Well, well, well, a recent news story pokes a hole in the leftist media portrayal of crossdressers as paragons of virtue and mental health who must never be criticized.

The story emerges from Chicago where LaSaia Wade, a crossdressing man who spends his days trying to normalize sexual deviance, has been fired from Brave Space Alliance, the “LGBTQ” center he founded and which, according to The Blaze, reportedly “grew during the pandemic into a multimillion-dollar operation.” Mr. Wade has allegedly been “diverting the organization’s funds to ‘unknown’ bank accounts.”

Biological male, “LaSaia” Wade

IFI readers, particularly those who live in Township High School District 211, may be familiar with Wade who in 2017 colluded with current school board member, the presumptuous Kim Cavill (who hosts inappropriate sex podcasts for minors with titles like “All About Anal” and “Let’s Talk About Porn”), to thwart the election of three outstanding school board members. That fascinating story bears retelling:

In the spring of 2017, three exceptionally well-qualified candidates who opposed co-ed private spaces for minors in public schools were running against three people who supported co-ed private spaces for minors. The three well-qualified challengers were,

Jean Forrest, a Chinese-American woman with an MA in economics who works as an actuary

Katherine Jee Young David, a Korean-American woman with a BS in Business Administration from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Ralph Bonatz who has a degree in electrical engineering and is a global quality control manager for an international corporation

On March 22, 2017, just 13 days before the 2017 election, Chicagoan LaSaia Wade and Daye Pope, another biological male who masquerades as a woman, set up a Super PAC called Trans United Fund Illinois. Pope is the organizing director for a 501(c)(3) called Trans United Fund.

Just two days later, on March 24, 2017—11 days before the 2017 election—Kim Cavill and her sister Lindsay Christensen also set up a Super PAC called Parents and Neighbors for Quality Education (PNQE).

Just days after the founding of Trans United Fund Illinois, some surprising donations came pouring in from people outside of District 211:

• Matrix Director “Lana” Wachowski, a biological man who pretends to be a woman and lives with his dominatrix wife in Chicago, donated a whopping $10,000.

• Far left former Illinois State Senator Heather Steans (D-Chicago), who has a son who pretends to be a woman, also donated $10,000.

• Homosexual Clark Pellet, a retired attorney and development chair for the “LGBTQ” Center on Halsted who lives in Chicago, donated $5,000.

• Executive director of Gender Rights Maryland, Dana Beyer, a man who pretends to be a woman and lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, donated $1,000.

• Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) who lives in Brooklyn, New York donated $500.

• Homosexual Douglas Hattaway, president and CEO of a Washington D.C. strategic communications firm who lives in D.C., donated $500.

• Architect Kira Kinsman, a biological man formerly known as Kyle Kinsman who lives in Wilkes Barre, PA, donated $250.

The more than $26, 000 in donations for a school board election from donors who don’t live in District 211 then went to—you guessed it—Cavill’s Parents and Neighbors for Quality Education.

Enquiring minds may wonder why Cavill and her sister set up PNQE, since Trans United Fund Illinois was already established. Why the extra step to fund the defeat of conservatives? The answer to that question might be found in mailers and yard signs.

State law requires that campaign mailers and yard signs identify the groups that pay for them. Signs must say “Approved by ….” Which sounds better—and by “better” I mean less likely to arouse suspicion: “Approved by Trans United Fund Illinois” or “Approved by Parents and Neighbors for Quality Education”?

Flush with filthy lucre, the Cavill sisters got busy smearing good people with nary a backward glance.

As reported by the “LGBTQ” newspaper Windy City Times, a local mom (Who could that have been?) reached out to Trans United Fund, “a national trans-led advocacy group,” who agreed to help them defeat the three candidates who supported single-sex locker rooms:

Trans United Fund (TUF) and a group of local parents, youth, and allies, worked together to launch the first trans-led, trans-focused independent expenditure in history. TUF assembled a powerful team of thoughtful allies to quickly build and execute a research-informed and strategic plan to help the parents and youth get their message out. TUF supported the parents’ efforts through digital, mail, phone banking and helping to train volunteers to reach their neighbors at the door.

The Windy City Times made clear this campaign was a smear campaign in which good people who believe locker rooms and restrooms should correspond to biological sex were vilified. District 211 community member Tracey Salvatore, spewing venomous lies, said this about the good people who were defeated:

We are fed up with this small group of vocal, transphobic people guided by a national hate group [Alliance Defending Freedom] wreaking havoc in our community…. Our District 211 community will not tolerate adults bullying kids or intimidating us for one more day. The ADF-inspired slate of candidates ran with the agenda of inserting a hate-based, national agenda into our schools. They didn’t care that their policy changes would increase bullying and violence against kids…. So we reached out to Trans United Fund and they helped us to get our message out to our neighbors and community members. (emphasis added)

Neither Salvatore nor anyone affiliated with PNQE felt the ethical obligation to provide evidence that the three candidates feared or hated “trans”-identifying students, or that they bullied kids, or that they intimidated community members, or that ADF has a “hate-based agenda,” or that single-sex private spaces for minors increase “bullying and violence.” Why try to provide impossible-to-find evidence when hate-mongering rhetoric does the job.

This bizarre and troubling story was picked up by no one in the press. No story in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, or Daily Herald.

Then in 2019, the dishonest Cavill ran for the school board and won. Still to this day ideological groomer Kim Cavill sits on her school board. Some District 211 taxpayers should ask her publicly about her collusion with scammer and skimmer Mr. LaSaia Wade.

District 211 School Board Member Kim Cavill, May 2022

Unfortunately, Brave Space Alliance remains operational—for now—headed by other mentally and morally unfit persons, like interim CEO, “Jae” Rice, a woman who pretends to be a man and uses the pronouns he/him. She spends her time “creating safe spaces in Chicago that center all Black LGBTQIA+ Women, Femmes, AFABS, and Queers.” For those who lack the time to learn all the neologisms “trans”-cultists invent to socially construct and impose their metaphysical beliefs, “AFAB” means “assigned female at birth.” Of course, only science deniers believe physicians “assign” sexes or genders at birth.

Then there’s Brave Space Alliance COO “Stephanie” Skora, a man who masquerades as a woman and boasts about his many-faceted life on Brave Space Alliance’s website:

Stephanie Skora is a writer, educator, speaker, organizer, and non-profiteer based in Chicago, Illinois. She lives as a femme lesbian, trans woman, and working-class anti-Zionist Ashkenazi Jew, and mobilizes her identities to work in solidarity with Palestinians, to queer Jewish spaces, and to fight for justice and liberation for all trans people. Stephanie is currently the COO of Brave Space Alliance, serves as Board President for the Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity, and is the author of the “Girl, I Guess” Progressive Voter Guide. When not working or organizing, Stephanie can be found enjoying the pleasures of life for a Virgo: food, love, and being right.

Biological male “Stephanie” Skora

Clearly, Skora’s strengths lie more in the area of imagination than clarity. He says he is a “trans woman,” which means he’s a man. He says he is a “femme lesbian,” which means he’s an effeminate heterosexual man who is sexually attracted to women and likes to cross-dress.

I’m not sure how he defines “working class,” unless he just means he works. He attended University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he earned his BA in “Gender & Women’s Studies and Political Science, with minor concentrations in Sociology and LGBT/Q Studies.” He claims to be not only a writer, speaker, and COO, but also a “renowned educator,” and “lesbian reclamationist,” who practices Jewish Anarchism, none of which connotes “working class” to most people.

Maybe, just maybe, some good can come from the sorry tales of LaSaia Wade and Kim Cavill. Maybe both will lose their positions and Brave Space Alliance will collapse under the weight of its lies.

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: 

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Folks, if you hope to defeat “trans” activism in your public schools, public libraries, the Springfield Swamp, and halls of Congress, you must first find those old rubbery spines that have been gathering dust in your attics. Then muster some courage to speak truth to Leftists who have been winning gold medals in epithet-hurling. Their tongues are now the strongest part of their bodies, while apparently their brains are the weakest. Try getting them to answer a few foundational questions that emerge from their incoherent, science-denying “trans”-ideology and watch them bob and weave, evasively changing subjects in between screeching “hater” at you. Just keep repeating to yourself the old adage your parents taught you: Sticks and stones may break your bones, but names will never hurt you. More on those foundational questions shortly.

Before you go on your spine search, please pay close attention to what has been happening in District 211—the largest high school district in Illinois with 12,000 students and 5 high schools—where local control has secretly been wrested from the community by a group of Leftists “colluding” secretly with “LGBTQ” activists outside the community—way outside the community—to sexually integrate student locker rooms.

Last week, I wrote about the purchase of the District 211 school board seats in 2017 by Laurence (aka “Lana”) Wachowski, “trans” director of the Matrix movies who lives in Chicago; a “trans” architect from Pennsylvania;  the lesbian head honcho of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network from New York; a state senator from Chicago; a homosexual CEO from D.C.; a “trans” activist from Maryland; a homosexual activist from Chicago; and two “trans” activists from Chicago who secretly funded the defeat of three excellent school board candidates.

Since then, it’s been revealed that Illinois’ premier “LGBTQ” activist organization, the grossly misnamed Equality Illinois, sent a representative to the District 211 School Board meeting on September 19 at which the proposal to sexually integrate all locker rooms was discussed. Equality Illinois boasted on its website about sending its “civic engagement coordinator,” Anthony Charles Galloway, who is the former Project Coordinator at Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region & Southwest Missouri.

Last Monday, Vicki Wilson, president of D211 Parents for Privacy, and Tracey Salvatore, an epithet-hurling mother of two District 211 elementary school children, were invited to appear on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight to be interviewed by Carol Marin.

Salvatore is the activist I mentioned in last week’s article who, instead of explaining exactly why private spaces should correspond to “gender identity” as opposed to biological sex, hurled epithets at parents who believe girls and boys should not be allowed to access the private spaces of opposite-sex peers.

Before I get to what Tracey Salvatore said on Chicago Tonight, it bears mentioning that for some odd reason her coach—er, I mean, escort to the Chicago Tonight studio was Ed Yohnka, communications director for the ACLU in Chicago. I wonder why Salvatore invited him?

Salvatore managed to refrain from her customary hate speech when making her points on Chicago Tonight. Perhaps her escort helped her avoid that pitfall.

In response to Carol Marin’s question about the prior policy requiring “trans”-identifying students to change behind privacy curtains (still bad policy but marginally better than unrestricted access) if using opposite-sex locker rooms, Salvatore said,

I do feel that it fell short of full inclusion, full equity, full access just by singling out transgender students as requiring them to use the privacy curtains.

Well, it rightly did prohibit “full access” because the person seeking “full access” to the girls’ locker room was a biological boy. But “transgender” students are not being “singled” out. The boy to whom Salvatore was referring singled himself out by asking for special treatment. He asked to be allowed unrestricted access to the girls’ locker room—something other boys are not allowed.

“Trans”-identifying persons, like all other humans, have a sex, which is objective, immutable, and meaningful. Schools, like every other place of public accommodation, have sex-separated spaces in which humans engage in personal bodily acts like undressing and going to the bathroom. Treating a boy as a boy is the epitome of equity. Conversely, including a biological boy in girls’ private spaces is the antithesis of fairness, impartiality, and equity. Treating a boy as if he is a girl in girls’ private spaces means treating him specially and violates the privacy rights of girls.

If girls have a right to be free of the presence of objectively male peers in their private spaces, that right is not abrogated by the feelings of some boys about their biological sex. If women have no right to be free of the presence of objectively male peers in their private spaces, then why have any sex-separate private spaces, including for staff and faculty. If biological sex has no intrinsic meaning relative to undressing and engaging in bodily functions, why have any sex-separate spaces?

Commitments to “inclusion” and “equity” do not require that persons who wish they were the sex they aren’t have access to opposite-sex private spaces. Their feelings about their maleness or femaleness do not grant them the right to dictate that private spaces no longer correspond to biological sex.

Grotesquely exploiting the words of Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren in Brown v. Board of Education, Salvatore said, “separate but equal is not equal.” Warren said this:

We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.

Segregating blacks from whites in schools or other places of public accommodation was a pernicious practice based on the erroneous belief that whites and blacks are by nature different and based on white hatred of blacks. Separating boys from girls in private spaces is based on the true belief that boys and girls are sexually different and that those differences matter when undressing and engaged in personal bodily functions. The desire to be free of the presence of persons of the opposite sex when undressing has nothing to do with hatred. Salvatore’s claim is patently foolish.

Salvatore’s third claim is equally foolish:

Transgender individuals are not a threat…. Transgender people are not a safety concern to anyone, not in a locker room, not on the street, not anywhere else.

First, the primary issue is not concern about predation—though that is an issue, particularly outside of schools. But how can Salvatore know with absolute certainty that “transgender people are not a safety concern” to anyone anywhere ever? Of course, she can’t and doesn’t know any such thing. While it is unlikely that a “trans”-identifying boy will sexually assault a girl in the girls’ locker room, can prognosticator Salvatore say with absolute certainty that no such boy ever will? Can she say with absolute certainty that no such boy will look at girls who are undressing? Can she say with absolute certainty that no such boy will ever expose himself in the presence of girls?

And what about students who have been victims of sexual abuse. Estimates are that 1 in 4 girls (and 1 in 6 boys) will be sexually abused by the age of 18, which means in District 211, there are likely 1,500 girls (and 1,000 boys) who are victims of sexual abuse. In contrast, the Williams Institute estimates that .7 percent of teens identify as “trans,” which would mean that there are about 42 biological boys who identify as “trans”  in District 211. Many, perhaps most, sexually abused girls feel uncomfortable changing clothes in the presence of opposite-sex persons. They should not be compelled to leave their own locker rooms in order to feel safe.

Though the issue of protecting the feelings of children who were victims of sexual abuses is critical, it is not the primary issue either.

The primary, foundational issue is the meaning of sexual differentiation. Do our sexed bodies have meaning or not? Cultural regressives, like Salvatore and school board member/sexpert Kim Cavill, essentially say that physical embodiment as male or female has no intrinsic meaning relative to feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy when engaged in personal acts like undressing and going to the bathroom, which is absurd and destructive nonsense. Three times Salvatore mentioned “respect,” and none of those times referred to the respect due to students who have a right to a locker rooms free from the presence of opposite sex peers.

Salvatore then made this baffling statement:

I think people have learned that transgender individuals are just like human beings.

Well, “transgender” individuals are not just “like” human beings. They actually are human beings, and I don’t know a single person who thinks otherwise. Recognizing “trans”-identifying persons as humans includes recognizing that they have a sex and that in private spaces their sexual identity is all that matters. Prohibiting students from using opposite-sex private facilities does not deny their existence or their humanness.

Salvatore assures the Chicago Tonight viewing audience that “the reality is that people are not getting naked in the locker room.” That may be true, but it’s hard to believe that students who are taking a swim class or are on swim teams, diving teams, or water polo teams are never naked as they change from clothes to swimsuits. That, however, is beside the point.

Unrestricted access means that if girls in girls’ locker rooms are permitted to be in their underwear or fully nude, so too is a biological boy who pretends to be a girl permitted to be in his underwear or fully nude in the girls’ locker room. And a biological boy who is permitted unrestricted access to the girls’ locker room is also permitted to be anywhere in the locker room when girls are changing into swimsuits. Whether any particular boy chooses to partially undress, fully undress, or be in the area where girls are changing into swimsuits is irrelevant. It’s the principle that matters.

Finally, here are the questions that every school board member, administrator, and supporter of the sexual integration of private spaces should be required to answer before any votes on policy proposals are taken:

• Why should locker rooms correspond to “gender identity” as opposed to biological sex?

• Who decided that in private spaces biological sex is subordinate to subjective feelings about maleness and femaleness and by what authority did they make such a radical decision?

• Do humans have an intrinsic right not to undress in the presence of persons of the opposite sex? If so, is that right abrogated by the feelings of “trans”-identifying persons or their aesthetic deception?

• If humans have no such right, then why retain any sex-segregated private spaces anywhere?

• Why is it reasonable for “trans”-identifying students to refuse to use restrooms/locker rooms with students who don’t share their “gender identity,” but it’s hateful for other students to refuse to use restrooms/locker rooms with peers who don’t share their sex?

• Why should girls in girls’ locker rooms who don’t want to undress in the presence of biological boys be forced to change behind a privacy curtain? Why can’t biological boys in the boys’ locker room who don’t want to undress in the presence of biological boys use a private changing area in the boys’ locker room or nurse’s office?

• If schools can’t discriminate based on either sex or “gender identity” in private spaces, wouldn’t prohibiting normal students (i.e., “cisgender” students) from using opposite-sex facilities constitute discrimination based on sex and/or discrimination based on “gender identity”?

• What should school restroom and locker room policy be for “gender fluid” students?

• In the “trans” community, girls who “identify” as boys are boys, so why should they be free to use girls’ private facilities? Should girls who “identify” as boys be required to use boys’ locker rooms?

• Are lesbians and homosexual men who oppose the sexual integration of private spaces—especially the private spaces of girls and women—demonizing, bullying, intimidating, hateful bigots as Salvatore characterized those who oppose the sexual integration of District 211 private spaces?

So many essential questions asked by no one even as we deny human nature and the fundamental rights of girls and boys.

Correction: This article has been corrected with regard to estimates of number of abuse victims and of teen boys who identify as “trans.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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Here’s something many Illinoisans don’t know about the school sexuality-indoctrination bill created by Illinois’ premier homosexual and “trans” activist organizations: Equality Illinois and the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance (formerly part of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network).* This bill, which requires that the “teaching of history shall include a study of the role and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the history of this country and this state,” also mandates the following:

 [N]o pupils shall be graduated from the eighth grade of any public school unless he has received such instruction in the history of the United States and gives evidence of having a comprehensive knowledge thereof.

Did you get that? Leftists in Springfield, controlled by outside organizations whose sole raison d’être is to transform the ontological, moral, and political beliefs of Americans, seek to require that children be inculcated with Leftist assumptions about deviant sexuality and be tested on them in order to move on to high school.

Exploiting taxpayer funds and captive audiences of children constitutes the most egregious form of propaganda imaginable. This outrageous effort to use children and public monies to advance a Leftist ideology must be opposed with the kind of fervor and tenacity usually demonstrated only by Leftists.

The bill also has a troubling section on the state’s textbook block grant program. This program, which historically provided textbooks to public and private schools—including Catholic schools—has not been funded for the past five years. If funding is restored and if the school sexuality-indoctrination bill passes, private religious schools would either have to forgo textbook-funding or use textbooks that include material that espouses positive views of disordered sexuality—views that violate both Catholic and Protestant doctrine.

If passed, the ideologically-driven school sexuality-indoctrination bill—also known deceptively as the “Inclusive Curriculum” bill (SB 3249  and HB 5596)—would require not only that k-12 teachers teach about the “roles and contributions” of homosexuals and those who reject their biological sex but also to tell students about the sexual predilections of those contributors. In other words, when teachers teach about the accomplishments of Sally Ride or the plays of Oscar Wilde, they would have to discuss their disordered sexual feelings and life choices as well. I wonder if Leftists will require that students be taught that Wilde’s first homosexual encounter was with a 17-year-old when Wilde was 32.

The goal of homosexual and “trans” activists is to use government school curricula to transfer the good feelings children and teens have about achievement to homosexuality and biological-sex rejection. That is decidedly not the role of public schools.

Teachers would also have to teach about the history of homosexual and “trans” activism. Because Leftists have been so effective at advancing their ideology by falsely claiming that homosexuality and biological-sex rejection are analogous to race, they are continuing with that false (and insulting to blacks) analogy by falsely claiming that “LGBTQQAP” activism is analogous to the Civil Rights Movement and must be taught as such to children.

The only other state in the nation that has passed such a radical and destructive law is California, which exposes how radical and destructive Springfield is.

IFI is pleading with Illinoisans—including families that homeschool and private-school their children—to contact their state representatives and senators to urge them to oppose this bill. Until such time as every theologically orthodox church creates a school to educate their children or provides financial assistance to their families who want to pull their children out of government schools but cannot homeschool and lack the means to send their children to private schools, we must continue to fight the usurpation of government schools by Leftists.

Due to death, divorce, desertion, or disability, there are many families in which there is only one wage-earner who cannot afford private school tuition. Compassion for their plight and a commitment to stewarding how our taxes are used should lead Christians to actively oppose this bill with all its devilish details.

*(Note the dishonesty of these organizations’ names: They are about neither equality nor safety. Equality demands that we treat like things alike. Homosexuality is not like heterosexuality, and it’s not like race. And “safety,” as virtually everyone knows by now, has been redefined by homosexuals and those who masquerade as the opposite sex to mean absence of the expression of beliefs with which they disagree.)

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to both your state representative and state senator, urging them to reject this effort to politicize curricula in order to advance biased beliefs about sexuality to children in government schools. Contact them repeatedly.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Devilish-Details-in-School-Sexuality-Indoctrination-Bill.mp3

Worldview Conference May 5th

Worldview has never been so important than it is today!  The contemporary culture is shaping the next generation’s understanding of faith far more than their faith is shaping their understanding of culture. The annual IFI Worldview Conference is a phenomenal opportunity to reverse that trend. This year we are featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet on Saturday, May 5th at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

The upcoming National Day of Silence (DOS) On Friday, April 15, organized and promoted by the extreme leftist Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), urges students to refuse to speak for an entire school day including during class. The stated purpose of DOS is to encourage sympathy and support for students involved in homosexual and cross-dressing behaviors whose voices have been allegedly silenced by the disapproval of society. The unstated purpose is to undermine the true belief that homosexuality and cross-dressing (as well as quackish chemical and surgical interventions) are immoral. Parents should no longer passively countenance the political usurpation of public school classrooms through student silence.

Some school administrators assert that DOS merely seeks to promote “acceptance.” They fail to clarify, however, precisely what they want students to accept. While it is legitimate to teach students that there exist diverse opinions on the issues of homosexuality and gender dysphoria, it is not legitimate for an arm of the government to imply that one set of opinions is preferable to another. While it is appropriate to teach acceptance of people, meaning that we should treat all with civility, it is not appropriate to suggest that students should accept one set of beliefs about homosexuality and gender dysphoria and reject the other. One can accept persons while rejecting their beliefs, desires, and life choices. These important distinctions are never made in public school discussions of “acceptance.”

Another oft-repeated mantra is that the goal of DOS is to keep “LGBTQ” students safe—a goal all decent people share. The rhetoric of “safety,” however, substitutes speciously for the more accurate term of “comfort.” To suggest that in order for those who self-identify as homosexual (or “transgender”) to be “safe,” no one may disapprove of homosexual conduct is both absurd and dangerous. If this understanding of “safety” were to be applied consistently, all statements of disapproval of any behavior would be prohibited.

If conservative parents, teachers, and administrators do not actively oppose the disruption of instructional time by DOS, it will metastasize from our high schools into our middle schools and then into elementary schools. Increasing numbers of students will participate, and increasing numbers of teachers who view themselves as “agents of change” will participate, emboldened by the ignorance and cowardice of colleagues, administrators, school board members, and parents.

Don’t believe me? Well, take a gander at how one middle school in New York—coming up on its fifth year of participation—has been celebrating DOS: Click HERE.

Worse still, some schools devote an entire week to promoting the normalization of homosexuality, culminating on Friday’s Day of Silence. While schools can no longer acknowledge Christmas, they may spend valuable class time celebrating life-destroying homosexuality, all the while misrepresenting it to gullible parents as an bullying-prevention effort.

Unfortunately, not even our private religious schools are exempt from the intrusive efforts of GLSEN. Last year five Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist nuns at Marin Catholic High School near San Francisco walked out of their classes to protest the intrusion of GLSEN through the Day of Silence.

The nuns were uncomfortable that GLSEN materials, which espouse positions that conflict with Catholic teaching, were being distributed to students on school grounds. Those who naively believe DOS is solely about bullying with no connection to conservative moral beliefs should peruse GLSEN resources, one of which identified “a house of worship that teaches homosexuality is a sin” as an example of oppression. In GLSEN’s perverse moral universe, churches are places of oppression, and oppressors are bullies. Eliminating bullying requires eradicating biblical beliefs about homosexuality.

The nuns were also troubled when they learned that “students were feeling pressured to accept and wear stickers” produced and distributed by GLSEN.

Those who oppose the Day of Silence will be maligned with the charge that opposition to the Day of Silence is proof of support for bullying. Of course, the truth is that it’s entirely possible to oppose both bullying and GLSEN’s Day of Silence.

Some dismiss the Day of Silence by claiming that there is only a small group of students who participate in it in their school, or that it’s only a few teachers. But does that matter? Would parents tolerate school administrations permitting a group of students to refuse to speak in class in support of consensual adult incest, promiscuity, polyamory, sadomasochism, or racism as long as the protesters were few in number?

For school administrations to permit student silence in class for DOS necessarily means they have come to prior conclusions about the nature and morality of homoerotic activity and relationships. How do I know this? Well, imagine there were a small group of students who identified as promiscuous or polyamorous and were bullied for their promiscuity or polyamory. Would any school administration permit a DOS during which promiscuity and polyamory were treated exactly as homosexuality and “transgenderism” are treated? Surely, neither school administrators nor teachers want promiscuous or polyamorous students bullied. Surely they want to create a “safe” space for them. So, what’s the difference?

The difference is school administrations know that the DOS doesn’t merely work to curb bullying. They know it has the effect (intended effect) of undermining disapproval of homosexuality and cross-dressing, but that’s okay because they have concluded that homoerotic feelings are 100 percent heritable, immutable in all cases, and that acting on them is intrinsically moral. School administrators have come to different moral conclusions, however, with regard to promiscuity or polyamory, and they realize that a DOS for promiscuity and polyamory would not merely end bullying but undermine moral disapproval of both—which they wouldn’t want to do. They would seek other means to curb bullying of promiscuous and polyamorous students.

Please muster the little courage it takes to email your middle and high school administrators and your children’s teachers to ask the questions below, and if the answers are unsatisfactory, keep your children home on the Day of Silence, Friday, April, 15, 2016:

Questions to ask administrators

• Do you permit students to refuse to speak during instructional time on the DOS?
• Do you permit teachers to refuse to speak during instructional time on the DOS?
• Prior to the DOS, do you notify all parents about it, including sharing complete information about GLSEN’s role in organizing and providing materials for it and informing parents about what will be permitted in the classroom?

Questions to ask teachers

• Do you create classroom assignments or activities that accommodate student-refusal to speak on the DOS?
• Do you teach lessons on oppression, censorship, or bullying in class on the DOS?
• Will you be using any information from GLSEN to shape or inform your activities on the DOS?
• If you accommodate student-refusal to speak and/or shape activities around ideas promoted by GLSEN for the DOS, will you be notifying parents ahead of time?

Cultural change rarely happens through dramatic single events. Rather, it happens through the slow accretion of little events that we dismiss as trivial. Gradual, incremental changes ignored eventually result in titanic cultural shifts. Those parents, teachers, and administrators who have known about the Day of Silence and have said and done nothing should feel ashamed of their acquiescence and cowardice. It is long past time that conservatives cease rationalizing their own passivity. The temporal and eternal lives of children are at risk.

Concerned about Common Core Standards?

Join us on April 8th in Orland Park for yet another IFI Forum, this time exploring The Case Against Common Core with Dr. Duke Pesta.  Click HERE for more information.

Click HERE for a flyer of the event.

The annual, well-organized, and nearly ubiquitous pro-homosexual/pro-gender-confusion political event called the Day of Silence (DOS) invades our public schools on Friday, April 12, 2019. The Day of Silence is sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) whose sole reason for existence is to use public schools to transform the beliefs of other people’s children about homosexuality and gender-confusion. The name is intended to convey the absurd notion that homosexual students are silenced by the hatred, bigotry, and ignorance of those who believe homoerotic activity, cross-dressing, and bodily mutilation are neither moral nor healthy.

While there are numerous pro-homosexual/pro-gender-confusion political events in our public schools, which are aided and abetted by liberal teachers who use curricula to reinforce their beliefs and social goals, there is only one organized event that seeks to oppose the DOS: the Day of Silence Walkout.

The Day of Silence Walkout is sponsored by a coalition of pro-family/pro-education groups from across the country who urge parents to ask their school administrators and children’s teachers these questions:

For administrators

• Do you permit students to refuse to speak during instructional time on the DOS?
• Do you permit teachers to refuse to speak during instructional time on the DOS?
• Prior to the DOS, do you notify all parents about it, including sharing complete information about GLSEN’s role in organizing and providing materials for it and informing parents about what will be permitted in the classroom?

For teachers

• Do you create classroom assignments or activities that accommodate student-refusal to speak on the DOS?
• Do you teach lessons on oppression, censorship, or bullying in class on the DOS?
• Will you be using any information from GLSEN to shape or inform your activities on the DOS?
• If you accommodate student-refusal to speak and/or shape activities around ideas promoted by GLSEN for the DOS, will you be notifying parents ahead of time?

If administrators and teachers will be accommodating or participating in the DOS in any way, we urge parents to keep their children home. Every student absence costs districts much-needed money. If every year, administrative and faculty accommodation of political activity in the classroom costs districts money, perhaps they will cease accommodating it.

The goal of the DOS Walkout is not to exacerbate social and political turmoil within public schools or to advance a counter position. If parents keep their children home, social turmoil may, however, result because liberal teachers and homosexual activists respond poorly to opposition.

The goal of the Walkout is to tell public school administrations, teachers, and school boards that schools have no business allowing classrooms with captive audiences to be politicized. The Walkout conveys that message in the only language schools administrations and school boards that are terrified of homosexual activists understand: loss of funds.

Schools have every right to prohibit students from refusing to speak during class. Schools have every right to prohibit teachers from refusing to speak in class. Schools have an ethical obligation to inform parents about the Day of Silence and to tell both parents and students that students may remain silent during passing periods and free periods but that they may not refuse to speak during class. And teachers have the right to create classroom activities that require verbal participation. This is one way conservative teachers can work against the relentless efforts of liberal teachers and students to use public schools to promote their subversive beliefs.

Here is some little known information about the Day of Silence:

• The Day of Silence began 20 years ago at the University of Virginia, has spread like a cancer into countless public high schools, and is now making its way into middle schools.
• GLSEN proudly announced in 2013 that “Hundreds of thousands of students from more than 70 countries” participated in the National Day of Silence.
• GLSEN offers videos and resources directed specifically at teachers—that is to say, government employees—that tell them how to help DOS participants in their political activities during instructional time.
• GLSEN instructs teachers on what to do both prior to and on the Day of Silence:
  • Visit the Day of Silence website prior to the Day of Silence and share the resources available there “on social media, in your classroom, and with your colleagues.”
  • “Focus on supporting your students who are participating in Day of Silence and on educating all of your students.”
  • “Dedicate class time to exploring concepts of censorship, oppression, and social justice.”
  • “Provide opportunities for students to journal on times when they felt silenced.”
  • “…plan your typical classroom activities, but use the silence. Switch out discussions and group work for reading, writing, and even drawing.”
  • “Most importantly on the Day of Silence, your students need you to be an ally and an advocate.”
  • “Visit glsen.org for LGBT-inclusive classroom activities and lesson plans, model policies and practices, research, and to connect with a local GLSEN chapter near you.”

The homosexual clubs in public schools that serve as the water carriers for GLSEN put up posters, host bake sales, and distribute cards, buttons, and stickers. Such activities are permitted by the Equal Access Act, a federal law that requires all extracurricular clubs to be treated the same. There is no law, however, requiring schools to permit students to refuse to speak in class. In fact, the DOS website posts this statement from the ACLU:

You DO NOT have a right to remain silent during class time if a teacher asks you to speak. [emphasis added]

Political activity in the service of highly controversial issues should not be permitted to disrupt instructional time. The Day of Silence is not centrally about ending bullying. The Day of Silence cynically exploits legitimate anti-bullying sentiment as a means to achieve GLSEN’s ultimate goal: the eradication of conservative beliefs on the nature and morality of homoerotic activity and “transgenderism.”

Day of Silence WALKOUT Endorsements:

Abiding Truth Ministries

Activist Mommy – Elizabeth Johnston

American Family Association

AFA Michigan

AFA Pennsylvania

Americans for Truth

Barbed Wire

Called2Action

Capitol Resource Institute

Carolina Crossroads News

Child Protection League (Minnesota)

Christian Rights Ministries

Citizens for Community Values

Coalition of African-American Pastors (CAAP)

Coalition of Conscience

Community Issues Council

CWA of California

CWA of Florida

CWA of Hawaii

CWA of Illinois

CWA of Iowa

CWA of Kansas

CWA of Missouri

CWA of North Carolina

CWA of Ohio

CWA of South Dakota

CWA of Texas South

CWA of Virginia

CWA of Washington

Don Feder, Don Feder Associates

Faith2Action

Faith, Family & Freedom Alliance

Faith & Freedom Family Ministries

Good News Communications, Inc.

Illinois Family Institute

Informing Christians

Liberty Counsel

MassResistance

Matt Abbott, Catholic Columnist for Renew America

Mission: America

Montana Family Foundation

Ohio Value Voters

One By One

Operation Save America – Pastor Christopher Clegg

Sandy Rios, Director of Governmental Affairs for American Family Association

SaveCalifornia.com

Virginia Christian Alliance

The Day of Silence, which is sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), fast approaches. This year it will take place in most public schools on Friday, April 17.

On this day, thousands of public high schools and increasing numbers of middle schools will allow students to remain silent throughout an entire day-even during instructional time-to promote GLSEN’s socio-political goals.

Parents must actively oppose this hijacking of the classroom for political purposes. Please join the national effort to restore to public education a proper understanding of the role of government-subsidized schools.

You can help de-politicize the learning environment by calling your child out of school if your child’s school allows students to remain silent during instructional time on the Day of Silence.

If students will be permitted to remain silent, parents can express their opposition most effectively by calling their children out of school on the Day of Silence and sending letters of explanation to their administrators, their children’s teachers, and all school board members. One reason this is effective is that most school districts lose money for each student absence.

School administrators err when they allow the classroom to be disrupted and politicized by granting students permission to remain silent throughout an entire day.

Visit www.doswalkout.net for complete information on opposing the Day of Silence.

TAKE ACTION

1. Call your local schools and ask whether they permit students or teachers to remain silent in the classroom on “Day of Silence.” IMPORTANT: Do not ask any administrator, school board member, or teacher if the school sponsors, endorses, or supports DOS. Schools do not technically sponsor the Day of Silence. Technically, it is students, often students in the gay-straight alliance, who sponsor it. Many administrators will tell you that they do not sponsor the DOS when, in fact, they do permit students and sometimes even teachers to remain silent during instructional time. Also ask administrators whether they permit teachers to create lesson plans to accommodate student silence.

2. Find out what date the event is planned for your school. (The national date in 2015 is Friday, April 17, but some schools observe DOS on a different date).

3. Inform the school of your intention to keep your children home on that date and explain why.

This alert was originally posted at the American Family Association website.

Yesterday, I discussed the dishonesty of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) when reporting on the ill-conceived “transgender” policy at East Aurora High School in Aurora, Illinois and the school board’s dissolution of the ad hoc committee that included five deviant sexuality activists from outside the community. Anyone who naively believes the dissolution of this unelected committee due to community opposition is the definitive end to this story should read the email below that was sent by one of the activists to the other ad hoc committee members. It reveals the  presumptuousness, self-righteousness, and tenacity of “LGBT”-affirming activists: 

Dear Members of the Ad Hoc Committee: 

For myself and the hundreds of supporters of transgender students and their families in the East Aurora Schools, I was extremely disappointed to learn that the District 131 school board dissolved the Ad Hoc Committee.  I learned this, not as a courtesy from anyone at the district, but from the news media.  Learning secondhand about the decision sends a clear message that the district does not value the many exhausting hours members have volunteered and that the work we have done has been for nothing.  Notwithstanding recent events, we know that we have been a part of a critical conversation that must continue for the health and safety of East Aurora youth and families. 

Dissolving the Ad Hoc Committee fails the community and the district.  The dialogue beginning to develop presented an important opportunity for education and agreement on the best approach for the district to support a population of its students.  The difficult nature of the dialogue reveals just how critical it is that we have it.  The fact is that there are transgender students in East Aurora Schools (and all schools) and it is the district’s obligation to support and protect them.  Quitting the work now leaves unaddressed the damage done and a community divided.  Not to mention the liability incurred in recognizing the need for the work and then walking away. 

The work we’ve started is simply too important to abandon and the young people to whom we and the district are beholden deserve our thoughtful attention.  Thus, I propose that we continue the discussion with or without the official stamp of the school board. 

Please let me know whether you are available to meet on Wednesday, January 9 at 6p or Wednesday, January 16 at 6p to discuss how to move forward.  Location will be determined. 

You may reach me at sarah@illinoissafeschools.org or at 312-368-9070 ex. 323.

A few points in response:

• Since it is the mission of the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance to foist their beliefs about the nature and morality of homosexuality and gender confusion on public schools, why does Sarah Schriber claim that her “exhausting hours” were volunteer hours? And if she so deeply resents the rejection by the school board and community of her “volunteer” contributions, why is she initiating the continuation of her “volunteer” work?
• Schriber’s implicit claim about wanting to “dialogue” is laughable. Neither her organization nor any other “LGBT” advocacy organization seeks to “dialogue” with conservatives on how to think about issues related to same-sex attraction or gender-confusion. They will tolerate no other conceptualizations of homosexuality and gender-confusion than their own. Anyone who disagrees with their non-factual, subjective, unproven assumptions about the nature and morality of homosexual acts, cross-dressing, elective amputations of healthy body parts, “same-sex marriage,” or “same-sex adoption” are deemed ignorant hateful bigots. For evidence of that, just read the email sent by another member of the former ad hoc committee, the gender-confused Mr. Joanie Wimmer.
• Schriber’s declaration that she intends to continue to meet even “without the official stamp of the school board” reveals not merely how presumptuous she is, but how tenacious. Aurora community members need to be even more tenacious.

And Illinoisans in other communities need to be prepared to be equally tenacious because advocates like Schriber are coming to your schools–including your elementary schools. Unfortunately, many are employed in your schools even now, working behind the scenes to create policy and exploit curricula in their efforts to transform the beliefs and values of your children.

Anyone who’s concerned about the increasing involvement of deviant sexuality activists in our public schools should pay close attention to recent events in Aurora, Illinois—events that may unfold further. Those who believe the issue is over do not understand the obsessive fervor with which these activists pursue their dystopian vision, including corrupting the hearts and minds of our children. 

To review, an administrator (Christine Aird) in East Aurora School District 131 worked behind the scenes last summer with an activist from the “LGBT”-affirming organization, ironically named the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, to come up with an unnecessary school policy that would have permitted gender-confused students to use the restrooms and locker rooms of opposite sex students. This administrator then misled the school board into thinking that such policy was required by state law. Public opposition to the policy resulted in the school board rescinding the policy four days later. 

Subsequently, the board formed an unelected, ad hoc committee to revisit policy for gender-confused students. On this committee sat two homosexual activists from outside Aurora, an activist from the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance who does not live in Aurora, and two cross-dressing men who do not live in Aurora. 

Well over 100 Aurora community members, most of whom were Hispanic, showed up at ad hoc committee and school board meetings to express their strong opposition to any policy that would allow students to use restrooms and locker rooms of opposite sex students. They also expressed opposition to non-community members serving on any committee that was creating policy for the district. As a result primarily of community involvement, the school board disbanded the ad hoc committee after just two meetings. 

In reporting on this story, Nathan Smith, public policy associate for the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) managed to accomplish what I thought was impossible: diminish my view of GLSEN. His GLSEN blog post about this entire debacle was dishonest in two significant ways. 

First and most important, Smith attributed the decision of the East Aurora High School Board of Education to dissolve the ad hoc committee solely to the Illinois Family Institute. Although IFI appreciates Smith’s assessment of our influence, his assertion is untrue, likely deliberately deceitful, and unfair to the scores of Aurora citizens who were most responsible for the decision of their school board to dissolve the ad hoc committee. 

His assertion that IFI was responsible reflects either journalistic incompetence or deliberate dishonesty or both. The article I wrote in which I urged Illinoisans, particularly Aurora community members, to contact the board of education was published before the ad hoc committee had even formed. 

It was the Aurora community members who showed up at the second meeting of the ad hoc committee and a subsequent school board meeting who were responsible for the school board’s decision to dissolve the committee, and yet Smith never said a word about their attendance at these meetings and their vocal opposition to the controversial policy.  It’s mind-boggling that anyone reporting on this event would fail to mention that over 100 community members attended the meeting and opposed both the policy and the composition of the ad hoc committee.

It’s obvious why Smith would omit these inconvenient truths from his blog post. It serves GLSEN’s strategic purposes to conceal community opposition to the perverse goals of deviant sexuality advocates—goals that GLSEN relentlessly promotes. It also serves GLSEN not only to distract the public’s attention from the effectiveness of community involvement but to drum up hatred against IFI. Although, I understand Smith’s strategic reasons for his startling omissions, I would hope that a commitment to truth and accuracy would supersede GLSEN’s strategic interests. 

Second, Smith erroneously claims that the East Aurora School Board disbanded “efforts to protect” gender-confused students. What the school board did was disband the committee on which multiple activists who were not Aurora community members were serving and which the community opposed. Smith assumes that the only way to protect students who suffer from gender confusion is to maintain a committee composed of unelected, non-community members; to accept his ontological and moral presuppositions about gender confusion; and to enact policy with which he agrees. In a diverse world, however, there are multiple, competing visions of how best to respond to and protect those who experience gender confusion. 

One final point, unlike the “progressive” activists who actually served on the ad hoc committee while not living in Aurora, I only wrote about the story, as did homosexual and gender-confused activists all over the country. No IFI employee even attended a meeting of the school board or ad hoc committee.

While many conservatives call for a forfeit — I mean, truce — on the social issues, the other side gleefully forges ahead using our money to indoctrinate our kids in public schools. Conservatives used to be asleep at the wheel, but now we’re just asleep. We forfeited the wheel decades ago.

It’s true that public education is public in the sense that whatever it is that goes on in our schools is paid for by the public, but, at least on sexuality issues, there is no education going on. “Progressive” agents of change are unabashedly engaging in censorship in the service of promoting their social and political interests. Their motto: “Critical thinking and intellectual diversity be damned.”

Here is a just a sampling of the “educational” activities, events, projects, and resources that our agents of change and their ideological compeers from the world of homosexual activism have introduced to our public schools during the “truce”:

• Changing the Game: the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network’s (GLSEN) new sports project “is an education and advocacy initiative focused on addressing [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] issues in K-12 school-based athletic and physical education programs” (emphasis added).
  
  
• Ally Week (GLSEN)
  
  
• GLSEN Elementary Toolkit (Read more HERE.)
  
  
• Welcoming Schools (Human Rights Campaign): “Welcoming Schools” provides “tools, lessons, and resources,” including activities and consultants to administrators and teachers that seek to normalize and affirm homosexuality, bisexuality, and gender confusion in elementary schools.
  
  
• Spirit Day (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation)
  
  
• Transgender Day of Remembrance
  
  
• National Coming Out Day (Human Rights Campaign)
  
  
• OK4U2BGAY, created by the organization H8SUX (Read more HERE.)

• National Sexuality Education Standards (GLSEN, Planned Parenthood, SIECUS et al) (Read more HERE.)
  
  
• “Do Something!” Transforming Critiques of Gender Stereotypes Into Activism” (Southern Poverty Law Center’s Educational Project, Teaching Tolerance): This series of lessons on gender confusion is intended for children in pre-school through grade 5 who, according to Teaching Tolerance, will “benefit from participating in activism because it helps them understand the socially constructed nature of gender” and “overcome the damage done by internalized gender stereotypes.”
  
  
• And last, but not least, the queen of public school political protests: the Day of Silence

The Day of Silence, which is promoted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, takes place in middle and high schools all around the country this Friday April 20. GLSEN asks students to refuse to speak in class on the Day of Silence, which, of course, disrupts the normal course of a school day. Imagine if multiple groups were permitted to engage in this kind of political protest during the year.

GLSEN provides cards to students to give to teachers explaining the reason for their refusal to speak. In 2002, this is what the card said:

Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence, a national youth movement protesting the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by harassment, prejudice, and discrimination. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward fighting these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today. What are you going to do to end the silence?

A few observations on this card:

• GLSEN itself called it a protest.
• GLSEN suggests that homosexuals are “silenced,” which is ironic in light of the of the primacy of homosexuality-affirmation in public education, the mainstream news media, and the arts, and the concomitant censorship of dissenting voices in most of those contexts. It is often noted that even FOX News has become increasingly silent on (if not downright supportive of) the homosexuality-affirming movement, with numerous “conservative” FOX contributors displaying an overt hostility and condescension to conservative positions on issues related to homosexuality.
• This 2002 Day of Silence card given by students to teachers challenges teachers to “do” something to “end the silence,” which, translated into plain English, means teachers are supposed to do something to eradicate moral disapproval of homosexuality.

The 2012 card now says this:

Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence (DOS), a national youth movement bringing attention to the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by anti-LGBT bullying, name-calling and harassment. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward building awareness and making a commitment to address these injustices.

Think about the voices you ARE NOT hearing today.

A few observations about this newer card:

• GLSEN hopes to distance the Day of Silence from the notion of “protesting.” Instead, they’re  merely “bringing attention” to an issue.
• They have added the always useful language about “bullying,” and “name-calling.” This language shift enhances GLSEN’s ability to promote the lie that opposition to the Day of Silence constitutes support for bullying.
• They removed the presumptuous suggestion that others have a moral obligation to fight for the eradication of conservative moral beliefs—which is the ultimate end game of GLSEN.

It’s not just parents who should be opposing the Day of Silence. Every conservative taxpayer, every conservative teacher, and every conservative administrator should be coming alongside parents and working to restore integrity to public education.

First, it’s a stewardship issue. Our taxes are being used for illegitimate political purposes.

Second, students in school today are the culture-makers of tomorrow. We have a vested interest in the soundness of their education.

Third, this isn’t one isolated event. It’s one part of a large, ominous picture that includes curricular resources and activities in theater, English, and social studies classes; sex ed classes that promote liberal assumptions about homosexuality; anti-bullying programs; and countless activities created and promoted by homosexual activist organizations. Re-examine the list above and note the cacophonous sounds of “silence.”

Fourth, the rarely told truth is that many students and teachers on both the political right and left dislike intensely the Day of Silence. They hate the dissension that the Day of Silence brings to their school day. Not all liberal teachers use the classroom for political purposes. Many just want to teach their subject matter. Many teachers resent having to modify lesson plans or expectations to accommodate student silence but feel if they don’t, they will be viewed as bigots and bully-enablers.

Administrators:

Tell teachers they have no legal obligation to allow students to refuse to speak in class and that they should not permit political protests in the classroom. Communicate to parents and students that students have no legal right to refuse to speak in class and that classes will take place as usual.

Teachers:

Plan activities that involve student verbal participation and follow all normal disciplinary procedures that would apply to students who refuse to obey instructions.

Community members without students in the school:

Contact your local middle and high school administrators. Ask them if teachers are permitted to allow students to refuse to speak in class on the Day of Silence. If they permit this political protest, tell them you object to public school teachers who are subsidized by your taxes allowing instructional time to be used to promote controversial moral and political views in the classroom. Send a letter to your local press and read a prepared statement at the next school board meeting expressing the same ideas.

Parents:

Call your children’s middle and high schools today. Ask if the school is permitting teachers to allow students to refuse to speak in class on the Day of Silence. If the school says “no,” ask them how and when this will be communicated to parents, teachers, and students. It should be communicated at least several days before the Day of Silence.

If your administration does not communicate this expectation to parents, teachers, and students, call your child out of school, because it means the administration is ignoring the issue and tacitly permitting teachers to allow the silent protest to take place.

If your school administration says that teachers may permit students to refuse to speak during class, call your child out of school. Tell your administration and school board that since they are permitting instructional time to be exploited for a political protest, your child will not be in school. This will remove your child from an environment that fosters controversy, and your child’s absence will cost the district money.

Then go to your next school board meeting and lodge an unequivocal complaint.

While homosexual activism has infiltrated public schools in countless ways, the Day of Silence Walkout is is virtually the only organized effort available to parents to express their opposition to such activism. And it’s one that takes very little courage. If we continue to do and say nothing, the pro-homosexual activism increases and the children who are targets of such indoctrination become ever younger.

For more information, click here: Day of Silence Walkout.

Part I of this two-part article about Illinois’ new “enumerated” school anti-bullying law and its attendant Task Force exposed the bias and lack of diversity of the Task Force as well as the troubling recommendations made by it.

106-page Task Force recommendations refer to” broader cultural systemic issues of power, privilege and oppression,” “homophobia,” and “underlying power imbalances.” For the uninitiated, this language may sound benign or even positive, but those familiar with the jargon of the “teaching for social justice” movement will recognize the troubling ideas concealed beneath the deceitfully reassuring rhetoric.

The goals of the Task Force are consistent with the mission of the organization that created the law: the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance (ISSA). ISSA is a homosexual activist organization that was originally an affiliate of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). ISSA’s anti-bullying law was created specifically to add the terms “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” and “gender expression” to existing law, which in turn would provide liberal assumptions about homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder an even greater foothold in Illinois schools.

The Task Force recommends “all schools in Illinois immediately embark on a journey of complete school transformation,” which means all public and private schools in Illinois. Current law applies only to public schools and non-sectarian, that is, non-religious private schools, but the Task Force calls for an amendment to the existing law so that it would apply to religious private schools as well.

The Task Force recommendations include indoctrination plans for students, teachers, administrators, all school employees (e.g., maintenance workers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers), and future teachers enrolled in college and university teacher-preparation programs.

The Task Force asserts that “complete school transformation cannot be accomplished without adequate commitment, time, and resources,” stating that “nothing less than the complete overhaul of the education system in Illinois” will suffice, and that “the state of Illinois fully fund pilot projects to collect and evaluate data on the efficacy of the proposed school transformation model.”

Their recommendations include this troubling suggestion: “Many changes will need to be made to state laws, ISBE regulations and school policies.”

Many community members feel helpless to stop the usurpation of public education by liberal ideologues hell-bent on using taxpayer resources to advance their moral and political beliefs, but there are things taxpayers can and should do:

1. Email your local school administrators and request the following information:

a. Ask for detailed information about any “bullying prevention” activities that are planned for students.

b. Ask for detailed information about any “bullying-prevention” training (i.e., professional development) that is planned for administrators, teachers, and staff.

c. Ask if any of the “bullying-prevention” activities that are planned for any of these groups specifically mention “sexual orientation,” “gender-identity” (i.e., Gender Identity Disorder), or “gender-expression” (i.e., cross-dressing).

d. Request copies of any resources that will be used in “bullying-prevention” training for students, teachers, administrators, and staff.

2. If your administration is uncooperative, file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to access the information. FOIA requests are easy to file and cost-free for the first fifty pages of documents. Every Illinois school district has a FOIA officer who by law must be identified on the district’s website. Your district’s FOIA officer can provide instructions on how to file a FOIA. Click here and go to page 56 for a sample FOIA request. Taxpayers should be making use of FOIA requests. They provide invaluable (and often surprising) information about what takes place behind the scenes in schools.

3. Finally, tell your children’s teachers that under no circumstance is your child to be exposed to any resources or activities that mention “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” or “gender expression.” Tell them that you will provide “bullying-prevention” instruction at home. And ask them to notify you prior to any activities or presentations that address “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” or “gender expression,” so that you can opt your child out.

IFI is urging our readers to research how your school districts are implementing the Illinois Prevent School Violence Act (PSVA). Please do this if you’re a taxpayer. You don’t have to have students enrolled in school. All taxpayers are subsidizing what takes place in our public schools; and today’s students are tomorrow’s culture-makers. We all have a stake in public education.

We cannot afford to sit around fretting and whining about the corruption of public education by liberal ideologues who have transformed education into indoctrination. Please email your schools, and if anything troubling turns up, send the information and documentation to IFI. We would love to share with IFI readers what’s taking place in particular school districts around the state.

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By now many have read about the incident that took place in a suburban Detroit high school. Teacher Jay McDowell expelled a student from his economics class because the student said that due to his Catholic faith, he does not accept homosexuality. This took place during one of the many homosexuality-affirming events that take place in public schools. This one, “Ally Week,” is sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, as is the Day of Silence.

Not only did McDowell expel the student from his class, but according to written student accounts to the administration, McDowell shouted at the student; slammed the classroom door; called an administrative office in front of the entire class to say that the expelled student had engaged in “discrimination”; spent class time expressing his personal philosophical, political, and moral beliefs; and showed an “anti-bullying” film, rather than use his period to teach economics.

As a result of his actions, McDowell was disciplined.

So, what does discrimination, harassment, and bullying look like to the teacher of tolerance, Jay McDowell?

According to an Associated Press (AP) report, McDowell is filing a complaint with the district over his discipline, saying “I want to force adults to look at what situation we’ve created…I would really like us to be more aggressive in our policing of harassing and bullying.”

There, McDowell has said what those of us who are familiar with the beliefs and goals of the Left have been trying to warn the public about: Homosexual activists and their ideological allies in public schools believe that expressing conservative moral beliefs about homosexual acts is harassment and bullying.

As a result of their expansive view of harassment and bullying, they presumptuously and self-righteously believe they have the right to try to change the moral beliefs of other people’s children and to censor the expression of them.

Here is what McDowell had to say on a Detroit television program regarding free speech:

I think it was a teachable moment. And it was a teachable moment to show that you can have whatever religious views you want, which is very important, but there are certain things that we don’t say in the classroom. And there a certain things that we still don’t say in the public sphere.

Although this a remarkable thing to hear from anyone, from a government-employed educator who is supposed to foster critical thinking, respect for diversity, and the free exchange of ideas, it is also deeply troubling.

And it’s a view so extreme that even the ACLU disagrees. According to the same AP report, “Jay Kaplan, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan’s LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) Legal Project” says that “‘those statements (of the expelled student)…were protected speech….The only way we’re going to create a better environment in schools is to start talking about this.'”

McDowell’s apparent belief that homosexual acts are moral is neither factual nor proven. His apparent belief that homosexuality is a condition analogous to race is neither factual nor proven. His apparent belief that disapproval of homosexual acts is equivalent to racial bigotry is neither factual nor true. And his belief that conservative beliefs should not be spoken in the “public sphere” is frightening.

Is it all expressions of moral disapproval that have no place in the public sphere or just those with which Jay McDowell disagrees? In Mr. McDowell’s moral universe, do expressions of disapproval of polyamory constitute discrimination, harassment, and bullying? Do expressions of disapproval of Catholic beliefs constitute religious discrimination and bullying of Catholic students? Perhaps Mr. McDowell could enlighten the rest of America as to which moral statements can be spoken in the public sphere.

In educational contexts, the study and free exchange of ideas is essential. Advocacy of personal beliefs on controversial topics by teachers must be explicitly prohibited. And discipline, ridicule, or excoriation of students who express beliefs with which teachers disagree must be punished. If anyone is guilty of harassment, discrimination, and bullying as well as unprofessionalism, it is Jay McDowell. McDowell’s punishment, a one-day suspension without pay, is insufficient.

Mr. McDowell and many other activist ideologues in public schools all around the country, including here in Illinois, should have mandatory training regarding how to demonstrate respect for intellectual diversity; how to foster critical thinking by having students spend equal time studying the best writing from the best scholars on both sides of controversial topics; and how to demonstrate professionalism by concealing personal values, beliefs, and biases.

Moreover, taxpayers should demand that school districts write policy that requires all of the above.

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Bullying in schools is a serious problem that must be addressed. In a misguided, poorly reasoned attempt to address it, Illinois legislators recently passed the disastrous “School Anti-Bullying Act” (SB 3266).

The problem of bullying did not necessitate any new state laws in that virtually every school in the state has more than adequate anti-bullying policy. The problem is not with a lack of policy, and the solution is certainly not this new, poorly constructed law.

For those who naively believe that “anti-bullying” policies, programs, and legislation are centrally about ending bullying, please note where and when Governor Pat Quinn signed into law the Illinois “School Anti-Bullying Act.” The symbolism of the time and place of the signing ceremony points to the real purpose of the legislation, which is to exploit legitimate anti-bullying sentiment and Illinois public schools to undermine traditional beliefs about the nature and morality of homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder. If this legislation were not a Trojan Horse for getting homosexuality-affirming resources into public schools and were truly about addressing all forms of bullying, why would Quinn sign it into law on the Sunday morning of the Chicago “gay pride” parade, and why hold the ceremony at Nettelhorst Elementary School — the Chicago elementary school that has marched in the “gay pride” parade for two years — which happens to be located in the homosexual neighborhood called Boystown?

SB 3266 was initiated by the homosexual advocacy group Illinois Safe Schools Alliance (ISSA), which grew out of the unholy alliance of the Chicago chapter of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and the Coalition for Education on Sexual Orientation. According to the homosexual newspaper the Edge, “ISSA and its allies and predecessors worked more than a decade to get the legislation passed.” ISSA Executive Director Shannon Sullivan praised the passage of this legislation. You may recognize this name: Shannon Sullivan is the lesbian who has been working to introduce resources that affirm homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder to elementary school children in Oak Park.

Below are some excerpts from the actual text with the most problematic language emphasized:

Bullying on the basis of actual or perceived race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, physical or mental disability, military status, sexual orientation, gender-related identity or expression….

“Bullying” means any severe or pervasive physical or verbal act or conduct, including communications made in writing or electronically, directed toward a student or students that has or can be reasonably predicted to have the effect of one or more of the following:

…

causing a substantially detrimental effect on the student’s or students’ physical or mental health….

substantially interfering with the student’s or students’ academic performance; or substantially interfering with the student’s or students’ ability to participate in or benefit from the services, activities, or privileges provided by a school….

Bullying, as defined in this subsection (b), may take various forms, including without limitation one or more of the following: harassment, threats, intimidation, stalking, physical violence, sexual harassment, sexual violence, theft, public humiliation, destruction of property, or retaliation for asserting or alleging an act of bullying. This list is meant to be illustrative and non-exhaustive….

Each school district and non-public, non-sectarian elementary or secondary school shall create and maintain a policy on bullying, which policy must be filed with the State Board of Education.

This legislation is disastrous for two reasons.

First, it is disastrous because it is an “enumerated” law which means it includes the terms “sexual orientation” and “gender-related identity or expression” (i.e., “transgenderism,” “transsexuality,” and cross-dressing) in the list of conditions for which students cannot be bullied. Why, in a non-exhaustive list that omits other conditions for which students are bullied, would these two be specifically named? Do our legislators and the crafters of this legislation actually expect the public to believe that there are more students bullied for their same-sex attraction or cross-dressing than for being shy, socially awkward, impulsive, overweight, studious, or athletically challenged? And why not use the proper term for “gender-related identity or expression” which is Gender Identity Disorder (GID)?

The answer is that the motives behind both the inclusion of these particular terms as well as the refusal to use the correct term, GID, are wholly political. Those who proposed and promoted this legislation are seeking to end bullying based on “real or perceived” homosexuality or GID by transforming the moral and political views of students. This new law with its inclusion of the terms “sexual orientation” and “gender-related identity and expression” will be used to introduce resources that implicitly and explicitly affirm homosexuality and GID in even elementary schools and will be used to simultaneously censor resources that espouse traditional views.

Second, it is disastrous because of its ambiguity. For example, the bill identifies bullying as “any severe verbal conduct that can be reasonably predicted to cause a substantially detrimental effect on a student’s mental health.”

• How is the vague phrase “substantially detrimental effect” defined? If a teacher brought in two scholars to debate same-sex adoption and one of the conservative scholar’s arguments was that homosexual acts are inherently morally flawed, could a homosexual student claim that he experienced a substantially detrimental effect on his mental health? Or what if a classmate made such a point in a classroom discussion?
• Do athletic codes that prohibit genetic males from joining the girls’ swim team “substantially interfere” with the ability of a boy who has GID to “participate in the activities provided by the school”?
• What if a teacher in order to have students study both sides of the public debate on same-sex marriage assigned reading from conservative scholars or columnists that asserted that same-sex marriage should not be legalized because homosexual practice is not moral? Could a homosexual student claim that he was publicly humiliated?
• Does this new legislation render illegal a high school dress code that prohibits boys from wearing lipstick and dresses to school?
• If a school counselor were to provide a student or his parents with information about GID counseling, could that be considered gender identity discrimination or bullying if the student claimed the provision of such information humiliated him or had a detrimental effect on his health?
• If a school prohibited a boy with GID from using the girls’ bathrooms, could the school be found liable for violating this law?
• Does this require all public and private non-religious schools to create policy on bullying that specifically mentions “sexual orientation” and “gender-related identity and expression”?

Since the list of bases on which bullying is prohibited is deliberately “non-exhaustive,” what is the justification for the exclusion of other conditions for which students may be bullied? The current legislation gives examples from three broad categories of conditions but offers no reasons for the inclusion of some conditions and the exclusion of others:

1. Disorders (e.g., GID): Why does the bill include only one disorder (i.e., GID) while excluding other disorders, like Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), Attention Deficit Hyper-Active Disorder (ADHD), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), anorexia, bulimia, and Aspberger’s Syndrome, all of which can lead to behaviors for which kids are bullied? And why does the bill not use the correct designation, Gender Identity Disorder, rather than the politically biased terms “gender-related identity and expression”? It seems likely that there are more students in public schools who are ridiculed for behaviors related to ADD, ADHD, or Aspberger’s Syndrome than there are students who are ridiculed for behaviors related to GID.

The inclusion of only this one psychological disorder and the failure to use the correct designation reflect the acceptance of particular assumptions regarding the nature and morality of cross-dressing that are controversial and unproven. The use of the politically biased phrase, “gender-related identity and expression” exposes the political nature of this bill and the influence of the “transgender”-affirming Illinois Safe Schools Alliance in the creation of this legislation.

2. Conditions centrally defined by impulses and volitional behavior that carry moral implications (e.g., “sexual orientation” and Gender Identity Disorder): Why does the bill exclude other behaviors that many consider immoral and for which kids may be bullied, like “sexting,” aggression, stealing, plagiarizing, drug use, and promiscuity? For example, students who use drugs are called “druggies” and “stoners,” and girls who are promiscuous are called “sluts” and “hos.” Obviously, schools no more need policy that specifically mentions homosexuality to protect homosexual students than they need policy that mentions promiscuity in order to protect promiscuous students.

The reason that no other conditions that are centrally defined by desire and volitional acts that many deem immoral are included is that the crafters of this legislation seek to use law to promote the unproven belief that homosexuality and GID are analogous to race. By including these conditions in a list of morally neutral conditions, they seek to reinforce implicitly their false assumption that homosexuality and GID are morally neutral. Indeed, the use of the political term “sexual orientation,” which embodies the ideas of biological determinism, immutability, and moral neutrality, rather than “homosexuality” further exposes the political nature of this legislation. When crafting their own policy, schools should replace “sexual orientation” with the less political term “homosexuality.” (Further, when replacing the term “sexual orientation,” there is no reason to add the term “bisexuality,” because no one is bullied for the heterosexual part of bisexuality.)

3. Conditions that carry no moral implications (e.g., race, sex, and disability): the crafters of this bill excluded other morally neutral conditions for which far more students are bullied, like obesity, nearsightedness, farsightedness, acne, speech impediments, shyness, social awkwardness, or lack of athletic ability. These omissions further reveal the political nature of this legislation.

Focus on the Family’s anti-bullying project, True Tolerance, warns against the inclusion of specific categories:

Listing certain categories creates a system ripe for reverse discrimination, sending the message that certain characteristics are more worthy of protection than others. Instead of bringing more peace and unity, this can politicize the school environment and introduce divisiveness among different groups of students and parents.

A more general, and therefore more inclusive, description would be far superior. It’s too bad Illinois legislators didn’t consider the apolitical, concise, and inclusive anti-bullying policy created by the Alliance Defense Fund.

The new Illinois law requires the creation of a fifteen-member Task Force whose responsibility it will be to make recommendations “for preventing and addressing bullying in schools in this State.” The Task Force is required by this bill to include a high school or college student who has been bullied. This student should be someone who has been bullied for characteristics such as race or disability that have no behavioral manifestations about which there is moral controversy.

The Task Force must also include representatives from organizations that address bullying. To avoid yet even more policy blunders, these representatives should be from organizations that are not centrally concerned with the partisan socio-political goal of normalizing homosexuality. To avoid the appearance of being a tool for the homosexual movement, the Task Force should exclude representatives from GLSEN and the Safe Schools Alliance or balance them with representatives from conservative organizations like IFI.

So far only twelve states, including, unfortunately, Illinois, have anti-bullying legislation that specifically mentions “sexual orientation” and “gender identity/expression.” The inclusion of these terms in anti-bullying policies and legislation allows homosexualists to use them as cultural battering rams to destroy First Amendment speech and religious protections. The central purpose of the inclusion of these terms in legislation and policy is not to protect homosexuals and “transgenders” but to censor the expression of traditional moral beliefs and ultimately eradicate them.