In a blistering must-see address on the U.S. Senate floor, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), the youngest member of the U.S. Senate, condemned Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia. Writing for the Majority, Gorsuch essentially legislated from the bench, changing duly passed federal law with far-reaching and destructive consequences for all Americans, especially religious Americans.

Hawley argued that religious conservatives have been sold a bill of goods. They have been commanded for years to shut up and the recompense for their dutiful silence would be judges like Antonin Scalia who adhere to the judicial philosophies of textualism and originalism that ensure judges don’t legislate. Hawley sarcastically points out that in Gorsuch, religious conservatives were duped. Hawley said, “it’s time for religious conservatives to stand up and to speak out.”

Please watch the entirety of Hawley’s compelling address and share it widely. (It is only 13 minutes long.)

U.S. Senator Hawley—a Christian and Harvard University and Yale School graduate who worked for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty—is  exactly the kind of leader religious conservatives have been praying for: wise, brilliant, and bold.

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In a shocking U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) decision, Justice Neil Gorsuch voted with the axis of evil—that is, with Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor. In Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, the axis of evil decided that in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the word “sex” includes “sexual orientation” and “gender identity”—both subjectively constituted conditions. As a result, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in employment based on “race, color, religion, sex, and national origin,” now prohibits employers from firing employees who self-identify as homosexual or as the sex they are not and never can be.

The crux of the argument goes something like this: If a company that allows a woman who gets breast implants and wears lipstick, stilettos, and dresses to work fires a man who gets breast implants and wears lipstick, stilettos, and dresses to work, the company has discriminated against him based on his sex and, therefore, violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

Not only are “trans”-cultists eradicating all public accommodation of real sex differences, but they’re also eradicating every cultural convention that recognizes, honors, and reinforces sex differences. They’re saying that not only are they permitted to reject cultural conventions regarding hairstyles, jewelry, clothing, and makeup, but everyone else must. Further, even biological reality as a signifier of biological sex must be rejected by everyone. So, as the very liberal author of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling, has learned, no one may say that only women menstruate.

The tyrannical Supremacist Court of the United States has declared from on its high horse that no employer with over 15 employees may fire an employee who decides to cross-dress at work. For those who remain blissfully unaware, there are efforts afoot to make such a view apply to companies with fewer than 15 employees too.

What if the owner of an independent toy store with three locations in neighboring towns employs 15 people and one of those employees announces he will henceforth “identify” as a woman. Now he cannot be fired—not even if the store where the cross-dressing man works will be destroyed because parents will no longer bring their toddlers and young children to an establishment that will require them to explain perversion to children who are too young to understand it and may be disturbed by it.

Many obstetrician-gynecologists staff their offices with only women—including only women nurses. Now imagine that one of those nurses announces she will be socially, chemically, and surgically “transitioning” and hopes to look like this biological woman one day (yes, this is a woman):

Is it just for doctors to be prohibited from firing her?

In their dissent, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito issued a stinging rebuke of the hubris of the majority opinion:

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination on any of five specified grounds: “race, color, religion, sex, [and] national origin.” … Neither “sexual orientation” nor “gender identity” appears on that list. For the past 45 years, bills have been introduced in Congress to add “sexual orientation” to the list, and in recent years, bills have included “gender identity” as well. But to date, none has passed both Houses. Last year, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would amend Title VII by defining sex discrimination to include both “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” … This bill remains before a House Subcommittee.

Because no such amendment of Title VII has been enacted in accordance with the requirements in the Constitution … Title VII’s prohibition of discrimination because of “sex” still means what it has always  meant. But the Court is not deterred by these constitutional niceties. Usurping the constitutional authority of the other branches, the Court has essentially taken H. R. 5’s provision on employment discrimination and issued it under the guise of statutory interpretation. A more brazen abuse of our authority to interpret statutes is hard to recall.

The Court tries to convince readers that it is merely enforcing the terms of the statute, but that is preposterous. Even as understood today, the concept of discrimination because of “sex” is different from discrimination because of “sexual orientation” or “gender identity.” And in any event, our duty is to interpret statutory terms to “mean what they conveyed to reasonable people at the time they were written.”

Alito and Thomas preview the deleterious effects this decision will have on American life and liberty:

As the briefing in these cases has warned, the position that the Court now adopts will threaten freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and personal privacy and safety. No one should think that the Court’s decision represents an unalloyed victory for individual liberty.

While churches and other religious organizations, including religious schools, will probably be allowed what is called a “ministerial exception”—at least for a time—for those involved in teaching the tenets of their faith, it is unlikely that exemption will apply to those employed in other positions. For example, a private Christian school will be prohibited from firing any math, science, Spanish, or P.E. teacher, secretary, custodian, cafeteria worker, playground supervisor, or crossing guard who decides to identify as the opposite sex, cross-dress, take cross-sex hormones, and surgically disguise his or her sex.

For those churches, Christian schools, and parachurch organizations that reassure themselves that such events are unlikely, just remember what’s happened to Jack Phillips, the Colorado baker who has been relentlessly sued by “LGBT” persons. Sexual subversives are going to specifically target Christian institutions.

Alito and Thomas warn that this pernicious SCOTUS decision will likely be used force the sexual integration of bathrooms, locker rooms, and women’s shelters; to force people to use “gender” obliterators’ “preferred pronouns”; to force employers to cover “costly sex reassignment surgery”; and to force colleges to assign dorm rooms based on the sex students wish they were rather than the sex they are.

This pernicious decision will be used too as a precedent when challenges to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 appear before the U.S. Supreme Court. How could the Court now conclude any way other than that the word “sex” in Title IX includes “gender identity.” When the axis of evil decides that, women’s sports are destroyed, and eventually all women’s records from high school, college, the Olympics, and professional sports will be broken by men.

Good job feminist supporters of the “trans” cult.

In Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s separate dissent, he emphasizes the violation of the separation of powers that the decision represents:

Under the Constitution’s separation of powers, the responsibility to amend Title VII belongs to Congress and the President in the legislative process, not to this Court. … [W]e are judges, not Members of Congress. And in Alexander Hamilton’s words, federal judges exercise “neither Force nor Will, but merely judgment.”… If judges could rewrite laws based on their own policy views, or based on their own assessments of likely future legislative action, the critical distinction between legislative authority and judicial authority that undergirds the Constitution’s separation of powers would collapse, thereby threatening the impartial rule of law and individual liberty. …

Both common parlance and common legal usage treat sex discrimination and sexual orientation discrimination as two distinct categories of discrimination—back in 1964 and still today. As to common parlance, few in 1964 (or today) would describe a firing because of sexual orientation as a firing because of sex. As commonly understood, sexual orientation discrimination is distinct from, and not a form of, sex discrimination. The majority opinion acknowledges the common understanding, noting that the plaintiffs here probably did not tell their friends that they were fired because of their sex. That observation is clearly correct. In common parlance, Bostock and Zarda were fired because they were gay, not because they were men. …

Who likes this SCOTUS decision? The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), that’s who. GLSEN’s raison d’être, is to use schools to normalize sexual deviance, which, of course, means eradicating theologically orthodox views on sexuality. GLSEN tweeted,

[T]oday’s landmark SCOTUS ruling will help to protect the many LGBTQ educators in K-12 schools who have faced harassment or job loss for simply being who they are. It also underscores the need for Congress to pass the Equality Act.

“Who they are” is a convenient bit of Newspeak to conceal what “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” really are. According to cultural regressives, “sexual orientation” is constituted by subjective, internal romantic and erotic feelings and volitional erotic acts. “Gender identity” is constituted by subjective, internal feelings about one’s maleness and/or femaleness or lack thereof. Now that SCOTUS includes conditions constituted—not by any objective criteria—but by subjective sexual feelings, all that remains is for sexual anarchists allied with other anarchists to expand the definition of “sexual orientation” and the job of sexual wokesters will be done. #CultureDestroyed.

So, in the service of “inclusivity,” they will work like the Devil and for the Devil to include polyamory, Genetic Sexual Attraction (i.e., consensual, adult incest), Minor Attraction (i.e., pedophilia, hebephilia, and ephebophilia), infantilism, zoophilia (i.e., bestiality), and every other sexual philia in the list of sexual orientations.

Then once that is accomplished, laws will protect celebrants of sexual disorder from being fired and schools will teacher kindergartners that love is love. Poly “love” will be called good. “Love” between two adult brothers will be deemed equivalent to interracial love. And teaching that “love” between humans and animals is wrong will be condemned as ignorant bigotry based on the hateful ideology of speciesism.

By the way, those naively depending on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to protect their religious liberty can forget about it. The Equality Act, which eventually will pass, explicitly guts RFRA.

This SCOTUS decision is not a victory for the country or for freedom. It’s another tragic defeat for the constitutional separation of powers, self-government, morality, truth, speech rights, and religious liberty. Conservative Christians, you’ve been warned—again.

Listen to this article read by Laurie: 

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Shocking-SCOTUS-Decision-Shockingly-Written-by-Gorsuch.mp3

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In an alarming May 24, 2020 article titled “Scoop: Inside the Secret Talks to Overhaul the GOP Platform,” published by Axios, political reporter Jonathan Swan exposed the behind-the-scenes efforts of the socially liberal son-in-law of President Trump, Jared Kushner, to change the GOP platform so that it reflects Democrat views. While the radical overhaul of the GOP platform—and, therefore, the GOP—is the brainless-child of Kushner, the nitty gritty of the subversive project has been assigned to Bill Stepien, second in command for Trump’s re-election campaign, just under Brad Parscale.

According to Swan, Kushner has been working on this secret “radical overhaul” of the GOP platform with Trump’s campaign officials for the past six months. This radical overhaul includes reducing the size of the platform from 58 pages to 1 page, a perhaps Herculean task but otherwise untroubling. Who doesn’t like brevity?

No, it’s not Kushner’s desire to reduce the platform’s size that should concern conservatives. It’s what he seeks to eliminate that should raise the antennae and hackles of conservatives. I bet those with culturally sensitive antennae have already guessed what socially “progressive” Kushner wants to jettison.

But before we get to that, let’s take a moment to reflect on another subversive project of Kushner’s: criminal justice reform. Daniel Horowitz more accurately refers to it as “federal jailbreak legislation,” and he places Kushner at the center of the effort to set criminals loose in our communities. Remember Kushner’s role in this as you watch thugs loot and burn down American cities.

Swan reports that in a December 2019 meeting, Kushner told his band of revolutionaries—that is, both “senior White House and campaign staff”—that  “more of their policies should be drawing people to the party, so they ought to eliminate alienating language.” So far, so good. The GOP should aim for non-alienating language in its platform.

Ah, but there’s the rub. Kushner doesn’t mean profane, obscene, harsh, boorish, or hateful language. He means language that expresses principles, values, beliefs, or assumptions regarding sexuality that “progressive” Americans hate.

Swan makes clear Kushner’s intent:

As an example of language that would alienate voters, Kushner said that he didn’t want to see anything about “gay conversion therapy” in the 2020 Republican platform. The 2016 Republican platform did not explicitly mention gay conversion therapy, but it included this line: “We support the right of parents to determine the proper medical treatment and therapy for their minor children.” Gay Republicans were furious because they viewed it, accurately, as a coded endorsement for the widely condemned practice that’s rejected by major medical associations and whose use on minors is banned in many states and some other countries.

Can’t have any “language” that infuriates “gay Republicans” now, can we. According to Kushner, their fury dictates Republican policy.

Space does not permit a discussion here of what is either ignorantly or deceitfully identified as “gay conversion therapy” in order to ban all forms of counseling to help those who experience unchosen, unwanted homoerotic attraction. That will have to wait for another day.

What’s most important to note is that Kushner wants to eliminate language that supports the right of parents to decide what kind of therapy or treatment their same-sex attracted or gender-dysphoric children receive. This should trouble every parent who believes they—not the state or leftist-controlled medical and mental health organizations that have abandoned both common sense and science—know what’s best for their own children.

Let’s hope the presumptuous, unelected Kushner doesn’t pursue a secret project to eliminate other “alienating language,” because there is a boatload of alienating language in the GOP platform.

You know what else alienates and infuriates homosexual RINOs? This language in the GOP platform really chaps their hide:

Traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman, is the foundation for a free society and has for millennia been entrusted with rearing children and instilling cultural values. We condemn the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Windsor, which wrongly removed the ability of Congress to define marriage policy in federal law. We also condemn the Supreme Court’s lawless ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which in the words of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, was a ‘judicial Putsch.’

You know what alienates Americans who cheer abortion? They’re alienated by this language from the GOP platform:

we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed. … We oppose the use of public funds to perform or promote abortion or to fund organizations, like Planned Parenthood, so long as they provide or refer for elective abortions or sell fetal body parts rather than provide healthcare.

You know what alienates those who believe the U.S. Constitution is an infinitely flexible document with no fixed meaning or who think it’s hopelessly outdated? This language in the GOP Platform alienates them:

the Constitution was written not as a flexible document, but as our enduring covenant.

You know what alienates those who support “progressive” judicial activism? This language in the GOP platform alienates them:

A critical threat to our country’s constitutional order is an activist judiciary that usurps powers properly reserved to the people through other branches of government. Only a Republican president will appoint judges who respect the rule of law expressed within the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including the inalienable right to life and the laws of nature and nature’s God.

You know what alienates Americans who think the world is ending in 12 years? They’re alienated by this language in the GOP platform:

The Democratic Party’s campaign to smother the U.S. energy industry takes many forms, but the permitting process may be its most damaging weapon. … We support the development of all forms of energy that are marketable in a free economy without subsidies, including coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power, and hydropower.

You know what alienates those who want universal healthcare? They’re alienated by this language in the GOP platform:

Any honest agenda for improving healthcare must start with repeal of the dishonestly named Affordable Care Act of 2010: Obamacare.

You know what alienates those who favor open borders? They’re alienated by this language in the GOP platform:

Illegal immigration endangers everyone, exploits the taxpayers, and insults all who aspire to enter America legally. We oppose any form of amnesty for those who, by breaking the law, have disadvantaged those who have obeyed it.

Kushner doesn’t really seek to “eliminate alienating language.” He seeks to eliminate language that reflects assumptions, beliefs, values, and principles that he opposes. If he agrees with the assumptions, beliefs, values, and principles reflected in the GOP platform, he’s A-OK with “alienating language.”

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact the Republican National Committee to urge them to protect the 2016 GOP platform from liberal activists. There is no need to radically redevelop the GOP platform. Keeping the strong planks for the sanctity of human life, traditional marriage and family are nonnegotiable.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Jared-Kushner-The-Wolf-in-Sheeps-Clothing-Hovering-Too-Near-Trump.mp3

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It’s not a joke.

A shocking new legislative proposal in Washington D.C. (H.R. 6666)  is being described by one newspaper as “a devil of a COVID-19 government surveillance plot.” If passed into law, it would be the most massive private citizen spying program in the history of our nation. Introduced by left-wing U.S. Representative Bobby Rush (D-Chicago), it threatens the privacy and freedom of every American. Disguised under the banner of “safety,” the end result would be severely diminished civil liberties.

Since being filed on May 1, 2020, H.R. 6666 has gained support from 58 Democratic and 1 Republican co-sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives. Illinois co-sponsors include Jesus Garcia (D-Chicago) and Danny Davis (D-Chicago).

The bill, also known as the TRACE Act (COVID-19 Testing, Reaching, And Contacting Everyone Act), sets aside $100 billion dollars for fiscal year 2020 alone “to eligible entities to conduct diagnostic testing for COVID–19, and related activities such as contact tracing, through mobile health units and, as necessary, at individuals’ residences, and for other purposes.”

And apparently it doesn’t end in 2020. It suggests “sums as may be necessary for fiscal year 2021 and any subsequent fiscal year during which the emergency period continues.”

The bill authorizes the hiring of even your friends and neighbors to “trace and monitor the contacts of infected individuals, and to support the quarantine of such individuals through mobile health units.” Among others, the phrase “support the quarantine of such individuals through mobile health units” should set off alarms.

An eligible entity can include individuals that agree with the plan to monitor their neighbors, health centers and clinics, churches and non-profits, schools and school-based clinics and “any other type of entity that is determined by the Secretary to be an eligible entity for purposes of this section.”

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your U.S. Senators and U.S. Representative to ask them to reject this Big Brother bill (H.R. 6666), the most massive Soviet-style private citizen spying program in the history of our nation.

We take very seriously the trust you place in Illinois Family Institute when you send a gift. We understand that we are accountable before you and God to honor your trust. IFI is supported by voluntary donations from good people like you.

The SAFE Banking Act is a federal bill that would give the “medical” and recreational marijuana industries (and cartels) access to banking privileges, such as checking and savings accounts, credit lines and loans, enabling and legitimizing what has been an all cash trade to make real estate deals, payroll, insurance and operating costs much easier.

Furthermore, this could foreseeably grant them a listing in the stock exchanges, which would give them an opportunity to raise a great deal of money, ultimately helping these havoc-producing, soul-destroying companies to open more retail businesses, purchase more land to grow the drug, and expand into more markets.

The bill has passed in the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 321-103, despite the fact that marijuana is classified as an illegal Schedule 1 Drug “with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

Sixteen of the 18 members of the Illinois Congressional Delegation voted “yea,” including U.S. Representatives: Bobby Rush (D-1^st Dist.), Robin Kelly (D-2^nd Dist.), Daniel Lipinski (D-3^rd Dist.), Jesus Garcia (D-4^th Dist.), Mike Quigley (5^th Dist.), Sean Casten (D-6^th Dist.), Danny Davis (D-7^th Dist.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-8^th Dist.), Jan Schakowsky (D-9^th Dist.), Brad Schneider (D-10^th Dist.), Bill Foster (D-11^th Dist.), Mike Bost (R-12^th Dist.), Rodney David (R-13^th Dist.), Lauren Underwood (D-14^th Dist.), Adam Kinzinger (R-16^th Dist.) and Cheri Bustos (D-17^th Dist.).

The SAFE Banking Act would effectively neuter federal law to empower and facilitate the marijuana industry.  “We have patients and other consumers looking to order and pay online, whether it is for pickup or delivery,” says Dina Rollman, senior vice president for regulatory and government affairs at Green Thumb Industries. “With cannabis businesses being deemed essential in so many states during the COVID-19 crisis, the need for the SAFE Banking Act is greater than ever.” (Source: “With crisis, cannabis firms see a shot to get banking relief” Crain’s Chicago Business, 5/1/20) 

U.S. Representative Ed Perlmutter (D-Colorado) is anxious to help the marijuana industry. He plans to include the SAFE Banking Act in upcoming COVID-relief legislation, another stimulus bill. In addition to assisting the marijuana industry to have access to banks, he co-sponsored a bill that would provide federal coronavirus aid to marijuana businesses.

According to Crain’s Chicago Business, unlike many other industries during the pandemic, the marijuana industry is growing substantially.

John Sullivan, an executive vice president at Chicago-based Cresco Labs, a large marijuana company, said, “I think cannabis can make the case for being a huge driver of the recovery, increasing state and federal tax revenues. More people will get interested in this industry and what it can do.”

We have seen what it can do to families and communities in Colorado, Washington and California. The consequences are enormous.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact your federal officials: President Donald Trump, U.S. Senators Dick Dubin, Tammy Duckworth, and your U.S. Representative. Ask them to uphold and enforce federal law against the marijuana industry. Ask them to vote AGAINST the “SAFE Banking Act.”

Note: While the bill has passed in the U.S. House, it is uncertain if the U.S. Senate will vote on it at this time. If not, it could potentially be back in the House for another vote in the future. Above is the list of how your congressman voted. Please include reference to their vote in your email. Ask them to oppose it if it returns to the U.S. House.

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In this video, Brigitte Gabriel – author, commentator on politics, culture, terrorism, and national security, as well as the founder and chairman of ACT for America – gives one of the most energetic, impassioned, and motivating presentations you will watch all year.

Ms. Gabriel speaks about the transformation that altered her childhood in Lebanon, the transformation that has turned Europe into “Eurabia,” and the transformation that is occurring in America as Muslim groups work to change the DNA of our country through various means, most especially through public school curriculum.

As the largest grassroots national security organization in the country, ACT for America strives to protect Americans from all threats, foreign and domestic, by pairing education with action. Ms. Gabriel wants to light a fire under Americans so we can take back our country! Visit ACT for America for more information and to sign up to be an activist – and please share this video with others.

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On Friday, December 13, 2019, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that construction had just begun on a Navy ship named the United States Naval Ship Harvey Milk (USNS Harvey Milk) after the pederast Harvey Milk. You read that right. The U.S. government is honoring an “ephebophile”—that is, an adult male who is sexually attracted to pubescent boys—whose only claims to fame are having had sex with teen boys and men and having been murdered by a disgruntled co-worker. While national memorials to historical figures who engaged in racism are torn down, and the #MeToo movement grows, leftists promote multiple government-funded memorials to a promiscuous homosexual pederast.

Openly homosexual journalist Randy Shilts, author of The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, wrote about Milk’s sexual relationship with 16-year-old runaway John “Jack” Galen McKinley when Milk was 33 and living in New York City:

Within a few weeks [of his arrival from Maryland], McKinley moved into Milk’s Upper West Side apartment. … Milk kept his sexuality a closely guarded secret at work. Only one person managed to break the barriers between Harvey’s personal and professional life, and it wasn’t by Milk’s own choice. Jim Bruton, a Bache vice-president, met Milk when Harvey approached him for authorization to open an investment account as a guardian for a younger man who was his ward. Bruton … looked Milk sternly in the eye.

“What’s this guardian crap?” he asked. “What you’re really talking about is opening an account for the boy you’ve got living with you. Right?”

… Bruton was surprised to learn that his gregarious colleague had few close friends, lavishing virtually all his affection on his lover, Jack McKinley.

Milk violated New York’s age of consent law with a teenage boy, which constituted a Class E Felony, and our military is honoring him.

Milk, long-deified by the left as a homosexual hero, was the first openly homosexual San Francisco Board Supervisor who, along with Mayor George Moscone, was murdered by colleague Dan White after an unremarkable 10 months in office. Milk was not a martyr for the cause of normalizing sexual deviance—as Hollywood and homosexual activists would have America believe—and Dan White did not murder him because he—White—harbored anti-homosexual bigotry.

Journalist Daniel J. Flynn has been exposing the real Harvey Milk for years, most comprehensively in his 2018 book Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and Ten Days That Shook San Francisco for City Journal, Flynn shares some details about Dan White’s motives for killing Milk that the leftist press likely won’t cover because this information disrupts the deceitful leftist hagiographic Milk mythology:

White, a San Francisco Democrat like Pelosi and his two murder victims, resembled neither a “New Right” figure nor a raging homophobe. Politically, he resembled Dianne Feinstein, who served as White’s mentor on the board of supervisors. … All these years later, Feinstein—not Bill Dannemeyer or Bob Dornan—possesses Dan White’s diary. The association between the two figures upends the narrative portraying White as a right-winger out to settle ideological scores.

White delivered the keynote address at the California Coalition for Handgun Control’s 1977 annual meeting. Like Feinstein, he supported gun control. … As a supervisor, he voted for an aggressive affirmative-action policy that evaluated those in city management by how many minorities advanced under their leadership. On the board, the former cop and fireman essentially served as the representative of the city’s public-employees’ unions. …

The first person White hired in politics was a gay man, who served as his campaign manager and later his chief of staff and business partner. “That was never an issue,” Ray Sloan told me in an interview for Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco. “In coordinating his campaign, I don’t think anyone knew or cared if I was gay. … I sort of lived my own life. As time went on, it was clear that he knew. It just didn’t make any difference to him.”

Milk often joined White for coffee or lunch. Unlike other colleagues on the board, Milk attended the christening of White’s son. When Milk introduced the sole legislation authored by him to become law—a sensible ordinance requiring dog owners to clean up after their pets—White seconded it. But after Milk reversed his support for White’s efforts to keep a home for troubled youth from opening in his district, the troubled White reversed his support for a gay-rights measure important to Milk. Milk perhaps never saw White as an ally, but White clearly saw Milk as such, which led to feelings of betrayal.

During White’s brief time in politics, he sided with Milk on the most important issue involving gay rights. He endorsed “No” on Proposition 6, a ballot measure sponsored by California state senator John Briggs seeking to empower local school boards to fire openly gay teachers. White attended the largest gay-rights fundraiser in the history of U.S. politics at the time to mobilize support against Briggs. …

About a week after Prop. 6 went down to defeat, White abruptly offered his resignation from the board of supervisors. Then the public employees who had worked hard to elect him let him know, at times angrily, that they objected to his sudden decision. Just as suddenly, the mercurial politician asked for his job back. Moscone initially welcomed White back on the board, but the mayor changed his mind after Milk lobbied him to seat someone else and encouraged political players in White’s district to jettison his attempt to regain his seat.

White felt betrayed. More important, he felt as though he had betrayed those loyal to him. A petty man nursing a petty grievance over a petty office murdered Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.

“I know why Dan White killed Milk,” board colleague Quentin Kopp explained in an interview for Cult City. “Because Milk was lobbying Moscone not to weaken and not reappoint White to the board. That got around.” Dianne Feinstein, a fellow Democrat who nevertheless disagreed with Kopp on much, agrees with him here. “This had nothing to do with anybody’s sexual orientation,” she reflected ten years ago. “It had to do with getting back his position.” (emphasis added)

The federal government, the state of California, public schools, and now the military have all been duped by Big “Gay” into honoring a deeply dishonorable man. As with Matthew Shephard’s murder, homosexual activists have misrepresented the murder of Milk in order to exploit it for their pernicious political and social purposes.

Navy ships are named by the Secretary of the Navy, who is a political appointee. The blackguard who named the USNS Harvey Milk, Raymond Edmund Mabus Jr., was an Obama appointee with no military background who named another Navy ship the USNS Cesar Chavez.

In 2009, Barack Obama posthumously awarded pederast Milk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is awarded for “especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.” Then beginning in 2010, the state of California began observing Harvey Milk Day on his birthday, May 22. In 2014, the United States Postal Service honored Milk with a commemorative postage stamp. But, for leftists, that’s not nearly enough recognition for Milk’s meritorious contribution to the normalization of sodomy.

In 2016, when the Navy first announced that a ship would be named after Milk, his homosexual nephew Stuart Milk said that naming a ship after his uncle “will further send a green light to all the brave men and women who serve our nation that honesty, acceptance and authenticity are held up among the highest ideals of our military.”

Is “authenticity” really one of the highest ideals of the military, and what exactly does such a claim mean? What if a 13-year-old authentically identifies as a 20-year-old? Would she be permitted to enlist in the Navy?

Is “acceptance” one of the military’s highest ideals? Acceptance of what? Everything? Every sexual desire? What if an admiral authentically loves his brother and is in a committed erotic relationship with him? Should the military accept that? After all, love is love.

This same ubiquitous nephew, spoke at a 2012 “ceremonial unveiling of the first street in the nation” named after a known pederast, saying his uncle “fell in love with the beautiful boys here.” Is that what our military now honors?

With his customary stoicism but this time tinged with a barely discernible melancholy, my Navy veteran father John Blackburn who served on the USS Ulvert M. Moore during WWII said, “This isn’t the country I fought for.”

No, it’s not. Our government now praises the perverse, celebrates the corrupt, and decorates the depraved.

Why aren’t Americans beating down the doors of their U.S. Senators and Representatives, demanding that no military vessel be named after an adult man who had sex with minors? I’d like to hear members of Congress defend naming a ship after a pederast. And if the Navy won’t put the brakes on this offensive project, then, in the service of authenticity, the ship should be renamed the USNS Harvey Milk—Pederast.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to express to your federal officials how offensive it is to name a Navy ship after a man who engaged in felonious sexual acts with a minor boy.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Harvey-Milk.mp3

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President Trump is a lightning rod for opinions in American Christianity. As a pastor, I know. Some of my Christian friends love Donald Trump’s personality, while others find it appalling. Some strongly support his policies, while others think he is a tyrant ruining America. Few are unsure about their opinions on Trump.

Last week, Mark Galli shared his opinion about Trump. He spoke not as an individual but as the voice of Christianity Today (CT). He spoke with biblical authority or at least tried to. In Galli’s essay,“Trump should be removed from Office,” he intentionally draws a biblical line in the sand for Christians:

Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election—that is a matter of prudential judgment. That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.

CT’s call for Trump’s removal is built on three assertions.

1.) The call for removal is not an act of politics but a prudential judgment that seeks to preserve the church’s witness.

2.) President Trump broke the law and needs to be removed because Christians should not support a criminal in office.

3.) President Trump’s moral behavior makes him unfit for the office of the presidency. His removal is an ethical imperative.

The logical conclusion of CT’s article is that “loyalty to God” means Christians must remove the President from office. If not, you are disloyal to God.

Galli writes a poorly argued essay that is more political talking points than Christ in culture. Galli should have never written it, but he did. His editorial causes the very harm from which he seeks to protect Christianity.

Galli couches his assertions in the “reputation of evangelical religion and on the world’s understanding of the gospel.” In other words, support of Trump is anti-Christ. This is a strong accusation against Christians who support Trump’s reelection. It’s no wonder there has been backlash from conservative Christians. The evangelicals-are-stupid trope aligns with a “progressive” narrative that says evangelicals have made a deal with the devil and need enlightenment. This is Never-Trump 2.0.

Galli didn’t write his call for Trump’s supporters to remove the president to protect the church’s witness but to not feel embarrassed by Trump and his supporters. Justice Joseph Story observed in his highly regarded magnum opus on impeachment that,

Many of the offences, which will be charged against public men, will be generated by the heats and animosities of party.

Justice Story is spot on. Impeachment can happen when the person being impeached is despised by his opposing party. President Trump is despised by his opposition but more important, Trump is despised by the elites in the United States. Elites are easy to identify. They’re the ones that snicker at Trump supporters and can’t imagine how anyone could ever support him. Elites are utterly embarrassed that anyone could vote for Trump. They feel he represents everything wrong, backwards, and racist in our country.

CT is striving to be part of, in the words of Matthew Schmitz, the “Evangelical elite.” They are yearning for affirmation from the New York Times and airtime on CNN. This article has done exactly that. This has more to do with social clout than Christianity.

Galli also builds his argument for removal by declaring that the President broke the law:

[T]he facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is … a violation of the Constitution.

Unambiguous means that there is only one way to see it. This is a factually untrue claim concerning Trump’s actions. All the U.S. House Republicans disagree with the assertion made by CT. Annalisa Merelli from Quartz disagrees with Galli’s claim saying, “there is no clear law on the matter.”  Democrat and law professor Alan Dershowitz disagrees as well. The point is that whether Trump broke the law or not is highly ambiguous. By stating as fact—and condescendingly so—what is opinion, Christianity Today aligns with the left’s political machine. CT has provided talking points for those who despise Trump. Go on Twitter and you will see for yourself.

The crux of CT’s argument is that President Trump is the high water mark of presidential immorality, and all Christians must oppose him. Surely Galli understands how ridiculous the claim is that Trump is especially sinful. Here is a look at some of President Trump’s competition–all of whom claimed to be Christians:

President Lyndon Johnson was vulgar, crude, racist, and groped women.

President John F. Kennedy had multiple affairs while in office, worked with mobsters to get elected, and was probably blackmailed as President to award a multi billion dollar federal contract.

President Bill Clinton was credibly accused of groping and/or raping multiple women, had an intern perform a sexual act on him, and lied to Congress about it.

President George W. Bush invaded Iraq on what can kindly be called, spin. At the very least, the Bush administration suffered from confirmation bias. The Bush administration involved the United States in a multi year struggle costing thousands of lives and hundred of billions of dollars on a rush to war.

President Barack Obama rewarded top fundraisers with administration positions. The more money raised, the better chance of getting a position. The positions were given based upon raising money for a campaign not competency. This is called quid pro quo.

The egregious sins of these former presidents do not justify the sins of Trump. Rather, they provide evidence that the reason he is being pursued for removal is not that he is worse but that the opposition thinks there is a chance they can do it. They aren’t removing him because of his immorality but because this is the most effective strategy to neutralize his agenda. If Trump had the command of the legislature like Johnson, or the love of mass culture like Obama, it is very likely this would be a non issue. Impeachment is “political [in] character” according to Justice Story. It’s not about deciding right and wrong. If it were, the judicial branch would make the decision. An impeachment process is the highest form of political theater, and CT appears to be trying to have a starring role.

The real tragedy of CT so blatantly entering into this partisan battle is that now CT has been swallowed up by what Justice Story calls, the “vortex of the political.” Politics saturate our cultural landscape. CT has jumped right into the middle of the chaos and picked up a sword against its own. They aren’t defending Christianity; they are striking at it.

There is a better way. Justice Story speaks about a class of citizens that stays above the fray. He was referring to judges. For Story, judges must be seen, “as impartial and just.” This is because they represent justice–not politics. Democracy fails when the rule of law becomes political. In the same way, the world flourishes when Christian leaders represent Christ. We must be seen concretely living for another world and serving a greater king. We represent Christ not politics. Sadly, CT has forgotten the primacy of Christ. They diminish his glory by lowering themselves into this impeachment farce.

Reverend Billy Graham, as is often the case, is the model of a better way. Graham’s personal convictions were private. In public he (almost) always represented Christ not politicians. He was a pastor to both Democratic and Republican Presidents. He was a non-partisan Christ-follower to the whole nation. He served the country on behalf of Christ. In 2011 reflecting upon his legacy and his occasional missteps into politics he said,

I … would have steered clear of politics. I’m grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to. But looking back, I know I sometimes crossed the line, and I wouldn’t do that now.”

Christianity Today, you are making the very mistake that Rev. Graham regretted at the end of his life. By taking sides on Trump, you weaken your credibility on the very issues that Christians need biblical wisdom on engaging. Abortion, marriage, immigration, race and sexual identity are at the center of American culture. Display Christ here. Otherwise, Christianity is lost at Christianity Today.

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The Trump Administration has rolled back a number of federal rules instituted by the Obama Administration and has instituted others, including these amazing pro-family policy victories:

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) began enforcing the new rule, which “prohibits the use of Title X funds to perform, promote, refer for, or support abortion as a method of family planning.” As a result, nearly 900 abortion clinics have lost taxpayer funding. This is a great first step toward the goal of completely defunding abortion businesses (like Planned Parenthood) of our tax dollars.

HHS has also rescinded Obama administration guidance that prevented states from taking actions against providers that may be necessary to prevent Medicaid funds from going to fund abortion.

HHS has created a Conscience and Religious Freedom Division for the purpose of protecting the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious liberty for physicians and other medical professionals.

HHS has also proposed defining sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and identified at birth. In addition, agency staff—including those at the Centers for Disease Control—have been instructed to stop using the word “transgender” in official reports.

The U.S. Department of Defense has banned persons suffering from gender dysphoria from serving in the military.

The U.S. State Department is refusing visas for same-sex partners of some diplomats and U.N. workers if they are not “married.”

The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice eliminated Obama Administration “guidance” that told government schools to treat “trans”-identifying students as if they were the sex they are not.

The U.S. National Institute of Food and Agriculture rescinded guidance for 4-H programs, removing a policy specifically welcoming LGBTQ children in the program, which led to the firing of an official who protested.

The U.S. Department of Education refuses to respond to civil complaints filed by “trans”-identifying students, including those who were barred from using opposite-sex bathrooms.

The U.S. Department of Justice rolled back Obama-era LGBT interpretations of the Civil Rights Act that gave special rights to “trans”-identifying and “non-binary” workers from employment discrimination and ceased enforcing non-discrimination protections.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons rolled back an Obama-era policy that housed “trans”-identifying prisoners with opposite-sex prisoners.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has proposed a rule to permit homeless shelters to house “trans”-identifying and/or cross-dressing homeless persons in shelters based on their biological sex.

The Trump Administration has interpreted immigration rules specifically so the child of a same-sex couple born abroad via surrogate would be considered “born out of wedlock,” thereby making it more difficult to obtain U.S. citizenship.

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The federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has proposed new rules that would end regulations put in place by the Obama Administration that prohibited faith-based child welfare providers from receiving federal funding without abandoning their beliefs.

The current regulations were put in place just after President Obama’s election. They prohibit faith-based institutions that receive federal funds from refusing to place children in homes with unmarried partners, same-sex partners, and same-sex married couples. Illinois also passed such a law in 2011.

Zach Pruitt is senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, a non-profit legal organization that advocates for religious freedom. Pruitt submitted comments supporting the proposed new rules Dec. 19.

“Every child deserves a chance to be raised in a loving home. That’s why ADF supports HHS’s revision of its regulations to allow both secular and faith-based providers to compete for federal grants on an equal footing. Tragically, there are currently over 430,000 children in the foster care system and 125,000 eligible for adoption, and faith-based adoption and foster care providers play an integral role in serving these vulnerable kids.”

Priutt commended HHS for seeking to “protect a diversity of providers to ensure the greatest number of children find a permanent, loving family.” A 2014 study by Barna Research found practicing Christians (5%) are more than twice as likely to adopt than the general (2%) population. Catholics are three times as likely and evangelicals five times as likely to adopt than the average adult.

Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, recently wrote a Wall St. Journal op-ed in support of the rule change. “The foster-care system is burdened, with children who need parents enduring tragically long waits for placement,” Moore wrote. “Genuine civic pluralism means everyone—secularists, atheists and agnostics, along with religious people of all sorts—should care about these children.”

According to HHS, which made the announcement Nov. 1, the new rule would be in accordance with “nondiscrimination provisions passed by Congress and signed into law.” It also puts the agency in compliance with U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding the administration of grant funding.

Progressive groups immediately attacked the announcement. The Human Rights Campaign tweeted Nov. 3rd:

“The Trump-Pence White House has proposed a horrific federal regulation that would permit discrimination across the entire spectrum of @HHSGov programs receiving federal funding.” – @HRC President @AlphonsoDavid https://t.co/I0ik3S4KMo

— Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) November 3, 2019

The time for submitting comments closed Dec. 19 and will now undergo a review period before going into effect. There’s no word on whether any opponents will seek legal action.

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Written by Michelle Thomas

If you remember the late, great financial teacher Larry Burkett, your life is likely the better for it. I worked with Larry for several years in his Gainesville, Georgia headquarters of Christian Financial Concepts (and continued to work for the organization from home for many years after my children started coming along). In my mind, he ranks right up there with some of our Founding Fathers in his wisdom, love for this country, and amazing foresight in economic and political issues. He even left this world on the same patriotic day as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe—on Independence Day, 2003, at the young age of 63. His teachings, which were straight from Scripture, changed my life and bent the twig for my children and hopefully future generations.

The department in which I worked was tasked with answering constituents’ financial questions, so I had to be quite the student of Larry Burkett. In preparation for answering a certain e-mail, I had the opportunity to skim through the pages of Larry’s 1991 best seller, The Coming Economic Earthquake. The book was updated in 1994 to reflect the happenings of the Clinton era, and it’s amazing how accurate Larry was in his foresight of what was coming for our economy and for the nation, in general. He touched on many topics in the book, but some jumped out at me as especially relevant for today.

In light of the battles over the Common Core agenda that was shoved down the nation’s collective throat, Larry said, “Check out the curriculum being taught in your local schools and see if it is anti-free-market. It would shock most Americans to realize that a great deal of the economic information being fed their children in elementary schools, high schools, and especially state universities is blatantly socialistic, if not openly communistic.”

He went on,

The only place that communism still seems to flourish is in the American classroom. It is often labeled ‘socialism’ but, in reality, it is the same doctrine that was taught in the Soviet Union prior to the communism collapse: Government is the protector of the downtrodden; capitalism is inherently evil; people deserve decent incomes, regardless of their desire to work or not; and last, the government is a better purveyor of the nation’s resources than the wage earners are.

Sound familiar? The very issues that Larry saw as major problems 25 years ago have escalated at an alarming rate.

The government takeover of health care that was attempted during the Clinton administration was delayed only a few years until Obama came into power and had the political backing to force it onto the nation. Larry had great wisdom and forethought in this matter: “Let me say that if the federal government is allowed to take control of health care, which represents approximately 14 percent of our total economy, it will be the stake in the heart of our free enterprise system. The government cannot solve our health care problems—it is the problem!”

Larry continued,

Only twelve cents of every government dollar spent on health care now actually reaches a patient. It is a grossly inefficient system. There are two old sayings in Washington that describe what will happen to health care as soon as the political system gains control of that area too: ‘A camel is a horse designed by a government committee,’ and ‘An elephant is a mouse designed to government specifications.’

Wow. If only we had heeded his warning, maybe we wouldn’t be facing the disastrous effects of the government hijacking of our health care system.

Regarding abortion coverage, Larry said, “I rather suspect that, if abortion is accepted as a ‘necessary benefit,’ there would be heavy pressure put on those who oppose abortion to participate or be subjected to financial penalties.” Isn’t this exactly what we’re seeing today? Ministries and faith-based companies (Hobby Lobby and James Dobson’s Family Talk are some of the most recognizable) have been forced to sue the federal government over the abortion mandate in Obamacare. Larry added,

Christians will have to take a stand on this issue, regardless of the consequences. We should have acted with one voice when the Supreme Court decided that somehow an unborn human has no rights. Once abortion is funded through a national health care plan, the number of abortions will likely escalate. God’s people must wake up to this offense now! There is no nation that will survive God’s wrath for long, if and when it decides to kill its young (and old).

When writing The Coming Economic Earthquake, Larry reported that at the current rate of growth, the national debt would swell to $8.7 trillion by the year 2004. Even Larry couldn’t anticipate the rate of reckless spending by the most liberal president in the history of our nation–Barack Obama. Thanks to democrats and republicans alike, I believe Larry would be utterly shocked to know that the national debt is now nearly three times his predicted 2004 level, and it is higher than the Gross Domestic Product of our entire nation.

Writing about the forecasted 2004 national debt of $8.7 trillion, Larry said,

There has never been anything approaching this level of debt funding in the history of mankind in so short a period of time, even on a percentage basis. The effects of this will be felt throughout the U.S. and ultimately the world’s economies…..Either the government will take the necessary steps to control the budget and reduce the deficits drastically, or they will resort to monetizing the debt by printing massive amounts of new currency.

We know which option our leaders chose.

Larry went on to say that,

Logic and common sense seem to play small parts in our present society….The answer [to these and all other issues] is found in God’s Word. All of these things are but symptoms. The real problem is that we have removed God from the decision-making process in America today. When any nation does this, evil will prosper. This is not the fault of the politicians; they are responding to the wishes of the most vocal groups. It is that the unprincipled people around us seem to be more committed to their agenda than the true ‘moral majority’ is to theirs.

Larry urged us to get involved in the political process and the issues of the day so that we could make a difference for the better. I would add that if we want to leave this great nation intact for our children and grandchildren, we have no choice but to hold our leaders accountable for their foolish decisions and force them to make changes that will lead us back to the founding principles that made us exceptional.

Some wise thoughts that Larry left us:

The one certainty is that God is still in control no matter what happens….However, knowing that God is in control does not remove our responsibility to do everything possible to change what is happening or to prepare ourselves for some difficult times. As Proverbs 16:9 says, ‘The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.’

We are to witness to those around us that God is sufficient in all things….God desires followers who will serve Him regardless of the costs. Adversity seems to strengthen us, whereas prosperity tends to weaken us. As the Prophet said in Proverbs 30:8-9, ‘Keep deception and lies far from me, give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is my portion, lest I be full and deny Thee and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be in want and steal, and profane the name of my God.’

Larry Burkett left this earth entirely too soon. We need his wisdom now more than ever.

Michelle Thomas is a Christ follower, wife to Trevor Thomas, and homeschooling mom of four. Her books include a devotional for moms, Lord, I Need You, a book about her grief journey, Through Deep Waters, and a chronicle of their financial journey, Debt-Free Living in a Debt-Filled World. Her website is KingdomCrossing.com, and her email is michelle@kingdomcrossing.com.

This article was originally published at TrevorGrantThomas.com.

On Friday July 12, pro-illegal immigration supporters protesting outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility pulled down the American flag and replaced it with the Mexican flag. Throughout America’s history, our flag has flown as a symbol of our foundational guiding principles. The American flag—like the flags of every country in the world—stands for its principles—not its flaws. There exists no flawless nation, state, or city because there exist no flawless humans. But there are countries whose guiding principles are nobler than others—countries in which liberty, equality, and justice are more passionately pursued and protected than in others. The United States stands at the pinnacle of such nations.

If national flags did represent a country’s flaws and failures rather than its guiding principles, surely the Mexican flag would stand for egregious institutional corruption and incompetence, making it inexplicable why anyone would replace the American flag with the Mexican flag.

Alternatively, if Mexico is superior to America in most ways, why aren’t Central American emigrants staying in Mexico?

It’s clear that the surge of immigrants applying for asylum are not really asylum-seekers. As a result of their own governments’ incompetence and corruption, impoverished Central Americans are coming to America for the prosperity immigrants throughout our history have seen and sought. They see and seek what Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe cannot see. They desperately desire entrance into the country Kaepernick and Rapinoe detest.

But they are abusing America’s generosity and exploiting the cheap political gamesmanship of conscience-less and incompetent congressmen and congresswomen in both parties whose deliberate inaction has created the conditions on the border that Leftists now blame on the Trump Administration.

The political Left’s sickening exploitation of the huddled masses beggars belief. Cultural regressives encourage hordes of suffering people to flood our border knowing full well the detention facilities cannot accommodate such numbers, and then Leftists use images and descriptions of these overwhelmed facilities to whip Americans into a frenzy of rage directed at ICE agents and Republicans.

No one better typifies the dishonest exploitation of immigrants than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) who in a congressional hearing tried to smear former acting ICE director Tom Homan by accusing him of heartlessly separating children from their parents—a practice started by the Obama Administration and ended by the Trump Administration in June 2018.

In response to AOC’s accusations, Homan responded that anyone who is arrested for committing a crime is separated from his or her children and that crossing the border anywhere except for ports of entry is a crime.

Later in a tweet AOC responded that “the [Trump] admin has practically closed ports to asylees” resulting in migrant “desperation” that leads them to do dangerous things like “what Oscar & Valeria (the father and daughter who drowned) did.”

Very cunning and morally repugnant tactical moves on AOC’s part. First, she encourages masses of migrants to flood our borders, thereby overwhelming detention facilities and resulting in far less than ideal conditions for detained immigrants. Then when the administration places restrictions on ports of entry—which would improve conditions in detention facilities—she criticizes the administration for its efforts and accuses it of causing the deaths of a father and daughter.

AOC’s ignorance and malfeasance was surpassed by that of U.S. Representative Jesus Garcia (D-Chicago), who, in an explosive hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives accused Homan of not caring about migrant children because they aren’t white.

Justifiably outraged, Homan responded in a riveting defense of himself and the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in which he also pointed out the ethical implications of the failure to secure the border and identified the group responsible for the border debacle: Congress.

AOC and her allies—who assume no responsibility for the desperation migrants feel or for the detention facilities conditions—are committed to keeping the number of suffering illegals high in order to secure political power.

Ironically, cultural regressives like AOC in government, in the press, and in the streets who so passionately support illegal immigration benefit from the fertile anti-America soil in which so many young Americans have been grown like weeds: that is, government schools. And this anti-America indoctrination starts long before college.

Public schools, long-controlled by Leftists and Leftist organizations, are seed beds of hatred for America and have churned out America-hating, self-identifying “social justice warriors” who mete out injustice to all those who refuse to submit to their ideology.

Government schools advance “progressive” views of America under the banner of “teaching for social justice,” which shares some of the philosophical features of “Critical Pedagogy,” “Critical Race Theory,” and, within theological circles, “Black Liberation Theology.”

In broad outlines, “teaching for social justice” is essentially repackaged socialism with its focus on economic redistribution. Social justice theory emphasizes redistribution of wealth and values uniformity of economic and social position over liberty. That is, “social justice” disciples pursue the distinctly un-American goal of equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. Social justice advocates seek to use the force of government to establish economic uniformity.

Social justice theory encourages people to view the world through the divisive lens of identity politics that demarcates groups according to which groups allegedly constitute the “oppressors” and which the “oppressed.” Those who are identified as the “oppressors” need not have committed any acts of actual persecution or oppression, nor feel any sense of superiority toward or dislike of the supposed “oppressed” class. The theory promotes the arguable idea that “institutional racism” and “systemic bias” as opposed to actual acts of mistreatment of individuals by other individuals, is the cause of differing lots in life.

Social justice grievance theory hyper-focuses on America’s mistakes and failings, while diminishing or ignoring the remarkable success America has achieved in integrating virtually every ethnic and racial group in the world and in enabling people to improve their lots in life through economic opportunity and American principles of liberty and equality.

Ironically, those who most hate America are those who most vigorously facilitate the illegal immigration of those who desperately want to live in America.

The ideological echo chamber that government schools are and foster is reflected in these words from Megan Rapinoe when asked about going to Washington D.C.:

We’ve always been interested in going to Washington…. So, yes to AOC, yes to Nancy Pelosi, yes to the bipartisan Congress, yes to Chuck Schumer, yes to anyone else… who… believes in the same things we believe in.

Perfect encapsulation of “progressivism’s” view of diversity and tolerance.

American stands for freedom, equality before the law, and justice. While it is profoundly good and noble to choose to tend to the needs of those less fortunate, which Americans—especially Christians—are known around the globe for doing generously, it is unjust of the government to compel Americans to pay, and pay, and pay for those who break our laws. America’s commitment to justice is inseparable from its commitment to law-keeping. If every citizen is permitted to decide which laws must be obeyed and which may be disobeyed, we are no longer a just country and perhaps not even a sovereign nation much longer.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/America-Hating-Social-Justice-Warriors.mp3

IFI Fall Banquet with Franklin Graham!
We are excited to announce that at this year’s IFI banquet, our keynote speaker will be none other than Rev. Franklin Graham, President & CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christian evangelist & missionary. This year’s event will be at the Tinley Park Convention Center on Nov. 1st.

Learn more HERE.

The U.S. House of Representatives just passed the disastrous and dishonestly titled Equality Act that if passed into law will not merely gut First Amendment protections but effectively ban Christianity and any other religions that teach that homoerotic acts and cross-sex impersonation are immoral.

This proposal (H.R. 5) passed Friday afternoon by a vote of 236 to 173 (with 23 not voting). The Illinois Congressional delegation voted along party lines. Congressman Darrin LaHood (R-Peoria) was absent but has told us that he was a “no” vote.

Here are the 8 traitorous U.S. House Republicans who voted with the Democrats in favor of the faux-equality act: Reps. Susan Brooks (Ind.), Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) Will Hurd (Texas), John Katko (N.Y.), Tom Reed (N.Y.), Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) and Greg Walden (Ore.).

They sold their souls and our religious liberty, assembly rights, and speech rights for a mess of pottage in the form of their re-election bids. Either self-serving desire to preserve their position was their motivation, or they have no understanding of either equality or the differences between conditions like race and sex and conditions like homoeroticism and opposite-sex impersonation.

The National Review exposes how radical and dangerous the Equality Act is:

Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Virginia, has been a longtime supporter of same-sex marriage…. Laycock has also been a longtime supporter of enacting a federal gay-rights non-discrimination law, but he doesn’t support the Equality Act, a bill just approved by the House of Representatives that would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, because it would “crush” conscientious objectors.

“It goes very far to stamp out religious exemptions,” Laycock tells National Review in an email. “It regulates religious non-profits. And then it says that [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act] does not apply to any claim under the Equality Act. This would be the first time Congress has limited the reach of RFRA. This is not a good-faith attempt to reconcile competing interests. It is an attempt by one side to grab all the disputed territory and to crush the other side….” Laycock says that religious schools would probably be viewed as “public accommodations” under the Equality Act even if they refuse all federal funding.”

If passed and signed into law, the Equality Act would require that federal law recognize disordered subjective feelings and deviant behaviors as protected characteristics. Federal law would absurdly recognize homoeroticism and cross-sex masquerading as conditions that must be treated like race and biological sex, which are objective, 100 percent heritable conditions that are in all cases immutable, and carry no behavioral implications.

Once the law is enjoined to protect two groups based on their subjective, internal sexual feelings and volitional sexual behaviors, we open a Pandora’s Box of evils that will inevitably result in conflicts between the spanking new legal rights of those who embrace sexual deviance as “identity” and 1. the First Amendment rights of those who reject sexual deviance, 2. the moral right of businesses to require restrooms, locker rooms, and showers to correspond to biological sex, 3. the right of businesses to fire or refuse to hire a person who chooses to masquerade as the opposite sex, and 4. the right of public schools to fire or to refuse to hire a person who chooses to impersonate the opposite sex.

Thomas Donnelly–aka “Giselle”

There is nothing intrinsically unjust about treating people differently based on their volitional choices. There is nothing unjust about treating biological women as different from biological men who impersonate women. And it is manifestly just and proper for an organization or business to fire people like Thomas Donnelly (see photo), a defense and national security Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and BDSM aficionado who now masquerades as a woman named “Giselle.”

Just as the legal prohibition of discrimination based on homoerotic feelings and acts conflicts with the legal prohibition of religious discrimination, so will the legal prohibition of discrimination based on feelings about maleness and femaleness and acts related to those feelings set in motion conflicts with prohibitions of religious and sex discrimination. It is morally and intellectually untenable that subjective feelings and volitional acts supersede both biological sex and religion as a protected class.

Pastor and theologian Doug Wilson makes clear the totalizing and totalitarian impulses and goals of LGB and T activists (a schism among whom is growing):

[T]he sexual revolutionaries are not interested in anything shy of total and complete victory.

And that is what the faux-equality act is about: total and complete victory over theologically orthodox Christians, which necessarily means eradicating their freedom to speak freely, assemble/associate, and exercise their religion.

Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon, Professor of Theology at Houston Baptist University, provides a troubling list of effects that will ensue from the passage of the pernicious Equality Act—which speaking in the strident voice of cultural regressives, Dr. Gagnon facetiously calls the “Get the Homophobic and Transphobic Bigots Act.” According to Dr. Gagnon, the faux-equality act will mandate:

1.) Nationwide “LGBTQ” indoctrination in school curricula and in workplaces, where you and your children will regularly learn and relearn that anyone who is not a cheerleader for all things “gay” and “transgender” is a hateful, ignorant, and indecent bigot who has no place in society (note that Christian teachers in public schools will be forced not only to listen to such presentations but also to make them for students).

2.) State social services to take your children away from you if you oppose your child’s “right” to transition to a person of the other sex or enter homosexual sexual relationships.

3.) Affirmative-action hiring of people who identify as “transgender” and “gay” throughout industry and academia.

4.) Speech that embraces the faux gender identity of “transgenders” under penalty of fines and imprisonment.

5.) “Transgender female” (i.e., male) access to female restrooms, showers, locker rooms, dressing rooms, shelters, dormitories, and sports.

6.) Use of all commercial talents (photographers, artists, bakers, wedding planners, printers, etc.), including forced speech (lettering, messages) to promote transgenderism and homosexual intercourse, under pain of fines and imprisonment.

7.) The firing of white-collar employees who express any religious or secular views deemed “hateful” by “LGBTQ” radicals, even if that view is expressed outside the workplace, say (for example) in social media.

8.) Loss of federal financial aid, science grants, and ultimately accreditation for Christian colleges and universities that maintain “discriminatory” policies toward LGBTQ behavior and relationships, whatever short-term, bait-and-switch exemption is offered to get the bill passed.

9.) Doctors and Catholic hospitals to perform “sex-change” operations on children and to treat all “trans” patients not as their real biological sex but as the sex that they pretend to be.

10.) Law enforcement agencies, courts, and medical research studies to categorize “trans-persons” by their pretend sex.

11.) Censorship, with punitive penalties imposed if at all possible, on all speech and publications that make homosexual and transgender persons “feel unsafe” (essentially all speech critical of homosexual intercourse and transgenderism).

Just slapping the word “equality” onto legislation does not transform it magically into something good or make it about equality. The Equality Act—like the ERA—is not about equality. The Equality Act—like the ERA–serves the tyrannical interests of the “LGBTQQAP” community. And both will be used to deny the rights of women and Christians.

You have been amply warned. Now, do something.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to our U.S. Senators to urge him/her to oppose the federal Equality Act (H.R. 5) which seeks to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include protections for an individual’s perceived sex, “sexual orientation,” or “gender identity.” If you know the name of your local official, you can also call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask the operator to connect you with his/her office to leave a message.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/HR5.mp3

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren wants to become President. If elected, one of her plans is to implement a wealth tax. She said:

We need structural change to get our economy and our democracy back on track – and no billionaire is going to get in my way of fighting for it.[i]

While a wealth tax would bring in revenue, its most important effect might be fast-tracking a complete government takeover of the economy. Merely change some tax rates, some thresholds, and the government taxes everything into its own hands. Behold! The socialist dream of “the people” owning everything.

If we sleep while others work, then this scenario will become our reality. This article will teach you what the stakes are. You’ll learn these things:

• What a wealth tax is, and how it eats away at your wealth and financial security.

• How a wealth tax can be used to rapidly institute an actual socialist economy.

• What is blocking this tax, and the attempts to overcome the block.

• Steps to stop this “structural change” before it is implemented.

What is a wealth tax?

A wealth tax is a tax on what you already own, not on new income. An annual wealth tax means you get to pay it over and over again. Keep this going long enough and all of your wealth is taxed away – the government, bite-by-bite, dispossesses you.

Warren’s plan would create an annual wealth tax of 2% to 3% of everything that rich people own.

All I’m asking for is a little slice from the tippy, tippy top. A slice that would raise — and this is the shocking part, Jim — about $2.75 trillion over the next 10 years.[ii]

What would a wealth tax cover?

• To start, tax your bank accounts, stocks, bonds, and other sorts of financial instruments.

• Then comes taxes on real estate, starting with your house. If you’ve a farm then tax its land and improvements. Even the vacation retreat, or time share, gets taxed. Even though there could be constitutional concerns, wealth tax proposals generally include taxing real estate.

• Certainly, businesses and corporations are going to get taxed. This includes buildings, machine tools, inventory, and even the value of inventions, copyrights, and other intellectual property.

• And finally, tax personal property. Artwork, cars, even your wedding band have taxable value.

Of course, the government doesn’t like people who try to evade the tax man. Senator Warren says so.

So the way that this is written is to say is to say first all of going to tax all your assets wherever located around the globe. So if you were planning to move them to Switzerland or some island, doesn’t make any difference. They are all going to be taxed.[iii]

Why have a wealth tax?

Why a wealth tax? Its proponents don’t fully reveal their hand. Senator Warren touts a national day-care system, saying:

That’s money we need so that every kid in this country has a decent child care opportunity, has an opportunity for pre-K, has an opportunity for a decent school.[iv]

But national child care is merely political cover. Her progressive friends have more ambitious plans for wealth tax money, implementing a “universal basic income.” At his campaign site, presidential candidate Andrew Yang provides a decent definition of the term.

Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a form of social security that guarantees a certain amount of money to every citizen within a given governed population, without having to pass a test or fulfill a work requirement.[v]

Every U.S. citizen over the age of 18 would receive $1,000 a month, regardless of income or employment status, free and clear. No jumping through hoops. Yes, this means you and everyone you know would receive a check for $1,000 a month every month starting in January 2021.[vi]

That is, the government becomes everybody’s parent, providing each of us enough to get by. It pays if you work and if you don’t work. This is underscored by Kelsey Piper, writing for Vox:

“That is, instead of people working poorly paid jobs they hate, they’d feel able to work jobs that might be similarly poorly paid but which they love — founding a company, opening a restaurant, managing a community theater, making art, running kids’ programs. That’s a way UBI could avoid affecting the labor supply at all, while making the world a better place.”[vii]

That $12,000 per year figure is merely a starting point. Soon someone will notice that this is less than a “living wage,”[viii] and the cry will be for its equivalency, $30,000 per year or more.

Note that this money isn’t poverty relief. Everyone is supposed to get it, because it is meant to be the fulfillment of the second part of the socialist pledge,

“… to each according to his needs.”[ix]

Soon enough, this becomes your only income as what you have, and what you can get, is taxed away. That will fulfill the first part of the pledge,

“from each according to his ability.”[x]

When a wealth tax is combined with a universal basic income you easily get a socialist economy. The government takes all of the fruit of your labors. All you have left is the government-supplied, but guaranteed, income.

The power to tax is the power to destroy

Through a wealth tax, Senator Warren only wants “a little slice from the tippy, tippy top.” That little slice will surely, and rapidly, drain its victim dry. Do some simple math, where you are the target.

• 2% annual wealth tax: One-half of your wealth taxed away in 30 years.

• 3% annual wealth tax: One-half of your wealth taxed away in 22 years.

• 7% annual wealth tax: One-half of your wealth taxed away in 10 years.

• 12% annual wealth tax: One-half of your wealth taxed away in 5 years.

Although U.S. Senator Warren is thinking 2%, others hope for more. Thomas Piketty is the progressives’ favorite economist, because he has schemes for pauperizing the wealthy. He has an opinion about how stiff a wealth tax should be:

We are not going to wait until Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg reach the age of 90 before they begin to pay taxes. With the 3 percent annual rate proposed by Warren, a static estate worth $100 billion would return to the community in 30 years. This is a good beginning but, given the average rate of progression of the highest financial assets, the aim should undoubtedly be higher (5 to 10 percent or more).[xi]

That is, the government should eat these estates, these holdings (“return to the community”) in maybe a decade. This would be a vigorous implementation of the old socialist cry.

In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.[xii]

Before your children have grown up their college fund, your retirement money, and your bank accounts will have been devoured by the government. It gets still worse, for at some point you’ll find that you no longer have ready cash to pay these taxes. You’ll have to sell things, even your home, to pay up.[xiii]

Don’t think that only the very rich will be targeted by a wealth tax. All the money obtained from them will be consumed by expanded social programs. Once the rich are fully drained more victims will be needed. The wealth tax rules will get changed to include the “merely wealthy,” and then the “middle class.” This wealth tax is coming for all of us. It will tax away all of your wealth, not merely that of some wealthy person you never knew.

A wealth tax is a legal implementation of envy. Our envy will give us socialism, and in turn that will consume us. Quoting the great economist Ludwig von Mises:

More and more the policy of taxation evolves into a policy of confiscation. The aim on which it concentrates is to tax out of existence every kind of fortune and income from property, in which process property invested in trade and industry, in shares and in bonds, is generally treated more ruthlessly than property in land. . .

Nothing is more calculated to make a demagogue popular than a constantly reiterated demand for heavy taxation on the rich. Capital levies and high income taxes on larger incomes are extraordinarily popular with the masses, who do not have to pay them. . .

The destructionist policy of taxation culminates in capital levies. Property is expropriated and then consumed. Capital is transformed into goods for use and consumption. The effect of all this should be plain to see. Yet the whole popular theory of taxation today leads to the same result.[xiv]

What does Bible say?

A wealth tax would have the government take money from our richest people, all in the name of “income inequality.” The Bible has a word for that: envy.[xv] We want the government to act on our behalf, steal money from the rich in the name of “the people,” and give it to others. Each of us who supports a wealth tax are guilty of a mix of envy, covetousness, and encouraging lawbreakers (i.e., the government’s tax agents).

But isn’t income inequality itself a sin, and something that the government should address? According to the Bible, no and no. The Bible expects that some people will be rich, even wildly so, and that others will be poor. God rewarded Abraham with so much wealth that Abraham needed what amounts to an army to take care of it (Genesis 14:14). And Jesus used income inequality approvingly in the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30). To read more on capitalism and monetary rewards, see the article Is Capitalism Immoral?[xvi]

The government is Gods’ minister of righteousness (Romans 13:1-4). This commission shows that it is answerable to God for its actions (Luke 12:42-48; 1 Corinthians 4:2). Stealing through a wealth tax isn’t right, and even if instructed to do so by popular vote.

The money obtained from a wealth tax is meant to implement a socialist economy. Socialism changes how society works. It breaks our morals, our families, and what we’re allowed to say or do. A socialist government not only moves the boundary stones (Deuteronomy 19:14; Proverbs 22:28), it throws them far into the sea. It is like the sin of Jeroboam, where he changed the peoples’ worship (1 Kings 12:26-33).

By every Biblical measure, a wealth tax is a license to steal, pressed into being by envious voters, so that the government may destroy our traditions, our freedoms, and our right to worship. A triple threat.

Wealth tax is currently blocked

A federal wealth tax would be a boon for starting a socialist economy. But it can’t become law because the Constitution forbids it. Or does it? The answer depends on whether we have an “originalist” or “activist” U.S. Supreme Court.

The fate of a wealth tax depends on what the U.S. Constitution means by “direct tax.” This phrase appears only twice in the U.S. Constitution, in Article I:

• Within Section 2: Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.[xvii]

• Within Section 9: No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.[xviii]

Over time, the Court has come up with definitions for “direct tax.” Its first meaning was supplied through the 1796 case Hylton v United States. In it the Court had to decide if a federal tax on carriages was constitutional. Having no established meaning for “direct tax,” the Court invented one.

“The boundary, [between direct and indirect taxes] then,” he argued, “must be fixed by a species of arbitration, and ought to be such as will involve neither absurdity nor inconvenience.” Then followed HAMILTON’S distinction: “The following are presumed to be the only direct taxes: capitation or poll taxes; taxes on lands and buildings; general assessments, whether on the whole property of individuals, or on their whole real or personal estate. All else must of necessity be considered as indirect taxes.”

The court accepted HAMILTON’S reasoning and the three judges who delivered opinions took the stand that only taxes which could be apportioned should be considered direct.[xix]

The Court ruled that the carriage tax was constitutional, and that it was an indirect tax. Property couldn’t be taxed, but some income could.

Then came the 1895 case Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. In it the Court had to decide if a federal tax on state and municipal bonds was constitutional. In its ruling the Court knocked down the tax, while redefining “direct tax” as follows:

[Chief Justice Fuller] then says that a tax upon the income derived from real estate is a tax upon real estate, because as Lord Coke says, “What is the land but the profits thereof ?” And therefore that the tax upon income derived from rents and real estate is a tax upon land, and that a tax upon land is a “direct tax ” within the meaning of the Constitution, and unconstitutional because not apportioned.[xx]

Property still couldn’t be taxed, and income derived from it also couldn’t be taxed. Subsequent events, like the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment (income tax), have diluted the effects of the Pollock decision. However, its version of “direct tax” still holds in the legal community. The Pollock interpretation of direct taxes would likely prevent a wealth tax that targets stocks, bonds, and real estate.

Many scholars would like the Court to return to the Hylton version of “direct tax.” Other scholars, like Walter Dellinger, want the Court to go even further.

Devising a progressive tax system that effectively taxes the wealthy is notoriously difficult, but whether a wealth tax is part of that system should depend upon the policy choices of democratically elected representatives, not faulty constitutional understandings.[xxi]

That is, he wants the Court to rubber-stamp whatever Congress devises. That is effectively a “living Constitution,”[xxii] one that accepts whatever tyranny Congress may devise. Such a U.S. Constitution is worthless, as is the Court that implements it.

Senator Warren has many advisors intent on assuring her that this wealth tax is constitutional.[xxiii] Yet many of these scholars, such as Dellinger and Bruce Ackerman,[xxiv] also campaign for expensive social programs like a universal basic income. Does their opinion come from their social advocacy, or is it the other way around? They are conflicted witnesses, and their judgment on constitutional matters can’t be trusted. We really don’t know how good their advice is on this matter.

How would the U.S. Supreme Court rule on a wealth tax, and on the critical phrase “direct tax?” Since its precedents are disputed, there will be pressure to decide based on political goals. Pray for judges to resist political pressures to be activist, and instead to rule impartially (Leviticus 19:15).

What can we do?

Everybody can do something. Some have more time, or skills, and can contribute more keeping this wealth tax evil far from us.

Repent of envy. There are no grounds to take money from the rich simply because they have a lot of stuff. We understand that rich people are responsible to God for how they use their wealth. For example, they ought to be generous and wise. But that is a problem between them and their Maker, and doesn’t include Uncle Sam.

Everybody has time for prayer. We need God to have mercy on us, and his Church. We need peace from government persecution and from harassment by libertines and progressives (Genesis 19:4-11). We must be the righteousness that is a model for society (Matthew 5:14-16), the yeast of change that permeates society (Luke 13:20-21), so we bring the nations into obedience to Him.

Try a little light reading. There are summary articles to help you navigate through this issue.

• Learn about the disaster called socialism. The article To Know Socialism is to Hate It[xxv] will teach you what socialist leaders want to do to our economy, or families, and our right to worship. You may not want socialism, but socialism wants you. The less we all like socialism, the less we all want a wealth tax to empower it.

• Learn why capitalism is OK by God. The article Is Capitalism Immoral?[xxvi] will show you that God accepts capitalism, and that being even extremely wealthy isn’t a sin. Having money isn’t the issue, but rather being righteous and merciful in our dealings.

Get politically involved. If you have free time to affect the campaign season, here are activist things to do.

• Research the legislators and candidates. Does your legislator support, even advocate, a wealth tax? Do they agree with those who do? What you want is someone who is virulently opposed to a wealth tax. We don’t need more lukewarm, pleasing everybody legislators. Our opponents treat this tax like war, as the most important of issues. There is no room for compromise.

After you have done your research, spread it around. Get your friends, even your church, equally alarmed about this tax. Tell them who the good guys, and bad guys, really are.

• Keep after the legislators and candidates. Lobby your legislators to support you on this. Show them this article, and others, so they are informed and can’t say they never knew. Be a squeaky wheel, until they acknowledge with you that a wealth tax is a really bad idea, a non-negotiable issue.

• Go after the fellow travelers. A campaign has accompanying PR flacks, and maybe even scholars who wrote letters of support. These people also need to be pestered, so that their support of “the evil wealth tax” is considered a detriment, not a benefit. This creates the perception that a wealth tax isn’t an advantage, but rather a millstone about their candidate’s neck.

• Always label a wealth tax with pejoratives. It isn’t just a “wealth tax.” It is “legalized envy,” “license to steal,” “enabling socialism.” Where possible, use phrases like “socialist wealth tax,” or “envy tax,” or “socialist takeover tax.” After all, those who really want the tax are either misinformed and envious, or malicious and socialist. What they would do isn’t nice, so why play nice with words?

In our day, going before the U.S. Supreme Court has become a gamble. Because the Court is political, we don’t know if it will rule by law or by politics. It is best if a wealth tax law were never passed, and the Court not tempted to do the wrong thing. If it ever were ruled constitutional then we’d never really be rid of it. Things will go much better for us if a wealth tax is never tried.

Footnotes

[i] DeCosta-Klipa, Nik, Elizabeth Warren is clashing with billionaires over her wealth tax plan. But would it be constitutional?, Boston Magazine, January 29, 2019, https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2019/01/29/elizabeth-warren-wealth-tax-constitution

[ii] Axelrod, Tal, Warren: Billionaires should ‘stop being freeloaders’, The Hill, January 31, 2019, https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/427967-warren-billionaires-should-stop-being-freeloaders

[iii] Schwartz, Ian, Warren on Wealth Tax: Assets Worldwide Will Be Taxed With A “Very High Rate of Monitoring, Auditing”, Real Clear Politics, January 25, 2019, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/01/25/warren_on_wealth_tax_assets_worldwide_will_be_taxed_with_a_very_high_rate_of_monitoring_auditing.html

[iv] Axelrod, Tal, Warren: Billionaires should ‘stop being freeloaders’, The Hill, January 31, 2019

[v] What is Universal Basic Income, Andrew Yang Campaign web site, https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-ubi/

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Piper, Kelsey, The important questions about universal basic income haven’t been answered yet, Vox, February 13, 2019, https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/2/13/18220838/universal-basic-income-ubi-nber-study

[viii] Amadeo, Kimberly, Living Wage and How It Compares to the Minimum Wage, The Balance, March 12, 2019, https://www.thebalance.com/living-wage-3305771

[ix] Marx, Karl, Critique of the Gotha Programme, Chapter 1, 1875, found online at  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm

[x] Ibid.

[xi] Piketty, Thomas, A tax on wealth is long overdue, Boston Globe, February 11, 2019, https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/02/11/tax-wealth-long-overdue/AULwxlT7ZGu4uuB7dkpXTJ/story.html

[xii] Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Chapter II. Proletarians and Communists, Marx/Engels Selected Works, Vol. One, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp. 98-137, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm

[xiii] In one scenario an owner sells stocks to satisfy a 3% wealth tax on them. Because of income taxes, and capital gains taxes, due on the stock sale a total of 20% of the stock must be sold to satisfy that 3% tax.

See the article by Adler, Hank, 70 Percent Income Tax, 3 Percent Wealth Tax, Townhall, January 28, 2019, https://townhall.com/columnists/hankadler/2019/01/28/70-percent-income-tax-3-percent-wealth-tax-n2540324.

[xiv] Hayward, Steven, Taxation, or Confiscation?, Power Line Blog, March 12, 2019, https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/03/taxation-or-confiscation.php

The link quoted Ludwig von Mises, Socialism, Part V, Chapter II (The Methods of Destructionism), Section 7 (Taxation), 1951.

[xv] What does the Bible say about envy?, Got Questions, https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-envy.html

[xvi] Perry, Oliver, Is Capitalism Immoral?, Illinois Family Institute, November 30, 2018, https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/faith/is-capitalism-immoral/

[xvii] https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/articles/article-i

[xviii] Ibid.

[xix] Riddle, J. H., The Supreme Court’s Theory of a Direct Tax, Michigan Law Review, Vol. 15, No. 7 (May, 1917), pp. 566-578, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1275429.pdf

[xx] Jones, Francis, Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Company, Harvard Law Review, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Oct. 25, 1895), pp. 198-211, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1321669.pdf

[xxi] Johnsen, Dawn, and Dellinger, Walter, The Constitutionality of a National Wealth Tax, Indiana Law Journal, Volume 93, Issue 1, Article 8, Page 111, https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11279&context=ilj

For an opposing view see:

Jensen, Erik, Taxation and the Constitution: How to Read the Direct-Tax Clauses, Scholarly Commons Faculty Publications School of Law Case-Western Reserve University 2006, https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1526&context=faculty_publications

[xxii] Leef, George, How The Ruinous “Living Constitution” Idea Took Root, Forbes, July 15, 2014, https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeleef/2014/07/15/how-the-ruinous-living-constitution-idea-took-root/#10804cb46784

[xxiii] https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Constitutionality%20Letters.pdf

[xxiv] Sunstein, Cass, Cash and Citizenship (a review of The Stakeholder Society by Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott), The New Republic, May 23, 1999, https://newrepublic.com/article/62855/cash-and-citizenship

[xxv] Perry, Oliver, To Know Socialism is to Hate It, Illinois Family Institute, February 13, 2019, https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/uncategorized/to-know-socialism-is-to-hate-it/

[xxvi] Perry, Oliver, Is Capitalism Immoral?, Illinois Family Institute, November 30, 2018, https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/faith/is-capitalism-immoral/

The intellectually incoherent U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) sought to apply an unconstitutional religious test for office today when interrogating nominee to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Neomi Rao. Perhaps hoping everyone listening were idiots, he first attempted an indirect tactic by asking her this irrelevant question, the answer to which is none of his business: “Are gay relationships in your opinion immoral?”

Word to the seriously unwoke Booker: Americans—including judicial nominees and judges—are entitled to think sexual activity between persons of the same sex is immoral.

When Ms. Rao questioned the relevance of his inquiry, the smug Booker responded,

I think it’s relevant to your opinion. Do you think African American relationships are immoral? Do you think gay relationships are immoral?

Seriously, he actually said Rao’s opinion on the morality of homosexual relationships is relevant to her opinion on the morality of homosexual relationships.

But his reasoning—if it can be called that—is worse than circular. His questions imply an analogy between race and homosexuality when there are literally no points of correspondence between the two conditions. Does he understand what an analogy is and what it requires?

Here’s a primer regarding this particular and particularly unsound analogy for the dull-witted “progressives” among us: Race—as understood in such analogies—is a 100% heritable, non-behavioral condition, immutable in all cases, and objective. In contrast, homosexuality is a non-heritable, and in some—perhaps many–cases mutable condition that is constituted by subjective feelings and volitional behaviors that are legitimate objects of moral assessment.

A far better analogue for homosexuality would be polyamory, so, if Booker wants to continue his  moralistic and judgmental line of questioning on irrelevant matters with judicial nominees, he should ask them if they think polyamorous relationships are immoral, to which nominees should respond, “What possible relevance are my beliefs on the morality of particular types of sexual unions?”

Then Booker transmogrified from arbiter of morality to constitutional ignoramus by asking Rao,

Do you believe [“gay” relationships] are a sin?

Whoa, hold up there, cowboy.

The Constitution expressly prohibits religious tests for office, so what the heck was he doing asking Rao for her theological position on homosexual relationships?

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) took Booker to task for his egregious line of questioning:

The Senate Judiciary Committee should not be… an avenue for persecution.

We’ve seen a growing pattern among Senate Democrats of hostility to religious faith…. I was deeply troubled a few minutes ago to hear questioning of a nominee, asking personal views on what is sinful.

In my view that has no business in this committee. Article Six of the Constitution says there should be no religious test for any public office. We have also seen Senate Democrats attack what they have characterized as religious dogma, we’ve seen Senate Democrats attack nominees for their own personal views on salvation.

I don’t believe this is a theological court of inquisition. I think the proper avenue of investigation is a nominee’s record. So let’s look at your record, which is what this committee should be looking at, not our own personal religious views, or your religious views, whatever they may be.

Presidential-hopeful Booker nervously responded to Cruz’s remarks, defending himself with this patently absurd claim:

I would defend—die for—to protect the ideals of religious freedom in our country. And I was in no way trying to attack the nominee’s religious freedom. I was simply saying that discrimination under any standpoints, whether it’s religion, someone’s race, someone’s sexual orientation, should not be tolerated….[R]eligion was used as a ruse to discriminate against African Americans.

For someone who wasn’t trying to attack the nominee’s religious freedom, he did a pretty darn good job of doing just that by framing his question in a way that implied her unfitness to serve on the court. The hubris of Booker’s attempt to reframe his accusatory question about Rao’s moral and theological beliefs is mind-boggling. He would no more die for the right of theologically orthodox Christians to freely exercise their religion than CNN would fact-check anti-Trump news stories.

As Cruz alluded to, Booker’s not alone among U.S. Senate Democrats who engage in open religious discrimination. U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Bernie Sanders (D-VT) Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) have all revealed their brazen religious bigotry and attempted to apply a religious test for public office during U.S. Senate hearings over the past two years.

During the campaign, someone should ask armchair theologian Booker if he thinks theologically orthodox views of homosexuality are immoral and sinful.

This isn’t Booker’s first religious-test rodeo. Remember the Booker inquisition of Mike Pompeo in which Booker asked Pompeo if he thinks “it’s appropriate for two gay people to marry,” and asked, “Is being gay a perversion,” and asked, “Do you believe gay sex is a perversion? Yes or no.”

Someone should also ask Booker what he thinks should happen in cases where the rights of those whose Christian, Orthodox Jewish, or Muslim beliefs are central to their identity come into conflict with the purported rights of those whose homoerotic desires are central to their identity.

Lesbian Chai Feldblum, until recently a commissioner on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission whose reappointment was thankfully blocked by U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT),  said this about such conflicts long before the Obergefelle decision legalized same-sex faux-marriage:

[L]et us postulate that the entire country is governed – as a matter of federal statutory and constitutional law – on the basis of full equality for LGBT people….

Assume for the moment that these beliefs ultimately translate into the passage of laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation… [G]ranting this justified liberty and equality to gay people will likely put a burden on… religious people….

Let me be very clear…in almost all the situations…I believe the burden on religious people that will be caused by granting gay people full equality will be justified….

That is because I believe granting liberty to gay people advances a compelling government interest, that such an interest cannot be adequately advanced if “pockets of resistance” to a societal statement of equality are permitted to flourish, and hence that a law that permits no individual exceptions based on religious beliefs will be the least restrictive means of achieving the goal of liberty for gay people….

In blocking Feldblum’s reappointment Lee, said, “Don’t think for a second that you, your family, and your neighbors will be left alone if Feldblum gets her way.” The same can be said about Booker.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Booker-4.mp3

Christian Life in Exile
On February 22^nd, IFI is hosting a special forum with Dr. Erwin Lutzer as he teaches from his latest book, “The Church in Babylon,” answering the question, “How do we live faithfully in a culture that perceives our light as darkness?” This event is free and open to the public, and will be held at Jubilee Church in Medinah, Illinois.

Click HERE for more info…