After two decades of hearing the virtues of tolerance and diversity, American society has become increasingly intolerant, and because of that, less diverse when it comes to the ability to offer opinions in public and private discourse.

A startling new poll has found that more Americans than ever before are self-censoring their views out of a fear of sharing an opinion that does not fit the cultural narrative. Not surprisingly, those with traditional or conservative beliefs are the most likely to self-censor their views when they speak to others.

The new Cato Institute/YouGov national survey finds that overall 62 percent of Americans say that today’s political climate prevents them from saying what they believe.

Strong liberals stand out as the only political group in which a majority feels that they can freely express themselves, with 6 out of 10 saying this.  In contrast, 77 percent of Republicans say that they self-censor their views out of fear of the culture. Self-censorship spans all ethnic groups, with 65 percent of Latino Americans, 64 percent of white Americans, and 49 percent of African Americans saying they have political views they are afraid to share.

This article was originally published by AFA of Indiana.

In light of being accused of “intolerance” and “bigotry” on IFI’s Facebook page by purportedly tolerant and unbigoted “progressives,” I think some clarification of the meaning of tolerance and bigotry is in order. And while I’m at it, I’ll say a little sumpin’ sumpin’ about anger—again.

Save this. You may need it.

The first definition of “tolerance” in the Oxford English Dictionary is “the action or practice of enduring pain or hardship; the power or capacity of enduring.” Another definition is “the disposition to be patient with or indulgent to the opinions or practices of others; freedom from bigotry or undue severity in judging the conduct of others.” The American Heritage Dictionary defines “tolerate” as “to put up with.”

Note, that none of the definitions mentions approval, affirmation, or celebration. Nor do they  mention an obligation to refrain from expressing moral propositions with which someone else may disagree. If intolerance meant expressing moral views someone else doesn’t like, then wouldn’t “progressives” be equally guilty of intolerance?

Note too the qualifier “undue.” Someone who judges conduct to be immoral is not guilty of intolerance even if the judgment is severe. Only if it’s unduly severe is one guilty of intolerance. Leftists aren’t faulting conservatives for “undue severity” of judgment. They’re faulting conservatives for making any negative judgments about homosexual acts, cross-dressing, and other efforts to conceal one’s sex.

A “bigot” according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary refers to a person who is “obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially: one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.” Clearly, there is a distinction between bigotry and moral views. Bigotry cannot simply refer to holding opinions or being in possession of moral precepts, for if it did, everyone but sociopaths would have to be considered bigots because everyone but sociopaths holds certain behaviors as moral and others as immoral.

In addition, the word “obstinacy” in the definition of “bigot” warrants some discussion. First, “obstinate,” according to The American Heritage Dictionary, connotes “unreasonable rigidity.” I would argue that conservative views on homosexuality are completely reasonable, and that conversely, liberal views are woefully unreasonable.

In order to determine whether a tenaciously held conviction reflects obstinacy requires an evaluation of the content of the belief and the justifications for that belief. For example, very few would characterize the act of consistently, tenaciously, unrelentingly, and enduringly, holding the belief that infantilism, pedophilia, polyamory, genocide, racism, or female genital mutilation is wrong to be a manifestation of obstinacy or bigotry. Rather, holding unwaveringly to the moral conclusions that these behaviors are wrong represents legitimate and essential moral judgment.

Moreover, “obstinate” cannot be severed from the other parts of the definition. Bigotry is the obstinate devotion to uninformed or unintentional inclinations, especially ones that result in hatred of members of a particular group.

As such, moral views, even negative views, informed by reading diverse resources and thoughtful deliberation do not constitute bigotry.

Further, a bigot not only holds uninformed opinions but “regards or treats the members of a group… with hatred and intolerance.” Certainly, there are those in society who demonstrate this kind of behavior—including homosexual and “trans” activists—but any who have truly submitted their lives to Christ, do not treat anyone with hatred.

I, like countless other theologically orthodox Christians, not only do not treat people who self-identify as homosexual or “trans” with hatred or intolerance, but I also do not feel any hatred for them. My beliefs about homosexual conduct in no way diminish the love I feel for those who self-identify as homosexual or “trans,” the respect I have for their admirable qualities, the pleasure I take in their company, or the recognition I have of their infinite worth.

I do, however, often feel anger that adults are promoting body- and soul-destroying lies as truth to children. And I thank God for this proper feeling toward such iniquity.

In an article in Touchstone Magazine on “the Integration of Anger into the Virtuous Life,”  Dr. Leon Podles argues that “Christians have a false understanding of the nature and role of anger. It is seen as something negative, something that a Christian should not feel.”

This false understanding infects the church and prevents it from being salt and light in a fallen, suffering world, and that renders the church complicit in the destruction of countless lives.

He expresses what should be obvious: we should “feel deep anger at evil, at the violation of the innocent, at the oppression of the weak.”

Podles describes the suppression of hatred and anger as “emotional deformation” and exhorts the church to remember that “growth in virtue,” which must include the integration of “all emotions, including anger and hate,” is the “goal of the Christian’s moral life.”

Dr. Podles quotes Catholic psychiatrist Conrad Baars who had been a prisoner under the Nazi regime:

‘[T]here is a difference between a person who knows solely that something is evil and ought to be opposed and the one who in addition also feels hate for the evil, is angry that it is corrupting or harming fellow-men, and feels aroused to combat it courageously and vigorously.’

How often do we hear in our churches anything akin to the idea expressed by early church father John Chrysostom:

‘He who is not angry, whereas he has cause to be, sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices, it fosters negligence, and incites not only the wicked but the good to do wrong.’

Wouldn’t the church and society look very different if they embodied Dr. Podles’ conviction that “sorrow at evil without anger at evil is a fault.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/eftists-Have-Intolerance-and-Bigotry-All-Wrong.mp3

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An arm of, arguably, the most tyrannical, divisive, hateful, and destructive political movement in the country will once again urge children and teens to disrupt government schools for an entire day on Friday April 12, 2019. And for the 23^rd year in row, spineless Christians will take it on the chin. They tolerate the intolerable—not for principled reasons—but out of cowardice.

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) sponsors and promotes the political protest called Day of Silence whose goal is to exploit taxpayer-funded middle and high schools for the purpose of transforming the moral, political, and ontological views of other people’s children. GLSEN even provides a guide for “educators” that teaches teachers how to promote Leftist views of homosexuality and the “trans” phenomenon on Day of Silence.

GLSEN urges students to refuse to speak for the entire day—including during instructional time—in the service of normalizing disordered feelings and sexual acts that God abhors. And Christians shamefully say and do nothing.

Day of Silence uses government schools to propagate arguable assumptions about the nature and morality of homosexual acts and relationships and of biological-sex impersonation. And Christians rationalize their capitulation as fostering unity and demonstrating “niceness.”

Why are “LGBTQ” activists more impassioned, tenacious, and persevering in promoting wickedness than Christ-followers are in opposing it? Do Christians not remember that we are to deny ourselves and take up our crosses daily, to hate evil and love good, to expose the unfruitful works of darkness, and to count it all joy when we encounter trials because of our identity in Christ?

Have Christians forgotten these words of Jesus: “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks will come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and to be thrown into the sea than to cause one of these little ones to stumble”?

As children and teens are inculcated with a body-, mind-, and heart-destroying ideology, one must wonder if Christians love—or even like—their neighbors.

There is something Christian parents can do. They can contact their children’s middle and high school administrators to ask if students and/or teachers will be permitted to refuse to speak on Day of Silence. If the answer is “yes,” keep your children home. Stop acquiescing to every moral offense the sexually deviant among us do in the service of their ideology.

Schools have a legal and pedagogical right to prohibit students from refusing to speak during class time. Schools may prohibit any actions they deem disruptive, and surely refusing to speak during instructional time is disruptive.

Imagine if another group of students refused to speak for an entire day to draw attention to the plight of women in Muslim countries, or the plight of Christians in China, or to object to American military intervention around the world, or to oppose socialized medicine, or endorse the Green New Deal. Such hijacking of government schools is disruptive and inappropriate. Students can engage in political action on their own time and their own dime—not in public schools supported by the hard-earned money of diverse peoples, many of whom object to the assumptions of the “LGBTQ” ideology.

A month ago, a Fresno, California high school spokesperson prohibited students from wearing MAGA hats, implying that the hats would be “distracting.” Translated: She feared intolerant leftist high school students would respond obnoxiously to the presence of peers wearing MAGA hats.

It’s well-known that conservative kids are far less likely to respond obnoxiously to “progressive” paraphernalia or political action than Leftist kids would to conservative paraphernalia or political action. Therefore, only conservative paraphernalia and political action are deemed distractions and banned. Leftist brats, bullies, and boors win again.

If the Leftists who control government schools really cared about creating a learning environment free of political distractions and disruptions, they would establish policies that prohibit all clothing with political messages and all controversial political action. But they don’t.

I learned from my experience working at Deerfield High School on Chicago’s North Shore that the claims of Leftist teachers about their commitments to tolerance, inclusivity, and diversity are lies. They don’t value true tolerance, inclusivity, or diversity. They don’t seek to make schools “safe” places for all students. They don’t care if Orthodox Jews, Muslims, or theologically orthodox Christians feel excluded, uncomfortable, and “unsafe.”

The central pedagogical goals of Leftist “teachers”—better known as agents of change—are ideological not pedagogical. And they’re shameless in their hyp0crisy.

Conservative Parents: If your middle or high school allows students to refuse to Speak on Day of Silence, please keep your children home.

Click here for more information.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/mp3-What-the-World-Needs-Now-is-Some-Conservative-Civil-Disobedience_01.mp3

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Arguably, the most tyrannical, divisive, hateful, destructive political movement in the country will once again urge children and teens to disrupt government schools for an entire day on Friday April 12, 2019. And for the 23^rd year in row, spineless Christians will take it on the chin. They tolerate the intolerable—not for principled reasons—but out of cowardice.

read more here

How would you define tolerance? The essence of the standard societal and dictionary definitions boils down to this – tolerance is the ability or willingness to live among and get along with people whose opinions and behavior are different, even antithetical, to one’s own.

It is interesting to note that Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines “tolerance” as: The power or capacity of enduring; or the act of enduring.

Dave Rubin, host of The Rubin Report, states, “Whatever differences we have, tolerating others’ opinions is a prerequisite of a functioning and free society.” If what he says is true, is it any wonder that there is so much dysfunction in our country? Listen, as Rubin, a self-identified liberal, shares his perspective on the state of tolerance today within the mainstream media, the Left, and the Right, and asks the question “Who is tolerant?” His answer might surprise you.

It’s probably too much to hope for, but perhaps the day of reckoning for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has come. Perhaps the shooting last week at the Family Research Council headquarters in Washington D.C. will bring scrutiny to and condemnation of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s pernicious “hate group” list on which the Family Research Council (FRC), American Family Association (AFA), and we, the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), are included.

All three organizations are included on the SPLC’s ever-expanding list of hate groups that also includes “neo-Nazi” groups, ”racist skinhead” groups, and the Ku Klux Klan. FRC, AFA, and IFI are listed as “anti-gay hate groups.”

News reports revealed that shortly after the FRC shooting, the FBI contacted the Traditional Values Coalition, another conservative Christian organization on the SPLC’s “anti-gay hate group” list to notify them that the shooter, Floyd Corkins, had its address in his backpack. The Traditional Values Coalition is so small that very few conservatives have even heard of it, so where might Corkins have learned about  it? Hmmmm, let’s see… Could it be from the SPLC’s hate group list?

In an interview following the shooting, FRC President Tony Perkins said, “I believe the Southern Poverty Law Center should be held accountable for their reckless use of terminology.” While Mark Potok, editor-in-chief of the SPLC’s ironically named “Intelligence Report” and “Hatewatch” blog continues to spew defamatory lies, he takes umbrage at this criticism of the SPLC’s ethics.

Countless liberal bloggers, political pundits, and the mainstream press repeat the SPLC’s specious designation of conservative Christian groups as “hate groups.” But one wonders how many of those who repeat the SPLC’s fallacious claims bother to read the criteria that the SPLC uses to determine who goes on its “hate group” list. Do any journalists, law enforcement agencies, or gullible acolytes of the SPLC bother to analyze the soundness of the evidence the SPLC provides for the inclusion of groups on their “hate group” list?

And do disciples of the SPLC know that it included groups on its “anti-gay hate group” list prior to the establishment and publication of any criteria to determine which groups would go on it?

SPLC’s “hate group” criteria center on social science research and policy speculation with which the SPLC disagrees.

The SPLC has been harshly criticized for its anti-religious bias, even—irony of ironies—its hatred of orthodox Christians. In an obvious attempt to distract attention from the truth of that criticism, Potok and his accomplices Heidi Beirich, Evelyn Schlatter, and Robert Steinback manufactured a set of criteria in 2010 that would enable them to include groups like the FRC, AFA, and IFI on their “anti-gay hate group” list. They apparently counted on Americans not noticing that their criteria bear no resemblance to actual hatred: no expressions of hate, no calls for violence, no claims that those who identify as homosexual are less valuable as human beings.

What the SPLC has done is create an elastic definition of hatred that centers on social science research,  facts, or propositions that the SPLC doesn’t like.

One criterion that the SPLC uses to establish “hate group” status is whether an organization makes any predictions that the SPLC doesn’t like about the potential legal consequences of law or policy related to homosexuality.

The SPLC claims that groups warrant inclusion on its “hate group” list if they propagate “known falsehoods” about homosexuality. I’m not sure if Potok and his compeers actually understand what a “known falsehood” (also called a lie) is. A known falsehood is a statement that is objectively, provably false and is known to be false when made.

The SPLC has said, for example, that if an organization argues that hate crime legislation may result in the jailing of pastors who condemn volitional homosexual acts as sinful, the organization is guilty of “anti-gay” hatred and will be included on the SPLC’s “hate group” list.

And any organization that argues that allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military will damage the military in some way merits inclusion on its “anti-gay hate group” list.

How can Potok sensibly claim that speculating that hate crimes legislation may lead to the jailing of pastors who condemn homosexuality is a known falsehood? It is a prediction of possible future events that may result from the logical working out of a law. This prediction may not come to fruition, but at this point it cannot reasonably be deemed a “known falsehood.”

And how can a prediction about the effects of allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the military be a known falsehood. Certainly, there are differences of opinion on the effects of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, but liberal speculation that such a change will not damage the military is not a known truth.

Another criterion used by the SPLC to determine whether an organization is a “hate group” is whether the organization cites any social science research that the SPLC doesn’t like.

According to the SPLC, if an organization says that “gays are more prone to mental illness and to abuse drugs and alcohol,” it goes on the SPLC’s hate groups list. I’m sure this is not news to Potok, but there is a lot of research showing just that.

The SPLC engages in some tricksy rhetoric to defend this intellectually and ethically bankrupt criterion. Schlatter and Steinback argue that mental health organizations no longer consider homosexuality a mental disorder, which is true, but has no relevance to the fact—which even the SPLC concedes—that homosexuals experience much higher rates of mental illness and drug and alcohol abuse.

What really sticks in the craw of the SPLC is that conservative organizations don’t agree with the unproven speculation by the  SPLC and some social scientists that the reasons for the increased incidence of mental disorders and drug use are social stigma and “discrimination.”

The SPLC deems hateful the claim that same-sex parents harm children. Of course, Potok and his minions don’t feel any obligation to define harm and apparently reject a whole body of social science research that claims that children fare best when raised by a mother and father in an intact family. Even President Obama in his Mother’s Day and Father’s Day proclamations argued that both are essential to the welfare of children.

While homosexual activists revel in even the most poorly constructed social science research if it reinforces their presuppositions, they reject better constructed studies that undermine them. The truth is that if organizations don’t accept the ever-fluid, controvertible, and highly politicized social science research that the SPLC favors, they go on the “hate group” list.

“Hate group” designation relies on the redefinition of terms

In addition to marshaling only that social science research that fits their subversive sexual worldview, the SPLC does what virtually every homosexuality-affirming organization does, which is redefine terms to silence dissent and enable them to promote fallacious charges of hate with carefree abandon.

Among the many terms that homosexuality activist organizations like the SPLC have redefined are “hatred,” “tolerance,” “acceptance,” “bias,” “discrimination,” and “safety.” What the new definitions share in common is their utility in humiliating, intimidating, and silencing those who believe that same-sex attraction is disordered, that homosexual acts are immoral, and that  marriage is the inherently procreative union between one man and one woman.

The SPLC is continually telling people who identify as homosexual that those who believe homosexual acts are immoral hate them. The tragic effect of propagating that ugly lie is not only that it may lead unstable people to commit acts of violence. The truly tragic effect is that it undermines the potential for relationships between people who hold diverse moral views and effaces the potential for dialogue.

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From Liberty Counsel

On Friday, April 20, the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) will encourage students to remain silent for an entire school day in solidarity with the radical lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) agenda. 

While “peaceful” in name, schools face harsh pressure from the radical LGBT movement to support and promote the Day of Silence. Despite the huge push on schools and teachers from GLSEN to advance the LGBT agenda through this event, no one can be legally forced to participate or condone the Day of Silence. 

Last year, some parents chose to withdraw their children from school on that day. Parents are encouraged to call the schools and tell them the reason their children will not be attending. School administrators usually listen, because the school loses money for each absence. 

School teachers should be aware that students do not have the right to remain silent when they are called upon by teachers. Conduct on the part of a student that causes a substantial disruption or material interference with school activities is not protected under the First Amendment. Students cannot learn if they refuse to participate in class, and they harm other students’ experience by not contributing to a dialogue of learning. 

School administrators do not have to promote the Day of Silence. In those states that require abstinence instruction, schools do not have to recognize clubs that promote sexual activities. 

Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, said, “The Day of Silence is not about tolerance or bullying. It is about pushing a sexual agenda. Students and staff who disagree with a radical sexualized agenda are demonized and made to feel like outsiders. Children should be afforded a rigorous education opportunity and not be forced to accept a radical sexualized agenda subsidized with tax dollars. Parents and lawmakers should take the time to learn about the extreme views of GLSEN and the intolerance promoted by the Day of Silence.”