If anything G. K. Chesterton wrote is worth quoting once, it’s worth quoting twice. In our recent discussion about the theological and political significance of words, I quoted Chesterton as saying thus:

“If you’re not going to argue about words, what are you going to argue about? Are you
going to convey your meaning to me by moving your ears? The Church and the heresies
always used to fight about words, because they are the only thing worth fighting about.”

And as we’ve seen in the world of academia, the Left has recognized that words are the battleground of the mind and advanced into the fray with weapons swinging. Journalism is not far behind.

The Associated Press Stylebook, a preeminent reference guide for English grammar and journalistic principles and style—used by both educators and journalists—has chosen some eyebrow-raising guidelines for how reporters ought to address the topic of abortion in their reports. These guidelines show us, on a much more subtle level, how fiddling with words is fiddling with minds. Let’s look at one specific example in detail: the difference between “unborn baby” and “fetus.” (While this article won’t be using direct quotes from the AP Stylebook, the full text of the abortion topical guide can be accessed here.)

When referring to a baby before he is born, reporters are warned that terms such as “fetus” or “unborn baby” have been politicized by both sides of the issue (pro-life advocates argue that “fetus” devalues a human life, and pro-abortion-access advocates argue that “unborn child” equates abortion with murder). Therefore, the AP counsels us, we are to write with appropriate clarity and sensitivity. But the AP then provides a little more detail about what “appropriate” means.

“Fetus” is preferred in many instances (especially in scientific and medical contexts) when we are discussing a baby after 10 weeks of the mother’s pregnancy. “Embryo” is the appropriate term for a baby up to 10 weeks of the mother’s pregnancy. So when are we allowed to use “unborn baby?” Ahh, that’s a term that we to be used when “fetus” would seem too clinical for the context. E.g., “Sarah loved her unborn fetus more than anyone else in the world” sounds quite weird. So while the AP doesn’t explicitly say so, the examples they provide us seem to indicate what they think is “appropriate:” use the more clinical terms “fetus” and “embryo” in most cases, except for when they sound too clinical for the context, such as a mother loving her unborn baby. Saying “fetus” in such contexts doesn’t evoke the proper emotional reaction.

Yet that’s the whole point! The reason pro-life advocates insist on using the term “murder of an unborn baby” is precisely because saying “demise of a fetus” sounds too clinical! It doesn’t evoke the proper emotional reaction. Think of the difference between saying “the underdeveloped hominoid life form was severed with a sharp dividing instrument” and saying “the little girl was beheaded with an axe.” The more clinical our language, the less we feel natural emotional responses, which is why the abortion industry insists on “terminating pregnancies” instead of “dismembering unborn babies.”

The AP is onto the right principle: we ought to use “unborn baby” when omitting to do so wouldn’t evoke the right emotional response. However, the AP isn’t applying this principle evenly—they recognize the beauty of maternal affection but not the horror of abortion. By writing a topical guide that suggests we use “embryo” and “fetus” as our default terms when writing about abortion, they are suggesting we “clinicalize” a topic that is anything but clinical.

The AP also presents a few other eyebrow-raising guidelines, such as:

• Use “anti-abortion” instead of “pro-life,”
• Use “abortion-rights” instead of “pro-choice,” and
• Use “anti-abortion counseling center” instead of “crisis pregnancy center.”

Yet again, we have stumbled onto the vocabular battlefield and found pairs of competing words fighting over the same subject. And yet again, the difference lies not in the subject we are referring to (we’re talking about the same clinics and procedures either way); the difference lies in the connotations we pin onto it. We might be tempted to give way and just use the politically correct vocabulary, consoling ourselves in our heart of hearts that “we’re referring to the same thing either way,” but we’re not using the same connotations either way. And thus, in the end, we really aren’t meaning the same thing either way.

“Happy holidays” technically refers to the same time of year as does “Merry Christmas”—but removes Christ from the picture. “Transgender” technically refers to the same condition as the phrase “someone who is confused about their sex”—but acquiesces to the lie that sex is mutable. And “termination of a fetus” technically refers to the same procedure as “murder of an unborn baby”—but implies nothing more than a clinical separation of cells, rather than the horrific death by dismemberment or poisoning it really is. Just like “happy holidays” allows us to talk about Christmas without mentioning Christ, this connotation swap allows us to talk about murder without mentioning its horror. It further cements the idea that abortion is benign, first into our vocabularies, and then into our minds. When a whole generation can grow up talking about Christmas without thinking about Christ, or talking about abortion without thinking about murder, the vocabular battle will finally have been won.

And that world will be a scary place.

During the Illinois House Human Services Committee hearing on Wednesday morning, State Representative Katie Stuart (D-Collinsville) brought forth her bill to amend the so-called “Equitable Restroom Act” to push the nonsensical transgender agenda on our families with co-ed bathrooms. Her bill (HB 1286) allows publicly or privately owned venues to create or convert their “multiple-occupancy restrooms” into “all-gender multiple-occupancy restroom[s]” so that multiple males and females will be using the same restroom at the same time.

Why, you ask?  The bill states that its purpose is to promote the privacy, safety, and gender inclusivity of all Illinois residents and visitors.  How could combining sexes into one big restroom “promote privacy?” It doesn’t. How could it promote safety? It absolutely doesn’t because rapes and horrible crimes will occur. But these are small prices to pay for the left’s determination to keep telling the lie until everyone accepts it — that one’s gender is chosen by the person, not God, and it can change at any time. Thus, all genders (yes, they think there are dozens of genders) need to be respected and not segregated.

The bill passed along a party line vote, with 6 Democrats voting in favor of the bill and the three Republicans voting no. We are not surprised to learn that Equality Illinois, the state’s largest LGBTQIA+ special interest group, is pushing this legislation. The bill now moves on to the Illinois House floor for debate and possibly a vote.

So HB 1286 states that “any multiple-occupancy restroom may be…designated for use by any person of any gender” as long as it will contain urinals, stalls, partitions, and signage. Woke corporations like McDonald’s and Target and colleges and universities will no doubt start this insane intrusion into private lives immediately if this bill is passed and signed into law. That’s the point. But we have no doubt lawmakers will amend the bill in the future, changing the word may to shall.

What purpose could all-gender multiple-occupancy bathrooms even serve, except to appease the transgender cheering section they represent? How could men doing their business in the next stall possibly protect the privacy and safety of women and girls? There’s already ample evidence of insanity taking place in the Capitol. This is more of it.

The definition in the bill of “multiple-occupancy restroom” is “a room or suite of rooms containing at least one sink and at least 2 sanitary fixtures, such as toilets or urinals, intended for simultaneous use by 2 or more occupants.”  That would cover restrooms in most sports or entertainment arenas, stadiums, community or convention halls, special event centers, amusement facilities or other similar places of public accommodation.

So yes, this bill is designed to lower standards of manners, etiquette, and social norms while lowering inhibitions of modesty and propriety by allowing males to use urinals at the same time and immediately adjacent to females utilizing the facility. It would subject a pre-teen girl to the presence of older males — even dirty old men. And such restrooms would be a magnet for Peeping Toms and possibly rapists wishing to do harm to women and children. All of this was not promoted in the hearing, oddly enough.

In fact, the “hearing” only took a little more than 6 minutes from start to finish. As for witness slips, there are 327 proponents but over 2000 opponents to this proposal. Rep. Stuart and the left doesn’t seem to care about the privacy rights and safety concerns of women and children — or that so many Illinois citizens took time to file witness slips in disapproval of this legislation.

While this bill doesn’t mandate the installation of all-gender, multiple-occupancy restrooms, HB 1286 would “legalize” all-gender, multiple-occupancy restrooms. During the committee hearing, Rep. Stuart admitted that it is currently illegal.

Here is a transcript of their dialogue in committee

Parents and grandparents — especially fathers, husbands, and brothers — we must stand up against this absurd agenda. We cannot remain silent. We must speak out and protect the women and girls in our lives from this and other radical attempts to blur the lines of decency.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your local state representative to ask him/her to vote against this legislation when it comes up for a vote on the House floor sometime this session. Urge them to reject this foolish woke agenda that fails to recognize biological facts. Ask them to protect the privacy, dignity and safety of all Illinois citizens.

Please, speak out against this destructive bill.

If one State Senator has his way, Illinois will become a center for gender affirmation care for children—which is just a euphemism for chemical castration and surgical mutilation. Mike Simmons (D-Chicago) recently introduced SB 1283 which is to be known as the “Gender-Affirming Health Care Protection Act.” He introduced the bill as a response to several states outlawing puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and cosmetic surgery for children who think that they want to transition to the opposite gender of their birth.

The bill immunizes “any person for providing, aiding, assisting, receiving, or otherwise allowing a child to receive gender-affirming care or referring a child for such care. . .” In other words if someone from another states helps a child to come to Illinois for transgender treatment, Illinois will not help the other state prosecute the person under that state’s laws. Illinois law enforcement and others are prohibited from providing information, warrants will not be recognized, civil penalties are to be ignored, extradition is prohibited, civil or criminal subpoenas for testimony or records will not be recognized or enforced.

In our Constitutional system, I don’t know how this law would be legal, but that is for someone else to figure out. The much larger issue is how woke Springfield has become.

The bill says the General Assembly finds “[g]ender-affirming care encompasses many forms of health care support that improve the mental health and overall well-being of gender diverse children and adolescents and has been shown to increase positive outcomes for transgender and nonbinary children and adolescents.” Claiming that these treatments are for the health of the child is nonsense. There is no empirical evidence to support that claim.

Even after hormone treatments and surgery, the transgender patient remains at high risk for suicide, drug and alcohol addiction, as well as mental health issues associated with gender dysphoria. These cannot be ignored. There also are the lifelong medical treatments to maintain the transgender status and to treat the side effects of all the surgery and hormones alien to their natural born sex. Even Marci Bowers, the doctor who performed the surgery on Jazz Jennings and on at least 2,000 others, reportedly has had second thoughts on performing the surgery on children. There is not enough “material,” meaning the genitalia are too under developed to obtain the best surgical result, according to Bowers.

There is a growing consensus, based on a growing body of empirical evidence, that talk therapy is the preferred treatment, at least until the underlying mental illnesses are relieved.  This is especially true for treatment of children. Also the number of detransitioners is increasing.

The detrans group on Reddit has increased from 38,700 in September, 2022 to 44,200 members this month. These are only the numbers on Reddit. Think of what that means. At least forty-four thousand people have realized they made a mistake. This is a staggering number of mistakes! How many people are transitioning? And what is the real number of detransitioners? We don’t know. Do our legislators know? Do they care?

A recent whistleblower from a hospital in St. Louis has given us some clear insight into gender clinic practices. Jamie Reed, a self-described queer woman who is politically to the left of Bernie Sanders, worked at the Washington University School of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases for almost four years. The target group for her unit was HIV positive teens and young adults, some of whom were trans. Because of her experience with that patient population, in 2018 she took a position “as a case manager at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.” That clinic opened in 2017.

After working at the gender clinic for four years and managing the cases of approximately 1,000 youths, Reid

“left the clinic in November of last year because [she] could no longer participate in what was happening there. By the time [she]  departed, [she] was certain that the way the American medical system is treating these patients is the opposite of the promise we make to ‘do no harm.’ Instead, we are permanently harming the vulnerable patients in our care.”

According to Reid, her conscience would not allow her to continue in her position. The clinic, she said, lacked formal protocols. More troubling to Reid was the changing demographic of the patients. Historically there were more boys who sought to become girls, than there were girls who wanted to be boys. But that started to change.

Reid handled intakes for new patients and families. “When [she] started there were probably 10 such calls a month. When [she] left there were 50, and about 70 percent of the new patients were girls. Sometimes clusters of girls arrived from the same high school,” Reid said.

Reid was concerned about all 0f the additional issues the youths presented as well, like ADHD, autism, depression,  anxiety, and OCD among other problems. Her bosses at the clinic were not concerned with these issues. All the clinic cared about was getting a letter from a therapist that supported transitioning. The clinic would recommend the therapist and even gave a template to the therapist which detailed what the letter of support should say. Remember, Reid is a member of the LGBT community. Moreover, she is married to a transman, yet she has taken a stand against what is being done to our youth. She was not just indicting the St. Louis clinic. Her criticism was directed at clinics throughout the U.S.

Because of Reid’s disclosures, the Washington University transgender clinic is now under civil and criminal investigation by the Missouri Attorney General as well as other agencies.

So far there have been no whistleblowers for clinics in Illinois. Nor for many other clinics in the U.S. Still, there have been enough similar kinds of disclosures to take action. We should take these warnings to heart and pause this rush to embrace child and adolescent transitions.

Are there reasonable protocols in Illinois transgender clinics? What are they? Are they publicly available? Are our clinics ignoring or inadequately addressing the comorbidities of those suffering from gender dysphoria? Are doctors performing surgeries on autistic patients?

How are the clinics insuring that children and their parents are being adequately and meaningfully informed? Are chemical and surgical intervention the best, least destructive, course of treatment? Are the patients and parents informed that any chemical or surgical treatment causes permanent damage? Are they informed that these treatments will not eliminate the high risk of suicide?

How many transgender surgeries are being performed? What does the clinic do when a patient seeks to detransition? What oversight does the government regularly perform?

If our legislators cannot fully answer all of these questions, they need to find out. In the meantime, Senator Simmons should withdraw his bill.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your state senator to ask him/her to please oppose SB 1283.

You can also contact State Senator Simmons to ask him to table his irresponsible and harmful bill by call his district office directly. That number is (773) 769-1717.

Read more: 

Most support banning transgender surgery in children (Sharyl Attkisson)

It seems an odd place for woke ideology and degenerating ideas of gender, sexuality, and basic biology to play out, but even public restrooms are not safe with leftists in the Illinois state house. Even as some businesses and schools have opted to make available unisex bathroom facilities, this has not been required by law. But that may be about to change.

Wednesday, February 22,  State Representative Katie Stuart (D-Collinsville) of Illinois’ 112th district will bring HB 1286 before the House Human Services Committee. Among other things, this bill would require that in places of public accommodation—both new construction and buildings undergoing an expansion of more than 50 percent of their existing space—there must be an all-gender, multi-occupancy restroom with signage indicating such. If the restroom designated for all genders is located “adjacent or in proximity” to another multiple-occupancy restroom, that too must be designated for all genders.

State health and building inspectors would be responsible for making sure buildings comply with these regulations, with the health department setting rules to implement the changes. Every Illinois county board would also be required to submit to the General Assembly a public restrooms report by the end of 2023.

As written, this bill represents ongoing big-government overreach into what should be straightforward building requirements based on biology and statistics or, said another way, the SCIENCE progressives are so fond of wielding when it serves their purposes. Beyond this blatant use of regulation to advance a social agenda, there are other, less obvious potential consequences if it is passed into law:

1. Churches, synagogues, and mosques are not typically treated as places of public accommodation, however, if they rent their space for weddings or other events, they could run afoul of this legislation. For houses of worship that teach a view of gender that, until very recently, was not in question, freedom of speech and religion would come under threat. Churches, synagogues, and mosques could face having to decide between faithfulness to their religious texts and bowing to Springfield.

2. Besides the risk HB 1286 poses to religious liberty, the cost of such regulation must also be considered. With Illinois in dire fiscal shape, it’s amazing that Rep. Stuart can, with a straight face, put forth a bill that will require state agencies and county offices to spend more money on what amounts to no more than the regulatory expression of cultural and emotional whims. If passed, this law would also place an even greater financial burden on business owners who already struggle under Illinois’ growth-killing regulations.

3. Apart from the clear Constitutional, legal, and financial pitfalls of such a bill, it presents real dangers to the individuals using these all-gender bathrooms. In multiple cases, most recently in a Virginia high school, we have seen the worst-case scenario of opening up to biological males what should be women’s private spaces in the name of tolerance and equality. The current cultural trend toward eliminating biological sex disproportionately impacts women and girls, endangering and effectively erasing them. This ill-conceived bill is no exception.

As the nation continues to be swept along by the godless, nonsensical transgender wave, parents, grandparents, and concerned citizens of all stripes must stand up and say, “no further.” Legislators may seek to advance laws that reflect the flavor of the moment, but as believers in a God who created man and woman in His own image and called them “good,” we can and must hold them accountable for anything that says otherwise.

** UPDATE (2/21/2023): The Illinois House Human Services Committee passed this bill out of committee by a partisan vote of 6 to 3. You can watch the short 6 minute video of the hearing at this YouTube link.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your local state representative to ask him/her to vote against this legislation when it comes up for a vote on the House floor sometime this session. Urge them to reject this foolish woke agenda that fails to recognize biological facts. Ask them to protect the privacy, dignity and safety of all Illinois citizens.

Please, speak out against this destructive bill.

During the mid-90’s, international condemnation was directed at the practice of female circumcision, a euphemism for female genital mutilation. When people became aware of this barbaric procedure practiced in some countries, people all over the world, including the people in the United States, quickly responded by passing legislation outlawing the procedure for minors. The U.S. Law, The Female Genital Mutilation Act of 1996, outlawed the procedure in all 50 States and it made it a crime to take a child to another country for that purpose as well. It passed with substantial bipartisan support.

The surgery was common in some Muslim countries to prevent young girls, and women, from becoming sexually aroused. This mutilation of young girls surgically created sexual disfunction in hundreds of thousands of girls and woman across the globe. Tens of thousands of immigrant girls were affected in the United States before it was stopped.

People everywhere abhor harming children.

So where is the outrage over the practice of chemically and surgically mutilating children under the euphemism of “gender affirming care?” This kind of care is even more destructive than “female circumcision.”

Gender affirming care is not care at all.

Recipients of such treatment are forever rendered incapable of having children or even experiencing a normal sexual response. Once started on the path of changing their sexual identity, which is biologically impossible, the boy or girl will be dependent on medical intervention for the rest of his or her life. In addition, these interventions cause other, sometimes very serious, medical issues that have to be addressed as well.

Despite the investment of tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars, the patients remain the same. If they were born male, they will die male. If they were born female, they will die female. Any change is merely cosmetic, a series of very expensive chemical and/or surgical distortions of their bodies.

In the United States, it is full speed ahead on promoting transgender medical interventions for children. The American Academy of Pediatrics promotes “an affirm only/affirm early policy.” And the current administration claims that “gender affirming care” is settled science, the preferred method to treat gender dysphoria.

But that is a lie. It is far from settled science. There is a growing body of evidence that medical interventions are exactly the wrong thing to do.

The organization, Do No Harm, “a diverse group of physicians, healthcare professionals, medical students, patients, and policymakers” takes issue with this claim. A recent study they conducted compared treatment approaches between the United States and European Countries.  The study found that:

“Northern and Western Europe, which share the United States’ broad support for transgenderism, reject the gender-affirming care model for children . . . [T]hese countries now discourage automatic deference to a child’s self-declarations on the grounds that the risks outweigh the benefits, while also calling for months-long psychotherapy sessions to address the co-occurring mental health problems.”

The Tavistock Gender clinic for children in London, which was a model for the establishment of other such clinics around the world, actually shut down last year. Meanwhile gender clinics for children are opening up and expanding all over the United States.

Not only the Do No Harm group is pushing back against the medical interventions. A study just released this year by Abbruzzese, Levine and Mason on “The Myth of ‘Reliable Research’ in Pediatric Gender Medicine: A critical evaluation of the Dutch Studies—and research that has followed” found that there is very weak to no empirical support for chemical and surgical treatments for pediatric transgender patients. Their conclusion is that no such treatments should be administered unless and until there is empirical evidence the treatments work. Currently there is no such evidence. There is no empirical evidence sufficient to justify medical interventions.

So I ask again, where is the outrage over the practice of chemically and surgically mutilating children under the euphemism of “gender affirming care?” Why has this become a political issue instead of purely an issue of what is best for the child? Why are so many doctors perfectly willing to perform surgery on children to remove their ovaries and testes, to destroy the penises and vaginas, to remove the uterus and breasts of girls—all healthy organs, sterilizing them forever. Even the chemicals sterilize them.

Why? And how can anyone remain silent about this legally sanctioned horror show?

I just read an op-ed from a feminist author, published by CNN, who I will leave unnamed (no need to give her career free publicity), attacking the concept of parental rights.

One of her biggest arguments for taking decision-making rights away from parents and giving them to minors was related to LGBTQ+ students and more specifically transgender students. Ironically, she argues that adults should not have the authority to make decisions for minors, but then she infers that some adults SHOULD have that authority (just not parents). She believes it is abusive and potentially harmful to a child’s mental health to prohibit them from making life-altering decisions about their sexuality and even their own bodies.

The irony is she believes schoolteachers, physicians and politicians SHOULD have the right to facilitate major life-changes for these impressionable young people. The idea is that anyone who wants to help them reassign their name, gender or even physiology is good, but those who would keep them from doing so is an abuser (in this case…parents).

This is the kind of propaganda coming from the media, government-school system, Hollywood, the music industry, social media, and most of popular culture. Parents are bad and children need to be protected from their parents’ desire to help guide and direct the upbringing of their own offspring.

Targeting Young People

In America, the younger you are, the more susceptible you are to being targeted and groomed by LGBTQ+ activists. According to the Williams Institute, young people aged 13-24 are almost twice as likely on average to identify as transgender as those who are in older age brackets. It seems there is a “full-court press” (to borrow a basketball term) to reach those who are still too young to know the psychological harm of denying your biological sex.

The number of young people identifying as transgender in the U.S. has almost doubled since 2017, according to a Centers for Disease Control & Prevention report.

One psychological agency published a press release last year stating:

“The Government yesterday announced that the proposed ban on conversion therapy will not cover trans conversion therapy. We are disappointed at this decision. At (name withheld) we believe that talking therapy that has the intention of changing either someone’s sexuality or their gender identity should not be allowed, and should be a criminal offence.”

In their view, parents should be prosecuted for even talking with their child who is aligning with the LGBTQ+ lifestyle. This is despite the fact that depression and suicide attempts among LGBTQ+ individuals are very high compared to that of the general populace! This is especially true of those who experience gender reassignment surgeries.

The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS) found that 81.7 percent of transgender individuals seriously consider suicide during their lifetime and 40.4 percent actually attempt taking their lives. Activists on the social left insist this is simply because there is a lack of acceptance (which to them means “celebration”) of their decisions, but this argument ignores basic facts. It wasn’t long ago we rightly used the term “dysphoria” who denied their biological sex. Today, confusion about one of the most basic aspects of our humanity is being touted as essential to “tolerance and diversity.” When someone becomes detached from their most basic biological identity, everything else in their life becomes clouded and confused.

What Can Parents Do?

On one level, parents cannot completely protect their children against the designs of those who would seek to morally corrupt them. There are so many inroads today it is almost impossible to turn them all off. But I would suggest:

1. Removing your children from government schools.
2. Restricting smartphones and other devices until students are older teens.
3. Using internet filters and accountability software to know what your teens are doing online.
4. Drastically reducing screentime and access to movies, music and gaming that encourages sexual activity for youth.
5. Limiting social activities where your teens are spending a lot of time alone with other young people who do not share your religious values.
6. Seriously rethinking on-campus college experiences. I have heard several stories just in the last month of conservative families whose students came home from college and announced they were “out of the closet.” Indoctrination on college campuses is rampant.

Most importantly, have conversations with your children from a young age about their sexuality and God’s design for men and women. Parents are the first and most important go-to for information about sex and children will usually embrace their parents’ values, unless of course the parents abdicate their training to others who don’t share their values.

The world will not encourage your right to be a parent to your children, so you need to insist on it. Despite what the world tells you, be the parent and never apologize to anyone for being a wise, guiding light for your own child. God gave you the right to parent your child, so do it regardless of whether anyone else agrees with you.

There’s a grand act of un-creation taking place all across this nation. Leftists are busy with this ugly business of un-creating decency, order, justice, compassion, and beauty, and children play a central role in this ugly business. To leftists, children are both objects of un-creation and tools for un-creating society. If we want to see with greater clarity the plans leftists have for the nation, there is no better place to examine than Illinois. Let’s hover above Illinois for a few minutes to get a bird’s eye view of this dark project.

Abuse in Chicago Public Schools

On Jan. 1, 2023—a Sunday—the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Chicago Board of Education released its annual report on “investigations into allegations of waste, fraud, financial mismanagement and employee misconduct” between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022. This year’s report cost taxpayers $6.54 million.

(As a noteworthy aside, the CPS spent $97 million of federal pandemic relief money on “academic recovery + social and emotional learning supports.” Further, CPS plans on spending $430 million more of federal money over the next two years for the same academic, social, and emotional learning problems caused by the refusal of Governor J.B. Pritzker to open schools and the refusal of teachers to teach during the pandemic.)

What is revealed in this report should shock all parents of CPS students and all Illinois taxpayers:

The OIG received 1,825 complaints alleging misconduct, waste, fraud, and financial mismanagement at Chicago Public Schools, including allegations of adult-on-student sexual misconduct.” Of those nearly 2,000 complaints, the OIG opened investigations into fewer than half (39.7%).

Of those 1,825 complaints, 470 were sexual allegations.

Because of a 2018 Chicago Tribune exposé of sexual abuse in Chicago public schools, the OIG “created a special Sexual Allegations Unit” which “has grown exponentially into a team of more than 30 … staff responsible for handling hundreds of sexual misconduct allegations per year.” The OIG report describes the number of cases as “extraordinarily high case volume.”

The complaints include allegations of sexual grooming, sexual intercourse, sexual assault, sexual touching, and graphic sexual texts.

Since many victims are afraid to report sexual abuse, Illinoisans can justifiably assume that the numbers of adult-on-student sexual misconduct cases are far higher than 470.

CPS scores

Apparently, faculty are too busy abusing children to teach them how to read, write, add, and subtract. In September 2022, Wirepoints reported on the abysmal academic performance of CPS:

Student achievement remains badly sub-par at CPS. About 70 percent of CPS students in grades 4, 8, and 11 – and 80 percent or more of its tested black students – aren’t proficient in reading and math. In some schools, reading proficiency is still in the low single digits.

Sex Education Law

Shameful, sub-proficient, and stagnating test scores suggest that Illinois lawmakers—a super-duper majority of whom are leftists—don’t care about educating Illinois children, so where do their interests lie? A recent bill from Illinois Senator Ram Villivalam (Democrat from Chicago of course), points to the educational priorities of Illinois’ leftist ideologues. He proposed a tyrannical amendment to Illinois’ already offensive sex education law.

In 2021, Villivalam sponsored a bill mandating that K-12 schools that offer “health and safety” classes must include indoctrination with leftist gender theories and leftist views of homosexuality. But this bill, which became law, allowed schools to opt out of such indoctrination, which 70 percent of schools did. Can’t have that, thought Big Brother Villivalam.

So, he proposed an amendment during this recent lame duck session to remove the school opt-out option. It didn’t pass during the lame duck session, but mark my words, Big Brother Villivalam will, like the Terminator, be back.

Teachers often defend their teaching about sex by claiming they are “experts,” and by claiming what they teach is “age-appropriate,” so let’s spend a minute discussing purported teacher “expertise” and “age-appropriateness.”

Illinois teachers—including teachers in high performing suburban districts—are rarely “experts” in even the disciplines for which they were hired to teach. Don’t believe me? Ask your children’s teachers if they have advanced degrees, and if they do, ask what field their advanced degrees are in. Relatively few teachers pursue advanced degrees in biology, chemistry, physics, English literature, or history. They don’t, because it’s easier to get an advanced degree—and, thereby, increase their salary—in educational policy as opposed to biology, chemistry, physics, English literature, or history.

If they’re not experts in the field for which they were hired to teach, how are they experts in sexuality? What criteria do they use to establish their sexuality expertise bona fides?

And what criteria do they use to determine the “age-appropriateness” of sex education content. Who established those criteria. So many questions taxpayers never ask.

“Trans” policy

Sex is definitely where the “educational” interests of leftists lie, particularly deviant sexuality. Look no further than the Pritzker family that scurries about the world throwing their money and ample weight behind the effort to promote cross-dressing and child mutilation.

Governor Pritzker’s first cousin, whose transonym is “Jennifer” Pritzker, is the cross-dressing man in woman-face who tried to extort the GOP by proclaiming that if the GOP didn’t toe the line as he toes it in his lady pumps, he would take his money and move to the dark side—which he did.

He and the Pritzker family also use their money to fund university and hospital programs around the world to indoctrinate students into the “trans” cult and to mutilate the healthy bodies of children.

On a local level, upon his first election, J. B. Pritzker created a “trans” cultic task force composed of all lefties to socially construct a plan for “transing” public schools.

Now that leftists control public education in Illinois, our shameless governor/chief propagandist hopes to further diminish the influence of parents on their own children. In Pritzker’s second inaugural speech, he announced his evil plans: “I propose we go all in for our children and make preschool available to every family throughout the state,” and “let’s focus on making [college] tuition free for every working-class family.”

Get ‘em while they’re young and keep ‘em.

Research has long established that college and university faculty and administrations skew wildly left. Further, research has demonstrated that of those students who self-censor out of fear of repercussions, well over half are conservative. And this is the “learning” environment where Pritzker seeks to send more students and at taxpayer expense. Pritzker wants to cram as much propaganda into the minds of as many young people as possible, and wants you, conservative friends, to pay for this indoctrination.

To mix bird metaphors, Illinois is both a canary in a coal mine and a buzzard in a killing field.

Conservative parents, get your kids out of government killing fields now before the buzzards devour them.

In late May of 2021, the Illinois General Assembly rammed through SB 818, a bill to require so-called “comprehensive sex-education” to be taught in public schools in kindergarten through 12th grade. It was signed by Governor J.B. Pritzker and became law on August 20, 2021, despite the hue and cry of parents and grandparents throughout the state. Now, any public school that offers health and safety classes now must teach left-wing sexuality classes to impressionable young students.

The only small bit of good news in the law was that schools had the choice to opt out. Because 70 percent of school districts have chosen to opt out of these new destructive standards, State Senator Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago)–the  sponsor of last year’s bill–has just filed new legislation to mandate public schools teach this leftist material next school year with no opt-out permitted for any school!

If passed, this bill will mandate the teaching of material that many families in Illinois consider deviant or inappropriate for their children. The bill’s sponsors falsely claim that the mandated content would be “age and developmentally appropriate,” “medically accurate,” “complete,” “culturally appropriate,” and “inclusive.”

Starting in kindergarten, all schools must teach about “sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression,” and that means teaching leftists views of “sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression.”

What the bill’s sponsors don’t discuss is what criteria will be used to determine, for example, age-appropriateness, medical accuracy, completeness or who will establish those criteria.

Of course, there is no mention of abstinence-only education in this bill.

This bill is anything but “culturally appropriate” for orthodox Jews, Christians, and Muslims, which makes it anything but “inclusive.”

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your state lawmakers about the immoral and tyrannical nature of this bill (HB 5188). Let them know that this bill ignores the values and beliefs of millions of Illinois households. Teaching children about sexual health is the responsibility of PARENTS. It is parents who should decide what their children will be taught about sexuality and when. It is neither the right nor the responsibility of the government or public schools to do so. Many thousands of parents, grandparents, and concerned citizens voiced opposition to Villivalum’s prior bill, and yet Springfield “progressives” blatantly disregarded their voices. They’re attempting to do the same with his new parental rights-denying bill.

Please join IFI to raise your voice again in opposition to this bill and help us be the voice for our children.

More information:

The War on Children

“Comprehensive” Sex Education

The Sordid History and Deadly Consequences of ‘Sex Ed’ at School 

Illinois Lawmakers’ Insatiable Appetite for Sexualizing Other People’s Children

A Plea to Exit Public Schools ASAP

Leftists have redefined “hate.” To them hatred refers to ideas and moral beliefs that they think harm others. So, using that definition, how do leftists hate people? Let’s count the ways. Well, not all the ways. That would suck dry the wellsprings of hope from which we draw at the beginning of each New Year and which are granted to us by a gracious God who has jobs for us to do—with joy.

Let’s look at just one way leftists demonstrate their hatred of humans: legislation pursued in California and the California-Wannabe State: Illinois.

Scott Wiener is an infamous, middle-aged California state senator representing San Francisco and most notable for his erotic lust for men and for his abuse of position, power, and taxpayer money to promote sexual degeneracy. In other words, he is California’s Kelly Cassidy—Illinois’ lesbian State Representative from Chicago who routinely makes a mockery of decency, compassion, and justice.

Wiener’s latest assault on human rights and dignity is SB 107, which took effect on January 1, 2023, making California the first “trans”-sanctuary state in the country. The childless Wiener along with Equality California and Planned Parenthood—which now profits handsomely from cross-sex hormone-doping—conspired to lure sexually confused minors to California to be experimented on by profiteering quacks who masquerade as healthcare professions.

Gender-dysphoric minor children who live in states that prohibit dangerous, experimental chemical and surgical interventions to treat disordered feelings about their biological sex are now incentivized to hightail it to California where greedy doctors will eagerly harm their healthy bodies for money, money, money.

The law, deceitfully titled the “Gender-Affirming Healthcare Act,” allows minors to receive such “treatments” no matter who brings them across state lines. A minor brought across state lines by a parent about to lose custody can access such “treatments” in defiance of the wishes of a parent soon to be granted custody. A minor brought to California by a non-custodial, non-parent can access such “treatments.” A resourceful runaway can access such “treatments.”

Equally frightening, this law permits California courts to terminate parental rights granted in other states via “temporary emergency jurisdiction.”

Moreover, this blow to parental rights prohibits the state from sharing any medical information about minors with parents who oppose chemical and surgical procedures that disrupt the normal bodily processes and maim the bodies of their own children.

Don’t be surprised when an underground service a là the Jane Collective is created to ferry troubled children to California in search of transtopia where mutilated children cavort gaily in blood-red fields of discarded body parts. It will be called the Rachel Levine Collective.

Of the 13 co-authors of this bill, at least seven are homosexual and one is bisexual.

Unfortunately, Illinois too is plagued with Democrats who are as hell-bent on destroying the bodies, minds, and hearts of children as they are in destroying the nuclear family, publicly subsidized schools, and urban communities.

While Kelly Cassidy has a long history of using the government to normalize disordered eroticism, somehow another homosexual lawmaker got the jump on her with regard to a “trans”-sanctuary bill for Illinois. That lawmaker is State Senator Michael Simmons (D-Chicago) who was appointed to the office in February 2021 when another disastrous leftist lawmaker—Heather Steans—retired.

On November 29,2022 Simmons—who has no children—introduced SB 4245, the “Gender-Affirming Health Care Protection Act,” which prohibits the “State,” “law enforcement,” and the “Governor” from complying with statutes and subpoenas issued by other states regarding experimental and ghoulish medical “interventions” with which leftists like to maim minors’ bodies.

Simmons bill defines “gender-affirming care” as “medically necessary health care that respects the gender identity of the patient, as experienced and defined by the patient” (emphasis added). Simmons wants troubled, immature minor children, many of whom suffer from co-morbidities like depression, anxiety, and autism and who are vulnerable to social contagion, to be free to access risky chemical and surgical interventions without the knowledge or consent of their own parents. And he wants Big Brother to facilitate this whole nightmarish project.

While leftists like Simmons and Wiener want the government to help children align their healthy bodies with disordered feelings by mutilating them, they want government to prohibit helping children align their disordered feelings with their healthy bodies through counseling. Former Illinois State Representative Tom Morrison couldn’t even get a hearing for his “Youth Health Protection Act” proposed in Feb. 2019, the first bill in the nation that sought to protect minors from experimental “interventions.”

If passed, Simmon’s bill would protect the legal ability of children to access “interventions to align the patient’s appearance or physical body with the patient’s gender identity.” Some of the procedures cross-sex identifiers pursue to mask their biological sex include surgical removal of breasts, uteruses, ovaries, penises, and testicles.

Some lesser known “interventions” include the following for men who seek to masquerade as women: the construction of neovaginas that have to be regularly dilated mechanically to prevent closure, tracheal shaves, hairline “advancements” to create smaller foreheads, lips and cheekbones augmentation, lip lifts, neck liposuction, and jaw and chin “contouring.”

Some lesser known masculinizing “interventions” for women who seek to masquerade as men include the construction of non-functioning “neopenises” from skin grafts taken from forearms or thighs, forehead lengthening/augmentation, browbone implants, cheek implants or grafts, rhinoplasty, chin implants, jaw implants, and thyroid cartilage “enhancement” (i.e., Adam’s Apple implant).

Because lawmakers habitually lie, it’s important to ignore what a bill’s sponsors claim is the intent of their bill. Instead, proposed bills must be carefully read to understand how the language could be interpreted and applied.

California and Illinois seek to be meccas not only for human slaughter but also for sterile non-reproductive homoeroticism and the sterilization and mutilation of children. Leftists who sanctimoniously fume about animal-hunting hold brutally dim views of human life. Their policies expose their hatred of their fellow men, women, and children—a hatred fomented by the father of lies whose deceitful and deceived minions like Wiener and Simmons try to gussy up with sophistry about love, dignity, and rights.

There is a spiritual war roiling the world, causing incalculable human suffering:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12)

These spiritual forces of evil are targeting children with an incomprehensible fervor. Christians must put on the whole armor of God and wage war against this evil with even greater fervor.

Haven’t leftists sanctimoniously proclaimed that no “trans”-identifying man would ever harm women in women’s private spaces?

Haven’t leftists bristled with faux-umbrage at the suggestion that allowing objectively male persons in women’s private spaces will result in predators pretending to be women to easily access their victims?

Haven’t leftists hurled the epithet “transphobe” at anyone who dared to suggest that female-identifying men and teenage boys should never have access to female private spaces?

Well, here’s yet another story of a creepy man getting his sick jollies with a little help from “progressive” friends who hate women and children but pretend they love them.

In June 2021, with his penis and testicles fully exposed, middle-aged man Darren Merager sashayed through a women’s locker room in the Wi Spa in Los Angeles, California in which young girls were present. According to Merager in a recent interview with Los Angeles Magazine, he remained at the spa for eleven more hours after his encounter with a woman who objected to his presence.

That remarkable woman was Cubana Angel, a Christian who had the courage and integrity to confront the front desk staff about their policy that permits men who claim to be women to easily access victims.

Unbelievably, another man interrupted her confrontation with the Wi Spa staff to defend the exhibitionist. What a state of depravity we’ve entered when a man defends the presence of a flasher who pretends to be a woman in a women’s locker room.

Worse yet, a group of unmanly men with yellow stripes running down their spineless backs stood around saying nothing. (If only we still had the pillory …)

Angel recorded the exchange and posted it on social media, following which leftists began calling her a liar and claiming her allegation was a hoax. Then Antifa joined the fray, initiating mostly violent protests in defense of the exhibitionist.

A month later, Angel held a press conference accompanied by pastor and attorney Marc Little, to share her experiences and her plans to hold the state of California accountable for its contemptible failure to protect girls and women.

Four women corroborated Cubana Angel’s account, and the five brave women filed complaints against Merager. Then in September 2021, the Los Angeles County District Attorney filed five felony counts of indecent exposure against Merager who promptly went on the lam.

As it turns out, Merager is a registered sex offender for whom this was not his first flashing rodeo.

To be clear in this time of malignant media deceit, Merager, who pretends to be a woman, did expose his penis and testicles in the presence of minor girls and women. That is an offense against children, women, and decency, and it should be illegal.

Merager was arrested on December 13, 2022 and is being held in a men’s jail—because he is a man and ever will be.

Even if Merager had had his penis and testicles removed, he would still be a man and, therefore, have no right to be in women’s private spaces. The severing of his penis and testicles would not transform him into a woman. Such butchery would make him a eunuch.

In the Los Angeles Magazine, interview Merager described himself:

I’m legally female. But I have facial hair. I have a penis. I have no breasts. I don’t have a feminine voice. I don’t wear makeup or dress up like a female. … I have heterosexual sex because my penis fits in a vagina. I don’t tell women I’m with that I’m transgender because that’s not my sex.

Merager was asked about his prior arrest and conviction:

Weren’t you once caught without pants and masturbating while peering into the window of an 85-year-old Arcadia woman?

Merager responded: 

So what happened was this elderly man got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, and his bathroom overlooks another yard [and he saw me masturbating]. But even if it was masturbation, I don’t have a problem with that because that’s not illegal. It’s only illegal if you’re masturbating in someone’s face, like George Michael.

While masturbation per se is not illegal in California, public masturbation is—for now.

But now, men of all sorts—including public masturbators, intact men, and men who are sexually attracted to women—are legally allowed in female-only private spaces, and they’re legally allowed to be fully naked.

Another California man who masquerades as a woman, “Bamby” Salcedo, CEO of the TransLatin Coalition says Cubana Angel’s assertion that the penis-accoutered Merager is a man is an act of violence:

I think this is one of the horrible things that we experience every single day within our society. … The trans community, particularly trans women [i.e., men], we experience this type of violence every single day of our lives.

Saying that men are men constitutes “violence” to the deeply troubled Salcedo, who came from a broken and abusive home and was in and out of prison for years.

Ironically, in a documentary Salcedo, who claims he is a “physically constructed woman”—by which he means he has chemically and surgically altered his body to conceal his sex—describes his experience in prison:

When it was time to shower, they sent me to shower with other men. Obviously, that was embarrassing and degrading because I had to get naked in front of a whole bunch of different men.

Salcedo—a man—expects people to feel sympathy for his plight of having to undress in the presence of men, but when a woman describes feeling uncomfortable in the presence of an undressed man, Salcedo calls her violent.

“Trans”-cultists need to answer this question: If “trans”-identifying men and women should not have to undress or use bathrooms with those whose “gender identity” they don’t share, then why should other men and women (what cross-dressers call “cisgenders” and I call normal people) have to undress or use bathrooms with those whose sex they don’t share?

Humans cannot change their sex, and the sex of humans matters. No one is obligated to accept the superstitions of the “trans”-cult (with whom the profiteering mental health and medical communities have linked arms).

“Trans”-cultism is like a hungry lion prowling around with a special taste for children.  And Americans are averting their gaze, pretending not to notice as children are devoured. Accessing their prey has never been easier for men than it is today.

Biden’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Office of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition, the notoriously creepy Sam Brinton, is in the news again and again for all the wrong reasons. Correction: Brinton finally lost his job on Monday after not one but two luggage thefts at two airports: one in Las Vegas and one in Minneapolis. His luggage of choice is women’s luggage where can be found women’s jewelry, undergarments, and clothing.

Brinton is the cross-dressing fetishist who engages in and teaches about perverse sexual practices under the heading of the “physics of kink” in which he discusses “wax play,” bondage, spanking, and “electro play.”

According to the Daily Mail, Brinton’s bio on one pervert site says he has “‘been active in the kink world since 2013’” and hosts “‘monthly kink parties in’” his “‘dungeon in Washington, DC,’” in which Brinton estimates he has “‘spanked over 2,000 cute butts.’”

In a summary of one of his many sex talks to college students, this one at Rensellaer Polytechnic Institute in 2017, a student wrote this about Biden pick Brinton:

[Brinton] left us with countless anecdotes, like how he enjoys tying up his significant other like a table, and eating his dinner on him while he watches Star Trek. Upon being asked about how long he knew he was into kink, he explained that it wasn’t necessarily from birth, but that his kinks manifested in nonsexual ways. Once he started having sex, he got bored with the idea that he couldn’t control the whole experience, which led him to the idea of domination. He also expanded on his experiences with pup play, the differences between kinks and fetishes, and how to safely choke one’s partner.

We then moved onto demonstrations. Brinton taught us about bondage, starting with wrist restraints and ending with harnesses. … He also passed out ropes to the audience and encouraged us to practice on each other.

When the demonstrations ended, he invited us to come play with his toys or talk to him more. The entire audience went up to the stage, and Brinton graciously explained the purpose and proper usage of each toy. He even demonstrated the use of a carbon fiber rod on those who were interested, and the marks he left on my arm lasted for a few days. He told us more stories, some about working in Washington, D.C., the few times he helped Michelle Obama pick out shoes, his efforts to end conversion therapy, and his experiences as a dominatrix.

Biden, who selected Brinton years after this kind of information was easily available online, hasn’t yet met a sexual perversion he doesn’t love. Let’s pause a moment to reflect on the political party that chooses someone to serve in the the government–not despite his commitment to perversion–but because of it. We’ve come a long, twisted way from George Washington and James Madison.

In addition to larceny, Brinton has mastered the dark art of lying. He lied to law enforcement multiple times about his purloining of luggage in Minneapolis. Those who have followed Brinton’s unceasing quest for media attention have been surprised by his thievery but not by his lying. He is an inveterate, pathological liar.

Brinton first identified as “gay,” but now his immutable “sexual orientation” has changed, and he—er, I mean “they”—identify as bisexual. His “gender identity” has been variously reported as gender fluid and nonbinary, which should be mutually exclusive. If one is gender fluid, one flows back and forth between genders. If one is nonbinary, one is neither male nor female. As the kids say, whatever. “Logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead.”

The 35-year-old Brinton, who is pretend-married to a man, demonstrates his nonbinariness by combining men’s and women’s clothing—thereby reflecting the binariness of his nonbinary identity.

While Brinton “completed a dual Master of Science degree program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in nuclear engineering and the technology and policy program,” he is better known—or, rather, infamous for—his nationwide crusade to make what he deceitfully calls “conversion therapy” illegal. So fanatically committed is Brinton to this crusade that he has sashayed all about the country lying about it.

Brinton has claimed that he was a victim of torture via “conversion therapy”—the term those tricksy homosexual activists prefer—but his allegations suffer from shape-shifting and lack of proof.

For example, in 2010 Brinton alleged that just before seventh grade, he was sent to “conversion therapy” where his hands were tied down and “blocks of ice were placed” on his hands while pictures of men holding hands “were shown” to him.

By 2014 when he testified before the U.N.’s Committee on Torture, his story (and delivery) had changed. He still claimed that his hands were tied down and blocks of ice were placed on them, but he wasn’t shown pictures of men holding hands. Oh, no, in this incarnation of his story he was shown “erotic pictures of men.” Additionally, he claimed the torturous therapy occurred when he was ten years old.

When he testified before the U.N. committee at age 26, he was choking back faux-tears even though he’d been telling this story publicly for years. But four years earlier when he was 22, no tears, not a voice quiver to be heard.

Depending on the context, Brinton has alleged that he was either 10 or 12, when he was tortured by “a doctor,” or “not a doctor,” or a “religious therapist,” or a “licensed psychotherapist.” And at various points, he has claimed he was in this torturous therapy for “two to three years,” and yet he says he cannot recall the name of this therapist.

In addition to painful ice treatment, Brinton claims copper heating coils were wrapped around his hands and the heat turned on, “tiny needles” were “stuck into” his fingers, and that he received “electric shocks” by the nameless therapist. Even homosexuals doubt his story.

Btw, this kind of therapy is accurately called “aversion therapy”—not conversion therapy. And no licensed therapists do it on anyone, let alone children.

Talk therapy that seeks to uncover reasons for disordered, unwanted feelings and dysfunctional behaviors is called counseling.

Brinton also claims that prior to torture therapy, he was taken to the emergency room seven times from beatings by his father that—Brinton claims—his parents said were from accidental falls. If that happened, surely there would be records of his emergency room visits. His mother denies all of Brinton’s claims about abuse at his father’s hands.

Brinton squealed his delight when he was appointed by Biden to the position he has now lost:

I’ll even be (to my knowledge) the first gender fluid person in federal government leadership. … You cannot fathom how excited I am. … so so so excited.

While the crossdressing, glittery, ruby stiletto-wearing Brinton was squealing about his new appointment, the oppressive regime in China could see our soft bellies exposed for the death stroke.

Kinda makes sense that our corrupt prevaricating president would appoint a corrupt prevaricator to a high-level government post. #BirdsOfAFeather

On Monday, December 5, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court began hearing 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, another case that pits the purported rights of same-sex couples to force Christian business-owners to create products (or provide services) that express messages related to same-sex “weddings” in violation of the Christian business-owners’ First Amendment rights.

The Court case is a challenge filed by Coloradan Lorie Smith, a wedding website designer who, in expanding her business, understandably wants to include a statement clarifying that she does not create websites for same-sex weddings. But Colorado’s boneheaded pro-religious discrimination, pro-censorship law “that bars businesses that are open to the public from discriminating against gay people or announcing their intent to do so” mandates both what Smith must do and may not say.

Smith has made clear the intent of her work:

As a Christian artist, I want to create freely and create messages that glorify and honor God. And for me, this means designing for weddings and telling the story of a couple through God’s lens of marriage. But the state of Colorado is forcing me to celebrate messages about marriages that are inconsistent with my faith. There’s a lot of misconceptions about my case and what it is that I’m asking for. I love everyone and my faith has taught me to love everyone, and I have worked with those who identify as LGBT. There are just certain messages that I cannot promote because of my faith.

While Smith originally challenged the Colorado law based on its violation of both speech and religious protections, the U.S. Supreme Court has taken it up only on free speech grounds. The threat posed to religious liberty, however, is at least as grave.

This case follows on the judicial heels of cases in which those who choose to place their homoerotic desires at the center of their identities have sued bed and breakfast inns, videographers, florists, cake bakers, and calligraphers. The plaintiffs in those cases like to pretend they are the Rosa Parks of the sexual revolution—the oppressed victims of irrational hatred based on a condition equivalent to skin color.

Anyone with an ounce of rationality should be able to see that this whole “LGBTQIAP+” political movement is based on a big fat, slimy lie—a lie not unlike a Guinea worm that works from deep inside the body politic, worming its way painfully through the muscles and sinews of its host. The only difference is the Guinea worm rarely leaves permanent damage.

For the millionth time, there are no points of correspondence between skin color per se and homoeroticism per se.

Skin color is an objective, 100 percent heritable, in all cases immutable, environmentally unaffected condition with no behavioral implications—and, therefore, morally neutral.

In contrast, homoeroticism is a subjective condition, with little to no genetic involvement, shaped in many cases by one’s environment, and constituted centrally by volitional acts that are appropriate objects of moral assessment. Making judgments about the morality of homoerotic acts and relationships is as legitimate as making judgments about any other erotic acts and relationships constituted by such acts.

Saying homoerotic acts and relationships are immoral no more constitutes hatred of “gay” persons who believe differently and act in accordance with their beliefs than does saying polyamory and plural unions are immoral constitute hatred of polyamorists.

Refusing to make floral arrangements, bake cakes, or create websites for weddings of two men is no more unjust or hateful than refusing to make floral arrangements, bake cakes, or create websites for weddings of five polyamorists, three brothers, or a man and his horse.

And refusing to create products or provide services for “weddings” of two men or two women is in no way akin to refusing to allow blacks to sit at a lunch counter. Only fools and deceivers would claim it is.

Here’s one way to know that that these cases have nothing to do with discrimination or hatred of persons and everything to do with the religious bigotry and discrimination of people who seek compulsory approval of their deviant sexual desires: Virtually every one of the Christians sued by homoeroticists, including Christian florist Barronelle Stutzman and cake baker Jack Phillips, happily made products for and served homoeroticist customers.

Theologically orthodox Christians do, indeed, sell their wares and services to homoeroticists. They simply will not use their gifts, time, and labor in the service of an event that violates their deeply held religious convictions, mocks marriage, and offends God.

Ignorant of both the meaning of the First Amendment as well as the nature and role of Christianity in the lives of Christ-followers, many non-Christians harbor (at least) two fallacious ideas. First, they believe Christians should exercise their religion only within the confines of their church building. And related, they believe the First Amendment protects only what takes place in church buildings.

Leftists want no protections for the exercise of religion outside the confines of church on Sunday. But here’s the cultural rub: For Christians, the exercise of their religion encompasses the totality of their lives, including their work.

Just as skin color, homoeroticism, and religious exercise have natures, so too does marriage. Marriage is something. It has a nature that does not change based on the legislative whims or prurient desires of humans. The law can no more change the nature of marriage than it can change the nature of horses by redefining them.

Until very recently, sexual differentiation has been central to any definition of marriage throughout history and cultures. In fact, jettisoning sexual differentiation is far more radical a change than would be jettisoning criteria regarding blood kinship, number of partners, or age of partners.

Of course, those changes are coming because—ya know—”love is love.” All that polyamorists, sibling-lovers, and hebephiles need to do now is organize, pressure the American Psychological Association to designate their erotic predilections “sexual orientations,” and abracadabra, their unions will be covered by anti-discrimination law and legalized.

When that day comes, will Christians who refuse to provide goods and services for sibling weddings, poly weddings, and hebephile-teen weddings be hauled before courts for discriminating based on “sexual orientation”? Will they be accused of bigotry and hatred?

The ceremony solemnizing an erotic relationship between two men or two women is not a wedding. Such a relationship is by nature and design non-reproductive, so it is neither sexual nor uniting. Since the central constituent feature of a true wedding is the sexual differentiation of partners, a ceremony recognizing and solemnizing a non-sexual, non-uniting relationship is not a wedding. It is the antithesis. It is an anti-wedding. And it harms all involved.

Leftists are trying to force Christian photographers, florists, bakers, calligraphers, and wedding website designers not only to create and sell products that violate their religion but also to create products that they have never before created: Anti-wedding cakes, anti-wedding floral arrangements, and anti-wedding websites.

Well, well, well, a recent news story pokes a hole in the leftist media portrayal of crossdressers as paragons of virtue and mental health who must never be criticized.

The story emerges from Chicago where LaSaia Wade, a crossdressing man who spends his days trying to normalize sexual deviance, has been fired from Brave Space Alliance, the “LGBTQ” center he founded and which, according to The Blaze, reportedly “grew during the pandemic into a multimillion-dollar operation.” Mr. Wade has allegedly been “diverting the organization’s funds to ‘unknown’ bank accounts.”

Biological male, “LaSaia” Wade

IFI readers, particularly those who live in Township High School District 211, may be familiar with Wade who in 2017 colluded with current school board member, the presumptuous Kim Cavill (who hosts inappropriate sex podcasts for minors with titles like “All About Anal” and “Let’s Talk About Porn”), to thwart the election of three outstanding school board members. That fascinating story bears retelling:

In the spring of 2017, three exceptionally well-qualified candidates who opposed co-ed private spaces for minors in public schools were running against three people who supported co-ed private spaces for minors. The three well-qualified challengers were,

Jean Forrest, a Chinese-American woman with an MA in economics who works as an actuary

Katherine Jee Young David, a Korean-American woman with a BS in Business Administration from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Ralph Bonatz who has a degree in electrical engineering and is a global quality control manager for an international corporation

On March 22, 2017, just 13 days before the 2017 election, Chicagoan LaSaia Wade and Daye Pope, another biological male who masquerades as a woman, set up a Super PAC called Trans United Fund Illinois. Pope is the organizing director for a 501(c)(3) called Trans United Fund.

Just two days later, on March 24, 2017—11 days before the 2017 election—Kim Cavill and her sister Lindsay Christensen also set up a Super PAC called Parents and Neighbors for Quality Education (PNQE).

Just days after the founding of Trans United Fund Illinois, some surprising donations came pouring in from people outside of District 211:

• Matrix Director “Lana” Wachowski, a biological man who pretends to be a woman and lives with his dominatrix wife in Chicago, donated a whopping $10,000.

• Far left former Illinois State Senator Heather Steans (D-Chicago), who has a son who pretends to be a woman, also donated $10,000.

• Homosexual Clark Pellet, a retired attorney and development chair for the “LGBTQ” Center on Halsted who lives in Chicago, donated $5,000.

• Executive director of Gender Rights Maryland, Dana Beyer, a man who pretends to be a woman and lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, donated $1,000.

• Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) who lives in Brooklyn, New York donated $500.

• Homosexual Douglas Hattaway, president and CEO of a Washington D.C. strategic communications firm who lives in D.C., donated $500.

• Architect Kira Kinsman, a biological man formerly known as Kyle Kinsman who lives in Wilkes Barre, PA, donated $250.

The more than $26, 000 in donations for a school board election from donors who don’t live in District 211 then went to—you guessed it—Cavill’s Parents and Neighbors for Quality Education.

Enquiring minds may wonder why Cavill and her sister set up PNQE, since Trans United Fund Illinois was already established. Why the extra step to fund the defeat of conservatives? The answer to that question might be found in mailers and yard signs.

State law requires that campaign mailers and yard signs identify the groups that pay for them. Signs must say “Approved by ….” Which sounds better—and by “better” I mean less likely to arouse suspicion: “Approved by Trans United Fund Illinois” or “Approved by Parents and Neighbors for Quality Education”?

Flush with filthy lucre, the Cavill sisters got busy smearing good people with nary a backward glance.

As reported by the “LGBTQ” newspaper Windy City Times, a local mom (Who could that have been?) reached out to Trans United Fund, “a national trans-led advocacy group,” who agreed to help them defeat the three candidates who supported single-sex locker rooms:

Trans United Fund (TUF) and a group of local parents, youth, and allies, worked together to launch the first trans-led, trans-focused independent expenditure in history. TUF assembled a powerful team of thoughtful allies to quickly build and execute a research-informed and strategic plan to help the parents and youth get their message out. TUF supported the parents’ efforts through digital, mail, phone banking and helping to train volunteers to reach their neighbors at the door.

The Windy City Times made clear this campaign was a smear campaign in which good people who believe locker rooms and restrooms should correspond to biological sex were vilified. District 211 community member Tracey Salvatore, spewing venomous lies, said this about the good people who were defeated:

We are fed up with this small group of vocal, transphobic people guided by a national hate group [Alliance Defending Freedom] wreaking havoc in our community…. Our District 211 community will not tolerate adults bullying kids or intimidating us for one more day. The ADF-inspired slate of candidates ran with the agenda of inserting a hate-based, national agenda into our schools. They didn’t care that their policy changes would increase bullying and violence against kids…. So we reached out to Trans United Fund and they helped us to get our message out to our neighbors and community members. (emphasis added)

Neither Salvatore nor anyone affiliated with PNQE felt the ethical obligation to provide evidence that the three candidates feared or hated “trans”-identifying students, or that they bullied kids, or that they intimidated community members, or that ADF has a “hate-based agenda,” or that single-sex private spaces for minors increase “bullying and violence.” Why try to provide impossible-to-find evidence when hate-mongering rhetoric does the job.

This bizarre and troubling story was picked up by no one in the press. No story in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, or Daily Herald.

Then in 2019, the dishonest Cavill ran for the school board and won. Still to this day ideological groomer Kim Cavill sits on her school board. Some District 211 taxpayers should ask her publicly about her collusion with scammer and skimmer Mr. LaSaia Wade.

District 211 School Board Member Kim Cavill, May 2022

Unfortunately, Brave Space Alliance remains operational—for now—headed by other mentally and morally unfit persons, like interim CEO, “Jae” Rice, a woman who pretends to be a man and uses the pronouns he/him. She spends her time “creating safe spaces in Chicago that center all Black LGBTQIA+ Women, Femmes, AFABS, and Queers.” For those who lack the time to learn all the neologisms “trans”-cultists invent to socially construct and impose their metaphysical beliefs, “AFAB” means “assigned female at birth.” Of course, only science deniers believe physicians “assign” sexes or genders at birth.

Then there’s Brave Space Alliance COO “Stephanie” Skora, a man who masquerades as a woman and boasts about his many-faceted life on Brave Space Alliance’s website:

Stephanie Skora is a writer, educator, speaker, organizer, and non-profiteer based in Chicago, Illinois. She lives as a femme lesbian, trans woman, and working-class anti-Zionist Ashkenazi Jew, and mobilizes her identities to work in solidarity with Palestinians, to queer Jewish spaces, and to fight for justice and liberation for all trans people. Stephanie is currently the COO of Brave Space Alliance, serves as Board President for the Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity, and is the author of the “Girl, I Guess” Progressive Voter Guide. When not working or organizing, Stephanie can be found enjoying the pleasures of life for a Virgo: food, love, and being right.

Biological male “Stephanie” Skora

Clearly, Skora’s strengths lie more in the area of imagination than clarity. He says he is a “trans woman,” which means he’s a man. He says he is a “femme lesbian,” which means he’s an effeminate heterosexual man who is sexually attracted to women and likes to cross-dress.

I’m not sure how he defines “working class,” unless he just means he works. He attended University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he earned his BA in “Gender & Women’s Studies and Political Science, with minor concentrations in Sociology and LGBT/Q Studies.” He claims to be not only a writer, speaker, and COO, but also a “renowned educator,” and “lesbian reclamationist,” who practices Jewish Anarchism, none of which connotes “working class” to most people.

Maybe, just maybe, some good can come from the sorry tales of LaSaia Wade and Kim Cavill. Maybe both will lose their positions and Brave Space Alliance will collapse under the weight of its lies.

By now many have heard that the high-end fashion company Balenciaga was forced by public pressure to pull and apologize for its recent ad campaign featuring preschool children holding teddy bears wearing what looks to average Americans like bondage paraphernalia. In one photo, a child is holding bondage teddy while standing on a sofa in front of which is a coffee table filled with champagne flutes. In the next photo that same child is lying down on the white sofa with her (or his) head on a pink shag pillow. In another photo, a little girl holding another strapped-up teddy is standing on a little girl’s bed.

In a fourth photo, the set designer added a sheaf of papers under a Balenciaga purse. The oh-so-clever choice for the top paper is a court document that refers to a case that overturned a law banning child porn. Does anyone believe that was an accident?

Then in a fifth photo that has received less public scrutiny, a red-haired woman sits in a chair with her feet up on a desk. On the desk corner, hiding in plain sight is a stack of books on top of which sits a controversial book by Belgian artist Michaël Borremans titled Fire from the Sun. While the meaning of Borremans’ collection remains unclear, the grotesque nature of the photos of naked toddlers variously covered in blood or aflame and cannibalizing adults is obvious.

Of all the books, in all the towns, in all the world, this book makes the Balenciaga ad campaign?

And finally, there’s the photo of a little boy near whose feet lays a roll of bright yellow tape on which can be seen the word “Balenciaga” misspelled as “baalenciaga.” A typo? Or an intentional reference to Baal, the god to whom children were sacrificed.

We’re cascading down that slippery slope at warp speed—you know, the slippery slope the warped claim does not exist.

Once in a while, the boundary-free libertines among us get ahead of their skies just a bit and are forced to slow down: “Give the rubes, deplorables, and right-wing Christian extremists a few minutes to absorb cross-dressing men gyrating in front of toddlers before you confront them with images of children with bondage paraphernalia. In due time, my pretties, in due time.”

For more on the story, here’s Tucker Carlson’s analysis:

Pastor Derek Buikema asks professor, theologian, and author Dr. Carl Trueman to explain a bit about “expressive individualism,” the subject of Dr. Trueman’s important book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution.

The ideas that “The real me is my feelings, and my ability to express those feelings outwardly makes me an authentic person,” are central features of expressive individualism, the most extreme form of which is “transgenderism.”

Dr. Trueman urges Christians to acknowledge what expressive individualism gets right as well as to acknowledge the serious dangers posed by not grounding our feelings in external realities and truths.