Reason #__ (oh, heck, I’ve lost count) for grabbing your kids and fleeing public schools: “teachable moments” and out and proud homosexuals in legal but fake marriages.

Seeing a big front-page Chicago Tribune photo of 30-year-old homosexual hipster Nathan Etter, who teaches music at Prairie View Grade School in Elgin, with a wee little boy holding Etter in a bear-cub hug was not a good way to start Wednesday. I should clarify: the little tyke appears to be a boy. I guess it could be a girl or a human who rejects the binary.

The photo—obviously designed to pull on the heartstrings of readers before they read—accompanies the story of Etter, whose “husband’’ sent him a bouquet of flowers on Valentine’s Day, which, Etter evidently placed where his first-grade students could see it. When some 7- year-old kids asked if the flowers were from his wife, Etter said no, they were from his husband. According to the Trib, Etter “answered honestly,” to which some students responded equally honestly, saying “ewww” and “gross.”

Etter then jumped on this “teachable moment,” which I’m sure caught him totally off-guard (yeah, riiight), to give a Leftist lesson on “respect, tolerance,” and the existence of families led by “two moms” or “two dads.” He offered this chastisement/instruction to his young charges: “‘Oh no, friends, we’re not going to have that response, because that’s not showing respect.’”

Which is a greater offense: young children expressing disapproval of homosexual relationships or an adult homosexual teacher affirming his homosexual relationship to young children in a classroom and shaming young children for their disapproval of it?

In the service of inclusivity, respect, and tolerance, I wonder why Etter didn’t mention families led by 3, 4, or 5 persons of assorted sexes (i.e., polyamorous families). Does his silence reflect his judgment that some family structures are not moral and not worthy of respect? Does his silence reflect his belief that not all loving relationships should include sex? Does his silence reflect his belief that young children ought not be exposed to all types of relationships that exist? Or was his silence just an oversight that at some teachable moment in the future he’ll correct?

“Respect” means to hold in esteem. It should go without saying that no one has a moral or ethical obligation to respect homosexual acts, homosexual relationships, or same-sex faux marriage. In fact, Christians have a moral obligation to disapprove of all three. Homosexual activity and relationships dishonor those involved in them, marring the image of God imprinted on humans. Same-sex faux marriage is marriage de jure (in law) only. A union of two people of the same sex can never in reality be a marriage because marriage is something. It has a nature that we don’t create. We merely recognize a type of relationship that exists. The law can no more change an intrinsically non-marital union into a marriage than it could change a whole person into 3/5 of a person.

Does Etter demonstrate respect for those families who not only believe that homosexual acts and relationships are immoral but who also believe it is their duty to protect their children from exposure to ideas they believe are age-inappropriate?

The children who responded correctly—albeit politically incorrectly and indelicately (they were seven years old, after all) were not saying Etter is gross. They were expressing their proper feelings about Etter’s improper relationship.

It’s a grievous abuse of power for an arm of the government (i.e., public schools) or a government employee paid by taxpayers to teach other people’s children that they ought to hold in esteem homosexual relationships or same-sex faux-marriage. Government employees have no right to try to undermine children’s view that it is “gross” for two men to be in a homoerotic relationship. It is not only our ideas that must be properly ordered; it is our feelings, our sentiments as well. We should love that which is deserving of love. We should respect that which is deserving of respect. We should be repelled by actions that violate the design of our bodies and undermine human flourishing. People in homosexual relationships should be respected because they’re human. Their homosexuality per se is wholly undeserving of respect.

Fortunately, the parent of one of the students Etter lectured “contacted the district with ‘serious concerns’ about Etter’s comments.” The principal met with Etter, and then things turned ugly, culminating in a heated and crowded school board meeting on Monday evening. Apparently, Etter doesn’t respect or tolerate views that dissent from his. Apparently, he wants to be free to lecture students on his moral views of their moral views on homosexuality and marriage.

After his meeting with the principal, Etter whined to his union who then sent an email to all district staff and faculty claiming that “‘school leaders treated Etter in a discriminatory manner.’” On HuffPost, Etter’s fake hubby huffed, “‘This would have never happened if Nathan received flowers from his wife.’” No disagreement there. Marriage between a man and a woman is non-controversial. With the exception of a few radical Leftists like Masha Gessen who admit to wanting to destroy marriage, no one disapproves of marriage between one man and one woman. Commitments to equality demand that we treat like things alike. Homosexual unions are quite obviously different from heterosexual unions.

Etter’s view that he was discriminated against exposes why conservatives oppose including “sexual orientation” (code word for “homosexuality”) in anti-discrimination policies and laws. Conservatives understand that a condition constituted by subjective erotic and romantic feelings and volitional acts that many believe are immoral should not be included in anti-discrimination laws and policies. Conservatives correctly understand that people have a right to discriminate between right and wrong sexual behaviors.

Etter doesn’t really want “tolerance” for his homosexuality or his marriage. He wants approval, affirmation, celebration. Historically, people understood tolerance to mean putting up with something one finds objectionable. It did not mean approving, affirming, or celebrating all the beliefs, feelings, and volitional acts of others. In a truly diverse and tolerant world, people are free to find homosexual acts, relationships, and fake marriages offensive, immoral, degrading, and even “gross.” And this may surprise Leftists, but it’s perfectly possible to hold such views while loving those who believe differently and act in accordance with their different beliefs. In a diverse world, most of us do it every day.

Etter also took umbrage that he was instructed to “stick to the curriculum.” How dare an administration try to limit teachers to teaching curricula when what Leftist teachers really want is absolute autonomy to use “teachable moments” to advance their moral assumptions as if they were objective facts.

Etter confirmed that view outside the school board meeting when he said he “wants to continue to live his life authentically and use teachable moments as they arise.” Just wondering, should conservative teachers be permitted to live “authentically and use teachable moments as they arise” to share their views on homosexuality and marriage—views that they believe advance the cause of truth, justice, and human flourishing? Should polyamorous teachers be free to live their lives authentically and use teachable moments as they arise? If not, why not?

“Authenticity” has become a euphemistic term exploited to rationalize immoral behavior and to silence disapproval of such behavior. It’s a manipulative rhetorical tool to confer moral goodness on immoral behavior by implying without proving that acting on intensely felt desires is intrinsically good and necessary for emotional health. It’s like a get-out-of-moral-assessment free card. Of course, authenticity doesn’t apply to those with dissenting views of sexual morality.

“Teachable moments,” another rhetorical gift reserved only for Leftists, just means any moment Leftists can seize on to pontificate on their moral or political assumptions in the classroom. All they need do is connect a topic, a passage in a novel, or a passing comment from a student to one of their moral or political beliefs or place Valentine’s Day flowers from homosexual lovers in the classroom to invite comments, and voilà, a teachable moment.

Etter said “he does not fear losing his job but said he was disappointed that he did not receive an apology.” Apology for what? For telling him to stick to curricula? For not groveling at the altar of his sexuality ideology?

It’s curious that in all the surrounding brouhaha, no one has suggested that perhaps the children Etter shamed are owed an apology.

The other photo accompanying the Trib’s homosexuality-advocacy piece is a big photo of little tykes holding signs that say, “We support Mr. Etter” and the truly ignorant slogan “Love is love.” Is it really? Are all types of loving relationships identical? Will the parents of these little ones trot their children out with that slogan when a teacher in a poly union exploits her “teachable moment”? What about when the teacher who’s in love with his brother exploits his “teachable moment”? After all, who are we to judge. Remember, love is love.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Homosexual-Teacher-Shames-First-Graders-In-Illinois-Elementary-School.mp3

Worldview Conference May 5th

Worldview has never been so important than it is today!  The contemporary culture is shaping the next generation’s understanding of faith far more than their faith is shaping their understanding of culture. The annual IFI Worldview Conference is a phenomenal opportunity to reverse that trend. This year we are featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet on Saturday, May 5th at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

If our world survives a few more generations, historians will doubtless look back at our current era and ask, “Was there something in the water? Something in the air? How is it that an entire society went mad at the same time?”

If you’ve read my columns over the years, you know I have compassion for those who genuinely struggle with their gender identity. That is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone, something I do not treat lightly. At the same time, you know that I have often spoken against today’s cultural madness in which perception becomes reality.

In the latest example of that madness, the Boston Marathon (among other marathons) has announced that men who identify as women can compete with the women.

Since everyone runs together, it would simply mean that their times would be compared with the times of the female runners. And since both the male winner and the female winner receive the same prize money ($150,000 in Boston), if a man who identifies as a woman beat the other ladies, he would win the prize.

Again, I’m not questioning the fact that some men believe they are really women (and vice versa). I’m simply stating the obvious: These men are not biological women, and it is not fair for a biological male to compete against a biological female. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist at MIT to explain these simple facts.

But who cares about facts these days? What I feel is the only thing that matters. My morality. My truth. My reality.

Yet this corporate insanity is not limited to America.

Writing for the Daily Wire, Amanda Prestigiacomo tells us what is happening in Iran:

“The Iranian ‘women’s soccer team has found a loophole. Instead of comprising a team of actual women, they have added on eight full-grown men who they claim are transgender and awaiting sex changes.

“‘The country’s football association was accused of being “unethical” for knowingly fielding eight men in its women’s team,’ reports The Telegraph.

“‘[Eight players] have been playing with Iran’s female team without completing sex change operations,’ said Mojtabi Sharifi, an official described as ‘close to the Iranian league.’”

Yes, “Members of the national team were ordered on Wednesday to undergo gender testing. Iran’s soccer governing body implemented random checks in 2014 after four women’s team players were discovered to be biological men who never underwent a sex change.”

If you’re wondering why these male players weren’t noticed before, it’s because, “Players on the Iranian women’s team are mandated to wear long-sleeved jerseys, pants, and hijabs.” (Adding to the sad irony of this story is this: While homosexual acts are punishable by death in Iran, sex-change surgery is “rampant” and is actually pushed on gays by some Islamic clerics.)

To say it once more: I’m not passing judgment on the motivation of these men. I’m not making a determination about the absence or presence of gender confusion in their lives.

I’m simply saying that there’s a reason we have boys’ sports and girls’ sports in our children’s schools (let’s not forget about the locker rooms and showers!). And there’s a reason we divide into male and female sports in every major professional league, as well as the Olympics. Men and women are built differently.

Last year Science Daily reported that “Researchers identif[ied] 6,500 genes that are expressed differently in men and women.”

Specifically:

“Weizmann Institute of Science researchers recently uncovered thousands of human genes that are expressed – copied out to make proteins – differently in the two sexes. Their findings showed that harmful mutations in these particular genes tend to accumulate in the population in relatively high frequencies, and the study explains why. The detailed map of these genes, reported in BMC Biology, provides evidence that males and females undergo a sort of separate, but interconnected evolution.”

This makes perfect sense.

A 2014 report from the University of Helsinki indicated that “Identifying genetic associations with X chromosomal genes can be particularly valuable in helping researchers to understand why some characteristics, such as height, differ between sexes…Because women have two copies of this chromosome and men only one, identifying genetic associations with X chromosomal genes can be particularly valuable in helping us to understand why some characteristics differ between sexes.”

Is anyone really surprised?

I do understand that a tiny percentage of people have a chromosomal or genetic or biological abnormality, because of which they do not fit neatly into normal categories. But I seriously doubt that the 8 men playing on the Iranian women’s soccer team fit into this unique, neither fully male nor fully female category. Or that Bruce Jenner fits into this category. Or that the first man who will run as a woman in one of the marathons will fit into this category.

Last year, “Andraya Yearwood, a freshman who was born a male, won the girls 100-meter and 200-meter dashes at the Connecticut high school Class M state championships.

“Kate Hall — who last year won the girl’s 100-meter dash Class M state title as a sophomore — came in second to Yearwood at this year’s 100-meter race and was tearful in the aftermath, the Hartford Courant reported.

“‘It’s frustrating,’ Hall of Stonington High School told the Courant. ‘But that’s just the way it is now.’”

Let’s hope it doesn’t stay that way for long.

This article was originally published at AFA.net

The noxious Leftist “Inclusive Curriculum” bill (SB 3249 and HB 5596) created by two Chicago-based homosexual/”trans” activist organizations (i.e., Equality Illinois and the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance) is moving through the Illinois Senate. The central goal of this costly and ideologically driven mandate that robs schools of local control is to use curricula in government schools to transform the way children think and feel about homosexuality and biological-sex rejection (aka as “transgenderism”).

If passed, this indoctrination bill will require that any “book or book substitute that will be used as a text or text substitute” in grades K-12 include the “role and contributions” of homosexuals and of men and women who adopt opposite-sex personas (also known deceptively as “transgender”).

In other words, all materials used in schools will be required to address the roles and contributions of people who define themselves by their disordered sexual desires and sexual behaviors.

In addition, this bill will require that “the teaching of history of the United States in public schools shall include a study of the role and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the history of this country and this State.”

There’s more:

This instruction shall be designed to teach that LGBT individuals have a rich history and have made substantial and valuable contributions to society, including government, arts, sciences, mathematics, sports, education, and in the economic, cultural, and political development of society. The instruction shall teach about the rich advocacy among the LGBT community and the LGBT community’s allies…. Instruction shall reinforce that all people, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression [i.e., cross-dressing], have a right to be treated with civil, legal and human rights….

When possible, adults, including school district employees who openly identify as LGBT and other openly LGBT adults in the community that the school district may decide to consult with, should be involved in the development and delivery of this instruction at the discretion of the LGBT individuals.

There are no good reasons for teachers or textbooks to mention or discuss the sexual interests of contemporary or historical figures who have contributed something noteworthy to society. Their exceptional accomplishments should be noted, but their sexual proclivities—especially controversial sexual proclivities that many view as both immoral and destructive—have no place in public schools.

Homosexual and “trans” activists are not centrally concerned about ensuring that the accomplishments of Sally Ride, James Baldwin, and Oscar Wilde are included in curricula; they already are. Homosexual and “trans” activists from Equality Illinois and the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance are centrally concerned about ensuring that students know that Ride, Baldwin and Wilde were sexually and romantically attracted to persons of the same sex. Homosexual and “trans” activists seek to transfer the good feelings children and teens have about accomplishments to homosexuality and opposite-sex impersonation. It’s a ploy to render disordered feelings and immoral actions innocent by association with accomplishment.

But the quasi-religious ontological and moral dogma of the homosexual and “trans” communities regarding biological sex, “gender,” and “gender identity” are not facts and are not neutral. They are articles of faith—arguable beliefs—that government schools have no right to propagate either explicitly or implicitly. Taxpayers should no more be forced to subsidize material based on the quasi-religious beliefs of homosexual and “trans” activists than they should be forced to subsidize material based on the beliefs of, for example, the polyamorous community.

Would any lawmaker vote in favor of mandating that schools teach about the “roles and contributions” of polyamorists and poly-activists, or the roles and contributions of other communities whose identities are constituted by what many view as disordered desires and immoral volitional activities, like “amputee-wannabes,” infantilists, zoophiles, sadomasochists, and sibling-lovers (i.e., “Genetic Sexual Attraction”)?

“LGBTQ” activists take umbrage at such comparisons, declaiming that their sexual predilections constitute an authentic identity somehow set apart from those who identify as polyamorists, amputees, or babies, to which others may respond, “Who are you to judge?”

What if children or their parents experience such desires, engage in behaviors impelled by such feelings, or identify as poly, “amputee wannabes” or “infantilists”? What if they experience unwanted “minor attraction,” “genetic sexual attraction” or zoophilia? If homosexuals and “trans”-identifying persons should be able to see their predilections represented in curricula, shouldn’t other identity groups be able to see themselves represented in curricula? Should the accomplishments of people throughout history who experienced such feelings be excluded simply because they don’t yet have a powerful lobbying group that invents language that cloaks their beliefs in the appearance of objective facts?

We all know that schools—at least for now—wouldn’t teach about the accomplishments of polyamorists, “amputee-wannabes,” sibling-lovers, zoophiles, infantilists, or sadomasochists. Even if school leaders believed the feelings of persons in these groups were powerful, persistent, and unchosen, and even if school leaders believed biochemistry influences the development of their feelings, school leaders would not allow k-12 students to be taught that an important historical figure was a polyamorist, “amputee-wannabe,” sibling-lover, zoophile, infantilist, or sadomasochist. Why is that?

The reason is not merely that no one has yet demanded that they do so. The reason is that school administrators and board members—at least for now—believe the behaviors integral to those conditions are unhealthy, disordered, and immoral and that teaching about the role and contributions of those who engage in them would serve to normalize the phenomena.

Well, here’s an inconvenient truth: many believe the same about homosexuality and the science-denying cult of biological sex-rejection. What right have arms of the government (i.e., public schools) to treat the beliefs of Leftists on those two issues—homosexuality and opposite-sex impersonation—as if they were objectively true?

“LGBTQ” activists are so invested in exploiting taxpayer-funded schools to indoctrinate other people’s children that Equality Illinois is dedicating their annual “LGBTQ Advocacy Day” to pressuring lawmakers to pass the wildly inappropriate Inclusive Curriculum bill. This Wednesday, April 11, Equality Illinois is busing their supporters to Springfield for lobbying-training and lawmaker-goading.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to both your state representative and state senator to ask them to reject this effort to politicize curricula in order to advance biased beliefs about sexuality to children in government schools.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Leftist-Public-School-Indoctrination-Bill-Moving-Forward-in-Springfield.mp3

IFI Worldview Conference May 5th

We have rescheduled our annual Worldview Conference featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet for Saturday, May 5th at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Join us for a wonderful opportunity to take enhance your biblical worldview and equip you to more effectively engage the culture.

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

I object to two legislative attempts to impose the Secular Religion upon citizens of Illinois: SB 3249 and HB 5596.  They are wholly unnecessary as LGBTQ icons and their works are already present in government schools.

My objections concern the establishment of secularism as our national religion, the valorization of LGBTQ icons more for their sexuality than their gifts and accomplishments, and using the legislature of Illinois as a social engineering lab.

In this my 65th year, our society is nuts.  Rather than being led forth into light and away from ignorance, children are being herded by teachers (and politicians) into Plato’s cave, where the darkness of identity politics, victimhood, and androgyny flicker on the walls.

What was called religion is now marginalized and silenced, and the new dogmatists have a Great Awakening going on.  Secular religion is being established, and SB 3249 and HB 5596 will further that end.

In scholar Mary Eberstadt‘s meaty essay “The Zealous Faith of Secularism,” secular religion has all but replaced the faith that once filled the now nearly-empty church pews. This new religion is a faith free of certainties—a religion that allows one to have his cake and eat his neighbors’ too. Eberstadt writes that “This substitute religion pantomimes Christianity itself in fascinating ways. It offers a hagiography of secular saints, all patrons of the sexual revolution.”

Is that not who faithful Secularists want enshrined in public schools through the “Inclusive Curriculum” bill?

People of faith tend to hunker down under a continual bombardment of political sociology experiments and the attendant media assaults on objections to legislation like Illinois SB 3249 and HB 5596, which demands an “Inclusive Curriculum” that “requires that all social studies and history classes in grades k-12 include the “role and contributions of… lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans.” School children should be taught that all people bring gifts that delight, inform, and/or provide positive paths to citizenship, and Walt Whitman, Carson McCullers and James Baldwin do that very well in our curriculum already. Explicit identification of their sexual proclivities does nothing other than advance the sexuality doctrine of the Church of Secularism. Object to this sacred dogma and be damned by the later day Lollards of secular religion.

Tell me, who will your children be after 13 years in the Church of Secularism?

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to both your state representative and state senator to ask them to reject this effort to politicize curricula in order to advance biased beliefs about sexuality to children in government schools.

IFI Worldview Conference May 5th

We have rescheduled our annual Worldview Conference featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet for Saturday, May 5th at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Join us for a wonderful opportunity to take enhance your biblical worldview and equip you to more effectively engage the culture.

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

It may be the drip, drip, drip that gets your kids. A scene in a movie, a passage in a novel, a sympathetic portrayal of homosexuality in a play, a song by a well-know musician, a bullying prevention presentation at school, a visually arresting advertisement depicting homosexuality or opposite-sex impersonation positively… week after week, month after month, year after year.

Add to that the vociferous condemnation of disapproval of homosexuality or of the “trans” ideology (including opposition to co-ed private spaces) and voilà, children’s hearts and minds have been transformed—or, rather, deformed.

There are no widespread rational discussions of Leftist positions in which “progressive” arguments are presented with reasons and evidence. No dissenting arguments are explored. This, my friends, is how propaganda and demagoguery work.

And it’s everywhere, even in places you would least expect it, like Monroe Middle School in the heart of conservative Wheaton, Illinois, home of evangelical academic flagship Wheaton College.

Defacing the walls of Monroe Middle School are offensive student drawings that positively portray both homosexuality and opposite-sex impersonation, some accompanied by ignorant (i.e., lacking knowledge) and troubling captions.

One drawing shows two boys hugging, cheek-to-cheek with a heart floating above their heads and a rainbow scarf encircling both their necks with the caption, “Be who you are, not who they tell you to be.”

Is that a good slogan on which schools should tacitly put their imprimatur? What does it even mean? Does it mean our identities are defined by our powerful, persistent desires? Any desires? All desires?

Who are “they” in the command to ignore “who they tell you to be”? Is there a difference between someone saying that homosexual activity is destructive to bodies and souls and telling someone who to be? Don’t teachers and administrators teach children every day in myriad ways who to be—and who not to be? Isn’t part of the job of teachers to teach children right from wrong? Isn’t that what character development necessarily entails?

Certainly, Christians believe that identity cannot be centered around the affirmation of sinful impulses of which homosexual impulses and the desire to be the opposite sex are but two.

Another drawing depicts a boy in girl’s clothing and a girl in boy’s clothing holding hands with the caption, “LOVE IS LOVE.”

Is that true? Is there just one universal, undifferentiated human experience called love? Are all loving relationships the same? If so, then logically, sex must be a morally justifiable part of all loving relationships. Man-woman, man-man, woman-woman, man-man-woman, woman-woman-man, adult-teen, adult-child, teen-child, father-daughter, mother-son, brother-brother, coach-team member, professor-student, etc.

Now don’t go all judgmental on me. And do not tell anyone in any of these kinds of relationships “who to be.” Remember, LOVE IS LOVE.

Here are some other questions someone should ask the powers-that-be at Monroe Middle School:

• Were these drawings part of a teacher’s assignment? If so, who was the teacher?

• If not, how did they come to be, and who gave permission for them to be on the walls?

• Were parents of all students notified ahead of time that there were going to be pro-homosexual and pro-“trans” drawings on the walls?

• How long have the drawings been up, and how long will they remain up?

• Are all forms of love identical?

• What other materials that depict homosexuality and opposite-sex impersonation positively are the 11-14-year-old Monroe Middle School students being exposed to?

• Does Monroe Middle School allow any students to use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms?

• Would the administration permit students to hang drawings of, for example, young women who experience “sex-change regret” and feel sorrow over their sterility; irreversible voice changes; and scarred, breast-less chests?

Often sexual anarchists drip, drip, drip their propaganda and demagoguery into the minds and hearts of children, but lately, grown arrogant and brazen from feasting on their victories, they flood children with their noxious lies. For example, several years ago, California passed a law similar to the one wending its way through the Springfield swamp (the “Inclusive Curriculum” bill). The California law, passed in 2011 is dishonestly called the “Fair Education Act” and requires that all social studies and history classes in grades k-12 include the “role and contributions of… lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans.”

The California law also prohibits public schools from using any materials that reflect “adversely upon persons because of their… sexual orientation.” So, while being required to present resources that depict homosexuality and opposite-sex impersonation positively, the law censors all resources that present dissenting views. The problem is that, unlike race, homosexuality and opposite-sex impersonation are constituted by subjective feelings and volitional acts that many view as immoral. Prohibiting dissenting voices transforms education into indoctrination.

In November 2017, California adopted its first set of textbooks for grades k-8 since the law took effect in 2012. Eight of the proposed textbooks were accepted, while two were rejected. Those two were rejected “because they failed to address the sexual orientations of historical figures who were LGBT, or widely speculated by historians to have been LGBT. They include poets Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, authors Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and President James Buchanan.”

As I wrote recently in regard to the “Inclusive Curriculum” bill proposed in Illinois, sexuality anarchists seek to use cultural achievements to suggest without stating that homosexuality and biological sex-rejection are good because people who affirm homosexual or “trans” identities did great things. Leftists seek to associate homosexuality and opposite-sex impersonation with achievement in order to transfer the positive feelings people have about achievements to homosexuality and gender confusion.

The California law not only requires that schools include the role and contributions of homosexuals and opposite-sex impersonators but also—and unbelievably—those suspected of being homosexuals or cross-dressers.

It’s not just Wheaton parents with children in or soon-to-be in Monroe Middle School who should be outraged. All district taxpayers should be outraged. Their property tax dollars are being used to indoctrinate children with a pernicious ideology that undermines truth and human flourishing. In other words, their money is being used to harm children.

Teachers who don’t recognize truth do not deserve to be entrusted with other people’s children. Teachers who know truth but don’t battle tenaciously and courageously for it in public schools should be ashamed for abdicating their moral duty.

Finally, all Illinoisans need to contact their state lawmakers to urge them to reject SB 3249 and HB 5596, or we will end up with the same kind of law California has, only Illinois’ proposed law is worse. It will really flood the Land of Lincoln with noxious lies.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to both your state representative and state senator to ask them to reject this effort to politicize curricula in order to advance biased beliefs about sexuality to children in government schools.

More ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to Monroe Middle School Principal Bryan Buck and Superintendent Jeff Schuler to express your objections to the inappropriate displays, which express arguable ideas on highly controversial topics.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Sexuality-Propaganda-from-Drip-Drip-Drip-to-Downpour.mp3

IFI Worldview Conference May 5th

We have rescheduled our annual Worldview Conference featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet for Saturday, May 5th at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Join us for a wonderful opportunity to take enhance your biblical worldview and equip you to more effectively engage the culture.

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

“It’s who they are,” we’re told. “It’s about love,” we’re told. To disagree is bigotry, we’re told.

The problem is, the “LGBT” agenda is being sold deceptively. What Leftists don’t want to admit is that as the letters are added, things get even weirder. A man cannot become a woman — it’s middle school biology. So even as those pushing for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual normalization are already bumping up against science when they’re only at the fourth letter, “T,” which stands for Transgender.

One of the basic points of this series is to hammer home the fact that there is natural design, and then there is everything else. There is teleology (see the definition of teleology here), and then there are, shall we say, variations on a theme.

Close upon that fact is the inconvenient truth that there is no way to not include all those variations from what the LGBT movement is. Leftists and cultural Marxists have started to demand acceptance for those first four letters. However, even as they struggle with the “T,” they have already begun to fight for acceptance of some of the many letters to follow. (A few ongoing attempts to list them are here, here and here.)

Let’s take the next four paraphilias starting with the letter ‘A’: remember, don’t be a bigot. It’s who they are. It’s about love. (You can see the definition of “paraphilia” here.) From Wikipedia:

Abasiophilia is a psychosexual attraction to people with impaired mobility, especially those who use orthopaedic appliances such as leg braces, orthopedic casts, or wheelchairs. The term abasiophilia was first used by John Money of the Johns Hopkins University in a paper on paraphilias in 1990.

Agalmatophilia (from the Greek agalma ‘statue’, and -philia φιλία = love) is a paraphilia involving sexual attraction to a statue, doll, mannequin or other similar figurative object. The attraction may include a desire for actual sexual contact with the object, a fantasy of having sexual (or non-sexual) encounters with an animate or inanimate instance of the preferred object, the act of watching encounters between such objects, or sexual pleasure gained from thoughts of being transformed or transforming another into the preferred object. Agalmatophilia may also encompass Pygmalionism (from the myth of Pygmalion), which denotes love for an object of one’s own creation.

Algolagnia (/ælɡəˈlæɡniə/; from Greek: ἄλγος, álgos, “pain”, and Greek: λαγνεία, lagneía, “lust”) is a sexual tendency which is defined by deriving sexual pleasure and stimulation from physical pain,^[1] often involving an erogenous zone. Studies conducted indicate differences in how the brains of those with algolagnia interpret nerve input.

Andromimetophilia — Romantic or sexual attraction to transgender people can be toward trans men, trans women, non-binary people, or a combination of these. This attraction can be a person’s occasional, or exclusive interest. Like transgender people, individuals attracted to transgender people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, or with none of these categories; they may identify as transgender or cisgender.

To be continued…the road ahead is a long one!

Read more:  Series: Identity Politics & Paraphilias

IFI Worldview Conference May 5th

We have rescheduled our annual Worldview Conference featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet for Saturday, May 5th at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Join us for a wonderful opportunity to take enhance your biblical worldview and equip you to more effectively engage the culture.

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

Two recent headlines proclaim, “Transgender people are born that way, a new study has found,” and “Scientists uncover 20 genes linked to being transgender – supporting claims the condition has a physical basis.”

What are we to make of this?

Before we evaluate these announcements, it’s important that we understand that we are not discussing the question of people who are intersex, referring to those who have a biological or chromosomal abnormality in terms of their sex. By very definition, people who are intersex are born that way.

It’s also important that we remember the many sensational headlines that proclaimed that a gay gene (or the like) had been discovered. Every few years, a new “discovery” would be made about “proving” that people were born gay, only to be replaced by the latest “discovery,” none of which proved definitive.

Back in February, 1992, a cover story for Newsweek featured the face of an infant and the question, “Is This Child Gay?” In July, 1993, the New York Times ran a story titled, “Report Suggests Homosexuality Is Linked to Genes.”

Yet today, 25 years later, even left-leaning, LGBT-affirming organizations like the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association do not make the claim that people are born gay. In their view, the causes of same-sex attraction are complex, including both nature and nurture.

Not only so, but Dr. Lisa Diamond, a lesbian feminist psychologist who is also a highly respected member of the American Psychological Association, has spent years refuting the idea that homosexuality is innate and immutable.

As expressed by clinical psychologist Dr. Laura A. Haynes, through her publications and YouTube lectures, Diamond is proclaiming that, “The battle to disprove ‘Born that way and can’t change’ is now over, and (Diamond) is telling LGBT activists to stop promoting the myth.”

Yet these myths are so widely believed and propagated today that California is attempting to ban all professional counseling for anyone who is struggling with same-sex attraction or gender confusion. Put another way, the state is trying to pass an utterly tyrannical, freedom-stifling law that says, in effect, “You must embrace your homosexuality and your gender confusion.” (Outrageously, a number of states have successfully banned counseling for minors struggling with unwanted same-sex attractions.)

This is what happens when lies and propaganda and misinformation become accepted as fact. And that’s why we need to address these “born trans” claims the moment they are out of the gate.

How then should we respond to these new studies? Are they any different than the earlier “gay gene” or “gay brain” claims?

One study, conducted in Brazil and using MRI images of the brain, concluded “that trans people have characteristics that bring them closer to the gender with which they identify and their brains have particularities, suggesting that the differences begin to occur during gestation” (quoting Giancarlo Spizzirri, the first author of the study).

Yet it is equally possible that the MRI results point to changes in the brain because of fixations on gender resulting from gender confusion. In other words, the differences in the brain studies – specifically, in the insula part of the brain – could be the result of transgender fixations rather than the cause. (For much more on the question of the transgender brain, see Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment.)

The second study, conducted here in the States, concluded that, “We identified genetic variants in 20 genes that may play a role in transgender identity.” And note carefully that word “may.” As a colleague of mine who is a former transgender wrote to me, “Do not be taken in by the headline. This article provides no proof of an absolute connection when you look at the words they use: ‘may contribute’; ‘points towards’; ‘lends legitimacy.’”

Shades of the “discovery” of the gay gene back in the 1990s.

It is also well-known that the great majority of children who identify as transgender before puberty no longer do so after puberty. This is especially true if they have not lived out a transgender identity before puberty.

On an anecdotal level, Katie Herzog noted in her article on The Stranger(which is anything but a right-wing, conservative website) that there is “an emerging population of people who have transitioned to a different gender and then later transitioned back.” (The article is titled, “The Detransitioners: They Were Transgender, Until They Weren’t.”)

How does this comport with the idea that people are born transgender? Wouldn’t this data (and these stories) argue against this?

We should also note that the few transgender, identical twin studies which have been conducted also argue against a genetic component to transgender identity.

And even if there was a genetic component, that does not indicate any kind of fixed identity for life. In other words, as has often been noted with regard to the possibility of biological contributions to homosexuality, predisposition is not predestination and correlation is not causation.

This is underscored by the more recent study of epigenetics, of which Lisa Diamond and Clifford Rosky state in their prestigious volume, The APA Handbook of Sexuality and Psychology, “In essence, the current scientific revolution in our understanding of the human epigenome challenges the very notion of being ‘born gay,’ along with the notion of being ‘born’ with any complex trait. Rather, our genetic legacy is dynamic, developmental, and environmentally embedded.” (To put this in context, remember that Diamond is a lesbian feminist and Rosky is a law professor who received the Equality Award from the Human Rights Campaign, the world’s largest gay activist organization.)

It’s also worth pointing out that there are other conditions for which researchers have posited a genetic cause, including anorexia. As a 2017 article notes, “New research identifies, for the first time, a significant genetic location that underpins anorexia.” There is even an ongoing debate about being born pedophiles, as this 2013 headline states: “Are Some Men Born Pedophiles? New Science Says Yes, But Sexologists Say Not So Fast.”

And what about the “obesity gene”?

If there is, in fact, a genetic component to anorexia, do we affirm this deadly condition or, with even greater compassion and resolve, do we work to find a cure?

The same applies to an “obesity gene.” If it exists, do we have fat pride parades and do we discard the massive evidence about the health risks of obesity? Or do we work, with even greater compassion and resolve, to find ways to help people who have this gene.

As for people who are allegedly pedophiles by nature, do we change our moral judgment on pedophilia? Or, with greater resolve and compassion, do we work to help those struggling with these perverse desires while zealously upholding our current laws?

In the same way, the best thing we can do for those struggling with gender confusion is to continue to treat them with compassion, recognizing the great torment they have often lived with, while finding ways to help them find wholeness and contentment in harmony with their biology.

We’ve had decades of experience dealing with misleading headlines about the latest discovery that homosexuality is innate and immutable. Let’s not make the same mistake with the latest claims about transgender identity. At the same time, let’s not downplay how deeply affected some people are by gender identity confusion. May we respond to the depth of their confusion with the depth of our compassion.

This article was originally posted at Townhall.com.

Target Corp. released its fourth-quarter earnings last week, and the news was nothing to write home about.

CNBC reported that Target has been refurbishing stores and adding new home furnishings and apparel brands in the hopes of luring more people to shop there.

But if the report is any indication, the plan isn’t working as well as investors would like.

The Street reported in its story, “Here’s Why Investors Don’t Like Target’s Earnings Report,” how Target “missed on fourth quarter earnings and saw its key gross profit margin come under pressure.” After the announcement, Target shares “plunged 4.3 percent in pre-market trading.”

Hopefully, the somewhat stagnant sales will be a wake-up call to Target executives who refuse to acknowledge that a dangerous, misguided restroom policy is keeping customers away.

Since this terrible policy at Target was announced nearly two years ago, dozens of women and children have been victimized by male predators inside Target stores. The lure of home goods and clothing won’t bring them back. Shoppers can find quality goods at reasonable prices at hundreds of stores that don’t welcome men into facilities for women. Target remains willfully blind to the link between the boycott and financial loss, but this blindness should not persist. Investors will hardly allow a politically correct bathroom policy based on a minority opinion to sink Target’s profits further.

We must keep the pressure on Target.

AFA initiated #BoycottTarget on in April 2016, just a day after the bathroom policy was announced on Target’s website. More than 1.5 million people have signed the #BoycottTarget pledge, and Americans can still get on board through the following actions:

1. Keep the commitment to no longer shop at Target if you are one of the 1.5 million who have signed the pledge.
2. Sign the #BoycottTarget pledge, if you haven’t already.
3. Encourage family and friends to sign the pledge, too, as boycott numbers climb over 1.5 million.
4. Voice your concerns on Target’s Facebook page.
5. Call Target to politely let its executives know you’ve signed the#BoycottTarget pledge—Guest Relations, (800) 440-0680, option 1, then 1 again.

Article originally published at AFA.net.

What was once unthinkable has become unquestionable. And so, every Christian must know how to engage this transgender moment.

Imagine this scenario: Your 17-year-old daughter tells you she’s trapped in the wrong body, is really a boy, and wants hormone therapy to begin the process of transitioning. As her parent, you love your daughter, but you disagree. You want to look at other options to help her.

She decides to take you to court. Even though she’s a minor under your care, the judge decides your beliefs are a danger to your daughter, and takes her from your custody.

Well, imagine this scenario no more. That’s exactly what happened in Ohio recently.

And we shouldn’t be surprised. As Ryan Anderson, a Senior Research Fellow in American Principles and Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation warns, Americans can expect more cases just like this one.

Anderson’s in-depth research of the transgender movement and sexual ideology is now available in his new book, “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment.” And I don’t say this lightly, this book is one every single Christian needs to read and understand.

This is a movement with considerable momentum—in popular culture, education, and even public policy. It’s an evolving movement. Here’s what I mean: as Anderson points out, gender ideology used to be based on the idea that our sex (in other words our physical natures, including reproductive organs and hormones) was biological, but our gender was socially constructed.

Activists challenged traditional gender roles as being oppressive and too generalized. But today the movement claims that sex is not biological, but assigned at birth. As if the doctor makes a random decision to identify a child as male or female. That’s how, the popular theory goes, boys can be trapped in girl’s bodies, and vice versa.

This is, of course, a scientifically indefensible position, and assumes that deep in some part of one’s brain (though we’re not sure where), our true gender identity is located. The theory is advancing, not on its merits, but on political power and name-calling: that only bigots insist on biological realities.

What Anderson does so well in “When Harry Became Sally” is to articulate how transgender ideology is hopelessly tied up in contradictions. He’ll help you spot those contradictions and articulate them with clarity and kindness to others.

But even so, many Christians still wonder why they should care about this one. Maybe they are still wearied over the same-sex marriage battle, or like many of us, maybe this is one of those issue that hits a little too close to home.

Well, I think there are at least two reasons we should care. First, Christians have always proclaimed that our bodies matter. This is no trivial point of Christian theology. Scripture tells us that God made us in His image, male and female. That Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us, and that He was physically resurrected from the dead. We cannot go along with any ideology that denies God’s created order.

And the second reason we should care is, well, the children. Ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have victims. Transgender ideology is disproportionately aiming at children, teaching them that they are not the inherently valuable image bearers God created them to be. If we love our neighbors, especially the kids, we cannot remain silent on this one.

We will send you a copy of “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment” as a thank you for your gift today. Visit BreakPoint.org to get your copy.  It will equip you to defend the truth of God’s plan for human sexuality and identity—and help those impacted by the transgender movement.

And if you come to our website, you’ll find other articles and teaching resources on this issue also.

This article was originally published at BreakPoint.org

You want to know where the “trans” insanity is taking us—I mean, besides co-ed private spaces everywhere, which means no private spaces anywhere?

Look no further than Regulation 225, a proposed amendment to the Delaware school code, which, if passed, will allow students of any age to “self-identify” their “gender or race” at school without their parents’ knowledge if students say their parents would not be “supportive.” Don’t believe me? Read it yourself in Section 7.4 and Sec. 7.4.1:

All students enrolled in a Delaware public school may self-identify gender or race…. A school may request permission from the parent or legal guardian of a minor student before a self-identified gender or race is accepted; provided, however, that prior to requesting the permission from a parent or legal guardian, the school should consult and work closely with the student to assess the degree to which, if any, the parent or legal guardian is aware of the Protected Characteristic and is supportive of the student, and the school shall take into consideration the safety, health and well-being of the student in deciding whether to request permission from the parent or legal guardian. (emphasis added)

So, who will define “supportive,” “safety,” “health,” and “well-being”? “Progressive” school administrators, mental health “professionals,” and lawmakers who believe the nonsensical, anti-science superstition that humans can be “born in the wrong body” (which simply means someone wishes he were the opposite sex)?

Will these “progressives” define supportiveness as affirming children’s disordered desires to be the opposite sex (or race)?

Will a student’s distress over her parents’ assertion of the truth that her sex (or race) cannot change be evidence to Big Brother that the child’s “health” is jeopardized?

If a child claims that his parents will be angry if he uses the name “Mary” at school or if teachers refer to him by “she,” “her” or “ze,” will Big Brother deem his “safety” or “well-being” at risk?

And if the law determines that parental objections to Leftist language rules and co-ed private spaces constitute a threat to the safety, health and well-being of children who reject their immutable biological sex, how long will it be till the state justifies removing “trans”-identifying minors from their parents’ custody?

Oh wait, that’s already happened.

Last month in Ohio, a judge awarded custody of a 17-year-old girl who identifies as a boy to her grandparents after her parents refused to call her by the male name she’s chosen and because they refused to allow her to take cross-sex hormones that would leave her with irreversible voice changes and sterility.

Note the irony: Leftists pass laws that prevent minors from accessing counseling in their quest to reject their unwanted, subjective homoerotic feelings, but Leftists want minors to be able to access medical help in their futile quest to reject their unwanted but immutable objective sex.

To be clear, this girl seeks to reject her sex—not her “gender.” The Left defines “gender” as the arbitrary, socially-constructed roles, conventions, behaviors, and expectations that society associates with the male or female sex. If she were rejecting her gender, all she would need do is alter her social roles and behaviors.

But instead, she’s attempting to change her sex by chemically altering her anatomy and physiology. She and the Mengeles who will facilitate her bodily destruction—with no evidence of long-term safety—are treating her healthy anatomy and physiological processes as if they were diseased, and in so doing will harm her now-healthy body. The medical profession and the courts are co-conspirators in a grotesque science experiment being performed on the bodies of children.

While Ohio courts and Delaware lawmakers usurp parental rights in support of the science-denying, body-destroying “trans”-ideology, a glimmer of hope and sanity emerges from the heart of the Midwest (no, definitely not from Illinois).

The Kansas Republican Party passed a resolution proposed by Eric Teetsel, president of the Family Policy Alliance of Kansas, titled “Regarding Human Sexuality Identity” that makes the following commonsense claims:

WHEREAS, all persons are created in God’s image and, therefore, have inherent dignity and inalienable rights; and

WHEREAS, God’s design was the creation of two distinct and complementary sexes, male and female; and

WHEREAS, transgenderism differs from hermaphroditism or intersexualism in that the sex of the individual is not biologically ambiguous; and

WHEREAS, many have sought to normalize transgenderism and define gender according to one’s self-perception apart from biological anatomy; and

WHEREAS, there is no scientific consensus regarding the ethics or effectiveness of attempts to align one’s biology with one’s self-perception through experimental and exploratory medicine; and

WHEREAS, some Kansas public schools are encouraging parents and teachers to affirm the feelings of children experiencing gender dysphoria; and

WHEREAS, some Kansas public schools are allowing access to private facilities according to children’s self-perception of gender and not according to biological sex; and

WHEREAS, multiple states have begun to prohibit licensed counselors from any attempt to assist children struggling with gender dysphoria; and

WHEREAS, these cultural currents run counter to God’s created order and violate the dignity of every human being; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, that the Kansas Republican Party recognizes the dignity of every human being, including those who identify as LGBT; that we affirm God’s design for gender as determined by biological sex and not by self-perception; that we oppose efforts to surgically or hormonally alter one’s bodily identity to conform with one’s perceived gender identity; that we oppose all efforts to validate transgender identity; that we recognize the fundamental right of parents to guide their child’s education; that public schools should not undermine the values of parents who do not agree with transgenderism; and that students have a reasonable expectation of privacy and safety at school.

This resolution is not informed by ignorance but by knowledge.

It is not informed by foolishness but by wisdom.

And it is not informed by hate but by love.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Big-Brother-Is-Coming-for-Your-Kids-and-Hes-Wearing-a-Dress.mp3

RESCHEDULED: IFI Worldview Conference May 5th

We have rescheduled our annual Worldview Conference featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet for Saturday, May 5th at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Join us for a wonderful opportunity to take enhance your biblical worldview and equip you to more effectively engage the culture.

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

Written by Frank Cannon

Our nation’s elites are waging war on the American people, wielding the institutions they’ve spent several decades capturing to punish those who disagree with their preferred positions and to deny them the ability to speak publicly, all in an effort to stifle free and open debate. And no, this isn’t a George Orwell novel — this is the United States of America.

While many still mistakenly view our political arena as a skirmish between “liberals” and “conservatives”, it would be more accurate to describe it as an all-out war between “elitists” and “populists”. As my late friend Jeff Bell argued in his 1992 book, “Populism and Elitism: Politics in the Age of Equality”, elitists believe in a top-down approach where a cadre of experts rule the country and determine what is acceptable discourse and what is not, while populists believe the people should ultimately determine the course of our politics and culture.

Traditionally, the “elitists” have always had the upper hand in this battle by controlling many of our cultural institutions, but the respect for the will of the people — exercised by the ability to elect our political leaders — remained in place. Over time, however, that respect eroded, and today, it is completely gone. Now the “elitists” find the “populists” to be repugnant, backward, and bigoted, and they believe the only way to defeat the people is to use elite institutional power in academia, corporate America, the administrative state, and the mainstream media to stifle debate, force-feed elite opinions masquerading as facts, and stamp out dissent.

For example, consider these three widely held views by the American people:

• Young children should not be taught about transgenderism or changing their gender.
• Abortion is wrong, especially after the first trimester.
• The right to bear arms shall not be infringed.

Despite their relative popularity, these views are repulsive to our elites, and in recent years, they have sought to shut down debate on all three topics by calling anti-gender ideology activists “transphobic”, anti-abortion activists “anti-women”, and defenders of the Constitution “gun nuts” who have “blood on their hands”. On the gender ideology issue, elites have been wildly successful in completely removing debate over transgenderism from the public square and even politics. On abortion, they have largely failed as pro-life sentiment among the people has proven too strong for elites to overcome. And on guns, the jury is still out, but elites are engaging in perhaps their most brazenly outrageous effort to silence opposing views to date.

It’s About Tactics, Not Issues

The battle between elite opinion and popular opinion is as old as time, but the recent tactical change among elites seeking to stifle dissenting speech is a new, and frightening, development. In a departure from the normal give-and-take of American democracy, the elites have begun using their clout within every major institution of civil society to demonize and punish their opposition — through public shaming in the media, economic extortion and retaliation by big businesses, and even criminalization of certain protest activities. And given their entrenchment within these institutions, the elites face little or no consequences for their blatant illiberality.

A case in point of this change has been the aftermath of the Parkland school shooting. Despite the complexity of the issues involved and the diversity of views held by Americans as to the proper response, the elites have pursued a scorched earth campaign against those who do not hold their black-and-white views on guns. In the news media, a narrative emphasizing the immediate necessity of national gun control legislation has become a 24-hour rallying cry, with victims of the tragedy exploited to advance this narrative and brand those who disagree as somehow complicit in the violence. Meanwhile, corporations have begun to sever ties with the NRA, sending a message that only one side of the debate is socially acceptable while the other is deserving of punishment.

A similar strategy has been playing out with the movement to normalize the Left’s gender ideology. Despite a lack of scientific evidence — and widespread parental skepticism — regarding the soundness of treating young, gender dysphoric children with highly experimental puberty blockers and hormonal treatments, elites have slowly co-opted influential medical associations in order to ensure that these treatments are not only widely adopted but also that alternative approaches to gender dysphoria are marginalized and even criminalized. Moreover, opponents of this takeover, no matter how well-grounded their opposition, are branded by the media and its self-appointed experts as “transphobes” and “bigots” while being denied any opportunity to make their arguments in a respected forum.

Most Americans Already Understand What’s Happening

Make no mistake: an America with total elite control over the population and where dissent from their views is vilified is not an America at all. The gun debate is simply another battle in the all-out war elites are waging on the American people’s right to even have an opinion, let alone speak out about it and not be punished for it.

Fortunately, the American people are fully cognizant of what is taking place, which is why they voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Instead of looking at Trump and Clinton through the two lenses voters typically use, moral character and issue positions, voters applied a third lens: would their views be allowed to be articulated at all without dire consequences under a Clinton administration?

We cannot keep pretending, like so many Never Trumpers do, that we are operating in an environment of normal political give-and-take on issues. That time has passed. We are instead operating in a country now where elites demonize the populist position with such ferocity that many are afraid to voice their opinion at all, which is, of course, the entire point of their strategy. Our fight is no longer just over political issues — it is a battle against the very tactics being used by elites to stifle debate and destroy the essence of what makes America great.

Frank Cannon is the president at American Principles Project.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com

While conservatives squeak “uncle” about the “social issues” from the dark recesses of their homes and churches where they hide, the jackbooted Left marches boldly forward obsessed with making the “social issues” the central plank of everything. They’re especially obsessed with transforming the hearts and minds of other people’s children using taxpayer-funded government schools in which they have an audience of cultural captives.

The newest brazen effort to exploit public money in the service of propagandizing Illinois children is a creation of Equality Illinois and the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, two of Illinois’ dubious “LGBTQQAP” activist organizations, and their most reliable allies in Springfield, State Senator Heather Steans (D-Chicago) and State Representative Anna Moeller (D-Elgin) who have sponsored SB 3249 and HB 5596 respectively.

If passed, this “Inclusive Curriculum” bill will require that any “book or book substitute that will be used as a text or text substitute” include the “role and contributions” of homosexuals and of men and women who adopt opposite-sex personas (also known deceptively as “transgender”). In other words, all materials used in schools must address the roles and contributions of people who define themselves by their disordered sexual desires.

In addition, this bill will require that “the teaching of history of the United States in public schools shall include a study of the role and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the history of this country and this State.”

But, wait, the activist sponsors aren’t done:

This instruction shall be designed to teach that LGBT individuals have a rich history and have made substantial and valuable contributions to society, including government, arts, sciences, mathematics, sports, education, and in the economic, cultural, and political development of society. The instruction shall teach about the rich advocacy among the LGBT community and the LGBT community’s allies to be treated equally. Instruction shall reinforce that all people, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression [i.e., cross-dressing], have a right to be treated with civil, legal and human rights, and as full human beings above all else.

When possible, adults, including school district employees who openly identify as LGBT and other openly LGBT adults in the community that the school district may decide to consult with, should be involved in the development and delivery of this instruction at the discretion of the LGBT individuals.

This bill applies to kindergarten through 12^th grade. You read that right. Leftists seek to mandate that five-year-olds be exposed to positive portrayals of perverse sexuality, and they want this exposure to be reinforced every year for the next 13 formative years.

Don’t be deceived by the language of “civil rights,” “legal rights,” or “human rights.” Neither homosexuals nor “trans”-identifiers are being denied any civil, legal, or human rights. To be clear, men and boys have no civil, legal, or human right to use women’s or girls’ private spaces, and women and girls have no civil, legal, or human right to use men’s or boys’ private spaces.

Equally deceptive is the reference to “full human beings.” “LGBT” activists relentlessly assert that disapproval of homosexuality or opposite-sex impersonation constitutes treating those who identify as homosexual or “trans” as less than full human beings. This language and this bill are intended to use cultural accomplishments to transform children’s view of homosexuality and biological-sex rejection and to silence dissent.

This bill’s advocates seek to use cultural achievements to suggest without stating that homosexuality and biological sex-rejection are good because people who affirm homosexual or “trans” identities did great things. The strategy employs a kind of false syllogism that goes something like this:

Sally Ride was a physicist, astronaut, and the first American woman in space.

Sally Ride was a lesbian.

Therefore, homosexuality is good.

Rational people who have developed the ability to think properly about morality will not be duped by this propaganda technique. Mature people who have been trained to think rationally about morality recognize that people can be kind, creative, brilliant, funny, and/or generous and yet at the same time experience disordered feelings and engage in immoral acts.

The problem is that children, teens, and even many adults have a poorly developed moral compass. Children and teens are especially predisposed to thinking that those they love or admire are perfect in every way.

Can those who choose to place their unchosen same-sex attraction at the center of their identity do great things? Of course they can. And so too can people who experience other disordered desires and engage in other types of immoral acts. But subjective sexual feelings and the volitional acts impelled by those feelings have nothing to do with their great achievements. So, why mention them?

Leftists seek to associate homosexuality and opposite-sex impersonation with achievement in order to transfer the positive feelings people have about achievements to homosexuality and gender confusion. Leftists want to inculcate young minds and hearts with arguable propositions without actually having to make an argument with evidence and without allowing dissenting arguments to be made. The Left treats their arguable assumptions about the morality of homosexuality and biological-sex rejection as if they were unassailable objective moral truths. And they’re counting on no one noticing or addressing what they’re sneakily doing.

An NPR reporter asked me how I would respond to a homosexual teen who complains that he’s not seeing himself represented in curricula. I responded that I would ask the teen what he thinks should be done about a polyamorous student who complains that he doesn’t see himself  represented in curricula, or the girl who’s in love with her brother (remember, love is love, and who are we to judge) and doesn’t see herself represented in curricula, or the girl who embraces promiscuity as central to her identity and complains that she doesn’t see herself represented in curricula.

Lawmakers, administrators, and school board members would never allow teachers to present to students resources that include the role and contributions of polyamorists, sibling-lovers, or promiscuous persons. Or rather, they wouldn’t allow teachers to identify the polyamorous predilections, incestuous identities, or promiscuous propensities of men and women whose achievements are shared with students. And why not?

Because—at least for now—lawmakers, administrators, and school board members believe polyamory, consensual incest, and promiscuity are immoral and unhealthy. And therein lies the problem: Many people—including Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Protestants, Catholics, and the Eastern Orthodox—believe that homosexual activity and opposite-sex impersonation are equally immoral. Public schools—which are funded by all taxpayers and serve a diverse population—have no business treating homosexuality or opposite-sex impersonation as if it were objectively and inarguably moral.

Furthermore, this bill puts homosexuals–both inside and outside schools–in charge of curricula, and it requires that “LGBT” activism be taught. Obviously, such activism is to be taught positively. Schools are expected to teach about “LGBT” activism as they would teach about the Civil Rights Movement. But it’s not like the Civil Rights Movement because homosexuality per se is not analogous to race per se.

If this indoctrination bill is passed, “agents of change” (formerly known as teachers) will base their text selections not on the quality of a text but, rather, on whether it was written by a homosexual or by someone who adopted an opposite-sex persona or on how it depicts homosexuality and the “trans” ideology. Curricula will become–even more than it is already–a political tool.

If this bill is passed by the Illinois Senate and House and lands on “No-Social-Agenda” Rauner’s desk, is there any doubt that he will sign the bill into law? Remember, he just attended a swanky fundraising soiree hosted by Equality Illinois (which, by the way, was honoring Planned Parenthood). “No-Social-Agenda” Rauner spoke at and donated $15,000 to Equality Illinois to help it in its effort to eradicate moral truth about sexuality from the public square.

Former intelligence analyst and senior contributor at The Federalist, Stella Morabito, warns about the harms done to children through the kind of politicized curricula that Equality Illinois, Steans, and Moeller are pushing:

Identity politics and leftist politicization in the schools is pervasive these days…. Radical education reform has gutted school curricula of meaningful content, replacing it with identity politics, fads, and political activism.

…

The highly politicized nature of today’s public schools serves to draw virtual targets on the backs of students whose beliefs don’t align with its own. A bully is free to target with the taunt “bigot” any child who comes from a traditional Christian home, and the curricula will back them up.  

While conservatives are badgered relentlessly to shut up about the “social issues,” Leftists rub their hands in glee. Unrestrained by anyone in their own party and with conservative obstacles largely removed, “LGBTQQAP” activists and their Leftist toadies advance their perverse positions on the “social issues.”

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

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to both your state representative and state senator to ask them to reject this effort to politicize curricula in order to advance biased beliefs about sexuality to children in government schools.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Wait-Till-You-See-What-LGBTQQAP-Activists-Have-Planned-for-IL-Schools.mp3

RESCHEDULED: IFI Worldview Conference May 5th

We have rescheduled our annual Worldview Conference featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet for Saturday, May 5th at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Join us for a wonderful opportunity to take enhance your biblical worldview and equip you to more effectively engage the culture.

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

The topic of identity politics and the widening opportunity it presents to conservatives continues to be a hot topic. Here are just three examples from recent op eds.

First up is Glenn Stanton writing at Public Discourse:

Is America Running Out of Patience with LGBT Activism?

From surprisingly fast and unexpected victory can come great hubris and the desire to utterly crush one’s opponents.

GLAAD, a leading gay advocacy outfit, released a new report showing that positive attitudes toward homosexuality and people who identify as LGBT have decreased a bit over the last few years. They sum up their findings rather starkly: “This year’s survey reflects a decline with people’s comfort year-over-year in every LGBTQ situation…”

The organization shows great concern over what they describe as the “significant decline in overall comfort and acceptance of LGBTQ people… This year the acceptance pendulum abruptly stopped and swung in the opposite direction.”

Why? Glenn Stanton answers by asking, “Could it be the LGBT community’s post-Obergefell actions and attitudes have not rested well with mainstream America?” Obergefell was the U.S. Supreme Court’s marriage decision.

This is not an outlandish hypothesis. Even some major leaders in the LGBT community have suggested it. Andrew Sullivan, writing about the GLAAD report in New York magazine, warns that no one “seems to notice the profound shift in the tone and substance of advocacy for gay equality in recent years, and the radicalization of the movement’s ideology and rhetoric.” This aggressive radicalization “is surely having an impact,” he holds. How could it not, Sullivan asks, when his movement’s public rhetoric shifted from “live and let live” to the thunderously demonizing “agree with us in every regard or be a bigot”?

In typical fashion, unfortunately, too few social conservatives in political office or on the campaign trail seem to have the intellectual or moral wherewithal to take advantage of this development.

Stanton concludes his article with this:

Perhaps GLAAD and its allies should learn to practice what they preach: tolerance of other people’s beliefs and practices, even if they don’t fully understand them.

Writing at The Federalist, Chad Felix Greene wrote about the same GLAAD report:

Why Americans’ ‘Comfort Levels’ With LGBT People Dropped Last Year

LGBT organizations’ efforts to coerce, impose, and enforce their ideas appear to be resulting in the exact opposite of what they wish to achieve.

Greene writes that the context of the shift in opinion coincides with the LGBT focus on transgender advocacy, and that it “may have an impact on how average Americans view LGBT as a whole.”

The left has a strange sense of entitlement to not only acceptance from the larger society, but also a universal embrace of their ideology. It is not enough to hold legal and civil equality — society must celebrate them as well. As a result, their rhetoric and activism become ever more petty and vindictive and naturally, the majority they accuse becomes more resentful.

. . .

The LGBT movement is deeply reliant on social acceptance and approval and wishes to micromanage how we perceive them. But their efforts to coerce, impose and enforce radical policy and ideas onto the culture appear to be resulting in the exact opposite of what they wish to achieve.

Evidently it extends beyond American sentiment and the GLAAD report — here is Stefano Gennarini also writing at The Federalist:

How Their Refusal To Tolerate Dissent Is Creating A Global Backlash Against LGBT People

Promoting LGBT preferences abroad is more likely to cause backlash against the very people it is intended to help, besides harming our standing in the world, as recent events show.

Last December, Politico published a leaked memo by State Department senior aide Brian Hook, on the importance of realism in U.S. foreign policy… Hook argues that instead of seeking to impose human rights, democracy, and liberal values, the United States should lead by example and incentivize good behavior.

This return to pragmatism breaks with the Obama years’ rigid ideological dogmatism about human rights and clearly rattled the bureaucrats who leaked the memo. But his arguments cannot be easily shoved aside. Promoting a rigid leftist agenda internationally is a form of social engineering.

“Nowhere is the obtuseness of this idealistic approach more evident,” Greene writes, “than in U.S. promotion of LGBT policies abroad.”

Without applying any moral calculus, a realist approach to foreign affairs requires accepting that LGBT rights likely will never be accepted by all the people of the world, no matter how many millions of dollars we pour into foreign LGBT organizations.

“Sadly, extreme LGBT ideologues do not accept reality,” Greene writes, citing the Masterpiece Cakeshop Supreme Court case. Their goal, he writes, “domestically and globally, is to impose social acceptance of homosexuality and transgenderism even on those unwilling to celebrate it.”

Greene notes that United Nations Delegates “routinely complained about the relentless LGBT pressure from the Obama administration,” and concludes:

The State Department should not be peddling LGBT fantasies as legitimate foreign policy. It should severely dial back the LGBT pressure and reset on more attainable and less controversial goals. All-out LGBT diplomacy was always a losing proposition. It should have never happened. Cleaning up this mess will require significant changes.

The moment we are in presents a great chance to win back some cultural ground. Will more social conservative elected officials and candidates find the courage to speak more boldly in defense of common sense and in opposition to the radical left-wing LGBT(etc.) agenda? The Leftist agenda could be imploding — now is the time for our leaders to lead on all the issues — including the social issues.

Read more:  Series: Identity Politics & Paraphilias

RESCHEDULED: IFI Worldview Conference May 5th

We have rescheduled our annual Worldview Conference featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet for Saturday, May 5th at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Join us for a wonderful opportunity to take enhance your biblical worldview and equip you to more effectively engage the culture.

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

In case you haven’t heard, Walgreens has revised its restroom-usage policy for patrons at the request of the ACLU of Southern California. No longer will restrooms correspond to objective, immutable biological sex. From now on, restroom usage will correspond to the subjective, internal, deeply held feelings of patrons about their maleness and/or femaleness. As I’ve written multiple times, we’re moving to a revolutionary cultural place in which there will be co-ed private spaces everywhere, which means no private spaces anywhere.

The “butch”-appearing lesbian at the center of the Walgreens kerfuffle tried to use the women’s restroom, but apparently due to her masculine appearance (though she is not “transgender”), she was–suprise, surprise–mistaken for a man and told she couldn’t use the women’s restroom.

Because she “had to go,” she “used a stall in the men’s restroom” while “men used the urinals next to” her. Here’s the most interesting part of the story: She said, “This… was very humiliating for me and I felt uncomfortable.”

Did you hear that? She felt humiliated and uncomfortable by having to share a restroom with persons of the opposite sex. And she was in a stall.

It’s regrettable that this happened to her, but this is a cultural mess of the Left’s making. It’s the logical consequence of the nonsensical and anarchical sexuality ideology they have foisted on America.

When it comes to sex-segregated spaces, we can no longer rely on appearances or the honesty and decency of strangers. Even 10 years ago, “butch” women would have been able to use women’s private spaces. People would simply have trusted that the masculine-appearing person in the women’s restroom was a “butch” woman—not a man. But no longer. Trust and decency are gone. Now Walgreens has changed its policy, so many more men and women will be humiliated and uncomfortable by being forced to share restrooms with opposite-sex persons.

Good job Walgreens. You and Meehan have just made the experience of humiliation and discomfort universal.

The video above features the justifiably humiliated Jessie Meehan (For those who may not think Meehan looks masculine because she’s wearing makeup, please note this is a promotional photo taken by the ACLU of Southern California. We have no idea exactly how she appeared at Walgreens. Moreover, some men now wear makeup.)

Remember Meehan’s words about feeling humiliated and uncomfortable when your children’s schools try to force your daughters and sons to share private spaces with opposite-sex persons.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to Walgreens’ corporate executives to express civilly your objections to their new policy to allow men and women to use opposite-sex restroom facilities in all stores. You may want to point out that biological sex is objective and immutable, whereas “gender identity” is neither. And ask them why they believe men who “identify” as women should not have to use restrooms with those whose “gender identity” they don’t share, but women should have to use restrooms with those whose sex they don’t share.

You can also send a Tweet directly to them @Walgreens.

Please note: 2ndVote.com ranks Walgreens at a deplorable 1.6 in support of liberal causes.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/The-Walgreens-Kerfuffle.mp3

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Thanks to Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner and many others, we’re all familiar with the concept of being transgender. But what about being transabled or transracial or transspecies or transage? Are these all valid and real? Or are all of them — including being transgender — based primarily on mental or emotional disorders?

The question of being “transage” — referring to someone who feels he or she is a child trapped in an adult’s body — was recently in the news with this shocking headline: “TRANS-AGE: Pedophile Charged With Abusing 3 Girls Says He’s A 9-Year-Old Trapped In Man’s Body.”

Putting aside the inexcusable nature of this man’s alleged crimes, he’s hardly the first to make this claim. Consider the story of a married man with 7 children who now lives as a 6-year-old girl with his new adoptive “parents.”

Then there are those who identify as “transabled.” This headline explains: “Becoming disabled by choice, not chance: ‘Transabled’ people feel like impostors in their fully working bodies.”

Yes, people like this are tormented by their healthy bodies, feeling the compulsion to be crippled or without a hand or blind. Some have even frozen a foot until it had to be amputated, sawed off their legs (literally) or blinded themselves, all in a desire to find inner peace and wholeness. And once the gory job is done, they are thrilled with their radical choice.

Then there are those who identity as transracial. Wikipedia defines this as individuals “who claim to have a racial identity that differs from their birth race,” like Rachel Dolezal.

And then there are those who identify as transspecies, like the young woman who lives her life as a cat.

A story by Daniel Greenfield on Frontpage Magazine dating back to 2013 addressed this growing phenomenon. But, as Greenfield noted, the transgender community was not too happy with this.

He wrote,

Like most newly minted civil rights groups, Trannies are intolerant of Transpecies Americans accusing them of only pretending to think that they’re cats and playing the old, “How dare you compare your pain to my pain and your imaginary identity to my imaginary identity” game.

Where is the Test?

And herein lies the problem. There is no more a test to prove that someone is (or is not) transgender than there’s a test to prove that someone is (or is not) transabled, transracial, transage or transspecies. Where is the test? When are detailed neurological studies required before someone has sex-change surgery? When are chromosomal tests required before a child is put on puberty blockers or given hormones?

I’ve read transgender blog posts about people identifying as transspecies. On the one hand, the transgender community wants to be compassionate, recognizing the validity of what others perceive as reality. At the same time, not a few of them said, “But there’s a big difference, since some of us really do have male brains in female bodies, but no human being has a leopard’s brain or a wolf’s brain.”

But that raises the question: Where’s the test? How do we differentiate the case of someone who identifies as transabled? What’s the difference between a mind map telling someone that their left hand shouldn’t be there, and someone who believes she’s a woman trapped in a man’s body?

Insanity as Identity

Greenfield had this to say:

Insanity. It’s not just a mental illness. It’s also an identity. Men in dresses claim that gender is in the mind, not in the body. If you think you’re a woman, then you are a woman. What used to be a minor form of eccentric insanity has now become educational policy in schools.

But why stop at gender when you can also do species? There are people who believe that their true identity is that of an animal. And who is to say that species isn’t in the mind, just like gender is in the mind?

This isn’t just a thought-experiment or satire. It’s reality.

Species dysphoria is the equivalent of Gender dysphoria. Mentally ill persons with gender dysphoria are fashionably diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder. There is as of yet no Species Identity Disorder, but that is no doubt coming.

And, he notes, like those who identify as transgender, “Transpecies Americans create special pronouns for themselves and insist that refusing to pretend that they’re cats or wolves is a hate crime.”

Love Doesn’t Do What’s Easy

Do I write this to mock those who identify as transabled or transgender? Quite the contrary.

I write this to ask what makes transgender identity different from these other, deeply perceived identities, some of which have been documented to produce deep personal pain.

And if we can agree that it is far from ideal to mutilate healthy body parts to accommodate someone who identifies as transabled, then it is far from ideal to do the same for someone who identifies as transgender.

And if we can agree that it is far from loving to affirm someone’s false sense of reality — like Rachel Dolezal — than we can agree to continue to work towards finding positive cures for transgenderism rather than affirming Bruce as Caitlyn.

It’s easy to affirm, but love doesn’t always do what’s easy. This is a call for sanity as much as a call for love.

This article was originally posted at Stream.org.