Since I believe dialogue with those who hold views different from mine is important in this diverse culture, I often respond to comments on IFI’s Facebook page from dissenters. Here is a recent conversation I had with two women, Melanie Silver and Keely Wells. Since their comments represent commonly held beliefs, it behooves conservatives not merely to be aware of them but to know how to respond to them.

In the service of helping equip IFI readers in that task, here is our conversation (all errors were in the original FB conversation):

Melanie Silver: I was just reading the agenda on your page. So how does the LGBTQ “agenda ” hurt everyone?

Laurie Higgins: The “LGBTQ” agenda harms everyone in many ways.

It promotes the false assumption that homoeroticism is morally and ontologically equivalent to heterosexuality.

It was responsible for the destruction of marriage through the imposition by five Justices of the view that marriage has no intrinsic connection to sexual differentiation.

Many homosexual men do not believe that sexual monogamy is a necessary or good part of marriage, and even many homosexuals believe that their view of sexual monogamy will eventually transform even heterosexual marriages.

The “LGBTQ” agenda has led to the commodification of children as homosexuals in intrinsically sterile unions believe they are entitled to procure children.

The “LGBTQ” agenda has led to co-ed restrooms, locker rooms and shelters. The “LGBTQ” agenda has led to the homosexualization of government schools, including even kindergartens in which government employees teach other people’s children to affirm homosexuality and gender confusion.

The “LGBTQ” agenda has resulted in minors being given sterility-inducing cross-sex hormones and having their bodies surgically mutilated in a futile attempt to become the other sex. So while minors can access medical help to mutilate their bodies in an effort to reject their unwanted biological sex, laws in several states prohibit minors from accessing medical help in rejecting their unwanted “sexual orientation.”

The “LGBTQ” agenda has led to the most dramatic erosion of First Amendment protections in the history of this country.

Keely Wells: Where’s YOUR sense of live and let live?

Laurie: Who is it that demands that Christian bakers, florists, and photographers make products and provide services for a type of event that violates their deeply held beliefs? It’s not conservatives, and such imperial commands do not reflect a “live and let live” philosophy.

Who insisted on jettisoning sexual differentiation from the legal definition of marriage, thereby imposing on all of the country, their belief that sexual differentiation is irrelevant to marriage. Yep, it’s the “live and let live” crowd.

And what about women who want to share private spaces with only women? Will Leftists allow them to “live and let live,” or will they force them to share restrooms, locker rooms, shelters, and showers with persons of the opposite sex?

Who is coming into public schools insisting that all children be taught Leftist assumptions about homoeroticism and gender dysphoria? These indoctrinators hold a life philosophy about as far from “live and let live” as one can get.

And where is the “live and let live” philosophy when it comes to “unwanted” humans in the womb? Do liberals advocate that society should let live these humans?

Melanie Silver: gee, i dont know where you get your info, but i have never encountered any of this. iam a straight woman, married with 2 sons. schools teach nothing about gay sex in sex ed. if you have a business you deal with the public, therefore that means everyone, if you dont like it dont go into business. they arent forcing people to share any space with the opposite sex. if you mean transgender then you are way off. as far as abortion, if you dont have a vagina, you have no business legislating anything about it and if you do have one and are for laws against womens healthcare, you are a hypocrite. you care for the unborn, but what about after they are born and need food, clothing and shelter. thats when people like you disappear. just about everything you said is what the alt right is doing so dont go preaching to me this bullsh*t about LBGTQ AGENDA. you go look in the mirror

Laurie: In many schools, sex education does discuss homosexuality, as do many bullying-prevention programs. And health classes discuss homosexuality under “social and emotional learning.” High school English classes teach any number of novels and plays that affirm homosexuality. And social studies classes study resources that affirm homosexuality.

The business owners who have been sued do, indeed, serve everyone, but they have no moral obligation to provide goods and services for types of events that violate their consciences. The bakers and florists and now calligraphers who have been sued serve homosexuals. What they refuse to do is provide their goods and services for a type of event they have never provided goods and services for: same-sex faux-marriages, which are the antithesis of actual marriages.

Yes, gender-dysphoric people who are attempting to masquerade as the sex they wish they were are attempting to force their way into opposite-sex restrooms, locker rooms, and shelters.

Men have just as much right to speak out against feticide as women do, just as men have as much right to speak out against female genital mutilation as women do. Slaughtering unborn humans is a human rights issue. And slaughtering unborn humans is the antithesis of “healthcare.”

Do Leftists actually know what goes on in crisis pregnancy centers? These centers provide adoption services for those women who feel unable or unwilling to care for a child. They provide for the physical needs of new mothers, including providing cribs, strollers, sheets, diapers and clothing. They provide parenting classes for new parents–all free of charge. So the tiresome Leftist claim that abortion opponents “disappear” after babies are born is either a profoundly ignorant claim or a bald-faced lie.

Melanie Silver: A transgender child is not interested in anything in a bathroom except going pee. Restrooms have stalls so no one sees anything. All genders share bathrooms at home. how will you know if the person in the stall next to you is transgender, unless you look which make you the pervert. its people like you who are so against anything that doesnt conform to their own twisted view of the world that they try to push it on everyone. and if you tell me god said so, i have a mental hospital i can recommend because you are delusional sex and gender are 2 different things. several societies subscribe to more than 2 genders. there are female to male transgendered people who share these spaces with cis people as well. the only reason you are getting your knickers in a twist over this is because of a fictional book [i.e., the Bible] that has a bunch of stories that contradict each other. only when the parents brainwash their kids into hating is when the problems start

Laurie: At home, bathrooms are shared by close family members. They are co-ed only until later elementary school. By about 3rd or 4th grade, sisters and brothers no longer want to share bathrooms except for teeth-brushing or hair-combing.

You asked how will I know if the person in the stall next to me is “transgender.” I think what you mean is how will I know if the person in the stall next to me is a man or a woman? Well, women used to be able to trust that everyone in restrooms or locker rooms with them or their daughters were persons of the same sex. But no more.

How will you know if the man in the restroom or locker room with you is gender dysphoric or not, and what possible difference should it make to women if the man walking through their locker rooms likes his penis or not? You do know that those who choose to identify as “trans” don’t need to cross-dress, cross-sex hormone-dope, or be surgically mutilated in order to access women’s private spaces.

If objective sex is irrelevant when it comes to spaces in which humans engage in intimate bodily activities, then why not make all restrooms, locker rooms, shelters, and semi-private hospital rooms co-ed for everyone? Why allow only gender-dysphoric men into women’s restrooms and locker rooms? Why not allow “cisgender” men in as well? Doesn’t allowing gender-dysphoric men to use women’s restrooms while prohibiting “cisgender” men from doing likewise constitute discrimination based on “gender identity”?

So, if sex and gender are two different things, with sex being an immutable objective phenomenon and gender being a subjective (often fluid phenomenon), why should restroom, locker room, shelter, and semi-private hospital rooms correspond to “gender identity” as opposed to objective, immutable sex?

If separate stalls provide sufficient privacy to separate objective boys from objective girls, then why don’t separate stalls provide sufficient privacy to separate objective boys from objective boys who wish they were girls?

If gender-dysphoric boys should not be required to use restrooms with those who don’t share their “gender identity,” why should “cisgender” girls or boys be forced to use restrooms with those whose sex they don’t share?

The reality is most women don’t want to do their business in a stall next to an unfamiliar, unrelated man doing his. This natural and good feeling of modesty and desire for privacy derives from sexual differentiation and is the reason we have single-sex multiple occupancy restrooms virtually everywhere.

Neither Keely Wells nor Melanie Silver responded to my questions, but I’m used to that.

Read more recent articles from Laurie:

New Trier High School Avoids Diversity Like the Plague

Highlights Magazine for Children Affirms Homoeroticism

Cub Scouts Reject Girl Who Wishes She Were a Boy

Join IFI at our Feb. 18th Worldview Conference

We are excited about our third annual Worldview Conference featuring world-renowned theologian Dr. Frank Turek on Sat., Feb. 18, 2017 in Barrington. Dr. Turek is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist”

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!

There is a commonly held belief that most parents have that America’s public school system is completely neutral in terms of religious and social values. The view is that the public school system exists only to teach neutral subjects, such as reading, writing and arithmetic. But is this an accurate perspective? Are government-run schools neutral?

What many parents do not know is that GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network) has been actively working with government schools since 1990 to introduce pro-LGBT propaganda into the school classrooms. Have you ever wondered to yourself why LGBT issues were not overrunning the nation in the 1980s (and before)? Well, GLSEN is one of the main agencies that have helped to normalize the homosexual and transgender lifestyles by reaching children when they are young.

They have chapters in most of the major cities in America, and their online resources are utilized by thousands of schools, even the “good school districts” in rural areas. While we, as conservative Americans, support the right of every American citizen to be protected from physical threats and unfair discrimination, we do not support the normalization of sexually aberrant lifestyles as being normal and healthy. We do not believe that six-year-olds should be told that, if they want to have a surgery to remove their reproductive organs and transition into the opposite gender, that is a wonderful life decision. According to one study of individuals who had cross-sex surgeries, 25% later attempted suicide.

The levels of depression and suicide are rampant for people who embrace these disconnected lifestyles. And it is not merely because they are bullied by other members of society. Lots of immigrants and minorities experience the same types of discrimination and verbal assaults as members of the LGBT community. The fact is, people who reject their given gender have cut themselves off from their very identity. They have ceased to be themselves and have decided to become something entirely different. That is not a decision that elementary or even high school students should be encouraged to make.

While people have the right in our country to believe whatever it is that they wish to believe, when tax dollars are concerned, as they are in the public school system, all tax-paying citizens have a right to input as to how those tax dollars are used.

The use of private citizens’ money to teach young children that they should reject their own God-given gender, in favor of their own choice, is not an appropriate use of public funds. Indoctrination is not the just prerogative of the civil government, and any time a government has used its influence to reshape the minds of the youth in history, things went very, very wrong.

In a document entitled, “Developing LGBT-Inclusive Classroom Resources,” teachers are encouraged to use the new Common Core curriculum as a means of teaching about LGBT issues in every subject, at every grade level, from K-12. So if you are teaching second grade math or fourth grade geography, you as a teacher are supposed to figure out how to teach, at taxpayer’s expense, how important LGBT issues are to that subject and every other sphere of existence. Allow me to quote from that document:

Implementation of the Common Core State Standards is one way that many states and school districts are making efforts to ensure quality education for all students. The examples below demonstrate how an examination of the standards and themes can lead to locating opportunities for the natural inclusion of LGBT-related content in English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects, and Mathematics.”

For parents who still believe that the public school system is like the “Leave it to Beaver” world they imagine it to be, they need to think again. These schools are NOT neutral. Parents need to rethink their current model of turning their children over to highly trained indoctrination professions for a minimum of 10,800 hours of instruction between K-12. They need to find a way to regain influence as the most important and influential voices in the lives of their children. That will take time and effort, but it is so important. Our children’s futures depend on it.

The Gospel is good news, good news that Jesus made a way for wayfaring man to be reconciled to a Holy God. Good news that for what Adam did — “the fall” which has tainted every human since with the sin nature — there is a remedy!

The genre of gospel music joyfully proclaims Jesus and the good news, uplifting the spirit, soothing the soul.

And it makes perfect sense that the same enemy of the soul who tempted Adam and Eve would hate any good news of salvation and grace.

1 Peter 5:8 warns of this enemy:

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.

The Apostle Paul writes of the battle we’re in. Human eyes cannot see this war, but it’s real.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:12

So it should come as no surprise when attacks assail those who preach the gospel and to any who sing gospel, though the ferociousness of the attacks may be breathtakingly surprising.

Kim Burrell has sung gospel music her entire life. The daughter of “a Pastor/Musician father and an Evangelist/Singer mother,” Burrell grew up in the church, singing the old hymns, belting out the gospel. Looking through her resume, a roll call of famous music names appear — Andraé Crouch, Harry Connick Jr., Bebe Winans, Pastor Shirley Caesar, Albertina Walker, Kirk Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and more.

In 2010 Burrell founded the Love & Liberty Fellowship Pentecostal Overcoming Holy Church, where she is a “Senior Eldress/Overseer-Bishop.” The church has an interesting name, but rock solid doctrine as found at the site Kim Burrell Ministries:

The Bible
We believe the entire Bible is inspired by God, without error and the authority on which we base our faith, conduct and doctrine.

The Trinity
We believe in one God who exists in three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came to this earth as Savior of the world.

Salvation
We believe Jesus died on the cross and shed His blood for our sins. We believe that salvation is found by placing our faith in what Jesus did for us on the cross. We believe Jesus rose from the dead and is coming again.

Water Baptism
We believe water baptism is a symbol of the cleansing power of the blood of Christ and a testimony to our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Communion
We believe in the regular taking of Communion as an act of remembering what the Lord Jesus did for us on the cross.

Growing Relationship
We believe every believer should be in a growing relationship with Jesus by obeying God’s Word, yielding to the Holy Spirit and by being conformed by the image of Christ.

After all these years of singing and preaching the good news, Kim Burrell now finds herself at the center of a firestorm of vitriol. What caused this sudden onslaught?

Burrell was scheduled to sing recently with Pharrell Williams on The Ellen Show, hosted, by renowned lesbian Ellen DeGeneres. But prior to the appearance, a video surfaced of Kim preaching against sin, and naming the “homosexual spirit of delusion” in the sermon. Of course, just a short clip was used from a cell phone video and the hate began pouring in from the LGBT community that preaches tolerance and practices perversion and intolerance.

Ellen cancelled Burrell’s appearance explaining:

You were supposed to do a different song, and you were supposed to perform it with a singer that, I actually, I didn’t know her. Her name is Kim Burrell. And she made a statement, she was doing a Facebook live and she said some very not nice things about homosexuals. So I didn’t feel that was good of me to have her on the show to give her a platform after she’s saying things about me.

Pharrell’s response was typical new age, touchy feely — all warm and fuzzy but no biblical truth:

Well, there’s no space, there’s no room for any kind of prejudice in 2017 and moving on. There’s no room. I … she’s a fantastic singer and I love her, just like I love everybody else.

. . .

We all have to get used to everyone’s differences and understand that this is a big, gigantic, beautiful, colorful world, and it only works with inclusion and empathy. It only works that way.

Watch the exchange below:

That all sounds so nice and loving. But what did Kim Burrell actually say? And what IS the truly loving thing to do concerning those practicing homosexualty, or even heterosexuality outside of God’s design of marriage?

First, what Pastor Burrell said. Here’s the short video that start the whole brouhaha:

The outpouring of hatred rained down on Burrell in a mighty flood. If you want to see REAL hate speech just google “Kim Burrell” and the search will return pages and pages of cruel and coarse articles and tweets. In fact, most of the tweets are too profane to embed here.

This is what the Father of Lies does: he deludes people into thinking hate is love and up is down and wrong is right. He is the antithesis of the main protagonist of the Gospel — Jesus the Christ, the way the truth and the life.

Kim answered the accusations in the video below:

I have had a lot of years in the eye of the public, doing what it is I do. And everything I’ve ever done has never been just for the public. I’m signing on here because people matter and I’m not running from anything. I love you guys.

Oh, listen to me, listen to me! Don’t you become frazzled!

We’re not in a war against flesh and blood! We’re not in a war with that! Hi to everyone! We’re not in a war against flesh and blood. I came on because I care about God’s creation.

And every person from the LGBT and anything else, any other kind of thing that is supporting gay, I never said LGBT last night. I said S-I-N. And whatever falls under sin was preached.

That’s the rub isn’t it? We none of us like to be told we’re sinners. Sin, by definition, is doing things OUR way and not God’s way, as prescribed in the Bible.

We live in a society that praises people who do things their own way and scoffs at doing things God’s way.

Kim Burrell absolutely believes that “the entire Bible is inspired by God, without error and the authority on which we base our faith, conduct and doctrine.” And the Bible, God’s Word, says plainly:

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Romans 1:26-27

Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10

That’s pretty clear…and that’s from the New Testament. And based on the truth of God’s Word, what IS the truly loving thing to do concerning those practicing homosexualty?

Answer: if the practice of homosexuality is sin and precludes the practitioner from heaven, why the loving thing is to warn them!

Kim Burrell is remaining steadfast in the knowledge that she loves God and people and preaches the Good News that there is a remedy for sin and a Savior who can break the bondage of perversion. Praise God!

No wonder the Evil One hates what she is saying and singing. No wonder the world listens to the Father of Lies and hates what Burrell is saying and singing.

We should all be mindful that, as Kim paraphrased, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but principalities and powers.”

Those principalities and powers, taking orders from our adversary the devil, hate the gospel, hate the good news, and hate those of us who share that good news. But don’t grow weary or discouraged — keep on dishing out that good news. Hold tight to the truth that Jesus spoke, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

It’s the New Year and time to purge our lives of things that impede spiritual growth, like unedifying television shows and reading material. No, I’m not talking about porn of either the hard or softcore variety—though our lives must be purged of that.

I’m talking about Highlights magazine for children ages 6-10, Highlights’ High Five magazine for ages 2-6, and Highlights’ Hello magazine for ages 0-2.

In case you missed this unfortunate story, it all started back at the end of September when lesbian activist and attorney Kristina Wertz and her partner, activist Kara Desiderio, sent an email to Highlights magazine expressing their disappointment that Highlights doesn’t depict homosexual families in their Hello magazine for babies. Wertz and Desiderio, both of whom formerly worked for the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco, have a 13-month-old daughter. Two weeks later, Wertz, who now works for an organization called Funders for LGBTQ Issues, posted their email on the Highlights Facebook page:

One of the reasons we appreciate Hello is the diversity represented—families of all races, interracial families and grandparents. We are consistently disappointed, however, in the complete lack of same-sex parents in Hello magazine. I think a lot about the things that create culture—the subtle and not so subtle messages that our kids get about how the world works. Since becoming a parent, I feel keenly aware of the messages kids’ books send to tiny minds.” 

Highlights responded:

For much of our readership, the topic of same-sex families is still new and parents are still learning how to approach it with their children, even the very little ones. We believe that parents know best when their family is ready to open conversation around the topic of same-sex families….We will continue to think deeply about inclusion—specifically how to address it in developmentally appropriate ways for our broad audience.

Well, you can imagine how that went over with homosexuals who will not tolerate any public recognition or expression of views of homoeroticism with which they disagree.

The Highlights Facebook page blew up with angry responses from tolerance-teachers and homo-parents, and once again Highlights tried to mollify the angry hordes, assuring them that because of Highlights’ commitment to diversity, inclusion, corporate evolution, and helping “children become their best selves,” it was just a matter of “‘how’” and “‘when’”—not “‘if’”–Highlights would feature an LGBTQ family.”

Still not good enough.

Non-judgmental Leftists took to the Internet to put forward their best “arguments” against conservatives—that is to say, ad hominem attacks like this one from the website She Knows: “The loathsome One Million Moms calls for Highlights boycott…One Million Moms, an…association of grotesque hate-mongers.”

Maria Guido, senior news editor for the ideologically non-diverse Scary Mommy website, criticizes for its failure to be as comprehensively Leftist as Scary Mommy is on matters related to homoeroticism:

[Highlights magazine’s] first response was laughably offensive. Why? Because it basically said, “we know a certain part of our audience is against gay marriage and we don’t want to lose their money,”… Guess what, Highlights? If people boycott your brand because they’re bigots, that is a sword you have to fall on, as far as the rest of the population of decent, inclusive humans is concerned.  

Yes, all those who believe that the needs of children are best served and their rights best protected when they are raised by mothers and fathers are “bigots” while those who believe homoeroticism is good and moral are “decent, inclusive humans.”

Several days later, Highlights surrendered to enraged Leftist ideologues, issuing this bootlicking, brown-nosing response:

We know that there are many ways to build a family, and that love is the essential “ingredient.” This conversation has helped us see that we can be more reflective of all kinds of families in our publications. We are committed to doing so as we plan future issues.

Leftists are fond of saying that depictions of families headed by same-sex couples are not sexual. Rather, they’re just depictions of love. In so doing, they escape mentioning that the type of love depicted is erotic love. They seek to suggest there are no distinctions between different types of love (hence Macklemore’s jejune song “Same Love”). But in reality, there are different types of love, and some types of loving relationships ought not include sex. Should Highlights magazines depict families in which children are being raised by two brothers in a loving homoerotic relationship?

Leftists often say that because homoerotic relationships and “diverse family structures” that include same-sex parents exist, young children should be exposed to positive images of them. But is it the task of children’s magazines (or public schools) to expose children—including very young children—to every phenomenon that exists? And is it the obligation of children’s magazines (or public schools) to expose children to positive images of every phenomenon that exists?

The argument that children’s educational tools should expose them to homoerotic parental relationships depends on accepting the prior assumption that homoeroticism per se is good. In other words, for children’s magazines (or public schools) to expose children to homoerotic relationships, decision-makers must first conclude that such relationships are morally equivalent to heterosexual relationships. This explains why the staff at Highlights magazines evidently feels no obligation to expose children to positive images of polyamorous relationships and family structures—which also exist and include the “essential ingredient” of love.

Those who know that homoerotic relationships and structures are profoundly immoral, that they deny children their intrinsic rights, and that they undermine human flourishing are left with the challenge of removing their children from contexts in which they will be exposed to body- and soul-destroying ideas and images. And they are obliged to remove from their home resources that promote lies as truth and do so in imagery that appeals to innocent minds.

It’s no longer possible to boycott every business that affirms homosexuality and biological sex-rebellion. That’s why organized, targeted (pun intended) boycotts are important. That said, boycotting Highlights is a low-cost, high-yield endeavor. If every conservative family cancels their subscriptions explaining exactly why, perhaps Highlights management will rethink their capitulation to the increasingly draconian demands of homosexuals. And as you contemplate canceling, know that Leftists are encouraging their cohorts to subscribe in order to support Highlights’ effort to indoctrinate children with pernicious ideas.

If, however, fear of those who place sexual deviance at the center of their identities paralyzes Highlights management, canceling subscriptions remains a high-yield endeavor: It protects the hearts and minds of our little ones from destructive ideas. I agree with Scary Mommy Maria Guido when she says to Highlights, “You don’t get to have it both ways—either lose my money, or lose theirs.”

Perhaps we would be bolder, more tenacious cultural activists if we thought like lesbian activist Kristina Wertz who got this muddied ball rolling:

I think a lot about the things that create culture—the subtle and not so subtle messages that our kids get about how the world works. Since becoming a parent, I feel keenly aware of the messages kids’ books send to tiny minds.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to Highlights CEO Kent Johnson via their public relations department to let him know that the decision of Highlights management to expose young children to ideas and images that many find destructive and age-inappropriate compels you to cancel your subscription and/or refrain from purchasing gift subscriptions for your grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or friends.

Identity Politics gets a lot of press — both conservative and liberal. The topic permeates nearly every area of life in the America of today. Yet for all the attention, not nearly enough people understand the most basic aspect of the conservation.

The advance of so-called “gay rights” and normalization of the lifestyles of the LGBTers has made huge (what its supporters call) “advances.” Supporters of Judeo-Christian morality call it, simply, a return to paganism. More on that (paganism) as the series unfolds.

It is my contention that identity politics is childish and succeeds only when thinking people decide to accept faulty premises. If that doesn’t sound “intellectual” to you, think for a bit about how common sense often sounds: common. My goal with these articles is to take a look at just how many potential “identities” are possible. That survey, I believe, cries for common sense to finally become a bigger part of this national discussion.

I’m a white guy — yes, one of those — but I’m no WASP. I’m not a member of the elite or the establishment. I wasn’t born into money. I have worked many blue collar and white collar jobs, both in the private and public and political sectors. My bio on my website reads simply: I am a Christian, an American citizen, and I work in the arena of applied political science.

So let’s list what I am (some of my “identities”):

• I am biologically a male.
• I am of white European extraction.
• I am a Christian.
• I am an American citizen.
• I am a heterosexual.
• I am both a social and economic conservative (I realize those are general headings).
• I guess in the age of ageism I should note I am well into middle age.
• I am a student of the Bible, of history, and a nominal sports fan (though you should know I swing both ways — I’m both a Cubs and Sox fan, a Bears and Packers fan…and yes, that’s possible).

No doubt there are other categories I fit into, but that’s enough for now. To be honest, though, I’ve never thought in terms of my “identities.” For all of my life they have been a side issue to what I am at my core: I am a human being with God-given rights — and I happen to believe in that very same God.

But let’s say you meet someone who is a man but wants to be identified as a woman? Or a white girl who wants to be identified as a black girl? Let’s say you meet someone who claims to be the person that was the inspiration of the Jason Bourne character from the novels and movies. That’s how they self-identify. It’s deep in their soul. It’s how they see themselves. What if I have severe doubts about the legitimacy of their claims? Am I a hateful intolerant bigot for not buying it?

The list of identities of all sorts is actually endless. Obviously not all “identities” involve sexual arousal, but since we have so many of them to cover, most of my focus will be on the paraphilias.

For the record, I look to those I consider the well-versed or even experts on the topic of identity politics, which includes the LGBT issue. The substance of this series will depend primarily on the words of others.

Back in 2014 I penned a series called “The Paraphilia of the Day,” which ran on BarbWire.com and my own website. What is a “paraphilia”? This intro to the Wikipedia page on the topic is good enough:

Paraphilia (also known as sexual perversion and sexual deviation) is the experience of intense sexual arousal to atypical objects, fetishes, situations, fantasies, behaviors, or individuals. No consensus has been found for any precise border between unusual sexual interests and paraphilic ones. There is debate over which, if any, of the paraphilias should be listed in diagnostic manuals, such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or the International Classification of Diseases (ICD).

The number and taxonomy of paraphilias is under debate; one source lists as many as 549 types of paraphilias. The DSM-5 has specific listings for eight paraphilic disorders. Several sub-classifications of the paraphilias have been proposed, and some argue that a fully dimensional, spectrum or complaint-oriented approach would better reflect the evidence.

By the way, when I first cited that page, there were 547 types of paraphilias.

Too few Americans actually talk about what we’re really talking about when the subject of the “LGBT community”/identity politics comes up. LGBT represents only four letters — thus, 4 identities.

For the past couple of years the “T” in LGBT has been getting a lot of attention. A biological male can become a female, don’t ya know. Well, that’s not the worst of it. Get ready because a lot of letters follow that “T.”

You have probably seen a Q added on, or a Q, I, and A as well. From what I can gather, there is currently a great debate over which letters should be officially added next — and what those letters should stand for. Here are just a couple of variants currently discussed:

LGBTTQQIAAP
LGBTQQIP2SAA
LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM

I kid you not.

Up next: Wading into the alphabet soup of paraphilia identities.

Written by Roy Endress

Here is a recent communication from American Family Association updating us on the results of the ONE MILLION SIGNATURES they personally delivered to the Executives of TARGET in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Unfortunately, they were unresponsive to AFA’s plea to protect women and children in their stores when using bathroom facilities.

They are now attempting to add another 500,000 to their total and request another meeting.

If you have not signed the boycott, you can click on the hot links below and join the boycott. We know this is hurting sales as evidenced by the increased discount coupons they sent out during the Christmas buying season. We need to keep the pressure on them. Urge your friends to join as well:

Last May, AFA delivered over 1 million petition signatures to Target Stores headquarters in Minneapolis, MN. On your behalf, I personally met face-to-face with Target executives, urging them to end AFA’s boycott of the company by protecting women and children in their stores.

Unfortunately, Target didn’t respond to our concerns. Now, I’m ready to deliver another half-million, but I’ll need your help!

We are very close to reaching our next goal of 1.5 million signatures. You can see how close we are here. Please help us get the remaining signatures we need!

Once we reach the 1.5 million signature mark, AFA will personally deliver the additional 500,000 petitions to Target’s headquarters.

As a result of Target’s continued and dangerous policy of allowing men to use women’s dressing and restrooms, women and children have become targets of sexual assault inside its stores.

Target would do well to read U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor’s recent ruling, putting a halt to President Obama’s directive which would have allowed boys to use girls’ locker and bathrooms in public schools. In his ruling, Judge O’Connor said, “separation from members of the opposite sex, those whose bodies possessed a different anatomical structure, was needed to ensure personal privacy.”

Target’s policy does nothing to insure its customer’s personal privacy or protection from those who would take advantage of the rule to conduct sexual criminal activity. And according to an article on cnsnews.com, there are over 840,000 registered sex offenders in the United States who could take advantage of Target’s unbridled policy.

Please help us reach the 1.5 million signature goal today!

TAKE ACTION

1. If you haven’t already, sign the pledge to boycott Target.

2. Forward this emailto everyone on your email list.Be sure to use the social media tags below to let your friends know you’ve signed the pledge and are encouraging them to join the boycott too!

3. Let Target know you have signed the pledge by calling your local store manager here. If you don’t have a Target store nearby, post your comment on Target’s Facebook page here.

If our mission resonates with you, please consider supporting our work financially with a tax-deductible donation. The easiest way to do that is through online giving. It is easy to use, and most of all, it is secure.

Sign the Boycott Pledge NOW!

Our good friends over at National Review Online recently presented what they say is a conservative case for opening up public restrooms and locker rooms to either sex. Although written by an incredibly smart man—Josh Gelernter—the article seems to miss the nature of the issue itself, and by some margin.

His lead-off was not surprising: Conservatives should be cool with transgender folks doing what they want because “conservatism is the mind-your-own-business ideology.” He calls to the stand Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, who desires that their legislature not consider a trans-bathroom protection bill because “the last thing we need is more government rules.” Putting aside that this feels more like the desire to avoid a nuclear hot potato masquerading as a principled stand, let’s consider the veracity of this line of thought.

First, both rationales are faulty to a fault. Second, Gelernter ricochets quickly from these into endeavoring to show how inadequate the concerns over gender-free bathroom and locker room policies are. It’s easy when you reduce the whole thing down to “It will let predators in” as the primary concern. This is naïve.

De-Gendering Private Spaces Is a New Government Rule

Let’s address the “mind-your-own-business” part first. That is not conservatism. It’s a muscular libertarianism. Good conservatives are more than comfortable telling people they shouldn’t do certain things, and have been for quite some time.

The faithful conservative resists all kinds of behaviors: being a communist, sexual libertinism, creating broken families, not carrying one’s weight, not taking personal responsibility, etc. It’s not conservatives who sport “Don’t Like Abortion? Don’t Have One” bumper stickers on their cars. Conservatism is more like “Work Hard, Be Responsible, and the Newest Ideas Are Not Usually the Best Ideas.” Conservatives conserve. This means conserving the idea that male and female are not subjective feelings, and when opening and removing their clothes outside the doors of their own homes, the sexes should be segregated.

Next, the “we don’t need more government rules” line fails to understand the politics and genesis of this issue. It assumes gender-free restrooms and lockers have always been the rule, and some people now want to come along and put regulations on it. This is not the case, of course. Creating gender-free facilities requires new government rules. This is what the whole thing has been about: municipalities, retailers, and our president telling us we will accept their new regulations…and like it. We were minding our own business and would like for it to have stayed that way.

This Is about Men Seeing Naked Women Without Consent 

This brings us to the last point: Gelernter’s simplistic dismissal of those who have concerns about gender-free facilities. To him, the possibility of predators is anyone’s only concern here.

Women and fathers of daughters know this is not the case. It has to do with the inherent (and higher-order) modesty of women and their protection from the male gaze. He fails to appreciate that according to the rules of transgender politics, these policies mean any person could enter any bathroom, changing room, or locker room and freely do and observe what is done in such places. Anyone.

There is no criteria—medical, legal, physical, or psychological—anyone must meet to be accepted as officially transgender. It is solely up to the person making the claim, and no one can question him or her about it.

Well, many assume, don’t they have to look like the other sex, or at least be trying to do so? Gender orthodoxy demands that no one should have to live by someone else’s assumption of what a man, woman, or any of the other supposed genders looks like or does. They are merely restrictive social constructions enforced by male power that must be cast off.

Thus, the central concern here is that these new policies require that every woman and girl get used to having men invade their male-free sanctuary and violate their naturally strong sense of modesty by simply being present there.

Ask the typical male if he would mind a woman using the men’s locker room. Ask a woman if she would mind a man doing so. It is precisely here that the issue lies. No one has the liberty to violate the modesty of a woman. A good society conserves this important and fundamental human value at all costs. This is the work of the conservative.

This article was originally posted at TheFederalist.com

“Progressives” and even some so-called “moderate” Republicans are trying to diminish the import of allowing biological males and females to access restrooms, locker rooms, and even private clubs reserved for the opposite sex. Those who promote practices and policies that mandate sexual integration of heretofore single-sex facilities hope to blind the fearful masses to the larger issues and devastating cultural implications of the ultimate goal of sexual subversives: the eradication of all public recognition and accommodation of sexual differentiation.

A recent USA Today article provides yet more evidence that we are hurtling pell-mell toward the culmination of the cultural revolt against nature, commonsense, and decency that the blind Left covets. The article reports on an 8-year-old girl who masquerades as boy and has been told she cannot remain in the Cub Scouts because, well, she’s objectively a girl:

From the moment he joined, 8-year-old Joe Maldonado eagerly looked forward to camping trips and science projects as a member of the Cub Scouts. But his expectations were dashed after his mother said she received a phone call from a scouting official who told her that Joe would no longer be allowed to participate because he was born a girl.

Kristie Maldonado said she was stunned because her son had been a member of Cub Scout Pack 87 in Secaucus for about a month, and his transgender status had not been a secret. But some parents complained…even though her son had been living as a boy for more than a year and was accepted as a boy at school.

…

The Boy Scouts did not respond to questions about whether they would accept a transgender girl whose birth certificate indicates she is male. They also did not respond when asked whether they would accept a transgender boy whose gender status on a birth certificate was changed from female to male.

…

Some people have questioned his gender identity before, [“Joes”] said, adding that it “got so annoying” having to tell people over and over that he is a boy. He said he was “disappointed” that he can no longer be a Cub Scout but would not want to go back without receiving an apology.

“How dare they judge me?” he said, adding of his gender identity: “I don’t have to explain it. It’s the way I’m born.”

First, a “transgender boy” is in reality a girl. “Joe” is not a “he.” Using incorrect pronouns is not a compassionate way to address this girl’s mistaken notion that she is boy trapped in a girl’s body or that she can become a boy through rhetoric, dress, and elaborate chemical and surgical interventions.

Second, birth certificates identify an objective condition—that is, sex—that stubbornly persists whether or not humans undergo chemical and surgical alterations. Birth certificates do not assign or determine “gender” as currently redefined. And birth certificates should be prohibited by law from being altered. The government has no business engaging in fraud.

It is Leftists who redefined “gender” to denote “socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women” rather than denote biological sex. In light of this Leftist redefinition, it makes no sense to have birth certificates identify the “socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women” of newborns.

Third, identifying someone’s sex does not constitute illicit judging. And holding the view that it is immoral and unhealthy to reject one’s sex does not constitute illicit judging (clearly “Joe” has been well-tutored in Leftist language and ideology). The Boys Scouts is a private club for boys. Therefore, requiring that those seeking membership in the Boy Scouts be, in reality, objectively male no more constitutes illicit judging than does requiring those seeking membership in the Mensa Society be, in reality, geniuses. Whether or not they “identify” as geniuses is irrelevant.

The USA Today article shared this troubling information from Justin Wilson, the executive director of Scouts for Equality, a homosexual advocacy organization:

[Wilson] knows of at least two transgender boys who are Cub Scouts about the same age as Joe, one in a southern state that he did not name and the other in New York. He said he did not want to be more specific because of concerns that the national organization might take steps against them. The use of birth certificates to determine gender identity, he said, would be “a new, unfair arbitrary standard” for membership.

Wilson is right that asking for birth certificates would be a new practice for membership in the Boy Scouts. Historically, there has never been a need to ask parents to provide birth certificates because parents weren’t disguising their children in order to help them pass as the opposite sex.

On everything else, Wilson was wrong:

1. As mentioned earlier, no one uses birth certificates to “determine gender identity.” Birth certificates are used to identify sex.

2. Enforcing policies that require Boy Scouts to be objectively male does not constitute taking steps “against” girls who are pretending to be boys.

3. Concealing violations of Boy Scout practices that restrict membership to boys is a serious ethical violation of the trust of parents.

4. It is neither “unfair” nor “arbitrary” to expect Boy Scouts to be boys. In fact, expecting all members of the Boy Scouts to be boys is the very antithesis of unfair and arbitrary. For the Left to assert that only some girls may become Boy Scouts—that is, those girls who wish they were boys—is unfair and arbitrary. Why restrict girls from joining the Boy Scouts just because they don’t experience gender dysphoria? After all, they didn’t choose to be “cisgender.” Wouldn’t limiting membership in the Boy Scouts to boys and girls with gender dysphoria thereby excluding “cisgender girls” constitute discrimination based on “gender identity”?

And this conundrum leads us to the place where sexual anarchists want society to go—the place where we, because of our shameful cowardice, are allowing ourselves to be led: the land of mandatory co-ed everything and language rules to efface sexual differentiation.

Inevitable end game of “trans”-activism

The Left claims that separations based on sex are equivalent to separations based on race, arguing that there is as little difference between biological males and females as there is between blacks and whites. Outgoing Attorney General Loretta Lynch described the practice of requiring separate facilities for blacks and whites as based on a “distinction without a difference,” implying that the difference between males and females is similarly insubstantial. This statement reveals a profound ignorance.

Blacks and whites are distinct by virtue of their skin color, which is, indeed, a distinction without a difference. But men and women are substantively and significantly different. Even homosexuals implicitly admit this truism when they claim they are romantically and erotically attracted only to persons of their same sex. Males and females are so different in fact that a gender-dysphoric girl is insisting that she join the Boy Scouts instead of the Girl Scouts. If the difference between boys and girls constitutes a “distinction without a difference”—like the difference between blacks and whites—then why must a gender-dysphoric girl join a club for boys only? Why isn’t her refusal to join the Girl Scouts tantamount to a white person refusing to share a restrooms with blacks?

If we accept the fanciful Leftist idea that there is no more difference between girls and boys than there is between blacks and whites, then how can we maintain any single-sex restrooms, locker rooms, and private clubs? Logically must we not allow all men, boys, girls, and women to use the same showers and join the same clubs? After all, blacks and whites do.

And this is where accepting science-denying Leftist assumptions about biological sex, “gender,” “gender identity,” and gender dysphoria buttressed by pseudo-science research will lead.

Dubious social science

Before everyone succumbs to the 21^st Century certitude of professional mental health alchemists, wizards, and shamans, let’s not forget how often once influential ideas in the field of psychology have been debunked (e.g., Freudian theories, “recovered memory syndrome”).

A study appearing in Science Magazine in August, 2015 reveals how woefully unreliable psychological research is. The authors of the study titled “Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science” explained that “We conducted replications of 100 experimental and correlational studies published in three psychology journals using high-powered designs and original materials when available,” and found that only “39% of effects were subjectively rated to have replicated the original result.”

Liberal Slate Magazine recently exposed just one study  in which researchers tried to replicate an influential earlier study on what is called “ego depletion”—a study on human willpower that has been cited over 3,000 times:

A paper now in press, and due to publish next month in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, describes a massive effort to reproduce the main effect that underlies this work [on ego depletion]. Comprising more than 2,000 subjects tested at two-dozen different labs on several continents, the study found exactly nothing. A zero-effect for ego depletion: No sign that the human will works as it’s been described, or that these hundreds of studies amount to very much at all.

Michael Inzlicht, researcher at the University of Toronto and co-author of the study that attempted to replicate the ego-depletion study, writes on his blog about the dire implications for social psychology (and I would add for culture) that result from bad research:

Our problems are not small and they will not be remedied by small fixes. Our problems are systemic and they are at the core of how we conduct our science….I’m in a dark place. I feel like the ground is moving from underneath me and I no longer know what is real and what is not….During my dark moments, I feel like social psychology needs a redo, a fresh start….Our problems are real and they run deep….What is not helping is the lack of acknowledgement about the severity of our problems. What is not helping is a reluctance to dig into our past and ask what needs revisiting.

Time is nigh to reckon with our past. Our future just might depend on it.

One final note about the relationship of science, social science, or pseudo-science as it pertains to volitional human behavior: Though science may be able to provide some information about the cause of feelings or desires, it can tell us nothing about the morality of actions that may be motivated by such feelings or desires. For example, science may be able to demonstrate that biological factors contribute to aggressive feelings, but such information tells us nothing about the morality of aggressive acts.

Similarly, science may one day demonstrate that biochemical factors contribute to the desire to be the opposite sex or the delusion that one is the opposite sex, but such research would tell us precisely nothing about the morality of cross-dressing, administering puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones, or surgically mutilating healthy body parts. We already know that the fall has affected not only our hearts, minds, and wills but also our bodies, which explains the presence of, for example, brain and endocrine disorders. It is no more moral for those with Gender Identity Disorder to have healthy breasts or testes amputated in the service of a futile quest to become the opposite sex than it is for “amputee-wannabes” (i.e., those with Body Integrity Identity Disorder) to have healthy arms or legs amputated. The causes of their disordered desires do not render their bodily mutilations moral.

Conclusion

It is not bigoted or hateful to recognize that sex is different from “gender identity” (i.e., subjective feelings about one’s sex). Even Leftists agree with that. It is not bigoted or hateful to say that biological sex is profoundly meaningful and is, in fact, the source of feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy when engaged in intimate activities. It is not bigoted or hateful to assert that in private spaces feelings about one’s sex should be subordinated to objective biological sex. Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts are for boys—not for girls who feel like boys, or girls who wish they were boys, or girls who falsely believe they are boys.

Practices and policies that permit biological females to use facilities or participate in activities limited to biological males teach all children the lie that physical embodiment as male or female is of less significance than feelings about one’s sex. It also teaches all children that in order to be compassionate, inclusive, and just, they must relinquish their privacy.

If biological sex is, in reality, more important than one’s feelings about one’s sex and is essential to what it means to be human, facilitating sex-rejection is deeply destructive.

Listen to this article HERE.

Year-End Challenge

As you may know, IFI has a year-end matching challenge to raise $110,000. That’s right, a small group of IFI supporters are providing a $55,000 matching challenge to help support IFI’s ongoing work to educate, motivate and activate Illinois’ Christian community.

Please consider helping us reach this goal!  Your donation will help us stand strong in 2017!  To make a credit card donation over the phone, please call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.  You can also send a gift to:

Illinois Family Institute
P.O. Box 876
Tinley Park, Illinois 60477

Recently, IFI’s Laurie Higgins was a guest on the Lawyers for Jesus Radio show hosted by attorney John Mauck, of the law firm Mauck & Baker, LLC.

https://soundcloud.com/mauckbaker/cultural-affairs-writer-laurie-higgins-discusses-christianity-and-the-lgbt-agenda

In this program, Higgins discusses the Illinois Family Institute’s mission which is to promote human flourishing — even for those who suffer from unwanted same-sex attraction. Currently in Illinois, it is illegal for a minor to receive reparative therapy, yet legal for a minor to get a double mastectomy.

It is the duty of churches, Higgins explains, to equip Christians to understand and refute both poor theological arguments and specious secular arguments that seek to normalize and promote homosexual activity. Churches need to help believers learn how to respond and be prepared to speak truth in love despite possible persecution. It is not love to affirm behavior, Higgins explains, that is harmful physically, mentally, and spiritually

Click here to listen to the interview.

End-of-Year Challenge

As you may know, IFI has a year-end matching challenge to raise $110,000. That’s right, a small group of IFI supporters are providing a $55,000 matching challenge to help support IFI’s ongoing work to educate, motivate and activate Illinois’ Christian community.

Please consider helping us reach this goal!  Your donation will help us stand strong in 2017!  To make a credit card donation over the phone, please call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.  You can also send a gift to:

Illinois Family Institute
P.O. Box 876
Tinley Park, Illinois 60477

The 21^st Century Leftist alchemical superstition that male humans can transmute into females or vice versa provides evidence that “progressives” are the real science-deniers and that contemporary man is not immune to the kind of indoctrination with irrational and destructive ideologies that has corrupted societies throughout history.

To move sex-alchemy from the fringes of society where it belonged into the mainstream required a revolutionary coup of the apparatuses of thought control: academia, mainstream press, the arts, religious institutions, and professional medical and pseudo-medical organizations.

To sustain this alchemical delusion also requires prohibiting everyone from asserting that the emperor wearing women’s clothing is actually a man, hence the demand that women share restrooms, showers, and shelters with emperors and other men, and the imposition of draconian consequences for those who dare to call the be-gowned, bedazzled emperor “Sir.”

The wholesale cultural embrace of the superstition that humans can change from male to female and vice versa relied too on redefining and inventing terms.

First, Leftists redefined “identity” to include all phenomena that constitute identity, from objective, non-behavioral phenomena like skin color to subjective desires and volitional activity like homoeroticism, and suggesting that human flourishing cannot be achieved unless all phenomena that constitute identity are affirmed by others. This was a way to render all aspects of “identity” immune from moral judgment. Before this redefinition, no one felt obligated to affirm all the subjective feelings or volitional activities of their fellow fallen men and women.

Then to further the cultural embrace of sex-alchemy, Leftists needed to separate the objective, immutable phenomenon of biological sex from subjective, often-fluid feelings and desires about one’s sex. This required a two-part rhetorical/conceptual contortionist move.

Leftists started by separating “gender,” which was formerly a synonym for sex, from sex. Gender came to denote the “socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.”

The second part involved the introduction of the term “gender identity,” which refers to one’s subjective feelings about one’s sex or as the Left says, one’s “internal sense” of being male or female. This was invented to provide rhetorical cover and ontological gravitas for subjective desires about objective phenomenon (i.e., one’s sex).

Next Leftists really went out into orbit by inventing the term “sex assignment.” But just as they were forced to change “sex change surgery” to “gender confirmation surgery,” they have been forced to change “sex assignment” to “infant gender assignment” in order to accommodate objective, scientific facts. Babies are no more “assigned” a sex at birth than they are assigned a species or a birth weight. Their sex is identified.

It’s impossible for the Left to keep from bumping into their own intellectual nonsense: If “gender” now refers to cultural expectations for boys and girls, it’s absurd to claim that doctors are assigning to babies cultural expectations. Doctors identify an objective, intrinsic feature of babies: their sex.

No matter, for Leftists one’s sixth sense about one’s sex is immeasurably more important than one’s sex.

So, in the service of their anti-science, alchemical tomfoolery, an organization called Queer Kid Stuff premiered their video series in April 2016 with ten more episodes posted in the fall. The creator and host of this video series is lesbian Lindsay Amer who describes Queer Kid Stuff as a beacon of educational light for children ages 3-7:

Queer Kid Stuff is a new webseries educating kids on LGBTQ+ topics! Queer representation and content for children is scarce and Queer Kid Stuff aims to eliminate stigma by properly educating future generations through entertaining video content. The pilot episode…tackles the subject; What Does Gay Mean? A simple enough subject, but you would be surprised the amount [sic] of young children who might not know the answer to that question….10 brand new episodes…debuted in Fall 2016 covering topics including non-binary genders and trans* identities, marriage equality, feminism, and queer themes in children’s pop culture.

…Lindsay and her best stuffed friend Teddy explain queer topics through a vlog-style conversation with young viewers focused on love and family. The short videos are a tool for parents, teachers, and LGBTQ+ adults to help them explain these words and ideas to young children….

The Left evidently learned one lesson from Aristotle who said, “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.”

Amer says this about herself: “As a queer little tomboy growing up in New York City, I struggled with my sexuality. I am incredibly lucky to have grown up…with liberal parents who could care less about whether I’m gay or straight or whatever.”

And this is the woman who is using social media to “entertain” young children with lies that cloud the hearts and minds of our littlest ones.

Here is just one of the ten short videos of host Amer and her teddy bear sidekick “properly educating future generations” on sexual deviance (i.e., “transgenderism”). It’s titled “T is for TRANS! – Transgender.” Note how she muddies the waters when explaining that doctors “announce that babies are boys or girls” by  calling these announcements “gender assignments” rather than sex-identifications:

This kind of polemical, science-denying, doctrinaire indoctrination “identified” as “proper education” and cloaking itself in the accouterments of Mr. Rogers-esque edutainment should impel those who seek truth to be vigilant about the ideas to which their children are exposed, including in school.

“It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck
and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.”
~Luke 17:2~

End-of-Year Challange

As you may know, IFI has a year-end matching challenge to raise $110,000. That’s right, a small group of IFI supporters are providing a $55,000 matching challenge to help support IFI’s ongoing work to educate, motivate and activate Illinois’ Christian community.

Please consider helping us reach this goal!  Your donation will help us stand strong in 2017!  To make a credit card donation over the phone, please call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.  You can also send a gift to:

Illinois Family Institute
P.O. Box 876
Tinley Park, Illinois 60477

*WARNING: NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN*

Orange Coast College, a community college in Costa Mesa, CA, employs Olga Perez Stable Cox to teach classes on human sexuality. During a recent human sexuality class, Cox went on an anti-Trump/anti-Pence/anti-conservative rant which was recorded by a student and posted online. In it Cox is heard calling President-Elect Donald Trump a “white supremacist” and Vice-President-Elect Mike Pence “one of the most anti-gay humans in this country.” She further described the election of Trump as an “assault” and “an act of terrorism.”

Then in an act of astonishing hubris and irrationality, Cox condemns everyone who voted for Trump:

One of the most frightening things for me and most people in my life is that the people creating the assault are among us. It is not some stranger from some other country coming and attacking our sense of what it means to be an American and the things that we stand for and that makes it more painful because I’m sure that all of us have people in our families and our circle of friends that are part of that movement and it is very difficult. 

There is a second, less-viewed video in which Cox expresses her happiness that Orange County, California where she lives voted Democratic, saying that “Living in Orange County is scary” because it’s conservative.

Apparently not noticing the irony, Cox goes on to say that she is committed to keeping her “classroom safe.” In the service of “safety,” she tells students she will provide phone numbers they can call if they “find anyone being racist, or in any way prejudiced, or treating you in an unfair way”—with “unfair” being determined by Leftist assumptions. Last time I checked, it’s as legal to be a racist bigot as it is to be an anti-Christian or anti-conservative bigot.

Two students also report that Cox “tried to get everyone who voted for Donald Trump to stand up and show the rest of the class who to watch out for and protect yourself from.” She has a very odd way of making conservative students feel (in “progressive” parlance) “safe.”

Here’s a bit more on Cox who has no academic degrees in political science and was not hired to pontificate on matters political. She is a 64-year-old lesbian with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a master’s degree in “Marriage, Family, and Child Counseling.”

On her faculty bio site, there is no curriculum vitae, but there is a lengthy list of sexuality resources including links to Go Ask Alice, Out Proud, Alternative Sex, Planned Parenthood, SIECUS, National Coalition of Sexual Freedom, American Civil Liberties Union, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Human Rights Campaign, The Advocate (homosexual magazine) and two pornographic websites. She also provides links to the websites of numerous “sex educators” including Annie Sprinkle a “feminist stripper” who for a performance “art” piece titled “A Public Cervix Announcement” inserted a speculum into her nether region and invited male and female audience members to view her cervix with a flashlight—which they did.

So, California residents pay the salary of a woman who refers students to Annie Sprinkle’s website. Sheesh.

It would be interesting to learn more about what qualifies Cox to teach collegiate-level courses in human sexuality—well, other than her extensive familiarity with homosexual and pornographic websites.

The Coast Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 1911 took to Facebook to extol the virtues of Cox and criticize the student who recorded her unprofessional whining. The teachers union claims Cox “encourages open discussions on challenging and provocative issues and topics” and “skillfully allows students to respectfully present their varying opinions.” From what I saw, there was no encouragement of an open discussion” regarding the election unless asking Trump-voters to stand in a line-up encourages open discussion.

“Progressives” are usually obsessed with power dynamics, and yet there’s nary a peep from the union about the power differential between Cox and her students. After Cox accuses those who voted for Trump of being terrorists, how comfortable would the alleged “terrorists” be in challenging Cox’s provocative claims when she has the power to pass or fail them?

It’s clear that Cox had no interest in fostering dialogue or critically examining her assumptions. Her goal was to inculcate students with her beliefs using—not reason—but demagoguery.

Safety

Let’s take a quick look at the way “progressives” have redefined “safety,” which is inextricably entwined with their redefinition of “identity.”

Safety used to refer to freedom from danger, injury, or serious risk. It did not refer to freedom from exposure to unpleasant ideas, claims, or beliefs—even ideas, claims, or beliefs that criticize  beliefs and feelings that we may place at the center of our identities. Safety does not require that others respect the beliefs and feelings we place at the center of our identities or the life choices that emerge from those beliefs and feelings. To respect something means to hold it in esteem, and no one has an ethical obligation to hold all the beliefs, feelings, or volitional actions of others in esteem.

Here’s another proposition the Left should chew on: Conservatives have no ethical obligation to acquiesce to the rhetoric that they manipulate to serve their social and political goals. Conservatives have no ethical obligation to accept the Left’s beliefs about “safety.” And conservatives have no ethical obligation to accept the Left’s assumptions about what constitutes harm.

Accepting the claim of the “self-esteem movement” that irreparable harm will be done to people if their feelings, beliefs, or volitional acts are not affirmed by others has led us to a cultural place where infantilized college students seek succor in nurseries safe spaces replete with puppies and crayons following a bracing encounter with ideas they find offensive.

Identity

It’s impossible to discuss “safety” as currently construed by “progressives” without also discussing “identity” as currently construed by “progressives,” which I did earlier this year:

Homosexual activists began transforming the concept of “identity.” They sought to recast identity as something intrinsically inviolable, immutable, and good. They sought to refashion identity in such a way as to make it culturally taboo to make judgments about any constituent feature of identity. They re-imagined identity in such a way as to move homoeroticism from the category of phenomena about which humans can legitimately make moral distinctions to one about which society is forbidden to make judgments.

…Identity when applied to individual persons simply denoted the aggregate of phenomena constituting, associated with, affirmed, and experienced by individuals. Identity was “the set of behavioral and personal characteristics by which an individual is recognizable as a member of a group.”

Identity was not conceived as some intrinsically moral thing, because identity could refer to either objective, non-behavioral, morally neutral conditions (e.g., skin color) or to subjective feelings, beliefs, and volitional acts that could be good or bad, right or wrong. Prior to the new and subversive conceptualization of identity, there existed no absolute cultural prohibition of judging the divers elements that constitute identity.

By conflating all the phenomena that can constitute identity, “progressives” demanded that society should no more make judgments about feelings and volitional acts than they should about skin color.

While Cox clearly cares deeply about the “safety” of the privileged “identity” groups, one wonders if she has any interest in the “safety” of those who find their identity in Christ. The expanded redefinition of “safety” to mean insulation from unpleasant ideas is selectively enforced to apply only to those ideas that make “progressives” uncomfortable—or enraged.

End-of-Year Challange

As you may know, IFI has a year-end matching challenge to raise $110,000. That’s right, a small group of IFI supporters are providing a $55,000 matching challenge to help support IFI’s ongoing work to educate, motivate and activate Illinois’ Christian community.

Please consider helping us reach this goal!  Your donation will help us stand strong in 2017!  To make a credit card donation over the phone, please call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.  You can also send a gift to:

Illinois Family Institute
P.O. Box 876
Tinley Park, Illinois 60477

Three years ago, sensing that his pastor at an Evangelical Covenant Church in a Chicago suburb was moving away from theological orthodoxy on homoerotic activity, same-sex relationships, and marriage,  a regular attendee initiated a conversation with his pastor that this past April culminated in the pastor’s  troubling—though not surprising—admission that he no longer affirms either biblical orthodoxy or the Covenant Church’s position on these critical issues.

Yet more troubling still, this pastor—let’s call him Rev. X—revealed that those in authority over him were aware of his rejection of theological orthodoxy as well as the denomination’s position on these matters but were doing nothing. In other words, no church discipline.

Moreover, Rev. X has not yet revealed his abandonment of orthodoxy to his congregation.

Instead last month Rev. X embarked on a quest to lead his flock away from Scripture while claiming he merely seeks to make the church a “welcoming” place for those who identify as homosexual and to make the church a place in which “diverse” theological views are represented.

Rev. X’s transformation from orthodoxy to heresy and his unholy efforts to lead his congregation astray offer important lessons for Christians of every theological stripe because efforts to normalize homosexuality (and gender dysphoria) in and through the church will eventually sully every church’s sanctuary.

Here are just a few thoughts generated by the abandonment of orthodoxy by Rev. X and increasing numbers of church leaders on matters related to homoeroticism:

1.)  Revisionist pastors and theologians claim their goal is to make the church “welcoming” and “inclusive,” but as “progressives” so often do, they use language to dissemble. Rev. X’s church has always been a welcoming and inclusive church if by welcoming and inclusive one means welcoming and including sinners. All sinners are welcome and included at this church and always have been. Rev. X is not really seeking to ensure that those whose besetting sin is homoerotic activity are welcomed and included at his church. Rather, he no longer believes homoerotic activity is sin. He seeks to make those who place their unchosen homoerotic attraction at the center of their identity feel welcome and included by telling them that homoerotic activity is not sinful. Rev. X wants his church to welcome homosexuals by telling them there is no need to repent of homoerotic activity because it is not now nor ever has been sinful. Apparently, in Rev. X’s view, scholars throughout the first two thousand years of church history (and continuing to the present) made one huge exegetical blunder. It took Leftist scholars immersed in a culture polluted by the sexual revolution to discover that God has never disapproved of homoerotic activity.

2.)  “Progressives” toss around the word “love” a lot without a close examination of what true love is. They rightly assert that Christians should be Christ-like, but the portrait they paint of Christ is in reality a self-portrait. They begin with a faint outline of the biblical Jesus and fill in the details with their own desires. The Jesus “progressives” worship is a Jesus separate from his holiness. It’s a fictional Jesus whose love does not demand that our old selves die.

True love of one human for another, like Christ’s love for man, entails desiring that which is objectively good for others, and, therefore, Christ-like love requires knowing first what is true. We learn about truth from Scripture. Deeming good that which the Old Testament moral code condemns as wicked is wicked. Affirming that which the apostle Paul teaches will result in eternal damnation is the antithesis of love. We cannot be more Christ-like by condoning and affirming sin as righteousness.

3.)  Rev. X believes that the “theology of welcome commanded by Christ” is “to reach out in love to all people, beginning with the love of Jesus, trusting it will do its work among those who come to him by faith.” But Christ’s love is not separate from his expectation that those who come to him must repent. And repentance from sin is hampered when shepherds call sin righteousness.

4.)  It was only during the latter half of the latter half of the 20^th Century that any theologian arrived at the conclusion that Scripture does not condemn homoerotic activity. Both a plain reading of Scripture and deep, careful exegesis reveal that God condemns all homoerotic activity—not just temple prostitution or other exploitative activity. It is only tortured exegesis prompted first by human desire that leads to the conclusion that neither the Old nor New Testaments mean what they clearly say.

5.)  Marriage is a picture of Christ and his bride, the church. To argue that marriage can be composed of two people of the same sex necessarily means there is no difference in function or role between Christ and his church, which is surely heresy.

6.)  Those who embrace heresy repeatedly claim that the church should be a place where diverse theological positions are permitted. But is this an absolute claim? Are there any issues on which Scripture plainly speaks and which do not permit diverse interpretations? If not, what constitutes heresy? Historically, diversity has been tolerated on issues on which Scripture is unclear. Scripture is clear on the ontology of marriage and the immorality of homoerotic activity.

7.)  It is not possible for a church to embrace both the belief that homoerotic activity, same-sex relationships, and same-sex “marriage” are pleasing to God and the belief that they are abhorrent to God. That kind of contradiction cannot be sustained. Those who reject two millennia of teaching on homoeroticism and marriage are embracing heresy. Those who affirm heresy are wolves in sheep’s clothing.

8.)  Every year heretical theologians in many denominations (e.g., North Park Seminary professor Michelle Clifton-Soderstrom) are working like the devil to lead leaders astray who then lead their flocks astray. Any denominational or nondenominational church leader who decides to embrace heresy in the service of the “theology of welcome” should be encouraged to welcome Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon, arguably the world’s foremost scholar on the topic of the Bible and homosexuality, to discuss and debate the topic—you know, in the service of diversity and inclusivity.

In November, Rev. X initiated a discussion  series on “LGBTQ” inclusion led by himself and another heretic and chief author of a petition that Rev. X and 114 other Evangelical Covenant Church leaders signed in January of 2015 urging the Evangelical Covenant Church to allow churches to reject theological orthodoxy on matters related to homosexuality. Since Rev. X includes the “T” for “transgender” in his discussion series, some intrepid adherent to orthodoxy should ask Rev. X if inclusivity demands that men who pretend to be women be permitted to use the women’s facilities at his church.  Should men who pretend to be women be permitted to teach children’s Sunday School classes? And should they be permitted to be camp counselors for girls?

Those who confront heretical church leaders like Rev. X will be accused of undermining unity and promoting schism. During those painful moments of division and strife, they should remember that unity never trumps truth.

Theologian and pastor Doug Wilson provides some clarity about the issues of heresy, schism, and the critical importance of church discipline:

Scripture teaches us to attack divisiveness with discipline. We don’t answer division with unity; we answer division with discipline. Divisiveness and heresy need to be addressed in local congregations every bit as much as adultery and embezzlement do. And when we separate from a schismatic, we are not being schismatic. We are not doing the same thing he is doing….

[T]here is another kind of future unity that we are supposed to grow up into (Eph. 4:13), when we finally arrive at the perfect man, in the unity of the faith. When we have arrived there, it will have been because we have rejected various winds of doctrine, the sleight of mind, and the cunning craftiness of false teachers (Eph. 4:14). In other words, in order to grow up into the truth, we have to reject the liars. And we do so while speaking the truth in love (Eph. 4:15). Identifying and rejecting the liars, the divisive, the sectarians, and the schismatics is therefore the path to catholicity. It is not part of the harvest—it is removing rocks from the fields during the plowing and planting.

Rev. X is not really advocating for tolerance, inclusivity, or diversity. He is sowing the seeds of heresy in his church and denomination. He is incrementally leading his flock astray. If he believes homoerotic activity and same-sex unions can be holy and pleasing to God, it makes no rational or moral sense for him to long tolerate the belief that homoerotic unions are intrinsically and profoundly wicked. It is  morally incumbent upon any church leaders who believe committed same-sex unions please God to denounce the belief that God condemns homoerotic activity and unions.

What Rev. X is now teaching will harm in incalculable ways the temporal and eternal lives of those whom he seeks to welcome by calling sin holy. His teaching will harm children and families. And his teaching will harm the Christian witness. Rev. X stands with those shining artificial light on the broad road that leads to destruction. In pursuit of a worldly understanding of “inclusion,” Rev. X and his accomplices are leading Christians to eternal exclusion from God’s glorious presence.

Join IFI at our Feb. 18th Worldview Conference

We are excited about our third annual Worldview Conference featuring world-renowned theologian Dr. Frank Turek on Sat., Feb. 18, 2017 in Barrington. Dr. Turek is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist”

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!

Yesterday, I wrote about the profoundly unjust decision of the ideologically imbalanced three-member panel of commissioners from the Illinois Human Rights Commission who decided that Christian bed and breakfast owner Jim Walder should pay $80,000 for refusing to rent his facilities to a same-sex couple for their civil union ceremony.

In that article, I questioned both the lack of ideological representation on the panel, which included two homosexual activists and no conservatives, as well as on the full 13-member commission. I questioned whether the commission is skirting the law that prohibits more than 7 members of the same political party from serving on the commission by identifying 2 of its members as Independents when in reality they are Democrats.

There are yet more questions about the political composition of the Illinois Human Rights Commission, this time about Commissioner Hermene Hartman who is identified as one of the five Republicans serving on the 13-member commission.

Hartman is the publisher of Chicago “lifestyle publication” N’DIGO.com. Her bio on Huffington Post describes Hartman as “one of the most significant and influential Black women in American publishing….N’DIGO, was founded in 1989, as a weekly lifestyle publication for progressive readers.”

Hartman was a Democrat until Bruce Rauner ran for governor and began disbursing money in the black community, which included, according to the Chicago Tribune, paying Hartman “$10,000 per month for her outreach efforts.”

After Rauner’s victory, he appointed Hartman to the Illinois Human Rights Commission, where the Chicago Sun Times reports Hartman earns “$46,960-a-year…accompanied by personal insurance perks.”

Interesting fiscal tidbit: The Better Government Association (BGA) reports that “Commissioners devoted an average 12.9 hours per month to official state business for the fiscal year 2011.” That comes out to approximately $322 per hour—on average.

The BGA explained that “Time commitments varied widely, from an average of fewer than seven hours per month to 20 hours.” Those who work 20 hours per month make a paltry $207 per hour, while those who work 7 hours per month make $594 per hour. Not bad, not bad at all. Perhaps those workers who are fighting for minimum wage increases should take a gander at what some state employees make in impoverished Illinois.

Hartman endorsed Hillary Clinton in the recent election. Maybe Hartman has converted back to the Democratic Party. If “Independents” Terry Cosgrove (a homosexual activist and pro-feticide fanatic) and Patricia Bakalis Yadgir, and “Republican” Hermene Hartman are all, in reality, Democrats, the Illinois Human Rights Commission is in violation of state law that limits the number of commissioners from the same political party to 7.

My math-challenged pea brain thinks there may be up to 9 Democrats serving on the commission that will decide whether to subordinate constitutionally protected religious liberty to homoerotic privilege.

If you haven’t let Govenor Rauner’s office know what you think of this feckless ruling and the corrupt IHRC, please do so now.

Take ACTION:  Please click HERE to contact Governor Rauner to express your opposition to his appointments of Democrats Hermene Hartman and homosexual activists Duke Alden and to urge him to investigate the Illinois Human Rights Commission’s efforts to circumvent the law prohibiting political imbalance on the Commission.

Listen to this as a podcast HERE.

The Illinois Family Institute is completely dependent on the voluntary contributions of individuals just like you.  Without you, we would be unable to represent our Christian values in Springfield or fight the radical agenda being pushed by the godless Left in our culture.

Please consider chipping in $25 or $50 to support our work to stand boldly in the public square.

Click HERE to make a tax-deductible donation.

To make a credit card donation over the phone,
please call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.

A three-person panel of commissioners from the 13-member Illinois Human Rights Commission (IHRC) has decided not to review the egregious decision of IHRC administrative law judge Michael Robinson in the discrimination complaint filed by homosexuals Todd and Mark Wathen against Christian bed and breakfast owner Jim Walder.

In 2011, the now “married” Wathens, inquired about renting the Timber Creek Bed & Breakfast facility in Paxton, Illinois for their civil union ceremony. Because of his religious beliefs about the immorality of homoerotic activity and relationships, Mr. Walder informed Todd Wathen that he would not rent his facilities to Mr. Wathen and his partner for a civil union ceremony.

The Wathens then filed a discrimination complaint with the IHRC—a kangaroo-esque tribunal committed to normalizing homoeroticism through quasi-judicial means.

Last spring, Judge Michael Robinson issued his order which would require Mr. Walder to do the following:

– Pay $15,000 each to Todd and Mark Wathen as compensation for their emotional distress arising out of the issue.

-Cease and desist from violating the Human Rights Act by denying same-sex couples access to its facilities and services for marriages and civil unions.

-Offer the Wathens access to the facility, within one year, for an event celebrating their civil union.

-Pay the Wathens’ attorneys $50,000 in fees and $1,218 in costs.

Mr. Walder’s attorney, Jason Craddock, filed an “exception” which was reviewed by the three commissioners who have decided that Judge Robinson’s decision should stand.

If you’re not angry yet, here’s some information that may raise your hackles.

• All of the Illinois Human Rights commissioners are appointed bureaucrats—not elected.

• Only one of the three commissioners who reviewed the Walder case is an attorney.

• Two of the three commissioners who reviewed this case are homosexual activists: Terry Cosgrove and Duke Alden.

• Homosexual activist Duke Alden was appointed to the Illinois Human Rights kangaroo court by Governor Bruce Rauner.

Here’s a bit more information on homosexual activists Cosgrove and Alden:

• Terry Cosgrove was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 2014. He is also a passionate and unrelenting foe of the right of preborn babies to be free from extermination. He is president and CEO of pro-feticide Personal PAC and “has lent assistance to NARAL, Planned Parenthood, NOW, National Pro-Choice Resource Center, Voters for Choice, Women’s Campaign Fund and the Emergency Abortion Loan Fund.” Cosgrove was also “honored” with the dubious “Freedom of Choice” award by the Chicago Abortion Fund. Cosgrove was appointed by former Governor Pat Quinn after donating $400,000 to help fund Quinn’s victory over Bill Brady.

• Rauner appointee Democrat Duke Alden is the chairman of Howard Brown Health, an “LGBT” health and social services organization. Alden served on the host committee for a “Presidential Debate Viewing Party” for “Chicago’s LGBT community to cheer on Hillary Clinton.”

The third commissioner on the panel was Patricia Bakalis Yadgir, a Quinn appointee whose husband is Director of Communications and Senior Policy Advisor for Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White and whose father is former state comptroller, former state superintendent of education, and former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Michael Bakalis.

Here’s where it really gets interesting. State law prohibits more than seven members of the same political party from serving on the IHRC. Currently there are 6 Democrats, 5 Republicans, and two “Independents.” And who do you think the two “Independents” are? None other than (no snickering) Terry Cosgrove and Patricia Bakalis Yadgir.

In reality, therefore, there are 8 Democrat and 5 Republican commissioners on the IHRC. And there were no Republicans on the panel reviewing the complaint against the Walders.

So, after learning a bit more about the commissioners who made the decision on the Wathen’s complaint, can anyone read this statement from the Illinois Human Rights Commission with a straight face:

The Commission provides a neutral forum for resolving complaints of discrimination filed under the Illinois Human Rights Act….Our primary responsibility is to make impartial determinations of whether there has been unlawful discrimination, as defined by the Illinois Human Rights Act.

Here are just a few comments about marriage, homoeroticism, and the plight of Christian owners of wedding-related businesses on which the intellectually slothful among us might spend some time ruminating:

• Marriage has an intrinsic nature central to which is sexual differentiation and without which a union is not in reality a marriage.

• The law cannot change the intrinsic nature of marriage. The law can no more transform intrinsically non-marital unions into marriages by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples than it could change cats into dogs by issuing them dog licenses.

• When homosexuals say they are attracted only to persons of their same sex, they are implicitly acknowledging that men and women are fundamentally different. Therefore, a union composed of two people of the same sex is fundamentally different from a union composed of two people of different sexes.

• A union composed of two people of the same sex is the antithesis of a marriage. It is an anti-marriage. The ceremony that solemnizes such a union is an anti-wedding. The cake that is served at the anti-wedding reception is an anti-wedding cake. The floral arrangements adorning an anti-wedding reception are anti-wedding floral arrangements.

• Neither Mr. Walder nor any of the florists, bakers, wedding-venue owners, or photographers who have been sued by petulant homosexuals have refused to serve homosexuals. Rather, they refused to create products or provide services for a type of event for which they have never created products or provided services and one which violates their religious convictions. In fact, many of the Christian business-owners who have been sued have served homosexuals on many occasions—an inconvenient fact for Leftists.

• The term “sexual orientation” should never have been added to anti-discrimination laws or policies. It is a rhetorical invention of the Left contrived to conflate heterosexuality and homoeroticism. Heterosexuality and homoeroticism are not flipsides of the sexuality coin. In any objective sense all humans are heterosexual in that their anatomy and biology are designed for heterosexual activity. Homoeroticism is a disordering of the sexual impulse.

• Unlike other legally protected classes that are objectively constituted and carry no behavioral implications (e.g., race, sex, nation of origin), homoeroticism is constituted by subjective feelings and volitional sexual activity. Therefore, homoeroticism is a condition about which humans have every right to make moral judgments.

Mr. Walder has two remaining options: He may file an appeal to have the case reviewed by the entire ideologically imbalanced 13-member IHRC or file an appeal with an appellate court. Let’s hope he and his legal counsel don’t stop now.

Take ACTION:  Please click HERE to contact Governor Rauner to express your opposition to his appointment of Democrat and homosexual activist Duke Alden and to urge him to investigate the Illinois Human Rights Commission’s efforts to circumvent the law prohibiting political imbalance on the Commission.

Listen to this as a podcast HERE.

The Illinois Family Institute is completely dependent on the voluntary contributions of individuals just like you.  Without you, we would be unable to represent our Christian values in Springfield or fight the radical agenda being pushed by the godless Left in our culture.

Please consider chipping in $25 or $50 to support our work to stand boldly in the public square.

Click HERE to make a tax-deductible donation.

To make a credit card donation over the phone,
please call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.

Glimmers of light shimmer in the darkness that has been spreading within public schools.  The darkness is caused by a fog of science-denying ignorance imposed on school districts from within by teachers and administrators who view themselves as agents of social, political, and moral change and from without by “trans” activists from organizations like the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), the ACLU, and Lambda Legal.

The newest battle is taking place in Pine-Richland High School in western Pennsylvania where on September 12, 2016,  five courageous school board members voted to establish policy requiring students to use either the restrooms that correspond to their biological sex, or a single-occupancy “unisex” restroom, or a single-occupancy restroom in the nurse’s office.

But these generous accommodations were not enough for three gender-dysphoric students. Following the board decision, two boys who are pretending to be girls and one girl who is pretending to be a boy filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against the district, the superintendent, and the principal.

One of the students, Jacob Evancho (brother of America’s Got Talent star Jackie Evancho) who now goes by the name “Juliet,” claims that before he was required to use sex-appropriate restrooms, “Pine-Richland was a safe, and kind…place. Everyone was so sweet.”

His comment illustrates one of the many problems with policies that permit gender-dysphoric students to use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms. These policies teach all students that in order to be kind, sweet, compassionate, and inclusive, they must pretend that biological sex per se has no meaning relative to modesty, and they must be willing to relinquish their privacy. Sex-integrated restroom and locker room policies teach all students that people’s  feelings about their sex trump their actual sex in private spaces.

But the school district is resisting. It has filed a lawsuit asking that the discrimination lawsuit be dismissed.

Lambda Legal, an organization that fights for co-ed restrooms and locker rooms for children and teens, and which is representing the three gender-dysphoric students in this lawsuit castigates the school district for their “shameful” actions, suggesting that opposition to co-ed restrooms renders gender-dysphoric students unable to “fully participate in their education.”

Why does requiring gender-dysphoric students to use restrooms with those whose “gender identity” they don’t share prevent them from being able to fully participate in their education, but requiring non-gender-dysphoric students (i.e., normal students) to use restrooms with persons whose sex they don’t share doesn’t prevent them from being able to fully participate in their education?

“Juliet’s” mother Lisa Evancho says this about the policy:

It makes me angry. It makes me wonder what kind of Neanderthals…think it’s appropriate to go in there and start picking on a particular segment of the population and make it all about them.

Why does the desire of normal students to use restrooms or locker rooms with only students whose sex they share constitute “picking on a segment of the population,” while demands by gender-dysphoric students to use restrooms or locker rooms with only students whose “gender identity” they share does not constitute “picking on a segment of the population”? Why is it unkind to require students to use restrooms with persons of their same sex but requiring  students to use restrooms with persons of the opposite sex is a sign of kindness?

If there are two distinct phenomena (i.e., biological sex which is constituted by objective DNA/anatomy/biology and “gender identity” which is constituted by subjective feelings/desires), why should restroom and locker room usage correspond to “gender identity” rather than objective biological sex?

“Juliet” Evancho claims that using a single-occupancy unisex restroom “marginalizes” him. In reality, however, it is not the policy that marginalizes him. It is his decision to acquiesce to his disordered desire to be the sex he is not and can never be that marginalizes him.

No one should be compelled to pretend Evancho is what he is not. But that’s exactly what the Left believes should happen. Since in the dystopian world of “progressivism,” subjective feelings trump all other considerations—including morality and reality—everyone must bend the knee to feelings, including even disordered, irrational, science-denying feelings.

Well, let me qualify that: Not all feelings are treated equally. The feelings of modesty that boys and girls and men and women who don’t want to share restrooms or locker rooms with persons of the opposite sex experience mean nothing. In fact, to Leftists such feelings are Neanderthal, ignorant, and hateful and must be eradicated.

Save the Date!  Feb. 18th Worldview Conference

We are excited about our third annual Worldview Conference featuring world-renowned theologian Dr. Frank Turek on Sat., Feb. 18, 2017 in Barrington. Dr. Turek is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist”

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!