Illinoisans who are struggling to make ends meet as the Democrat-ruled state teeters on the knife edge of insolvency and whose children are suffering grievously from social isolation and missed milestones that can never be recovered have been waiting for the General Assembly to take action. Illinois families of diverse colors, especially those who lack the financial resources to weather a pandemic, a grossly inept response to a pandemic, government corruption, and decades of egregiously irresponsible economic policies have little choice but to wait for tyrannical, inept, irresponsible and corrupt leaders to help them.

As dispirited Illinoisans waited with labored breath for help, Illinois Senator Julie Morrison (D-Lake Forest) came to the rescue, introducing a bill on January 21, 2022 that if passed will amend a gazillion “Acts concerning children.”

With hopes raised a smidge, Illinoisans wondered how Morrison would help their children.

Maybe Morrison is addressing the urgent need to get children back in school—unmasked.

Maybe she’s calling for school choice, so impoverished families will have the freedom to choose how their children are educated.

Maybe she’s addressing the bloated pensions of teachers that bleed Illinoisans dry.

Maybe she is taking on public schools like those in Deerfield whose “educators” teach obscene material to other people’s children.

Maybe she’s addressing the scourge of children in the womb being slaughtered or taxpayer-funding of human slaughter.

Maybe she’s addressing the plague of fatherlessness that harms boys, resulting in criminal activity and urban decay.

Maybe she’s got a plan to weaken the power of teachers’ unions that care more about preventing teachers from teaching and about setting social policy unrelated to education than they do about children.

Maybe, Morrison will try to get “comprehensive” sex ed and “lgb” and “t” advocacy out of our publicly subsidized kindergartens.

Oh no, Morrison’s proposed bill “concerning children,” SB 3961, (and HB 4626 in the Illinois House) addresses far more urgent issues.  Morrison along with chief co-sponsor Melinda Bush (D-Grayslake) who jumped aboard on Monday, and co-sponsors Laura Fine (D-Glenview) and Cristina Castro (D-Elgin) have introduced a bill that will expunge every occurrence of the pronouns “he,” “she,” “his,” and “her” from existing laws pertaining to children. These women (can’t be too sure these days) also seek to bowdlerize laws that mention “uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, great-uncle, great-aunt, step mother, step father, step sister, step brother.”

In a giant leap for personkind, Morrison proposes changing references to a “mother” or a “mother who gives birth” to a “person who gives birth.”

Ahhhh, finally, a real proposal to help suffering Illinoisans, many of whom are making plans to hightail it out of the state. Illinois will once again be a grand and glorious place to raise children when all biologically based pronouns and terms are expunged from law and, it is hoped, from our collective memory. When the heartland never again permits public recognition of the bi-biodiversity (i.e., the sexual dimorphism) of the human species, Illinoisans can stop worrying and be happy. And Morrison and her collaborators can pat themselves vigorously on the back for a dirty job well done.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your state lawmakers to ask them to vote down SB 3961 and HB 4626. You may want to point out that the people of Illinois do not want lawmakers to re-write the English language to accommodate the demands of a group of left-wing ideologues. They have other priorities that demand their attention during this abbreviated session. Spending time to push legislation that would eliminate pronouns is a non-starter.

Please also contact your state senator by phone during normal business hours via the Capitol switchboard: (217) 782-2000.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Illinois-Democrats-Plan-to-Save-the-State.mp3

State Representatives Robyn Gabel (D-Evanston), Bob Morgan (D-Highwood) and State Senator Melinda Bush (D-Grayslake) are sponsoring legislation (SB 1169) to diminish the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act, specifically for COVID-19 remediation. In other words, these state lawmakers are heading up the effort to strike down existing legislation that protects citizens’ rights to excuse themselves from the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The proposal is narrowly designed for this current pandemic in order to get enough votes to pass in the veto session, but it sets a dangerous precedent for future public health “emergencies” by cherry picking out the current pathogen of the moment. The new proposal simply states:

Sec. 13.5. Violations related to COVID-19 requirements. It is not a violation of this Act for any person or public

official, or for any public or private association, agency, corporation, entity, institution, or employer, to take any

measures or impose any requirements, including, but not limited to, any measures or requirements that involve

provision of services by a physician or health care personnel, intended to prevent contraction or transmission of

COVID-19 or any pathogens that result in COVID-19 or any of its subsequent iterations. It is not a violation of

this Act to enforce such measures or requirements, including by terminating employment or excluding individuals

from a school, a place of employment, or public or private premises in response to noncompliance.

This Section is a declaration of existing law and shall not be construed as a new enactment. Accordingly,

this Section shall apply to all actions commenced or pending on or after the effective date of this amendatory

Act of the 102nd General Assembly. Nothing in this Section is intended to affect any right or remedy under federal law.

This is a top priority for Governor JB Pritzker and other Illinois Democrats. They are frustrated with the fact that their tyrannical vaccine mandate has a strong legal defense in the Health Care Right of Conscience Act. In order to fire people from their jobs (private or public) for failing to comply with this “medical” dictate, this conscience protection must be eliminated.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to fill out a witness slip in OPPOSITION to SB 1169, House Floor Amendment 2.

Witness Slip Instructions:

Section I. Enter your name, address, city and zip code. You can leave Firm/Business and Title blank. If it won’t allow you to leave them black, enter self.

Section II. Leave it blank if you are not representing a group, or enter self.

Section III. Check that you are an Opponent to this feckless proposal.

Section IV. Unless you are filing a written statement, select Record of Appearance Only.

Lastly, check that you agree to the terms of agreement.

Click Create (Slip).

If passed, SB 1169 would take effect immediately. It needs 71 votes to pass in the Illinois House and 36 votes in the Illinois Senate, however. Even with super majorities of Democrats in both chambers, securing those votes will not be an easy accomplishment. Please pray that our state lawmakers understand what is at stake here!

Thank you for taking action!

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Your tax-deductible donation is greatly appreciated!

What will it take for decent, sane Illinoisans to organize and protest the loathsome laws coming out of the un-mucked out stable in Springfield? Maybe this bill will do it.

On Feb. 19, 2021, State Senator Melinda Bush (D-Grayslake) proposed amendment SB 457 to the “Equitable Restrooms Act.” Her amendment is called the “Equitable Restrooms Act—All-Gender,” which offers a hint to its content. This excerpt from her amendment makes clear what Bush wants:

The purpose of this Section is to promote the privacy, safety, and gender inclusivity of all Illinois residents and visitors. …

Any multiple-occupancy restroom may be converted into an all-gender multiple-occupancy restroom. If a multiple-occupancy restroom is to be converted into an all-gender multiple-occupancy restroom and a multiple-occupancy restroom serving a different gender is located adjacent or in proximity to the all-gender multiple-occupancy restroom, then both multiple-occupancy restrooms must be converted into all-gender multiple-occupancy restrooms. …

If an all-gender multiple-occupancy restroom is newly constructed, a newly constructed or previously existing restroom located adjacent or in proximity to the newly constructed all-gender multiple-occupancy restrooms must also be designated as an all-gender multiple-occupancy restroom. (emphasis added)

Maybe a reporter could ask Bush what exactly a “different gender” from all genders is? And maybe someone could ask her how exactly the privacy and safety of Illinois girls and women are promoted via mixed-sex bathrooms. In the meantime, Illinoisans should cogitate a bit on the rest of this dung heap of a bill.

Bush’s amendment will mandate that if an existing single-sex multiple-occupancy bathroom is converted to a mixed-sex bathroom, any nearby single-sex multiple-occupancy bathroom must be converted to a mixed-sex bathroom. Further, if a new mixed-sex multiple-occupancy bathroom is constructed, any bathroom nearby must also be a mixed-sex bathroom.

How long before the conscience-deformed swampsters propose a bill requiring that all new and existing multiple-occupancy bathrooms must be mixed-sex? Incrementally, the left will ban all single-sex multiple-occupancy bathrooms in deference to their overlords: “trans”-cultists.

For those who don’t remember, Melinda Bush was one of the prime movers of Illinois’ malignant “Reproductive Health Act,” more accurately called the Kill Babies Bill. Apparently, there are a lot of Grayslake voters who don’t much care about girls of any age.

As I have said repeatedly (and with increasing frustration), the end game for the “trans” cult is not unrestricted access to opposite-sex private spaces for a handful of delusional cross-sex impersonators. The end game is the eradication of all public recognition of sex differences, which means no private spaces for anyone. No private spaces for girls and women. No private spaces for boys and men.

“Trans”-cultists believe girls and women should have no single-sex multiple-occupancy bathrooms available to them anywhere. And “trans”-cultists believe boys and men should have no single-sex multiple-occupancy bathrooms available to them.

If “trans”-cultists and their ignorant allies like Melinda Bush get their way, all girls and women will be forced to enter public bathrooms and walk past men using urinals. Girls and women will be forced to urinate and defecate in stalls next to men—in some cases, peers or co-workers—doing likewise. Girls and women will be forced to emerge from stalls and stand next to unrelated men—including men they don’t even know—while washing their hands after doing their business. Girls and women will be forced to purchase feminine hygiene products in the presence of unrelated men.

This is the primitive, uncivilized dystopia leftists are socially constructing and imposing on all Americans: a world without modesty and privacy. To them, accommodations for modesty and privacy point to sex differences, and that is something they will not abide.

If biological sex as manifest in biology and anatomy has no intrinsic and profound meaning relative to undressing, nudity, or intimate bodily functions, then there remains no reason for any sex-segregated private spaces anywhere for anyone.

If objective, immutable biological sex has no more meaning than eye color, then logically, sex-segregated bathrooms, dressing rooms, showers—including in high school locker rooms and college sports facilities—shelters, hospital rooms, prisons, and dorm rooms make no sense.

If biological sex is a superficial trait as unimportant as skin color, then it makes no sense for any woman to prefer female gynecologists for exams or prefer female x-ray technicians for mammograms.

If biological sex is a meaningless characteristic, then there remains no reason to require locker room attendants in middle and high school locker rooms to be of the same sex as the students they oversee. Would we ever require all locker room attendants to have a certain eye or skin color?

But if objective, immutable biological sex is intrinsically and profoundly meaningful with regard to feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy when engaged in intimate bodily functions or undressing, then the refusal to respect and accommodate biological sex differences in private settings is evil.

Make no mistake, this is coming to all public spaces in all states. The “trans”-cult will leave no corner unsullied by its delusional and evil beliefs and practices, because the presence of any cultural recognition that biological sex exists and has meaning threatens the shaky ideological grounding of their cult-like, science-denying beliefs.

In our brave new socially constructed dystopia, single-sex group bathrooms are passé. Mixed-sex group bathrooms are all the rage, and they’re coming to public schools, colleges and universities, big-box stores, sports arenas, concert venues, restaurants, theaters, office buildings, airports, bus stations, and train stations.

As I wrote two weeks ago,

Leftists have their gimlet eyes always focused on the big picture as they play the long game to rule the country. While conservatives dismiss the “little” offenses and fume briefly about the big offenses against decency, morality, and truth, leftists continue their march through every institution that shapes culture.

Slowly they come, step by step, prepared for the wailing of conservatives, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Leftists bide their time, knowing the annoying sound and fury will shortly abate. Exhausted, conservatives will go home, abandoning all that messy, unpleasant opposition to the culture-unmaking of leftists. Conservatives won’t organize, won’t persevere, and won’t sacrifice. And the ones who do fight the evil-doers are alone and isolated because the masses of conservatives don’t want to do the hard work of culture-making.

What Illinois and the nation need are a few good men and women to rise up and lead a movement of all decent people against this injustice. Just imagine what kind of country we will bequeath to our children and grandchildren if we continue to do nothing now.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your state senator and state representative. Urge them to vote against SB 457 and the foolish agenda that fails to recognize biological facts. Ask them to protect the privacy, dignity and safety of all Illinois citizens.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Bathroom-81.mp3

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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

It’s official. Illinois is the now the most pernicious state in the country. Governor Jay “Baby Butchery Booster” Pritzker signed into law the Kill-Babies-Bill—euphemistically named the Reproductive Health Act—which has nothing to do with reproducing and nothing to do with health. Instead it enshrines in law that the smallest, weakest, most vulnerable humans have no legal rights and that larger, stronger, arrogant people have an absolute right to kill them. Illinois is now the nation’s bloody altar on which babies are sacrificed to the god of Autonomy that America worships.

At an obscene press conference/celebration of his signing into law the Kill-Babies-Bill, Pritzker thanked Illinois’ most morally repugnant lawmakers (which is saying a LOT), State Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago) and State Sen. Melinda Bush (D-Grayslake), along with Planned Parenthood, Personal PAC, and the ACLU of Illinois as “true champions” for “women’s reproductive health.” Oddly, Pritzker didn’t mention the female humans (aka girls) who will never grow into women because Cassidy, Pritzker, Bush, and their accomplices signed their death warrants.

Equally repugnant were the cheers and applause from the sycophantic crowd standing behind Butchery-Booster Pritzker. Lest anyone think the term “butchery” is hyperbolic, remember that he, Cassidy, and Bush are rejoicing over the legal right of women to off their full-term babies, which means injecting their hearts with digoxin to induce heart failure, or sucking out their brains and crushing their skulls, or dismembering them. Butchery is perhaps too genteel a term.

Pritzker, Cassidy, and Bush prefer calling butchery “health care.” But neither their deceitful use of euphemistic language nor, to quote Shakespeare, “all the water in the ocean” can wash the blood from their hands. Instead, their “hands will stain the seas scarlet, turning the green waters red.”

One of Pritzker’s many applause lines was “Abortion bans don’t ban abortion. They just endanger women.” Surely, he’s not that stupid. Abortion bans do, indeed, ban abortion. They don’t end it. And murder, theft, and sexual assault bans don’t end murder, theft, or sexual assaults. But legal bans on abortion would deter abortion and reduce the number of humans slaughtered in the womb.

In an embarrassing attempt to channel John F. Kennedy who in his famous inaugural address said “Let the word go forth from this time and place,” a prideful, presumptuous Pritzker proclaimed:

Let the word go forth today from this place, if you believe in standing up for women’s fundamental rights, Illinois is a beacon of hope in the heart of this nation.

Illinois has not for many decades been a beacon of hope for the heart of the nation. Whatever flickering light remained in Illinois has now been snuffed out by Pritzker, Cassidy, Bush et al just like the babies who will be. Illinois is now a human slaughterhouse at the heart of the nation. Illinois “progressives” have turned the Land of Lincoln into a fiscal and moral mess that Pritzker’s soaring plagiarized rhetoric only illuminates. (BTW, don’t pink-hatted, “nasty,” shouting women say men aren’t permitted to opine on abortion?)

Following Pritzker came the nemesis of decency and truth, Kelly Cassidy, who with no sense of irony but lots of fake-almost-tears, declared,

There is a war against women, a war on bodily autonomy, and our opponents are using hateful, untrue, and outright misogynist rhetoric which escalates daily and endangers women everywhere.

For the umpteenth time to a party increasingly at odds with both morality and science, when women become pregnant there are two bodies—not one. If the “right to bodily autonomy” (whatever that means) comes into direct conflict with another human’s right to live, it should be obvious to all that the right to live is a right of a higher moral order than the “right to bodily autonomy.” All other rights derive from and depend on the most basic right, the right to live.

It is Pritzker, Cassidy, and Bush who endanger the greatest number of humans—including female humans. By “1965, the number of deaths due to illegal abortion had fallen to just under 200,” and in “1972 (the year before abortion was federally legalized), a total of 24 women died from causes known to be associated with legal abortions, and 39 died as a result of known illegal abortions.” Compare those numbers of tragic accidental deaths to the intentional slaughter of 61,000,000 humans in the womb in the United States since 1973 or the 426, 492 humans killed in the womb so far in 2019—including 5,544 killings after 21 weeks gestation.

The Senate sponsor of the Kill-Babies-Bill, Melinda Bush, proved herself as foolish as Cassidy and Pritzker saying,

We believe that women should have the same autonomy over their bodies that men do.

Bush paused waiting for a beat for adulatory applause for that curious notion. No worries, her henchwomen/handmaidens picked up her cue and dutifully obliged, tepidly clapping for, I guess, men’s right to abortion.

I will close with these words from JKF’s inaugural address—words that Pritzker chose not to plagiarize:

[T]he same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe–the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God…. Let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure…. ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice…. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/AbortionCheers.mp3

IFI Banquet Speaker Announced!
We are excited to announce that at this year’s IFI banquet, our keynote speaker will be none other than Rev. Franklin Graham, President & CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christian evangelist & missionary. This year’s event will be at the Tinley Park Convention Center on Nov. 1st.

Learn more HERE.

Illinois state lawmakers are on spring break for the next two weeks. Many of them have announced “in-district” work hours. This is a great time to get an appointment with your state representative and senator to talk to them about your concerns, especially your concerns about these extreme anti-life bills which would expand abortion’s reach in our state:

• HB 2495 and SB 1942, wrongly named the Reproductive Health Act(s) and sponsored by State Representative Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago) and State Senator Melinda Bush (D-Grayslake), will repeal the 1975 Illinois Abortion law, will repeal the Partial Birth Abortion Ban, and will remove any and all regulations for clinics that commit abortions. These bills are so extreme that they allow for non-medical individuals to commit abortions in places other than medical clinics.

• HB 2467 and SB 1594, sponsored by State Representative Chris Emmanuel Welch (D-Westchester) and State Senator Elgie Sims (D-Chicago), will repeal the Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995, which only requires notification–not consent–thereby allowing young girls to have secret abortions.

The good news is the two House bills have stalled during the current session. The bad news is that SB 1594 has passed out of a senate committee and pro-abortion activists at Planned Parenthood are planning a lobby day for May 1st in hopes of jump-starting some momentum for these bills.

It should not be lost on anyone that our left-wing opponents picked May 1st — “May Day” — for this day of action. “May Day” is also known as International Workers’ Day and recognized by Socialists and Marxists around the world, often with military parades and/or political protests. (Read more HERE.)

In response to their lobby day, Illinois Family Institute is calling on all of our subscribers to join us on that day in flooding the Capitol with phone calls to stand for the unborn. We are calling on you and your like-minded friends to join us on “May Day Meltdown.” We hope to jam the phone lines with calls going into our state lawmakers offices with strong appeals to kill these bills. If all of our subscribers made three calls during the business day on May 1st–one to Governor JB Pritzker, one to your state senator and your state representative–it would send a clear, strong message that we are not going away and we refuse to remain silent.

So mark your calendars for “May Day Meltdown” on May 1st. Click HERE for their political leaders’ contact information. Your state senator and representative are the last two listed on the page.

While you are waiting for May 1st to arrive, there is something else you can do right now:

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your state senator, state representative and to Gov. Pritzker. Ask them to stop targeting innocent pre-born children and vulnerable women in Illinois. Ask your state senator, state representative and Gov. Pritzker to oppose all anti-life legislation.

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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

Novelist Vikram Seth wrote, “God save us from people who mean well.” Who are among those well-meaning people from whom we desperately need saving?

Politicians.

In a well-intentioned but misguided attempt to attack the widespread and grievous problem of domestic violence, State Senator Melinda Bush (D-Grayslake) is pushing SB 912. The bill would force religious leaders to undergo domestic violence recognition-training within one year of their initial employment and every five years thereafter.

The bill amends the Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act which requires a wide range of professions, including medical professionals, teachers, and foster parents, to report any signs of domestic abuse to authorities. However, SB 912 singles out only religious leaders to take the mandated training.

This is a deeply troubling development.  The state of Illinois has no business requiring clergy to do anything.  It is easy to see how a precedent like this could lead to additional mandates that would pit secular values and beliefs against orthodox Christian values and teachings.

Moreover, the bill’s scope is not limited to pastors, priests, or heads of a ministry. Under the Act, clergy is defined as any “practitioner of any religious denomination accredited by the religious body to which he or she belongs.” This language is broad enough to include elders, deacons, and even school teachers in some denominations.

The First Amendment prevents civil authorities from interfering with the establishment of religion, which is clearly involved here. Never before has the state dictated forms of training for religious leaders, and one can foresee new types of training down the road. What is to prevent the state from mandating other types of training such as sensitivity-training toward sexually immoral lifestyles?

Setting aside the laudable intentions of this proposal, we cannot emphasize enough just how dangerous this precedent is to religious liberty and the rights of conscience.

While the bill mentions no penalty for the refusal of religious leaders to take the training, it is not known  whether this means there will be no consequences for refusal to comply or whether penalties are to come.

Finally, who is going to pay for this training? Thousands of people across the state will be mandated to take this training on a regular basis which will be costly. The bill does not state whether the clergy or the state will pay for it. Clergy generally do not have the funds to take on extra costs, and the state of Illinois is certainly not in a position to increase spending.

Many denominations already provide training to  help leaders recognize signs of domestic abuse. State interference in the training of religious institutions is an unreasonable, unnecessary, and unconstitutional response to the problem of domestic abuse.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your state senator, urging him or her to oppose state-mandated training for religious leaders.

IFI Forums: Climate Change & the Christian

Join us during the last week of April as we have Dr. Calvin Beisner, the founder & national spokesman for The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation discuss the Christian responsibility to the environment as we learn how to discern truth and myth in the climate change controversy.

April 25th in Rockford
April 26th in Arlington Heights
April 27th in Orland Park
April 28th in Peoria

Click HERE to learn more!