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IFI Update: ERA Passes Illinois Senate

In a stunning display of ignorance, the Illinois State Senate just voted 43-12 in favor of the resolution to adopt the Equal Rights Amendment. What makes this vote even more enraging is that Republicans Pam Althoff (R-Crystal Lake), Jason Barickman (R-Pontiac), John Curran (R-Lemont), Mike Connelly (R-Wheaton), Karen McConnaughay (R-West Dundee), Chris Nybo (R-Hinsdale), Sue Rezin (R-Morris), and Tom Rooney (R-Palatine) voted with Democrats on this partisan resolution. (Updated at 7:30 pm)

According to Illinois Review, McConnaughay made this remarkably foolish and dishonest statement in defense of her traitorous vote:

The intention of the Illinois Senate Women’s Caucus is to advance legislation that supports, empowers and protects women of all aspects of life, and that’s exactly what we are doing today. Today, we are here together, Republican and Democratic women, to demonstrate our support of the Equal Rights Amendment, which ensures equality for all women…. This isn’t a partisan issue. It’s an issue that affects every single woman in this country. By coming together, we have a chance to make an impact at a national level for women all across the nation.”

Yes, nothing says non-partisan quite like a Constitutional amendment that will mandate taxpayer-funding of abortion, that will eradicate all abortion restrictions, that will end public recognition of sex differences in private spaces, and that will require women to register with the Selective Service.

Has McConnaughay read the ERA? It says nothing about women. So, where does she get the impression that the ERA will support, empower, and protect women? Of which specific rights does she believe women are deprived?

In a recent, almost-comical article on the ERA by Jennifer Camille Lee titled “Why does a hate group want to derail the ERA in Illinois,”  Lee provides ample justification for public mistrust of the leftwing press. Before getting to the ropy meat of her “argument” about the ERA, let’s peek at just one of her false claims.

Lee identifies Nancy Thorner as “a member of IFI.” Ms. Thorner is not now nor ever has been an employee of or writer for IFI.

After erroneously identifying Thorner as an IFI member, Lee paraphrases arguments Thorner made in pieces appearing in The Madison Record and Illinois Review after which Lee says, “any Illinois citizen or legislator who uses their [meaning IFI’s] arguments against the ERA is dealing in false facts and illogical arguments from a group that purposefully pushes a hateful agenda.”

To summarize, Lee uses arguments made by someone who is not an IFI employee and published in outlets wholly unrelated to IFI to suggest that no citizen or legislator should listen to IFI’s actual arguments about the ERA.

So, let’s carefully examine Lee’s arguments—you know, assertions with evidence—and her refutation of IFI’s  arguments. Oh wait, she didn’t have any arguments and she didn’t refute anything written by any IFI member. Well, what the heck, just for fun let’s look at her rhetoric.

Lee says that Thorner wrote a “scare piece” in The Madison Record. Since Lee provided no link, title or citation, I rooted around and found a recent letter to the editor by Thorner, which I assume is the “scare piece” to which Lee is referring. Lee claimed that Thorner said, “passing the ERA will create a gender-free society where it won’t be natural for women to be homemakers any longer.”

Thorner quoted from a document written about the ERA by constitutional attorney and fierce ERA-opponent Phyllis Schlafly in which Schlafly said this:

 Women’s Lib advocates do not want it to be considered any more natural for a woman to be a Homemaker than for a man to be a House-husband.

Who would disagree with that? Second-wave feminists inarguably sought to efface distinctions between men and women—well, except when they were claiming that women were far superior to men.

Lee repeatedly refers “readers back to the actual wording” of the ERA, which says that “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” Perhaps Lee didn’t notice that, while the ERA says precisely nothing about women, it does, indeed, guarantee a “gender-free society” if by gender, Lee means biological sex. You never can tell what those tricksy Leftists mean since they’re very busy redefining terms. It’s inarguable that the ERA makes it illegal to make distinctions based on sex. That’s the whole point and language of the ERA. Ergo, the ERA guarantees a “gender free society.”

Lee says that in a piece published by Illinois Review, “Ms. Thorner writes that women and all our unborn children will be irreparably harmed by the ERA.”

Evidently, Lee hasn’t read very broadly or deeply about the connection between the ERA and abortion. A court case in New Mexico, which has the equivalent of a state ERA, reveals the legal reasoning that justifies taxpayer-funding of abortion under the ERA:

The unanimous court held that a state ban on tax-funded abortions “undoubtedly singles out for less favorable treatment a gender-linked condition that is unique to women.

Taxpayer-funding of abortion—itself a grievous moral offense—will increase the number of abortions.

Moreover, as Elise Bouc, state chairman of STOP ERA Illinois has written, abortion restrictions will be overturned by the ERA, which explains why pro-abortion/anti-child organizations are fighting like the devil to get it passed:

Since abortion is unique to women, any attempt to restrict a woman’s access to abortion is seen, under the rules of the ERA, as a form of sex discrimination – because women are being singled out for a characteristic that is unique to them, and they are being treated differently based on that physical characteristic (in this case- the ability to become pregnant). Therefore any abortion restrictions would be overturned by the ERA…. In addition, since medical procedures unique to men are funded by Medicaid (such as circumcision and prostatectomies), then abortion which is unique to women, must also receive Medicaid funding under ERA requirements.

While Lee may consider the extermination of humans in the womb harmless, others beg to differ. There is no greater act of “irreparable harm” perpetrated against unborn children than killing them.

The ERA will inflict yet more damage. It will be used to grant unrestricted access to opposite-sex spaces and activities to persons who pretend to be the sex they are not. Single-sex restrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms, shelters, semi-private hospital rooms, nursing home rooms, dormitories, colleges, athletic teams, fraternities, sororities, clubs, and organizations would become co-ed or risk federal lawsuits. Even mother-daughter/father-son/father-daughter events at public schools would be eliminated.

The ERA would be used to force women to register for the Selective Service, and if the day should ever come when the draft is reinstated, to be drafted.

It would give enormous new powers to the federal government that now belong to the states. Section II of the ERA states that “The Congress shall have the power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article.” The ERA would give Congress the power to legislate on all those areas of law which include traditional differences of treatment on account of sex: marriage, property laws, divorce and alimony, child custody, adoptions, prison regulations, and insurance. For example, the Social Security System pays full-time homemaker “wives” 50 percent of their husband’s benefits over and above the check he receives. Upon their husbands’ deaths, widows receive the full benefits that their husbands had been receiving.  (The law also gives this benefit to a dependent husband, but nearly all dependent spouses are women.)

Lee believes that opposition to these changes–changes which harm women and children–is irrational. She also believes that IFI “may be entitled to an opinion, but they are not entitled to their own set of facts, and the fact is all the ERA does is grant equal protection to women under the U.S. Constitution.”

Like Lee, I will point readers and lawmakers back to the text of the ERA, which says nothing about women. It says everything, however, that lawmakers needed to know, which is that the ERA will eliminate recognition in laws, policies, and practices of the very real differences between men and women. And the victims will be primarily women and children.

This bill now moves to the Illinois House for consideration.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to email your state representative to urge him/her to oppose the ERA (SJRCA 4).

Here is the Illinois Senate roll call on the ERA:

Read more:  Please oppose ERA (SJRCA-4): It strengthens abortion rights

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ERA-Passes-Illinois-Senate_01.mp3


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Marijuana Decriminalization Puts Children and Families at Greater Risk

This bill will put more impaired drivers on the road,
more impaired employees in the workplace
and more children at risk.

Before the regular session ended on May 31st, State Representative Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago) and State Senator Heather Steans (D-Chicago) were able to pass legislation to decriminalize marijuana. The bill passed in both the Illinois House and Senate. Any day this dubious bill (SB 2228) will be sent to Governor Bruce Rauner, who will then have 60 days to sign it into law or veto it.

SB 2288 reduces criminal penalties from possession of 10 grams or less of marijuana to a civil law violation of $100 to $200. There are no limits to the number of civil law violations a person can receive, plus their record will be expunged every January 1st and July 1st.

What these lawmakers have done is removed a deterrent to drug use and addiction. They are moving full steam ahead toward full legalization. “Medical” marijuana and incremental decriminalization are the first necessary steps.

“The key to it is medical access, because once you have hundreds of thousands of people using marijuana under medical supervision the whole scam is going to be bought. Once there’s medical access…then we will get full legalization.” Richard Cowan, former director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send an email or fax to Governor Rauner.  Please urge him to veto SB 2228. Also, please call his Springfield office at (217) 782-0244. A tally report is given to the governor at the end of each day. There is a huge liability issue at stake that the governor should be concerned about. Who will assume responsibility for the increase in road fatalities, psychotic incidents, youth addictions, not to mention employer liability?

Too many lawmakers have been erroneously led to believe that our prisons and judicial system are overrun with “petty” marijuana offenses.  This is NOT the truth.  Please read a former Will County and Cook County Assistant State Attorney as he exposes this myth in an article he wrote exclusively for Illinois Family Institute: Cannabis Myths Exposed

This legislation was co-sponsored by State Representatives Barbara Flynn Currie (D-Chicago), Carol Ammons (D-Champaign), Sonya Harper (D-Chicago), Michael Zalewski (D-Riverside), Ed Sullivan (R-Mundelein), Christian Mitchell (D-Chicago), Jehan Gordon-Booth (D-Peoria), and Will Guzzardi (D-Chicago).

In the Illinois Senate, this legislation was co-sponsored by State Senators Michael Noland (D-Elgin) , Jacqueline Collins (D-Chicago), Jason Barickman (R-Pontiac), Toi Hutchinson (D-Chicago Heights), Don Harmon (D-Chicago), Pam Althoff (R-Crystal Lake), Karen McConnaughay (R-West Dundee), Linda Holmes (D-Aurora), Napoleon Harris (D-Harvey), Emil Jones III (D-Chicago), Patricia Van Pelt (D-Chicago), Donne Trotter (D-Chicago), and Iris Martinez (D-Chicago).

Background

Contrary to one of the reasons lawmakers give for decriminalization, prisons are NOT overcrowded with marijuana users. Click Here and Here  and Here.

Marijuana is NOT Harmless. Cannabis Use is classified as a Disorder in the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).

The American Academy of Pediatrics opposes medical marijuana outside the regulatory process of the FDA and opposes legalization because of the potential harms to children and adolescents.

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s policy statement warns of the negative effects on children.

The American Academy of Neurology warns that medical marijuana legislation is not supported by medical research.

The American Society of Addiction Medicine recognizes “there are several potential medical and public health consequences of marijuana use that require further research.”

Fatal car crashes involving marijuana double after states legalize the drug. States that have relaxed their laws are seeing a 24.4% increase in car fatalities.

Psychotic incidents increase with marijuana use. Click Here and Here and Here and Here and Here.

Children will be affected. As perceived risk decreases, use increases. Colorado has seen a jump in school drug cases.  Click Here and Here. Furthermore, a diminished IQ and cognitive performance and even brain abnormalities have been detected with “casual” use.

Drug use will become a big problem for employers.

With the state our state is in, why would lawmakers make it worse?



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Illinois Senate Passes Another Bullying Bill

How did they vote?

This morning, the Illinois Senate voted 37 to 18 to pass HB 5707, a completely unnecessary proposal sponsored by State Representative Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago) and State Senator Heather Steans (D-Chicago). 

This legislation constitutes nothing more than a reiteration of the Bullying Prevention Task Force recommendations that are available to all schools on the ISBE website.  Moreover, the fact that the bill’s sponsors and the ACLU have refused to ensure the rights of students and school employees to opt-out of “programming” and “training” that promote ideas that conflict with their personal and/or religious beliefs reveals the real goal, which is to use public education to promote unproven, non-factual beliefs about the nature and morality of homosexuality and “transgenderism.”  

Click HERE to see how your state senator voted on this legislation, or look at the graphic below.  Unfortunately, Republican Karen McConnaughay (South Elgin) voted for this subversive bill.

The bill will soon go to Governor Patrick Quinn, who is expected to sign it into law.

HB5707




Illinois Senate Passes the ERA

How did they vote?

This afternoon, the Illinois Senate voted 39 to 11 with 6 voting present to pass SJRCA 75, a completely unnecessary proposal  to amend the U.S. Constitution to eradicate sex as a legitimate characteristic on which to base reasonable distinctions.

Click HERE to see how your state senator voted on this legislation, or look at the graphic below.  State Senators Pam Althoff (R-McHenry), Karen McConnaughay (R-South Elgin), and Sue Rezin (R-Morris) spoke against the bill.  Unfortunately, Republican leader Christine Radogno and Senator Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) voted in favor of it.

The bill now moves to the Illinois House where Representative Lou Lang (D-Skokie) is the chief sponsor.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email or a fax to your state representative. Ask him/her to please vote against SJRCA 75.  (If you have already sent an email to your state senator, please now send an email to your state representative.)

ERA