Written by Peter Heck

I got thinking the other day that I probably needed to start paying attention to some of what I was writing for others to read.  Here’s what I mean: I wrote a couple times recently about former tennis great Martina Navratilova, a woman who came out of the closet as a gay athlete long before it was culturally cool to do so, who was plowed over by the tidal wave of transgenderism in our culture.

Martina voiced her opposition to having to compete against a biological male in a woman’s sport just because he says he thinks he’s a female.  And while I wrote about that to draw attention to the hostility transgender ideology has for the entire construct of biological sex (something that provides the foundation for homosexual ideology), I realized that I needed to take heed myself.  If it’s a tidal wave in the culture, I’m not going to be spared as it washes ashore.

So, what am I doing to prepare not just myself but my kids?  Beyond that, how can I prepare when this revolutionary movement is happening quicker and with more extreme manifestations than anyone predicted?  There’s only one answer: Christianity.

Actual Christianity.  Biblical Christianity.  Christianity that teaches submission to God’s will, not our own.  That’s why I was so excited to see this piece by Dan Doriani that outlined the three basic principles that we Christians need to be ingraining in our children’s heads every day, without hesitation, without fail.

First, God created all things.  And in so doing, He chose to create humanity male and female.  Doriani does an admirable job pointing out that much of what we think about gender is socially constructed.

Wearing ties and tuxes as men versus wearing dresses and rompers as women is totally arbitrary.  It is socially constructed by our culture.  Differences like an affinity for cooking or sports are also socially constructed and many times boys will cross over into “girl” activities and vice versa.  We should point this all out to our children as we encourage them to express themselves freely in their interests and hobbies.

But when it comes to sexual identity, the Word and the world it informs is clear:

Activities like giving birth and nursing are creational, not social. Reproduction is basic to how God designed us. People are male or female in every cell of the body, in both nerves and hormones—not in the reproductive organs alone.

Secondly, Doriani stresses the importance of teaching our children that their bodies are gifts, not a problem.  While sin is a problem and it has impacted our bodies in negative ways, our bodies have been given to us by God for our use.  Doriani writes,

Parents, help your children appreciate that they are fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps. 139:14). Tell and show them that God enables their bodies to do marvelous things. We can run and shout. We can be still. We can dance, sway, and sing. Parents, let your children see you performing acts of dexterity and skill—making music, juggling and drawing, throwing and catching, making and fixing.

This is particularly important in the age of video games and iPads.

Finally, the author encouraged us to help our children see the gifts God has given each of us to use for His glory.  Doing all these things help kids develop a healthy and well-adjusted understanding of the relationship between our physical bodies and our metaphysical minds:

Our culture constantly tells us to “Follow your heart” to find our identity by looking within. The Bible never says, “Follow your heart.” In fact, Jeremiah 17:9 makes it plain: “The heart is deceitful.”

True, we may question roles that family and society have thrust upon us. Yet it is good, not evil, to find our place in the world through the body God gives us. If we believe in the sovereignty and goodness of God, we tell our children this truth applies to them.

Amen.  Standing athwart the rising tide of sexual insanity in the culture, our children need to cling to something reliable, fixed, and unmoving.  Here’s a good place to start.

This article was originally published at PeterHeck.com.

A non-binding resolution which would force the armed forces to disobey the directive of Commander-in-Chief President Donald Trump and compromise national security has passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. The deeply-flawed resolution (H.Res. 124) is replete with “LGBT” ideology and is a continuation of the radical social agenda of the previous administration.

The resolution passed on a vote of 238-185, with the entire Democrat caucus supporting it and virtually all Republicans opposing it. The Illinois Congressional delegation voted along partisan lines.

The resolution’s sponsor, U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA), claimed that current policy amounts to “targeted discrimination,” and said the House vote assures transgender people “that they cannot be banned from military service because of who they are.”

Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of the “LGBT” advocacy organization GLAAD expressed satisfaction with the resolution and demanded that the administration get on board: “It’s a welcoming reassurance that the elected leaders in the U.S. House support the more than 13,000 brave transgender service members who proudly dedicate their lives to our nation. It’s time for President Trump to drop his proposed ban and stand with transgender patriots putting their lives on the line to keep us all safe.”

The roots of the administration’s opposition to those who choose to identify as homosexual or “trans” serving in the military go back to 2017 when a panel of experts commissioned by former Secretary of Defense James Mattis assessed the effects of accepting persons suffering from a psychological condition called gender dysphoria into the military. The panel’s results indicated that “trans”-identifying individuals have complex medical issues as well as high rates of suicide.

Moreover, treatments that are approved by “progressive” “experts” failed to lead to a more positive outcome. In their testimony before Congress, all four service chiefs claimed they had not seen moral or unit readiness problems with “trans”-identifying troops currently serving but also acknowledged that commanders were forced to spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with the medical and “transition issues” of “trans”-identifying soldiers.

A year later President Trump endorsed the findings of the panel and proposed a nuanced policy regarding “trans”-identifying persons in the military, the details of which are expected to be released on April 12. In short, the new policy bars people from enlisting who have pursued chemical and surgical interventions in their quest to pass as the opposite sex.  In a move that will likely be a focal point for opponents, it requires active duty military personnel to serve as their immutable biological sex, except for those who had already begun medical interventions under the previous administration rules.

Concurrently, the Department of Defense released a study which noted five key points that address combat lethality, military readiness, and troop morale. The study included detailed graphs which outline the principles behind the Trump/Mattis policy.

Meanwhile the new policy regarding “trans”-identification continues to wind its way through the court system.  The District of Columbia Court issued a preliminary injunction against the Trump/Mattis “trans” policy, which was overturned by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. One of the members of the three-judge panel, Judge Stephen F. Williams wrote this regarding a related case, Jane Doe 2 v. Trump:

[Transgender plaintiffs’] claims are fundamentally flawed in almost every respect. They give short shrift to the findings of a panel of military experts commissioned by the secretary of defense. They never grapple with the fact that the presidential tweet, on which they place so much weight, post-dates–rather than ante-dates–the decision of the secretary to reevaluate the previous administration’s policies.

There is a good chance that the Trump/Mattis “trans” policy will prevail when the case comes before the U.S. Supreme Court. Already the Court has narrowly ruled 5-4 that the transgender policy can continue to be implemented as ongoing litigation proceeds. Citizens should encourage their representatives to oppose H. Res. 124, which rejects the sound Trump/Mattis “trans” policy in favor of imposing the radical, science-denying “trans” ideology on the United States military, the detrimental consequences of which are incalculable.

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Written by Peter Heck

Every time this comes up, and every time I choose to write about it, I can already predict the emails and the responses I’m going to get: “How dare you compare those behaviors!”  “This is comparing apples and oranges!”  “These things aren’t at all the same and it’s sick to compare them!”

So before I write another word, let me try to preempt that by making this abundantly clear: I am asking a question in this article, I am not making an accusation.  This is about me asking a group of people who have told me repeatedly that their concept of human sexuality is far more moral and just than God’s.  I don’t agree with them, but it’s what they repeatedly tell us all.  So if that’s the case – if they know better than the God of the Bible – then what I’m about to ask should be easy to articulate.

Here’s the story that prompts my question:

Two cousins who say they are in love with each other have created an online petition calling for the state of Utah to allow them to get legally married. “My first cousin and I have been in love with each other our whole lives but we are prohibited from marrying in the state of Utah where we live,” Angela Peang writes in the petition. “We believe that the law is outdated and it needs to be changed so that we can socially legitimize our love.”

Angela goes on to explain that she and her first cousin Michael Lee have loved each other romantically for a long time, dating back to childhood.  She writes,

“We just always played a lot,” Peang remembered of her childhood interactions with Lee. “We went into a closet and we were kissing and dancing together. It just felt really natural.”

That wasn’t the only time.  As they got older they were caught kissing by family members and were kept apart from that time forward.  Both of them married other people, had families, and ended in divorce.  They have now reconnected, and are wanting to have their marriage recognized in the state of Utah.

So here’s my question to those who have for years called me a bigot for having moral boundaries on the institution of marriage: is this okay?

Yes, this is incest.  It’s the textbook definition of it.  But why is that wrong?

1.)  These are consenting adults.

2.)  It is clear that their attraction is real and they desire to be together.

3.)  They both acknowledge they didn’t “choose” their feelings, it was “natural.”

4.)  While some might object on the basis of what could happen to potential children, that issue is unrelated to their love.

Obviously one could make the argument that incest is illegal in Utah.  But that’s what I’m asking: why is that okay?  Why is it not discriminatory?  Why is this not an infringement on the right of consenting adults who love one another?  Why is this not bigotry?  Why is this not an affront to #LoveIsLove.

I’m not equating LGBTQ individuals with incestuous individuals.  They all have different and disparate attractions and identities.  I am asking why incestuous people can’t use these same arguments effectively to protect their relationships?  LGBT behavior used to be illegal too.  Gay marriage used to be illegal too.  But #LoveWon, didn’t it?

Why has it not yet won for the incestuous?  It’s a serious question and one that the cultural revolutionaries who harshly judged and shamed those of us who had moral boundaries for the institution of marriage must be the ones now forced to answer.

This article was originally published at PeterHeck.com.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click here for more information.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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

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If you appreciate the work and ministry of IFI, please consider a tax-deductible donation to sustain our endeavors.  It does make a difference.

How did they vote?

This afternoon, the Illinois House of Representatives voted 60-42 to pass HB 246, which will mandate that all students in K-12 public schools be taught about the “roles and contributions” of homosexuals and opposite-sex impersonators and that textbooks purchased include discussions of the roles and contributions of homosexuals and opposite-sex impersonators.

Click HERE to see how your state representative voted on this legislation, or look at the graphic below. The chief sponsor of this legislation in the Illinois House is State Representative Anna Moeller (D-Chicago).

It is interesting to note that in the Illinois House, 44 Republicans and 14 Democrats did not vote for this LGBT indoctrination scheme. On the pro-family side, the only lawmaker to speak against the passage of this unfunded mandate to indoctrinate your children was Tom Morrison (R-Palatine).

This legislation now moves to the Illinois Senate where it is has a good chance of passing unless there is a  tsunami of opposition from Christians across Illinois. Governor J.B. Pritzker is also expected to sign this legislation into law. Thanks for nothing to the 60 feckless state representatives who demonstrated again why Illinois is such a sorry state.

Take ACTION: Send a message to your state senator and to Gov. Pritzker to let them know that a good many Illinois voters oppose this effort to politicize curricula in order to advance biased beliefs about sexuality to children in our tax-funded government schools.

**UPDATE: This legislative mandate passed the Illinois House by a vote of 60-42 on March 13, 2019 and then in the Illinois Senate by a vote of 37-17 on May 23, 2019. It was sent to Governor Pritzker’s desk on June 21st. He is expected to sign it into law. Read more about the 2019 Spring Session HERE.

The official Illinois House roll call of this vote:

IFI Worldview Conference

This Saturday, the Illinois Family Institute will be hosting our annual Worldview Conference. This year, we will focus on the “transgender” revolution. We will hear from Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians; Walt Heyer, former “transgender” and contributor to Public Discourse; Denise Schick, Founder and Director of Help 4 Families, and daughter of a man who “identified” as a woman; and Doug Wilson, who is a Senior Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho .

The Transgender Ideology:
What Is It? Where Will It Lead? What is the Church’s Role?
Click here for more information.

Written by Peter Heck

For those who have thought that it will take an outrage of global proportions to restore sanity to the spectacle of feelings-over-science that is transgenderism, I can’t help but think we are on the cusp of that very moment.

Last week I wrote about how it was beginning to dawn on an increasing number of gay and lesbian activists that the doctrine of transgenderism completely undermines their own.  If gender is a fluid, social construct with no binding social or cultural value, then the premise behind homosexuality is obliterated.

In short, you can believe the gay conception of sexuality and identity or you can believe the transgender one.  You can’t believe both.

Tennis star Martina Navratilova, a pioneering icon of the gay rights movement, found herself on the wrong side of this debate recently.  The former champ was booted from her spokeswoman gig for an LGBT organization because she acknowledged that biological men who are psychologically convinced they are women should not be allowed to participate in women’s athletic events.  Because regardless of their state of mind, their bodies are equipped with the advantages of male skeletal and muscular structure.  It’s an unfair advantage that undergirds the entire concept of having divisions between men and women sports to begin with.

But unfortunately for Martina, the sexual revolution snowball had already rolled too far down the hill to be stopped, and it plowed her over.  So what’s next?  Transgender ideology is taking on the Olympic Games and those who would seek to preserve its dignity and credibility.  Specifically, it’s coming after former Olympians and medalists who understand the mockery that is about to be made of the competition, as well as the Olympic and World records:

Former Olympian Sharron Davies MBE has been accused of “fueling hate” after saying that transgender women should not be allowed to compete in female sport.

The competitive swimmer, who won a swimming silver at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow and two Commonwealth golds, said that her comments were not transphobic and claimed she had spoken to many other female athletes who “feel the same way”.

“I have nothing against anyone who wishes 2be transgender [sic]”, Davies wrote on Twitter.

“However I believe there is a fundamental difference between the binary sex u r born with & the gender u may identify as. “To protect women’s sport those with a male sex advantage should not be able 2compete in women’s sport.”

Davies is obviously correct.  There’s no reason to have “women’s sport” at all if biological men are going to be allowed to compete.  We might as well drop the pretense and make all women compete with all men.  Declare that there are no more “women’s world records” or “women’s gold medals.”

Of course that won’t happen, and consequently this rebellion against science and reason being led by the West is about to topple the integrity of one of the greatest unifying events in human history.

This article was originally published at PeterHeck.com.

“Train up a child in the way he should go;
even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
(Proverbs 22:6)

“Progressives,” also known as cultural regressives, have long had their sights on the hearts, minds, and bodies of other people’s children. Now that they control Big Government schools, regressives can control the ideas to which children are exposed. And boy, oh, boy are regressive Illinois lawmakers going for broke—morally speaking. They’ve already achieved fiscal bankruptcy.

Regressives in the ethical swamp known as Springfield are stampeding forward to impose the “LGBT” indoctrination bill regardless of whether it makes Orthodox Jewish, Muslim, theologically orthodox Christian, or secular conservative kids feel “unsafe” or whether it deeply offends those children’s parents. To heck with inclusivity. It’s the leftist low way or the highway.

If passed, this bill (HB 246)—which was created by three homosexual activist organizations—will require all students in k-12 public schools to be taught about the “roles and contributions” of homosexuals and opposite-sex impersonators and that textbooks purchased include discussions of the roles and contributions of homosexuals and opposite-sex impersonators. A quick, thoughtless skim of the bill might lead someone to think it’s innocuous. Critical analysis and deeper reflection—not the strengths of Springfield swamp creatures—expose the noxiousness of the bill.

The notion that homosexuality is the ontological flipside of and morally equivalent to heterosexuality is an arguable, leftist assumption—not an inarguable, objective fact. Others believe homosexuality represents a disordering of the sex drive. Government schools—supported by the hard-earned money of all taxpayers—have no ethical or pedagogical obligation or right to base curricular decisions on arguable, controversial assumptions—not even assumptions leftists really, really, really believe are true.

In order to teach all children in grades k-12 about the roles and contributions of homosexuals and cross-dressers, lawmakers and school leaders must have first determined that there is nothing morally questionable about homosexuality and cross-sex impersonation. To prove that’s the case, ask yourselves if Illinois lawmakers would pass a bill that requires schools to teach about the roles and contributions of polyamorists, polygamists, kin-lovers, or zoophiles.

We all know they wouldn’t. If there were a polyamorist, kin-lover, or zoophile who had contributed something monumentally significant—so significant that it must be discussed—educators would talk about the contribution, while remaining mum about the contributor’s sexual peccadillo. If the peccadillo were brought up, teachers  certainly wouldn’t describe it positively.

Why not? Surely, there are some kids who experience unchosen, powerful, and persistent sexual attraction for multiple people at the same time, or for a relative, or for animals. Why wouldn’t lawmakers require that the contributions of polyamorists, kin-lovers, and zoophiles be taught and that their sexual proclivities/identities be positively affirmed? Is the reason that they’re judgmental, puritanical, non-inclusive, intolerant, or hateful bigots?

Homosexual and “trans” activists reading this are likely to be at this very moment consumed by anger that derives from the kind of “judgmentalism,” “intolerance,” “hatred,” and “bigotry” of which they constantly accuse conservatives. Leftists become apoplectic when homosexuality and cross-sex identification are compared to the “sexual minorities” of polyamory, kin-loving, and zoophilia—”sexual minorities” that they view as morally offensive. Leftists are unwilling to grant to others the right to object to positive teaching about homosexuality and cross-sex identification on the same grounds that they—leftists—object to positive teaching about polyamory, polygamy, consensual incest, or zoophilia.

To be clear, I believe nonconsensual incest between adults and children and bestiality are more grievous moral errors than homosexuality and cross-sex impersonation, but I believe homosexuality and cross-sex impersonation are far more grievous moral errors than polyamory, which public schools would not present positively to students—at least not yet.

Schools have long taught about the contributions of important historical figures who experienced homoerotic attraction, people like Oscar Wilde, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, and Sally Ride, so why do Springfield swampsters want this bill? The reason is that their central concern is not that contributions be taught but that the sexual predilections of cultural contributors be explicitly taught. And what would be the reason for that?

Leftists will say this bill is needed in order to provide role models for students who experience same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria. Equality Illinois, one of the homosexual activist groups that created this odious bill, says that an “LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum can have a positive effect on students’ self-image and make their peers more accepting.”

First, is improving self-images and promoting acceptance of homosexuality and the “trans” ideology the task of government employees charged with educating other people’s children?

Second, why aren’t “progressives” pushing a bill that would require curricula to teach about the roles and contributions of polyamorists, polygamists, kin-lovers, and zoophiles? To be consistent , shouldn’t they want curricula to positively affect the self-images of students who so identify? Shouldn’t they want peers of those students to be more accepting?

Now we’re getting to the dark heart of the matter. Leftists aren’t concerned centrally or solely with acceptance of persons. They’re centrally concerned with fostering approval of particular sex-related behaviors—not all sex-related behaviors—just the ones they have concluded are moral.

They want to use cultural contributions as a means to transform the feelings and moral beliefs of students about homosexuality and cross-sex identification. Homosexual and “trans” activists know that if positive contributions are associated with homosexuality or cross-sex impersonation, the good feelings students have about contributions will transfer to homosexuality and opposite-sex impersonation.

Since the goal of these propagandists is not to ensure that children learn about the most important contributions in literature, science, and math but, rather, that curricula be used to transform feelings and beliefs about homosexuality and cross-sex impersonation, curricula will elevate lesser contributions of homosexuals and cross-dressers to the exclusion of more significant contributions by heterosexuals.

Leftists use public money and public schools to promote arguable assumptions as if they’re unassailable, objective truths, and they censor with shameless arrogance all assumptions they reject. They rationalize their censorship by declaring that if children were to study the ideas Leftists don’t like, some would feel “unsafe,” by which they mean uncomfortable. Oddly, they’re willing to expose other children to ideas that make them feel “unsafe.”

Christian parents need to think seriously about whether their children can be properly trained up in the way they should go by adults who believe homosexuality is morally equivalent to heterosexuality; who believe marriage has nothing to do with sexual differentiation; and who don’t believe that the differences between boys and girls are profound, meaningful, and must be respected.

Churches need to think seriously about how they can facilitate the exit of Christian children from government schools hell-bent on destroying their hearts, minds, and bodies.

Springfield swamp creatures want to infect all Illinois children with a diseased sexuality ideology via indoctrination centers identified as schools. Cunning, perhaps even demonic, wouldn’t you say, to get parents to pay for the blighted indoctrination of their own children?

“I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” 3 John 1:4

Please, fight this bill, and while you’re doing that, plan an escape route for your children from government schools.

Take ACTION: Send a message to your state representative to ask him/her to reject this effort to politicize curricula in order to advance biased beliefs about sexuality to children in government schools.

**UPDATE: This legislative mandate passed the Illinois House by a vote of 60-42 on March 13, 2019 and then in the Illinois Senate by a vote of 37-17 on May 23, 2019. It was sent to Governor Pritzker’s desk on June 21st. He is expected to sign it into law. Read more about the 2019 Spring Session HERE.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/HB246.mp3

IFI Worldview Conference

On Saturday, March 16, 2019, the Illinois Family Institute will be hosting our annual Worldview Conference. This coming year, we will focus on the “transgender” revolution. We already have commitments from Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians; Walt Heyer, former “transgender” and contributor to Public Discourse; Denise Schick, Founder and Director of Help 4 Families, and daughter of a man who “identified” as a woman; and Doug Wilson, who is a Senior Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho .

The Transgender Ideology:
What Is It? Where Will It Lead? What is the Church’s Role?
Click here for more information.

On February 26, the website Public Discourse published an article that includes the harrowing accounts of five mothers—one of whom is a lifelong Democrat, another a lesbian—whose daughters experienced Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD).

These mothers are certain that the culture, including the professional mental health community, physicians, schools, peer socialization, and social media, are providing a distorted lens through which girls are viewing and misinterpreting discomfort and confusion that results from factors like trauma and pre-existing medical conditions, leading them to believe suddenly that they are, in reality, boys.

One of the mothers writes,

My daughter, at age fourteen, spontaneously decided that she is actually a male. After suffering multiple traumatic events in her life and spending a large amount of time on the internet, she announced that she was “trans.” Her personality changed almost overnight, and she went from being a sweet, loving girl to a foul-mouthed, hateful “pansexual male.” At first, I thought she was just going through a phase. But the more I tried to reason with her, the more she dug her heels in. Around this time, she was diagnosed with ADHD, depression, and anxiety. But mental health professionals seemed mainly interested in helping her process her new identity as a male and convincing me to accept the notion that my daughter is actually my son.

At age sixteen, my daughter ran away and reported to the Department of Child Services that she felt unsafe living with me because I refused to refer to her using male pronouns or her chosen male name. Although the Department investigated and found she was well cared for, they forced me to meet with a trans-identified person to “educate” me on these issues. Soon after, without my knowledge, a pediatric endocrinologist taught my daughter—a minor—to inject herself with testosterone. My daughter then ran away to Oregon where state law allowed her—at the age of seventeen, without my knowledge or consent—to change her name and legal gender in court, and to undergo a double mastectomy and a radical hysterectomy.

My once beautiful daughter is now nineteen years old, homeless, bearded, in extreme poverty, sterilized, not receiving mental health services, extremely mentally ill, and planning a radial forearm phalloplasty (a surgical procedure that removes part of her arm to construct a fake penis).

Recently a 14-year-old girl in Canada took her father to court because he doesn’t want her to receive testosterone injections in her effort to masquerade as a boy. The Supreme Court of British Columbia not only decided that she is mature enough to grant consent and may start receiving testosterone immediately but also that,

Attempting to persuade A.B. [the daughter] to abandon treatment for gender dysphoria; addressing A. B. by his [sic] birth name; referring to

A.B. as a girl or with female pronouns whether to him [sic] directly or to third parties; shall be considered to be family violence under s. 38 of the Family Law Act.

This is coming to America. Big government in cahoots with Big “Trans” believes so deeply in the science denying “trans”-cultic religion that it will stop at nothing—not even our front doors—to impose it on children.

In five, six, or ten years A.B. could be Helena, Jesse, Dagny, or Chiara, four young formerly “trans”-identifying women who just launched a website called Pique Resilience Project to shed light on “detransitioning.” They are four women—decidedly not conservative—ages 19-22 who regret “transitioning,” answer “questions for detransitioners and desisters,” and tell their “personal stories and opinions as women who identified as trans and desisted.”

Their website offers several videos, this one of which I would urge IFI readers and political and school leaders to watch:

In this important video, the women discuss the dysfunctional behavior endemic to the “trans” community, which includes substance abuse and cutting. They discuss the vindictiveness of the “trans” community that prohibits members from questioning whether they really are “trans.” And they discuss the causes of their prior belief that they were “trans,” which included experiences of trauma, social isolation, and exposure to and immersion in online “trans” communities.

In an interview with self-avowed feminists Chiara and her mother Denise on 4^thWaveNow, an important website for anyone who wants to understand gender dysphoria, ROGD, and the “trans” ideology, lesbian Chiara expresses her adamant opposition to “legislation that would make it illegal for therapists to encourage clients to explore why they feel they must transition”:

I think that would be blatant malpractice. The job of a therapist is to help people overcome issues and develop the best life possible, and transition is not always the right way forward. This would also prevent therapists from digging into deeper issues behind dysphoria. If this law were to go into effect, if would only increase the number of young people who would later detransition.

This interview is a gold mine of important information, but I want to draw particular attention to three more points made by Chiara and her mom:

Chiara: Suicide is used as a “warning to parents: ‘This is what happens when you don’t let your kid transition.’ This mantra continues to be repeated online and everywhere, and perpetuates the idea that suicide is the ‘only way out’ for kids whose parents will not accept their gender identity—this is a false statement that should under no circumstance be peddled to impressionable young people….[S]uicide rates by trans-identified kids are misrepresented and used to threaten and manipulate people into ‘validating’ identities without question.”

Chiara: “Parents are often demonized, called ‘abusive,’ and beaten down by trans activists if they dare to question whether transition is right for their child. Parents are generally not in the habit of brainwashing their children—rather, most want to protect and support them. Asking your child to think critically and consider other factors at play is not abusive, it’s just parenting.”

Denise (Mom): “One of the most pernicious things trans activists and some gender clinicians do is try to drive a wedge between young trans-identified people and their families. While there are certainly abusive parents, the vast majority of us who have serious reservations about the medicalization of our gender-atypical youth do love and care about our kids and only want the best for them.”

In August of 2018, a study on ROGD by Dr. Lisa Littman, physician and associate professor of the practice of behavioral sciences at radical Ivy League Brown University, was published in which she concluded by saying that further research into the phenomenon is needed:

In recent years, a number of parents have been reporting in online discussion groups… that their adolescent and young adult (AYA) children, who have had no histories of childhood gender identity issues, experienced a rapid onset of gender dysphoria. Parents have described clusters of gender dysphoria outbreaks occurring in pre-existing friend groups with multiple or even all members of a friend group becoming gender dysphoric and transgender-identified in a pattern that seems statistically unlikely based on previous research. Parents describe a process of immersion in social media, such as “binge-watching” Youtube transition videos and excessive use of Tumblr, immediately preceding their child becoming gender dysphoric. These descriptions… raise the question of whether social influences may be contributing to or even driving these occurrences of gender dysphoria in some populations of adolescents and young adults.

…

The worsening of mental well-being and parent-child relationships and behaviors that isolate teens from their parents, families, non-transgender friends and mainstream sources of information are particularly concerning. More research is needed to better understand rapid-onset gender dysphoria, its implications, and scope.

There has been a troubling explosion in the number of adolescents who identify as “trans,” aided and abetted by medical and mental health organizations that have been taken over by leftists. Now the “trans” cult is reaching into families with its grasping, bloodstained claws, dragging children out to destroy their bodies, minds, and hearts, and leaving heartbroken parents in its wake. Finally children scarred and parents betrayed by the “trans” cult are beginning to tell their stories.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/formerly-transgender_audio.mp3

IFI Worldview Conference

On Saturday, March 16, 2019, the Illinois Family Institute will be hosting our annual Worldview Conference. This coming year, we will focus on the “transgender” revolution. We already have commitments from Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians; Walt Heyer, former “transgender” and contributor to Public Discourse; Denise Schick, Founder and Director of Help 4 Families, and daughter of a man who “identified” as a woman; and Doug Wilson, who is a Senior Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho .

The Transgender Ideology:
What Is It? Where Will It Lead? What is the Church’s Role?
Click here for more information.

This warning delivered by the prophet Hosea is true not only regarding knowledge of God’s existence, nature, and redemptive purposes but also regarding knowledge of the world in which we live and move and have our being. Right now, the bodies of children are being destroyed by lack of knowledge about human sexuality, and Christians who should know better largely say and do nothing. The foundation for right action is knowledge, which far too many Christians lack regarding the stunning “trans” revolution—a revolution the likes of which the modern world has never seen and too few understand.

The Illinois Family Institute hopes to play a small role in remedying the serious problem of lack of knowledge through our upcoming Worldview Conference on the “trans” ideology.

We are rapidly moving to a cultural place in which all public recognition of the reality and meaning of sexual differentiation will not be merely eradicated but outlawed. If any of the following surprises or troubles you, you need to attend the Worldview Conference:

• Countless children will be chemically sterilized and surgically mutilated.

• Many more children will fall victim to the phenomenon of “social contagion.” Emotionally, psychologically, socially, intellectually, morally, and spiritually vulnerable and malleable children will be provided a distorted lens through which they will misinterpret confusing, uncomfortable, and/or distressing thoughts and feelings.

• All previously sex-segregated spaces or activities will become by law sexually integrated. No more single-sex restrooms, locker rooms, showers, shelters, jails or prisons, semi-private hospital rooms, nursing home rooms, dorm rooms, athletics, clubs, or travel tours. If state and federal laws prohibit discrimination based on sex and on “gender identity,” there remains no legal way to maintain sex-segregated spaces. If men who identify as “trans” are permitted in women’s spaces, then “cisgender” men must be allowed in as well because discrimination based on “gender identity” is impermissible.

• The safety of girls and women will be jeopardized by the presence of men who claim to “identify’’ as women in women’s private spaces.

• First Amendment speech, association, and religious exercise protections will erode.

• Language rules will be instituted that will prohibit the use of some words and mandate the use of others. Failure to submit will result in fines or jail time.

• Public schools, where many parents due to financial stresses resulting from death, divorce, desertion, or disabilities must place their children, will teach explicitly through curricula and implicitly through bathroom, locker room, and athletic policies and practices, that in order to be compassionate and inclusive, children must share private spaces with opposite-sex peers. This in turn teaches that biological sex has no meaning relative to feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy when engaged in intimate activities.

• Public decency laws will be repealed. For example, society will be forced to treat women who pretend to be men and have obtained falsified birth certificates and driver’s licenses that identify them as men but choose not to have mastectomies as if they are men. Since men are permitted to be topless at public beaches, pools, and parks, so too will women who pretend to be men.

• Social media monopolies, rapidly becoming the primary means of conducting business and communicating information and ideas, will ban anyone who uses language or expresses ideas that “trans” ideologues oppose.

• Biological, adoptive, and foster parents who reject the science-denying “trans” ideology and, as a result, refuse to allow their confused children to socially, chemically, or surgically “transition” will face loss of custody or the inability to adopt or foster.

• People—including children—will be taught that those who care about the biological sex/anatomy of their romantic partners are “transphobic.” Dissenters will be bullied.

Big Brother will continue to be enjoined to oppress dissenters, and resistance will be futile.

What Christians urgently need is knowledge and a willingness to suffer—also known as courage. In the fervent hope of serving both needs, the Worldview Conference in just a few weeks will host four leaders on the national stage who have both knowledge of the “trans” ideology and the willingness to say and do what far too many Christians shamefully refuse to say and do.

The conference will include two Q & A sessions following presentations by the following speakers:

• Michelle Cretella: Pediatrician and Executive Director of the American College of Pediatricians

• Walt Heyer: Former “transgender,” author, and contributor to Public Discourse

• Denise Shick: Daughter of cross-sex-identified man, and Founder & Director of Help 4 Families

• Doug Wilson: Senior Fellow of Theology at New St. Andrews College, pastor, author, and homeschooling father

Please come, learn, and be challenged to do more to protect the hearts, minds, bodies, and rights of our children and grandchildren. If we are willing to endure minor persecution now, perhaps our grandchildren won’t be forced to endure worse in the years to come.

“Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.  But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” (2 Tim. 3:12-15)

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Worldview-Recording-3.mp3

The Transgender Ideology:
What Is It? Where Will It Lead? What is the Church’s Role?
Click here for more information.

Written by NetNanny.com

Social media today is seemingly inescapable and the same holds true for Snapchat. As one of the top contenders of most loved social media platforms for teens, it is important for parents to understand this photo sharing app before deciding if it’s appropriate for your own kids.

While YouTube and Instagram still dominate the social media space among teens, Snapchat comes in a close third place with 69 percent of U.S. teens using the platform according to a 2018 Pew Research Center study. Snapchat isn’t inherently dangerous right off the bat, but parents will want to ensure that their teens are safe and responsible while using the app.

WHAT IS SNAPCHAT?

Snapchat is a photo and video sharing app that allows users to communicate with friends, family, and followers by snapping and sharing photos in an instant. Photos and videos can be shared with selected friends or can be posted to your Story, both disappearing after a set amount of time.

Some of the most popular features include Snapchat filters, stickers, and Bitmoji integration that grant users even more fun ways to express themselves. The app encourages users to keep snapping by using Snapchat emojis, streaks, and trophies.

Learn more about all of Snapchat’s features:

• Filters: Snapchat automatically updates facial filters that can be used while taking photos and videos. These do everything from smoothing your skin to giving you a flower crown or turning you into a dog. Snapchat has now even created filters that can be used on your pets.

• Stickers: Stickers can be added to photos and videos as well to add the time, temperature, how fast you’re moving, or any number of cartoons or GIFs.

• Bitmoji: Connecting Snapchat with your Bitmoji allows you to use your personal emoji as your avatar and use it to decorate your Snaps.

• Emojis: Snapchat emojis appear next to the names in your friends list, telling users which friends they snap with the most.

• Streaks: A streak fire emoji and number also appear next to the names in your friends list, showing you how many consecutive days in a row that you’ve snapped each other.

• Trophies: Trophies are earned and kept in your virtual case for doing any number of tasks or using features such as sending a video without sound, using the zoom feature, or sending a Snap with a temperature filter.

• Chat: Users have the option of chatting with friends either one-on-one or via a group chat. Parents should know that chats, like photos and videos, are self-destructing once a user navigates away from the chat unless saved beforehand. Users have the option of updating their settings so that unsaved chats do not delete immediately, but after 24 hours.

• Snap Map: In Snap Map users can view public Snaps for major events as well as see the exact location of friends. The Snap Map option can be turned off by switching to Ghost Mode in settings.

• Memories: Memories is a personal album of Snaps and stories that you save for easy sharing in the future or for year-to-date flashbacks. Users wishing to save a Snap will need to manually save them to Memories but Stories can be saved to Memories automatically by adjusting your settings.

• Discover: The Discover page lets users watch their friends’ Story as well as public Stories and Shows.

• Shazam: By pressing and holding on the camera screen, users can enable Shazam to pick up what song is playing to include in their Snap.

FIVE THINGS EVERY PARENT NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT SNAPCHAT

1.) Set Privacy Settings Ensure that your kids utilize the privacy settings available on Snapchat. Users are able to determine who can contact them, view their story, see their location, or if they appear in quick add. Parents may want to edit these settings to only allow friends access to this information as this will significantly limit any contact with strangers.

2.) Talk About Sharing and Screenshots Discuss with your children the significance of screenshots and what is and is not appropriate to share. Even though Snaps posted to Stories disappear after 24 hours, that won’t stop someone from taking a screenshot of a Snap and saving that photo to their own camera roll.

3.) Keep Chats Clean Screenshots are not limited to only photo and video Snaps but can be taken of chats as well. Encourage your kids to keep comments PG.

4.) Monitor Use and Take Part It is ok to monitor your kids’ Snapchat activities. The nature of this app doesn’t make it easy to monitor use but parents are able to keep an eye on account passwords, contacts, private messages, and memories. Parents may even consider creating their own account to snap with their kids and keep an eye on their Stories.

5.) Take a Tech Timeout Snapchat can be a lot of fun but social media in general needs an occasional timeout. Set offline boundaries that work for your family such as limiting phone use during family activities, mealtimes, or before bed.

WHAT HAPPENS TO A SNAPCHAT PHOTO?

When users send Snapchat photos they are able to select for how long they want their photo to be able to viewed before they disappear. Users can make viewing time 10 seconds and under or allow their photo or video to be viewed for an unlimited amount of time.

It is worth noting that users can replay received Snaps once more before they disappear. Once recipients leave the photo and their friends list, the received photo cannot be accessed again.

Stories are viewable to all of your friends and last 24 hours before disappearing. Snapchat stories can be deleted prior to this 24-hour time period ending; after deletion your friends will no longer be able to view them.

Despite it’s disappearing nature, Snapchat users are able to take screenshots when viewing photos and videos. Senders are notified when someone takes a screenshot of their Snaps but they have no control over recipients doing this and can’t stop them from taking a screenshot or sharing it with others.

IS SNAPCHAT SAFE FOR KIDS?

Even though Snapchat is wildly popular, not all of Snapchat’s features are appropriate for younger users. This app is recommended for mature teens but knowing the facts, parents should be able to decide if this app is right for their child.

Photo sharing and disappearing photos and texts can be risky when it comes to safety and transparency. Snapchat isn’t made specifically to hide things like vault apps that create secret folders for hiding photos and sensitive content are, but rather to promote living and sharing in the moment. Because of this, parents will not be able to monitor sharing and communication effectively.

Parents who believe their children are ready to use this app should discuss with them what sort of photos and videos are appropriate to send and receive and remind them that even though Snaps will disappear, this does not prevent another user from taking a screenshot.

Snapchat also features Snap Map, allowing users to view the exact location of their friends; a feature that will be unsafe for most kids and teens. A user’s status on the Snap Map can be turned off in settings by switching to Ghost Mode.

Snapchat is a great way to for your kids to stay in touch with their friends and share what they’re up to but unfortunately there are no Snapchat parental controls available.

Monitoring your child’s app usage and online activity can be overwhelming at times but using a parental control software like Net Nanny can support your efforts in keeping your children safe online. Snapchat can be a lot of fun, however it is important for parents to understand the app and know what they can do to make the app a safer place for their children. By utilizing some of these safeguards your teens cans start snapping away with less worry.

This article was originally published by NetNanny.com.

Written by WeZift.com

Are you unsure which apps are safe for your kids and teens to use? Screen time can be difficult to manage for families and the biggest question is which apps are appropriate for kids to download onto their smartphones and tablets. Not to worry – we’ve compiled a list of over 30 dangerous apps that kids and teens are using. Take a look at some of the most popular apps that are not recommended for kids:

Dangerous Messaging Apps for Kids

Messaging apps are a good way for kids to stay in contact with friends, families and peers. If there are not strong privacy settings enabled or content moderators, there is a possibility of kids being exposed to strangers and possibly mature content.

• GroupMe
  GroupMe is a group messaging app where users can chat with large numbers of friends or strangers.

• Chatous
  The Chatous app randomly matches users to strangers across the world.

• Oovoo
  Oovoo is a free messaging and video calling for one-on-one chats or group chats with up to 8 users.

Dangerous Live Streaming Apps for Kids

Live streaming can be a fun way for kids to express themselves and see what their friends are doing. However, it can also be intrusive and unsafe for children and teens who may come into contact with online strangers or mature content. Live streaming apps are best used with parental supervision.

• Tik Tok
  Similar to the popular (and now defunct) Musical.ly and Live.ly apps, Tik Tok has rolled the most popular features from those apps into this new live streaming video app.

• Live.Me
  The Live.Me app allows users to connect with people all over the world to live stream, watch videos and chat.

• Bigo
  Bigo is another popular live streaming app where users connect through live video.

Dangerous Hookup Apps for Kids

Dating and hookup apps are not recommended for teenagers or kids. In fact, most dating apps require their users to be 17 years of age or older in order to use their services, however most dating apps have little or no age verification and many rely on location tracking to pair up matches. For kids, this can be dangerous because strangers can easily be aware of your child’s location and can have access to view/share photos and chat with them directly.

• Down
  Down is a new dating app where users can connect to find romantic matches or hookups. It is not intended to be used by people under the age of 17.

• Badoo
  Badoo is a chat and dating app where users are connected based on crossed geo-location paths. This app is also not intended for minors, but does not have strict age verification.

• Tinder
  Tinder is a very popular dating app for adults focused on geo-location and a swipe system to match users. This app is also relatively easy for teens to use even though it is rated for users over 17.

Download a copy of the complete list of the most dangerous teen apps that parents should know about for 2019.

This article was originally published at WeZift.com.

To be filed in the bulging “ARE YOU KIDDING?!” news folder is a story from the increasingly oppressive United Kingdom. British police recently investigated dock worker and father of four Harry Miller for an alleged “hate incident” for reposting a limerick about men who pretend to be women that included this factual line: “Your breasts are made of silicone, your vagina goes nowhere.”

Sure, the limerick mocks the surgical mutilation of anatomically normal, healthy male bodies, but so what? People are allowed to satirize anything they want—especially ideologies and acts that destroy healthy bodies and affirm science-denying dogma. And neither mockery nor criticism of such barbaric acts constitutes hatred of persons.

The investigating police constable told Miller that he had taken “a course and what you need to understand is that you can have a foetus with a female brain that grows male body parts and that’s what a transgender person is.” Riiight.

Who, enquiring minds may wonder, would tell the constable such unscientific nonsense?  The constable told the Telegraph that he had “learned it on a training course” run “by a transgender person.”

Now enquiring minds want to know why the police department would allow a person with so little knowledge to impose such a bizarre socially constructed ideology on the police force. Wonder no longer because the constable inadvertently shared the reason:

Although none of the tweets were criminal, I said to Mr. Miller that the limerick is the kind of thing that upsets the transgender community.”

Under no circumstances must anyone ever upset the prickly, thin-skinned, entitled “trans” cult.

Moving back across the pond to our nation’s capital, Washington D.C. attorney general, Karl Racine, has ordered the Cuba Libre restaurant to provide pro-“trans” indoctrination to its employees and pay a $7,000 fine to the city following a complaint filed by “Charlotte” Clymer (previously known as Charles Clymer), a man who tried to use the women’s restroom without showing any documents falsely identifying him as a “woman.”

Women and men have an intrinsic moral right—a human right—not to share restrooms, locker rooms, or other multi-occupancy private spaces with unrelated persons of the opposite sex, including those with elaborate chemically and surgically constructed flesh costumes and falsified identification documents. Men like Clymer who seek to pass as women have no moral right to invade women’s private spaces.

And let’s not forget that New York City issued “guidance” in 2015 that makes clear what “constitutes gender identity and gender expression discrimination” under the New York City Human Rights Law. “Intentionally failing to use an individual’s preferred… pronoun” constitutes such a violation and can result in “up to $250,000 for violations.” I would argue that using the force of government to compel speech is a human rights violation.

If that’s not outrageous and frightening enough, this “guidance” states that “There is no limit to the amount of compensatory damages the Commission may award to a victim of discrimination.”

From New York’s “trans” state of mind, let’s hop over to California where people dream of a world free of gender and ruled by Big Brother Sister Broster.

California State Senate Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Hannah-Beth Jackson issued a new committee rule that bans grammatically correct pronouns:

In respecting that we are now a state recognizing the nonbinary designation as a gender, “he” and “she” we are now merging them so that we are now using… the phrase “they” and replacing other designations so that it’s a gender-neutral designation of “they”.… So, the chair is “she” but in the spirit of gender neutrality, for the rules of this committee now designates [sic] the chair as “they.”

Pronouns do not correspond to or have anything to do with “gender” as redefined by leftists. Pronouns correspond to and denote objective, biological sex. The fact that some people identify and masquerade as the opposite sex does not impose on others an ethical obligation to subordinate their beliefs and practices—including rhetorical practices—to the “trans” ideology. Nor do the beliefs and feelings about maleness and femaleness of “trans”-cultists give them the right to use government resources to socially construct and impose their ideology on others.

The “trans” community and its ideological allies relentlessly assert that opposite-sex impersonators are “entitled” to be referred to by whatever idiotic pronouns they want and that commitments to respect demand capitulation to their language diktats. That’s an arguable assumption—not a fact.

No one has an ethical obligation to cave to the demands of “trans”-cultists to revolutionize English grammar. No one has an ethical obligation to treat people as if they are the sex they are not. Respect does not require anyone to participate in a fiction. It is not compassionate to affirm people in their ontological, science-denying delusions. There is no “my reality” and “your reality.” There is only reality, and the objective, immutable biological sex of everyone is part of the only reality that exists. Desires don’t change reality. The “trans” ideology is the science-denying equivalent of belief in a flat earth.

Adding “gender identity” and/or “gender expression” to anti-discrimination policies and laws is a cunning way to prohibit the expression of ideas that “progressives” don’t like. In other words, it’s a cunning way to circumvent foundational constitutional protections without, you know, having to go through the messy process of amending the Constitution to rid us of that pesky First Amendment.

Since “progressives” are practiced at the art of not applying their own principles consistently, let’s help them out by applying their principle regarding “hate” speech consistently. If criticism of leftist assumptions about “gender,” “gender dysphoria, “gender identity,” “gender expression,” and the meaning of biological sex constitutes anti-“trans” hate speech, then logically criticism of theologically orthodox Christian views on these phenomena constitutes anti-religious hate speech (i.e., speech intended to disparage persons based on religion or speech expressing hatred of a particular group of people [e.g., theologically orthodox religious people]).

To critics of my refusal to submit to their language rules, I say, I will continue to put quotation marks around “trans.” I will continue to use grammatically correct pronouns. If I feel like posting a limerick that mocks your body- and soul- destroying, science-denying ideology, I will. Heck, I may even write one. Your language diktats are meaningless to me.

To conservatives I say, be good stewards of the gift of our constitutionally protected freedom to exercise our religion, to speak, and to assemble/associate. Use it while you can. You’re not being nice or good when you capitulate to “trans”-activists. You’re being cruel, cowardly, and foolish. Take it from British dock-worker Harry Miller, “The only way to protect freedom of speech is to keep bloody speaking.”

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Big-brother-in-league-with-the-trans-cult.mp3

Save the Date!

On Saturday, March 16, 2019, the Illinois Family Institute will be hosting our annual Worldview Conference. This coming year, we will focus on the “transgender” revolution. We already have commitments from Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians; Walt Heyer, former “transgender” and contributor to Public Discourse; Denise Schick, Founder and Director of Help 4 Families, and daughter of a man who “identified” as a woman; and Doug Wilson, who is a Senior Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho .

The Transgender Ideology:
What Is It? Where Will It Lead? What is the Church’s Role?
Click here for more information.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has awarded the Trump Administration a victory by staying a lower court decision which blocked the administration’s attempts to restrict the military service of “trans”-identifying people who suffer from gender dysphoria. The court found that Trump’s new policy, which was based on the findings of former Secretary of State Jim Mattis, was in fact a more nuanced version of the original policy and should not have been summarily blocked by District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. The Trump Administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on its attempts to place restrictions on “trans”-identifying persons serving in the military.

Hanging in the balance are the last vestiges of Christian culture, and the marginalization of those who hold to the words of Jesus: “At the beginning of creation God made them male and female.”  We see this already in Canada, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is requiring employers to attest that they respect transgender “rights” in order to receive summer job grants. In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party LGBT+ adviser has argued for the right of children as young as 8 years old to choose their “gender” and begin “transitioning” to embrace their “true selves.” And in America, Christian parents in Hamilton County, Ohio, have lost custody of their 17-year-old daughter after they refused to support her “transition” to male.

LGBTQ groups, celebrities and politicians have expressed outrage over the administration’s proposal to define gender as biological and fixed. This self-evident understanding, unquestioned for millennia, was overturned by former President Barack Obama, who enshrined subjective feeling rather than biological sex as determining one’s “gender.” Thus, a man may decide that his “true gender” is female, and a woman may decide she is male. Further complicating this absurd notion–a notion that would have left our forefathers aghast–are those who refuse to consider themselves either male or female, instead inhabiting the bizarre realm of “gender fluidity.”

The field of battle for the determination of the meaning of “gender” is none other than the several branches of the U.S. military, which of necessity have strict standards for those charged with the vital role of defending the nation. In his memorandum to the president regarding transgenders in the military, former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis concluded: “Based on the work of the Panel and the Department’s best military judgement, the Department of Defense concludes that there are substantial risks associated with allowing the accession and retention of individuals with a history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria and require, or have already undertaken, a course of treatment to change their gender.”

That this studied judgment angers those who reject the immutable reality and meaning of biological sex defies comprehension, for it should come as no surprise that the military, which turns away diabetics, should decline those who may require major surgery and continual hormone replacement therapy—both of which carry serious health risks. This is recognized by the service members themselves, only 39 percent of which approve of “trans”-identifying troops.  Sergeant First Class Jamie Shupe, who identifies as “trans,” has had second thoughts and now feels he has “a duty to speak about the problems with transgender military service,” which “can seriously affect their duty performance. While they’re obsessing about their gender identity, they don’t have their head in the game.”

The military is all about maximum combat effectiveness. Soldiers do not serve in isolation, but work, eat, shower and sleep together.  No female unit should be required to sleep next to or bare themselves in front of an objectively male peer who insists that he is a woman.  As one commentator notes: “We can’t even agree on which bathrooms trans people can use, but somehow we’re safer if we’re all in the shower together? No distraction there.”

Author Walt Heyer lived as a woman for nearly a decade and suffered medical surgeries and treatments before “detransitioning” back to his true male gender. His book Trans Life Survivors tells the stories of 30 people gleaned from many hundreds of cases who “shared their lonely, surreal experiences falling down the trans rabbit hole, hoping to escape as he did.”  Sadly, our society will suffer dire consequences if it rejects the inborn nature of male and female, as designed by our Creator, which will result in a frightful descent into the “rabbit hole” of sexual anarchy.

Save the Date!

On Saturday, March 16, 2019, the Illinois Family Institute will be hosting our annual Worldview Conference. This coming year, we will focus on the “transgender” revolution. We already have commitments from Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians; Walt Heyer, former “transgender” and contributor to Public Discourse; Denise Schick, Founder and Director of Help 4 Families, and daughter of a man who “identified” as a woman; and Doug Wilson, who is a Senior Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho .

The Transgender Ideology:
What Is It? Where Will It Lead? What is the Church’s Role?
Click here for more information.

This past weekend, I contacted a committed Christian friend who is a public middle school administrator in another state to ask if his school mandates that staff, faculty, and administrators use incorrect pronouns when referring to “trans”-identifying students. He responded that his school does not currently have any such students; that neither the administration nor school board has discussed the issue; and that if or when a “trans”-identifying student demands to be referred to by incorrect pronouns, the administration will consult school attorneys about what to do.

I was, as the British say, gobsmacked.

The “trans” issue has been roiling the cultural waters for years now. Students who masquerade as the sex they are not are suing school districts; teachers are being fired for refusing to use incorrect pronouns (i.e., they refuse to lie); a male middle school teacher was disciplined for refusing to supervise a masquerading girl as she used the boys’ locker room; Obama sent “Dear Colleague” letters to every public school in the country ordering them to treat sexual delusions as reality; children are being taught that in order to be compassionate, they must share restrooms and locker rooms with opposite-sex peers; and girls and boys are being forced to compete in sports against opposite-sex peers. In the face of this science-denying, privacy-eradicating, intellectually and morally vacuous ideology, it’s both incomprehensible and indefensible that school districts are burying their heads and moral compasses deep in the shifting sand.

It’s also baffling that deeply committed Christ-followers who work in public schools have not begun preparing for the inevitability that they will be ordered by the government—that is, their employer—to speak lies in the service of a body- and soul-destroying ideology.

In answer to a question regarding how Christians should refer to “trans”-identifying persons, esteemed pastor, author, and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary, John Piper, writes that he would “probably… submit to [using the preferred first name] in the short run at least” because the gender-association of proper names is arbitrary and shifting. For example, the name “Joycelyn” is a boy’s name in France, and “Aubrey” is a boy’s name in England, whereas both are deemed girls’ names in the United States. More important, Piper provides the reasons Christians must not use incorrect pronouns when referring to “trans”-identifying persons:

[I]f in the office…  I was compelled to identify every so-called transgendered person by the pronoun they preferred in all of my emails, or conversations… or I would get disciplined… I would say to my superiors, I cannot treat he’s as she’s and she’s as he’s.

“I will draw a line and say that I will not call he ‘she.’ I will not call she ‘he.’”

…. I would be lying to call a he a “she”…. And it would be contrary to my understanding of sexuality and I would start looking for another job.

The same thing applies to bathrooms, locker rooms, and hotel rooms where women identify as men or vice versa. I would refuse to have a roommate who said she was a man, even though I share a room in my travels with my assistant all the time. He is a man, and I know he is a man, and that is a perfectly normal thing to do. But if they insisted that I share the same bathroom, share the same locker room, or share the same hotel room, I am looking for another job.

…. Naming may have a certain ambiguity and arbitrariness to it, but the language of “he” and “she” and the use of bathrooms and hotel rooms does not. And I will draw a line and say, I will not call he “she.” I will not call she “he.” And I will not intrude on the sexual privacy of a person of the opposite sex or walk into a situation where they would intrude upon mine.

So, what should every Christian administrator and teacher employed by Big Brother in government schools do? They should immediately ask their superiors and school board this question:

If a “trans”-identifying student were to request that I use incorrect pronouns when referring to them, would I be required to do so even if it conflicts with beliefs about sexuality and about lying that derive from my religious faith?   

No parent should place their children in a purportedly educational environment in which the adults charged with teaching do not respect the reality and meaning of biological sex, who use incorrect pronouns, who pretend that boys can be girls or vice versa, who teach implicitly or explicitly that compassion and inclusivity require students to share private spaces with opposite-sex peers, and who require them to lie about the sex of peers through the use of incorrect pronouns. So, parents too should ask their administrators and school board these questions now:

1.) If a “trans”-identifying student were to request that teachers use incorrect pronouns, will teachers be doing so?

2.) If a “trans”-identifying student were to request that peers refer to them by incorrect pronouns, would peers—like my child—be required to do so?

3.) If a “trans”-identifying student were to request use of opposite-sex locker rooms and restrooms, will they be permitted to use them? If so, would those students whose parents do not permit them to share private spaces with opposite-sex peers—like my child—be forced out of restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their sex?

4.) Will teachers be telling students—like my child—that in order to be compassionate and inclusive, they must use incorrect pronouns when referring to “trans”-identifying students and should share private spaces with opposite-sex peers?

Parents are entitled to this information and should have it sooner rather than later so that they can make informed decisions about how and where to train up their children in the ways they should go. And Christian employees in public schools are entitled to this information because they need to know whether they should start looking for alternative employment.

We don’t get to choose whom God calls to the frontlines of cultural battles or to what task he may call us. Right now, it seems obvious that he has called—among others, including church leaders—Christians employed in wedding-related businesses and in government schools to the frontlines. I hope I’m wrong, but it appears that, apart from a handful of notable cases that become court cases and news stories, Christians are taking the broad and easy road, seeking the approval of man over God.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Christian-Teachers-and-Parents-What-Will-You-Do.mp3

Save the Date!

On Saturday, March 16, 2019, the Illinois Family Institute will be hosting our annual Worldview Conference. This coming year, we will focus on the “transgender” revolution. We already have commitments from Dr. Michelle Cretella, President of the American College of Pediatricians; Walt Heyer, former “transgender” and contributor to Public Discourse; Denise Schick, Founder and Director of Help 4 Families, and daughter of a man who “identified” as a woman; and Doug Wilson, who is a Senior Fellow of Theology at New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho .

The Transgender Ideology:
What Is It? Where Will It Lead? What is the Church’s Role?
Click here for more information.

America has become a cesspool of fetid water in which we’re all boiling alive like those frogs we’ve heard so much about. How else to account for the silence of most Christian leaders on the “trans” ideology, including those who pontificate on social injustice while saying and doing virtually nothing as children are being chemically sterilized and surgically mutilated? How else to account for the absence of protests at the pestilent drag queen story hours for toddlers that pollute public libraries across the country? How else to account for an 11-year-old boy cavorting in drag on stage at “BROOKLYN’S PREMIER QUEER BAR” to the leers and cheers of adult homosexual men who threw dollar bills at him? And how else to account for the parents of this exploited child being allowed to retain custody of him?

Desmond Napoles, better known by his drag persona “Desmond is Amazing” appeared at the 3 Dollar Bill club in Brooklyn, sashaying about the homosexual/drag club stage all decked out like singer Gwen Stefani. I wrote this about Desmond a year ago:

Wendylou Napoles, another feckless perversion-facilitating mother, supports her 10-year-old son Desmond in his drag queen aspirations. His drag persona, “Desmond is Amazing,” first came to the public’s attention in 2015 when he marched—or rather “vogued” in the New York City “pride” parade to the cheers of the sick crowd. A video of his unfortunate performance went viral, and his career as an exploited child-transvestite took off.

Desmond now has an Instagram account on which he posts photos of himself in drag as well as a Facebook page that has no normal little boy photos. He recently announced his plans for a virtual club that will be a “positive, encouraging, and safe online community for all drag kids to connect with one another.” Does anyone believe a fifth-grader would on his own come up with such an idea?

In a June 2017 interview in Out Magazine about Desmond’s “premature fabulousness,” Desmond’s mom, who admits to taking him to the NYC pride parade every year since he was about “four or five” and to buying his drag outfits for him, said she has known for “a long time” that her 10-year-old son is homosexual.

In another Out Magazine interview in October 2017, Ms. Napoles claims Desmond had his first crush at age seven on Jinkx Monsoon, an adult drag queen he saw on RuPaul’s drag show….

Is that really what Desmond experienced? A crush on an adult? How many seven-year-old boys have crushes on adults?

Not quite a month ago, Desmond appeared on three episodes of the YouTube show called Pe-eew! which is described as a “stinky, sit-down comedy talk show satire” hosted by two homosexuals, one of whom is 51-year-old Michael Alig. Alig was the premier “club kid” in New York City in the 1980’s and 1990’s. In 2014, Alig was released from prison after serving 18 years for murdering his friend and drug dealer Andre “Angel” Melendez, leaving Melendez’ rotting body in his bathtub for 8 days, dismembering him, and throwing the dismembered body into the Hudson River….

In this Pe-eew! episode (click here), Alig and homosexual co-host Eric Glam ask Desmond about his pink lace and bejeweled hand mirror. Desmond describes it as his “Richie Rich” mirror, following which Alig and Glam start smirking and bantering about Richie Rich. No, not the Richie Rich a little boy should be talking about. They were talking about former club kid and fashion designer homosexual Richie Rich.

Wearing silver girl’s sandals and a tiara, Desmond appears in this video for Refinery 29, “a media and entertainment company that helps women see, feel, and claim their power,” to talk about his life philosophy and fashion.

Not so long ago, parents would likely have lost custody of their children for doing the things these mothers are doing. Today they’re celebrated by many on the Left. It’s hard to take seriously the moral outrage of Leftists over the abuse of adult women by adult men (#MeToo campaign) when they say nothing about this kind of egregious and very public abuse of children. 

Many questions are raised but not explored by the explosion in the number of children who identify as “trans”:

• Could other “vulnerabilities” or co-morbidities like social problems, depression, anxiety, autism, or suicidal ideation contribute to the development of gender dysphoria?

• What role does family dysfunction or trauma play in cross-sex identification? How many “trans”-identifying children have absent or abusive fathers?

• How many “trans”-identifying children have experienced sexual abuse?

• How many parents of famous “trans”-identifying children profit in material ways from their children’s fame?

• How many mothers of famous “trans”-identifying children are, in effect, “stage mothers” or mothers with Munchausen Syndrome by proxy who derive pleasure from their children’s cross-sex identification?

• What part do excessively rigid gender stereotypes play in convincing either children (and/or their parents) that they are “trans” based on interests in early childhood—a period during which sexual identity is fluid?

• What part does pervasive cultural indoctrination with the “trans” ideology—including in government schools, social media, the arts, advertising, professional medical and mental health organizations, and the legacy media—play in causing children to identify as the sex they aren’t?

• If, as many parents of “trans”-identifying children claim, God makes no mistakes, why are they allowing doctors to chemically and surgically alter the God-given, healthy bodies of their children?

• If children experience a mismatch between their healthy bodies and their feelings about their biological sex, why do so many assume the error rests with healthy bodies rather than with subjective feelings?

In addition to devastating the hearts, minds, and bodies of children and adults, the “trans” toxin boiling us alive leaves a corrosive residue of overweening hubris. Those who identify as “trans” now feel entitled to bully others into submission. Like men who don evening gowns to conceal their sex, sexual anarchists conceal their tyrannical impulses beneath rhetoric about compassion, inclusivity, tolerance, equality, and justice. But make no mistake,  sexual revolutionaries are exploiting those appealing notions as weapons. Sexual revolutionaries use those noble ideals to confuse and intimidate the unpersuaded in order to silence the expression of views revolutionaries detest. And as conservatives acquiesce to every new initiative, capitulate to every rhetorical demand, and tolerate that which a decent society should oppose, the arrogance, intolerance, and sense of entitlement of “trans”-cultists grow.

Last week a grotesque display of arrogant entitlement took place in a GameStop store when a young clerk referred to a big burly man with a deep voice as “Sir,” following which the enraged burly-man set upon the young clerk with a volley of obscenities, issued a distinctly male taunt to “take it outside,” knocked down a store display, demanded the corporate number, and threatened to tattle on the young clerk to all “LGBTQ” organizations in the known world—all because of the clerk’s alleged offense of “misgendering” him.

But what the desperado furioso was really demanding was that the clerk mis-sex him. The enraged man in pink sneakers was demanding that the clerk use language that is appropriate only for a biological woman—which the brawny, brawling man clearly isn’t.

With cult-like fanaticism and tyrannical tactics, “trans”-cultists and their ideological allies now demand that all of society accept their arguable, subjective assumptions as gospel truth and kowtow to the real-world applications of those nonsensical assumptions:

• All of society is expected to share with opposite-sex persons restrooms, locker rooms, and other spaces in which humans engage in personal bodily activities, thereby undermining not only fundamental principles of modesty but also the free exercise of religion.

• All of society is expected to use incorrect pronouns or risk loss of employment or hefty fines, thereby undermining both the right to free speech and the free exercise of religion.

• All single-sex clubs, organizations, and activities—including athletics—are being forced to become co-ed, thereby undermining assembly/association rights.

The First Amendment is being dismantled bit by bit by men in dresses, aided and abetted by conservative cowardice.

Ironically, the temerity of “trans”-activists in exploiting and indoctrinating children, coercing speech, demanding entrée into opposite-sex private spaces, and shrieking obscenities at those who tacitly admit the emperor is wearing drag exposes the lie that the perverse “LGBTQQAP” ideology has anything to do with tolerance, autonomy, inclusivity, diversity, or choice.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/The-Indecency-and-arrogance-of-the-trans-cult_01.mp3

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