An old story tells of a big, successful store with a plaque in the employees’ lounge which read: “Rule #1. The customer’s always right. Rule #2. If you ever think the customer is wrong, reread Rule #1.”

I bring this up because the public school education establishment (to be distinguished from the rank and file teachers, many of whom are dedicated public servants), often treat their customers as if they’re wrong and as if the education elites know better than the dumb parents.

School choice is the ultimate answer to America’s education crisis, and there ought to be bipartisan agreement on it. School competition makes education better and gives all parents more options for their children. But the Left opposes it adamantly, though even a liberal newspaper surprisingly spoke out recently in favor of school choice.

Foxnews.com reports (7/9/2021):

“The liberal Washington Post editorial board on Thursday broke rank with the left and pondered why Democrats are so opposed to giving poor children a choice in schooling.”

The Washington Post opined,

“For 17 years, a federally funded K-12 scholarship program has given thousands of poor children in D.C. the opportunity to attend private schools and the chance to go on to college. And for many of those 17 years, the program has been in the crosshairs of unions and other opponents of private school vouchers…Their relentless efforts unfortunately may now finally succeed with House Democrats and the Biden administration quietly laying the groundwork to kill off this worthy program.”

What a tragedy. And who will suffer the most? Inner-city families.

The Left is all about power. But true public service is always about empowerment – empowering others, regardless of their socio-economic background – so that people can fulfill their God-given destiny.

The pandemic over the past year-and-a-half showed how the teacher’s unions held hostage many schools from re-opening in person.

During the shutdown, many parents discovered the option of homeschooling. In an interview for Christian television, Mike Donnelly of the Home School Legal Defense Association told me, “The U. S. census bureau issued a report recently that showed that homeschooling households doubled from about five and a half percent, before the virus, to over almost 12%.”

Homeschooling is not as radical as it sounds. Many of our founding fathers and key American leaders, like Abraham Lincoln, were home-taught.

In August 2020, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, observed,

“If there was one positive outcome I could point to from the Coronavirus Pandemic…was the fact that public schools were shut down and kids were at home. Parents were to a larger degree, involved in what their kids were learning… And I’ve heard from a number of parents, who are now rethinking education in terms of how they’re going to go about it post Coronavirus Pandemic.”

Fast forward to the present time and we see many parents revolting against some of what the education establishment is trying to cram down their throats, such as Critical Race Theory (CRT), a racist set of doctrines disguised in anti-racist garb.

CRT is a Marxist attempt to destroy America from within by teaching that white people always oppress minorities. Always.

When parents learn about CRT-type curricula in their schools, they have spoken out against it. Even many minority parents and parents in heavily Democratic areas have opposed it. It certainly flies in the face of the goals of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., that America become color-blind and judge people according to the content of their character not the color of their skin.

But the major teachers’ unions have not backed down from the teaching of CRT. With the unions’ blessing, about 5000 teachers recently pledged to teach CRT, even if it’s illegal.

For example, President Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, promises to “legally defend” members of their union who teach CRT, even if in that particular school district it is illegal.

CRT has different manifestations in our schools. Gary Bauer notes in his End of Day (7/9/2021):

“For example, at least 25 school districts around the country are using a book called ‘Not My Idea.’ Here’s how Amazon describes the book: ‘Not My Idea’ is the only children’s picture book that roots the problem of racism in whiteness and empowers white children and families to see and dismantle white supremacy.”

School choice seems to be the best answer to our education crisis, of which CRT is just the latest manifestation. And yet the Democrats are trying to shut it down, as in the poor sections of the District of Columbia.

Ironically, those who claim to champion “choice,” by which they mean killing preborn babies, want a one-size-fits-all approach to education in a diverse country like America.

I think the teacher’s unions need to re-read Rule #1.

This article was originally published at

Actress and former model, Sam Sorbo, has been featured in many movies and television shows, including appearances in the popular tv show Hercules, starring her husband, Kevin Sorbo. As a mother of three, Sam has been concerned for some time about the negative influence the American public school system has on the hearts and minds of children.

She has written a book to empower parents entitled: They’re Your Kids: An Inspirational Journal from Self-Doubter to Home School Advocate. Even though Sam had studied Biomedical Engineering at Duke University, she had, like many other parents, believed the popular propaganda that she was not qualified to teach her own children how to read and do math! Over time, Sam became convinced that parents, not the government, know what is best for the education of their own children.

Through her podcast and conference speaking, she reminds parents of the powerful impact of parental involvement in the lives of their children. While speaking at a national rally for prayer and repentance in Washington, D.C. in September 2020, Sam delivered these challenging words:

80% of professing Christian youth surrender their beliefs shortly after graduation. They adopt our STATE religion—belief in government.

Friends, we need to rethink how we define the very word “education.”

Nefarious forces in our Government schools teach children disdain for their parents’ beliefs and disgust for our country, programming them to question their own biology, obey authority, and despise themselves—to believe they are accidents of nature and that survival of the fittest is the law of the land.

This is child abuse.

Looting, rioting and self-destruction are the natural products of Atheism, Hedonism and Abortion. Survival of the Fittest! The ideological anti-God virus that now controls most of our public education institutions is a disease of the mind that no vaccine can ever cure. We declare the conflict of interest of a government that teaches its citizens to worship it, instead of their God.

But we have before us now the greatest opportunity for redemption we may ever know in our lifetime! We have the antidote!

Pastors, we call upon you to urge parents to home educate! Cultivate in children a yearning for truth, beauty, goodness, and the moral law, as the Bible prescribes. Parents, encourage your child’s innate curiosity and individual talents. No more Common Core! Teach them civics—the immeasurable value of our nation, conceived by God, the author of our freedom and the author of life itself. May God bless America!

The future of our nation is in the hands of the next generation. Will they be taught the fundamental principles of life, liberty, private property, the second-amendment, freedom of religion, freedom of speech and press? Or will they be indoctrinated into a leftist/progressivist ideology of Cultural Marxism, Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, revisionist history, socialism, gender dysphoria, relativistic ethics, and much more.

The decision about what they are taught, and by whom, is in your hands as parents. If you are a Christian parent, Sam would encourage you to get your children out of the public school system and give them an exclusively Christian education … before they become the next tragic statistic.

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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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-and, please-

One of the accusations that is most offensive to gays and lesbians is that they are child predators who want to seduce our children sexually. I stand with them in finding this accusation to be highly offensive.

To be clear, I have documented elsewhere that the arguments put forth by advocates of pederasty parallel key arguments used by gay activists. And some studies indicate that there is a higher percentage of homosexual pederasty than heterosexual pederasty.

Nonetheless, the vast majority of gays and lesbians are not pederasts. And so, to accuse them of infiltrating our schools in order to prey sexually on our children is both ugly and false. (See, here, however, for potential problems with school-based Gay Straight Alliances.)

The LGBT’s Ideological Goals for Our Children

But what is 100 percent truthful is that while the vast majority of LGBT activists presumably do not have sexual goals for our children, they most certainly have ideological goals. Without a doubt, they want to influence the way our children think.

They want our kids to view same-sex attraction as no better or worse than opposite-sex attraction. (Perhaps some want kids to view same-sex attraction as superior!)

They want children to embrace the possibility of gender fluidity.

They want them to consider whether they might be transgender themselves.

All of this is easily documented, and at this point in history, cannot be reasonably denied. The ideological seduction of our little ones is at hand today. And it has been at hand for some years now.

The Lunchbox

Well over a decade ago I purchased the GLSEN Lunchbox (second edition), containing helps for gay-friendly educators to be used in grades K-12.

The goals, of course, were to teach “tolerance” and to reduce “anti-LGBT harassment” in our schools. But the method was to normalize, if not celebrate, virtually every LGBT talking point.

The Lunchbox included activity cards, some of which listed famous people from history, all of whom were allegedly gay. Other activity cards offered definitions of terms like genderqueer (and remember, the target audience for some of these activities was elementary school children.)

Then there was the exercise called “Getting in Touch with Your Inner Trannie” (as in transgender identity). And I remind you: This goes back over a decade.

When I testified before a local school board, holding up the Lunchbox and its full-length training manual, one of the board members said out loud, “That material is not in that box.” (I guess for some people, it’s better to deny the truth rather than face it.)

What has happened in the years since?

What Has Happened

Here’s the tiniest sampling, not even touching on the many LGBT-themed curricula in our schools.

• A July 25 headline on LifeSiteNews announced: “American Library Association endorses ‘drag queen storytime’ for libraries across U.S.” (chew on that one for a while; need I say anything more?)

• There is now an endless stream of gay-themed books for little children, including titles like Monsters and Robots, which features “poly amorous parents and a bisexual character who is prominent in the story.” This is part of the LGBTQ Picture Books series. (For a sampling of LGBT children’s books through 2011, see here.)

• The same can be said for trans-themed books, such as Who Are You?: The Kid’s Guide to Gender Identity. The blurb states, “This brightly illustrated children’s book provides a straightforward introduction to gender for anyone aged 5+… An interactive three-layered wheel included in the book is a simple, yet powerful, tool to clearly demonstrate the difference between our body, how we express ourselves through our clothes and hobbies, and our gender identity. Ideal for use in the classroom or at home, a short page-by-page guide for adults at the back of the book further explains the key concepts and identifies useful discussion points. This is a one-of-a-kind resource for understanding and celebrating the gender diversity that surrounds us.”

• As of 2016, “A new study by trend forecasting agency J. Walter Thompson Innovation Group found that only 48 percent of 13-20-year-olds identify as “exclusively heterosexual,” compared to 65 percent of millennials aged 21 to 34.” The indoctrination is working!

• LGBT activists have decided not to cloak or hide their agenda in the least. In the words of S. Bear Bergman on the Huffington Post, “I Have Come to Indoctrinate Your Children Into My LGBTQ Agenda (And I’m Not a Bit Sorry).” (This was originally published on March 7, 2015.)

Bergman explains, “All that time I said I wasn’t indoctrinating anyone with my beliefs about gay and lesbian and bi and trans and queer people? That was a lie. All 25 years of my career as an LGBTQ activist, since the very first time as a 16-year-old I went and stood shaking and breathless in front of eleven people to talk about My Story, I have been on a consistent campaign of trying to change people’s minds about us.”

Ideological Indoctrination

Again, Bergman is not talking about sexual recruitment. Absolutely, categorically not. But he is talking about changing people’s minds, beginning with children: “I want them to know that we’re absolutely as worthwhile and worthy of love and respect as anyone, and that if you’re kind to us and behave yourself well there’s a better than even chance you can get an invitation to brunch.”

And what if that means children coming into conflict with their parents or their religion? Bergman doesn’t flinch: “I want kids to know this even if their parents’ or community’s interpretation of their religious tenets is that we’re awful. I would be happy — delighted, overjoyed I tell you — to cause those children to disagree with their families on the subject of LGBTQ people.”

I stand with Bergman in calling for the gracious treatment of all human beings. And I personally counsel parents to encourage their children to befriend other kids who are marginalized. In this effort, we agree.

But with everything within me, I will resist the LGBT indoctrination of our children. I urge you to stand together with me. Better still, I urge you to stand together with your kids.

This article was originally published at The Stream.com

Dangerous people: taxpayer-funded; indoctrinating impressionable, young minds; all with the goal of undermining Western civilization. If you suppose this describes the henchmen and tactics employed by a Marxist regime halfway around the world, you are wrong. Rather, this commonplace scenario is found in the halls of higher education at public colleges and universities across the Western world.

Taxpayers, parents and students who pay tuition to public universities, and alumni who donate to their public alma maters are filling the coffers of institutions where, more often than not, truth is deemed subjective, differences between the sexes are viewed as a result of social constructs, and the myriad problems of the third world are laid solidly at the feet of Western imperialism.

Please watch the video below, produced by Prager University, as Jordan Peterson details how critical thinking, freedom of speech, and diversity of opinion have become endangered species on college campuses and in the classrooms of public universities:

IFI Annual Faith, Family & Freedom Banquet

“Keeping our eyes on the prize”
with keynote speaker George Barna

Friday, October 5, 2018
The Stonegate in Hoffman Estates, Illinois

Click HERE for more details

A concerned parent sent me this. It’s the school newspaper for Mary Ellen Henderson Middle School in Falls Church, Virginia. Among the other hard hitting pieces of journalism targeted at children, ages 11-13, is an article on “transgender rights.”

The article explains how Obama “improved the lives of transgender people by fighting the discrimination against them,” but all of that is now in jeopardy because of President Trump. The next article delves into the intricacies and wonders of various forms of gender identity, including “transgenderism,” “non-binary,” “bigender,” “agender,” “demigender,” “genderfluid,” and “genderflux.” I’m obviously more innocent and naive than the typical middle schooler these days, so I’d never even heard of some of these. For anyone else who may be curious, here’s how the last three types of genders are explained to an audience of pre-pubscent kids:

Demigender: Demigender refers to people who partially identify as one gender. Demigender people may also identify as partially a different gender. Examples include demigirl, or someone who partially identifies as a girl; demiboy, or someone who partially identifies as a boy; demiagender, meaning someone who identifies as partially agender; and more broadly, deminonbinary, or someone who just partially identifies as nonbinary. 

Genderfluid and Genderflux: Genderfluid refers to someone whose gender changes between any of the above categories. For example, someone may feel female one day, male another day, and agender the next day. Similarly, genderflux refers to someone whose gender changes in intensity. This typically means that someone’s gender will fluctuate between agender and a different gender, which could be binary or nonbinary. For example, someone might sometimes feel completely female, sometimes demigender, and sometimes agender.

Did you get all that?

Someone can partially not have a gender, while the other part of them has three genders, and the third part is a futon. These are the notions being implanted in our kids’ heads in their public schools. The average 7th grader in America may not be able do basic arithmetic without a calculator or name the Allied Powers during WW2 or understand the difference between “there” and “their,” but you can bet he’ll be able to identify 112 different genders and explain them in terms explicit enough to make a grown man blush.

If we have not yet reached a point where a mass exodus from the public schools is warranted, when will that point arrive? Are we waiting until they start bringing in nude hermaphrodites to teach sex ed? I suppose even that wouldn’t be enough incentive for some of us. “I can’t shield my kid from what’s going on out there!” “Be in the world, not of the world!” “Naked she-males are a part of life! I can’t keep him in a bubble forever! He’s 9 years old, for God’s sake!”

Look, I know that public school may really be the only option for some people. There are single parents of little economic means who find themselves backed into a corner where government education appears to be the only choice. And if a parent can’t or won’t homeschool, a private Christian education can be prohibitively expensive. Not only that, but some Christians schools are as bad as, or worse than, the average public school. Abandoning the public school system is not an easy thing, and it presents many hurdles that, right now, may be impossible for some people to get over. The collapse of the family unit, not to mention our recent economic woes, have contributed to creating a dependence on public education. Not everyone can break free all at once, I realize.

But we should certainly all agree, at this point, that public school is not an option for those of us who have another feasible option. We should agree that public school is a matter of last resort and necessity. We should agree that public education is inherently hostile to true Christian values, and for that reason it is not anywhere close to the ideal environment for our kids. We should agree on these points. But we still don’t, incredibly.

I had this discussion on Twitter recently, and it prompted several emails from Christian parents who appear to believe that kids should still be sent to public school, even if there are other valid options available. They suggested that, somehow, the sort of madness outlined above could present faith-affirming opportunities for our children, and we would actually be depriving them of something if we did not give them access to those opportunities. They claimed that public school is a “mission field” where our kids can be “salt and light” to their friends. They said that it’s not fair to our kids or our communities if we “shelter” them. They suggested that somehow it’s our children’s duty to minister to the pagan hordes. They said that “the system” needs our kids.

A few responses to this rather confused point of view:

First of all, “the system needs our kids” is just a weird and creepy statement. It reminds me of something someone would say on Black Mirror or the Twilight Zone. Here’s the truth about “the system”: It’s not my job to give it what it needs. Even less is it my kid’s job. There’s nothing in the Bible that says we must dedicate ourselves to maintaining a government-run education system at any cost. My first responsibility is to my family, not to the community or the school system or my kid’s classmates. I will never put the interests of “the system” above that of my own children. Whether “the system” lives or dies is not my concern. My family is my concern. I have an obligation to them, not to the local superintendent.

Second, anyway, if I did put my kids in “the system” for the sake of “the system,” I’m not the one making the sacrifice. I’m forcing my kids to make it. At least face what you’re doing. When it comes down to it, the burden of public schooling is something your child will have to shoulder, not you.

Third, yes, my kids will eventually be exposed to all kinds of strange and terrible things. As much as I’d like to keep them shielded from the evils of the world forever, I know that I can do no such thing. The question is not whether our kids will be exposed to this or that depravity, but when and how and in what context? Are you prepared to trust the school’s judgment on when Junior is ready to learn about concepts like “transgenderism”? Do you trust their judgment on how he learns about it, and what he’s told about it? If you do, I suppose you aren’t even reading this post right now because you’ve been in a vegetative state for the past 30 years.

Fourth, when a kid is sent to public school, he’s expected to navigate and survive and thrive in a hostile, confusing, amoral environment, basically untethered from his parents, 6–8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 9 months a year, for 12 years. Is a child ready for that challenge by the time he’s 5 years old? Is he ready at 8? At 10? No. Our job as parents is to “train them up in the way they should go,” equip them with the armor of God, fortify them in the truth, and then release them into the world. That process has not been completed in conjunction with them first learning how to tie their shoes. I mean, for goodness’ sake, most adults can’t even manage to withstand the hostilities and pressures of our fallen world for that amount of time. And we expect little kids to do it? That’s not fair to them. It’s too much to ask. Way too much. They aren’t equipped, they aren’t ready, they aren’t strong enough, and they will get eaten alive.

Let’s take just this one example of the gender insanity. Our kids, in public school, will be in a world where concepts like “transgenderism” and “demigenderism” are normal, healthy, cool, and rational. They’ll be in a world where even recognizing basic biological realities is considered bigoted and oppressive. They will be in this environment literally from their first day in kindergarten. Can a child spend his entire young life in such an atmosphere and emerge on the other end with his head still on straight? It’s possible, I suppose, but you’ve never had to do that. I didn’t have to do that. I went to public school, but it wasn’t as bad as it is now. So I would be asking my kids to live up to a spiritual and mental and moral challenge that I myself have never endured, and I’ll be asking them to do it every day for 12 years, starting sometime around their 5th birthday.

Not fair. Just not fair.

Fifth, related to the last point, your child is not ready to be a missionary. He cannot be a “witness” to others until he himself has been properly formed in the faith. It’s no surprise that most of the young “missionaries” we commission and send forth to minister to the lost souls in public schools quickly become one of the lost souls. We don’t need to sit around theorizing about whether the missionary approach to education is wise or effective. We already know that it isn’t. The vast majority of the parents who think their kids are being “salt and light” to their peers in school are simply oblivious to the fact that their little Bible warriors have long since defected and joined the heathens. You can hardly blame the kids for this. They’re just kids, after all. They aren’t warriors. Warriors are trained and disciplined. Children are neither of those things. I imagine this is why St. Paul didn’t travel to Athens and Corinth recruiting toddlers to help him carry the Gospel into pagan lands.

Education is supposed to prepare a child to carry the torch of truth.  That is, he’s supposed to be ready to carry it once his education has been completed. This should not be a “throw them into the deep end to see if they can swim” strategy. They can’t swim. You and I can barely swim, morally and spiritually speaking, and we’re adults. Do you expect your child to be more spiritually mature and morally courageous than you?

Now, I do fully believe, ultimately, that our job is to be lights in the darkness. I make that very argument in the last chapter of my book:

All I know is that God put us here to be lights in the darkness, and however dark it gets, our mission does not change. Dostoevsky wrote that stars grow brighter as the night grows darker. So the good news is that we have the opportunity to be the brightest stars for Christ that the world has ever seen, because we may well live through its darkest night. 

But a flame must first be lit, stoked, and protected before it is the bright, raging fire that we all must be if we expect to survive in this culture. Our children’s education is supposed to facilitate that process, not interfere with it. Our children should be fires for Christ because of their education, not in spite of it. We can’t compartmentalize the “spiritual” part of their upbringing, reserve it for evenings and weekends, and allow the lion’s share of their educational experience to be dominated by humanism, hedonism, and godlessness. Education is not supposed to work that way. And it doesn’t really work at all that way, as we’ve seen. Or, if it does work, it is only in cases where the child possesses an almost superhuman level of maturity, intelligence, and moral courage. And maybe some children really are almost superhuman in that way. But most of them aren’t, yours probably aren’t, and you probably aren’t. That’s just the reality of the situation, and we have to deal with it. I find it ironic that so many parents who expect their children to “face the realities of the world” have not faced it themselves.

Buy my new book here.

This article was originally posted at TheBlaze.com

In the midst of one of the recent steps further into cultural darkness, a spark of light glimmered Sunday when Steve Farish, pastor of Crossroads Church in Grayslake, Illinois, distributed a brief note to his congregation regarding President Obama’s stunning decision to order the Department of Justice to cease defending in court the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). In it he shared the email he sent President Obama, but more important, he urged his congregation to do likewise. It is the hope and fervent prayer of Illinois Family Institute that other faith leaders will demonstrate such courage and wisdom.

Everyone I know who works full-time on cultural issues shares the same anguish and frustration about the church. We know that until Christians awaken from their moral slumber, become willing to be persecuted for their faith, and participate in the cultural debate on all issues relating to homosexuality, suffering will increase.

• Our religious liberties, speech rights, and parental rights will continue to erode.
• Individuals will be lost in lives given over to perversion-perversion that will result in eternal separation from a just and holy God.
• Children will be robbed of their innocence and their inherent right to be raised by their biological parents.
• And the natural family will continue its tragic decline.

But as I write this, I feel hopeful because of this brief note from a pastor willing to be persecuted for his Lord and Savior and willing to lead his flock:

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

There are times when events signal the moral decline of our society so clearly that I believe God calls Christians to respond. One such time was this past Wednesday when the United States Attorney General announced that the current executive administration has suddenly reversed course and now will argue in court that the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 is unconstitutional. The Defense of Marriage Act defines marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman. I believe this decision profoundly hurts all Americans, perhaps especially those who practice a homosexual lifestyle who are the very people the administration wrongly believes it is helping. Below is the text of an email I sent on Thursday to the White House, and I urge you to send a similar note to the president in your own words (www.WhiteHouse.gov).

Thanks, and God bless you!

Pastor Steve

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Dear President Obama:

My heart was broken yesterday to hear Attorney General Holder’s announcement that your administration has suddenly shifted its position and now believes the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 to be unconstitutional. Mr. President, with all due respect to you personally, the God who created and rules the universe — the God who put you into office (Romans 13:1) — from the beginning gave us human beings our sexuality as a gift to be enjoyed only in the covenant bonds of marriage between one man and one woman (Genesis 2:24). Our Creator gave us this command as an expression of his infinite wisdom and love for all human beings, and whenever we violate his command for use of our sexuality, we can reap only a harvest of brokenness and pain. The decision of your administration concerning the Defense of Marriage Act will therefore only serve to hurt human beings, both those who practice a homosexual lifestyle and those who do not. I plead with you, for the sake of this nation’s future, to reconsider your decision on the Defense of Marriage Act and reverse it immediately. 

Thank you for your kind consideration of this most urgent, heartfelt, and respectful request.

~Steve Farish
Libertyville, Illinois