morality, anti-child ideology. If U-46 CEO Tony Sanders and board members Traci O’Neal Ellis and Veronica Noland think the privacy cubicle for gender-dysphoric students will long be tolerated by Leftists, they’re sorely mistaken.

District U-46 has an election coming up next April. Board president Donna Smith (who has served on the board for fifteen years) and board member Veronica Noland are up for reelection and need to be given the heave ho if for no other reason (and there are other reasons) than to establish balance and fair representation for a segment of the U-46 community that is currently underrepresented. Surely, in the second largest school district in the state, two fine conservatives can be found to give Smith and Noland a run for their money.

Remember, school board members need not have children enrolled in the district or even have children. In fact, of the current board members, only two have children enrolled in the district.

Signatures must be gathered and turned in by December 23, so get moving folks!

Finally, thank you to everyone who prayed for the U-46 School Board meeting on Monday evening, and a special thanks to those who attended and spoke.

Please prayerfully consider how you can support
the work and ministry of IFI through a donation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

In a stunning public admission during a debate on the future of marriage in Illinois, the chief sponsor of SB 10, the proposed bill to legalize same-sex “marriage,” homosexual State Representative Greg Harris (D-Chicago) acknowledged that the bill does not provide religious liberty or conscience protections for individual Christian business owners. Further, it was clear that both he and homosexual Chicago Alderman Deb Mell (a former state representative and co-sponsor of of SB 10) oppose any such protections.

In the unfortunately titled “Marriage Equality” debate, sponsored by the Chicago Tribune, moderator Bruce Dold asked Harris about the absence of conscience protections in the bill:

Dold: The bill specifically protects churches, but it does not have any language about individual conscience…. Would the bill not have a better chance if it had an individual conscience protection in it?

Harris: [D]ecades ago when the Human Rights Act was passed, it said, we the people of Illinois have decided not to allow discrimination based on race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, veteran’s status in housing, employment, or public accommodations. The question of should we treat all of our citizens equally in all of those three areas has been answered. But also there are exemptions for religious institutions in the Human Rights Act. There’s also the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and specific language in this bill…that explicitly protects freedom of religion for those churches and denominations which do not want to consecrate same-sex marriages.”

Harris publicly admitted that this bill protects the religious liberty of only religious institutions, churches, and denominations—not individuals. It was clear that Harris has no desire or intent to include such protections.

That said, the inclusion of such protections would not make this a good bill. It would simply make it a less terrible bill.

Harris tried to claim that SB 10 poses no threat to religious liberty, but was challenged by both Robert Gilligan, Executive Director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, and Peter Breen, Vice President and Senior Counsel with the Thomas More Society, who talked about the Illinois bed and breakfast owner who is being sued for his refusal to rent out his facility for a same-sex civil union ceremony  (read more HERE).

Mell, who earlier had claimed that warnings about future religious persecution were dishonest “scare tactics,” responded “But [the bed and breakfast] is a business that does business in the state of Illinois, and in Illinois, we don’t allow discrimination.” While claiming that warnings about loss of religious liberty were deceptive and false “scare tactics,” she vigorously defended this religious discrimination. She apparently didn’t notice her own contradiction.

Neither she nor Harris seemed to notice that while they obsess about Illinois’ prohibition of discrimination based on “sexual orientation,” they pay no attention to its prohibition of religious discrimination. They don’t care if the bed and breakfast owner is discriminated against because of his religious beliefs.

Former Georgetown University law professor and current EEOC Commissioner, lesbian activist Chai Feldblum has written that when same-sex marriage is legalized, conservative people of faith will lose religious rights. She argues that it’s a zero-sum game in which a gain in sexual rights for homosexuals will mean a loss of religious rights for conservative people of faith, which she finds justifiable. She, Mell, and Harris share the view that the sexual “rights” of homosexuals trump religious rights.

Harris cited the Illinois Human Rights Act as his justification for not protecting the rights of people of faith to refuse to use their labor and goods in the service of an event that violates their deeply held religious beliefs. Well, the Illinois Human Rights Act also prohibits discrimination based on religion; hence the conflict of which Chai Feldblum spoke. Harris finds discriminating based on religion tolerable and justifiable but not discrimination based on sexual predilection.

By the way, choosing not to participate in a same-sex “wedding” does not reflect discrimination against persons. It reflects discriminating among types of events. The elderly florist who is being sued by the state of Washington for her refusal to provide flowers for a same-sex “wedding” did not discriminate against a person. She made a judgment about an event. She had previously sold flowers to one of the homosexual partners. She served all people regardless of their sexual predilections, beliefs, sexual activities, or relationships. She just wouldn’t participate in an event that she (rightly) believes the God she serves abhors. She takes seriously Jesus’ command to “Render unto Caeser what is Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”

Prior to the debate, I had a conversation with one of the event planners in which I predicted Harris would refuse to answer the critical question regarding why marriage should remain a union of just two people. Dold twice asked, if marriage is a right, why should it be limited to two people? Twice Harris obstinately refused to answer.

It was an embarrassingly obvious and intellectually dishonest dodge. Harris tried to use the language of the current bill to deflect the question saying in essence that the bill’s language says nothing about plural unions. This is the same embarrassing dodge ACLU spokesman Ed Yohnka used in a program on which both he and I were guests. Three times I asked him why marriage should be limited to two people, as he claimed it should be. Three times he awkwardly refused to answer.

It doesn’t take much intellectual wattage to understand that once the ideas that marriage is just about love and has nothing to do with sexual complementarity or reproductive potential are embedded in law, there remains no reason to restrict marriage to two people. The legalization of plural unions becomes not merely possible but inevitable.

Harris also said, “All families should be created equal,” to which I would have asked, “Even polyamorous families?”

And he said marriage law should “expand to reflect the reality of society,” to which I would have said, “But there exist polyamorous families in society.”

A few additional thoughts on the debate:

1. “Progressive” language police: At one point Mell attempted to compel Breen to use the term she wanted him to use for her partner (whom she “married” in Iowa). She attempted to compel him to use the term “wife.” She correctly insisted that “terminology is important.” But the law is not the ultimate arbiter of truth and reality. Compelling Breen to use the term “wife” would rob him of the right to use the term he wanted to use and believes reflects truth and reality. Conservatives have the ethical right and obligation to use the language they believe reflects truth and reality. Conceding terminology to the Left, as conservatives too often do, is not smart, not truthful, not helpful, and not compassionate.
   
   In reality, a wife is the spouse of a man (and each partner must actually be the sex they claim to be). No one is ethically obligated to participate rhetorically in any fiction the government has foolishly decided to join.

2. Media bias and the “equality” chimera: The importance of terminology is the reason I described the title of the debate, “Marriage Equality” as unfortunate. “Marriage Equality” embodies and reflects assent to “progressive” assumptions. Conservatives recognize that the notion of “equality” in this context is strategically effective non-sense.  Treating different things differently does not reflect unjust, unequal treatment. Equality demands we treat like things alike. When homosexual men and women say they are attracted only to persons of their same sex, they are acknowledging that men and women are fundamentally and significantly different. As such, a union composed of two people of the same sex is fundamentally and significantly different from a union of two people of opposite sexes. Society has no reason to treat them as if they are the same.
   
   
3. The connection between marriage and children: Both Mell and Harris talked about children deserving, in Mell’s words, “the label” of marriage. Inconsistencies abound. While homosexuals claim that marriage has no inherent connection to reproductive potential, they use arguments about children as justifications for the legal recognition of same-sex unions as marriage. This points to the fact that homosexuals are pursuing the acquisition of children, which necessarily means that in their view, children have no inherent, unalienable right to be raised by their biological parents. Homosexual couples are creating children who will be wholly unconnected to either their biological mother or father or both. In addition, they are creating intentionally motherless or fatherless children, which means homosexuals believe children have neither a right to be raised by both their mother and father, nor a right to be raised by a mother and father.
   
   The issue of children naturally and inevitably arises because marriage is centrally about the next generation. If marriage weren’t centrally about the procreation of children, if children weren’t procreated via sexual unions, there would be no such thing as marriage. The government has no more vested interest in recognizing inherentlysterile homosexual relationships as marriages than it does in recognizing platonic friendships as marriages. The government simply has no vested public interest in recognizing or affirming loving, inherently non-reproductive relationships. If it does, Harris and Mell need to explain what it is. And remember, they cannot include children in their answer, because the Left says marriage has no inherent connection to children (and by extension, their rights).
   
   If the government is compelled to recognize as marriage any loving relationship that involves the raising of children, then, for example, a grandmother and aunt who are raising the children of their deceased daughter/sister, should be permitted to marry.

4. Appeals to emotion and redefining marriage: Mell’s “arguments” amounted to little more than appeals to emotion: She really loves her partner. She and her partner have been together for nine years. Her partner has stuck with her through difficult times. Therefore, the government should legally recognize their relationship as a marriage.
   
   Say what? If marriage has an inherent nature, it doesn’t change simply because she and her partner wish it were different. Harris and Mell have concluded that because they are not attracted to people of the opposite sex, marriage has nothing inherently to do with sexual complementarity or reproductive potential.
   
   What’s interesting is that they don’t deny marriage has a nature that is inherent and immutable. They believe marriage is inherently and immutably constituted solely by the presence of love between two people. But then they can’t provide a single reason for their stubborn insistence that marriage is an inherently binary institution. Harris and Mell need to provide reasons for jettisoning sexual complementarity from the legal definition of marriage while retaining the less essential requirement regarding number of partners in a marriage. Simply asserting that marriage is a union of two people is not an argument.

5. Catholic Charities and religious discrimination: During the debate, a brief discussion arose about Catholic Charities being forced to drop out of the adoption business following the passage of Illinois’ civil union law—a change that Harris views as serving the “best interests” of children. Neither Harris nor Mell expressed concern about the clear presence of religious discrimination—something which deeply concerned Princeton University law professor Robert George. In a 2011 CNN debate among candidates running in the Republican primary, George asked the following question and in so doing, told congressmen and women what they should do:
   
   

   In Illinois, after passing a civil union bill, the state government decided to exclude certain religiously affiliated foster care and adoption agencies, including Catholic and Protestant agencies, because the agencies, in line with the teachings of their faith, cannot in conscience place children with same-sex partners.

   Now, at least half of Illinois’ foster and adoption funds come from the federal government. Should the federal government be subsidizing states that discriminate against Catholic and other religious adoption agencies? If a state legislature refuses to make funding available on equal terms to those providers who as a matter of conscience will not place children in same-sex homes, should federal legislation come in to protect the freedom of conscience of those religious providers?

There is no more critical legislation pending than SB 10. Despite what some lawmakers and pundits fecklessly claim, this issue is more important than even pension reform. The rights of children, parents, and people of faith are at risk.

Demonstrate that you care more about preserving marriage than the Left does in destroying it. Demonstrate your willingness to endure hardship and even persecution in the service of truth.

Please call your lawmaker, and please try to attend the Defend Marriage Rally in Springfield on Oct. 23. The Left will be marching on Oct. 22. 

Click HERE to make a donation to the Illinois Family Institute.

The Chicago Tribune is reporting  that Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno (D-1st Ward) is blocking the construction of a Chick-fil-A in his ward because he disagrees with owner Dan Cathy’s beliefs about marriage. Since Dan Cathy’s beliefs are explicitly religious, Moreno’s effort would seem to violate the Illinois Human Rights Act  which states the following:

                It is the public policy of this State:

(A)   Freedom from Unlawful Discrimination. To secure for all individuals within Illinois the freedom from discrimination against any individual because of his or her race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age marital status, physical or mental handicap, military status, sexual orientation, or unfavorable discharge from military service in connection with employment, real estate transactions, access to financial credit, and the availability of public accommodations.

The Tribune further reports that “Mayor Rahm Emanuel backed Moreno’s ideological viewpoint, saying the city does not share the values espoused by Dan Cathy, president of the family-owned Chick-fil-A fast-food restaurant chain.” Really? The entire city of Chicago rejects the belief that marriage is a union between one man and one woman? To whom exactly is King Rahm referring? Does he speak for all of the little people in his kingdom?

Moreno has decided that no one who wishes to do business in his ward can express the belief that marriage is a union between one man and one woman. The hubris and ignorance in his words and actions are astonishing. The threat to speech rights and religious liberty, frightening.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to let Alderman Joe Moreno know that his actions constitute an intolerant affront to many Illinoisans, threaten religious liberty and speech rights, and demonstrate a profound lack of respect for diversity.  Please be respectful in your comments.

More ACTION:  Pro-family groups across the country are calling for a Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day on Wednesday, August 1st.  IFI would like to encourage you to patronize a local restaurant, if you are able. For a list of Chick-fil-A locations in the state of Illinois, click HERE.