Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, the well-known 108-year-old Christian publishing company, continues its slide into heterodoxy by celebrating June “pride” month. On June 3, 2022, in a post on Eerdmans’ blog, the company recommended not one, not two, but six books for Christians to read in honor of “Pride Month” (rainbow colors seen here are Eerdmans/Satan’s—not God’s or mine). Eerdmans/Satan wrote,

Nothing says doctrinal soundness quite like celebrating pride, homoeroticism, and cross-dressing.

C’mon on, you people of faith, cease all your disunifying and unresting on the topic of men lying with men. Listen to men who are lying with men and cross-dressing. And while you’re at it, please seek to understand polyamorists, consanguinamorists, zoophiles, and minor-attracted persons, all of whom are simply fighting to be seen, heard, cared for, and loved.

Oh, almost forgot—they also want the church to affirm, pridefully celebrate, and promote as good their sinful desires and sinful volitional acts.

The desire of homosexuals and cross-dressers to have their sin “trans”-formed into righteousness takes precedence over the Old and New Testament’s condemnations of homoeroticism, cross-dressing, and pride. If men can become women by wishing it so, then by golly sinners can become sinless by virtue of their desire to be seen, heard, cared for, and loved. No need for confession or repentance.

All sinners—that is to say, all humans—desire to be cared for and loved. Not all sinners, however, pressure the church and the entire world to celebrate their sins and call them righteousness. Most Christians who experience, for example, unwanted, unchosen desires to drink excessively, gossip, steal, and covet are not demanding that drunkenness, gossip, theft, and covetousness be pridefully celebrated as righteous.

Theologian, professor, and author of the book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Trueman, recently wrote an essay about pride month in which he exposes the meaning of adopting an “LGBTQ+” identity:

For anyone not completely hoodwinked by the erotic obsessions of our day, taking pride in one’s sexual identity—indeed, even considering sexual desire to be an identity—would seem at best pitiful and at worst a deep perversion of what it means to be human. Yet, here we are. And we should not underestimate the power of what it signifies.

Clearly, Eerdmans has been hoodwinked.

Trueman continued, making clear the significance for Christians of the demonic appropriation of the rainbow, something that seems to escape the theologically befogged minds of Eerdmans’ leaders:

The use of the rainbow symbol should be particularly egregious to Christians. It is the primary instrument by which the LGBTQ+ movement asserts its ownership of the culture. And it is the means of telling those of us who dare to dissent that we should have no place in the public square anymore. It tears at God’s creation order and design for family relations and social stability. And it is also a blasphemous desecration of a sacred symbol, taking that which was intended as a sign of God’s love and faithfulness and of our dependence upon Him and turning it into an aggressive symbol of human autonomy and sexual decadence.

After the Eerdmans’ blog post went viral, the company received widespread and impassioned criticism to which they responded with unrighteous umbrage, digging in their prideful heels and tweeting,

The revilers say we have changed our position and begun to teach heresy. There are several problems with that accusation. We do not think it is for us as a publisher to define doctrine for the church. We are not the pope, or an ecumenical council, or even a pastor. Our role is to publish books, representing both settled and experimental positions, that serve the church in its ongoing deliberations.

We therefore routinely publish books that contradict each other on many contested doctrinal points. We publish conservative and liberal books; we publish Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant books. We are not confused. We are a publisher that serves the ecumenical church.

With regard to Christian understandings of LGBTQ+ people, Eerdmans has been publishing books for quite a few years by authors who have come to an affirming conclusion on biblical and theological grounds. This is not new for us. …

We reject the tendency to promote division and discord by categorizing Christians into two camps, considering “us” to be right about everything and “them” to be wrong. We decline to swear loyalty to one faction’s “us” and join their hostilities against all corresponding “thems.”

So, we reiterate our invitation, especially to our conservative friends, whom we value and respect: use #PrideMonth to read a book by LGBTQ+ Christians and their allies.

What an ironic use of the epithet “reviler.” Eerdmans is calling critics of the company’s affirmation of the sins of homosexuality and cross-sex identification “revilers,” and yet Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians,

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Cor. 6:9-10)

Was Paul a “reviler” in his clear condemnation of homosexuality?

Once upon a time, Eerdmans was connected to doctrine–sound doctrine. While it may not have “defined doctrine,” it reflected doctrine. At one point in its history, Eerdmans would have rejected heretical positions—er, I mean, “experimental positions.”

The fact that Eerdmans has been publishing books “for years” by authors who affirm homoeroticism and cross-dressing as biblically defensible “identities” is neither doubted nor assuring. By continuing to do so passionately and unapologetically, Eerdmans is promoting “division and discord.” When the company refuses to “swear loyalty” to the “faction” also known as theologically orthodox Christians, Eerdmans has necessarily joined the faction known as heretics.

Don’t support Eerdmans. The company has been bought out by Satan.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Bought-by-Satan.mp3

The infamous William “Will” Thomas, who now pretends to be a woman and goes by the name “Lia,” has had a long-time goal of swimming in the Olympics—a goal thwarted by the fact that he is not fast enough. A little thing like insufficient speed, however, is no obstacle for a man who thinks he can become a woman by wishing really hard. Superstitions die hard, especially in a science-denying culture that worships the self and believes fentanyl use is “empowerment.” So, Thomas soldiers on wearing womanface and a woman’s speedo covering his man parts, hoping to make Olympic trials in 2024.

In an interview with Good Morning America, Thomas said,

I knew there would be scrutiny against me if I competed as a woman. … but I also knew I don’t need anyone’s permission to be myself.

Thomas’s self is male, so taking estrogen and cross-dressing constitute a denial of himself.

Thomas is not seeking permission to be himself. He’s demanding to swim on a women’s team when he’s a man. Objecting to a man swimming on the women’s team is not a denial of permission to be himself. It is a denial of his demand that everyone play along with his desire to masquerade as a woman.

When asked about his change in rankings after he began swimming on the women’s team, Thomas responded that swimming success didn’t factor into his decision. All that he sought was to be his “authentic self”:

The biggest change for me is I’m happy. … Trans people don’t transition for athletics. We transition to be happy and authentic and our true selves. 

All that matters to Thomas are his feelings—not the feelings of female teammates or competitors who too have trained their whole lives only to see hopes and dreams destroyed because Thomas wishes he were a woman.

It is widely reported that Thomas—a man with all his man parts—undressed in women’s locker rooms. Many women strongly feel that as women, they should not and do not want to undress in the presence of male peers. For some of these women, those feelings derive from their faith. Thomas, therefore, denied them permission to be their authentic selves. He made them unhappy.

Well, finally the World Swimming Coaches Association (WSCA) has found some sanity and courage in a dusty corner of a chlorine-choked locker room and tossed another obstacle in the lane of Will Thomas.

On May 13, 2022, the WSCA issued its position statement on “transgender” swimmers, that is, on swimmers who pretend to be the sex they are not and never can be. The statement, unfortunately infused with “trans”-cultic language, reads in part,

[T]he inclusion of transgender people into female sport cannot be balanced with fairness due to the retained differences in strength, stamina and physique that are present when comparing the average female with the average transgender female/non-binary person who was assigned male at birth (whether with or without the involvement of testosterone suppression). This is the primary factor to be considered in an endeavour to balance fairness with inclusion.

A “transgender female” is a male. Non-binary persons don’t exist.  And no one is “assigned” either a sex, or a gender, or a gender identity at birth. But at least the WSCA acknowledges that men and women are different, and those differences matter when it comes to sports.

The WSCA offers a solution:

One … solution is to create a Trans Division. The Trans Females [i.e., men or female impersonators] will race each other. The Trans Males [i.e., females or male impersonators] will race each other. There is an argument that the Trans Males have been completely lost in this debate because they are uncompetitive in our current structure. This would also allow those of indeterminate gender to be factored into such a solution.

This solution would enable Thomas to be his “authentic” self: a “trans” person.

Evidently, the WSCA is not up to date on current Newspeak. “Gender” refers to the aggregate of behaviors, conventions, roles, and expectations associated with sex of male or female. As such, there is no such thing as a person possessing an “indeterminate gender.”

Perhaps the WSCA was using “gender” in the old-fashioned way, as a synonym for biological sex. If so, neither Will Thomas nor any other “trans”-identifying swimmer has an “indeterminate gender.” Smith has a definite “gender,” and it’s male.

Like other supporters of the sexual integration of sports who grasp at any defense they can concoct, Thomas trots out the tired and patently silly claim that since there is physical diversity among women athletes, women’s sports should include men:

I’m not a medical expert, but there is a lot of variation among cis female athletes or cis women who are very tall and very muscular and have more testosterone than other cis women. Should that then disqualify them?

Well then, why should women’s sports be limited to women? Why should only men who pretend to be women be allowed to participate in women’s sports?

If the fact that some women have more testosterone than others justifies allowing men who pretend to be women to participate in women’s sports, why not let men who don’t pretend to be women participate in women’s sports? Thomas can’t say, “Well, they’re not women,” because he’s not a woman either. And he can’t say, “Well, they’re not transgender” because that would constitute discrimination based on “gender identity.”

Leftists claim that anti-discrimination policies and commitments to equality demand that men who pretend to be women be treated exactly like women. Such a claim is nonsense. If commitments to anti-discrimination were intended to prohibit all distinctions based on both sex and “gender identity,” then there should be no sex-segregated activities for anyone anywhere.

If sports cannot take into account either sex or “gender identity,” then there should be no single sex sports at all. If swim teams allow Will Thomas to swim on the women’s team, then they should allow Michal Phelps to as well. Allowing Thomas to swim on the women’s team while prohibiting Phelps would constitute discrimination based on “gender identity,” and as Thomas believes, we can’t have that.

With regard to equality: commitments to equality entail treating like things alike. Equality does not entail or require treating unlike things alike. Will Thomas is a thing unlike those things called women. The fundamental distinction in sports is not height, muscle mass, and hormone levels. The fundamental distinction is biological sex, which shapes average biological differences. Sure, the fastest female swimmer may be faster than the slowest male swimmer. But the fastest males will always be faster than the fastest women.

We ignore “trans”-cultic beliefs and practices at our own peril. Left unopposed, they threaten our First Amendment speech rights and religions liberty. They threaten the right of parents to raise their children in accordance with truth. They threaten the privacy of all Americans in spaces in which men and women engage in personal acts, like going to the bathroom, undressing, and tending to menstrual needs–which only women do. They threaten women’s sports. And they threaten the safety of girls and women.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Finally-a-Sports-Association-Commits-to-Fairness.mp3

Writer Lauren Rowello’s peculiar perspective on attending a “pride” parade with her husband and young children five years ago was published in the Washington Post on June 29, 2021 and provides yet more evidence of the existence of the slippery slope leftists deny:

[O]ur elementary-schooler pointed in the direction of oncoming floats, raising an eyebrow at a bare-chested man in dark sunglasses whose black suspenders clipped into a leather thong. The man paused to be spanked playfully by a partner with a flog. “What are they doing?” my curious kid asked as our toddler cheered them on. The pair was the first of a few dozen kinksters who danced down the street, laughing together as they twirled their whips and batons, some leading companions by leashes. At the time, my children were too young to understand the nuance of the situation, but I told them the truth: That these folks were members of our community celebrating who they are and what they like to do.

Oh, what a merry image Rowello tries to rhetorically construct, but not even her references to playfulness, cheering, dancing, laughing, and twirling can conceal the grotesque event she seeks to defend.

On what does Rowello base her assertion that it is true that flogging is “who they are”? Does she just mean that the kinksters really, really, really like to flog each other? If so, do all intense, persistent, unchosen sexual desires constitute “who” people “are,” and, therefore, the acts impelled by those desires are intrinsically moral and should be publicly celebrated? Does that go for fisting, urophilia, and masturbation?

The mentally and morally unwell Rowello, who claims to possess “expertise” in “mental health” and “queer identity,” describes herself as,

a gendervague person who is married to a trans woman, topics related to gender and queer identity are an important focus of their [sic] work. Lauren is a former sex worker and teen parent. … A Philadelphia area native, Lauren is an autistic person raising two neurodivergent kids in South Jersey. They [sic]homeschool and spends lots of time in the garden.

Apparently, Rowello views “pride” parades as homeschool field trips, yet more opportunities to indoctrinate her children and all other children with perverse views of sexual morality:

[P]olicing how others show up doesn’t protect or uplift young people. Instead, homogenizing self-expression at Pride will do more harm to our children than good. When my own children caught glimpses of kink culture, they got to see that the queer community encompasses so many more nontraditional ways of being, living, and loving. … If we want our children to learn and grow from their experiences at Pride, we should hope that they’ll encounter kink when they attend. How else can they learn about the scope and vitality of queer life? … Children who witness kink culture are reassured that alternative experiences of sexuality and expression are valid.

“Kink” is an umbrella term that encompasses all manner of sexual deviance. Once again, the desperately wicked human heart is proving capable of inventing and enjoying the most peculiar, repulsive, and degrading uses of the human body, justifying such practices by deeming them integral to “authentic identity.” As long as an act is “consensual,” it is moral—in the view of sexual regressives.

Decades ago, leftists began the largely successful effort to normalize homoeroticism—to set it apart from other forms of sexual deviance. The disordered desire to engage in homoerotic acts morphed into “authentic identity”—that is to say, “who they are.”

Next came the effort to normalize cross-sex identification, which is still going gangbusters but finally receiving some serious pushback.

Largely behind the scenes but peeking out from its dark corner is the movement to normalize polyamory—or as its practitioners prefer to call it “consensual non-monogamy.” (There it is again, that tricksy little all-purpose term “consent.”)

And now we’re seeing the unholy effort to expand the infinitely elastic boundaries of “normal” and “identity” to include fetishes.

Every year, heated debates about the appropriateness of kink in “pride” parades take place within the “queer” community. Rowello counters,

Anti-kink advocates tend to manipulate language about safety and privacy by asserting that attendees are nonconsensually exposed to overt displays of sexuality.

Well, if that don’t beat all, a language-manipulating sexual anarchist accusing other sexual anarchists of manipulating language. Pot, meet Kettles.

Those leftists, including some homosexuals, perhaps sensing the intrinsic moral offense of kinky sexual practices, object to their presence in “pride” parades. The problem for the objectors is that decades ago, while working feverishly to normalize homoeroticism, they jettisoned any and all appeals to a source of objective, transcendent morality. They settled on “consent” as the only criterion that determines whether acts are moral or immoral.

Since they made “consent” the only constitutive feature of morality, they now have to stretch and twist it into knots to justify their moral opposition to children being exposed to kink. Their argument goes something like this: Children who are brought by their parents to “pride” parades don’t consent to seeing men wearing dog collars and buttless chaps being flogged. Lacking a framework or language to justify their moral intuition about the immorality of children being exposed to kink, they absurdly resort to appeals to consent.

Other than an intuitive sense that men flogging each others’ bare arses is wrong, what would account for the belief of leftists that consent is necessary for children to see such public displays? Why is consent necessary for seeing displays of sadomasochism but not necessary for seeing public displays of homoerotic relationships or cross-dressing?

Rowello continues her counter-attack against those who want to ban kinksterism at “pride” parades:

The most outrageous claim is that innocent bystanders are forced to participate in kink simply by sharing space with the kink community, as if the presence of kink at Pride is a perverse exhibition that kinksters pursue for their own gratification. But kinksters at Pride are not engaged in sex acts—and we cannot confuse their self-expression with obscenity. … anti-kink rhetoric echoes the same socialized disgust people have projected onto other queer people. … Kink visibility is a reminder that any person can and should shamelessly explore what brings joy and excitement. We don’t talk to our children enough about pursuing sex to fulfill carnal needs that delight and captivate us in the moment.

Her objection to obscenity sounds downright puritanical compared to her advocacy of shameless self-indulgence in carnality.

One could make a reasonable case that the public flogging of bare buttocks by kinksters actually is an exhibition pursued for sexual gratification. And why should that bother Rowello? Rowello implies that engaging in public sex acts would constitute “obscenity” and would, therefore, be inappropriate at a “pride” parade.

But what if consensual public sex acts constitute for some “nontraditional ways of being, living, and loving”? What if engaging in public sex acts is “who they are and what they like”? What if some people delight and are captivated by public sex? By excluding those whose identities include public sex acts, wouldn’t Rowello be guilty of “policing who shows up” and “homogenizing self-expression”? In opposing public sex aficionados/identitarians isn’t Rowello expressing the “same socialized disgust people have projected onto other queer people”?

“Brenan Duffy”

One of those “queer people” that Rowello likes to talk about is her 31-year-old, cross-dressing, cross-sex hormone-doping husband and the father of her two children, Brenan Duffy. In Vogue Magazine, Duffy (whom Rowello refers to as a “trans” woman) describes his struggles growing up with both a verbally abusive alcoholic father and gender dysphoria, which Duffy recasts as  his “true identity.” He shares his escape into his mother’s closet, wearing her gowns, swimsuits, and tight black skirts:

[H]er closet. … allowed me to step out of the constraints of my own literal and figurative closets into a world where I could safely explore what it meant to be me. … [T]his nook provided valuable refuge throughout my childhood and offered much-needed comfort in times of hardship and isolation. When my best friend died unexpectedly, when neighborhood bullies became unbearable, and during the worst of my father’s alcoholic episodes, it was my retreat.

Duffy attributes his own battles with “debilitating depression, cynicism, and alcoholism” to “false shame and decades of repression,” but could the impulse to reject his sex, like his depression and alcoholism, be caused by his father’s abuse and other factors? We aren’t supposed to ask questions like that. The disordered “queer” community to which Rowello and her unfortunate husband belong command the world—including all children—to affirm them and every deviant sexual practice they enjoy.

Don’t be deceived by the hollow faux-indignant howls that the slippery slope doesn’t exist. It does, and the howls you hear come from ravenous wolves.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/The-Slippery-Slope-Leftists-Claim-Doesnt-Exist.mp3

I recently read a very interesting, and brave, editorial from Bill Donohue of the Catholic League. It appeared on AFA’s national news service – One News Now. He points out the contradiction in the efforts to remove statues all across America because of how the culture now views the words or actions of certain individuals which can often cloud how they are remembered today for their larger contributions.

The “woke” liberal culture has now even questioned statues of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and some abolitionists who worked to end slavery because they may have said things in certain ways reflecting their era about race or slaves that are frowned upon today. This cancel culture movement has even questioned Martin Luther King’s teachings and gone after people like Christopher Columbus and George Washington.

Donahue applies this new revisionist view to the homosexual movement. He wonders why corporations went over the top in promoting June as “Pride Month” when so many founders of the Pride movement were child molesters, supportive of child molestation, or other abhorrent behaviors.

For example, Harry Hay who is considered the founder of the modern gay rights movement supported adults having sex with minors stating that “young males would love it.” Hay admitted that he was molested by a 25-year-old adult male when he was 14, referring it as a “most beautiful gift.” He criticized homosexual parade organizers who tried to exclude NAMBLA (the North American Man Boy Love Association which advocates for pedophilia and the repeal of all age of consent laws) stating, “NAMBLA walks with me.” Hay also had connections to the Communist Party including setting up an organization of homosexual communists in the early 1950’s called the Mattachine Society.

Brenda Howard, who organized the first gay pride march in 1970 and was known as the “Mother of Pride” was an open advocate for sadomasochism, bondage, and polyamory.  Larry Kramer, founder of ACT-UP was also an advocate for NAMBLA. Gilbert Baker, the creator of the rainbow flag, was anti-Catholic and also reported to be a member of NAMBLA. Harvey Milk, a San Francisco politician memorialized in a Hollywood movie, and praised by President Barack Obama, was known to have had a live-in relationship with a young, runaway, 16-year-old boy when Milk was in his 30’s.

Donahue opposes the removal of many of our historic figures’ statues but wonders why these morally compromised founders of the gay rights movement are not held to similar standards when their beliefs and actions are far more problematic. “Why is it OK to trash Harry Truman but not Harry Hay?” Donohue asked.

It’s not a pretty subject, but it is a contradiction that our culture does not want to consider as it rushes to embrace an “anything-goes” ethic of sexual behavior.

(Note: In 2008, the Centers for Disease Control reported that homosexual and bisexual males were abused as children at a rate three times higher than heterosexual males. Other studies have found higher rates of childhood abuse among lesbian and bisexual women.)

This article was originally published by AFA of Indiana.

The conceit of our age is that we can alter reality at a whim. We’re really that smart and powerful.

We not only can control the planet’s weather, but we can defy God’s essential design for life, reflected in nature and cultures trillions of times a day.

This being Pride Month, we’re all supposed to take pride in any and all departures from the normal, so it might be worth a look at where that will take us.

Lacking the sheer muscularity of the American reflex toward liberty, Great Britain, along with other Western European nations, is venturing into thought control at a more rapid pace than our own cultural Marxists are steering us.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of the United Kingdom, for example, has issued guidelines prohibiting ads that “play up roles deemed more feminine or male, as well as derogatory messages around body image.”

Citing an online petition objecting to a subway ad featuring a bikini-clad model asking, “Are you beach body ready?” the ASA came down on the advertiser like Godzilla’s foot on Bambi. It wasn’t the immorality of sexualizing the female body that bothered them.  It was because the ad conveyed inequality.

Gender stereotypes “can contribute to inequality in society with costs for all of us,” explains Guy Parker, the ASA’s chief executive.  ASA’s guidelines, which took effect on June 14, say that “attractive” people can still be featured, but that “ads should avoid mocking people for not conforming to gender stereotypes, including in a context that is intended to be humorous…. [the] “it’s a joke” defence probably won’t be enough to convince the ASA that there isn’t a problem under the new rule.”

“Advertising that links physique and body image to a successful romantic or social life” is also banned, the Washington Post wrote. “As are ads that belittle men for doing stereotypical ‘female’ tasks.”

Well, that would put the kibosh on a lot of American TV ads.  Many show helpless men coming around to their wife or girlfriend’s superior point of view, which centers on buying some product.  Some of those actors are getting really good at smiling sheepishly.

Advertisers could put the shoe on the other foot, showing women cutely failing at “male” tasks only to succeed with the aid of the product being advertised.   But such depictions are now verboten. To make us all the same, men have to be denigrated.

Our cultural masters want to make a religion out of sameness in the name of equality, and it usually comes at the expense of whatever is natural, normal or good.  The hyper-sensitive ASA, for example, issued a notice last week urging companies to promote “gay pride,” which not everyone might appreciate.

During the early 20^th century, G.K. Chesterton lamented “the modern and morbid habit of always sacrificing the normal to the abnormal.”

Which brings us to our modern culture, in which “equality” has morphed into a trump card over all other considerations, including First Amendment liberties.  In the name of equality, utterly unequal situations are dictated that violate truth and fairness. Think of the trans “girls” beating out actual girls in track events, which has, blessedly, triggered lawsuits in Connecticut.

“The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal,” Aristotle wrote In the third century B.C.  Doing so is to lie. But worse is forcing others to lie. As author Jennifer Roback Morse says, “If the government can make you say, ‘Bruce Jenner is a woman,’ they can make you say anything.”

“To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in the original draft of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.

For years, atheist, racialist and pansexual activists have lied to us about their true goal. They don’t want tolerance. They want to replace our Judeo-Christian culture with a socialist version of Sodom and Gomorrah populated by easily manipulated identity groups.  In the name of “equality” they insist on wiping away any reminders of our country’s family-oriented laws, its historic figures or its religious heritage.  Just this week, an Alaskan town fearing legal action opened its borough assembly meeting with a “prayer” to Satan.

The U.S. Supreme Court, which is supposed to be a bulwark against threats to our constitutional republic, has itself been complicit, opening the floodgates of obscenity, abortion and faux marriage.

But the Court did get it right with the Masterpiece Cakeshop case last year, and partly right in another bakery case last week. On Thursday, the Court rejected an atheist group’s demand to tear down the 40-foot Bladensburg Cross at a Maryland intersection where it was erected in 1925 to honor 49 local soldiers killed in World War I.

If the Court keeps up its rediscovery of common sense, perhaps the concept of “equality” will be restored from enforced “sameness” to its original meaning – without the destructive notion that all behavior and ideas are equally valid.

What if I told you that a community of American citizens who are defined by a set of subjective, self-disclosed, and self-defined characteristics and personal behaviors have designated at least 163 days of the calendar year to national and international observances honoring their choices? What if I also told you that the group made up only a fraction of the U.S. population? What would you think?

You would probably have two questions: who are these people and what gives?

“These people” are members of the LGBTQ+ syndicate and we’re right in the middle of their annual “LGBT Pride Month.” If you think 30 days of celebrating anal sex, leather bondage, gender confusion, self-mutilation, sadomasochism and other expressions of sexual anarchy might seem like more than enough, you’re wrong. They’re only halfway through the year and you’ve already missed:

Aromantic Awareness Week, Bisexual Health Awareness Month, Day of Silence, Harvey Milk Day, International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, International Non-Binary People’s Day, International Stand Up to Bullying Day, International Transgender Day of Visibility, Lesbian Visibility Day, National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, National GLBT Health Awareness Week, No Name-Calling Week, Pan Visibility Day, Pulse Night of Remembrance and Zero Discrimination Day.

Although you probably weren’t aware of these observances, don’t worry. There’s plenty more for you to engage with. Beginning at the end of June with the Stonewall Riots Anniversary, the rest of the year offers:

Ally Week, Asexuality Awareness Week, Bisexual Awareness Week, Celebrate Bisexuality Day, International Drag Day, International Lesbian Day, International Non-Binary People’s Day, Intersex Awareness Day, Intersex Day of Remembrance (or Intersex Solidarity Day), LGBT History Month, National Coming Out Day, Pan Pride Day, Spirit Day (annual LGBTQ awareness day), Trans Parent Day, Transgender Awareness Week, Transgender Day of Remembrance and World AIDS Day.

The only month not represented by any of these annual observances is August, which is kind of like a seventh inning stretch (only longer). After all, you’ve got to take some time off from all that observing!

A couple of the observances are understandable. International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the Pulse Night of Remembrance honor the homosexual victims of both events, none of whom deserved losing their lives to madmen.

But the rest? The most curious thing about all this is the inverse relationship of their minority status with their complete domination of the Gregorian calendar. Eleven million people have staked a claim to 45% of available days which seems, I don’t know, excessive. Imagine some version of the 10-member Glee Club appearing on every other page of the high school yearbook. For comparison, the nine largest world religions representing 5.5 billion people (or about 80 percent of the world’s population) observe 138 days combined. Christianity, the largest of the nine with 2.4 billion followers, only observes 12 days.

What gives?

A quick analysis reveals four main themes behind the designated LBGTQ+ observances: 1) to raise awareness, 2) to prevent bullying, 3) to honor select people or events and 4) to celebrate. If we break down the 35 observances I cite by theme, here’s what we find (some observances have multiple themes):

This tells us “what gives.” The majority of these observances (28 of 35) are to “raise awareness” and to “prevent bullying,” which account for 95 percent of designated days (156 of 163). The LGBTQ+ community is extremely concerned about educating the rest of us about their proclivities and suppressing any kind of bullying.

I will be the first to say that no one, including members of the LGBTQ+ community, should be bullied. Bullying is cruel and unloving, no matter the reason. “‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’” says Jesus. The only problem with the anti-bullying initiative is that none of those days make a clear and explicit distinction between bullying and moral disapproval. While bullying does happen and should be opposed, one wishes that the LGBTQ+ folks would heed their own advice and stop bullying people like Jack Phillips, Barronelle Stutzman, or Aaron and Melissa Klein.

As far as being “educated” or having my “awareness” raised, does anyone seriously think that we need more awareness of the LGBTQ+ crowd? They are represented in music, film, television, advertising, sports, science, federal government, state government, city government, the military, business, education, children’s programming, legal mandates, law enforcement, dedicated parades and, as of this writing, we have an openly gay (and “married”) man running for president of the United States.

It may be true that back in the 1960s, people who called the LGBTQ+ community home were an obscure minority. But that’s no longer true. What is true is that the over-indulgence of the queer-all-year calendar is no longer just about becoming visible, but about pushing an agenda. In fact, that’s what it’s been all along.

The LGBTQ+ movement isn’t just “educating” us; it is indoctrinating us. It isn’t just opposing bullying; it’s demanding no resistance at all. The 163 days are 163 days of impressions being made on you, your children and our society. It’s how advertising works.

“Because of this repeated ‘nudging’ effect, advertising achieves best results on market share when it maintains a continuous presence and a sufficient weight relative to competition. (We also know this to be largely true because brands, on average, gain or lose share of market when their ‘share of voice’ becomes larger or smaller.)”

As further evidence, in their 1989 book, “After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s,” Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen wrote, “Thus propagandistic advertising can depict all opponents of the gay movement as homophobic bigots who are ‘not Christian’ and the propaganda can further show them homosexuals as being criticized, hated and shunned…” (p. 152-153). Madsen earned “a doctorate in politics from Harvard and was an expert on public persuasion tactics and social marketing.”

The more impressions you receive, the more inclined you are to choose the advertised product over a competitor’s. In this case, the “competitor” is the Church. For example, Chai Feldblum, a lesbian and leading gay rights activist, a former law professor at Georgetown University, and an Obama-era appointee who served almost nine years as the Commissioner of the EEOC, said during an interview in 2006 that she was “having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win,” when religious and sexual liberties competed.

Fifteen years ago Albert Mohler, Jr., wrote,

“There can be no doubt that Christianity represents the greatest obstacle to the normalization of homosexual behavior. It cannot be otherwise, because of the clear biblical teachings concerning the inherent sinfulness of homosexuality in all forms, and the normativity of heterosexual marriage.”

If you are a believer and you (or your children) participate in any of these so-called “Pride” observances, you have been seduced by a lie. Refuse to participate any longer and “be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16).

No group needs 163 days of recognition. It’s all propaganda, part of a master plan for the LGBTQ+ consortium to acquire more power, pressure society into approving sexual anarchy and, ultimately, to destroy the Church.

IFI Fall Banquet with Franklin Graham!
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.

Macy’s was once a symbol of wholesome American fun with its Thanksgiving Parades and visits with Santa Claus, immortalized years ago in the classic movie Miracle on 34^th Street. But this month the department store chain is busy promoting the debauchery associated with “LGBT pride” and pushing the new all-American tradition of encouraging children to interact with perverted drag queens.

Macy’s has been promoting “LGBT” activism for a while, undeterred by periodic protests from pro-family groups. This is the 10^th year for the chain’s annual “Pride + Joy” campaign and its June festivities for “Pride Month” are now on a scale similar to that of patriotic and holiday celebrations. With flags of its own, the “LGBT” movement has rapidly gained ground in the mainstream, thanks in no small part to the growing number of corporate and civic allies eager to outdo each other in the race to see who can be the most ingratiating toward the queer lobby. Apparently not wanting to be left behind by Target or any other store, Macy’s created a full calendar of special events for this month.

On Saturday, June 22, the flagship store in New York City in Herald Square will host a Drag Queen Story Hour. “Bring the whole family for a reading circle and sing along with the queens at this feel-good event!” reads the calendar posting. Macy’s on State Street in downtown Chicago will hold a “Pride” celebration this coming Saturday, June 15, to “celebrate family, friends and community” and offer “treats, performances by drag queens and more!”

Macy’s stores in Boston, Los Angeles, Houston, San Francisco, Minnesota, and Columbus, Ohio, are also holding “Pride” events this month. The chain is participating in “Pride” parades and festivals across the county and selling “Pride”-themed merchandise at more than 150 stores and online at macys.com. The New York City location earlier this month had a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new “Pride” shop within the department store. Macy’s boasts that the Manhattan store is “beaming with Pride as it lights up the night in rainbow colors every evening in June.”

This past November, “LGBT” activists celebrated when the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade featured a same-sex kiss between two actresses participating in the parade. Not everyone saw it as a sign of progress. “Macy’s has sexualized and lesbianized Thanksgiving in its iconic kids’ parade,” wrote conservative writer Rod Dreher.

Other once family-friendly companies are also stepping up efforts to push the “LGBT” agenda, including Disney, which held its first “Pride” parade at its theme park in Paris on June 1. In writing about the parade, the “LGBT” publication Out Magazine called Mickey and Minnie Mouse allies and described them sporting “brand new Pride looks, riding by in a car covered in rainbows.” For years, Disney has held unofficial gay events at its theme parks.

As “Pride” events have grown in size and begun touting themselves as family-friendly—making them even more vile—Christians have become more befuddled about how to react. It should be obvious to Christians that they shouldn’t join in the festivities, but some need reminders like that found in Dr. Michael Brown‘s recent piece, “Why I Do Not Celebrate Gay Pride.”

Even worse, some supposedly conservative Christians publicly endorse attending “Pride” events. In evangelical Protestant and Catholic circles, there’s a growing “gay but celibate” movement that encourages Christians with homosexual attractions to openly and unashamedly identify as gay and which allows for keeping one foot in the gay world so long as one does not act on same-sex desires. Last year, lesbian Catholic writer and Revoice conference speaker Eve Tushnet wrote in Patheos:

I was at the Pride parade this weekend. I have all kinds of issues with contemporary Pride celebrations but here is the thing: I know Christians, believers seeking to live obediently, who feel freed at Pride in a way they never feel in church. In so many of our churches, gay people’s shame is treated as a proof of their orthodoxy or personal holiness… I don’t feel especially liberated by Pride, but that is because I was never imprisoned in the ways that my friends have been. I’m always aware of the ways in which my faith makes me an outsider there. But my friends, who share my faith in spite of much greater suffering at the hands of Christians, feel liberated at Pride because it is a place where being gay does not separate you from others, but connects you to them. Being in a space where everyone is gay and just rejoicing in our community, flinging beads (I do love the beads), being gay in a million different ways, makes you see that being gay can mean community instead of silence, solidarity instead of judgment, beauty instead of barrenness, welcome instead of suspicion, and joy instead of despair.

Department stores bedecking “LGBT” depravity with rainbows and glitter and selling it to kids as well as adults deserve to feel the heat of righteous anger. But when Christians get this confused and compromised, they’re a lot less likely to send the right message.

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.