If you ever doubted that we wrestle against spiritual forces of evil who call good evil and evil good, then please watch these two videos of brief statements made on the floor of the Illinois House on Wednesday.

First, watch this video of one of Illinois’ finest lawmakers, the always gracious Tom Morrison (R-Palatine), who civilly expressed his views on the injustice of eradicating public recognition of sex differences, including in women’s private spaces and sports.

Then watch this video of Illinois’ worst lawmaker, the sanctimonious, arrogant, and venomous lesbian Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago), who, in response to Morrison, hurled indefensible lies at him, refusing even to use his name.

I urge you to watch these videos because how each Illinois House member spoke is almost as important as what they said. But for your convenience, the transcripts of both statements are set forth below, beginning with Morrison’s. Please read it carefully, so you are able to discern whether Cassidy’s response was justifiable:

For these past several weeks, we’ve been hearing facts about women’s history month, and I’m sure that we’ll hear more facts today and this week. When we hear those words, we think about our own mothers, wives, daughters, other notable women throughout history. We objectively know what a woman is, but it’s become increasingly common now to pretend that we don’t know. This is becoming George Orwell’s 1984. It’s Newspeak. It’s gaslighting. It’s activists pounding the table to declare that two plus two equals five. And that does not make it so. Demands that society accept lies as facts in the name of tolerance, inclusion, and justice is anything but. It’s not right, compassionate, or just.

This past weekend, the NCAA allowed a man to become a national champion in women’s swimming. This action was months and years in the making, and it denied that rightful place of honor to actual female athletes, several of whom were denied being named All Americans because their place was taken by University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas. Anyone who thinks that fairness in sports competition is the only issue here is missing the point.

Months ago, teammates of Lia Thomas complained to school officials that Thomas had exposed male nudity repeatedly in their locker room. This should have been a clearcut case of indecency and harassment, but university officials ignored the women’s concerns and discomfort. “Listen to women.” In this case, hardly.

Parents in Los Alamitos, California last month sent their fifth-grade girls on a three-day overnight school science field trip. After the weekend concluded, the girls told their parents that three male counselors who identify as non-binary shared those cabin quarters with the girls for each of the nights. Schools in Illinois already have similar policies. And most parents don’t even know, nor will they be told by school officials, less they be accused of discrimination.

In several states, including California, Washington State, and even here in Illinois, hundreds of male inmates, many of whom are serving time for sexual crimes or other crimes of violence are self-declaring as female or non-binary. And they’re getting a transfer to a women’s-only facility. There’s no requirement for surgery, no requirement for hormone therapy. Even if that did make the policy less bad, any sane person realizes how outrageous this is, but the practice continues and is expanding as more individuals realize what they can get away with.

According to a press report, President Joe Biden is now reportedly planning or considering I should say an executive order modeled after the California law, which would allow federal inmates to self-identify their gender and choose between a male or female prison.

Ideas have consequences. It is a minority of vocal activists who continue to push this ideology on all levels of society, including to young school children. It’s an ideology that is at war with reality, and we must stop blindly going along.

We can and should be kind to individuals who suffer from gender dysphoria, but we can do so without completely and irrationally upending society, which is already happening at lightning speed. If we really believe in the protection of women and women’s rights, we must acknowledge the harms being done and bring a stop to this, including the silence and passive acceptance about what’s really going on.

I imagine that here in this body, and perhaps beyond this chamber, there will be some who will try to condemn me and my words, but I’d like to close with these words by columnist Selwyn Duke: “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.”

Thank you.

Now read Cassidy’s statement:

Last week, my constituent Elise Malary was pulled out of Lake Michigan. Elise was a shining example of what we want people to do and be in our community. She was part of our community on the North Side. She was dedicated to uplifting the people that she lived and worked with every day. She is one of too many black trans women whose lives mean nothing to the man on the other side of this room. She is one of many transgendered youth who are at increased risk of suicide because of the actions of people like the man that just spoke.

We are watching around the country as right-wing politicians take aim at trans youth and their families picking on the least of these. I’ve watched for years as my colleague has tormented trans youth in his community. And the brave young woman who stood up to that behavior is now my constituent as well. And to every trans youth out there listening,  to every parent who loves and affirms their children as God gave them to them, that’s not happening here in Illinois.

We will not follow in the footsteps of states that are tormenting these families and driving them away. We will embrace our youth. We will protect our youth and we will work together to solve the epidemic of murders and suicides among trans women in our community because we actually love and care for people as God made them. I don’t want to hear any more hate speech on this floor, not from anyone. And if we can only do one thing to honor Elise Malary’s memory, it’s to do that. Hate speech does not belong on this floor, not now, not ever.

For those who don’t know, “Elise” Malary, was a 31-year-old man who identified as a woman. He was not—as Cassidy implied—a “youth.” His age doesn’t make his death less tragic. Rather, his age reveals how misleading and manipulative Cassidy is.

To summarize, Morrison believes it is unjust for women to lose sports awards and records to biological men. He believes it is unjust for adult men to room with young girls. And he believes it is unjust for female prisoners to be housed with male criminals.

So too do feminists from the other side of the political aisle, including the Women’s Liberation Front, Naomi Wolf, Kara Dansky, the Women’s Declaration International, and J.K. Rowling. In Cassidy’s view, are all these left-leaning feminists—including many lesbians—guilty of hate speech for expressing their belief that sex-based rights exist and that denial of them is unjust? Does defending the sex-based rights of girls and women constitute the tormenting of gender-dysphoric boys in Cassidy’s distorted view?

I have seen and heard a lot of repugnant things spewed by the unscrupulous demagogue Cassidy, but nothing as repugnant as her exploitation of a tragic death to smear of one of Illinois’ finest public servants. In her vitriolic diatribe, she trembled with unrighteous rage as she falsely accuses Morrison of not caring about the death of a “black trans youth.” What is her evidence for this allegation?

What evidence did Cassidy provide for her malignant claim that Morrison doesn’t care about the deaths of “trans”-identifying youth or that his words about the reality and meaning of objective, immutable biological sex causes the suicide of “trans”-identifying youth?

What is Cassidy’s evidence that Morrison hates and “torments” trans people? What is her evidence that Morrison (or the millions of men and women who share his beliefs on gender dysphoria) hates those who identify as “trans”? Does Cassidy hate everyone who believes differently than she does on gender, sex, and “sexual orientation”? If so, then she must hate a huge swath of people, including many Catholics, Protestants, Eastern Orthodox, Orthodox Jews, and Muslims.

What is her evidence that God “made” gender dysphoria? Did God make Minor Attraction? Zoophilia? Genetic Sexual Attraction? Did God make body dysmorphia? Did God make schizophrenia? Did God make cleft palate or spinal bifida? Or does God make humans in a world corrupted by the fall that results in disordered bodies, minds, and hearts?

In Cassidy’s view, does “loving and caring for others just the way God made them” include loving and caring for Christians just the way God made them? Does such love demand she affirm all their desires, beliefs, and actions? Does caring for and loving pedophiles or hebephiles require affirming their feelings and identities?

Is Cassidy aware that many in the medical and mental health communities believe that gender dysphoria and “trans”-identification may be symptoms—like depression and anxiety—of underlying causes, including autism, trauma, abuse, and psychosocial experiences?

Is she aware that hospitals in Sweden and the UK have stopped providing hormonal “treatment” to minors? Are they hateful? Should they be prohibited from speaking? While children and teens with gender dysphoria need compassion and treatment, the disputed question is what kind of treatment is best. Disagreeing with Cassidy on the best path forward does not constitute hatred of gender-dysphoric youth.

Cassidy concludes with an astonishing display of arrogance. Cassidy arrogates to herself the right to define “hate speech” and then arrogates to herself the right to ban it from the House floor? Unbelievable hubris.

Word to Cassidy, Christians think her assumptions about gender, sex, and “sexual orientation” are false and destructive. Many Christians feel uncomfortable and even marginalized by what they view as her hate speech and her attempts to silence dissent. They find her words as intolerant and bigoted as she finds the words of Rep. Morrison.

Why did no Republicans respond to Cassidy’s intemperate, uncivil, indefensible statement? Are there no Republicans with the integrity and courage to speak publicly as Morrison did on this issue of profound importance? Are there no Republicans willing to call for Cassidy to be censured?

Republicans who said nothing following Cassidy’s calumny should be ashamed.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Kelly-Cassidy-Hits-New-Ethical-Low.mp3

One of the many remarkable aspects of this time in America is that all the forces of oppression about which George Orwell warned in his novel 1984 are present and growing, and many of the oppressors can’t see it. Ironically, many of the oppressors view themselves as paragons of virtue when, in reality, they’re paragons of virtue-signaling, which constitutes a performative cloak of invisibility that conceals their totalitarianism.

In Orwell’s portentous novel, he describes four government ministries, one of which—the Ministry of Truth—“concerned itself with news, entertainment, education, and the fine arts.” Orwell wrote,

‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ … All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. ‘Reality control’, they called it: in Newspeak, ‘doublethink’.

While our news, entertainment, education, and fine arts are not institutionally linked to the government, they are ideologically bound together in an unholy alliance that seeks to indoctrinate society just as Big Brother does in 1984.

Today “progressives” are tearing down statues and renaming government schools to erase recognition of our Founding Fathers. Government schools are teaching the revisionist history of the 1619 Project and Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States.

Through falsified birth certificates and drivers’ licenses, the state colludes with mainstream news outlets, entertainment, and educational institutions to scrub history by identifying men and women as the sex they aren’t. Try looking for information on the actress Ellen Page. Within hours of Page’s recent announcement that she was no longer a woman, the disparate minions in the Ministry of Truth began scrubbing history, changing “Ellen” to “Elliot” and replacing all pronouns that refer to her with deceitful male pronouns.

Acts of hatred and deceit against the human person are now called “love” and “authenticity” by those practiced at the art of Newspeak.

Orwell wrote, “If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death.”

It’s happening now, and it is terrifying, indeed. Now we have intrusive Big Government—including government schools—in cahoots with Big Tech to control the past, the present, and the future. Social media has created algorithms and inconsistently applied “community standards” to suppress the dissemination of not only ideas but also news.

Orwell explains that in the government-mandated language of Newspeak, “Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” When I worked at Deerfield High School, two English teachers, Michael Wolf and Jeff Berger-White, sent a letter to the local press which was signed by half the department in which they argued,

It is difficult for … people … to simultaneously hold conflicting opinions. But this difficulty should not prevent us from attempting to do so. The best work we do in our classrooms is to highlight how multiple understandings are true, and that the validity of one idea does not necessarily negate the validity of another.

I’m pretty sure they read 1984 but seemed to have missed the point.

In their letter, they acknowledged that “certain doctrine” that “may not allow diverse and conflicting views to coexist” still have a “cherished place” in their classrooms—unless those doctrine are “malicious.” Guess which views on sexuality the gods of government schools have declared malicious.

The vehicle for our rocketing trip deep down into our subterranean Orwellian dystopia is “trans”-cultism. The world we’ve entered is the anti-science Transtopia where, in Orwell’s words, “Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.” The propellant that reality-denying “trans”-cultists and their fearful and/or foolish collaborators use is Newspeak.

Newspeak, like the speech rules leftists impose today, is intended to control thought:

It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all… a heretical thought… should be literally unthinkable. … This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings. … [T]he special function of certain Newspeak words. … was not so much to express meanings as to destroy them.

In two now-famous quotes, Orwell illuminates the troubling views of tyrants about language:

“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”

“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”

On December 8, 2020, the University of Michigan’s Information and Technology Services’ “Words Matter Task Force”—Ministry of Truth for short—issued its spanking new Newspeak lexicon. Acknowledging that “language is powerful,” the Ministers of Truthiness have published a document with banned words and “recommended” replacements along with a bewildering array of action steps to ensure widespread compliance. The banned list—which is “not exhaustive and will continue to grow”—are those words deemed by the Ministers of Truthiness (aka Thought Police) to “harm morale, and deliberately or inadvertently exclude people from feeling accepted” or “cause people to feel alienated.”

Here are a few of the alienating terms (left column) and their “recommended” Newspeakian replacements (right column):

I don’t know how fans of Masters of the Universe are going to feel about Primaries of the Universe.

This list reveals that the left is teaching people to be offended in order to maintain their cultural power through intersectional-identity grievance politics. My anecdotal experience with even leftists suggests virtually no one has been offended by most of these expressions as they are commonly used until the last five minutes of history. And the faux-offense now being asserted didn’t arise naturally. It had to be beaten into them by the hammer of tolerance wielded by far-left social justice warriors.

It also raises a question for leftists: If a word’s history is largely unknown and its current meaning is inoffensive, why eliminate it? Why not be thankful that the old ugly association has been supplanted by a new innocuous one?

If, on the other hand, we must commit to linguistic stasis, then shouldn’t we retain the historical meaning of, for example, pronouns?

And what if I’m offended by being commanded to use pronouns based on “gender identity” rather than on biological sex?  What if, because I’m deeply committed to science, reality, truth, and the First Amendment, I’m offended by attempts to socially coerce language compliance in the service of a political agenda?

Orwell wrote that “Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” Yep, that pretty much describes what 16+ years of secular education does to children.

Under an article about the University of Michigan’s Ministry of Truth on the College Fix website, one waggish fellow left this perfect response to the banned words list:

Every member of the Words Matter Task Force has sold his or her ideals down the river. This black-and-white thinking only ever leads to blacklists, and shunning people off the reservation while the crazies enjoy a crippled picnic. To be thrown under the bus for being the low man on the social-justice totem pole is to be grandfathered into the ever-growing community of gypped guys and gals, excluded when the masters change the rules of polite society into one of a dummy society where every utterance is weighed for a privileged account. Even asking for a sanity check of these lunatic brown-baggers puts you at risk of being professionally, if not personally, disabled. They may start by cracking the whip rhetorically, but their rhetoric inevitably leads to insane physical realities sooner or later.

In short, kiss my grits, sweetie.

Remember this list next time you see the leftist American Library Association’s annual umbrage-fest called Banned Books Week. Leftists ban not only books, but also words.

Orwell said something else “progressives” will hate:

Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting.

Listen to this article read by Laurie: 

Let’s take a 10-minute break from reading about the Chinese Communist government’s gross malfeasance to look at the malfeasance of an American judge who thinks he has the authority to mandate Newspeak.

In February the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed a lawsuit on behalf of three members of girls’ high school track and field teams in three different Connecticut high schools, claiming that the girls’ rights are being violated by the schools allowing biological boys who pretend to be girls to participate on the girls’ teams. The defendants are the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference and four Connecticut school boards. Controversial U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny ordered ADF attorneys to refer to the boys as “transgender females,” describing ADF’s use of the term “males” as bullying.

First some background on Chatigny: In 2010, Barack Obama tried to move Chatigny up to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, but his nomination met with opposition due to Chatigny’s “empathy” for child rapist/murderers. A Washington Times editorial called his nomination an “abomination”:

The [Senate Judiciary] committee should kill the federal appeals court nomination of Federal District Judge Robert N. Chatigny of Connecticut. … Judge Chatigny has a weird record of empathy for those accused of sexual crimes involving children. … [T]he U.S. Supreme Court eventually reversed Judge Chatigny, unanimously, when the judge tried to rule against one aspect of his state’s version of a Megan’s Law sex-offender registry. In 12 child-pornography cases, Judge Chatigny imposed a sentence either at or more lenient than the recommended minimum—with most downward departures involving sentences less than half as long. And in an outrageous case of judicial abuse, Judge Chatigny threatened to take away an attorney’s law license if the lawyer failed to appeal the death sentence of an eight-time murderer of girls and young women. The judge claimed the killer’s “sexual sadism” was a mental disorder that made the murderer himself a victim.

In an April 16 conference call with ADF attorneys, Big Brother Chatigny issued this astonishing command regarding the boys on the girls’ track teams:

[Y]ou must refer to them as “transgender females” rather than as “males.” Again, that’s the more accurate terminology, and I think that it fully protects your client’s legitimate interests. Referring to these individuals as “transgender females” is consistent with science, common practice and perhaps human decency. To refer to them as “males,” period, is not accurate, certainly not as accurate, and I think it’s needlessly provocative. I don’t think that you surrender any legitimate interest or position if you refer to them as transgender females. That is what the case is about. This isn’t a case involving males who have decided that they want to run in girls’ events. This is a case about girls who say that transgender girls should not be allowed to run in girls’ events. So, going forward, we will not refer to the proposed intervenors as “males”; understood?

What a galling display of arrogance in the service of an incoherent, ignorant, and destructive ideology. “Transgender female” is a leftist term created to propagate an ideology. Forcing ADF attorneys to use it does not protect their clients’ interests. It does exactly the opposite. It undermines their interests while promoting the interests of the defendants, the boys who are violating the rights of the girls, and the “trans” cult.

Exactly what “science” is he referring to? The hard science that says that the human species is sexually dimorphic? The hard science that says biological sex can never change? The hard science that points to the serious health risks of cross-sex hormone-doping and surgical attempts to create “neo-vaginas”? Do tell, Big Brother Chatigny, what hard science dictates that biological boys who wish they were girls must be referred to as “transgender females.” From my understanding, Big Brother’s language diktat has nothing whatsoever to do with hard science and everything to do with a controversial ideology.

Exactly what “common practice” is Big Brother Chatigny referring to? The common practice has forever been to refer to biological males as males. Even today, millions of people refer to biological males who pretend to be, or wish they were, or falsely believe they are female as males. Sure, leftists like Big Brother Chatigny are hell-bent on coercing common practice to change via commands, fines, and laws, but their efforts violate the First Amendment rights of those who seek to speak truth that is consonant with hard science.

Big Brother Chatigny makes the absurd claim that referring to biological males as males is “not as accurate” as his PC choice of the PC term “transgender females,” which is merely a political stepping stone to the next step when the “trans” cult demands “transgender” be dropped.

In Transtopia where “transgender females” are females, why should they be discriminated against by being referred to as “transgender females”? If other females (you know, actual females) are just called “female,” so too should biological males who pretend to be females. When that day arrives, Big Brother Chatigny will surely command those who appear before him in court to stop saying “transgender females,” UNDERSTOOD?

With no sense of irony, Chatigny argues that human decency requires humans to participate in an elaborate deception that denies biological reality, mutilates bodies, disrupts healthy biological processes, and requires both lying and violating the privacy rights of others.

Chatigny argues that referring to biological males who pretend to be female as “males” is “needlessly provocative.” Has the man utterly lost his capacity for rational thought? Does he really not see that commanding others to refer to males as females is needlessly provocative? Adding “transgender” to “females” does not make it less provocative.

Leftists arrogate to themselves the unilateral right to redefine every term that suits their moral, philosophical, or political purposes. They get to redefine marriage, love, safety, tolerance, bigotry, bullying, hatred, he, she, female, male, and now “provocative.” Like a gang of scornful Humpty Dumpties, leftists proclaim, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

Yes, this case is exactly about males running in girls’ track and field events. Does he think there exists no such objective phenomenon as biological males in nature? Does he believe biological male is merely a construct, idea, or epiphenomenon of the mind made real or instantiated only by the commingling of thought and desire?

George Orwell warned about the political abuse of language by oppressive governments which he called “Newspeak”:

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of IngSoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all… a heretical thought… should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meaning and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meaning whatever. … [T]he special function of certain Newspeak words … was not so much to express meanings as to destroy them. 

That is exactly what the “trans” cult and it’s “progressive” sycophants like Chatigny are doing.

Fortunately for their plaintiffs and all the rest of sane society, ADF will not yield to the unseemly, unconstitutional commands of Big Brother.  The ADF filed a motion asking that the judge recuse himself, arguing that “A disinterested observer would reasonably believe that the Court’s order and comments have destroyed the appearance of impartiality in this proceeding. That requires recusal.”

Kudos to and prayers for ADF.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Judge-Commands-ADF-to-Use-Trans-Term.mp3

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Two years ago, homosexual activist and writer for the recently shuttered “progressive” website ThinkProgress, Zack Ford tweeted this:

I’ve personally met many trans men I’m attracted to. If genitals determine how you feel about someone, you’re transphobic.

To be clear in this shifty, slippery, imaginary, alchemical world in which cross-sex identifiers live and move and have their being, “trans men” are biological women, also known as women.

As anyone who is familiar with the homosexual community—particularly male homosexual community—knows, homosexuals care deeply about the genitals of their sexual partners. Calling a homosexual man “transphobic” for not being attracted to women is actually an act of “homophobia.” Oh, the tangled webs an incoherent ideology weaves.

Ford’s tweet provided yet more evidence of the growing schism in the LGB/T alliance, a schism of which many remain unaware.

“Gender critical” feminists, many of whom are lesbians, have been at the forefront of the schism, and for their justifiable objection to the presence of biological males in women’s private spaces and athletics, the “trans” community has turned on them with stunning viciousness. Within the “trans” community, it is primarily biological men who pretend to be women (henceforth referred to as pretend-women) who view gender critical feminists as quislings worthy of death.

In their quest to impose a totalizing and totalitarian ideology on all of society, pretend-women have done what “progressives” do best: manipulate language—a strategic phenomenon George Orwell called Newspeak. Pretend-women invented the epithet “TERF” to hurl at feminists who believe the ontological status of “woman” should not be appropriated by biological men, also known as men.

Gender critical feminists (as well as women who do not embrace second wave feminism), believe such appropriation erases women, violates their intrinsic right to be free of the presence of biological males in spaces where girls and women engage in personal bodily functions and undress, and puts at risk the physical safety of girls and women.

A more fitting nomenclature for feminists who object to the “trans” ideology in theory and practice would be “gender identity ideology” critics or as Ani O’Brien—who is herself a critic of the “trans” ideology—calls them, “sex essentialists.” They are aligned with second wave feminists who critiqued the rigid cultural expectations and conventions associated with maleness and femaleness. Gender critical feminists note and criticize that the entire “trans” ideology is built on these stereotypes:

[W]e believe that it is our biological sex and our biological sex alone that makes us women. It is not the gender stereotypes that we are socialised to associate with womanhood. It is not the “empathy” or outward expressions of femininity like how we dress or style our hair. Our POTENTIAL to become pregnant is a core part of our femaleness and it is central to a lot of the experiences women have in common…. [I]t is in fact proponents of gender identity ideology who are gender essentialist. After all, it is they who think gender is so innate that someone can be born in the wrong body. They conceptualise gender as a kind of soul that exists as separate from the biology of the person. Is it not terribly gender essentialist to suggest that a man who feels an innate sense of ‘womanness’ because he is (perhaps) empathetic, nurturing, gentle, sensitive, and presents femininely, must actually be a woman? Because no man could possibly possess those characteristics and present in that way? Rather than embrace the feminine man or the masculine women, gender identity ideology would have them switch place to ‘match’ their gender identity to the ‘appropriate’ sex.

For refusing to genuflect to pretend-women, sex essentialists are branded TERFs. TERF stands for “trans exclusionary radical feminist,” and it is not a neutral descriptor. It is a hateful pejorative often accompanied by obscene and violent threats. In 2014 and 2015, gender critical feminists created a website on which they posted tweets from pretend-women about “TERFs” that are not for the faint of heart or decent of mind but are worth being aware of because they offer a glimpse into the dark side of a dark cultural movement.

In May 2018, the San Francisco Public Library had a shocking exhibit by the Degenderettes, pretend-men who hate “TERFs.”

Until recently, the LGB/T schism was largely driven by the efforts of gender critical feminists but recently evidence suggests that even male homosexual activists are joining the fight against at least some of the cultural goals of the “trans” cult.

In an open letter to the “LGBTQ” activist organization Stonewall UK, its founder Simon Fanshawe and 21 other homosexual “rights” activists expressed their opposition to the sexual integration of female private spaces. Reality can’t long be denied:

Last October a group of LGB rights supporters asked Stonewall to ‘commit to fostering an atmosphere of respectful debate rather than demonising as transphobic those who wish to discuss, or dissent from, Stonewall’s transgender policies.’ Since then, Stonewall has refused repeated requests to enter into any such dialogue…. We believe it has made mistakes in its approach that undermine women’s sex-based rights and protections. The most worrying aspect of this is that all primary-school children are now challenged to review their “gender identity” and decide that they may be the opposite sex if they do not embrace outdated gender stereotypes…. If Stonewall remains intransigent, there must surely now be an opening for a new organisation committed both to freedom of speech and to fact instead of fantasy.

The demise of the incoherent, science-denying ideology that is confusing and harming children, and will, if permitted to metastasize, violate the privacy, speech, and religious rights of countless people, is being hastened by the schism in the LGB/T alliance. How remarkable it is that so few Christians who should know truth lack the wisdom or courage or both to speak publicly against an ideology that will stain the landscape with the tears of the sterilized and mutilated.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

This article was originally published at SalvoMag.com

Last week School District 65, which serves the racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse Evanston and Skokie, Illinois communities, went whole hog on disseminating a controversial ideology to captive audiences of other people’s children who came to school with open minds and hearts into which “progressives” poured  poison masquerading as inarguable truth. District 65’s celebration of “LGBTQ+ Equity Week” offers a glimpse into the kind of pernicious indoctrination that the cunningly named “Inclusive Curriculum” bill signed into law by Governor J. B. Pritzker will bring to Illinois school children.

The mess of poisonous pottage was a project of the Gender and Sexuality Educator Alliance (GSEA), “a group of educators in Evanston/Skokie School District 65 who seek to advocate for inclusive schools for parents, students, and staff.” The GSEA has some eye-popping goals that include,

Creating inclusive and safe school spaces for all identities, especially LGBTQIA+ identities; Creating a community and safe space for all gender expressions and sexual orientations represented in our district staff; Growing a community of LGBTQIA+ allies within District 65 staff; Working to provide educators, staff, and families in District 65 with the necessary training to support inclusive school cultures; Creating LGBTQIA+ focused newsletters and resource guides to improve district wide inclusive pedagogy. (emphasis added)

Don’t let the Newspeak deceive you. “Inclusion” of all “identities” really means affirmation and celebration of homosexuality and cross-sex impersonation. “Necessary training” really means compulsory indoctrination.” “Safe spaces” really means spaces where dissenting voices are prohibited, and theologically orthodox Christians are unwelcome and excluded.

So, what did the leftist activists instruct faculty to teach other people’s children? Here’s just a bit from the guidelines:

Pre-K and kindergarten: The unit for the littlest ones is titled “Family/Flag/Identity.” Introducing pre-K and kindergarten students to “family” means conditioning them to understand that “all families are different” and to believe that all these different family structures are “cool!” The view, however, that all family structures are “cool” is not a fact, and it’s not even a view that “progressives” hold. If they did, why didn’t they introduce pre-kindergartners to polygamous and polyamorous family structures?

Leftists have concluded that families headed by homosexuals who intentionally deprive children of either mothers or fathers are “cool,” so they will use government schools to advance that idea. But family structures they don’t view as “cool” are omitted. But here’s the rub. Some people don’t view families led by homosexuals as cool and they don’t want their children exposed to any images of or ideas about them—and certainly not leftist views of the coolness of them.

Some naïve readers may think the reference to the “flag” is to the American flag. No such luck. It’s a reference to the rainbow and “trans” flags that 4 and 5-year-old children—who should know nothing about cross-sex passing and homosexuality—were expected to be able to “explain the importance of.” Our government schools are not only introducing preschoolers to sexual perversion but also affirming it to them.

First grade: For five days straight, six-year-olds were to be taught Leftist pronoun rules using a book titled They, She, He easy as ABC, which is described on Amazon as “a… much-needed picture book about pronouns and gender fluidity.” It begins with this: “Ari loves to arabesque. They hold their pose with ease.” Ari, a single child, is referred to by the third-person plural pronoun “they.”

Children were to “introduce themselves, choosing pronouns” from those in the book—which includes “ze” and “tree” as pronouns—and “explore foundational concepts in pronoun use, presentation, and bias.” Whose understanding of bias do you suppose the children were exposed to? To be clear, public school teachers are teaching 6-year-olds incorrect grammar in the service of advancing a Leftist sexuality ideology.

Grades 2 and 3: “Students will analyze a traditional fairy tale through an inclusive lens, ensuring gender neutrality and culturally relevant content. Students will learn basic LGBTQ+ vocabulary. They will recognize and discuss stereotypes, and create their own inclusive folk tale to share with lower grades.” Did you catch that? District 65 teachers were encouraged to force 2^nd and 3^rd graders to disciple younger students in the “LGBTQ+” religion.

Grades 4 and 5: Teachers were instructed to have 9, 10, and 11-year-olds play a matching game in which they would match terms to definitions. The terms were cisgender, gay, lesbian, binary, gender identity, gender expression, sex assigned at birth, bisexual, transgender, and preferred pronouns. Teachers were urged to have students examine “androgyny” and study these photos:

By the end of the week students were to have created “their own gender inclusive and diverse advertisement for a product,” which they would then “present and ‘sell’… to the class.”

Grades 6, 7, and 8: The title for the week’s unit for 11-14-year-olds was “Activism: Breaking the Binary.” The curriculum overview explains that “During this week-long curriculum, students will interact with content that encourages the allyship, visibility, and activism for the LGBTQ+ community. Students will… think outside the binary norms of society. They will become familiar with LGBTQ terminology in order to become better allies, learn significant historical events & people that contributed to the LGBTQ rights movement, and take a deeper look at the relationship between activism strategies and major change.”

Wowzer. No need to speculate about the agenda of leftists for taxpayer-funded schools. They’ve got the power now, so subterfuge is no longer necessary. Their goal is to transform the moral, political, and ontological beliefs of other people’s children and turn them into activists who will continue promoting the anarchical sexual revolution. No matter if these leftist beliefs conflict with the moral, political, ontological, or theological beliefs of these children’s parents. Leftists are presumptuous and self-righteous enough to violate both parental trust and their pedagogical obligations. This curriculum goes far beyond the requirements of the school indoctrination law—which itself goes beyond proper ethical boundaries. This curriculum is a totalitarian imposition of controversial leftist assumptions about sexuality.

Virtually every term, presupposition, and concept employed by the cultural regressives who designed and approved this indoctrination curriculum is debatable. Will dissenting definitions, presuppositions and concepts ever be taught? Lol. No way. Regressives have proclaimed from on high that dissenting views are hateful and, therefore, they rationalize their censorship of them.

In the service of concealing the non-factual, controversial nature of the “LGBTQ+” ideology that the GSEA and its accomplices are dumping on and pouring into children, they do what Leftists always do: manipulate language. In other words, they engage in Orwellian Newspeak. Just slap the magic words “equity,” “inclusivity,” “safety,” or “cultural competency” onto whatever moral or political dung they want to preach, and abracadabra, assumptions become “facts” and indoctrination becomes “education.” It should be clear to everyone by now that the biased ideologues, censors, and oppressors who foster intolerance, division, and exclusion and transform education into indoctrination are regressives who absurdly call themselves “progressive.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Progagandists-Call-K-8-Indoctrination-Equity.mp3

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Surprise, surprise, over the holidays, the anti-cultural coal mine emitted more noxious fumes. Unfortunately, people of faith continue to ignore the canary’s corpse.

Just before Christmas, New York City’s Commission on Human Rights released stunning speech code requirements regarding gender dysphoria that mandate that “employers, landlords, and business owners” lie or be fined up to $250,000.

The introduction to the spanking new “guidance” foreshadows oppressive things to come—everywhere:

 [T]he New York City Commission on Human Rights released new guidance that makes clear what constitutes gender identity and gender expression discrimination under the NYC Human Rights Law, making it one of the strongest in the nation in protecting the rights of transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. Although discrimination based on gender identity and expression has been illegal under the City’s law since 2002, previous guidelines never articulated the range of violations of the law. Today’s guidance provides bold and explicit examples of violations, sending a clear message to employers, landlords, business owners, and the general public what the City considers to be discrimination under the law. (emphasis added)

Lest IFI readers mistakenly think these strong, bold mandates have any connection to compassion or actual rights, here are just two of the violations that will result in hefty fines: 1. It is now a violation of anti-discrimination law to intentionally or repeatedly use correct pronouns rather than the pronouns gender-dysphoric people want others to use. 2. It is now a violation of anti-discrimination law to intentionally or repeatedly use correct titles, like Mr. for an actual man or Ms. for an actual woman.

Just as the unelected, non-lawmaking Office for Civil Rights unilaterally decided that the word “sex” in Title IX includes “gender identity,” the unelected, non-lawmaking NYC Commission on Human Rights unilaterally decided that grammatically correct pronoun-use now constitutes “discrimination.”

Ironically, in an anti-culture awash in obscene language—including in the materials recommended and taught by “teachers” in our middle and high schools—it’s correct pronoun-use that is banned.

With the usual “progressive” hubris and willingness to violate speech rights and religious liberty in their tyrannical quest for ideological submission to their fanciful assumptions about human nature, the NYC Human Rights Commission has decided that pronouns no longer correspond to objective biological sex and those who disagree must be punished. While well-respected theologian John Piper says Christians should not use opposite-sex pronouns when referring to gender-dysphoric persons, the NYC Commission commands them to do so or risk a $250,000 fine. The stakes are getting higher for the inevitable cataclysmic collision between religious liberty and sexual libertinism unmoored from morality and the common good.

The new “guidance” (Does guidance usually come accompanied by draconian punishments?) also requires that all restrooms, locker rooms, and single-sex facilities in “employment, public accommodations, and housing” be open to men who claim to be women. The “guidance” specifically mentions women’s shelters. Apparently, the feelings of men who wish they were women take precedence over the feelings of women and children who have been victimized by men. Lesbian Carmelyn Malalis, who Mayor Bill DeBlasio  appointed commissioner of the NYC Commission on Human Rights, should explain to abused women why it’s okay to allow a man in the shelter bed next to them as long as he dislikes his penis.

It’s interesting to note that the new “guidance” requires employers who provide prostate cancer-screening for actual men to provide it for men who pretend they’re women. How ironic that pretend-women are demanding to be treated in all situations as if they are in reality women—except when it comes to their healthcare. A recent editorial about prescription drug-testing in the Chicago Tribune inadvertently acknowledged the inconvenient truth that men cannot become women or vice versa:

“Every cell has a sex,” Dr. Janine Clayton, director of the NIH’s Office of Research on Women’s Health, told The New York Times. “Each cell is either male or female, and that genetic difference results in different biochemical processes within those cells.”

It is neither discriminatory nor hateful to recognize those differences in drug-testing, health-screening, or grammar.

George Orwell named the dangerous game that “trans-activists” are now playing “Newspeak.” With a surprisingly un-liberal and not so-surprisingly unholy vigor, trans-activists are engaging in precisely the kind of activity about which Orwell warned:

Newspeak was the official language of Oceania, and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of IngSoc, or English Socialism….

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of IngSoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all… a heretical thought…should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meaning and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meaning whatever….

[T]he special function of certain Newspeak words… was not so much to express meanings as to destroy them….

[W]ords which had once borne a heretical meaning were sometimes retained for the sake of convenience, but only with the undesirable meanings purged out of them.

Why do “trans-activists” believe it’s wrong to continue using pronouns in the historical way in which they denote and correspond to objective biological sex? Because it hurts the feelings of body-rejecting men and women who need to have every cultural signifier that suggests the immutable, objective nature and meaning of physical embodiment erased in order to maintain their ontological masquerade. “Trans-activists” feel bad when they encounter actions that indicate a refusal to acquiesce to Leftist “identity” constructs.

But here’s the rub: The identity of orthodox Christians includes both opposition to lying (Ex. 20:16) and affirmation of the goodness and immutability of sexual differentiation (Gen. 5:2). Orthodox Christians “feel bad” when the state requires them to deny their identity in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).

No one who is committed to truth and human flourishing should acquiesce to demands to refer to men as women and women as men. Though those who suffer from gender dysphoria may desire that everyone participate in their elaborate ruse, doing so is not, in reality, good for them.

The Left elevates subjective feelings over knowledge, wisdom, truth, and reality, arguing that compassion is determined solely by affirming the feelings of others. Well, that’s not precisely accurate. As usual, the Left does not apply their principles consistently. They don’t argue that society ought to affirm the subjective feelings and beliefs of everyone. Rather, diversity-lovin’ Leftists believe society must affirm—or pretend to affirm—only Leftist-approved feelings and beliefs.

If you think this fascist policy will remain limited to New York City or to employers, places of public accommodation, or housing, you’ve been living under a proverbial rock. Those who value libertinism will pound on the doors of churches, private schools and colleges, and radio stations demanding that everyone everywhere adopt the official language of the United States: Newspeak. So, make your commitment about language-use now, or you will yield to language-fascists later.

Worldview Conference with Dr. Wayne Grudem

We are very excited about our second annual Worldview Conference featuring world-renowned theologian Dr. Wayne Grudem on Saturday, February 20, 2016 in Barrington. Click HERE to register today!

In the morning sessions, Dr. Grudem will speak on how biblical values provide the only effective solution to world poverty and about the moral advantages of a free-market economic system. In the afternoon, Dr. Grudem will address why Christians—and especially pastors—should influence government for good as well as tackle the moral and spiritual issues in the 2016 election.

We look forward to this worldview-training and pray it will be a blessing to you.

Click HERE for a flyer.

The political Left, usually fanatical defenders of tolerance, diversity, freedom of expression, and choice in all things sexual, is in high dudgeon about a one-hour TLC television special titled My Husband’s Not Gay scheduled to air Sunday night (1/11/2015).

The show profiles four Mormon men who admit they are attracted to men but have chosen to pursue relationships with women. Three of the men are married, at least one of whom is raising children in a normal family structure. There is no reason to doubt these men’s claims that they love their wives, because even men who feel erotically attracted to men are capable of loving women.

In an almost comical display of irony, homosexual activists—those fanatical of tolerance, diversity, choice, anti-censorship, and “narrative” variety—are calling for the cancellation of the program before it even airs.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) claims the show “sends the wrong message.” Near as I can tell, the men in this series are saying that they choose not to place their same-sex attraction at the center of their identity. They’re saying that there are other values and beliefs that shape how they construct identity and determine their actions. They’re saying that they personally believe that homoerotic activity is wrong and that they seek to affirm only those feelings that are consonant with their religious beliefs. Are representatives from GLAAD claiming that such beliefs are objectively wrong?

According to the Associated Press, GLAAD views the show as “a sad reminder of so-called gay conversion therapy.”

How do the claims of men who admit to being sexually attracted to men remind GLAAD of “conversion therapy”?  I guess both “conversion therapy” and the decisions of these men reflect a rejection of the Left’s assumptions about the moral status of homoerotic activity, but that’s about it. Perhaps these men’s decisions are sad reminders to GLAAD that not everyone has acquiesced to the imperious ideological commands of GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign, and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

Like GLAAD, “bi-sexual” Eliel Cruz writing for Rolling Stone magazine is consumed by a fear that impels them toward oppression and suppression. They fear that if Americans hear the stories of men who freely choose not to affirm as good their unchosen, unwanted same-sex attraction, Americans may reject the Left’s perverse mischaracterization of all counseling efforts that may help men and women reconcile their faith and sexual predilections in ways that the Left doesn’t like.

Here’s what Cruz offers as evidence that this one-hour special is “dangerous”:

These men use the same verbiage and framework that’s been taught by decades by those in the so-called “ex-gay” movement. Using words like “same-sex attracted” in lieu of saying one is gay is ex-gay training 101. The show will most likely avoid using the term “reparative therapy” as it’s become known for being deeply harmful. But whether it’s explicitly said or not, that’s what this show is about.

So, using the term “same-sex attracted”—as opposed to “gay”—is common within the “ex-gay” movement, and some within the “ex-gay” movement practice “reparative therapy,” and some forms of “reparative therapy” have been found harmful by some within the highly politicized mental health community, therefore, this one-hour special is dangerous. Wow. Where is George Orwell when we need him.

In the dystopian novel 1984, George Orwell named the practice which homosexual and “trans” activists now fervently embrace: Newspeak. Here is how Orwell explained Newspeak:

Newspeak was the official language of Oceania, and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of IngSoc, or English Socialism….

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of IngSoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all…a heretical thought…should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meaning and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meaning whatever….

[T]he special function of certain Newspeak words… was not so much to express meanings as to destroy them….

[W]ords which had once borne a heretical meaning were sometimes retained for the sake of convenience, but only with the undesirable meanings purged out of them.

Leftists hate the term “same-sex attracted” because it focuses (rightly) on feelings and does not carry the extra, Newspeakian connotations of “gay.” “Gay” is a rhetorical invention of the Left created to communicate that same-sex attraction is inherently good, that it’s absolutely immutable in all cases, and that fulfillment can come only if such attraction is affirmed. In other words, “gay” embodies a Leftist view of “identity.”

It’s not just the term “same-sex attracted” that our aberrancy advocates seek to obliterate. They also seek to strip pronouns of any connection to objective biological sex because objective biological sex is foreign to the new sexuality orthodoxy.

Here is risible reason #2 that Cruz offers as evidence that TLC’s one-hour special is dangerous: “TLC is giving a fringe narrative a platform.” Since when do sexual subversives object to fringe narratives? Haven’t Leftists extolled all things fringy for decades? Let’s not forget that until very recently homoeroticism, same-sex faux-“marriage,” and “transgenderism” were uber-fringy phenomena.

Cruz also objects to “Perpetuating the idea that changing one’s sexuality is possible through prayer.” First, Christians certainly believe that an omnipotent God is fully capable of changing sexual feelings and that prayer is powerful. This is not to say, however, that all people who experience same-sex attraction will see their feelings eradicated. Most Christians will experience sinful inclinations until the next life.

But, more directly relevant to the show, there’s no evidence from the trailer that the four men profiled in the TLC program are suggesting that their same-sex attraction has changed or will change. They simply don’t want to act upon it or affirm it as central to their identity.

GLAAD president and CEO, Kate Ellis, stated that “No one can change who [sic] they love, and more importantly, no one should have to.” Ellis seems to be making the breathtakingly presumptuous claim that the men in the TLC show do not love their wives and more broadly that those who experience same-sex attraction are incapable of loving people of the opposite sex.

Ellis asserts that “no one should have to” change whom they love. Why would Ellis make such a claim in response to a show in which men explain that they have freely chosen to marry women—whom they love? From all the reports, there is no indication that these men have been compelled to change whom they love. They have freely chosen the sex of the persons with whom they will be emotionally, spiritually, and erotically partnered.

The men profiled in this show evidently reject homosexual activists’ definition of “identity.” Homosexual activists believe that powerful, seemingly intractable feelings that emerge early in life must be affirmed as central to one’s identity.  Well, probably not all feelings, just homoerotic feelings and the desire to be the opposite sex must be affirmed.

For many people, however, “identity” consists in, among other things, only those feelings they affirm as good and properly ordered.  Identity for them is not merely the aggregate of feelings they experience. Therefore, those people will reject as central to their identity feelings that they believe are disordered and which if acted upon will result in illicit conduct. While the Left believes that unchosen homoerotic attraction is good, properly ordered, and must be affirmed as central to identity in order to live a happy fulfilled life, their beliefs are not objective facts, and no one has an obligation to accept them as true.

While the Left claims to value tolerance, they are intolerant of any and all public expressions of views regarding volitional homoerotic activity or relationships with which they disagree.

While claiming to value diversity, they want to censor the kinds of stories the public hears.

While claiming to value choice, they loathe and condemn the choices the men on this TLC show make.

In increasingly Orwellian efforts to purge the cultural landscape of the expression of ideas that undermine their dogma, censorious homosexual activists violate the very ideas they exploit: choice, diversity, tolerance, and freedom of expression. TLC should not cancel My Husband’s Not Gay in response to the demands of censors and ideologues. These stories offer rarely seen glimpses into the lives of people who construe homoerotic attraction, marriage, family, identity, and fulfillment differently than do homosexual activists. Their lives are part of the variegations in this diverse American life. And there may be someone out there who sees in these lives hope for a future different from the bleakly deterministic picture offered by the likes of GLAAD and Rolling Stone.

The Truth Project

First Annual IFI Worldview Conference
featuring Dr. Del Tackett
April 10-11, 2015

CLICK HERE for Details