Recently, America’s foolish president issued a foolish Transgender Day of Visibility Proclamation in which he pledged support for a bill that will jeopardize First Amendment religious free exercise and speech protections for conservative Americans. In his Proclamation, Biden also called for all Americans to adopt his controversial beliefs on cross-sex impersonation. Once again Biden—the self-identifying unity president—has intensified division.

Ordinary Americans—as opposed to those who make millions by selling political influence—fret about how they will pay for groceries and gas. They worry about fentanyl and criminals pouring over the southern border and about illegal immigrants being dumped by the government in their cities in the dark of night.

What keeps Joe Biden awake in the afternoon? Does he worry about the 56,000 synthetic opioid—mostly fentanyl—deaths in 2020? Or about the 900,000 humans killed in the womb annually? Do the 21,000 murders in 2020 cause him sleepless afternoons? Not so much. It appears from his Proclamation that what troubles Biden is what he calls “the epidemic of violence” against cross-dressers. That would be about 50 people killed in 2021, many of whom were victims of domestic violence—not anti-“trans” hate crimes. While every murder is a tragedy, 50 deaths does not an epidemic of violence make.

The name “Transgender Day of Visibility,” is intended to convey the fiction that on all other days, cross-sex impersonators are invisible. This, my friends, is what is called “gaslighting.” As Chastity “Chaz” Bono, Jaron Bloshinksy (“Jazz Jennings”), Roderick “LaVerne” Cox, Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner, Richard “Rachel” Levine, Bradley “Chelsea” Manning, Ellen “Elliot” Page, Gavin “Laurel” Hubbard, William “Lia” Thomas, Larry “Lana” Wachowski, Andy “Lilly” Wachowski, and scores of drag queens and teens masquerade as the sex they aren’t, invading bathrooms where they don’t belong, leftists claim “transgender” persons are invisible.

In his Royal Proclamation last week, Biden declared his enthusiastic support for the ruinous anti-constitutional Equality Act. The Equality Act has nothing to do with equality and everything to do with advancing the alchemical superstition about the alleged ability of humans to become the opposite sex through desire, cross-dressing, hormone-doping, and mutilating cosmetic surgery.

In order to accomplish the end goal of eradicating all public recognition of sex differences, “trans”-cultists must eradicate the ability of free people to speak freely their beliefs about “gender” and sex.

Lawmakers in thrall to or terrified by the “trans”-cult stripped the Equality Act of religious protections. Numerous legal scholars have warned that the passage of the Equality Act poses the most significant threat to constitutional protections of the free exercise of religion ever in America’s history.

Mary Hasson, graduate of Notre Dame Law School and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., testified about this threat at a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing:

The Equality Act threatens serious harm to religious believers and religious organizations. … The Equality Act attacks First Amendment rights as well, inserting language that attempts to tip the scales against believers if they assert claims under the First Amendment or Equal Protection.

The Equality Act … expand[s] “public accommodations” to permit discrimination claims wherever Americans “gather,” even virtually. The result? Churches, synagogues, temples, faith-based schools, soup kitchens, and shelters for battered women will be subject to government coercion pressuring them to compromise their religious beliefs or risk endless litigation.

Recipients of federal funds, including houses of worship, religious schools and other faith-based organizations are litigation targets under the Equality Act as well—even for something as simple as maintaining sex-segregated bathrooms. This means a Muslim food bank, Catholic homeless shelter, or Christian center for female survivors of domestic violence will be punished for doing good while following their religious teachings.

Similarly, any private school that enrolls students who receive Pell grants or who participate in school lunch programs are subject to the Equality Act’s sex discrimination provisions. Urban Catholic schools, for example, which provide life-changing education to low-income children would face an untenable choice: violate their deeply held religious beliefs about human nature, sexual difference, and marriage or close their doors to students who rely on federal help. Adoption and foster care programs run by religious believers who desire to serve the most vulnerable are also at risk.

Biden said one true thing in his Royal Proclamation. He said that those who identify as “transgender” are “made in the image of God and deserving of dignity, respect, and support.” Every human is created in the image of God, but that image is marred by our sinful desires and acts. Humans deserve respect by virtue of being humans—despite the sinful things we desire and do.

One’s dignity—the state or quality of being worthy of honor—is undermined by sinful acts like cross-dressing and mutilating one’s God-created, healthy body.

“Trans”-identifying persons do deserve support, but life and truth-affirming support should never include participating in a delusion or facilitating artificially induced cessation of natural biological processes and surgical mutilation of healthy, properly functioning parts of sexual anatomy.

When promoting false beliefs about “gender identity,” the left talks a lot about “authenticity” without providing their definition—or redefinition—of the term. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “authentic” as “conforming to fact and therefore worthy of trust, reliance, and belief.” As such, a man seeking to pass as a woman is the antithesis of authenticity, and celebrating cross-sex-passing robs men and women of dignity.

Leftists have also redefined “identity.” Homosexual activists first transformed the concept of “identity,” and then seeing how effective a propaganda tool the revised concept of identity was, cross-sex impersonators culturally appropriated it.

Homo-activists sought to recast identity as something intrinsically inviolable, immutable, and good. They sought to refashion identity in such a way as to make it culturally taboo to make judgments about any constituent feature of identity. They re-imagined identity in such a way as to move homoeroticism from the category of phenomena about which humans can legitimately make moral distinctions to one about which society is forbidden to make judgments.

Identity in its former incarnation was merely a way of describing someone. Identity when applied to individual persons denoted the aggregate of phenomena constituting, associated with, experienced and affirmed by individuals. Identity was “the set of behavioral and personal characteristics by which an individual is recognizable as a member of a group.”

Identity was not conceived as some intrinsically moral thing, because identity could refer to either objective, non-behavioral, morally neutral conditions (e.g., height or skin color) or to subjective feelings, beliefs, and volitional acts that could be good or bad, right or wrong. Prior to the new and subversive conceptualization of identity, there existed no absolute cultural prohibition of judging the diverse elements that constitute identity.

By conflating all the phenomena that can constitute identity, “progressives” demanded that society should no more make judgments about feelings and volitional acts than they should about skin color.

In short, this is what “progressives” think about identity (except when it comes to those whose identity is found in Christ):

• All phenomena that make up identity are off-limits to moral judgment.
• Cross-sex impersonation is part of identity.
• Therefore, cross-sex impersonation is immune from moral judgment.

But if all conditions constituted by powerful, persistent, unchosen desires and the behaviors impelled by such feelings are part of this new and culturally destructive understanding of identity and, therefore, immune from moral judgment, then zoophilila/bestiality, “minor-attraction,” “Genetic Sexual Attraction,” and polyamory/promiscuity are immune from moral judgment.

Biden announced that “We celebrate the activism and determination that have fueled the fight for transgender equality.” Presumably, he is using the royal “we” since not all Americans celebrate “trans” activism, which is destroying all respect for and public recognition of sex differences. No more biologically based clubs for boys and girls, no more single sex bathrooms, no more girls’ sports.

Equality means to treat like things alike. As such, “trans”-cultists and their collaborators like Biden are promoting anti-equality. They are demanding that unlike things—that is men and women—be treated as if they’re alike in every context, including contexts in which sex differences matter.

When Biden refers to the “discrimination that the transgender community continues to face across our Nation and around the world,” he is using the word “discrimination” to describe moral beliefs about cross-dressing and mutilating cosmetic procedures with which he disagrees. If moral disapproval of ideas or volitional acts constitutes discrimination, then Biden’s disapproval of the beliefs of Christians on “gender” and sex as well as the acts impelled by those beliefs constitutes discrimination.

Applying consistently leftist redefinitions of authenticity, identity, and discrimination would mean that no one could express disapproval of any beliefs, desires, or volitional acts. These redefinitions pave the broad way to moral anarchy.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to our U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth to urge them to oppose the federal Equality Act (H.R. 5) which seeks to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include protections for an individual’s perceived sex, “sexual orientation,” or “gender identity.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Biden-the-Unity-President-Divides-Again.mp3

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How can someone as foolish and manipulative as U.S. Representative Marie Newman get elected to Congress? Oh, yeah, she ran in Illinois, the land that once gave the nation Abe Lincoln but now saddles the nation with Dick Durbin, Tammy Duckworth, Jan Schakowsky, Sean Casten, and Brad Schneider.

On March 17 Newman, the anti-life, self-identifying Catholic, spoke in a U.S. Senate hearing in support of the execrable Equality Act, which has nothing to do with Equality and everything to do with advancing an alchemical superstition about the alleged ability of humans to become the opposite sex through desire, cross-dressing, hormone-doping, and mutilating cosmetic surgery.

She did what “progressives” do best. Rather than make a cogent, rational argument based on reason and evidence, she instead tried to manipulate feelings through a personal “narrative.” She told the sad tale of her troubled teenage son who now pretends to be a woman. Unfortunately, since she chose to exploit her son’s problems on the national stage in order to pass legislation that will affect the entire nation, others have a right to respond.

Newman began her exploitative sermonette by making this remarkable claim, the ramifications of which she clearly has not thought through:

The most important thing in life is to be authentic. I think we all understand that. … Imagine if I asked any of you … on the committee today to simply try being someone you absolutely are not … To try to be something that you are not every day is very difficult. Do this for a week, a month, a year and I guarantee you will feel deep depression, great anxiety, and yes, even suicidal.

Newman neglected to define “authentic.” The American Heritage Dictionary defines “authentic” as “conforming to fact and therefore worthy of trust, reliance, and belief.” As such, a man seeking to pass as a woman is the antithesis of authenticity.

Perhaps Newman believes an “authentic” life means living in accordance with deeply held beliefs. If so, then she should understand that for theologically orthodox Christians, Jews, and Muslims living an authentic life precludes treating humans as if they are the sex they are not. In other words, the Equality Act would compel many Americans to live inauthentic lives. It would compel them to participate in a destructive lie.

From the context, however, it appears Newman links authenticity to living a life of bondage to unchosen, powerful, and persistent desires, no matter how disordered, irrational, or delusional. To Newman being “authentic” appears to refer to yielding to desires that impel artificially induced cessation of natural biological processes and surgical mutilation of healthy, properly functioning parts of sexual anatomy.

Applying consistently Newman’s definition of an “authentic” life would mean that those who experience an unchosen, powerful, and persistent desire to be an amputee (i.e., those with Body Integrity Identity Disorder) should be treated as if they are amputees even if they are equipped with fully functioning, healthy limbs.

And those who experience unchosen, powerful, persistent sexual attraction to children should not be prohibited from acting on those desires, for trying to be someone they are not will—Newman guarantees—result in deep depression, great anxiety, and suicidal ideation.

If trying to be “someone you absolutely are not” is life’s greatest evil, should prideful, vain people stop trying to be modest and humble? Should greedy, selfish, narcissistic people stop trying to be generous, unselfish, and empathetic? Should slothful people stop trying to be industrious? Should people consumed by lust yield to their insatiable appetite for pornography and prostitutes?

Newman arrogantly presumed that everyone on the committee understands that “the most important thing in life is to be authentic”—as she understands authenticity. Perhaps, however, some on this U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee—for example, Marsha Blackburn, Vicki Hartzler, or James Lankford—believe an authentic life means living in a way that corresponds to material reality or to Scripture. To many people, living an authentic life requires denying their desires daily.

Continuing in her presumption about what everyone knows, Newman said,

[W]e already have freedom of religion in our Constitution, and this act does not discriminate against religion, as we all know.

Actually, lawmakers in thrall to the “trans” cult stripped the Equality Act of religious protections, and numerous legal scholars have warned that the passage of the Equality Act poses the most significant threat to constitutional protections of the free exercise of religion ever in America’s history. Newman is either outright lying or indefensibly ignorant.

Mary Hasson, graduate of Notre Dame Law School and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., testified at this same hearing. She made clear what Newman tried to obscure:

The Equality Act threatens serious harm to religious believers and religious organizations, stripping away crucial protections afforded under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act—a law enacted in 1993 with overwhelming, bipartisan support. The Equality Act attacks First Amendment rights as well, inserting language that attempts to tip the scales against believers if they assert claims under the First Amendment or Equal Protection.

The Equality Act reaches far beyond Bostock (which pertained to workplace discrimination) by expanding “public accommodations” to permit discrimination claims wherever Americans “gather,” even virtually. The result? Churches, synagogues, temples, faith-based schools, soup kitchens, and shelters for battered women will be subject to government coercion pressuring them to compromise their religious beliefs or risk endless litigation.

Recipients of federal funds, including houses of worship, religious schools and other faith-based organizations are litigation targets under the Equality Act as well—even for something as simple as maintaining sex-segregated bathrooms. This means a Muslim food bank, Catholic homeless shelter, or Christian center for female survivors of domestic violence will be punished for doing good while following their religious teachings.

Similarly, any private school that enrolls students who receive Pell grants or who participate in school lunch programs are subject to the Equality Act’s sex discrimination provisions. Urban Catholic schools, for example, which provide life-changing education to low-income children would face an untenable choice: violate their deeply held religious beliefs about human nature, sexual difference, and marriage or close their doors to students who rely on federal help. Adoption and foster care programs run by religious believers who desire to serve the most vulnerable are also at risk.

Newman sneakily perpetuated the lie that minor children who experience gender dysphoria will commit suicide unless they “transition”—a euphemism for pretending to be the opposite sex. No one can “transition” from one sex to the other. Newman said,

More than five years ago, before she [sic] had transitioned, my daughter [sic], at just 14 years old had experienced deep depression and anxiety. Unable to identify the cause of her [sic] pain, she [sic] told her [sic] parents that the only two solutions she [sic] felt would solve it was either suicide or running away.

Newman’s son may have felt despair—he may have felt the only solutions were suicide or running away—but his feelings do not mean he was born in the wrong body. Many teens feel despair for many reasons. And now it’s becoming increasingly difficult for teens to access counseling that can help them uncover those reasons.

In addition, there is much mis- and dis- information about suicide and gender dysphoric children circulated eagerly by the “trans”-cult and its ideological allies—misinformation/disinformation that has been dispelled by medical experts who lack the cultural imprimatur and reach of “trans”-cultists. Newman and other members of Congress might do less societal harm if they would read more widely.

It appears Newman may have gotten her son tangled up in one of the many “therapeutic” programs that are, in reality, profiteering “trans”-advocacy programs staffed with activists who couldn’t identify mental health if it slapped them upside their indoctrinated noggins:

[W]e enrolled in a local day therapy program. One night after her [sic] program, my daughter [sic] perked up in her [sic] chair at the dinner table, excited to share some news. She [sic] told us she [sic] had figured it out. “Mom, I’m not a boy. I’m a girl, and my name is Evie Newman.” Everything had clicked at that moment. She [sic] had been pretending to be something she wasn’t. She [sic] wasn’t being authentic, and as we all know, it is the hardest thing in the world to pretend every day. It was the happiest day of our lives.

Newman’s son was not pretending to be a boy prior to the night he made his sudden perky announcement. He always was a boy and remains in perpetuity a boy.

Newman argues that the Equality Act will merely afford her son “civil rights” of which he is currently deprived:

Signing the Equality Act into law. … will ensure that Americans like my daughter [sic] are afforded the same civil rights already extended to every other American across the nation. … We’re not asking for anything special or different, equality and nothing more. No American should have to live a lie.

Baloney. Is Newman arguing that her son is currently denied the right to vote, assemble, speak, exercise his religion freely, own a gun, petition the government, or get a fair trial?

The irony is rich in her claim that “No American should have to live a lie” as she argues for a bill that will compel all Americans to live the lie she and her family are choosing to live.

Demanding that a condition constituted by desire and volitional acts that many view as immoral be treated like objective conditions with no behavioral features like, for example, race or biological sex is, indeed, asking for something special and different.

The irony continues in her statement about religion and sports:

I encourage all of you to not weaponize religion and not weaponize red herrings about sports.

Newman absurdly described the desire of theologically orthodox Christians to live authentic Christian lives when they refuse to affirm a deceit as “weaponizing religion.” And she described the desire of authentic girls not to be forced to compete athletically against biological males who impersonate females as a “weaponized red herring.” In Newman’s view, only the affirmation of “trans”-cultic beliefs and practices can be authentic.

Nearing the end of her Oprah-esque testimony, she almost spoke some sense. She began,

Truth is real and should be a part of this [Equality] act.

Then she had to go and ruin it by making yet another patently false claim:

And it is.

Nope, there is no truth about sex, civil rights, or equality in the Equality Act.

It’s astonishing that the most powerful nation in the world has leaders whose ethical philosophy hasn’t advanced beyond that of a heathen adolescent.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to our U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth to urge them to oppose the federal Equality Act (H.R. 5) which seeks to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include protections for an individual’s perceived sex, “sexual orientation,” or “gender identity.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/IL-Congressional-Rep.-Newman-s-Dumb-Plea-for-Equality-Act.mp3

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