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Look What’s in Store for Public School Students in Illinois–YIKES!

Illinoisans shouldn’t need a reminder of how committed Illinois politicians are to using tax dollars and government schools to indoctrinate other people’s children, but Governor J.B. Pritzker just gave them one last Friday when he signed the “LGBTQ” school indoctrination bill into law. This law, which takes effect in July 2020, requires that all children ages 5-18 in public schools be taught about the deviant sexual proclivities of men and women who have made some significant cultural contributions. Well, not all deviant sexual proclivities are included. Only the deviant sexual proclivities currently and publicly approved by homosexuals and cross-sex pretenders will be included—for now.

When the time is right, those who identify as polyamorous—er, I mean, “sexually non-monogamous”—or as hebephiles, ephebophiles, kinksters, zoophiles, or infantilists will claim their proclivities constitute a “sexual orientation” and will demand to have the “roles and contributions” of fellow deviants be included in curricula. They will one day rise up against the intolerant, ignorant, hateful bigotry that has resulted in their exclusion and oppression. And then those with other disordered identities—not necessarily sexual in nature—like “amputee-wannabes” (i.e., Body Integrity Identity Disorder) will plead for inclusion.

The reason all these groups will battle for the “roles and contributions” of people like themselves to be taught to our young, impressionable, and vulnerable children is that the central reason for teaching children about the disordered desires and deviant acts of cultural contributors is to normalize deviance. It happens in three ways:

1.) Exposing children repeatedly to a set of beliefs about, for example, homosexuality and cross-sex impersonation from age 5 on up desensitizes children to deviance.

2.) Positive portrayals of deviance from age 5 on up from teachers who are role models shape children’s moral views of deviance.

3.) When, for example, homosexuality or opposite-sex impersonation are associated with admirable qualities like achievement, creativity, intelligence, or bravery, the good feelings children have for these admirable qualities are transferred to homosexuality or opposite-sex impersonation. And that’s exactly what “progressives” seek.

Of course throughout human history there have been cultural contributors who experienced all manner of perverse and sinful desires and engaged in all manner of perverse and sinful acts, but historically teachers discussed only their contributions—not their perverse and sinful desires and acts. Now, however, a segment of the population has concluded that two forms of sexual activity are neither perverse nor sinful and are using government schools, tax money, and captive audiences to eradicate all dissenting beliefs.

Equality Illinois, Illinois’ foremost organization for promoting perversion, said this about Pritzker’s most recent offense against decency:

“We thank Gov. Pritzker for signing the Inclusive Curriculum Law and ensuring that LGBTQ youth will now see themselves in the history they are taught….” An inclusive curriculum can have positive, affirming benefits.

Since when is it the role of taxpayer-funded government schools to provide “affirming benefits” to children, and what specifically constitutes an “affirming benefit”? Before concluding that affirmation of homosexuality and opposite-sex impersonation is a benefit, lawmakers and government-employed “educators” had to have concluded those phenomena are morally good, which is decidedly not their right to do in their professional roles when it comes to highly arguable moral issues.

Moreover, when teachers affirm the unproven, non-factual, subjective beliefs of the “LGBTQ” community, they are implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) condemning the beliefs of many people of faith.

Another of Illinois’ sexual deviance cheerleaders, Mary F. Morten, board chair of the deceptively named Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, said this about the “LGBT” indoctrination law:

Gaining a greater knowledge and understanding of the contributions of various underrepresented communities benefits all of us. 

Does inclusion require affirmation of all beliefs, ideas, feelings, and volitional acts? Are those who identify as polyamorists, ephebophiles, zoophiles, and kinksters part of the “underrepresented communities”? Why should homosexuals and biological sex-rejectors be the only sexually deviant groups to “see themselves in the history they are taught”?

Equality Illinois claims it “builds a better Illinois…. where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.” Don’t believe them. They want to ride roughshod over people of faith and deride them as hatemongers.

Remember too that this brazen effort to use government schools to promote “progressive” sexuality assumptions and eradicate the beliefs of countless people of diverse faith traditions is bolstered by the efforts of not only Equality Illinois and the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance but also by the Human Rights Campaign; the Illinois Human Rights Commission; the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, the National Education Association; and Pritzker’s recently appointed “trans” task force.

Conservatives, if you don’t have a plan to exit the state of Illinois, you’ve got 11 months to come up with a plan to exit Illinois public schools. The inept and corrupt miscreants who run the state want you to stay put for two reasons: 1. They want your money, and 2. If they weren’t able to kill your children in the womb, they want to corrupt their hearts and minds via government schools and your money.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Look-Whats-in-Store-for-Public-School-Students-in-Illinois_audio_01.mp3



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Illinois Human Rights Commission Mandates Co-Ed Locker Rooms in Public Schools

The ideological and moral idiocy of “woke” Americans has not yet reached its nadir, but it’s getting close.

A complaint was filed with the Illinois Human Rights Commission by a female minor who pretends to be a boy and her parents, Tracy and Michael Yates. She alleged that she was discriminated against based on her “gender identity” when Lake Park High School District 108 in Roselle, Illinois required her to change clothes behind a privacy curtain in the boys’ locker room. She wanted to be free to undress out in the open with her objectively male peers. To heck with their feelings or rights. In mid-July, the Illinois Humans Rights kangaroo court (KC) ruled that the district did discriminate against her, arguing that minors who identify as “trans” must be given unrestricted access to the locker rooms of opposite-sex peers. (I had to file a Freedom of Information Act request to get the ruling. It is not listed with other rulings on the Illinois Human Rights Commission website.)

The commissioners—all of whom are political appointees—voted 3-0 in favor of the student. It’s interesting to note that only one of the commissioners, Robert A. Cantone, is an attorney. The other two are Michael Bigger, an insurance agent, and Cheryl Mainor, a business owner. Cantone and Mainor are Democrats, and Bigger is a liberal Republican. These are paid positions. Cantone and Mainor, Pritzker appointees, are being paid $119,000 per year. Bigger, a Rauner appointee, is being paid $46, 960 (Bigger must be bitter). In the last full calendar year, Jan. 2018-Dec. 2018, the commission met 20 times, averaging out to less than two times per month. Nice gig if you can get it.

To be clear, the KC’s foul ruling means that, for example, boys who pretend to be girls must be allowed to use girls’ locker rooms in exactly the same ways girls are allowed to use them, which means schools may not require them to change their clothes behind privacy curtains or in privacy cubicles and may not prohibit them from taking nude showers. Same goes for girls who pretend to be boys. Schools must pretend that boys who want to be girls are girls and girls who want to be boys are boys.

This also means something even more profound and disturbing. Civilized societies—as opposed to primitive and pagan cultures—recognize, respect, and accommodate the natural feelings of modesty and desire for privacy that humans experience when engaged in private acts. Civilized societies have long understood intuitively that such feelings derive from objective physical embodiment as male or female. Objective biological differentiation—that is, the sexual binary—is the reason civilized societies created separate spaces for objectively male and female humans to engage in private acts in which bodies are exposed or intimate bodily functions are performed.

The KC’s decision, however, is based on the revolutionary and arguable “trans”-cultic assumption that biological sex has no relevance to undressing, showering, or engaging in bodily functions. In the view of the KC and “trans” cult, the sole relevant factor for determining private space usage is subjective feelings. They believe that if a teenage boy wishes he were a girl, he should be treated as if he were a girl. Private spaces become symbolic tools for affirming a delusion.

The natural and good desire people naturally develop to be separate from people of the opposite sex when naked, partially dressed, showering, or performing excretory functions can be either reinforced by culture or undermined. “Trans” cultists seek to undermine it in the service of their disordered desires, science-denying beliefs, and corrupt moral code. And they seek to impose their ideology by deracinating the rights of decent people.

What’s passing strange is how exactly the Illinois Human Rights Commission concluded that opposite-sex impersonating minors must be allowed unrestricted access to the locker rooms of opposite-sex peers since the Illinois Human Rights Act—which is state law—says this:

Facilities Distinctly Private. Any facility, as to discrimination based on sex, which is distinctly private in nature such as restrooms, shower rooms, bath houses, health clubs and other similar facilities for which the Department, in its rules and regulations, may grant exemptions based on bona fide considerations of public policy.

So, how did the commissioners rationalize their ruling that public schools must sexually integrate locker rooms?  Did they claim this exemption applies only to discrimination based on “sex,” and not to discrimination based on “gender identity,” which was the basis of the student’s complaint? If so, then the exemption is meaningless.

Or did they argue that the school had provided no “bona fide considerations of public policy” that would justify the exemption? If so, what considerations would pass muster? If the obvious commonsense truth that objectively male students should not be required to undress in the presence of an objectively female peer does not constitute a bona fide consideration, what would?

The questions are moot, though, because the school district decided to allow opposite-sex impersonators full and unrestricted access to the locker rooms of their opposite-sex peers even before the KC ruled. So, much for the integrity and backbone of that district’s school board and administration.

As the incoherent, doctrinaire “trans” ideology advances, it continues to twist into even more grotesque shapes. Society is no longer expected to affirm just the damnable lies that men can be trapped in women’s bodies, that women can have penises, and that men can give birth. Now we’re expected to affirm the damnable lie that because some people are uncomfortable with the superficial conventions (e.g., hairstyles, clothing styles, activities) associated with their biological sex or because they’re drawn to the superficial conventions associated with both sexes, the human species is not binary. Allowing a few intellectually, psychologically, and morally deluded cross-dressers into opposite-sex private spaces is morphing into allowing anyone to use any private spaces they wish at any time. Public acknowledgment of the sexual binary is being forcibly erased.

A “pronoun guide” published by American University’s Center for Diversity & Inclusion exposes the efforts of “trans”-cultists to erase the binary—well, to erase the freedom of Americans to acknowledge the reality of the “gender binary”:

Don’t assume the gender of a pronoun: she/her/hers are NOT “female” pronouns, and he/him/his are NOT “male” pronouns.

Can’t leave any words behind in the wake of the “trans” revolution that suggest the human species is sexually binary. No, siree, that won’t do at all.

“Trans”-cultists aren’t just inventing new pronouns to reflect their sex-erased world. In true Orwellian fashion, they’re also redefining existing words to erase all prior traces of a world that embraced reality. George Orwell warned us what this kind of language control is intended to do in his description of Newspeak:

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of IngSoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all… a heretical thought… should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words….  This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings and so far as possible of all secondary meaning whatever….

[T]he special function of certain Newspeak words… was not so much to express meanings as to destroy them…. [W]ords which had once borne a heretical meaning were sometimes retained for the sake of convenience, but only with the undesirable meanings purged out of them.

How long before “trans”-cultists decide that “transwoman” is an epithet and must be banned? After all, they have proclaimed that men who masquerade as women are women. What if they decide that “transwoman”—which implies a distinction between fake-women and real women—is offensive and must be banned?

And who among us will resist sexually integrated private spaces and Newspeak mandates when the government tells us resistance is futile?

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Illinois-Human-Rights-Commission.mp3



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PODCAST: Illinois Human Rights Commission Mandates Co-Ed Locker Rooms in Public Schools

The ideological and moral idiocy of “woke” Americans has not yet reached its nadir, but it’s getting close. A complaint was filed with the Illinois Human Rights Commission by a female minor who pretends to be a boy and her parents, Tracy and Michael Yates. She alleged that she was discriminated against based on her “gender identity” when Lake High School District 108 in Roselle, Illinois required her to…

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More Questions About Dubious Illinois Human Rights Commission

lauries-chinwags_thumbnailYesterday, I wrote about the profoundly unjust decision of the ideologically imbalanced three-member panel of commissioners from the Illinois Human Rights Commission who decided that Christian bed and breakfast owner Jim Walder should pay $80,000 for refusing to rent his facilities to a same-sex couple for their civil union ceremony.

In that article, I questioned both the lack of ideological representation on the panel, which included two homosexual activists and no conservatives, as well as on the full 13-member commission. I questioned whether the commission is skirting the law that prohibits more than 7 members of the same political party from serving on the commission by identifying 2 of its members as Independents when in reality they are Democrats.

There are yet more questions about the political composition of the Illinois Human Rights Commission, this time about Commissioner Hermene Hartman who is identified as one of the five Republicans serving on the 13-member commission.

Hartman is the publisher of Chicago “lifestyle publication” N’DIGO.com. Her bio on Huffington Post describes Hartman as “one of the most significant and influential Black women in American publishing….N’DIGO, was founded in 1989, as a weekly lifestyle publication for progressive readers.”

Hartman was a Democrat until Bruce Rauner ran for governor and began disbursing money in the black community, which included, according to the Chicago Tribune, paying Hartman “$10,000 per month for her outreach efforts.”

After Rauner’s victory, he appointed Hartman to the Illinois Human Rights Commission, where the Chicago Sun Times reports Hartman earns “$46,960-a-year…accompanied by personal insurance perks.”

Interesting fiscal tidbit: The Better Government Association (BGA) reports that “Commissioners devoted an average 12.9 hours per month to official state business for the fiscal year 2011.” That comes out to approximately $322 per hour—on average.

The BGA explained that “Time commitments varied widely, from an average of fewer than seven hours per month to 20 hours.” Those who work 20 hours per month make a paltry $207 per hour, while those who work 7 hours per month make $594 per hour. Not bad, not bad at all. Perhaps those workers who are fighting for minimum wage increases should take a gander at what some state employees make in impoverished Illinois.

Hartman endorsed Hillary Clinton in the recent election. Maybe Hartman has converted back to the Democratic Party. If “Independents” Terry Cosgrove (a homosexual activist and pro-feticide fanatic) and Patricia Bakalis Yadgir, and “Republican” Hermene Hartman are all, in reality, Democrats, the Illinois Human Rights Commission is in violation of state law that limits the number of commissioners from the same political party to 7.

My math-challenged pea brain thinks there may be up to 9 Democrats serving on the commission that will decide whether to subordinate constitutionally protected religious liberty to homoerotic privilege.

If you haven’t let Govenor Rauner’s office know what you think of this feckless ruling and the corrupt IHRC, please do so now.

Take ACTION:  Please click HERE to contact Governor Rauner to express your opposition to his appointments of Democrats Hermene Hartman and homosexual activists Duke Alden and to urge him to investigate the Illinois Human Rights Commission’s efforts to circumvent the law prohibiting political imbalance on the Commission.

Listen to this as a podcast HERE.

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The Illinois Family Institute is completely dependent on the voluntary contributions of individuals just like you.  Without you, we would be unable to represent our Christian values in Springfield or fight the radical agenda being pushed by the godless Left in our culture.

Please consider chipping in $25 or $50 to support our work to stand boldly in the public square.

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Homosexuals & Corrupt Illinois Human Rights Commission vs. Christian Business Owner

lauries-chinwags_thumbnailA three-person panel of commissioners from the 13-member Illinois Human Rights Commission (IHRC) has decided not to review the egregious decision of IHRC administrative law judge Michael Robinson in the discrimination complaint filed by homosexuals Todd and Mark Wathen against Christian bed and breakfast owner Jim Walder.

In 2011, the now “married” Wathens, inquired about renting the Timber Creek Bed & Breakfast facility in Paxton, Illinois for their civil union ceremony. Because of his religious beliefs about the immorality of homoerotic activity and relationships, Mr. Walder informed Todd Wathen that he would not rent his facilities to Mr. Wathen and his partner for a civil union ceremony.

The Wathens then filed a discrimination complaint with the IHRC—a kangaroo-esque tribunal committed to normalizing homoeroticism through quasi-judicial means.

Last spring, Judge Michael Robinson issued his order which would require Mr. Walder to do the following:

– Pay $15,000 each to Todd and Mark Wathen as compensation for their emotional distress arising out of the issue.

-Cease and desist from violating the Human Rights Act by denying same-sex couples access to its facilities and services for marriages and civil unions.

-Offer the Wathens access to the facility, within one year, for an event celebrating their civil union.

-Pay the Wathens’ attorneys $50,000 in fees and $1,218 in costs.

Mr. Walder’s attorney, Jason Craddock, filed an “exception” which was reviewed by the three commissioners who have decided that Judge Robinson’s decision should stand.

If you’re not angry yet, here’s some information that may raise your hackles.

  • All of the Illinois Human Rights commissioners are appointed bureaucrats—not elected.
  • Only one of the three commissioners who reviewed the Walder case is an attorney.
  • Two of the three commissioners who reviewed this case are homosexual activists: Terry Cosgrove and Duke Alden.
  • Homosexual activist Duke Alden was appointed to the Illinois Human Rights kangaroo court by Governor Bruce Rauner.

Here’s a bit more information on homosexual activists Cosgrove and Alden:

  • Terry Cosgrove was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 2014. He is also a passionate and unrelenting foe of the right of preborn babies to be free from extermination. He is president and CEO of pro-feticide Personal PAC and “has lent assistance to NARAL, Planned Parenthood, NOW, National Pro-Choice Resource Center, Voters for Choice, Women’s Campaign Fund and the Emergency Abortion Loan Fund.” Cosgrove was also “honored” with the dubious “Freedom of Choice” award by the Chicago Abortion Fund. Cosgrove was appointed by former Governor Pat Quinn after donating $400,000 to help fund Quinn’s victory over Bill Brady.
  • Rauner appointee Democrat Duke Alden is the chairman of Howard Brown Health, an “LGBT” health and social services organization. Alden served on the host committee for a “Presidential Debate Viewing Party” for “Chicago’s LGBT community to cheer on Hillary Clinton.”

The third commissioner on the panel was Patricia Bakalis Yadgir, a Quinn appointee whose husband is Director of Communications and Senior Policy Advisor for Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White and whose father is former state comptroller, former state superintendent of education, and former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Michael Bakalis.

Here’s where it really gets interesting. State law prohibits more than seven members of the same political party from serving on the IHRC. Currently there are 6 Democrats, 5 Republicans, and two “Independents.” And who do you think the two “Independents” are? None other than (no snickering) Terry Cosgrove and Patricia Bakalis Yadgir.

In reality, therefore, there are 8 Democrat and 5 Republican commissioners on the IHRC. And there were no Republicans on the panel reviewing the complaint against the Walders.

So, after learning a bit more about the commissioners who made the decision on the Wathen’s complaint, can anyone read this statement from the Illinois Human Rights Commission with a straight face:

The Commission provides a neutral forum for resolving complaints of discrimination filed under the Illinois Human Rights Act….Our primary responsibility is to make impartial determinations of whether there has been unlawful discrimination, as defined by the Illinois Human Rights Act.

Here are just a few comments about marriage, homoeroticism, and the plight of Christian owners of wedding-related businesses on which the intellectually slothful among us might spend some time ruminating:

  • Marriage has an intrinsic nature central to which is sexual differentiation and without which a union is not in reality a marriage.
  • The law cannot change the intrinsic nature of marriage. The law can no more transform intrinsically non-marital unions into marriages by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples than it could change cats into dogs by issuing them dog licenses.
  • When homosexuals say they are attracted only to persons of their same sex, they are implicitly acknowledging that men and women are fundamentally different. Therefore, a union composed of two people of the same sex is fundamentally different from a union composed of two people of different sexes.
  • A union composed of two people of the same sex is the antithesis of a marriage. It is an anti-marriage. The ceremony that solemnizes such a union is an anti-wedding. The cake that is served at the anti-wedding reception is an anti-wedding cake. The floral arrangements adorning an anti-wedding reception are anti-wedding floral arrangements.
  • Neither Mr. Walder nor any of the florists, bakers, wedding-venue owners, or photographers who have been sued by petulant homosexuals have refused to serve homosexuals. Rather, they refused to create products or provide services for a type of event for which they have never created products or provided services and one which violates their religious convictions. In fact, many of the Christian business-owners who have been sued have served homosexuals on many occasions—an inconvenient fact for Leftists.
  • The term “sexual orientation” should never have been added to anti-discrimination laws or policies. It is a rhetorical invention of the Left contrived to conflate heterosexuality and homoeroticism. Heterosexuality and homoeroticism are not flipsides of the sexuality coin. In any objective sense all humans are heterosexual in that their anatomy and biology are designed for heterosexual activity. Homoeroticism is a disordering of the sexual impulse.
  • Unlike other legally protected classes that are objectively constituted and carry no behavioral implications (e.g., race, sex, nation of origin), homoeroticism is constituted by subjective feelings and volitional sexual activity. Therefore, homoeroticism is a condition about which humans have every right to make moral judgments.

Mr. Walder has two remaining options: He may file an appeal to have the case reviewed by the entire ideologically imbalanced 13-member IHRC or file an appeal with an appellate court. Let’s hope he and his legal counsel don’t stop now.

Take ACTION:  Please click HERE to contact Governor Rauner to express your opposition to his appointment of Democrat and homosexual activist Duke Alden and to urge him to investigate the Illinois Human Rights Commission’s efforts to circumvent the law prohibiting political imbalance on the Commission.

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Listen to this as a podcast HERE.


The Illinois Family Institute is completely dependent on the voluntary contributions of individuals just like you.  Without you, we would be unable to represent our Christian values in Springfield or fight the radical agenda being pushed by the godless Left in our culture.

Please consider chipping in $25 or $50 to support our work to stand boldly in the public square.

donate-now-button

Click HERE to make a tax-deductible donation.

To make a credit card donation over the phone,
please call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.




Encroaching Tyranny

Outrageous!  The Illinois Human Rights Commission has issued a decision in which they fined a Christian business-owner $80,000 for refusing to violate his conscience regarding hosting a same-sex ceremony. And to make matters worse, they are mandating that this Christian citizen offer to do the very thing he doesn’t want to do.

This is the epitome of tyranny.

Do we understand what is happening here? This bigoted decision is the latest strike in the war against religious liberty. Intolerant lawmakers and bureaucrats are now using the heavy hand of government to force citizens to act in accordance with a decidedly liberal worldview.

Six years ago, Leftists in Washington D.C. decided to force all Americans into socialized health insurance whether they wanted to or not.

Last year here in Illinois, Gov. Bruce Rauner joined with Leftists to pass a law that censors professional counselors and clergy, prohibiting them from helping minors who suffer from unwanted same-sex attraction or gender-confusion.

Today, there is legislation pending in the Illinois House which would quash rights-of-conscience protections for pro-life medical professionals by forcing them to refer patients to abortion-providers. Unfortunately, this freedom-extinguishing bill has already passed the Illinois Senate.

Ironically, Gov. Rauner is aggressively fighting the tyranny of public sector unions who force members to pay fees that are used to promote dubious political agendas, saying to the press that he wants to “fight for the freedom of political expression and the right of free speech for government employees.”

The governor says that this is “a fundamental issue.”  If he truly believes this, why wasn’t he willing to fight for the same freedoms of speech and expression for professional counselors and clergy who are willing and able to help minors who want help?

If Gov. Rauner truly believes that our constitutionally protected freedom is “a fundamental issue,” is he willing to fight for the rights of Christian business- owners who do not want to participate in immoral same-sex ceremonies?

If Gov. Rauner truly believes that freedom of speech is “a fundamental issue,” is he willing to stand up to the despotism of the Left, and tell them to stop pushing legislation that will have government coercing speech for pro-life medical workers?  Will he commit to vetoing such legislation?

How have we come to a place where we allow the government to violate the First Amendment rights of citizens, telling them they must do what their consciences and their faith tells them they must not?

How un-American!




UPDATE: Christian B&B Case Not Over

Initial press reports suggested that the case against the Christian owner of the Timber Creek Bed and Breakfast in Paxton, Illinois, Jim Walder, was settled. The Illinois Human Rights Commission has clarified that administrative law judge Michael R. Robinson’s decision that Jim Walder should pay an $80,000 fine and be required to offer his facility to a homosexual couple to celebrate their civil union can be appealed by filing “exceptions.”

Either party to the suit has 30 days to file exceptions. If they file exceptions, the case goes before a panel. If no exceptions are filed, the recommendations made by Robinson will take effect.

Here is what Robinson has ordered:

  • Pay $15,000 each to Todd and Mark Wathen as compensation for their emotional distress arising out of the issue.
  • Cease and desist from violating the Human Rights Act by denying same-sex couples access to its facilities and services for marriages and civil unions.
  • Offer the Wathens access to the facility, within one year, for an event celebrating their civil union.
  • Pay the Wathens’ attorneys $50,000 in fees and $1,218 in costs.

Ubiquitous ACLU attorney John Knight has erroneously stated that  “For the first time, the Human Rights Commission has made clear that owners of businesses serving the public in Illinois cannot pick and choose who [sic] to serve based on their personal religious views.” “Progressives” can’t seem to get it through their dogma-drenched minds that Christians in wedding-related businesses are not deciding whom to serve. They are deciding which kinds of events to serve, facilitate, and profit from. 

Attorney Betty Tsamis, who represents the Wathens, made a similar claim but got dangerously close to inadvertently acknowledging the truth: “It would have been shameful to reverse this history simply because some business owners object to the legal protections afforded same-sex relationships.” Tsamis veered slightly off-message by focusing on “same-sex” (i.e., homerotic) relationships rather than persons. Her slip suggests the truth that it is a type of volitional activity and ceremonies that solemnize and celebrate it that many people of faith, including Orthodox Jews, Muslims, and orthodox Christians, cannot in good conscience serve. 

While the Left continues to add conditions (all sexual in nature and behaviorally constituted) to anti-discrimination policies and laws, they are bit by bit removing religion.

It is imperative that we speak out against this unjust erosion of religious liberty. The First Amendment guarantees the right to the “free exercise” of religion, intrinsic to which is the right to act upon beliefs regarding the morality of activities and behaviors. 

Take Action: Click HERE to send an unequivocal and respectful message to Kevin Chambers, the executive director of the Illinois Human Rights Commission, and Gov. Bruce Rauner to express your strong opposition to Judge Robinson’s decision.


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