At the DNC Convention, Michelle Obama made this presumptuous statement:

[T]his election and every election is about who will have the power to shape our children for the next four or eight years of their lives.

Her husband’s non-legal attempt to do just that—to exploit his power to shape the lives of other people’s children—is no more evident than in his command to every government school to allow boys in girls’ locker rooms and restrooms and vice versa. His order, delivered via the Department of Education’s Office for (un)Civil Rights, commands schools to allow students who reject their sex to use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms and to do so based on nothing more than their claim that they feel like the opposite sex—or both sexes.

In order to attempt to undergird this diktat with a patina of legal authority, the Office for (un)Civil Rights falsely claims that when Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination based on “sex,” the word “sex” includes “gender identity.” If this redefinition of the word “sex” by unelected government bureaucrats prevails, schools will be prohibited from discriminating based on either sex or “gender identity” (i.e., subjective feelings about one’s objective, immutable sex) in even school facilities in which intimate, personal activities take place.

So, what will this mean? It means that eventually all restrooms, locker rooms, and showers will be co-ed. There will remain no way for schools to prevent non-“trans” students (i.e., normal students) from using opposite-sex locker rooms or showers. Schools will not be able to prohibit boys who accept their sex (i.e., normal boys) from using girls’ locker rooms based on the fact that they are objectively male because schools will have already have allowed other objectively male persons in girls’ locker rooms. And schools will not be able to prohibit normal boys (aka “cisgender” boys) from using girls’ locker rooms, showers, or restrooms because they are not “trans,” because that would constitute discrimination based on “gender identity.” The end game is the obliteration of all public recognition and accommodation of sex differences even in private areas.

If Obama’s pernicious goal is realized, people of faith will no longer be able to justify keeping their children in public schools. Parents cannot ethically place their children under the tutelage of teachers, administrators, and school board members so foolish that they don’t understand the meaning of biological sex and who will not protect the physical privacy of children and teens.

In the service of preventing this abuse of power and the destruction of respect for sex differences in our taxpayer-funded schools, IFI has sent this letter of warning, written by attorney Jason Craddock, to the Illinois State Board of Education Superintendent Dr. Tony Smith and Board Chairman Rev. James Meeks.

(Click to enlarge)

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send  Superintendent Smith and Board Chairman Meeks an email or fax asking them to please prohibit school administrators from implementing a policy that would permit gender-dysphoric students to use opposite-sex restrooms and/or locker rooms.

Let these school officials know that under no circumstance will your child be permitted to share a restroom or locker room with students of the opposite sex. Let them know that as a taxpayer, you are concerned about the modesty, privacy, and safety of students and about the liability of school districts for failing to protect students.

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Recently, ABC 7 Eyewitness News anchor Terrell Brown interviewed Shari Runner, the president and CEO of the Chicago Urban League on the problems of black-on-black violence and the Black Lives Matter movement. Her predictable responses sound like she just returned from a White Privilege Conference and illuminate why “progressives” exacerbate rather than ameliorate inner city violence.

Brown: “Gun violence is still a big problem in the city, and it’s often gang-on-gang and it’s black- on-black crime….What do you do to stop it?”

Runner: “Well, I think the root cause is…jobs for kids who are disengaged. We have 46,000 disengaged youth in our city. That means that they are out of school and out of work, and they need jobs. And they really want to be in legal jobs. And they want to be able to be trained to do those jobs rather than be involved in gangs. So, that’s really a big focus of ours for the next ten years, to make sure that happens.

“We need to have better schools. We need to train our kids for the things they’re gonna face when they graduate, and make sure that they graduate, make sure that they stay in school.

“College is an option for many, not for all. Certificates are good. There are a lot of opportunities in the city that just are not being taken advantage of because people cannot get access to them.”

Brown: “Let’s talk about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. There’s a lot of debate right now about the genesis of the movement, what it represents, where it’s going. Often when someone says, ‘Black lives matter,’ the response is, ‘Well, you know what? All lives matter.’ What’s your take on that?”

Runner: “I think the thing is that ‘black lives matter’ is a cry about the fact that institutional, systemic racism still exists in our society. And when you look at the evolution of [BLM] coming from the police violence and the shooting of young black men, unarmed men and boys, 12-year-olds who are confused as 30-year-old men, and the kind of narrative and stereotyping that goes into those kinds of decisions, it is a real cry about the racism that still is very endemic in our society.”

What was most stunning in her troubling comments was her assertion that the absence of jobs for teens is the “root cause” of gang-on-gang and black-on-black violence. The dearth of jobs for teens cannot possibly be the “root cause” of gang-on-gang or black-on-black violence. By the time young males in urban areas who join gangs or engage in violence reach the age at which they are able to work, the root causes have been operative in their lives for a decade.

The root cause of violence perpetrated by black men against the black community and others is family turmoil, including the absence of fathers or the presence of poor fathers. In a 2013 research paper titled “Why American boys join street gangs” about Mexican and black boys who had joined street gangs, author Stanley S. Taylor writes that “Each gang affiliated subject…expressed deep-seated frustrations in early childhood (prior to 10 years old). In addition, each gang member (and the reformed members interviewed) attributed their feelings directly to unstable home lives.”

A poor economic climate may be one of the contributive factors to family instability, which points to the importance of creating an economy able to sustain families. But it is not a dearth of jobs for teens that makes them vulnerable to gang membership, which in turn results in black-on-black crime.

Taylor identifies the factors that contribute to gang membership, the top two of which are “frustration and anxiety stemming from family problems such as fatherlessness,” and “sadness, frustration, and anxiety in home life.” To illustrate this tragic reality, Taylor shares the story of how 32-year-old “Joseph” became a member of the Crips, a black Los Angeles gang:

Joseph…described what his life was like as a 7 year old. He mentioned that he and his younger brother who was 6 years old had their father in the home. However, at around the time he turned seven years old his father moved in with a woman on the same city block and had children with her, while he and his brother were left to live with their mother. Joseph explained how this devastated him and that… abandonment was on his mind constantly….

Joseph mentioned his father never visited with them nor allowed he and his brother to come to the father‘s residence. Joseph spoke of several instances where his father would not stop to talk to he and his brother when the father drove by. He mentioned the few times that his father did stop and speak to them as they played outside, that he made promises to visit them or take them for car rides with him that he never kept. He stated that their father stopped once and gave them both one dollar and left. Joseph stated that he would see his father taking Christmas presents out of the car for his other children while they received nothing for Christmas. Joseph said that it hurt him very badly. He mentioned that as he got older the inner pain was with him every day and that he and his brother were unsupervised by their mother because she worked late.

He had begun to associate with boys in the neighborhood that were in gangs and participated in delinquent activities such as defacing property, bullying non gang members, and missing classes at school to spend time with the local gang members. By the time Joseph was 12 he had joined the Crip gang….

Joseph described how a 31-year old veteran gang member began taking him to parties where he met older girls, smoked marijuana, and drank alcohol. He said that it made him feel like he was “on top of the world.” He gained a reputation in the neighborhood as being “gangsta” because he was accepted by the gang and could therefore “hang out” with various members. Many of them sold drugs and had money and cars. Joseph stated they did many things to make him feel like part of the family so he joined the gang.

Camaraderie was developed by doing delinquent acts, drinking together and just hanging out. But as time went on, he said that he was expected to commit delinquent acts from vandalism and fighting rival gang members, to drive-by shooting.

It would take tortured reasoning to identify the “root cause” of Joseph’s problems as a dearth of jobs for teens. Gang members are telling us that they join gangs—not because they couldn’t find “legal jobs” as teens—but because they found no peace, security, and stability in their families during childhood. Why isn’t society listening to them?

The factors that contribute to gang membership, gang-on-gang violence, and black-on-black violence are numerous and tied up in a tightly woven Gordian knot. Certainly, a weak economy in which both parents must work or in which parents cannot find work contributes to family tension and breakdown, but there are other issues at play as well.

When divorce is hailed as a solution that is “best for the children,” when “progressives” normalize motherless and fatherless family structures (e.g., same-sex faux-marriage), when Hollywood normalizes and glamorizes non-marital sex, when having and raising children is viewed as a “right” to which single men and women and homosexuals are entitled, when children are objectified and commodified, and when purported Christians—including Christian leaders—turn a blind eye to or even affirm the unbiblical sexual and marital views and values of “progressivism,” family instability increases and children suffer.

If progressives truly cared about the violence destroying our black urban communities, they would be willing to sacrifice their deleterious sexual views and values for the good of black children. The Chicago Urban League and Black Lives Matter would turn their focus, energy, and money away from finding “legal jobs” for hurting teens to ensuring that all children grow up with mothers and fathers, preferably their own biological mothers and fathers. Of course that goal has been made even more politically challenging now that our president has endorsed legalized homoerotic pseudogamy—a family structure that necessarily deprives children of mothers or fathers.

Read more:  Exposing Black Lives Matter

Written by Carl R. Trueman

Last week, Chad Vegas, a good friend of mine and the Reformed Baptist pastor in Bakersfield, California emailed me as follows:

As you know, CA has mandated this [school transgender policy] for the whole state. I have served on the largest high school board in CA, and the nation, for 12 years. I basically lead that board. Our board voted to adopt the new law into policy. I voted against it. I was breaking the law for doing so. I could be personally sued and our attorney tells me the board insurance won’t cover me because I am breaking the law and I am a bigot. Anyway, I announced I would not seek reelection. The community came unhinged when I announced that. I remain the most popularly elected official in the history of our school board. Thousands of parents filled our board room in protest of the law. Thousands are pleading with me to reconsider and keep fighting. My elders are still considering what to have me do…. [T]he board and administration, and even some leaders in the liberal teacher’s union, are asking me to reconsider.

On Thursday, he announced that he would not seek re-election in a letter to his congregation.

There you have it: A popular, longstanding, and effective member of a school board has had to stand down—not because he does not enjoy the confidence of the community, but simply because he does not accept the latest demands that every knee must bow to whatever the political taste of the moment has decided is non-negotiable.

It reminded me of my review of John Inazu’s new book on confident pluralism and his response. Essentially, I argued that confident pluralism depended upon a balance of cultural and political power. As that balance no longer existed, pluralism was effectively dead. John responded that I was too pessimistic and that my own tone in my review was not entirely conducive to promoting pluralism.

Well, the fate of Chad Vegas in Bakersfield is a great example of precisely my point. He is a popular member of the schoolboard, perhaps the most popular. Even his liberal opponents acknowledge that and want him to stay. But he cannot. He has already broken the law by voting his conscience. He could be sued for that. And how many of those who want him to stay would be willing to stand shoulder to shoulder during a long, exhausting and punitively expensive legal action?

This cultural moment has been taking shape for some time. A few years ago my oldest son was running track for an Ivy League school. One of the team came out as a lesbian and it was decided that all athletes should wear a rainbow armband in support. My son did not want to comply but also did not wish to cause unnecessary offense to his friends and so he called me and asked what argument he should make against the idea. I told him to say that, as one of America’s greatest virtues was its freedom, he should tell his teammates that he absolutely respected their right to wear the armband in solidarity with their friend. They were free to do so and he rejoiced to live in a nation where they could do so. But by the same token, they should respect his right not to wear the armband in accordance with his personal religious convictions. That’s a good argument, I said, and I told him he should make it modestly and politely and then simply not wear the band without drawing any great attention to his act. But I also advised him that it would not be greeted with approval because the issue was not really about the freedom to be tolerant and diverse, whatever the rhetoric. It was about the intolerant political demand that all should be the same. Sure enough, he was decried as a bigot and homophobe.

Thus it is in modern America. To repeat myself: Confident pluralism assumes either a balance of power or a basic common decency between the various sides in any of the cultural debates. The balance and the decency no longer exist. Nor does it matter that there might be a democratic majority supporting the dissenter in whatever public-square conflict occurs. Power is not a function of numbers any more, if it ever was. It is a function of organization and of having one’s hands on the levers of cultural and legal power. Expect no quarter in the conflicts that are already upon us, however many of your neighbors may initially express sympathy with you.

The long Gramscian march of the activist bien pensants through the institutions is reaching its conclusion. It really is. And it is time to face that fact and abandon the myth that the world is run by people who respect difference and diversity, and that all we need to do is behave decently in order to win their respect and earn their favor. They do not think that way. They will never think that way. And they will crush those who do. By any means necessary.

Carl R. Trueman is Paul Woolley Professor of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary.

This article was originally posted at FirstThings.com

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A conservative leader is weighing in on the “bathroom wars.” Dr. Alan Carlson says making restrooms and locker rooms multi-gender is just a piece of the broader LGBTQ agenda. The founder of the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society says Christians should target that agenda with their votes, legal action and by pulling their children out of government schools.

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Conservative friends, if it weren’t clear to you already that the halcyon days for theologically orthodox people of faith in America are over, read the ominous, hostile, and arrogant words of Mark Tushnet, William Nelson Cromwell professor of law at Harvard Law School:

The culture wars are over; they lost, we won…. For liberals, the question now is how to deal with the losers in the culture wars. That’s mostly a question of tactics. My own judgment is that taking a hard line (“You lost, live with it”) is better than trying to accommodate the losers, who—remember—defended, and are defending, positions that liberals regard as having no normative pull at all. Trying to be nice to the losers didn’t work well after the Civil War, nor after Brown. (And taking a hard line seemed to work reasonably well in Germany and Japan after 1945.) I should note that LGBT activists in particular seem to have settled on the hard-line approach, while some liberal academics defend more accommodating approaches. When specific battles in the culture wars were being fought, it might have made sense to try to be accommodating after a local victory, because other related fights were going on, and a hard line might have stiffened the opposition in those fights. But the war’s over, and we won.

Conservatives are the equivalent of racists and Nazis because they believe human beings whose lives begin at conception have a right to exist and that marriage has an intrinsic nature central to which is sexual differentiation. No more need for politically expedient rhetorical deception about tolerance and diversity. Carpe Diem, Tushnet proclaims. To the victors belong the spoils, which to “progressives” like Tushnet just might include the presumptive “right” to abrogate the religious liberty of conservative losers.

What accounts for Tushnet’s cocksureness? Tushnet makes clear that it derives from the current composition of the courts:

Several generations of law students and their teachers grew up with federal courts dominated by conservatives. Not surprisingly, they found themselves wandering in the wilderness, looking for any sign of hope. The result: Defensive-crouch constitutionalism, with every liberal position asserted nervously, its proponents looking over their shoulders for retaliation by conservatives….

It’s time to stop. Right now more than half of the judges sitting on the courts of appeals were appointed by Democratic presidents…the same appears to be true of the district courts. And, those judges no longer have to be worried about reversal by the Supreme Court if they take aggressively liberal positions.

Now that the judiciary is controlled by liberals, Tushnet argues that “Liberals should be compiling lists of cases to be overruled at the first opportunity on the ground that they were wrong the day they were decided,” and that they should “Aggressively exploit the ambiguities and loopholes in unfavorable precedents that aren’t worth overruling” [emphasis Tushnet’s].

Tushnet clerked for Thurgood Marshall and was instrumental in shaping and articulating Marshall’s position in Roe v. Wade which, in turn, influenced Harry Blackmun. Tushnet, in a  “significant letter” written for Marshall and sent to Harry Blackmun said this:

I am inclined to agree that drawing the line at viability accommodates the interests at stake better than drawing it at the end of the first trimester. Given the difficulties which many women may have in believing that they are pregnant and in deciding to seek an abortion, I fear that the earlier date may not in practice serve the interests of those women, which your opinion does seek to serve.

…

It is implicit in your opinion that at some point the State’s interest in preserving the potential life of the unborn child overrides any individual interests of the women. I would be disturbed if that point were set before viability, and I am afraid that the opinion’s present focus on the end of the first trimester would lead states to prohibit abortions completely at any later date.

Professor Tushnet, a prolific writer and non-observant Jew, is the father of Eve Tushnet, a prolific writer and theologically orthodox Catholic who identifies as a lesbian but because of her deep faith, has chosen a life of celibacy. Eve Tushnet was “raised somewhere between atheism and Reform Judaism,” and “entered the Catholic Church in 1998, during her sophomore year at Yale University.”

Is Mark Tushnet’s daughter one of the losers against whom Professor Tushnet seeks a hard line?

The Obama Administration’s executive overreach, criticized even by liberal legal scholar Jonathan Turley, has alerted many conservatives to the imbalance of power between the legislative and executive branches which in theory should be co-equal. “Progressives” are taking their gloves off and putting their jackboots on. They’re hungry and seeking to devour whatever morsels of liberty conservatives yet retain. Perhaps Tushnet’s clanging voice will be the alarm needed to arouse slumbering conservatives before their plate is empty and progressives arrive at our church doors slavering at the cup and gnawing at the host.

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“Teenagers have sex. Deal with it.”

That was a dismissive statement by a blogger in 2012 who taught at Yale University’s School of Public Health.

Fortunately, teens DID deal with it – by NOT having sex. They seemed to have missed this flippant blog and ignored this careless advice from adults who should know better.

On June 9, the CDC released the  new  2015 data from the  most recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), which updates what we know about youth and their engagement in health risk behaviors.  The results show that fewer teens are drinking than before, less are involved in physical fighting, and teen smoking hit its lowest level since the government began tracking it in 1991.

But the big news is the dramatic increase in the percentage of teens who have never had sex.

Since 1991 (the first year the CDC began tracking youth risk behaviors), the percent of high school students who have never had sex has increased 28%. In real numbers, that means that nearly 6 in 10 teens are making the healthiest choice by waiting for sex.[1] The highest percent to date.

When the CDC released the news a few months ago that teen birth rates are now at an all-time low, few suggested that waiting for sex might be a significant reason. Instead, many proposed the decline was due to teens using more contraception, or teens’ concern with the economy, and even the effects of the MTV reality show, “16 and Pregnant.” They weren’t getting pregnant, but many thought it almost inconceivable that teen birthrates might be dropping because teens weren’t having sex!

Valerie Huber, President/CEO of Ascend said, “ Now that we know that the percent of high school students who have never had sex has increased by more than 10% in only 2 years [2], Ascend anticipates a public acknowledgement of the relevancy and efficacy of the Sexual Risk Avoidance (SRA) message in both press and policy. Since being evidence-based is a high commodity in the Teen Pregnancy Prevention arena, there should be a rush to accept and affirm the role that SRA education has played to bring it about this positive trend.”

Astonishingly, some are proposing that teens don’t have time for sex. Why?  Because they are so busy interacting on social media. However, this explanation doesn’t wash because the decline began before social media was popular. There is more to the story.  The 28% percent increase in students who have never had sex is unprecedented and has been two decades in the making. This fact should calm the concerns of those who have suggested this good news could be merely a statistical blip.

We are seeing an encouraging trend that has been sustained for more than two decades. More teens in every high school grade are waiting for sex in greater numbers than ever before. Overall, almost 60% of all teens have not had sex. The majority of high schoolers are waiting until their senior year to experiment sexually [3] – a time when most schools don’t have any education to reinforce the healthiest choice to wait. Even so, many more High School seniors are waiting than they did 2 decades ago.

Huber added: “I think this data is very clear. It confirms that SRA is realistic and that it resonates with teens.  It also tells us that we need to be more intentional with the messages we send to teens – and the importance of giving teens the skills to graduate high school without any of the negative consequences that can surround teen sex. Today, those messages normalize sex, especially for older students.  This must change.”

Ascend encourages Congress and local communities to use this new data to give more emphasis on the SRA approach to sex education. Teens themselves are proving waiting is doable. The recent CDC data makes a strong case for SRA education. Policymakers must respond in-kind, rather than capitulating to the troubling sound bite like, “Teens have sex. Deal with it.” Fewer teens are having sex, so we can deal with that by reinforcing their good choices.

Read the results of the entire CDC study here.

[1] YRBS trend data shows that the percent of teens who have never had sex increased from 45.9 in 1991 to 58.8 in 2015 

[2] YRBS trend data shows that the percent of teens who have never had sex increased from 53.2 in 2013 to 58.8 in 2015 

[3] YRBS trend data shows that teens are waiting longer to have sex. More than half haven’t had sex in 11^th grade and 42% haven’t had sex in 12^th, up from 33% in 1991. Even Seniors have increased waiting for sex by 27% since 1991.

Perhaps some remember the plethora of news stories a few years ago touting a 2012 research paper that purported to show that authoritarian personality types tend to be politically conservative. In a remarkable turn of events the researchers have admitted they made a monumental blunder—oh, wait, that’s what I said. They said they made a minor error. The minor error was that the data they analyzed suggested the exact opposite of what they claimed it did. The website Powerline describes this minor correction as the “epic correction of the decade.”

Three researchers, Brad Verhulst, Lindon J. Eaves, and Peter K. Hatemi, published their paper “Correlation not Causation: The Relationship between Personality Traits and Political Ideologies” in the American Journal of Political Science (as opposed to real science). Their paper was based on personality models developed by Hans Eysenck in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

The authors looked at data collected about three personality traits labeled P (a kinder, gentler euphemism for “psychoticism”), Neuroticism, and Social Desirability. The original paper stated this about P:

P is positively correlated with tough-mindedness, risk-taking, sensation-seeking, impulsivity, and authoritarianism…. In social situations, those who score high on P are more uncooperative, hostile, [and] troublesome…. At the extremes, those scoring high on P are manipulative, tough-minded, and practical. By contrast, people low on P are more likely to be more altruistic, well socialized, empathic, and conventional. As such, we expect higher P scores to be related to more conservative political attitudes, particularly for militarism and social conservatism.

The hapless authors concluded that P correlated with political conservatism, and Neuroticism and Social Desirability (which is the desire to appear in a socially desirable light) correlated with political liberalism, when in fact, the data on which they based their analysis demonstrated the reverse. The data suggest that it is liberals who demonstrate “tough-minded authoritarianism” which manifests in support for liberal social and military policies. And those low P people who are more altruistic, well socialized, and empathic must be conservatives.

Their original paper also claimed that “People higher in Neuroticism tend to be more economically liberal…. That is, neurotic people are more likely to support public policies that provide aid to the economically disadvantaged (public housing, foreign aid, immigration, etc).” In other words, the authors originally claimed that data suggests liberals are more likely to support public policies that help the disadvantaged, whereas, in reality, the data suggest that conservatives are more likely to support such policies.

So, the corrected analysis now suggests that impulsive, uncooperative, hostile, troublesome, manipulative authoritarians tend toward political liberalism on social and military issues. Did we really need a study to tell us that?

Thanks to vigilant researcher Steven G. Ludeke at the University of Southern Denmark, who read their paper and followed up on what seemed odd conclusions, the authors posted their correction in January of 2016 in the American Journal of Political Science, which was picked up by the website Retraction Watch, and then by the blog Powerline.

Brad Verhulst, one of the paper’s authors, offered this analysis of their “minor” error:

“The correction to the original manuscript was quite minor, and consisted of an error in the descriptives…..None of the primary conclusions were affected by the error….The reason that the correction is quite minor is because we were looking at whether personality traits caused people to develop political attitudes….We found that personality traits and political attitudes were correlated, but that there was no evidence that there was a causal relationship….Accordingly, this is a minor error because the fact that the correlation is ‘exactly reversed’ does not change the fact that personality traits do not cause political attitudes….Thus, while the descriptive statistics were incorrect, the conclusions based on the analyses do not change.”

Does the fact that their error did not affect their “primary conclusions” regarding the correlative relationship between personality traits and political leanings make it minor? What about the effect their error had on the way the secular press—always eager to malign conservatives—erroneously reported on conservatism? Was that minor? Do they bear any measure of culpability for that?

Dr. Ludeke seems to think this error is significant:

The erroneous results represented some of the larger correlations between personality and politics ever reported; they were reported and interpreted, repeatedly, in the wrong direction; and then cited at rates that are (for this field) extremely high. And the relationship between personality and politics is, as we note in the paper, quite a “hot” topic, with a large number of new papers appearing every year. So although the errors do not matter for the result that the authors (rightly) see as their most important, I obviously think the errors themselves matter quite a lot, especially for what it says about the scientific process both pre- and post-review.

The good that may come of this epic correction of the decade is that many of us learned about Retraction Watch.

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Written by Kirk Smith

We’ve learned several things since President Barack Obama dictatorially demanded that public school restrooms now be co-ed or risk federal funding. The first thing we learned is that in spite of well-intending parents saying their school is “different from all the other schools,” we now know they will all be the same with regard to restroom and locker rooms practices. Follow the money to D.C.

Second, regardless of how sincere Christian teachers are in their desire to bring Christ into the classroom, they are spiritual eunuchs, who were long ago emasculated and their message muted.  To give true testimony of Christ in their classroom is to suffer termination, a risk that is too great for most to take.

Third, local school boards are powerless as Washington D.C. controls every facet of education down to dictating bathroom policy.

Finally, Christian parents are in a showdown with the state with regard to whose will is absolute in the raising of their children, as they seek to answer, “How important is eternity for our children?”

One upset public school parent recently declared, “Obama’s mandate won’t stand!” Of course, this is the same sentiment embodies in an earlier claim that Christianity could not be taken out of the classroom, Obama could not get re-elected, and Mrs. Clinton had no real chance at the White House.  And here we are. Naïveté is a luxury we can no longer afford. The price is way too high.

The Scriptures make it undeniably plain: “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40). Statistics bear out this truth as the church is losing between 64% – 88% of her professing youth after their first year in college. Others studies reveal that the compromise which leads to this departure begins as early as junior high.

Public school students receive around 15,000 hours of indoctrination in the religion of secular humanism, while Christian parents seek to counteract this avalanche with pizza parties at youth meetings and a thirty-minute weekly sermon. Our children are leaving the faith by the tens of thousands, and we can’t figure out why?

Sadder yet, many will go into eternity unprepared. How long can we Christians elicit the grace of God for our children while sending our children into a culture that we know is spiritually destructive?

How much spiritual carnage do we have to witness before we say, “Enough is enough. This is the last straw. There must be an alternative!”

Not only is there an alternative, it’s been proven to work experientially, statistically, and historically.  It’s called homeschooling.

While homeschooling is not a silver bullet, 94% of homeschooled children do keep the faith of their parents, and 93% stay active in their local church after graduation. These numbers alone should motivate parents to train their impressionable children at home in accordance with Deuteronomy 6.

While many parents feel overwhelmed at the magnitude of this task, there are innumerable resources to help, not the least of which is God.  Ignorance and feelings of inadequacy are no longer justifiable excuses, especially since a parent’s level of education has been found to be a non-factor in their children’s academic success.

I was a public school teacher as was my wife. When we started to homeschool twenty years ago, I shared that I was not anti-public schooling, just pro-homeschooling. That is no longer the case. I know far too much. The public school system is not broken. On the contrary, it is doing exactly what it was designed to do: indoctrinate the next generation into a socialist perspective of voluntary slavery. Consider what educational leader John Dewey wrote:

The moral responsibility of the school and of those who conduct it is to society. [A]part from participation in social life, the school has no moral end or aim. [In religious terminology] the moral trinity of the school [is] the demand for social intelligence, social power, and social interests.

Can the point be made any clearer than that?

I call on all parents who profess the name of Christ to reevaluate their decision to send their children to government schools. We will each stand before God Almighty and have to give an account for the stewardship of our children’s souls. What will we say on that day when we knowingly sent them into a system that rejects His name and teaches doctrines that are diametrically opposed to His Word?

For those of you who feel this tug but don’t know where to start, I want to personally invite you to attend the Illinois Christian Home Educators’ Annual Convention in Naperville, June 2-4. For the past 17 years, my wife and I have made the five-hour trip north in order to be encouraged, instructed, and equipped to raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. For more information and to register, go to www.iche.org and click on the convention icon.

Kirk and Joely Smith have been married since 1991. Kirk graduated from Greenville College, teaching and coaching for two years at the high school level before founding the House of Prayer church in Albion, IL, which he pastored for almost 25 years. Joely graduated from the University of Southern Indiana and taught first grade for two years before the birth of their first child after which she stayed home. 

The Smith family live in southeastern Illinois with their 11 children who range in age from toddler to young adult.  They are looking forward to building new relationships and spreading the home discipleship vision of ICHE to all corners of Illinois.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your U.S. Representative, urging him or her to rein in the unelected, leftist federal bureaucrats. Demand a stop to the federal takeover of bathrooms, locker rooms, overnight trips, etc.

You can also place a phone call to your federal lawmaker via the United States Capitol switchboard, by calling (202) 224-3121.

“By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.”

The Obama Administration in yet another demonstration of its infinite hubris and, yes, wickedness has sent a joint “Dear Colleague” letter from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Education (ED) to all public elementary, middle, and high schools and universities ordering them to allow gender-dysphoric students to use opposite-sex restrooms—and more—or risk loss of federal funds. The DOJ and ED describe the letter as “significant guidance” (emphasis theirs). “Significant guidance” is Newspeak for “Imperial Command.”

The Department of Education issued a similar diktat to public schools in 2014 through another “Dear Colleague” letter, telling them that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits discrimination based on “sex,” requires schools to allow gender-dysphoric students to use opposite sex restrooms and locker rooms. Un-elected officials with no law-making authority in the ED simply decided that the word “sex” in the law no longer means just objective, immutable sex as manifest in biology and anatomy.  They decided that it also means one’s feelings about one’s sex.

When Title IX said “sex,” however, it actually meant “sex.” For the dull of thinking, Title IX included this:

A recipient [of federal funds] may provide separate toilet, locker room, and shower facilities on the basis of sex.

If this newest imperious imperial command prevails, all public schools will be required to allow gender-dysphoric students as well as “gender fluid,” “gender non-binary” and “questioning” students to use whichever restrooms and locker rooms correspond to the sex with which the gender genie leads them to “identify.”

Here are just some of the requirements included in this imperial command:

1.) On school-sponsored, overnight trips, gender-dysphoric students must be permitted to room with opposite-sex students, and the actual sex of gender-dysphoric students must be concealed from the opposite-sex students with whom they’re rooming (unless all students are required to share their actual sex, which until recently would have been unnecessary). Further, schools may not require gender-dysphoric students to stay in “single-occupancy accommodations.”

2.) In university dorms, gender-dysphoric students must be allowed to room with students of the opposite sex, and the actual sex of gender-dysphoric students must be concealed from their roommates (unless all students are required to share their actual sex).

3.) “School staff and contractors” must no longer use pronouns in accordance with sex but rather in accordance with feelings about sex. So, I guess that means teachers will have to use the linguistic inventions by which “gender fluid,” “gender non-binary,” and “gender-questioning” students may want to be referred (e.g., “zie,” “zim,” “zir,” “zirs,” and “zirself”). Big government is restructuring grammar. Astonishing.

4.) Gender-dysphoric students must be permitted to use restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to the opposite sex. Schools “may make individual-user options available to all students who voluntarily seek additional privacy.” Two important things to note: First, schools “may“—not must—make such options available. Second, this means if girls are not comfortable with a boy in their locker rooms, it is the girls who would have to “voluntarily seek additional privacy.“

5.) Gender-dysphoric students must be permitted to take single-sex classes with opposite-sex students.

As I have written ad nauseum, this issue is not centrally about restrooms. It is centrally about the reality and meaning of sex differences, which the left seeks to eradicate. (Ironically, when homosexuals claim they are attracted only to persons of the same sex, they affirm and emphasize the reality of sexual differentiation. The left, however, is rarely constrained by foolish inconsistency.)

The left’s disbelief in the twoness of the sexes defies objective reality. The left’s belief that subjective feelings about objective maleness or femaleness must trump objective maleness and femaleness in every context from potties to pronouns is a philosophical, political, moral, and theological assumption—not an objective fact. And it’s certainly not true.

This, my friends, is something wicked.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your U.S. representative, urging him or her to rein in the unelected, leftist federal bureaucrats. Demand a stop to the federal takeover of bathrooms, locker rooms, overnight trips, etc.

You can also place a phone call to your federal lawmaker via the United States Capitol switchboard, by calling (202) 224-3121.

The federal government through its highly partisan Department of Justice (DOJ) is attempting to make law—again—by attacking North Carolina’s so-called “bathroom bill.” Last Wednesday, the DOJ sent a letter to NC governor Pat McCrory demanding that he rescind the law within three working days or face legal action and loss of federal funds.

The DOJ letter erroneously states that the NC law violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination based on sex. In its infinite ignorance and hubris, the DOJ, has proclaimed that the word “sex” includes “gender identity.”

By attacking North Carolina’s law that requires restrooms in government buildings, state colleges and universities, and highway rest stops to correspond to sex and which does not apply to any private sector entity, the DOJ seeks to make law for the entire country.

This is the same stratagem the Department of Education (ED) is using to blackmail public schools into allowing gender-dysphoric students into opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms. While the DOJ is using the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the ED is using Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Both departments—neither of which have law-making authority—have unilaterally redefined the word “sex” in such a way as to make law.

If successful, the DOJ’s effort will be even more profound and destructive because of the scope of the applicability of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Whereas Title IX applies only to schools, Title VII applies to every business in the private sector with over 14 employees; every government entity; and every religious organization, including private elementary, middle, and high schools, private colleges, and churches.

Religious organizations and churches are exempt from Title VII only with regard to the prohibition of religious discrimination and only in hiring practices. Churches, synagogues, and mosques and religious organizations may discriminate based on religion in hiring. In other words, churches, synagogues, and mosques may not be forced to hire persons of other faiths. But how would this redefinition of “sex” in Title VII affect restroom or locker room usage in religious organizations or businesses owned by Christians like Hobby Lobby?

Would the redefinition of the word “sex” to include “gender identity” and “gender expression” require religious organizations, colleges, and churches to allow gender-dysphoric persons to use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms? Would this fanciful reinterpretation of Title VII require that a gender-dysphoric father visiting his daughter at a Christian college or a gender-dysphoric woman attending a wedding in a church be allowed in opposite-sex restrooms?

Don’t let deceivers distract you with mocking arguments about how few gender-dysphoric people will be using opposite-sex restrooms; or how few incidents there are of gender-dysphoric men assaulting women or are likely to assault women; or how few predators are pretending to be gender-dysphoric in order to access women’s restrooms, locker rooms, showers, dressing rooms, or shelters.

And certainly don’t be distracted by the stupid comparison of separate restrooms for blacks and whites to separate restrooms for men and women. While there are no substantive differences between blacks and whites, there are substantive differences between males and females,  which even gender-dysphoric persons and homosexuals acknowledge.

The central issue is with the meaning of physical embodiment as male and female.

• Policies and laws mandating that gender-dysphoric persons be allowed to use opposite-sex restrooms embody and teach the lie that objective maleness and femaleness do not have objective meaning or value.

• These policies and laws teach that it is not one’s objective, immutable sex that matters but one’s feelings about one’s sex (“gender identity) that matter.

• These policies and laws teach that modesty and privacy have no intrinsic link to objective maleness and femaleness.

Leftists dismissively claim that anatomical parts are irrelevant when it comes to “gender identity,” modesty, and privacy. They’re demanding that everyone in society treat gender-dysphoric persons in all contexts and ways (including grammatical ways) as if they are in reality the sex they wish they were. So, what are the logical out-workings of this pernicious ideology?

Ultimately, if this view prevails, society will be unable to maintain any separation between men and women—including between normal men and women—in any context. If sexual anatomy has no intrinsic meaning, if privacy and modesty have no connection to objective sex, if objective males must be allowed in women’s showers and restrooms, then there remains no rational justification for separate facilities for men and women or girls and boys.

Since, in the mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world of lunatic leftists, all that matters are feelings about one’s sex, there is no need for surgery, cross-sex hormones, or cross-dressing. So, that “transwoman” (i.e., an actual man) walking naked past your 14-year-old daughter in the health club locker room just might have a chest full of hair, a wooly beard, and a penis. Remember “gender identity” has no fixed meaning, and sexual anatomy is only important if people feel it’s important, so that “transwoman” in the locker room may even have a penis and furry breasts.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your U.S. representative, urging him or her to rein in the unelected, leftist federal bureaucrats in the Departments of Justice and Education. Demand that the federal government remove itself from issues of local control and stop misusing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972.

On Wednesday afternoon, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and the Thomas More Society filed a lawsuit in federal court against School District 211 and the Department of Education (DOE) on behalf of 51 district families who rightly claim that the district and the Department of Education “trample students’ privacy” rights and create an “intimidating and hostile environment” for girls who are being forced to share the girls locker room and restrooms with a boy who wishes he were a girl.

The lawsuit claims that the DOE’s reinterpretation of Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, is unlawful. The DOE through its Office for Civil Rights claims that the word “sex” in Title IX actually includes “gender identity” and “gender expression,” thereby prohibiting schools from maintaining separate restrooms and locker rooms for boys and girls.

There’s only one wee little problem with that fanciful interpretation. Title IX specifically states the following:

[T]itle IX of the Education Amendments of 1972…is designed to eliminate (with certain exceptions) discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program….A recipient [of federal funds] may provide separate toilet, locker room, and shower facilities on the basis of sex, but such facilities provided for students of one sex shall be comparable to such facilities provided for students of the other sex. [emphasis added]

For those who may not remember, several months ago the ACLU represented a gender-dysphoric boy in District 211 who was seeking the right to use the girls locker room and restrooms. Actually, he was seeking the right to unrestricted access to the girls locker room and restrooms. Though he and the ACLU lost the right—for now—to unrestricted access, he won the right to use the girls restrooms and locker room, which has been fitted with a privacy changing area.

While this boy—and he is a boy—demands the right to change clothes and go to the bathroom with only girls, he seeks to deny actual girls the right to change clothes and go to the bathroom with only girls.

According to the Chicago Tribune, ACLU spokesman Ed Yohnka waxed indignant over opposition to a boy in the girls locker room and restrooms and to the conventional and proper use of pronouns to denote objective, immutable sex:

Ed Yohnka…called the lawsuit a “sad development by groups opposed to fair and humane treatment of all students, including those who are transgender.”

He also bristled at the lawsuit’s repeated reference to the transgender student as “he.”

“It’s pretty offensive that they don’t even fundamentally acknowledge that our client is a girl,” Yohnka said.

I regret being so graphic, but Yohnka’s idiotic statement makes it necessary: Girls don’t have penises.

The Left takes umbrage if anyone dares to dissent from their doctrinaire notions about sex and grammar. Tyrannical Leftists demand that biological males who wish they were female be treated as if they are in reality female—even in womens showers. The Left demands that everyone join them in their delusional charade.

District 211 superintendent Daniel Cates said “students have shown acceptance, support and respect of each other,” evidently meaning that students don’t object to sharing restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex students. If true, is that a good thing? Has the culture successfully indoctrinated all our young people with the lie that acceptance and respect of those who suffer from gender dysphoria require sharing restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex persons? Doubtful.

Should the delight of teens in sharing restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex students determine policy? If physical embodiment matters and if modesty is a virtue derived from physical embodiment, shouldn’t schools create policies that reinforce those truths?

And does anyone believe that in this cultural climate, teens who don’t want to share restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex peers would feel comfortable admitting it? Or to use Leftist jargon, does anyone believe it is “safe” for students to express opposition to sharing restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex peers?

The issue of objectively male students using girls private facilities is not solely about the risk of assault—though that risk exists. The central issue concerns the meaning of physical embodiment as male or female, particularly as it pertains to modesty and privacy.

Virtually everyone—including gender-dysphoric persons and homosexuals—acknowledges that men and women are substantively and significantly different. When homosexuals claim they are attracted only to persons of the same sex, they are implicitly and necessarily saying men and women are different, and those differences include bodily differences.

When gender-dysphoric persons who wish they were the opposite sex say they don’t want to use restrooms or locker rooms with persons of their same sex, they are saying there are fundamental and significant differences between men and women. Further, they are necessarily saying that their desire to use opposite-sex restrooms is based on objective bodily differences. They are demanding privacy based on objective sex differences while denying that privacy to others.

Questions Leftists must answer:

• Why are sex differences meaningful for those who have gender dysphoria but not for those who don’t?

• Do the desire for privacy and feelings of modesty derive from objective sex differences or from desires about one’s sex?

• If gender-dysphoric persons are allowed to use restrooms with only those whose “gender identity” they share, why shouldn’t non-gender-dysphoric persons be allowed to use restrooms with only those whose sex they share?

• If there is a mismatch between a person’s sex and their feelings about their sex, why would anyone assume the problem is with the healthy, normally functioning body and not the mind?

How refreshing and encouraging it is to see parents boldly challenging the incoherent and indecent actions of “progressives” in government schools. Please pray for these families and the success of their lawsuit.

The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) just issued guidelines that allow gender-dysphoric students and teachers to use restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to the sex they wish they were rather than the sex they actually are. In public schools, staff and faculty regularly use student restrooms, so adult men who wish they were women may now use girls’ restrooms, and adult women who wish they were men may now use boys’ restrooms.

These new guidelines apply to all schools from elementary through high school, and they apply not just to restrooms and locker rooms but to overnight school trips as well. Now boys who wish they were girls will be able to stay in rooms with girls and vice versa.

These morally and intellectually incomprehensible guidelines also apply to “gender non-binary” students who don’t “identify” as either male or female and to “questioning” students who aren’t yet sure which sex they would like to be. In other words, these students may make their restroom, locker room, and hotel room selections in accordance with their fluid, unfixed sexual confusion.

The CPS guidelines also require faculty and staff to use opposite-sex pronouns when referring to gender-dysphoric students. Since pronouns correspond to one’s sex–not to feelings about one’s sex–this means that the government is requiring staff and faculty to lie.

CPS erroneously believes that these guidelines are necessary to create “an environment of complete tolerance and respect” for every “student and adult” and promote “safe and inclusive schools.”

The CPS is decidedly not, however, tolerating or respecting those who believe that physical embodiment as male and female is profoundly meaningful and is the source of feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy. These guidelines will not ensure the inclusion of those students, parents, staff, and faculty who believe it’s immoral to share restrooms, locker rooms, or hotel rooms with persons of the opposite sex.

If safety is defined as the absence of uncomfortable feelings, then these guidelines do not ensure the safety of those who don’t want to do their business with an unrelated person of the opposite sex doing his or her business in the stall next to them.

CPS needs to explain why gender-dysphoric persons have the right to use restrooms with only those who share their “gender identity,” but other students have no right to use restrooms with only those who share their objective, immutable sex. Why should restrooms, locker rooms, and hotel rooms correspond to feelings about one’s sex rather than one’s actual sex?

In the service of inclusivity, why not make all restrooms, showers, and hotel rooms completely co-ed? Why not allow all boys and girls to make these choices? Why should only students who wish they were the opposite sex or aren’t sure if they want to be a boy or girl be allowed in opposite-sex restrooms? Isn’t that discriminating based on “gender identity”?

The truth is it is not the feelings of students about their sex that make girls and boys not want opposite-sex students in their restrooms, showers, and hotel rooms. It is the actual sex of students that makes girls and boys not want opposite-sex students in their restrooms, showers, and hotel rooms. What possible difference does it make to girls if the boy in their restroom, shower, or hotel room wants to be a boy or not?

Parents of CPS students are once again ill-served and disrespected by the Chicago Public School system.