On Tuesday, April 18th, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments for a monumental religious liberty case known as Groff v. DeJoy. At the heart of this case are the questions: do American citizens have Constitutionally protected rights under the First Amendment to the “free exercise” of their faith in the workplace, and; are employers obligated to grant reasonable religious accommodations.

Christian mail carrier Gerald Groff requested the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) for a religious accommodation that would excuse him from working on Sundays after they started doing Amazon package deliveries so that he could observe the Sabbath and live by his Christian faith. The fact that regular mail isn’t delivered by the USPS on Sundays was a major factor in Groff’s choosing to work there over a decade ago. USPS refused to grant him the accommodation and Groff chose to resign rather than be fired.

Groff is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court in hopes it will overturn its ominus 1977 precedent in Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, which enabled employers to deny religious accommodations. Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief in the case asking the U.S. Supreme Court to restore Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which provides protection against religious discrimination. Their the amicus brief asserts in their summary:

This Court should overrule the interpretation in Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison that Title VII does not require an employer to accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs if doing so would impose more than a de minimis burden on the employer. Hardison’s de minimis standard—found nowhere in the Title VII’s text or legislative history—has led to absurd results, allowing employers to discriminate against religious employees with impunity, thereby forcing workers to choose between their religious beliefs and their jobs.

The U.S. Supreme Court justices spent much of the hearing debating the exact meanings of “undue hardship” and “de minimis.”

Groff’s attorney, Aaron Streett, recommended that the justices “construe undue hardship according to its plain text to mean significant difficulty or expense,” which would be consistent with the language in the accommodation standard of the “Americans with Disabilities Act.”

Arguing on behalf of the Biden administration, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the court that Hardison adequately protects religious exercise, to which Justice Samuel Alito responded, “I’m really struck by that because we have amicus briefs here by many representatives of many minority religions, Muslims, Hindus, Orthodox Jews, Seventh Day Adventists, and they all say that is just not true, and that Hardison has violated their right to religious liberty.”

Chief Justice John Roberts spoke about changes in religious liberty case law since the Hardison ruling, arguing that religious protections had been expanded.

Thankfully, it appears that the conservative justices are poised to rule in favor of Groff and the religious liberty of every employee. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule over this case by the summer.

A version of this article was originally published by Wisconsin Family Action.

Religious Schools Can Get State Tuition Aid

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) issued a decisive victory for religious freedom and school choice this week in a 6-3 ruling in the Carson v. Makin case.

The case revolved around a Maine school-choice program that allowed parents to access taxpayer dollars for private school tuition. However, Maine attempted to prohibit parents from using the program to attend a religious school.

On Tuesday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, ruled that a Maine private-school-choice statute violated the First Amendment Free Exercise of Religion, writing:

“[T]here is nothing neutral about Maine’s program. The State pays tuition for certain students at private schools— so long as the schools are not religious. That is discrimination against religion. A State’s antiestablishment interest does not justify enactments that exclude some members of the community from an otherwise generally available public benefit because of their religious exercise.”

In response to this important ruling, Kelly Shackelford, President, CEO, and Chief Counsel for First Liberty Institute said:

We are thrilled that the Court affirmed once again that religious discrimination will not be tolerated in this country. Parents in Maine, and all over the country, can now choose the best education for their kids without fearing retribution from the government. This is a great day for religious liberty in America.

Illinois Attorney General candidate David Shestokas celebrates the ruling as well, saying:

The Supreme Court affirmed this nation’s commitment to religious liberty in the case of Carson v. Makin. The court established a far reaching principle that when the government makes a benefit available it may not restrict the benefit based upon religion. While the case involved tuition assistance in schools, the principle established has the potential to extend across our civic life and keeps faith with the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause.

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the dissent. In the dissent, Breyer said the majority gave too little credence to the establishment clause and too much to the free exercise clause, saying:

The Court today pays almost no attention to the words in the first Clause while giving almost exclusive attention to the words in the second. The majority also fails to recognize the ‘play in the joints’ between the two Clauses.

Yet the Chief Justice’s majority opinion ended with these three sentences:

Maine’s nonsectarian requirement for its otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Regardless of how the benefit and restriction are described, the program, said the chief justice, operates to identify and exclude otherwise eligible schools on the basis of their religious exercise. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

This is not the first time the SCOTUS ruled to uphold the religious exercise clause regarding taxpayer tuition aid for religious schools. In its June 2020 decision in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the Court struck down a state scholarship program that excluded religious schools. And in 2017, the court found in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer that a church-owned playground can be eligible for a public benefit program.

Bottom line: The government should not discriminate against citizens who would choose to use their tuition-assistance for faith-based schools schools. Carson v. Makin is a victory not just for religious freedom but also for educational choice.

January 22, 1973 – This is a horrible date that we should all know — the day the horrific decision, Roe v. Wade, was issued and announced. Almost 50 years later and over 63 million lives taken, this drastic decision could finally be overturned.

On May 2, 2022 Politico obtained a leaked draft written by Justice Samuel Alito that contained the majority opinion that would overturn both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992).

We anticipate that the leaked draft indicating the decision will not change and that very soon we will hear the final decision announced.

Here are some matters for prayer both now and after the decision is made:

1] Let us pray especially for Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. We pray for their physical protection. We pray that all the adversity that they have faced will encourage them to stand more and more with truth against death and deceit.

2] We should pray that Chief Justice John Roberts will stand for the truth. We should also pray for the repentance of those expected to stand against this decision – Justices Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor.

3] After the draft decision was leaked there were a number of cases where churches and pro-life pregnancy centers were attacked. Andy Ngô reported at least 15 cases where either churches or pro-life centers were targeted.

We should pray especially against the efforts of a radical, violent group called Jane’s Revenge that has carried out attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers with impunity. On June 15, they released a statement in which they stated the following:

“We have demonstrated in the past month how easy and fun it is to attack. We are versatile, we are mercurial, and we answer to no one but ourselves,” and then they stated their threats.

“We promised to take increasingly drastic measures against oppressive infrastructures. Rest assured that we will, and those measures may not come in the form of something so easily cleaned up as fire and graffiti. Sometimes you will see what we do, and you will know that it is us.

“Sometimes you will think you merely are unlucky, because you cannot see the ways which we interfere in your affairs. But your pointless attempts to control others, and make life more difficult, will not be met passively. Eventually your insurance companies and your financial backers will realize you are a bad investment.”

Jane’s Revenge claims to be responsible for sixteen different attacks.

We know very well that much of our justice system and many elected officials have not taken these attacks seriously. Pray for our government. Pray for your local pregnancy centers. (And perhaps you could help in other ways.) This is a serious time of spiritual warfare spilling over into threats and violence.

4] We pray that many states will take quick action to outlaw legal abortions or at a minimum seek to curtail abortions.

What about states like Illinois that have seen a 25 percent increase in abortions ? We must prayerfully consider how much work remains. We pray and work to see laws changed as well as hearts changed.

5] We pray that the Lord will have mercy on a nation that has been so blessed and yet has so rebelled against God’s truth. One of the most frightening things to consider is what we deserve.

Here are some additional prayer bullet points to petition our God, Yahweh-Nissi, through the name of Jesus in the days ahead:

Thank God

• Praise and thank God for religious and civil liberty that we still enjoy today in the United States. Pray that parents and grandparents teach their children and grandchildren what an amazing gift God has given us in self-government. Pray that future generations would not take these freedoms for granted. May we utilize these freedoms for the spread of the Gospel and for His glory and honor.

• While more and more of our neighbors are choosing to live secular lives, we thank God for Jesus Christ, the Light of the world.

• Thank God for the exceptionalism of our nation.

• Thank God for His countless blessings in our lives, in our families, communities and nation. Thank Him for the trials and challenges that draw us closer to Him. Thank God for the patience, strength and faith to wait out the storm.

• PRAY for revival.

Please Pray

• FOR THOSE IN AUTHORITY: For the next several weeks, please pray for the political leaders listed below. Of course, this includes praying for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and those who serve in their administration.
  • U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico)
  • U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas)
  • U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois)
  • U.S. Representative Veronica Escobar (D-Texas)
  • U.S. Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)
  • State Senator Meg Loughran Cappel (D-Plainfield)
  • State Senator Chapin Rose (R-Champaign)
  • State Representative Janet Yang Rohr (D-Naperville)
  • State Representative Dan Ugaste (R-St. Charles)
  • YOUR local County Board Members

Pray for the Sanctity of Life:

• PRC’s: Lift up all pregnancy resource centers and those diligently reaching out to vulnerable mothers who feel as if abortion is their only option. Please pray for God’s hand of protection on those who work at these ministries, and that any planned attacks would be thwarted.

• ABORTION: Scripture teaches us that the image of God dwells equally in ALL people [Gen. 9:6], yet far too many in our culture believe that killing pre-born human beings is a legitimate choice. Many so-called “progressives” advocate for this under the banner of “Reproductive Rights” for women. Yet these narratives deny God’s truth about the sanctity of life and when it begins. Moreover, we know that God hates the shedding of innocent blood. (Proverbs 6:16-19)  God forgive us!

• Please pray for God’s forgiveness for our culture’s wickedness and complicity in the destruction of human life. Though God commands, “You Shall Not Murder,” we have instead legalized it and subsidized it with our tax dollars, and have failed to treat all human life as sacred to the Lord. We deserve God’s judgment, but please cry out to God for his MERCY on our state and nation. We are without excuse, yet call upon our loving God to cause the fear of the Lord to fall upon our state and nation so that we would no longer turn a blind eye to our sin or our nation’s sin.

• Pray for a softening of hearts and minds. May God give us opportunities to minister to those who are hurting and may our conversations be filled with His grace and love.

• THE CHURCH:  The Christian Church must step up to teach and defend God’s truth regarding the sanctity of life. We will see an increase in abortion trafficking into our state, as people come to abortion facilities in Illinois. The opportunities to be salt and light at prayer vigils, as sidewalk counselors, as friends and neighbors will certainly increase. Pray that we recognize these opportunities and ask God to work through you to help would be mothers and fathers avoid the sin of abortion. Because of our trust and hope in Jesus, we can boldly approach the throne and beg Him to have mercy upon us and use us to save lives and souls.

Pray for Families:

• PARENTS: Pray that God will give us wisdom and the strength to raise godly children. Help us see the challenges we face as opportunities to train our children toward right thinking and right actions. May God help us to focus on teaching our children the Christian faith, to love the Word of God and to seek to do Thy will. Help us to disciple our children.

• GRANDPARENTS: That God would use grandparents to fearlessly proclaim the Word of God regarding sin and God’s love. Pray for their role in the training of their grandchildren and wisdom on how to instill a Biblical worldview.

• FAMILIES AS SALT AND LIGHT: Pray that God would help your family to be faithful in family worship, foster sweet unity and cooperation, and then use your family to spread the truth and light of the Gospel.

I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him,
bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered;
and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they
are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will aske
what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified...
~Jesus Christ (John 15:5-8)

Following the unprecedented leak of the entire U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion on the controversial abortion case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, morally and emotionally unhinged, pro-human slaughter women and their collaborators became apoplectic. Next, U.S. Senate leftists terrified at the possibility that diverse citizens in diverse states will pass diverse laws to protect prenatal humans began clamoring for the elimination of the filibuster, so they—Senate leftists—can codify human slaughter in federal law. So much for diversity and federalism.

The self-identifying Catholic Joe Biden said, “If the Court does overturn Roe, it will fall on our nation’s elected officials at all levels of government to protect a woman’s right to choose [to have her offspring offed]. And it will fall on voters to elect pro-choice [i.e., pro-human slaughter] officials this November.” And yet, Biden is unwilling to wait to see who voters choose or what state levels of government will do. Leftists like Biden don’t care what the great unwashed masses want. Nor do they care what the Constitution says. Leftists want to impose their will, ideology, and desires by any unethical and unconstitutional means they can dream up.

Biden is justified in fearing that states may pass laws to protect incipient lives. In contrast to the leftist claim that most Americans support Roe v. Wade, recent Rasmussen polling shows that most Americans would like to see it overturned:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters would approve of a Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade …. Forty-five percent (45%) would disapprove of overturning Roe v. Wade ….

…

In his draft opinion, Justice Alito declared that the Roe v. Wade decision “was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.” Forty-seven percent (47%) of voters agree with Justice Alito’s statement…. Forty-six percent (46%) disagree with Alito.

Biden and his U.S. Senate co-conspirators want to rob citizens and states of the right to decide whether humans in the womb can be killed by more powerful humans (i.e., oppressors). According to the website “Equal Access to Abortion Everywhere,” the federal law Biden frantically seeks to pass before Dobbs is decided and before Americans can exercise their right to govern themselves would,

eliminate all existing state restrictions including “six-week bans, 20-week bans, mandatory ultrasounds … counseling, waiting periods, and requirements that providers obtain admitting privileges at local hospitals.

Abortion without restrictions would be legal in every state throughout the entire nine months of pregnancy for any or no reason if the Women’s Health Protection Act is passed.

In attempting to rationalize the censorship of conservative ideas, “diversity”- and “tolerance”-loving leftists have claimed society has no obligation to tolerate conservative speech on topics related to sexuality because such speech may lead to violence. This raises a thorny question for leftists: Should society tolerate bloodthirsty banshees shrieking in the streets about their right to destroy the bodies of their offspring and threatening the lives of those who oppose human slaughter? Might such banshee speech lead to violence?

U.S. Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, John Roberts, and Neil Gorsuch have had their homes and lives targeted.

Lacie Wooten-Holway, an unneighborly neighbor of Brett Kavanaugh revealed his home address and organized a protest in front of his home, declaring that “We’re about to get doomsday … so I’m not going to be civil to that man at all.”

A Molotov cocktail set ablaze the office of a conservative public policy organization in Wisconsin and graffitied it with the threat, “If abortions aren’t safe, then neither are you.” Sounds like a threat of violence to me.

A Catholic church in Fort Collins, Colorado was spraypainted with the words “My body my choice” and the symbol for anarchism.

Three churches in Texas were vandalized.

In an interview with Salon magazine, an anonymous representative of the anti-life group Ruth Sent Us said “that some members of the network have privately discussed not just disrupting Mass but burning the Eucharist.” Might that lead to violence?

Clearly banshee speech may lead to violence, and yet as of this writing, neither the Biden administration nor the DOJ has condemned the doxing of six U.S. Supreme Court Justices, the illegal efforts to influence the decision of these justices, the torching of conservative non-profit organizations, or the protests in front of Supreme Court Justices private homes.

Instead (and as usual), Biden finds this a good time to blame the “Maga crowd”:

What are the next things that are going to be attacked? Because this Maga crowd is really the most extreme political organization that exists in American history.

This is about a lot more than abortion… What happens if you have a state change the law, saying that children who are LGBTQ can’t be in classrooms with other children? Is that legit?

Biden’s claim is either a bizarre non sequitur or a wildly fallacious slippery slope argument with no causal or logical link between a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of the Dobbs case and an absurd hypothetical state law banning “LGBTQ” students from the classroom.

Is the “Maga crowd” an organization? Who’s in it? Everyone who voted for Trump? Are all the Americans who voted for Trump members of a political organization more extreme than BLM, Antifa, the Weather Underground, the Symbionese Liberation Army, Black Panthers, or eco-terrorist organizations?

Perhaps the cognitively impaired Biden isn’t aware that many liberal legal scholars who support abortion argue that nowhere in the text or history of the Constitution can a right to abortion be found, and hence, Roe v. Wade was an atrocious decision.

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) made an equally bizarre statement:

This is 50 years of rights in a leaked opinion where Justice Alito is literally not just taking us back to the 1950s, he’s taking us back to 1850s. He actually cites the fact that abortion was criminalized back when the 14th Amendment was adopted.

If Klobuchar thinks 49 years imparts immunity from being overturned to a lousy U.S. Supreme Court decision, then she must still be enraged about the de facto overturning of Plessy v. Ferguson, which stood legally unmolested for 58 years.

Klobuchar’s disdain for Alito “taking us back to the 1850s” is perplexing. One would expect a member of the U.S. Senate to have deep respect for much that was written in the 1800s and even the 1700s.

California Governor Gavin Newsom tripped all over leftist “logic” when talking about the draft opinion:

If men could get pregnant, this wouldn’t even be a conversation.

That’s both embarrassingly cliché and politically un-woke. Surely, the good leftist Newsom has heard the news from the world of pseudo-science: Men can get pregnant. Or maybe he has heard the news, but he’s caught in the sticky, tangled web of ideological mayhem that leftists have woven to deceive.

For decades, unhinged women committed to child sacrifice have tried to claim that humans in the womb were just clumps of cells or tumor-like masses. When that nonsensical claim failed, they admitted that, sure, the product of conception between two humans is a human but it’s not fully developed, or it’s imperfect, or it will suffer, or it’s parasitic, or it’s father is a criminal, or it’s mother is poor, or it’s mother doesn’t want it, or it’s mother is not ready to care for it. If those arguments were applied consistently to all humans, we would have a murderous society unsafe for every human.

So, then came the next lie: Morally unhinged women proclaimed that sure, womb-dwellers are human, but they’re not persons. But why, inquiring minds wanted to know, are these humans with human DNA, many of whose human body parts are sold to scientists to find cures for human diseases, not persons?

Philosopher Francis Beckwith offers a definition of personhood that abortion cheerleaders will definitely not like:

[W]hat is crucial morally is the being of a person, not his or her functioning. A human person does not come into existence when human function arises, but rather, a human person is an entity who has the natural inherent capacity to give rise to human functions, whether or not those functions are ever attained. And since the unborn human being has this natural inherent capacity from the moment it comes into existence, she is a person as long as she exists.

…

A human person who lacks the ability to think rationally (either because she is too young or she suffers from a disability) is still a human person because of her nature. Consequently, it makes sense to speak of a human being’s lack if and only if she is an actual person.

Questions of personhood and unalienable rights are metaphysical questions on which there will never be agreement. Rational, reasonable, compassionate people argue that if we can’t agree on something as momentous as when life begins or when a human becomes a person deserving of the right not to be murdered, the prudent and ethical response would be to err on the side of not killing humans that may, indeed, be persons.

But liberals are not concerned about the injustice of killing human fetuses. Liberal concerns are directed toward the self.

Nathanael Blake, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, illuminates the self-serving political philosophy of the secular left:

The liberal project seeks to provide, to the extent possible, freedom from unchosen constraints, duties, and loyalties in life.

This is why liberalism naturally favors a broad welfare state. The purpose of this welfare state is both to protect those who are dependent, and to protect those who do not want to be depended on.

Thus, liberalism professionalizes care from childhood to old age. The animating vision is a society in which everyone is taken care of, but no one has a private obligation to care for anyone else; no one has to sacrifice ambition, career, or personal freedom to care for children or parents or a sick relative.

But this liberal ideal is unrealizable with children, especially those in utero. …

This is why liberals are complaining about “forced birth” — they really are horrified at the idea of an unchosen obligation to care for another person. … Liberalism cannot tolerate that sort of involuntary duty, and so it requires the opt-out of abortion on demand.

Thus, a political philosophy that begins by claiming to protect the weak and dependent, and to liberate us from the unfairness of the givenness of life, ends by asserting an absolute right to take the lives of the weak and dependent — precisely because they are dependent.

Human life developing in the womb can offer nothing but need; to respond to that need with violence is to assail human dependence in its purest form. This bloodshed lays bare how liberalism has become a revolt against our humanity.

It’s also a revolt against God, which explains why leftists who want the freedom to sacrifice their children target Christianity. Jesus teaches us to deny ourselves and take up our crosses daily. He teaches that “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” He teaches that God is the Author of life who creates the inmost being of children in their mothers’ wombs. And he teaches that every life unjustly snuffed out by fallen humans was fearfully and wonderfully made by God.

Take ACTION: Sponsored by left-wing U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal [D-CT], the Women’s Health Protection Act (S. 4132) would nullify any existing state pro-life laws protecting the life of the unborn, if signed into law. Both U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth are co-sponsors of this radical bill which would also force doctors and healthcare workers to violate their consciences. Click HERE to let them know that this legislation is absolutely unacceptable and offensive to you. Urge them to protect innocent pre-born human life.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Schemes-of-Fallen-Humans-to-Destroy-Life.mp3

Read more:

Fact Sheet by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Democrats’ National Abortion Bill Replaces Word ‘Woman’ With ‘Person’ (The Daily Signal)

The big news of the week has been confirmed by Chief Justice John Roberts. The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade in the very near future, possibly by the end of June. In a news release from the High Court, however, they were careful to point out that, although the leaked draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito is authentic, “it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.” In other words, the ruling is not official yet.

If it becomes official, it will be an enormous victory for the sanctity of human life in America. Repealing Roe is what pro-lifers have marched, prayed, worked, and voted for since 1973.

We are relieved to know that many states will restrict or completely outlaw abortion, thereby saving untold number of women and unborn babies from becoming victims. Yet, it’s sobering to realize that states like Illinois, New York, Maryland and California will become abortion destination points for those who are determined to kill their pre-born babies. And seeing women come out in droves screaming about the possibility of losing their right to kill their children is a grave reminder that we are in a spiritual battle.

The work before us continues, especially in Illinois. Our ongoing mission is to educate family members, friends and neighbors on the evils of abortion. We’ll need to continue working to change hearts and minds regarding “bodily autonomy,” the science of when life begins, and, most important, the fact that we are all created in the image and likeness of our Creator.  As such, every human has an intrinsic and inestimable dignity and worth. (Genesis 1:27)

Our culture has drifted away from God and no longer loves or values the things of God. We see proof of that in a birth rate which is disastrously low and abortion rates disastrously high. This disregard for life is also evidenced in the gang violence in our cities and by the skyrocketing suicide and overdose rates plaguing communities throughout the nation.

In response, followers of Jesus Christ must be diligent in praying for the courage, strength, and wisdom to engage the culture forthrightly on the abortion issue. Ironically, this morning, in response to the leaked opinion, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke dishonestly from the chamber floor to decry the pending decision, claiming that tens of millions of women will lose “bodily autonomy.”

Overturning Roe v. Wade does not constitute the loss of women’s “bodily autonomy” because abortions don’t destroy the bodies of mothers. Abortions destroy the bodies of women’s children. Abortion robs the unborn of bodily autonomy, body integrity, and life.

May God forgive us.

PRAYER ALERT

We cannot stress the urgency of your fervent prayers this month as our culture once again descends into a season of acrimony. Add to this the fact that we are in an election cycle in which dozens of federal and state legislative seats are in play. There are a number of God-fearing candidates running for office, and our prayers are vitally important.

Appeal to God for His Mercy

• Pray that God would forgive us for allowing the innocent blood of preborn children to be spilled for decades in America.

• Pray for forgiveness for using tax dollars to pay for abortions in Illinois and to sustain this wicked industry.

• Pray for the courage and strength to expose and refute lies and to offer hope to those who are stumbling towards death.

• Pray for a flood of new volunteers who will commit to prayer and sidewalk counseling at abortion clinics and at pregnancy centers to help turn individual hearts away from the slaughter of the most innocent.

• Pray that church leaders would speak boldly on this issue and offer hope to post-abortive women who need love, care, and assurance of God’s forgiveness. Pray that Christians will share the love of Christ with post-abortive women, and that these women would find healing through a church group and/or Bible study.

Abortion

• Pray that every leader in our nation would come to realize that “fetuses” are real humans in the womb who deserve protection.

• Pray that the agenda of Satan and his wicked disciples to kill pre-born babies in the womb and encourage immoral sexual activities to innocent young children in government schools would be exposed and stopped.

• Pray that Christians of every age would develop a biblical perspective on abortion, on caring for those who face unplanned pregnancies, and on our obligation to respond to sin with grace and compassion in addition to truth.

• Pray that we can be used to communicate effectively how God wants to redeem the lost.

For Those in Authority

For the next several weeks, please pray for the political leaders listed below. Pray that they would seek God’s wisdom when they make decisions that affect the people for whom they work. Pray that God would turn their hearts to Himself. (Proverbs 21:1)

This includes praying for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, J.B. Pritzker, and Julia Stratton and those who serve in these administrations. Pray also for our two U.S. Senators: Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth.

Please pray for the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court: John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. (Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will take her seat on the Court when Justice Breyer steps down in late June or early July.)

In addition, please pray for the following officials:

• • U.S. Senator Mark Kelly (D-Arizona)
  • U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama)
  • U.S. Representative Robin Kelly (D-Illinois)
  • U.S. Representative John Yarmuth (D-Kentucky)
  • U.S. Representative Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado)
  • State Senator Melinda Bush (D-Grayslake)
  • State Senator John Curran (R-Lemont)
  • State Representative Deb Conroy (D-Villa Park)
  • State Representative Andrew Chesney (R-Freeport)
  • YOUR local City/Village/Township Officials

Written by Frederick W. Claybrook, Jr. 

The significance of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case cannot be overstated. Pro-life citizens across the nation were praying fervently for the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court as they heard oral arguments Wednesday morning.

The law at the center of this case is Mississippi’s late-term abortion ban for pre-born babies 15 weeks gestation and older. Many experts believe that the Court may overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, at least in part, returning the issue of abortion back to the states.

Oral arguments went much as one would expect. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and, to a lesser extent, Elena Kagan, all made clear that they thought stare decisis should rule the day because otherwise it would look like the Court caved to public opinion. There was also some talk about reliance interests built up over 50 years.

Chief Justice John Roberts cast doubt on how a viability rule makes sense in light of the interests supposed to be furthered for women, i.e., making her own decisions and her circumstances. He pointed out more than once that the only issue they granted cert on was whether to continue to adhere to the viability rule and whether a 15-week line could pass constitutional muster, so he might be angling for a middle ground of striking down the viability rule but not totally discarding the undue burden standard of Casey.

Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett didn’t seem to be following suit, though. Instead, Kavanaugh pointed out that in some of what are now considered the Court’s most important decisions, the Court overruled prior precedent. He seemed to stake out a position that the Court should be “scrupulously neutral” on this issue and leave it to state and federal legislatures. He said that the interests of the mother wanting to abort and of the fetus in living were irreconcilable, which makes this matter so hard and counsels for the Court to stay out of it.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Barrett raised some interesting questions about the purported interests of women on which Roe and Casey based their decisions. Barrett pressed on why laws that allow women to hand over their infants shortly after delivery, thereby terminating all parental responsibilities, do not eliminate talk in the decisions about women controlling their lives.

Thomas pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld a state prosecution for abuse of a pregnant mother for ingesting controlled substances and harming her child. He never got a straight answer to why, if the state could do that if the ingestion was post-viability, it could not also do it if it was pre-viability or whether the Roe/Casey viability line would call for a different result because, if a woman can kill her child pre-viability, why can’t she abuse it.

Near the end of the clinic’s counsel’s argument, she said the common law provided a right to abort early in the pregnancy at the time the U.S. Constitution was adopted. The U.S. Solicitor General in her argument made a similar statement. Justice Samuel Alito jumped on appellee’s counsel, saying that the American Historical Association’s brief admitted that many states prohibited abortion at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, so how could it be considered a fundamental right. He didn’t mention Joseph Dellapenna’s brief, which obliterates these claims about the common law allowing abortion, but it seemed as if Alito was up on the common-law issue. (It is shameful, though, that counsel continue to spout these “myths,” also known as lies, about the common law.)

No direct questions were asked about whether an unborn child is covered by the due process and equal protection guarantees for “any person,” but Mississippi’s counsel, especially in his rebuttal, spoke of the many lives killed on account of Roe and Casey, although his overriding argument was that the matter should be left to the states.

The audio recording of the arguments is available HERE, and the transcript is available HERE.

We recently read a great little sermon illustration in which a young boy asked his father, “Dad, I was watching a TV show about marine biologists. Why do scuba-divers jump backwards into the water?” His father wittily responded, “Because if they jumped forward, they’d still be in the boat!”

Scuba divers jump out of boats to investigate marine life in the coastal waters and oceans of the world. It is a way of visiting another ecosystem on our vast planet. Whether it is sunken wreckage, lost treasure or coral reefs, I can see how these diving excursions are great ways to escape the stresses of daily life.

Yet today, there are many people in our culture, in our families and even in our churches who might be tempted to jump out of the boat when things get stressful, depressing or uncomfortable. Those of us who still live in Illinois understand the added frustration of wicked and foolish political leadership. The temptation to move out of this state and into “calmer, peaceful waters” is very real.

Yet we should consider what Scripture has to say about escaping trials and tribulation. Right before He was arrested, Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane. He prayed John 17:14:

“I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.”  

Jesus could have easily prayed that God would deliver us out of the troubled waters of our world, but He didn’t. He prayed that we would remain in the world and that we would be protected from the evil one. Why didn’t He pray for our complete rescue? His prayer continues in John 17:18:

“As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”

Our Lord and Savior, the Son of God, prayed that we would remain so we could be on mission in this world for the advancement of the Kingdom of God.

Yes, our state and our culture is in trouble. But these troubles are a reminder that we are called to be salt and light to a dying world.  David Jeremiah once said, “Today is the day to be a light shining in a dark world, fueled by the joy of the Lord.” May we be that salt and light to a dark and decaying world, all to the glory of God.

PRAYER ALERT

We cannot stress the urgency of your fervent prayers this week as our state lawmakers return to the Capitol for the second half of the Veto Session. There are a number of bad proposals pending in Springfield. Prayer and action are vitally important.

Appeal to God for His Help

• Praise God that many pro-life activists and pastors are headed to Springfield to speak out against the efforts to repeal the Parental Notice of Abortion Act and the repeal of the Health Care Right of Conscience Act. Please pray that these activists would be seen and heard by lawmakers. Pray that their presence and dialogue would help them understand the importance of parental rights and conscience rights. (Read more HERE.)

• Pray that our state lawmakers would understand the wisdom in keeping qualified (or limited), immunity for police officers in Illinois. Pray that the anti-police agenda to dismantle, dishearten and make defenseless would fall short.

Abortion

• Pray for the members of the U.S. Supreme Court as they will be hearing arguments regarding significant abortion regulations in Mississippi and Texas. Pray that God would touch the hearts of the nine Justices on the Court. Pray too, as the debate rages, that eyes and ears would be opened to the abortion industry’s murderous barbaric practices.

• Please pray for the last week of this year’s 40 Days for Life campaign, which ends on Saturday, Oct. 30. Pray that many prayer warriors would take advantage of this opportunity to be a silent witness against the murderous practice of “choice.” Pray that workers at these abortuaries would have a change of heart about their work and leave.

• Pray that every leader in our nation would come to realize that these are real human babies in the womb who deserve protection.

• Pray that the agenda of Satan and his wicked disciples to kill pre-born babies in the womb and encourage immoral sexual activities to innocent young children in government schools would be exposed and stopped.

Public School Exit

• Please continue to pray for our Rescuing Our Children initiative to encourage an exodus from government indoctrination centers. Rev. Ceasar LeFlore, our field director for this project, is meeting with pastors throughout the City of Chicago and suburbs and has been getting favorable responses.

• Pray for Illinois Family Institute and our annual banquet which is scheduled for Friday evening. Pray that the event would be a success, and that our keynote speaker, Dr. Erwin Lutzer, would encourage and challenge us to live up to the high calling of our faith in Christ Jesus.

For Those in Authority

For the next several weeks, please pray for the political leaders listed below. Pray that they would seek God’s wisdom when they make decisions that affect the people they work for. Pray that God would turn their hearts to Himself. (Proverbs 21:1)

Of course, this includes praying for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, JB Pritzker and Julia Stratton and those who serve in these administrations. Pray also for our two U.S. Senators, Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth.

Please pray for the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court: John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

In addition, please pray for the following officials:

• • U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal Bennet (D-Connecticut)
  • U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (R-Missouri)
  • U.S. Representative Bobby Rush (D-Illinois)
  • U.S. Representative Peter Aguilar (D-California)
  • U.S. Representative Rick Allen (R-Georgia)
  • State Senator Scott Bennett (D-Champaign)
  • State Senator Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro)
  • State Representative Lakesia Collins (D-Chicago)
  • State Representative Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur)
  • YOUR local City/Village/Township Officials

A nationwide group of state legislators and attorneys have crafted an amicus (friend of the court) legal brief in support of the State of Mississippi in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, seeking to overturn the unlawful Roe v. Wade decision.

The Mississippi law being challenged, with a few exceptions, prohibits abortions within the State, including even the first 15 weeks of pregnancy, when modern medicine is still incapable of supporting life outside the womb.

The U.S. Supreme Court, on May 17^th, granted a hearing on the following question raised by Dobbs: “Whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.”

Of course, we know the truth that no prohibitions on elective abortion are unconstitutional. [1]

This brief contains three great strengths:

• It represents the group who has truly suffered the greatest harm: the States and the People, whose right to justly govern, reserved to them in the 10^th Amendment, has been taken by the Federal Government’s egregious Roe v. Wade decision,

• It represents the opinion of a statistical majority of U.S. citizens and legislators, and

• It affords legislators in the political minority in their own States, such as Illinois, a voice equal to, or possibly greater than, all legislators throughout the nation.

Republican lawmakers in Illinois are severely outnumbered (a “super-minority”) in both the Illinois House (45/118) and Illinois Senate (18/59), and are therefore typically unable to advance (or stop) meaningful (or harmful) legislation.  As friends of the Court, they can now have the same voice as all other legislators.

There are currently 7,383 [2] state legislators in the United States, duly elected by a majority of 168.31 million U.S. voters [3], of whom 3,977 (or 54%) are members of the pro-life, Republican Party, and have been invited to join the brief.

What did Roe really do?  It announced a new right, which removed Legislators’ (and thereby, the People’s) ability to protect unwanted humans from being murdered.

As stated in the brief, “State legislatures exist to protect the health and welfare of their States’ respective citizens.  This includes the creation of standards and regulations that protect the most vulnerable in society.  However, as demonstrated by the Fifth Circuit’s decision below, flawed precedent [4] interferes with this constitutionally delegated duty.”

“Substantive Due Process”: The Court’s Tool of Federal Tyranny Against the States.

Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. ~Judges 17:6

Substantive Due Process is the underlying legal concept used in Roe and others to justify the Court’s remaking of the U.S. Constitution to its own liking.

This logically inconsistent concept was invented in law school textbooks in the 1930s and not embraced by the U.S. Supreme Court prior to 1952 [5].

Of course, ordinary citizens and their children, possessing even the most basic grasp of logic, understand by the redundant term “procedural due process,” (Show me a “process” that isn’t “procedural,” and I’ll show you a bridge that is for sale.) that “substantive due process” is merely a cleverly-worded legal oxymoron which enables judges to justify making the law themselves (i.e., Positive Law, or law made by custom or convention, which can be changed as desired by those in power).

Substantive Due Process, as demonstrated by cases such as Roe, opens a wide door for an unelected committee of nine Ivy League lawyers to selectively remove virtually any topic from the political process (i.e., the States and the People) that it, in its great moral wisdom, sees fit.

From the beginning, the Rule of Law in the United States has been “Natural Law,” or existing law that applies consistently to everyone; certain unalienable rights, endowed to all mankind by their Creator (i.e., Jehovah of the Bible).

The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord;
He turns it wherever He will. ~Proverbs 21:1

Please pray fervently that God would:

1. Continue to strengthen the resolve of the two Justices (Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito) who have unwaveringly upheld their oath to support and defend the Constitutional Rule of Law,

2. Give great courage to four Justices (Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and John Roberts) to understand that it is their duty to finally overturn this unlawful decision, and

3. Forcibly turn the hearts of the three Justices (Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor) whose previous positions have contributed to the tyrannous legalized murder of tens of millions.

Footnotes

[1]In the 105 years between the ratification of the 14^th Amendment in 1868 and Roe’s 1973 judicial fiat that it was unconstitutional, 46 states prohibited abortion, either entirely or with exceptions.  Illinois passed the 2^nd such law in 1833.  During the 1866-1868 legislative sessions, several states passed criminal abortion laws while the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was circulating among them.  No one doubted the constitutionality of doing so. “That resolves these cases. When it comes to determining the meaning of a vague constitutional provision—such as ‘due process of law’ or ‘equal protection of the laws’—it is unquestionable that the People who ratified that provision did not understand it to prohibit a practice that remained both universal and uncontroversial in the years after ratification. We have no basis for striking down a practice that is not expressly prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment’s text, and that bears the endorsement of a long tradition of open, widespread, and unchallenged use dating back to the Amendment’s ratification.” – Antonin Scalia, dissenting from Obergefell v. Hodges (2015, creating a right to same-sex “marriage”).

[2]https://www.ncsl.org/research/about-state-legislatures/partisan-composition.aspx

[3]https://www.statista.com/statistics/273743/number-of-registered-voters-in-the-united-states/

[4]I.e., Roe v. Wade.

[5]https://humandefense.com/criminal-abortion-before-the-fourteenth-amendment/

Written by Liberty McArtor

Proponents of court-packing argue that adding more judges to our nation’s judiciary is the magical solution to urgent problems, and even paint the picture that doing so is an act of goodwill. But far from being a necessity, court-packing is a brazen power-grab by one political party to fix the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices or federal judges to get the political results they want.

And when we look at the history of court-packing across the world, there’s no way around it: Court-packing is a dangerous scheme with severe implications that would erase freedom and rights for future generations and destroy America’s constitutional order.

To equip you—and all Americans—in exposing the lie and the radical plan to overthrow America’s court system, here are four common (or rather, bogus) court-packing claims debunked with facts and logic.

1. Myth: The Supreme Court has been stolen.

Fact: The U.S. Supreme Court currently has nine highly qualified, legitimately appointed and confirmed justices. The far Left just doesn’t like some of them.

The reason court-packing advocates say the U.S. Supreme Court was “stolen” is because they disagree with the political party and the president who appointed the latest three justices (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett). For instance, they claimed that Justice Barrett’s confirmation happened too quickly. But as First Liberty President and CEO Kelly Shackelford has noted, justices have been confirmed in the same fashion nearly thirty (30) times. In fact, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whom Justice Barrett replaced, was confirmed in a similar time frame.

Ironically, stealing the U.S. Supreme Court is exactly what would happen if the coup attempt to add two, four or even six more justices were to succeed.

2. Myth: Court-packing has popular support.

Fact: Court-packing is widely unpopular—and historically has been within both parties. 

Polls conducted in the last few years show the majority of Americans oppose court-packing.

• In 2020, a New York Times-Siena College poll found that fifty-eight percent (58%) of likely voters opposed packing the U.S. Supreme Court.
  
• In 2019, Rasmussen polls found that only twenty-seven percent (27%) of Americans favor packing the U.S> Supreme Court with additional justices.

What’s more, opposition to court-packing is prevalent across the political spectrum.

Here are some quotes from several politicians and prominent figures on both sides of the political aisle, starting with the current president:

• President Joe Biden (D):

In 1983: “President Roosevelt clearly had the right to send to the United States Senate and the United States Congress a proposal to pack the court. … But it was a bonehead idea. It was a terrible, terrible mistake to make.”

In 2020: “I’m not a fan of court packing.”

• Ted Cruz (R-TX)

In 2020: “Packing the Court means one very specific thing: expanding the number of justices to achieve a political outcome. It is wrong. It is an abuse of power.”

• Joe Manchin (D-WV)

In 2020: “I want to allay those fears, I want to rest those fears for you right now because when they talk about whether it be packing the courts, or ending the filibuster, I will not vote to do that.”

• Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

In 2020: “I can’t think of a more destabilizing event for America than changing the number of [justices] on the Supreme Court every election cycle, because it becomes a winner take all for the Court.”

• Jon Ossoff (D-GA):

In 2020: “We shouldn’t expand the Supreme Court just because a justice may be confirmed with whom we disagree on policy.”

• Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933 – 2020):

In 2019: “If anything would make the court look partisan…it would be that—one side saying, ‘When we’re in power, we’re going to enlarge the number of judges, so we would have more people who would vote the way we want them to.’”

The truth is both parties have long opposed court-packing, and the sudden flip by a select group of elites on the Democratic side on this issue exposes this scheme for what it really is: a barefaced power grab.

3. Myth: Court-packing is a routine procedure.

Fact: Changes to the size of the U.S. Supreme Court are very rare in America’s history, and the few partisan attempts at court-packing have been failures.

Congress has changed the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices only a total of seven times in American history. The radical Left distorts this fact to make you think court-packing is normal. But in nearly 250 years and 120 Congresses, the seven prior changes (many of them due to workloads and the addition of states to the Republic) do not offer a justification for packing the Court today. On the contrary, the seven changes show how rare court-packing is in America. What’s more, the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices hasn’t changed at all since 1869—that’s over 150 years!

4. Myth: Court-packing will save democracy.

Fact: Court packing will crush civil liberties by making the U.S. Supreme Court a partisan tool of whoever holds power.  

Using a baseball metaphor, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts once said of a judge’s role, “It’s my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.”

What would happen if several partisan justices were added to the U.S. Supreme Court—justices who were instructed to “pitch” and “bat” for the team that appointed them? The U.S. Supreme Court would become an extension of the party currently in power. The fundamental principle of the “separation of powers” would be destroyed.

If more and more partisan judges are added to courts every election cycle, those in the minority—people who don’t agree with the current ruling party—would have their freedom squashed under the weight of a rigged judiciary. Civil liberties like religious freedom would have no stable protection.

Far from saving the principles of our democratic republic, court-packing would lead to the demolition of constitutional rights—just like it happened in other nations, such as Venezuela and Argentina.

This article was originally published at FirstLiberty.org.

While a number of cases have reached the U.S. Supreme Court challenging government pandemic restrictions that limit churches’ and members free exercise of religion, Elim Romanian Pentecostal Church v. Pritzker presents direct legal conflict between jurisdictions (traditionally the primary basis for Supreme Court hearing) and raises crucial additional questions that need resolution by the U.S. Supreme Court, to re-protect and strengthen our first and most important liberty.

For these reasons, IFI has joined an Amicus Brief in support of Elim Romanian.

Until 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court had rightly afforded the highest level of protection to our first freedom, the free exercise of religion.  In order for actions of government to restrict free exercise of religion, the U.S. Supreme Court applied a standard called strict scrutiny, under which the government had to prove: 1) a compelling state interest, and 2) that any restriction was narrowly tailored to actually accomplish that interest.

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports.  In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens.  ~George Washington.

In addition to other law, such as tax exemption, and housing allowance for “ministers of the gospel”, the Church’s freedom to gather and worship is protected no less than four times in the First Amendment alone, forbidding government from: establishment of religion, and prohibition of free exercise, speech and assembly.

However, in its decision in Employment Division v. Smith, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the Constitution meant something different than it had for over a century, and reduced the standard to “facially neutral and generally applied,” which demoted free exercise of religion to the same level as any other government restriction on freedom.

In response, Congress and 21 states including Illinois (but not California, Nevada or New York, the subjects of the cases related to Elim) passed Religious Freedom Restoration Acts to restore the strict scrutiny standard.  In the following 30 years, these laws have been challenged and weakened, and the Church in 29 other states has gone without this important extra protection.

Several Justices; a potential majority, have recently signaled the desire to correct this error. Elim is the best current vehicle for the Court to restore this most important freedom.

Earlier in the pandemic, a number of challenges to government restriction on free exercise rights were presented in multiple federal circuits, and largely rejected (e.g., Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley, Nevada v. Sisolak).  Unwilling to intervene the U.S. Supreme Court denied appeals, even in an earlier version of Elim v. Pritzker (which has been renewed in this case).

“…this Court, which consists of only nine men and women, all of them successful lawyers who studied at Harvard or Yale Law School…Not a single evangelical Christian (a group that comprises about one quarter of Americans), or even a Protestant of any denomination.”  ~Justice Antonin Scalia, Dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges

The make-up of the High Court has changed for the better since Justice Scalia’s assertion that there was “not a single evangelical Christian,” (including himself), and even since this recent unwillingness to defend the Church’s Constitutional liberty amidst often onerous COVID restrictions.  To God’s glory, President Donald J. Trump was able to make 3 apparently sound appointments, including one protestant (Gorsuch, Episcopal – replacing Scalia) and possibly even an evangelical Catholic, in Justice Amy Barrett.

Accordingly, the U.S. Supreme Court has changed course in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn vs. Cuomo and Southbay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom, from owing “significant deference to politically accountable officials,” to now even Chief Justice John Roberts (for a 6-3 majority in Southbay) conceding that such “deference, though broad, has its limits.”

This change creates a conflict between rulings and federal jurisdictions, which is one of the primary reasons for the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a hearing (the request for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case is called a “Writ of Certiorari”).

The amicus meaning “friend,” (of the court) brief IFI has joined, encourages a ruling on several additional key issues, including:

• Religious liberty should be applied to the community, or the Church corporately, not just to individuals. This element of religious exercise has greatly eroded to the extent that the Court has been unwilling to even define “religion.”
• Churches must have the same exceptions as “essential” services.
• Exceptions to restrictions, even with a compelling interest (i.e., reducing COVID spread), must be no worse for religious practice and organizations than for comparable “secular” ones. (Really, such exceptions should be even greater for First Amendment protected classes. One might say that the U.S. Constitution has pre-determined them to be “essential.”)
• Limits on religious practices and institutions should require the least restrictive means possible, and that means should be rationally calculated to actually achieve the compelling state interest. This is a request to return completely to the strict scrutiny test.

In the more recent COVID cases, the majority signaled a potential return to the historic strict scrutiny standard (maximum Constitutional protection) for free exercise of religion, requiring that New York and California prove their regulations, which obviously target religion for differential treatment, are narrowly tailored to achieving a compelling government interest (reducing COVID spread).

When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice;
but when a wicked man rules, the people groan. ~Proverbs 29:2

While the 6-3 majority coalition in Southbay is very fragmented, with five different opinions on the outcome (4 separate concurrences from the majority: Roberts, Thomas, Gorsuch, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, and one dissent by the usual liberal justices: Kagan, Sotomayor, and Breyer), it appears that 5 to 6 Justices may favor a return to the strict scrutiny standard. 

In this case, these new Justices have already established a desperately needed check upon the ultra-liberal extremist control in the executive and legislative branches.  Also encouraging is the Chief Justice’s affirmation of his loyalty to the Constitutional text in refusal to preside over a proceeding to remove a former president from his former office.

Nonetheless, all but two of the members of this same Court have also shown a willingness to punt the Constitution in the face of pressure in the Texas v. Pennsylvania election challenge.

The Governor, using Illinois taxpayer dollars (i.e., the Attorney General’s office – they should be defending the people) to defend his restriction of their rights, has stalled this case at every turn by:

• delaying response until the last possible deadline (i.e., at 10:00 p.m. on the night before the Supreme Court was to rule on Elim Pentecostal Church’s emergency appeal to open for Easter)
• not responding to Elim’s petition for Certiorari, until the Court ordered him to file a response
• re-using arguments of mootness already rejected by the Court in Roman Catholic Diocese (the Governor changed his Executive Order at the last moment and then responded that Elim was no longer being harmed).

There will no doubt be numerous other attacks, both philosophical and political, every step of the way, against this Court, with a majority who has expressed a philosophy of solid textual interpretation of the Constitution, compatible with this Nation’s historic religious heritage.

This is major progress, but there is yet a long way to go for a Court which has for the past 48 (out of 245) years enshrined a right to murder children before they are born.

We must, must, must constantly uphold them in prayer.

Pray every day that:

• God will change the hearts of those Justices who have been unwilling to protect and defend the broad freedom of religion clearly given in the First Amendment,
• He will influence changes of bad legal reasoning,
• He will give great courage to stand to those on the Court who already agree,
• Elim will become the ultimate Religious Freedom Restoration Act, correcting previous wrong denial of freedom by the Court, and
• Such a reversal will lead to other reversals of bad law, such as Roe v. Wade.

Please consider supporting the good work of Illinois Family Institute.

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

Warning: Reader Discretion is Advised

Leftists do not seek only to destroy, divide, cancel, and erase. They seek also to re-fashion a brave new world. A look at two recent cultural events reveals the kind of world with which leftists hope to replace cancelled America.

The most recent was Sunday’s Super Bowl during which a vulgar man/boy who calls himself the Weekend performed his song “Earn It” which is a paean to sadomasochism written for the softcore porn movie Fifty Shades of Grey which was based on the twisted softcore porn bodice ripper Fifty Shades of Grey. In the name of “equity,” leftists want to get women as addicted to porn as men are.

An official video of “Earn It” available on YouTube for every man, woman, and child to view consists of the man/boy Weekend, leering creepily at half a dozen women wearing only pasties and thongs with big black Xs on their buttocks who gyrate sexually while carrying the accouterments of sadomasochism. Google, which cancels conservative ideas and which owns YouTube, finds nothing troubling at all about providing a platform for a softcore porn video that objectifies and exploits women—i.e., adult female humans.

Sanctimonious leftists continually preach sermons about which ideas must be cancelled because they’re destructive and immoral. Apparently, those leftists think the Weekend is wholly undeserving of cancellation, because he never says anything destructive or immoral.

Unlike the destructive act of saying men can’t become women or saying the union of two people of the same sex can never be a marriage, porn and sadomasochism never hurt women, children, or families—or so leftists claim. Here’s a brief excerpt from one of the Weekend’s “songs” that, presumably, leftists think is healthy and good for America:

I think I’ve finally fell in love now

Her name is Tammy, she got hella bitches

She let me f*ck ’em while my ni**as film it …

…

Girl go ’head and show me how you go down

And I feel my whole body peakin’

And I’m f*ckin’ anybody with they legs wide

Got me higher than a ni**ga from the West Side

If anyone affirms sexual deviance, and the abuse, exploitation, and objectification of women, the left will definitely not cancel them. Instead, sexual libertines will be given the most colossal platforms leftists can find. And leftist ideological tyrants make sure those platforms are ones that children can access.

The second cultural event took place just two days before the Super Bowl when LA Times and Wired Magazine writer Virginia Heffernan wrote a condescending column in which she argues that even acts of unselfish generosity on the parts of Trump voters require nothing more than a begrudging smidge of appreciation. She defends her bitter intolerance as a legitimate response for the indefensible sin of voting for Trump:

The Trumpites next door to our pandemic getaway, who seem as devoted to the ex-president as you can get without being Q fans, just plowed our driveway without being asked and did a great job.

How am I going to resist demands for unity in the face of this act of aggressive niceness?

Of course, on some level, I realize I owe them thanks—and, man, it really looks like the guy back-dragged the driveway like a pro—but how much thanks?

Heffernan’s answer is suggested in her question. She plans to respond minimally:

[w]ith a wave and a thanks, a minimal start on building back trust. I’m not ready to knock on the door with a covered dish yet.

I also can’t give my neighbors absolution; it’s not mine to give. Free driveway work, as nice as it is, is just not the same currency as justice and truth. To pretend it is would be to lie, and they probably aren’t looking for absolution anyway.

But I can offer a standing invitation to make amends. Not with a snowplow but by recognizing the truth about the Trump administration and, more important, by working for justice for all those whom the administration harmed. Only when we work shoulder to shoulder to repair the damage of the last four years will we even begin to dig out of this storm.

Absolution? What arrogant audacity to imply 74 million Americans need absolution for voting their consciences; for voting to try to protect their children’s economic futures; for voting to protect the jobs of those in the energy sector; for voting to preserve energy independence; for voting to secure our borders in the same way other countries secure their borders; for voting to protect our children from indoctrination with leftist sexuality beliefs and Critical Race Theory;  for voting to protect our children from having to undress in the presence of peers of the opposite sex; for voting to protect the First and Second Amendments; and for voting to protect the lives of humans in the womb.

In the grimy hands and bendy minds of oily leftists, justice and truth are slippery concepts. Many Trump voters think, for example, that men can’t be women, and that falsifying birth certificates or referring to “Caitlyn” Jenner by female pronouns are acts of lying. And many Trump voters believe allowing biological men—also known as men—to compete in women’s sports is manifestly—or womanifestly—unjust.

Heffernan is right on one point, though. Absolution isn’t hers to give, and Trump voters owe her nothing. If attempts to “make amends” and to work for “justice”—as defined by leftists—are “unity” prerequisites, then there will be no unity in America. But we already knew that.

After comparing Trump voters to Hezbollah, Louis Farrakhan, and Nazi collaborator Philippe Pétain, Heffernan said this:

What do we do about the Trumpites around us? … Americans are expected to forgive and forget before we’ve even stitched up our wounds. Or gotten our vaccines against the pandemic that former President Trump utterly failed to mitigate.

My neighbors supported a man who showed near-murderous contempt for the majority of Americans.

Are the 74 million Trump voters expected to forgive and forget the leftists who showed near murderous contempt for all the Americans who lived in terror as their cities and businesses were burned and looted, and police officers spit at and beaten?

Are Trump voters expected to forgive and forget before they’ve even stitched their lives back together?

Are Trump voters expected to forgive and forget the shabby way President Trump and Melania Trump were treated by the bigoted, partisan press since the moment President Trump was elected?

Are Trump voters expected to forgive and forget the millions of tax dollars spent on the Russian collusion hoax and two impeachment trials—including the one that Chief Justice John Roberts refuses to preside over?

Are Trump voters expected to forgive and forget the way Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh was treated by Democrats?

Are Trump voters expected to forgive and forget the way the press covered for the corrupt Joe Biden during his invisible campaign?

Are Trump voters expected to forgive and forget that leftists have given Trump little to no credit for Operation Warp Speed?

Apparently, leftists have little understanding that Trump voters view the beliefs of leftists—particularly on matters pertaining to sexuality and marriage—as evil and destructive as leftists view conservative beliefs.

Leftists that control Big Tech, big business, our professional medical and mental health organizations, public schools, secondary schools, the mainstream press, and the “arts,” do not support diversity of ideas. They do not value tolerance for beliefs they hate. They do not love liberty for deplorables, ugly folks, and theologically orthodox Christians.

And despite all their prior opposition to “imposing morality,” leftists are now firmly committed to imposing their morality—including on other people’s children using taxpayer money.

The beauty of America used to be that, recognizing the diversity of ideas and beliefs, Americans were committed to allowing the free flow of ideas and robust debate. The notion that a ruling class could declare that their presuppositions would enjoy unencumbered public expression and that all dissenting views would be banned was unthinkable.

It was this freedom that made America a refuge for oppressed people around the world, and as leftists deracinate this freedom, America becomes an oppressive place to live for millions of Americans. Increasingly, the only freedom valued by those who rule America is the freedom for unrestrained sexual deviance to destroy hearts, minds, bodies, souls, families, churches, and the First Amendment.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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In June Medical Services v. Russo, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts again disappoints conservatives. Roberts voted with the politically “progressive”/morally regressive majority to strike down a Louisiana law requiring abortionists to have hospital privileges within 30 miles of the slaughterhouses in which they kill tiny humans and occasionally end up killing or maiming their mothers. This law would have required abortuaries in which surgical procedures are performed to adhere to the same safety regulations as all other ambulatory surgical centers.

Ironically, in a similar case out of Texas similarly decided, Roberts dissented, siding with conservatives. In June Medical Services v. Russo, Roberts concluded that following precedent (i.e., stare decisis) rather than sound reasoning is the absolute highest priority of any Justice. Good thing Roberts wasn’t sitting on the Supreme Court when Brown v. Board of Education overturned Plessy v. Ferguson or when Loving v. Virginia overturned Pace v. Alabama.

In his dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas made clear that the abortionists pursuing this lawsuit lacked “standing”:

Their sole claim before this Court is that Louisiana’s law violates the purported substantive due process right of a woman to abort her unborn child. But they concede that this right does not belong to them, and they seek to vindicate no private rights of their own. Under a proper understanding of Article III, these plaintiffs lack standing to invoke our jurisdiction.

Despite the fact that we granted Louisiana’s petition specifically to address whether “abortion providers [can] be presumed to have third-party standing to challenge health and safety regulations on behalf of their patients,” a majority of the Court all but ignores the question. The plurality and THE CHIEF JUSTICE ultimately cast aside this jurisdictional barrier to conclude that Louisiana’s law is unconstitutional under our precedents.

Attorneys represent litigants in lawsuits, and litigants must be able to claim that they are in some way harmed by a law. The purported harmful effect is what gives them “standing” to pursue a lawsuit. Since feticidal profiteers have trouble getting women to argue against abortionists having hospital privileges, this lawsuit was pursued by “third parties” who would be “harmed” monetarily by a law requiring abortionists to have hospital privileges.

The ability of abortionists to serve as third-party litigants was secured in the 1976 case Singleton v. Wulff in which two feticide providers sued for the right to have Medicaid reimburse them for killing humans in “not ‘medically indicated’” abortions. It was determined by the liberal court that the feticide providers had “standing” because, according to Justice Blackmun, “they will benefit by receiving payment for the abortions.”

“The point is, Ladies and Gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works,” says Gordon Gekko.

‘Twas ever thus.

Justice Thomas goes on to remind America of the fundamental truth that Supreme Court precedents defending abortion lack even “a shred of support from the Constitution’s text”:

Our abortion precedents are grievously wrong and should be overruled.

He’s far from alone in his assessment of the precedents as “grievously wrong.” Here are some assessments of Roe v. Wade from liberals:

• “One of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.” (Laurence Tribe, Harvard Law School professor).

• “As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible. I say this as someone utterly committed to the right to choose” (Edward Lazarus, former clerk to SCOTUS Justice Harry Blackmun).

• “[A]s a matter of constitutional interpretation, even most liberal jurisprudes — if you administer truth serum—will tell you it is basically indefensible” (Edward Lazarus).

• “Blackmun’s [U.S. Supreme Court] papers vindicate every indictment of Roe: invention, overreach, arbitrariness, textual indifference” (William Saletan, Slate magazine writer).

• Roe “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be…. What is frightening about Roe is that this super-protected right is not inferable from the language of the U.S. Constitution, the framers’ thinking respecting the specific problem in issue, any general value derivable from the provisions they included, or the nation’s governmental structure.” (John Hart Ely, clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren).

• “[T]he very basis of the Roe v. Wade decision—the one that grounds abortion rights in the Constitution—strikes many people now as faintly ridiculous. Whatever abortion may be, it cannot simply be a matter of privacy. … “[Roe] is a Supreme Court decision whose reasoning has not held up. It seems more fiat than argument. … Still, a bad decision is a bad decision. If the best we can say for it is that the end justifies the means, then we have not only lost the argument—but a bit of our soul as well” (Richard Cohen, Washington Post columnist).

• “Judges have no special competence, qualifications, or mandate to decide between equally compelling moral claims (as in the abortion controversy) …. [C]lear governing constitutional principles… are not present” (Alan Dershowitz, former Harvard Law School professor).

• “In short, 30 years later, it seems increasingly clear that this pro-choice magazine was correct in 1973 when it criticized Roe on constitutional grounds. … Thirty years after Roe, the finest constitutional minds in the country still have not been able to produce a constitutional justification for striking down restrictions on early-term abortions that is substantially more convincing than Justice Harry Blackmun’s famously artless opinion itself. As a result, the pro-choice majority asks nominees to swear allegiance to the decision without being able to identify an intelligible principle to support it” (Jeffrey Rosen, George Washington University Law School professor, former clerk to Judge Abner Mikva).

• “Liberal judicial activism peaked with Roe v. Wade, the 1973 abortion decision…. Although I am pro-choice, I was taught in law school, and still believe, that Roe v. Wade is a muddle of bad reasoning and an authentic example of judicial overreaching” (Michael Kinsley, attorney, political journalist).

• “[I]t is time to admit in public that, as an example of the practice of constitutional opinion writing, Roe is a serious disappointment. You will be hard-pressed to find a constitutional law professor. … who will embrace the opinion itself rather than the result. … As constitutional argument, Roe is barely coherent. The court pulled its fundamental right to choose more or less from the constitutional ether.” (Kermit Roosevelt, University of Pennsylvania Law School professor).

• “The failure to confront the issue in principled terms leaves the opinion to read like a set of hospital rules and regulations…. Neither historian, nor layman, nor lawyer will be persuaded that all the prescriptions of Justice Blackmun are part of the Constitution” (Archibald Cox, JFK’s Solicitor General, former Harvard Law School professor).

The super creepy pro-feticide organization Personal PAC, whose sole reason for its creepy existence is to protect the legal right of women to have their own offspring offed, is expressing only tepid kudos for this decision. Their enthusiasm is tempered by their correct assumption that pro-life activism will not cease:

While the Supreme Court’s decision in June Medical Services was a temporary reprieve from the assault on reproductive rights. … [d]on’t be fooled. … The anti-choice extremists are emboldened by today’s decision and it is to our great peril if we think it portends anything other than a reprieve by the Court Trump promised would end Roe.

“Choice” is an obvious and deceitful euphemism that is not up to the task for which it was created: it can’t conceal the truth about the unseemly nature of the choice leftists want women to have.

There exists no absolute or constitutional right “to choose.” Leftists exploit the word “choose” or “choice” because of its positive connotations. They exploit it because of the fondness everyone has for making choices in life. But not even leftists believe that a free-floating right “to choose” exists. There are a host of choices they want to proscribe:

• Leftists don’t believe parents should have school choice.

• Leftists don’t believe parents should have the right to choose whether their minor gender dysphoric children are chemically sterilized or surgically mutilated.

• Leftists don’t believe parents should have the right to choose the type of sex education their children should receive.

• Leftists don’t believe minors who experience unchosen, unwanted homoerotic feelings should have counseling choice.

• Leftists don’t believe employers should have the right to choose whether to hire or fire cross-dressing men.

• Leftists don’t believe anyone should have the right to refer to cross-dressing men by male pronouns.

• Leftists don’t believe women have the right to choose to exclude all biological men from their private spaces or sports.

• Leftists—well, most leftists–don’t believe minors should have the right to choose to have sex with adults.

So many choices of which tyrannical leftists want to deprive Americans. Well, many Americans don’t believe women have a moral or constitutional right to order the killing of imperfect or inconvenient humans.

Feminist and family abolitionist Sophie Lewis cheerfully admits,

Abortion is … a form of killing. It’s a form of killing that we need to be able to defend. I am not interested in where a human life starts to exist.

Because science confirms that the product of conception between two humans is a human, abortion inarguably kills humans. At no point in the gestational process is the product of conception anything other than human. Since abortion kills humans, legalized human slaughter will never cease to divide America.

Anything that gnaws around the edges of the child-killing cultural tumor that we refer to as Roe v. Wade is a good thing. Chief Justice Roberts didn’t help babies, women, or America.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/mp3-Chief-Justice-Roberts-Votes-with-Liberals-Against-Tiny-Humans-and-Women-_audio_01.mp3

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In June Medical Services v. Russo, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts again disappoints conservatives. Roberts voted with the politically “progressive”/morally regressive majority to strike down a Louisiana law requiring abortionists to have hospital privileges within 30 miles of the slaughterhouse in which they kill tiny humans and occasionally end up killing or maiming their mothers. This law would have required abortuaries in which surgical procedures are performed to adhere to the same safety regulations as all other ambulatory surgical centers.

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In a shocking U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decision, Justice Neil Gorsuch voted with the axis of evil—that is, with Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor. In Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, the axis of evil decided that in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the word “sex” includes “sexual orientation” and “gender identity”—both subjectively constituted conditions. As a result, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in employment based on “race, color, religion, sex, and national origin,” now prohibits employers from firing employees who self-identify as homosexual or as the sex they are not and never can be.

The crux of the argument goes something like this: If a company that allows a woman who gets breast implants and wears lipstick, stilettos, and dresses to work fires a man who gets breast implants and wears lipstick, stilettos, and dresses to work, the company has discriminated against him based on his sex and, therefore, violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

Not only are “trans”-cultists eradicating all public accommodation of real sex differences, but they’re also eradicating every cultural convention that recognizes, honors, and reinforces sex differences. They’re saying that not only are they permitted to reject cultural conventions regarding hairstyles, jewelry, clothing, and makeup, but everyone else must. Further, even biological reality as a signifier of biological sex must be rejected by everyone. So, as the very liberal author of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling, has learned, no one may say that only women menstruate.

The tyrannical Supremacist Court of the United States has declared from on its high horse that no employer with over 15 employees may fire an employee who decides to cross-dress at work. For those who remain blissfully unaware, there are efforts afoot to make such a view apply to companies with fewer than 15 employees too.

What if the owner of an independent toy store with three locations in neighboring towns employs 15 people and one of those employees announces he will henceforth “identify” as a woman. Now he cannot be fired—not even if the store where the cross-dressing man works will be destroyed because parents will no longer bring their toddlers and young children to an establishment that will require them to explain perversion to children who are too young to understand it and may be disturbed by it.

Many obstetrician-gynecologists staff their offices with only women—including only women nurses. Now imagine that one of those nurses announces she will be socially, chemically, and surgically “transitioning” and hopes to look like this biological woman one day (yes, this is a woman):

Is it just for doctors to be prohibited from firing her?

In their dissent, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito issued a stinging rebuke of the hubris of the majority opinion:

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination on any of five specified grounds: “race, color, religion, sex, [and] national origin.” … Neither “sexual orientation” nor “gender identity” appears on that list. For the past 45 years, bills have been introduced in Congress to add “sexual orientation” to the list, and in recent years, bills have included “gender identity” as well. But to date, none has passed both Houses. Last year, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would amend Title VII by defining sex discrimination to include both “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” … This bill remains before a House Subcommittee.

Because no such amendment of Title VII has been enacted in accordance with the requirements in the Constitution … Title VII’s prohibition of discrimination because of “sex” still means what it has always  meant. But the Court is not deterred by these constitutional niceties. Usurping the constitutional authority of the other branches, the Court has essentially taken H. R. 5’s provision on employment discrimination and issued it under the guise of statutory interpretation. A more brazen abuse of our authority to interpret statutes is hard to recall.

The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous. Even as understood today, the concept of discrimination because of “sex” is different from discrimination because of “sexual orientation” or “gender identity.” And in any event, our duty is to interpret statutory terms to “mean what they conveyed to reasonable people at the time they were written.”

Alito and Thomas preview the deleterious effects this decision will have on American life and liberty:

As the briefing in these cases has warned, the position that the Court now adopts will threaten freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and personal privacy and safety. No one should think that the Court’s decision represents an unalloyed victory for individual liberty.

While churches and other religious organizations, including religious schools, will probably be allowed what is called a “ministerial exception”—at least for a time—for those involved in teaching the tenets of their faith, it is unlikely that exemption will apply to those employed in other positions. For example, a private Christian school will be prohibited from firing any math, science, Spanish, or P.E. teacher, secretary, custodian, cafeteria worker, playground supervisor, or crossing guard who decides to identify as the opposite sex, cross-dress, take cross-sex hormones, and surgically disguise his or her sex.

For those churches, Christian schools, and parachurch organizations that reassure themselves that such events are unlikely, just remember what’s happened to Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker who has been relentlessly sued by “LGBT” persons. Sexual subversives are going to specifically target Christian institutions.

Alito and Thomas warn that this pernicious SCOTUS decision will likely be used force the sexual integration of bathrooms, locker rooms, and women’s shelters; to force people to use “gender” obliterators’ “preferred pronouns”; to force employers to cover “costly sex reassignment surgery”; and to force colleges to assign dorm rooms based on the sex students wish they were rather than the sex they are.

This pernicious decision will be used too as a precedent when challenges to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 appear before the U.S. Supreme Court. How could the Court now conclude any way other than that the word “sex” in Title IX includes “gender identity.” When the axis of evil decides that, women’s sports are destroyed, and eventually all women’s records from high school, college, the Olympics, and professional sports will be broken by men.

Good job feminist supporters of the “trans” cult.

In Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s separate dissent, he emphasizes the violation of the separation of powers that the decision represents:

Under the Constitution’s separation of powers, the responsibility to amend Title VII belongs to Congress and the President in the legislative process, not to this Court. … [W]e are judges, not Members of Congress. And in Alexander Hamilton’s words, federal judges exercise “neither Force nor Will, but merely judgment.”… If judges could rewrite laws based on their own policy views, or based on their own assessments of likely future legislative action, the critical distinction between legislative authority and judicial authority that undergirds the Constitution’s separation of powers would collapse, thereby threatening the impartial rule of law and individual liberty. …

Both common parlance and common legal usage treat sex discrimination and sexual orientation discrimination as two distinct categories of discrimination—back in 1964 and still today. As to common parlance, few in 1964 (or today) would describe a firing because of sexual orientation as a firing because of sex. As commonly understood, sexual orientation discrimination is distinct from, and not a form of, sex discrimination. The majority opinion acknowledges the common understanding, noting that the plaintiffs here probably did not tell their friends that they were fired because of their sex. That observation is clearly correct. In common parlance, Bostock and Zarda were fired because they were gay, not because they were men. …

Who likes this SCOTUS decision? The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), that’s who. GLSEN’s raison d’être, is to use schools to normalize sexual deviance, which, of course, means eradicating theologically orthodox views on sexuality. GLSEN tweeted,

[T]oday’s landmark SCOTUS ruling will help to protect the many LGBTQ educators in K-12 schools who have faced harassment or job loss for simply being who they are. It also underscores the need for Congress to pass the Equality Act.

“Who they are” is a convenient bit of Newspeak to conceal what “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” really are. According to cultural regressives, “sexual orientation” is constituted by subjective, internal romantic and erotic feelings and volitional erotic acts. “Gender identity” is constituted by subjective, internal feelings about one’s maleness and/or femaleness or lack thereof. Now that SCOTUS includes conditions constituted—not by any objective criteria—but by subjective sexual feelings, all that remains is for sexual anarchists allied with other anarchists to expand the definition of “sexual orientation” and the job of sexual wokesters will be done. #CultureDestroyed.

So, in the service of “inclusivity,” they will work like the Devil and for the Devil to include polyamory, Genetic Sexual Attraction (i.e., consensual, adult incest), Minor Attraction (i.e., pedophilia, hebephilia, and ephebophilia), infantilism, zoophilia (i.e., bestiality), and every other sexual philia in the list of sexual orientations.

Then once that is accomplished, laws will protect celebrants of sexual disorder from being fired and schools will teacher kindergartners that love is love. Poly “love” will be called good. “Love” between two adult brothers will be deemed equivalent to interracial love. And teaching that “love” between humans and animals is wrong will be condemned as ignorant bigotry based on the hateful ideology of speciesism.

By the way, those naively depending on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to protect their religious liberty can forget about it. The Equality Act, which eventually will pass, explicitly guts RFRA.

This SCOTUS decision is not a victory for the country or for freedom. It’s another tragic defeat for the constitutional separation of powers, self-government, morality, truth, speech rights, and religious liberty. Conservative Christians, you’ve been warned—again.

Listen to this article read by Laurie: 

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Shocking-SCOTUS-Decision-Shockingly-Written-by-Gorsuch.mp3

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Former State Representative Peter Breen (R-Lombard) has two words for his fellow Illinoisans, “Fair Maps.” Fair Maps is an effort to break the hold Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) has on the state’s election map.

On the website FairMapsIllinois.com, Breen explains, “If you despair over the future of Illinois… if you’re frustrated about the stranglehold of a corrupt political machine over Illinois politics… if you worry about whether your friends and family—and even you yourself—will be able to make a home in Illinois in the years to come… then this message is just for you.”

Fair Maps is a grassroots plan to let voters put a referendum on the 2020 ballot to amend the state constitution. If passed, the referendum would give the power to redraw the redistricting maps to an independent, bipartisan commission. To get Fair Maps on the ballot, Breen needs the signatures of 360,000 registered Illinois voters.

Breen does have public opinion on his side. According to a poll conducted in the spring by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, 67 percent of Illinoisans supported a constitutional amendment such as Breen’s that would allow an independent commission to draw legislative maps, instead of the state’s lawmakers.

The state constitution mandates redistricting be done every 10 years. New maps will be drawn up in 2021, after the 2020 election. Unless Fair Maps is placed on the ballot and passed by voters, Breen suggests the maps will be redrawn once again to favor Democrats who will be beholden to House Speaker Mike Madigan.

Breen calls the current system, “The linchpin that takes otherwise fleeting control over the political process and turns it into a decades-long, sustained political machine: the power to draw legislative maps to guarantee a permanent partisan majority. No matter how the political winds blow, whether for him or against him, Madigan’s majority cannot be overcome.”

Other states that have tried to reform redistricting have faced court battles that have gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In June 2019 cases involving the States of Maryland and North Carolina were declined by the Court. Chief Justice John Roberts admitted the problems states have with gerrymandering and partisanship writing, “But the fact that such gerrymandering is ‘incompatible with democratic principles’ does not mean that the solution lies with the federal judiciary. We conclude that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts.”

Iowas voters passed Fair Maps in 1980 and Breen calls the state, “A national model of clean, responsive government. Iowa’s debt and tax burden are under control. Iowa’s schools are good and its crime rate low. The people of Iowa are happy with their representation, and it’s easy to see why: when you have fair maps, legislators have to be much more careful to respond to the needs of the people they serve.”

Take ACTION: Click HERE to volunteer to collect a minimum of 10 signatures on an official petition page. You can also volunteer to sign up friends or promote this effort on social media.

This is an important way to return the political process to the voters of Illinois. Please prayerfully consider this worthy project, and spend a couple hours working to break free of the political headlock we’ve been in for decades.

A Night With Rev. Franklin Graham!
At this year’s annual IFI banquet, our keynote speaker will be none other than Rev. Franklin Graham, President & CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christian evangelist & missionary. This year’s event will be at the Tinley Park Convention Center on Nov. 1st. You don’t want to miss this special evening!

Learn more HERE.