Although few think their family is the only one struggling to keep afloat under the Biden administration’s economic war on Americans, there is comfort in seeing it confirmed by hard, cold facts.

According to Americans for Prosperity’s (AFP) Public Opinion Strategies, a whopping  75 percent of Americans reported that the increase in costs has impacted their spending over the past year. Of that 75 percent, more than 60 percent surveyed blame President Joe Biden and his leftwing policies for the inflation.  Americans are being pinched, and it is high time to speak out.

What is even more interesting about this poll is the strong sentiment about what should be done. Eighty-eight percent agree that the government needs to make it easier to produce energy domestically. A return to energy independence is not only logical but also is achievable. We are all keenly aware of its possibility thanks to the work of the Trump administration. Just days into his administration, in true Make America Great fashion, he issued an executive order allowing TC Energy to reapply for a presidential permit that would lead to reopening the Keystone XL pipeline and promising a speedy process. As a result, markets reacted favorably so Americans benefited when paying at the pump.

For reasons too baffling to be logical (Russia? Really?) and being touted under the banner of “going green,” the Obama and now Biden Administrations have both consistently used their executive power to kill not only the domestic production of oil from Keystone, but other domestic oil as well. The result is where we are at today—AAA’s National Average as of May 23 at $4.60/gallon with prices over $6.00 in many areas. Illinois, not surprisingly, is one of the most costly states, appearing red (for warning) on their national chart right alongside California and New York.

In a creative move to generate grass-roots awareness of this, AFP-Illinois hosted a “roll back the prices at the pump” event where for 2 hours on May 25 at Bleacher’s Gas station in Peoria, prices were a mere $2.38 a gallon–the cost of gas the day Biden took office. A staggering reminder of the true cost of Washington. Are you ready to take action yet?

Illinois residents’ additional burden under Democrat leadership:

In addition, a good deal of the blame for the high gas prices in Illinois should be laid squarely on Governor J.B. Pritzker’s shoulders. It was his policies that doubled motor fuel taxes from 19 cents to 38 cents per gallon in 2019. This measure not only means Illinois has the highest gas prices in the Midwest, we also have the second-highest gas tax in the nation. What’s worse is his automatic annual gas tax increases, with the tax increasing to over 45 cents a gallon in a year. But due to the upcoming election, Pritzker brazenly paused this year’s tax hike for 6 months so there will be two hikes in 2023. Are you seeing red yet?

Fox Nation has started taking action. With these new government regulations putting a stranglehold on America’s oil and gas industry, they are visiting oil-rich areas looking for solutions to drilling our way back to energy independence. Their research is making it clear that long before Biden had Russia to blame, his administration had slowed the flow of oil. And through the work of Jackie DeAngelis (and others), they are doing things such as hosting the Energy Independence Live Summit. They are taking action.

Now it is your turn:

Take ACTION: Speak up now! Click HERE to send a message to your state and federal lawmakers, letting them know that these gasoline prices are unacceptable. Urge them to enact policies that will minimize the cost of energy in general and gasoline in particular. Energy independence should be a top priority. There are no good reasons why we shouldn’t approve pipelines, drill on federal land and reduce taxes on this vitally important commodity.

Watch/listen to this Special Report segment from Fox News Channel:

What we are witnessing in Ukraine is not a tragedy, it is an atrocity.  A tragedy is when an innocent person dies in an accident.  What Vladimir Putin is inflicting on the people of Ukraine, and to some extent on his own military personnel and citizens, is an abomination, an unjustified violation of every standard of justice and goodness.  It is an evil that Europe and the world have not witnessed since Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

Putin evidently does not mind being compared to Hitler, as he is visibly committing the same types of atrocities against innocent citizens of Ukraine, including children; but it is not so clear whether his associates and generals wish to go down in history as the 21 Century iteration of the Fuhrer. This ought to give them pause.

It is quite difficult to see anything good coming from this war, but we must recall that God still reigns, and for His own reasons allows evil men from time-to-time to manifest to the world how wicked the unchecked human heart is.

If there is any silver lining in this event it may be this: The entire world and especially people in the United States are witnessing the natural result of socialism. Carry BLM, Wokeism, Biden’s and the Democratic Party’s objectives to their logical conclusion and you will find yourself in Mr. Putin’s neighborhood. Every lover of liberty and justice ought to point out in every way possible the relationship between socialism and totalitarianism. It is not an accident that unchecked socialism always results in bondage for the people.

It may be that if enough Americans connect the dots, socialism, despite all protestations to the contrary, will finally be understood for what it is, the horse upon which modern tyrants ride to power.

Do not be fooled!

Less than 20 years into the 21^st Century and it seems that many Americans have either forgotten, or simply do not know about, what could arguably be described as the largest worldwide scourge of the 20^th Century.  Roughly 97 million people died in two world wars.  However, more than 100 million people died under the governing system of Communism in what many historians have called the bloodiest century in the history of man.

Each year the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation commissions a poll of Americans to find out what they know about Socialism, Marxism and Communism, the triplets of totalitarianism.

Here is what their newly released 2019 survey has found:

•  The percentage of American Millennials who say that they are likely to vote for a socialist is 70%.   The number who say they are “extremely likely” to vote for a socialist candidate has doubled from 10% in 2018 to 20% in 2019.

• Young people aged 23-38, known as Millennials, and those aged 16-22, known as Generation Z, views of capitalism has taken a big hit with only one-in-two having a favorable view of capitalism.

• Communism is viewed favorably by more than one-in-three Millennials (36%), up 8 points since 2018.

• Marxism has the highest favorability among Millennials at 35%, up 6 points since 2018.

• 7 in 10 Americans do not know that communism has killed over 100 million people.

• Only 57% of Gen Z and 62% of Millennials, compared to 88% of Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation, think that China is a communist country.  (I’d bet that a poll of NBA players and owners is closer to 1%. Most of them seemed to have had no idea that Twitter has been banned by the government of China since 2009.)

• While 80% of Americans say that they trust themselves more than government or community to take care of their own interests, younger generations are 25% less likely to say this.

• Overall, capitalism is still viewed favorably by 61% of all Americans.

• Overall, among all Americans there is more hesitancy to vote for a “democratic socialist” than there was last year.

• Perceptions of communism and Marxism vary widely across generations.

• Only 57% of Millennials, compared to 94% of the Silent Generation think the Declaration of Independence better guarantees freedom and equality over the Communist Manifesto.

• Millennials are the least likely to have studied communism in high school, but they are more likely to have studied it in college.

• Millennials are much more likely to report communism being presented favorably in K-12 and college than are older generations.

• While 83% of Americans say that they know at least a little about socialism, 66% of Americans cannot accurately define socialism.

• Baby Boomer opposition to voting for a democratic socialist has increased by 8 points since 2018.

• Nearly half of Millennials think that the government should provide a job for everyone who wants to work but can’t find a job.

• 37% of Millennials think America is one of the most unequal societies in the world.

• One in four Americans say that Donald Trump is a bigger threat to world peace than figures like Kim Jung-un, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.

This article was originally published by AFA of Indiana.

In 1929, Josef Stalin signed a law that dealt a devastating blow to religious freedom in Russia. For most of a century, Russian Christians suffered enormous persecutions for their faith. Some estimates suggest that as many as 20,000,000 Christians may have been martyred in prison camps in the 20^th century for holding to their faith. One historian stated that over 85,000 Russian Orthodox Priests were shot in 1937 alone.

Communism, despite its slogans of equality and social utopia, has never come through on its promises. Stalin’s draconian measures were reaffirmed by Leonid Brezhnev’s updated legislation in 1975. A remnant of faithful underground churches remained active, but experienced severe opposition and punishment.

On November 9, 1989, the unbelievable happened. Two years after Ronald Reagan’s famous, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” speech, the Berlin Wall, separating East and West Germany came down. A new policy of reform and religious liberty was proclaimed in the Soviet Union. And indeed, changes began to happen.

In October of 1990, President Mikhail Gorbachev and RSFSR’s Boris Yeltsin (then chairman of the Russian parliament or Supreme Soviet), both introduced new legislation allowing for an opening of religious freedom and liberty of conscience.

Soon, Christian ministries from the West poured into Russia with evangelism and Christian discipleship tools. We must not be deceived, however, into thinking that everything was rosy. During the Clinton administration, a mass immigration occurred as Christians from Russia poured into the United States seeking asylum for religious persecution.

The KGB was still deeply entrenched in positions of power in Russia. They were just subtler and covert. But nonetheless, an unprecedented access to religious materials and Western media became available, and it seemed the door of communism would never close again on the former USSR.

The Noose is Tightened Again

In 1997, a new law was passed governing religion in Russia, but it gave no definition or description of how religious expression and promotion could be administered. Some local regions had laws restricting open expression, but most areas have been relatively open and unharassed.

However, on July 6, 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a controversial anti-terrorism law that infringes on many human rights, including religious freedom. It restricts proselytizing of religion in Russia, and imposes heavy fines for violators. The new law applies to all religious groups except for the Russian Orthodox Church (which many religious groups claim has been under the thumb of the Russian government for many decades).

Under the new law, any promotion of Christian faith, outside of an officially recognized church building, would be considered subversive, and would be faced with a fine of up to $780 for an individual, or $15,000 for an organization. It has been reported that this may apply even to evangelizing in homes or over the internet. Foreign missionaries who violate the ordinance would be deported. According to Christianity Today, “The ‘Yarovaya package,’ requires missionaries to have permits, makes house churches illegal,” among other restrictions.

Placing restrictions on religion by means of amendments to a terrorism bill was a clever move on Putin’s part. Who would want to be seen as standing up for terrorism? And, I’m sure it has been argued, religion, after all, has been the driving force between much of global terrorism. Although this measure has been condemned by religious leaders around the world, it is almost certain that Putin and his henchmen will remain deaf to their concerns.

Coming to America?

For the past half century there has been, in America, an increasing push to privatize religion. The courts have reaffirmed the desires of the ACLU, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, American Atheists, and others, to see all vestiges of public expressions of faith eradicated. What you want to believe in your own personal little heart about God, or the tooth fairy, or whatever you want to call Him or it, is between you and your god. But don’t bring it into the public square.

Systematically, Bible distribution in schools, public displays of the Ten Commandments, nativity scenes on public property, and public prayers in Jesus’ name are all being removed by a left-leaning, black-robed oligarchy.

The New Tolerance

It goes beyond mere privatization, however. Now, there is even a desire to move into the realm of regulating moral conscience. Atheist leader, Richard Dawkins, has suggested that it is child abuse to teach your children to believe the tenets of Christianity as being objectively true.

Many evangelical leaders in America have predicted the coming of religious persecution in America. In his 2014 inauguration speech as President of the National Religious Broadcaster’s convention, Jerry Johnson predicted a move against freedom of speech in Christian broadcasting, on the basis of supposed, “Hate Speech” legislation.

At a national homeschooling leadership conference in Chicago in 2010, Dr. Erwin Lutzer, former pastor of the historic Moody Church in Chicago told the audience they should encourage Christian homeschooling parents they serve to teach their children about the history of religious persecution as a part of their education. Dr. Lutzer has authored a book entitled “When a Nation Forgets God: 7 Lessons We Must Learn from Nazi Germany.” Author and radio host Eric Metaxas describes the book this way: “It clearly and powerfully explains what the parallels are between Germany’s fall from grace and the beginning of our own fall.”

Christian leaders like Dr. Albert Mohler, Russell Moore and others, and even former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scailia have suggested the possible threat to religious liberty posed by the SCOTUS’ decision on same-sex marriage. What happens if a Christian college or seminary is required by law to allow same-sex dating on campus?

We’ve already seen nationally televised court cases regarding Christians who have refused to bake wedding cakes for same-sex couples, or Christian county clerks who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The fact is, it is not enough for atheists, homosexuals, socialists and cultural leftists to have their own freedom and equality to believe whatever they believe (a freedom which most Christians fully support). No, they want to ensure that Christians are not permitted to live out their own faith and convictions without retribution. This is the legacy of the New Tolerance movement. The doors of religious liberty are closing once again in Russia, after a brief twenty-six year limited window. Are the doors of our four-hundred year window of liberty closing? Frankly, that answer will be determined by what this generation of Christians in America does in the next ten years.

The heavy hand of misused government power is getting heavier by the day.

Given the Obama Administration’s vast abuses of executive power, it’s not surprising that lesser lights are following the Chief Executive’s example and waging “lawfare” on their opponents.

In Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, a pastoral couple who own a wedding chapel are facing a 180-day jail term and a $1,000-per-day fine if they continue to refuse to “marry” homosexual couples. The city says the couple are violating the local anti-discrimination law, which includes “sexual orientation.” Religious freedom? Not so much.

In Houston, it probably seemed like a good idea to Mayor Annise D. Parker, an activist lesbian, for city attorneys to serve five pastors with subpoenas ordering them to turn over all sermons, e-mails, and other communications involving a petition drive against a transgender statute that she had championed.

After all, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, Cuba’s Raul Castro, and Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner routinely misuse the law to crack down on opponents.

Wait. This is America. This is Texas, land of the Alamo, where the U.S. Constitution is supposed to restrain would-be tyrants.

Faced with a hurricane of a backlash, the mayor backed off, sort of, reducing the demand to the content of sermons. Let me translate: “Here’s a gun to your head, pastor. Turn your remarks over – or else. By the way, God bless America.”

What should happen swiftly is her removal from office and civil damage lawsuits filed by the targeted pastors. Jesus said to turn the other cheek when faced with insult, but that does not mean stepping aside and allowing bullies to go on to their next victims. By standing up to anti-religious bigotry and unlawful lawfare, the pastors fight for all of us.

As Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz said recently, “Caesar has no jurisdiction over the pulpit, and when you subpoena one pastor, you subpoena every pastor.”

The mayor, who misused her power to block a referendum a few years ago that would have curbed the city’s lucrative use of red-light revenue cameras, is not exactly an outlier. Liberals across the land reflexively reach for the big gun or gavel when someone disagrees with their agendas. They live to use government power to force their morals, or lack thereof, on everyone else.

The targets include anyone standing in the way of their imagined utopia of pansexuaity, windmills, bureaucratic supremacy, political correctness and a cowed populace dependent on government handouts.

When judges overturn voter-approved state constitutional amendments protecting natural marriage in the law, they know full well that they’re unleashing the legal equivalent of the hounds of hell on millions of Americans who are punch-drunk from repeated outrages committed by judicial tyrants. Increasingly, people are asking what has happened to our self-governing republic and how do we get it back?

In Wisconsin, a vindictive, partisan state district attorney, John Chisholm, has engaged in lawfare to harass conservative groups working with Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Agents have raided people’s homes and offices, looking for evidence that groups violated campaign finance laws by advocating for policies favored by the governor. A court has since ruled against Mr. Chisholm and halted the witch hunt, but not before it had the intended effect: frightening away contributors to Mr. Walker and conservative groups while Mr. Walker faces a tough re-election against a public-union-backed Democrat.

The tactic is similar to the Internal Revenue Service’s well-documented harassment of Tea Party groups, such as multiple. punitive audits of True the Vote, its founder, Catherine Engelbrecht, and her family’s business, and piling on by other Obama-run federal agencies like OSHA.

Back in Texas, the Travis County prosecutor’s office got a grand jury to indict Republican Gov. Rick Perry on two felony counts in September because he vetoed funding for a statewide public integrity unit run by Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg. She had refused to step down after being convicted of drunk driving. The governor thought, not unreasonably, that this disqualified her as an “ethics” officer. The ludicrous charges against the governor will at some point be dismissed, but that doesn’t matter. The idea is to get the media to portray Mr. Perry, a possible Republican presidential candidate, as damaged goods.

The Travis County office is good at this. It’s the same unit that took out Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (TX) when hyper-partisan Democrat Ronnie Earle filed bogus money-laundering charges in 2005. Although Mr. DeLay finally was exonerated in September 2013, Earle’s use of lawfare removed one of the most effective Republican leaders and fundraisers for several years.

In Alaska, two partisan federal prosecutors withheld exonerating evidence and managed to get Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens convicted of making false statements about a home renovation just days before the 2008 election. This cost Mr. Stevens, who died in a plane crash in 2010, his long-held seat and elevated Mark Begich, who gave Democrats a filibuster-proof Senate through which Majority Leader Harry Reid rammed Obamacare.

This year, Mr. Begich’s re-election campaign, unaided by lawfare, is counting on the power of his main message: “Obama Who?”

Elections have consequences, and so should misuse of the legal system by unscrupulous politicians who wage lawfare.

This article was originally posted at the TownHall.com website.

If you thought it was strange that conservative columnist Pat Buchanan has become a passionate defender of Vladimir Putin, brace yourself for the fact that “far-right” French politician Marine Le Pen has also praised the former KGB officer. Putin’s posture as a “Christian” has made inroads in Europe, with Le Pen telling the Austrian daily Kurier that Putin defends “common values” and the “Christian heritage.”

Le Pen’s National Front party (FN), once considered a refuge for neo-Nazis, was the top vote-getter in France’s European elections, with 25.41 percent.

In Britain, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) came out on top, with 27.5 percent of the vote. Party leader Nigel Farage has also expressed his admiration for Putin and, to the surprise even of the left-wing Guardian, has been showing up regularly on Moscow-funded Russia Today (RT) television. Sounding like an agent of influence for Putin himself during one appearance favorably covered by RT, Farage claimed the European Union (EU) has “blood on its hands” for supporting Ukraine.

These extraordinary developments bring to mind the great book, How Democracies Perish, by French thinker Jean-Francois Revel. He participated in a 1984 U.S. Information Agency video on how the West is constantly fooled by “active measures,” including disinformation and influence operations, from Moscow.

A new report calls it “Russian information warfare,” as Putin confuses and misleads the West and its political leaders about his true intentions in Ukraine and elsewhere. The report, “The anatomy of Russian information warfare: The Crimean operation, a case study,” explains in detail how the disinformation campaign has been waged.

An article in The Kyiv [Ukraine] Post by William Schreiber, entitled “European Parliament election results bring no good news for Ukraine,” demonstrates how Putin’s influence has corrupted many different European political parties, on the right and left.

In fact, describing the results of the European elections, Schreiber reports, “In Greece, the left-wing Syriza led the vote, with over 26 percent. The far-right Golden Dawn placed third, with close to 10 percent, meaning Golden Dawn will enter the parliament for the first time ever. Despite their locations on the political spectrum, both Syriza and Golden Dawn rejected the legitimacy of Kyiv’s interim government and accused the EU of provoking Russia.”

So the right and left have come together on behalf of Moscow. This is true not only in Europe but America, where Communist Parties, leftist movements, and others sympathetic to Moscow have found themselves in bed with figures such as Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul in defending Russian aggression against Ukraine.

In Austria, Schreiber reports, the Freedom Party won 20 percent of Austrian voters, a significant leap in its representation. He says its head, Heinz-Christian Strache, opposes EU and U.S. sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

Putin is finding allies all across the globe.

Consider South African President Jacob Zuma, a “former” member of the Communist Party (like Vladimir Putin), whose regime is a “strategic partner” with the Russian government.

Domestically, in his own version of Obama’s “fundamental transformation” of a country, Zuma is promising “the implementation of radical socio-economic transformation policies and programs over the next five years.” These include (in his words):

• Strengthening and expanding the role of the state in the economy
• Making state-owned enterprises and development finance institutions “engines of development, complementing the State in promoting inclusive economic growth”
• Changing the ownership and control of the economy
• Land restitution and redistribution

Ironically, South Africa is being touted as one of three vibrant democracies in a new “Democracy Works” report from the Legatum Institute and the Center for Development and Enterprise, even though Zuma’s African National Congress (ANC) just won another election on racial grounds, this time with 62.2 percent of votes. The ANC is a Communist Party front and has never lost a national election in black-ruled South Africa.

At a National Press Club press conference, I asked Ann Bernstein of the Center for Development and Enterprise in South Africa why her country should be seen as a worthwhile model of democracy and development. “South Africa has yet to pass that test,” she said, referring to national elections for a political party other than the one that has been in power. “But democracy is about a lot more than elections.” She insists much progress is being made there.

She did claim that “The Communist Party is actually a small part of South Africa. They’ve become important because they latch on to the ANC. And then some of them get into government and become ministers who introduced the most market-friendly policies you can imagine.”

It’s true that capitalism has not been destroyed in South Africa. The ANC Marxists understand the need for capital, just as Putin opened the door to American corporations and got a Russian “re-set” and Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) status from President Obama and Congress.

But it was apparent that Bernstein hadn’t read “The South African Road to Socialism,” a document on the website of the South African Communist Party, covering the period from 2012 to 2017. The document talks about the “mobilization of private capital into an NDR [National Democratic Revolution] struggle” (page 48) and how “rolling back” and “transforming” the capitalist market (page 51) is essential to progress. That is precisely what Zuma is doing.

If the South African Communist Party is so small and insignificant, then why did Nelson Mandela conceal his membership in the Party? She had no explanation.

Bernstein and Anne Applebaum, director of the Legatum Institute’s Transitions Forum, made a number of appearances in Washington, D.C., including one hosted by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a federally funded organization. The NED has done some good work, but if this report becomes the basis for even more foreign aid to South Africa, the American taxpayers—and democracy—will not be served. South Africa functions like a one-party state, even though some private enterprise and freedom of the press are currently tolerated. The communists dominate the ANC government.

The list of funders for Bernstein’s group and her projects is quite impressive and includes the NED, along with some prominent U.S.-based conservative foundations. Yet, they have consistently failed to explain how a communist-ruled South Africa that is clearly on the road to socialism qualifies as a democracy in the sense that we understand the word.

To make matters worse, the South African government is a member of the BRICS alliance of nations, standing for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Their foreign ministers issued a statement opposing sanctions against Russia over Ukraine.

Interestingly, India and Brazil were the other two countries included in the “Democracy Works” report. Brazil is ruled by a former communist terrorist, Dilma Rousseff. The regime tolerates some dissent but has been a solid ally over the years of dictatorships such as Castro’s Cuba.

India has been a functioning democracy, with power going back and forth between competing political parties. But the most recent winner of national elections, the “right-wing” Bharatiya Janata Party, issued a manifesto declaring it “will continue our dialogue, engagement and cooperation, with global forums like BRICS…” So its anti-American foreign policy will continue.

The two biggest members of BRICS, Russia and China, just signed a $400 billion gas deal, cementing what even the media recognize as a “strategic alliance” against the United States.

On every continent, it seems, the enemies of America are on the offensive.

But look at who the enemies are. In Afghanistan, where American troops continue to sacrifice their lives for some semblance of democracy, the Obama administration released the name of the CIA station chief in violation of the law that protects the identities of U.S. intelligence operatives. The White House called it a mistake.

So-called “mistakes” like this, in the face of determined enemies, make the survival of America and the Free World a matter of urgent debate.

Google’s recent “doodle” announces to the world that Google is gaga over homosexuality-affirming propaganda for minors. Google’s doodle pokes a virtual rainbow-colored flag in the eye of Russian president Vladimir Putin for signing into law a bill that protects minors from homosexuality-affirming propaganda. A financial blockbuster of a company with roots in the country founded to “promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty” pro-actively endorses the propagandizing of children while a corrupt totalitarian cockalorum opposes it. Curiouser and curiouser.

The fanciful notion that having “two mommies” is ontologically and morally indistinguishable from having a mother and a father is not a fact. Presenting that non-fact to, for example, five-year-olds in government schools is propaganda. And presenting this non-fact to children is not a loving act even if it “feels” good to “educators” who don’t think about or discuss the issue deeply.

The motive of the imperious Putin for signing into law Russia’s anti-propagandizing-to-minors bill may be to exploit moral beliefs he actually disdains in order to divide various and sundry constituencies around the world for his pernicious purposes, but a law that prohibits propagandizing to minors is not in itself pernicious.

Two people or two groups of people may have very different motives for pursuing the same goal. The fact that one person or group is motivated by hate and/or error doesn’t render the goal inherently evil or wrong. Some politicians may oppose the legalization of same-sex “marriage” because of their sincere (and true) belief that marriage has a nature fundamental to which is sexual complementarity. Other politicians may be motivated to oppose same-sex “marriage” by self-serving political ambition. The selfish motives of the politician who cares only about getting elected have no bearing on the soundness of the goal of opposing same-sex “marriage.” Only chuckleheads and Machiavellian political tacticians confuse motives and goals.

A defense of a law that seeks to prevent the exposure of minors to homosexuality-affirming dogma is not a defense of Putin, the cagey and cunning political animal.

Physical assaults on homosexuals, like physical assaults on any human being, are reprehensible and should be punished in accordance with laws prohibiting assault. But there is no evidence—to my knowledge, at least—that the legal prohibition of propagandizing to minors causes violence.

And here in the United States, there is no evidence to substantiate the related “progressive” claim that orthodox Christian doctrine and those who love Christ cause violence. The fact that hateful people may quote and misapply Scripture in defense of violent physical assaults or ugly verbal assaults on homosexuals no more means they’re Christians than the fact that someone quotes and misapplies Scripture in defense of same-sex “marriage” means they’re Christians. Humans have for hundreds of years abused Scripture for their own sinful ends.

Exposing minors to homosexuality-affirming propaganda is nowhere more troubling than in our public schools where neither children nor teachers are encouraged to study in depth all sides of issues related to homosexuality. Quite the contrary. Curricula and supplementary resources and activities are controlled by “progressive” dogma, the kind of dogma promulgated by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). (Privately, “progressive” teachers actually scoff at the suggestion that there are sides other than theirs worthy of study.)

The propaganda begins in professional development opportunities for teachers in which teachers are never exposed to resources that dissent from the ideology of the “LGBTQ” community. GLSEN assumptions are treated as settled fact:

• There are no discussions of whether or in what ways homosexuality per se is analogous to race.
  
  
• There are no discussions of whether government employees (i.e., teachers) have the ethical right to introduce homosexuality in early elementary school when many children have never heard of homosexuality, their parents object to both the age-inappropriateness and bias of the presentations, and when they’re too young to understand the nature of objections to homosexual acts.
  
  
• There are no discussions of whether it is the right of educators to promote approval of homosexuality, which necessarily entails prior ontological and moral conclusions—conclusions that are shaped by subjects teachers were not hired to teach and for which they have no training.
  
  
• There are no discussions of whether homosexual acts are objectively moral, and if not, what right do government employees have to promote the approval of immoral or possibly immoral acts.
  
  
• There are no discussions of whether it’s the proper role of government employees to expose minors to every sexual phenomenon that can be found in the human community. For example, would it be proper for elementary school teachers to promote approval of polyamory since it exists and is on the rise? If not, why not?
  
  
• There are no discussions of whether disapproval of homosexual acts actually constitutes hatred of persons or causes violent acts.
  
  
• There are no discussions of whether disapproval of racism, promiscuity, over-eating, plagiarism, and drug use constitutes hatred of racists, promiscuous students, obese students, plagiarists, and “druggies,” or of whether such disapproval may lead to physical or verbal assaults against them.
  
  
• There are no discussions of resources written by conservative scholars that affirm the idea that marriage is at its immutable core sexually complementary, even as teachers expose students to pro-same-sex “marriage” resources.
  
  
• There are no discussions of how schools define “safety” (i.e., as “emotional comfort”) and whether safety has any inherent connection to objective reality. 

Ask any conservative public school teachers if their colleagues or administrators ever present resources that challenge “progressive” ideas about homosexuality in professional development meetings. And ask them if they feel as free to express their moral and political beliefs in faculty meetings (or in the classroom) as their “progressive” colleagues do.

“Agents of change,” secure in their tenured positions in public schools, share a certain esprit de corps with totalitarian regimes. They all hatch plans sub rosa to control the beliefs of others. Unfortunately, those victims—I mean, students—happen to be other people’s minor children.

Until our publicly subsidized educators relinquish their white-knuckled grip on curricula with their de facto enforcement of censorship, perhaps we need an anti-propagandizing-to-minors law.

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The cacophonous voices of homosexual activists and their ideological allies are getting louder as the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia approach. They’re protesting Russia’s new federal law pertaining to homosexuality. Surely, this law must be draconian, reasonable people think, to generate this degree of heat from the ever-fevered “LGBTQQIAA” (that is, “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Ally”) community.  

What is often reported in the mainstream press is simply that the law is “anti-gay” followed by reports of anti-“gay” brutality. Few articles include any details of the text of the law and its inoffensive—some would argue wholly appropriate—content. The omission of the text of the law with the concomitant reporting on already illegal physical attacks is a strategic decision intended to distract attention from the actual intent of the law.

In order to put into perspective this newest manifestation of outrage from homosexual activists, let’s look at the pertinent parts of the actual law:

The Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offences… shall be amended as follows:

…

Propaganda of homosexualism among minors –

is punishable by an administrative fine for citizens in the amount of four thousand to five thousand rubles; for officials –forty thousand to fifty thousand rubles; for legal entities – four hundred thousand to five hundred thousand rubles”;

…

EXPLANATORY NOTE
…Propaganda of homosexualism in Russia took a wide sweep. This propaganda is delivered both through the media and through active social actions that promote homosexualism as a behavioral norm. It is especially dangerous for children and youth who are not yet capable of a critical attitude to the avalanche of information that falls upon them every day. In this regard, it is necessary to primarily protect the younger generation from the effects of homosexual propaganda, and the present bill pursues this goal.

    Family, motherhood and childhood in the traditional, adopted from the ancestors understanding are the values ​​that provide a continuous change of generations and serve as a condition for the preservation and development of the multinational people of the Russian Federation, and therefore they require special protection from the state.

    Legitimate interests of minors are an important social value, with the goal of the public policy toward children being to protect them from the factors that negatively affect their physical, intellectual, mental, spiritual,and moral development. Paragraph 1 of Article 14 of the Federal Law № 124-FZ of24.07.1998 “On Basic Guarantees of Child Rights in the Russian Federation” directly states the obligation of public authorities of the Russian Federation to take measures to protect children from information, propaganda and campaigning that harm their health and moral and spiritual development.

    In this connection it is necessary to establish measures to ensure intellectual, moral and mental security of children, including the prohibition onto perform any act aimed at the promotion of homosexuality. By itself, the prohibition of such propaganda as an activity of purposeful and uncontrolled dissemination of the information that could harm the health and moral and spiritual development, as well as form misperceptions about the social equivalence of conventional and unconventional sexual relationships, among individuals who, due to their age, are not capable to independently and critically assess such information cannot be regarded as violating the constitutional rights of citizens.

    Given the above, a bill suggesting amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences was prepared to introduce administrative responsibility for propaganda of homosexuality among minors. In this case, administrative responsibility is established not for the sheer fact of the person’s homosexuality, but only for propaganda of homosexualism among minors. (emphasis added)

(There is also a local St. Petersburg law that is similar to the federal law but also prohibits the dissemination of resources to minors that affirm pedophilia.)

To further put things in perspective, note that the consequences of violating this law are only fines of $120-150 for individuals, $1,200-1,500 for “officials,” and $12,000-15,000 for “legal entities.” Hardly sounds unreasonable to fine adults $150 for trying to inculcate other people’s children with their subjective beliefs about sexual morality, but nothing angers homosexual activists quite like being denied access to the hearts and minds of other people’s minor children.

Don’t be deceived, the outrage of homosexuality-affirming activists has nothing to do with concern for critical thinking, free speech, or intellectual diversity. Proof for that claim comes from a perusal of resources presented to American teens in their government schools on the topic of homosexuality. The suppression of conservative ideas on issues related to homosexuality is virtually absolute, and the consequences for violating the de facto bans on conservative resources are far more draconian and insidious than those imposed by the Russian law. Paying a $150 fine is small potatoes compared to the kind of personal and professional repercussions that would redound to any teacher in a public school who dared to present resources to minors that articulated conservative beliefs about homosexuality.

To assault people because of their beliefs or feelings is beyond the pale, as is making inflammatory statements that express a desire that others die, experience eternal damnation, or f**k themselves (things that are hurled at any public figure who dares to express moral propositions about homosexuality with which “progressives” disagree). Prohibiting the distribution of homosexuality-affirming resources to minors is both reasonable and wise.

Join us and many other great pro-life advocates at the annual SpeakOut Illinois Conference. This year’s event will be held on Saturday, February 1 at Crowne Plaza O’Hare Hotel in Rosemont. The topic will be “Empowered for Life: Putting Truth into Action.”   Click HERE for more information.