1

No-Stress Restrooms at New York College

Well, now, that didn’t take long. Yesterday, I warned about the dystopian cultural landscape that the sexual subversives among us are pursuing with unholy fervor and at breakneck speed. They seek to end all public recognition and accommodation of sex differences. I clearly didn’t issue my warning early enough.

Sexual revolutionaries drunk with anti-cultural power, aided and abetted by bootlicking government and business leaders, are successfully eliminating public recognition of the value and meaning of sex differences. At Manhattan’s uber-regressive Cooper Union College, they’ve leaped ahead a step or two. Rather than allow just gender-confused students and faculty to use opposite-sex restrooms, the Cooper Union administration decided, what the heck, just let everyone use any facility his, her or zir heart’s desire. All sex-segregated restrooms are gone. Nary a one left. Interim president Bill Mea offered this bizarre defense:

When there’s a gendered space, there’s a sense of ownership to that space….When people see someone who [sic] they think doesn’t belong there, it can create stress for everyone. So we thought, let’s just take that away.

Oddly, in the olden days when restrooms corresponded to one’s objective sex rather than subjective feelings about one’s objective sex, I never felt I “owned” restrooms. I didn’t feel I owned women’s restrooms in stores, malls, health clubs, schools, or movie theaters. I used them.

And I’m pretty sure that giving all men free rein to use women’s restrooms is not going to decrease women’s stress.

Mea is correct, however, I did believe some people didn’t belong in the women’s restrooms I used: objectively male people. Still do, as a matter of fact. I “feel” that the objective sex of people matters. It has meaning and value and is the source of feelings of modesty and desires for privacy. I don’t want to be forced to use restrooms, dressing rooms, or showers with those whose sex I don’t share. I don’t think other women or men should be either.

Now restroom signage at Cooper Union offers these distinctions:

  • “Urinals and stalls”
  • “Stalls only”
  • “Single occupancy”

Young’uns, you may not know this, but in the backward, hateful gendered days of yore when objective, immutable sex differences meant something, these restrooms corresponded to (TRIGGER WARNING!) male, female, and faculty respectively (I wonder how many male faculty members will be using the “stalls only” restrooms).

This is coming everywhere, my friends. Culture-destroying movements always start on the fringy edges of society where the feckless live and move and have their being. And then they begin their march to the center.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s time to get those dusty spines out of the attic. Stop all that stooping and groveling at the altar of sexual deviance and irrationality. Stand tall. Be courageous. Speak and act as if you believe your beliefs are in reality true. If you know that being created as male or female has profound meaning, then do something about it.



Concerned about Common Core Standards?Dr. Pesta - Copy

Join us this Friday (April 8th) in Orland Park for yet another IFI Forum, this time exploring The Case Against Common Core with Dr. Duke Pesta.  Click HERE for more information.

Click HERE for a flyer of the event.




The Left Seeks End of Sex-Segregation Everywhere

A funny thing happened on the way to the following article getting published. After two pieces appeared in the Chicago Tribune mocking and maligning those who believe sex differences matter, I submitted an op-ed in which I express an opposing view. The associate editor of the Chicago Tribune’s Commentary section, Marcia Lythcott sent me this response:

I would love you to offer up an opposing viewpoint but you have submitted a rant. There is no way that this piece would make those on the fence say “Hmmm, that a really interesting viewpoint to consider.” I feel like you are jabbing the opposition in the eyes nonstop. Is it possible for you to do a rewrite, one that is less doctrinaire and reader-friendly? The point is to have as many readers as possible read a piece to the bitter end. I fear that many will stop reading your submission by the third paragraph. No one wants to be screamed at.

Readers can make their own judgments about the professionalism and accuracy of Lythcott’s eye-jabbing response, but before doing so, please take a few minutes to read the two pieces that prompted my op-ed, one by Rex Huppke and one by Mary Sanchez. See if their articles are less eye-jabbing, doctrinaire, ranting, and screaming than mine.

“The Left Seeks End of Sex-Segregation Everywhere”
Written by Laurie Higgins — First published on American Thinker

North Carolina’s attorney general recently announced that he would not fulfill his duty to defend a duly enacted law one of the purposes of which was to preserve the right of communities to require that restrooms correspond to biological sex rather than “gender identity.” Progressives are incensed by this type of legislation, which is proposed by conservatives in response to leftist actions in the service of their subversive beliefs about gender dysphoria. Progressives want any persons who wish they were the opposite sex to have unrestricted access to opposite-sex private areas, including restrooms, locker rooms, showers, dressing rooms and single-sex shelters. In the brave new progressive world, beliefs about the meaningfulness of objective, immutable physical embodiment as male or female must be subordinated to desires to be the opposite sex.

The left seeks to prohibit “discrimination” based on “gender identity” and “gender expression” in all contexts, including those areas that were created for the sole purpose of recognizing and accommodating objective, immutable sex differences. The prohibition of discrimination based on sex and the prohibition of discrimination based on “gender identity” and “gender expression” with regard to facilities in which private activities take place are wholly incompatible. The former permits society in some contexts to accommodate sex differences. The latter forbids society in any context from accommodating real, objective, immutable differences between men and women.

Some progressives dishonestly claim that conservatives are “obsessed” with so-called “bathroom bills,” when in reality it’s gender-dysphoric activists and their ideological allies who are obsessed with radically altering the cultural understanding of sex. They seek to mandate that sex-separated facilities, like restrooms, for private activities no longer correspond to the biological sex of humans but to the subjective feelings of humans about their sex.

Progressives ignore substantive conservative arguments. They recast arguments about the nature and meaning of sexual differentiation as bigotry; flippantly mock potential risks, particularly for girls and women; and wholly ignore the near universal understanding that separate facilities for men and women to engage in private activities exist because objective bodily differences exist and have meaning.

The concern of conservatives is not centrally about gender-dysphoric men assaulting women or girls — though that risk is not nil. The safety concern is, rather, that predators may exploit these policies, pretending to be gender-dysphoric in order to access women’s private facilities.

But even this is not the central concern. The central concern is with the meaning and value of physical embodiment from which feelings of modesty and desires for privacy derive.

In order to justify the injustice and irrationality of policies that force women and men to share private areas with persons of the opposite sex, the left resorts to unsound comparisons of gender dysphoria per se to race per se. Their error rests in the fact that while there are no intrinsic and meaningful differences between people of different races, there are intrinsic, substantive and meaningful differences between males and females, which both those who experience gender dysphoria and those who experience same-sex attraction implicitly acknowledge.

Here are some questions for progressives:

  • Gender-dysphoric men claim that they want to use restrooms with only women, but what about actual women who want to use restrooms with only women? Why should gender-dysphoric men be permitted to use restrooms and locker rooms without men, but women should not be permitted to use restrooms without men? Why should gender-dysphoric persons not be forced to use restrooms with those whose “gender identity” they don’t share while non-gender-dysphoric persons should be compelled to use restrooms with those whose actual sex they don’t share?
  • If separate stalls provide sufficient privacy to separate gender-dysphoric men from women in women’s restrooms, then why don’t separate stalls provide sufficient privacy to separate gender-dysphoric men from non-gender-dysphoric men in men’s restrooms?
  • If separate stalls do, indeed, provide sufficient privacy to separate gender-dysphoric men (who are objectively male) from women in restrooms, then what would the justification be for maintaining sex-specific restrooms anywhere? Why not make all restrooms co-ed?
  • If objectively male persons who are uncomfortable with their male bodies are permitted in women’s private areas, why shouldn’t all men be permitted in there? What difference does it make to women if the man in the stall next to them likes his anatomy or not?
  • Once objectively male persons are allowed in women’s restrooms, on what basis would any man be prohibited from entering a women’s restroom? Wouldn’t prohibiting men from accessing women’s restrooms because they’re men constitute discrimination based on sex, and wouldn’t prohibiting them from accessing women’s restrooms because they’re not gender-dysphoric constitute discrimination based on “gender identity”?

While progressives are exalting subjective feelings, they should bear in mind that many men and women content with their respective maleness and femaleness have feelings too—feelings of modesty—which do not make them heartless, ignorant bigots no matter how many times those epithets are hurled at them.

Widespread embrace of leftist sexuality ideology, which is intrinsically self-contradictory, will ultimately result in the eradication of the public recognition of sex differences in all laws, policies and practices. It’s universal co-ed restrooms or else.



Concerned about Common Core Standards?Dr. Pesta - Copy

Join us this Friday (April 8th) in Orland Park for yet another IFI Forum, this time exploring The Case Against Common Core with Dr. Duke Pesta.  Click HERE for more information.

Click HERE for a flyer of the event.




Christian B&B Owner is Not Backing Down

Written by Laurie Higgins and David E. Smith

Christian Jim Walder, owner of the Timber Creek Bed & Breakfast in Paxton, Illinois, who because of his faith declined to allow his facilities to be used for the celebration of a same-sex union is not backing down even as the state of Illinois stands ready to persecute him and destroy his business.

Mr. Walder has released the following statement in response to Judge Michael R. Robinson‘s tyrannical decision to fine him $80,000 and force him to offer his facility to a homosexual couple to celebrate a type of union God opposes:

Evidently religious freedom does not exist within the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act or the Illinois Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act. 

In our opinion, neither the State of Illinois nor the U. S. Supreme Court has the authority to tamper with the definition of marriage. God alone created marriage and declared thousands of years ago that it was to be between a man and a woman. Not two men. Not two women. We may be out of step with an increasingly anti-Christian culture, but we are in compliance with God’s design and that is what ultimately matters. 

To be absolutely clear, we cannot host a same-sex wedding even though fines and penalties have been imposed by the Illinois Human Rights Commission.  Our policy will not be changing. We are not looking for a fight, but when immoral laws are purposely passed (or deemed constitutional) that blatantly conflict with God’s Word and when the heavy hand of government tries to force us as Christians to embrace sinful behavior, we have a moral obligation to resist and stand for biblical truth. “It is better to obey God than men” (Acts 5:29).  

Please take a moment to stand with Mr. Walder by speaking out against this unjust erosion of religious liberty. Tell people in your church, your neighbors, and your family members about this miscarriage of justice. Write a letter to your local newspaper about this proposed discriminatory act against a Christian man of faith. The First Amendment guarantees the right to the “free exercise” of religion, which includes the right to act upon beliefs regarding the morality of activities and behaviors.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send an unequivocal and respectful message to Keith Chambers, the executive director of the Illinois Human Rights Commission, and Gov. Bruce Rauner to express your opposition to Judge Robinson’s decision.

Please keep Mr. Walder, his family, his business, and his attorneys in your prayers. Pray that the members and staff of the Illinois Human Rights Commission recognize the federal civil rights of Jim Walder and choose not to undermine his First Amendment protections.


Follow IFI on Social Media!SM_balloons

Be sure to check us out on social media for other great articles, quips, quotes, pictures, memes, events and updates.

Like us on Facebook HERE.
Subscribe to us on YouTube HERE
Follow us on Twitter @ProFamilyIFI




NBA, NFL Choose Sides in Culture War Battles

The NFL and the NBA are tackling issues having nothing to do with football or basketball, and they’re putting a full court press on our freedom.

Last week, North Carolina lawmakers — led by the Lt. Governor and leader of the house, ran a backdoor play of sorts to overturn a new Charlotte ordinance known as “the bathroom bill.” As you can probably guess, the bill mandated that Charlotte businesses allow individuals access to the restroom of their choice.

In a specially called session, lawmakers not only overturned Charlotte’s ordinance, they mandated that any public multiple occupancy restrooms and changing rooms in the state be designated for those of the same biological sex, while also allowing accommodation for transgender persons in single-occupancy facilities.

In just about any other time or age than ours, bathroom policies would be an unnecessary area for government involvement. And this particular bathroom policy would seem like common sense for the protection of women and children. And yet it was quickly labeled “anti-LGBT legislation.”

Among those using that nomenclature is the National Basketball Association.

On Thursday, the league announced they may reconsider hosting 2017 All-Star Weekend activities in Charlotte, because of their commitment to “equality and mutual respect.” They apparently missed the irony in taking this moral stand, given that the NBA and WNBA are separate leagues, but Ryan T. Anderson of the Heritage Foundation didn’t, observing on Twitter: “Hey @NBA, you’re against bathrooms based on biology, but think basketball should be?”

Well, inconsistent or not, the financial leverage that the NBA is threatening is significant. And they aren’t the only professional sports league ratcheting up the pressure.

Georgia lawmakers recently passed a bill that, in the words of the Washington Post, “protects pastors from being forced to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies and individuals from being forced to attend such events.” HB 757 also, “allows faith-based organizations to deny use of their facilities for any event they find ‘objectionable’ and exempts them from having to hire or retain any employee whose religious beliefs or practices differ.”

The problem for these lawmakers is that Atlanta is in the running to host a future Super Bowl, and a strange alliance of LGBT advocates, NFL officials, and corporate bigwigs have teamed up to sack the religious liberty legislation.

“NFL policies emphasize tolerance and inclusiveness,” reads a statement released by league officials, “and . . . [w]hether the laws and regulations of a state and local community are consistent with these policies would be one of many factors . . . to evaluate potential Super Bowl host sites.”

Walking lockstep, Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, who’s sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into a brand new stadium to attract the big game, says, “House Bill 757 would have long-lasting negative impact on our state and the people of Georgia.”

What kind of impact? Well, Disney threatened to stop making films in Georgia and the CEO of Salesforce threatened not to have programs there.

On Monday, while assuring us he was not caving to the financial pressure, Republican Governor Nathan Deal caved to the financial pressure and announced that he would veto House Bill 757. In doing so, Deal joins another Republican governor, Jan Brewer of Arizona, who caved to the NFL’s threats a few years back.

“To paraphrase Joshua,” my colleague Roberto Rivera wrote recently, “the leaders of state and local governments … when asked to ‘choose this day whom you will serve,’ have answered ‘Sports! Money!’ and not in that order.”

So what does this all tell us? That culture matters. And business and sport is part of culture, and clearly in these cases are shaping our political landscapes. Our current comfort level with culture is being challenged, to say the least.

We need courageous, clear-thinking Christians who will make the right call when called upon.


This article was originally posted at BreakPoint.org




UPDATE: Christian B&B Case Not Over

Initial press reports suggested that the case against the Christian owner of the Timber Creek Bed and Breakfast in Paxton, Illinois, Jim Walder, was settled. The Illinois Human Rights Commission has clarified that administrative law judge Michael R. Robinson’s decision that Jim Walder should pay an $80,000 fine and be required to offer his facility to a homosexual couple to celebrate their civil union can be appealed by filing “exceptions.”

Either party to the suit has 30 days to file exceptions. If they file exceptions, the case goes before a panel. If no exceptions are filed, the recommendations made by Robinson will take effect.

Here is what Robinson has ordered:

  • 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.

Ubiquitous ACLU attorney John Knight has erroneously stated that  “For the first time, the Human Rights Commission has made clear that owners of businesses serving the public in Illinois cannot pick and choose who [sic] to serve based on their personal religious views.” “Progressives” can’t seem to get it through their dogma-drenched minds that Christians in wedding-related businesses are not deciding whom to serve. They are deciding which kinds of events to serve, facilitate, and profit from. 

Attorney Betty Tsamis, who represents the Wathens, made a similar claim but got dangerously close to inadvertently acknowledging the truth: “It would have been shameful to reverse this history simply because some business owners object to the legal protections afforded same-sex relationships.” Tsamis veered slightly off-message by focusing on “same-sex” (i.e., homerotic) relationships rather than persons. Her slip suggests the truth that it is a type of volitional activity and ceremonies that solemnize and celebrate it that many people of faith, including Orthodox Jews, Muslims, and orthodox Christians, cannot in good conscience serve. 

While the Left continues to add conditions (all sexual in nature and behaviorally constituted) to anti-discrimination policies and laws, they are bit by bit removing religion.

It is imperative that we speak out against this unjust erosion of religious liberty. The First Amendment guarantees the right to the “free exercise” of religion, intrinsic to which is the right to act upon beliefs regarding the morality of activities and behaviors. 

Take Action: Click HERE to send an unequivocal and respectful message to Kevin Chambers, the executive director of the Illinois Human Rights Commission, and Gov. Bruce Rauner to express your strong opposition to Judge Robinson’s decision.


Follow IFI on Social Media!SM_balloons

Be sure to check us out on social media for other great articles, quips, quotes, pictures, memes, events and updates.

Like us on Facebook HERE.
Subscribe to us on YouTube HERE
Follow us on Twitter @ProFamilyIFI




Illinois Lawmakers Seek to Make Falsified Birth Certificates Easier to Obtain

State Representative Greg Harris (D-Chicago) and his leftist accomplices, endlessly involved in trying to subvert truth and reality, have introduced the Birth Certificate Sex Designation bill (HB 6073) to make it easier for men and women who wish they were the opposite sex to obtain falsified birth certificates. Harris’ first chief co-sponsor was Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago), both of whom are at the forefront of every legislative effort that serves the homosexual community of which they are part.

The absurdity and unscientific nature of the content of HB 6073 reveals the absurdity of the law it seeks to amend. This bill proposes to change a reference in the law from “sex change” to “change of sex designation.”

First, this change implicitly acknowledges the true fact that no one’s sex can change. Second, it demonstrates that birth certificates are being rendered meaningless. Birth certificates were intended as legal documents identifying objective birth facts. Gender-dysphoric men who were male at birth remain male. Gender-dysphoric women who were female at birth remain in perpetuity female. Gender-dysphoric men who were “designated” male at birth remain designated at birth male. Gender-dysphoric women who were “designated” female at birth remain designated at birth female. No amount or degree of legal or rhetorical chicanery can change what they were designated at birth. When liberals in Springfield figure out how to manipulate time, maybe this bill will make sense. Now it’s merely an exercise in nonsensical legislative legerdemain.

This bill changes the requirements for acquiring a new (and falsified) birth certificate. Currently, gender-dysphoric persons must present an “affidavit” from a “physician” confirming that the gender-dysphoric person has had “an operation” to try to conceal their actual sex. The proposed changes would nix the whole “affidavit” requirement, changing it to a bar far easier to climb over. If this bill passes, all that gender-dysphoric persons will need is a “declaration” from any “licensed medical or mental health professional who has treated or evaluated a person stating that the person has undergone treatment that is clinically appropriate for that individual for the purpose of gender transition, based on contemporary medical standards.”

And what kinds of treatments, inquiring minds might be asking, are included in the “clinically appropriate” toolbox for gender-dysphoric individuals? Will a gender-dysphoric person be required to have had surgery to tamper with their private parts? Nope. Will he (I am using the moribund universal “he”) be required to have received or currently be receiving cross-sex hormone treatments? Nope. Will he be required to be receiving psychological counseling for his gender-dysphoria? Nope. All that will be legally required in order to receive a de facto falsified birth certificate is a “declaration” from a licensed mental health professional who states that this person has received some treatment deemed appropriate by contemporary standards established by the dominant mental health organizations that are drenched in “progressive” socio-political dogma. That’s a bar so low and bendy that even a toddler could scramble over it.

Of course, not even surgical mutilation, hormone-blockers, cross-sex hormones, and cross-dressing can change a person’s sex at birth or in adulthood. And none of these anti-treatments (Treatments imply a disorder, and one’s sex is not a disorder) can change what these persons were designated at birth.

This is what our elected representatives waste their time and our taxes on: making it ever easier for gender-dysphoric persons to pretend they are the opposite sex.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to contact your state representative to ask him/her to uphold births as accurate legal documents.

Ask them to vote NO to HB 6073.



Concerned about Common Core Standards?Dr. Pesta - Copy

Join us on April 8th in Orland Park for yet another IFI Forum, this time exploring The Case Against Common Core with Dr. Duke Pesta.  Click HERE for more information.

Click HERE for a flyer of the event.




‘Transgender’ Conditioning is ‘Child Abuse’

George Orwell famously wrote, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

For those tethered to biological reality, the self-evident truth that, prior to birth, people develop either “XY” or “XX” genetic markers and, as such, are objectively, and shall forever remain, either male or female, is as plain as blue is blue or pink is pink.

Indeed, notwithstanding the politically driven “LGBT” agenda that pretends otherwise, those who suffer with “gender dysphoria” disorder will stay, as born, either male or female, whether or not they play dress up, sterilize themselves and destroy healthy reproductive organs.

Hence, it’s of little surprise that, tragically, of those who put themselves through this imaginary “transition,” 41 percent will subsequently attempt suicide.

Still, this “progressive” socio-political scheme moves quickly from merely pitiable and delusional to ghastly and abusive when children are the targets – when selfish adults exploit sexually confused young people by feeding their “gender” delusion and pumping them full of dangerous hormones, or otherwise surgically mutilating and sterilizing them for life via so-called “gender reassignment surgery.”

In order to address the growing momentum of this harmful, gender-bending, pseudo-scientific quackery, a number of America’s leading medical experts on the subject have finally weighed in. “The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) urges educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex. Facts – not ideology – determine reality,” they warn.

This child-health advocacy group has released a report that determines, among other things:

1. Human sexuality is an objective biological binary trait: “XY” and “XX” are genetic markers of health – not genetic markers of a disorder.

“The norm for human design is to be conceived either male or female. Human sexuality is binary by design with the obvious purpose being the reproduction and flourishing of our species,” they observe. “This principle is self-evident. The exceedingly rare disorders of sexual differentiation (DSDs), including but not limited to testicular feminization and congenital adrenal hyperplasia, are all medically identifiable deviations from the sexual binary norm, and are rightly recognized as disorders of human design. Individuals with DSDs do not constitute a third sex.”

2. No one is born with a gender. Everyone is born with a biological sex. Gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female) is a sociological and psychological concept; not an objective biological one.

Let’s take it a step further. The “gender” phenomenon is, in the larger sense, an artificial and anti-theist-tainted social construct. It’s an overt act of fist-shaking rebellion against the laws of nature and nature’s God.

And it’s dangerous.

Johns Hopkins Hospital was the pioneer in “gender reassignment surgery.” It now refuses to perform these discredited cosmetic procedures. Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the hospital’s former psychiatrist-in-chief and current distinguished service professor of psychiatry, is among those who participated in the ACPeds report. He has noted in the past that, as even the left-leaning APA reluctantly acknowledges, transgenderism is a “mental disorder” and that the idea of a “sex change” is “biologically impossible.” “People who identify as ‘feeling like the opposite sex’ or ‘somewhere in between’ do not comprise a third sex. They remain biological men or biological women,” determines ACPeds.

3. A person’s belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking.

“When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body, and it should be treated as such,” notes the report. “These children suffer from gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria (GD), formerly listed as Gender Identity Disorder (GID), is a recognized mental disorder in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-V). The psychodynamic and social learning theories of GD/GID have never been disproved.”

4. Puberty is not a disease, and puberty-blocking hormones can be dangerous.

“Reversible or not, puberty-blocking hormones induce a state of disease – the absence of puberty – and inhibit growth and fertility in a previously biologically healthy child,” notes ACPeds.

5. According to the DSM-V, as many as 98 percent of gender confused boys and 88 percent of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty.

And so what do we call a physician or a parent who takes a gender-confused boy, with a 98 percent chance of full recovery, and severely and irrevocably harms that child with dangerous hormones or sterilization surgery?

We should be calling them what they are: criminals.

To its credit, the ACPeds report goes on to identify this so-called “gender ideology” for exactly what it is: “Child abuse.”

6. Children who use puberty blockers to impersonate the opposite sex will require cross-sex hormones in late adolescence. Cross-sex hormones are associated with dangerous health risks including but not limited to high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke and cancer.

So much for the Hippocratic Oath: “Practice two things in your dealings with disease: either help or do not harm the patient.”

Gender ideology is anathema to good medicine and sound science.

7. Rates of suicide are 20 times greater among adults who use cross-sex hormones and undergo sex reassignment surgery, even in Sweden which is among the most LGBQT–affirming countries.

“What compassionate and reasonable person would condemn young children to this fate knowing that after puberty as many as 88 percent of girls and 98 percent of boys will eventually accept reality and achieve a state of mental and physical health?” the report asks.

8. Conditioning children into believing a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse.

“Endorsing gender discordance as normal via public education and legal policies will confuse children and parents, leading more children to present to ‘gender clinics’ where they will be given puberty-blocking drugs. This, in turn, virtually ensures that they will ‘choose’ a lifetime of carcinogenic and otherwise toxic cross-sex hormones, and likely consider unnecessary surgical mutilation of their healthy body parts as young adults.”

There you have it. “Gender ideology” is child abuse – empirically and irrefutably. Isn’t it high time, at least where minors are concerned and as a matter of public policy, that we begin treating it as such?

If such abuse were associated with anything other than the “LGBQT” political special interests, we already would have.




Gender Mix Up in School Restrooms

Should public school restrooms and locker rooms be co-ed? The Left says YES! But, a family therapist tells IllinoisFamily.org it’s a bad idea that will unleash a number of negative consequences. David Pickup is among those supporting common sense, compassionate legislation that protects the safety, privacy and rights of all students.


Concerned about Common Core Standards?Dr. Pesta - Copy

Join us on April 8th in Orland Park for yet another IFI Forum, this time exploring The Case Against Common Core with Dr. Duke Pesta.  Click HERE for more information.

Click HERE for a flyer of the event.




As Predicted, Here Come The LGBT Bullies

I’ve been saying that, in the LGBT activist lexicon, “tolerance” means the intolerance of all views but their own, “diversity” means their way or the highway, and “inclusive” means the exclusion of all opposing opinions and values.

Day by day, we are watching all this unfold before our eyes.

In the UK, Pink News reports that, “Scotland is training a small army of LGBT-friendly police officers to stamp out hate crime.”

This “small army” has been tasked with encouraging victims of “hate crimes” to report those crimes to the police, since such crimes are allegedly underreported.

The problem is that, in the UK, preachers simply reading the Scriptures on a street corner have been charged with LGBT “hate crimes.”

On at least one occasion, a preacher was charged with a hate crime because a lesbian listener simply felt discriminated against. (Thankfully, the case was thrown out and compensation of about $4,000 was paid out due to the preacher’s arrest and 11-hour, jail cell detainment.)

What will happen now with this “small army” on the lookout for such “crimes”?

Some years ago, I began to write about “the diversity police,” using the term metaphorically. Today, it is no longer a metaphor.

Yet there’s more. There will be increasing scrutiny in Scottish schools as well.

As explained by Fergus McMillan, Chief Executive of LGBT Youth Scotland, “We are currently working with a range of partners, including Equality Network, to increase the reporting of homophobic, biphobic and transphobic hate crimes and incidents and improve the support available to those targeted.”

Presumably, if a little girl objected to a confused little boy sharing her bathroom, she would be guilty of a “transphobic hate crime.”

John Knox must be turning over in his grave.

Back here in America, the Insider Higher Ed website reported on March 10 that, “In a letter sent to the National Collegiate Athletic Association on Wednesday, more than 80 lesbian, gay and transgender organizations urged the NCAA to ‘divest from all religious-based institutions’ that discriminate against transgender students.”

In other words, if a religious-based institution of higher education cannot support transgender activism on its campus – because of its explicit religious convictions – then the NCAA must boycott that schools.

Talk about intolerance and bullying!

So, if a religious-based university like Wheaton or Oral Roberts or Brigham Young was not willing to admit a biological male as a female, thereby allowing him to room with women, use the women’s locker rooms and bathrooms, play on the women’s sports teams, and join women’s collegiate groups, that school would be guilty of transgender “discrimination” and the NCAA should boycott them.

Once again, in the world of gay activism, “inclusion” is a one-way street, to be enforced by bullying and boycotting.

Over in Australia, a concerned mother wrote to our ministry:

“I listen and read your articles here in Australia and wanted to alert you to what’s happening here. The government has initiated a program:

“They want to make it compulsory to be taught in all schools. There is information in there to teach transgender kids to bind breasts and tuck genitals. Doctors have warned this is very dangerous for kids and could even be fatal.

“Even worse, some large Pentecostal preachers reviewed it and said it’s not that bad as some other Christian leaders have warned us about.”

Some of the resources on the “Safe School” website include, “All of Us,” described as, “A ground-breaking teaching resource that supports gender diversity, sexual diversity and intersex topics.” And, “Guide to Supporting a Student to Affirm or Transition Gender Identity at School,” described as, “A step by step guide for schools supporting transgender and gender diverse students who want to affirm their gender identity at school – suitable for both primary and secondary schools.”

The document itself explains that it “includes people who identify as women, men or as neither male nor female. The terms people use to describe their gender identity may include transgender, gender non-binary or agender.”

And this educational “resource” could become mandatory in children’s schools in Australia, just the latest example of the war on gender.

In my book, I warned that gay activists would overplay their hand, stating that those who were once bullied would become the bullies and that the LGBT war on gender distinctions and natural marriage would destroy itself, since it goes against the very fabric of human society.

Little by little – no, quite rapidly and aggressively – we are seeing this come to pass in front of our eyes. Unfortunately, many conservative Christians are still sleeping while others, like the proverbial frog boiling in water, are spiritually dull, having become accustomed to our world being turned upside down.

Now is the time to wake up to reality and say, “Not in my school, not on my campus, not in my city.”

We can take a stand for what is right while loving those who oppose us.

And if we are unable to turn the tide just yet, no one is stopping us from swimming against it.

As Malcom Muggeridge once stated, “Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.”

Don’t be a dead fish!


This article was originally posted at TownHall.com

 




ABC Shows Pure Contempt for Jesus and Christianity

If you didn’t know who Dan Savage is, it’s probably a good thing. But right now we need you to familiarize yourselves with one of the cruelest, most vile political activists in America.

Why? Because ABC and Disney is airing a sitcom Dan Savage developed loosely based on his life.

A perusal of Dan Savage’s work reveals a career built on advocating violence — even murder — and spewing hatred against people of faith.

Savage has spared no one with whom he disagrees from his vitriolic hate speech. We have examples, but be warned, they are extremely graphic and offensive.

Watch this short Family Research Council video montage of Savage, and you’ll see just how despicable his actions are.

Despite his extremism, vulgarity, and unabashed encouragement of dangerous sexual practices, ABC’s newest sitcom with Savage as its executive producer is now airing on Tuesday evenings at 7:30 p.m. CT.

“The Real O’Neals” mocks Christianity and insults Catholicism. AFA recognizes this show ridicules people of faith, and Christians across America are offended by it.

It is almost impossible to describe the depth of depravity found in the sitcom “The Real O’Neals.” It is impossible to list them all, so here are a few scene descriptions from the show:

  • Jesus appears where only the gay son can see and talk to Him, and He is annoyed by the mom’s strict guidelines for her family.
  • The daughter steals money she is supposedly raising for charity.
  • The daughter “attempts to prove” that there is no God in a science fair project.
  • A statue of Mary is kept above the O’Neal’s toilet to remind the boys to put the seat down.
  • The first jab at Jesus comes only 52 seconds into the first episode.
  • The mother encourages her 16-year-old gay son to “try s-x” with a girl. (A dash ‘-‘ is used to bypass internet filters.)
  • Vulgar language (ex. V-gina).
  • The mom makes pancakes shaped like the face of Jesus to guilt trip her anorexic son into eating.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to sen an email to Lauren Thompson to let Simply Orange (Coca-Cola) know how disappointed you are to learn that they are spending corporate dollars to promote its products in association with the program “The Real O’Neals.”

You can also call them at: (800) 871-2653 to complain how they are using its advertising dollars to support anti-Christian bigotry and promoting animosity toward people of faith.




Disturbing Video Shows Risk to Girls and Women Posed by Co-Ed Restrooms and Locker Rooms

There are multiple reasons to oppose policies and laws that permit people to use opposite-sex restrooms, dressing rooms, and locker rooms, including the risk posed to young girls and women. What’s sickeningly ironic is that “progressives” argue that since many gender-dysphoric women pretending to be men look exactly like actual men, their presence in women’s facilities would be troubling to women. They’re right, but whose fault is that? This entire execrable mess that threatens the safety of women, the privacy of all, and truth rests at the jackbooted feet of “progressives” who now say, in effect, that since they’ve made it this far in fostering confusion, society is obligated to give them a free pass on completing their perverse, deceptive, and subversive cultural project.

Please watch this compelling and frightening video that illuminates the risk posed to girls and women when men intrude into women’s private, safe spaces:

For those “progressives” who steadfastly refuse to follow an argument, IFI wishes to be clear. Our position is not that all gender-dysphoric men who pretend to be women are violent. Our position is that if objectively male persons are permitted in women’s restrooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms, shelters, and prisons, the risk to girls and women increases. These private facilities should correspond to objective immutable biological sex—not subjective feelings about one’s sex.

Those women who freely choose to cross-dress, take cross-sex hormones, and have mutilating surgery in a quixotic quest to become men will have to figure out a solution to the problem they have created for themselves, aided and abetted by their ideological accomplices. Perhaps they can raise private funds to subsidize single-occupancy restrooms everywhere.

Take ACTION: Please urge your state representative to support the Pupil Physical Privacy Act (HB 4474) which would mandate that restrooms and locker rooms in government schools correspond to biological sex, while permitting schools to make accommodations for students who have been diagnosed as gender-dysphoric. Click HERE to urge your state representative to support the Pupil Physical Privacy Act.




Parents, Teachers, and Administrators: What to Do on Day of Silence

The annual, well-organized, and nearly ubiquitous pro-homosexual/pro-gender-confusion political event called the Day of Silence (DOS) invades our public schools on Friday, April 12, 2019. The Day of Silence is sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) whose sole reason for existence is to use public schools to transform the beliefs of other people’s children about homosexuality and gender-confusion. The name is intended to convey the absurd notion that homosexual students are silenced by the hatred, bigotry, and ignorance of those who believe homoerotic activity, cross-dressing, and bodily mutilation are neither moral nor healthy.

While there are numerous pro-homosexual/pro-gender-confusion political events in our public schools, which are aided and abetted by liberal teachers who use curricula to reinforce their beliefs and social goals, there is only one organized event that seeks to oppose the DOS: the Day of Silence Walkout.

The Day of Silence Walkout is sponsored by a coalition of pro-family/pro-education groups from across the country who urge parents to ask their school administrators and children’s teachers these questions:

For administrators

  • Do you permit students to refuse to speak during instructional time on the DOS?
  • Do you permit teachers to refuse to speak during instructional time on the DOS?
  • Prior to the DOS, do you notify all parents about it, including sharing complete information about GLSEN’s role in organizing and providing materials for it and informing parents about what will be permitted in the classroom?

For teachers

  • Do you create classroom assignments or activities that accommodate student-refusal to speak on the DOS?
  • Do you teach lessons on oppression, censorship, or bullying in class on the DOS?
  • Will you be using any information from GLSEN to shape or inform your activities on the DOS?
  • If you accommodate student-refusal to speak and/or shape activities around ideas promoted by GLSEN for the DOS, will you be notifying parents ahead of time?

If administrators and teachers will be accommodating or participating in the DOS in any way, we urge parents to keep their children home. Every student absence costs districts much-needed money. If every year, administrative and faculty accommodation of political activity in the classroom costs districts money, perhaps they will cease accommodating it.

The goal of the DOS Walkout is not to exacerbate social and political turmoil within public schools or to advance a counter position. If parents keep their children home, social turmoil may, however, result because liberal teachers and homosexual activists respond poorly to opposition.

The goal of the Walkout is to tell public school administrations, teachers, and school boards that schools have no business allowing classrooms with captive audiences to be politicized. The Walkout conveys that message in the only language schools administrations and school boards that are terrified of homosexual activists understand: loss of funds.

Schools have every right to prohibit students from refusing to speak during class. Schools have every right to prohibit teachers from refusing to speak in class. Schools have an ethical obligation to inform parents about the Day of Silence and to tell both parents and students that students may remain silent during passing periods and free periods but that they may not refuse to speak during class. And teachers have the right to create classroom activities that require verbal participation. This is one way conservative teachers can work against the relentless efforts of liberal teachers and students to use public schools to promote their subversive beliefs.

Here is some little known information about the Day of Silence:

  • The Day of Silence began 20 years ago at the University of Virginia, has spread like a cancer into countless public high schools, and is now making its way into middle schools.
  • GLSEN proudly announced in 2013 that “Hundreds of thousands of students from more than 70 countries” participated in the National Day of Silence.
  • GLSEN offers videos and resources directed specifically at teachers—that is to say, government employees—that tell them how to help DOS participants in their political activities during instructional time.
  • GLSEN instructs teachers on what to do both prior to and on the Day of Silence:
    • Visit the Day of Silence website prior to the Day of Silence and share the resources available there “on social media, in your classroom, and with your colleagues.”
    • “Focus on supporting your students who are participating in Day of Silence and on educating all of your students.”
    • “Dedicate class time to exploring concepts of censorship, oppression, and social justice.”
    • “Provide opportunities for students to journal on times when they felt silenced.”
    • “…plan your typical classroom activities, but use the silence. Switch out discussions and group work for reading, writing, and even drawing.”
    • “Most importantly on the Day of Silence, your students need you to be an ally and an advocate.”
    • “Visit glsen.org for LGBT-inclusive classroom activities and lesson plans, model policies and practices, research, and to connect with a local GLSEN chapter near you.”

The homosexual clubs in public schools that serve as the water carriers for GLSEN put up posters, host bake sales, and distribute cards, buttons, and stickers. Such activities are permitted by the Equal Access Act, a federal law that requires all extracurricular clubs to be treated the same. There is no law, however, requiring schools to permit students to refuse to speak in class. In fact, the DOS website posts this statement from the ACLU:

You DO NOT have a right to remain silent during class time if a teacher asks you to speak. [emphasis added]

Political activity in the service of highly controversial issues should not be permitted to disrupt instructional time. The Day of Silence is not centrally about ending bullying. The Day of Silence cynically exploits legitimate anti-bullying sentiment as a means to achieve GLSEN’s ultimate goal: the eradication of conservative beliefs on the nature and morality of homoerotic activity and “transgenderism.”

Day of Silence WALKOUT Endorsements:

Abiding Truth Ministries

Activist Mommy – Elizabeth Johnston

American Family Association

AFA Michigan

AFA Pennsylvania

Americans for Truth

Barbed Wire

Called2Action

Capitol Resource Institute

Carolina Crossroads News

Child Protection League (Minnesota)

Christian Rights Ministries

Citizens for Community Values

Coalition of African-American Pastors (CAAP)

Coalition of Conscience

Community Issues Council

CWA of California

CWA of Florida

CWA of Hawaii

CWA of Illinois

CWA of Iowa

CWA of Kansas

CWA of Missouri

CWA of North Carolina

CWA of Ohio

CWA of South Dakota

CWA of Texas South

CWA of Virginia

CWA of Washington

Don Feder, Don Feder Associates

Faith2Action

Faith, Family & Freedom Alliance

Faith & Freedom Family Ministries

Good News Communications, Inc.

Illinois Family Institute

Informing Christians

Liberty Counsel

MassResistance

Matt Abbott, Catholic Columnist for Renew America

Mission: America

Montana Family Foundation

Ohio Value Voters

One By One

Operation Save America – Pastor Christopher Clegg

Sandy Rios, Director of Governmental Affairs for American Family Association

SaveCalifornia.com

Virginia Christian Alliance




A User’s Guide To Free Expression And Bathroom Sanity

Written by Ryan T. Anderson, PhD.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision redefining marriage, LGBT activists shifted their focus to the “T” in LGBT and to eliminating any dissent on marriage. At the federal, state, and local levels, the cultural Left has proposed using government coercion—in the forms of fines, penalties, and regulation—to make all Americans accept a new orthodoxy on sexuality: Boys must be allowed unfettered access to girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms, and shower facilities; bakers must bake same-sex wedding cakes.

Meanwhile, big business and special interest lobbyists have denounced attempts to limit these initiatives. Republican governors such as Mike Pence of Indiana and Dennis Daugaard of South Dakota have caved to media hysterics and cultural cronyism. Pence watered down his state’s religious freedom law; Daugaard vetoed a bill that would have accommodated transgender students, but not allowed boys in girls’ bathrooms.

My recent book, “Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom,” discusses these phenomena in detail. Here are the Cliff’s notes on four types of laws to keep an eye on.

1. Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Laws

These laws have been used to penalize bakers, florists, photographers, and adoption agencies. There is no federal Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) law, and most states and cities don’t have them yet. But LGBT activists are pushing to pass them across the country.

The proposed Equality Act would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to more or less every federal civil rights law that protects on the basis of race, expanding them beyond their current reach and explicitly reducing current religious liberty protections. If made law, the Equality Act would have government treat people who believe we are created male and female, and that male and female are created for each other, as if they were racists.

SOGI laws also force schools, businesses, restaurants, and other places open to the public to allow biological males who identify as women into the ladies’ restrooms. This tramples private property rights, which would say whoever owns the bathroom should be able to set the bathroom policies, be they sex-specific, unisex, or something else. Government shouldn’t force owners to grant unfettered bathroom access based on gender identity, regardless of the safety, privacy, or modesty concerns of owners, employees, and patrons.

Thankfully, citizens are pushing back. When the Houston city council voted to impose a municipal SOGI law, Houstonians organized and collected more than enough signatures to put the issue to a vote of the people. In November, 61 percent of voters resoundingly rejected it. And don’t let the media tell you it’s a city of bigots. Houstonians have elected Annise Parker, a lesbian, as mayor three times. But they drew the line at SOGI and won despite threats of boycotts and retaliation from big business (which proved empty).

Earlier this year a proposed sexual orientation bill died in the Indiana statehouse, partly because its supporters couldn’t stop fighting over the specifics. Gender identity wasn’t specifically included in the bill, SB 344, which made the LGBT lobby unhappy. Moreover, in a bid to broaden support, the bill’s authors tacked on limited religious exemptions as a “compromise.” The prospect of any religious exemptions upset many in the LGBT lobby. In their view, no one should be free to follow his beliefs about marriage in public life if it violates LGBT dogma.

SOGI laws increase cultural tensions, further empower an already powerful special-interest lobby, and impose unjustly on people of many different faiths. At the end of the day, they are both unnecessary and a threat to religious freedom.

2. Bathroom Privacy and Accommodation Laws

SOGI laws are the problem. But what are some of the solutions? One answer is to protect privacy at the bathroom and accommodate transgender students. But LGBT activists don’t like this at all.

Their official policy is that boys who identify as girls should have unfettered access to girls’ bathrooms, locker rooms, and shower facilities. Anything less than full access to the bathroom and locker room of their choice is, they say, a transphobic denial of civil rights and equality. This extreme position is out of step with the majority of Americans, and utterly inconsiderate of the concerns of the non-transgendered community.

Earlier this year South Dakota crafted an even-handed policy respectful of everyone’s interests. Unfortunately, the governor caved to special interest hysterics. The South Dakota bill would have prevented biological males who identify as girls from using girls’ private facilities in public schools, but it also would have required local school officials to make reasonable accommodations for such students, such as providing access to single-occupancy facilities. A win-win arrangement for everyone, it would have protected all students’ privacy and safety and created new accommodations for transgender students.

Ask yourself: Why do we have gender-specific locker rooms in the first place? It’s because of biology, not because of “gender identity.” Separate facilities reflect the fact that men and women have bodily differences; they are designed to protect privacy related to our bodies. So the South Dakota bill continued the bathroom policy America has always had, while also requiring local schools to find reasonable accommodations for transgender students.

But LGBT activists accused attacked the state of “transphobia.” And big businesses threatened boycotts. As the bill reached the governor’s desk, the head of the Human Rights Campaign warned that “history will not treat kindly those who support this discriminatory measure.”

The Obama administration also wants to be on the Left side of history here. It claims that a 1972 civil rights lawrequires schools to allow unfettered bathroom and locker room access based on “gender identity.” In 2014, the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights announced that Title IX—the 1972 law protecting the equal rights of women and girls in education—now required schools to allow boys who identify as girls into the girls’ bathroom. This unilateral reinterpretation of federal law cannot stand.

The nation is primed for yet another clash in the culture war—this time over school bathroom policy. The South Dakota legislature gave the entire United States an example of how to defuse controversy and craft principled public policy that creates good outcomes for everyone. It should have been signed into law.

We now need leaders to show courage and do the right thing: to stand up to the special interests and protect the rights and interests of all children.

3. Religious Freedom Restoration Acts

Historically, Americans have protected religious freedom by requiring the government to meet a burden of proof before it acts to substantially burden the free exercise of religion. This was the test that the Supreme Court applied under the First Amendment—up until 1990. When the Court turned away from that test, Congress voted in 1993 to reinstate it by passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

Championed by the ACLU and liberal senators Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy, it passed with 97 Senate votes and a unanimous voice vote in the House. President Bill Clinton signed it into law. RFRA bars government from substantially burdening religious exercise unless it can show a compelling interest to do so and does it through the least restrictive means possible.

Twenty-one states have implemented similar laws, and 11 more have constitutional religious liberty protections that state courts have interpreted to provide a similar level of protection. These commonsense laws place the onus on the government to justify its actions in burdening the free exercise of religion.

Over the last 20 years, RFRA-style laws have balanced the fundamental right to religious liberty with compelling government interests. They have protected Native Americans’ freedom to wear headdresses with eagle feathers, Sikhs’ freedom to wear religious head coverings in court, Muslim prisoners’ freedom to grow short beards, and Jewish inmates’ rights to kosher meals.

The federal RFRA protects against federal government violations of religious liberty; state RFRAs protect against state violations. Yet when Indiana proposed a near identical state version of RFRA last year, all hell broke loose. Similar hysterics are now erupting in Georgia and West Virginia over their RFRA proposals.

4. First Amendment Defense Acts

RFRAs create balancing tests that judges use. They protect religious exercise generally, then leave it to judges to determine if government has a compelling interest being pursued in a narrowly tailored way that justifies burdening the religious exercise in any particular case. But experience shows that ideologically driven judges can and do get it wrong. In cases where the risk of neglect or even hostility to the law by judges or government is acute, we can and should single out particular actions for protection and say government may never burden them.

We need both broad protection and specific protections. So, in addition to RFRA, Congress has passed a variety of laws that protect pro-life conscience. In Roe v. Wade the Supreme Court invented a right to an abortion. But after Roe Congress made clear that government cannot require a pro-life doctor or nurse to perform an abortion—that they, too, had rights that required specific protections from hostile judges and bureaucrats.

Likewise, in the Obergefell decision, the Supreme Court redefined marriage throughout America by mandating that governmental entities treat same-sex relationships as marriages. The Supreme Court did not say that private schools, charities, businesses, or individuals must abandon their beliefs if they disagree, but some governments are acting as if it did.

Indeed, there is no justification to force these entities to violate their beliefs about marriage. As Justice Anthony Kennedy noted, traditional beliefs are held “in good faith by reasonable and sincere people here and throughout the world.” Americans who believe that marriage is the union of husband and wife should continue to be free to live and work according to their convictions.

Now, state and federal legislatures should make it clear that no private person or institution should be forced to recognize or help celebrate a same-sex marriage—that is, that they have a right to believe—and live out—what they’ve always believed about marriage: that it’s the union of husband and wife.

The federal First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), and various state bills modeled on it, is a measured, reasonable, commonsense policy. It would ensure that no government agency discriminates against individuals or institutions for following their convictions about marriage as a man-woman union. For example, a government could not revoke their tax-exempt status or deny them government grants, contracts, accreditation, or licenses because of their beliefs. The bill protects freedom and pluralism in the wake of social change—embodying the best of American values.

Protecting minority rights after major social change is also a hallmark of American tolerance and pluralism. Yet as Georgia moves to enact a FADA, big business and special interests are attacking it.

This is yet another example of cultural cronyism. Businesses in Georgia were always free to embrace gay marriage—to bake wedding cakes for gay marriages and make floral arrangements for same-sex nuptials—and many do. But now activists want the government to force everyone in Georgia to do it. They’re threatening boycotts, travel bans, and relocations of businesses if the government doesn’t do as they wish.

Big business—as represented by “individual corporate giants including Hilton Worldwide, Marriott and InterContinental Hotels Group,” the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, and the Georgia Hotel and Lodging Association—have all claimed the religious freedom bill would open the door to widespread discrimination.

But if every Hilton, Marriott, and InterContinental hotel in Georgia already hosts receptions for newlywed same-sex couples, why can’t Georgia protect the mom-and-pop bed-and-breakfast or local Knights of Columbus hall that has a different set of beliefs about marriage? This law doesn’t harm minority rights; it protects them in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage.

The hypocrisy of big business lobbying against the law is astounding. They want to be free to operate in Georgia according to their values, but they don’t want small-business competitors to be free to operate according to theirs. If all of the major corporations are already in favor of gay marriage, then this religious freedom law poses no threat. It merely protects the rights of those who disagree.

What to Do Now

America is in a time of transition. Courts have redefined marriage, and beliefs about human sexuality are changing. During this time, it is critical to protect the right to disagree and the civil liberties of those who speak and act in accord with what Americans had always believed about marriage—that it is the union of husband and wife.

Good public policy is needed at the local, state, and federal levels to protect cherished American values. This means SOGI laws must be defeated. Bathroom privacy and accommodation laws should be enacted. And religious freedom should be protected—with RFRAs and FADAs.

These policies would help achieve civil peace amid disagreement, maintain pluralism, and protect the rights of all Americans, regardless of what faith they may practice.


 

Ryan T. Anderson, PhD, the William E. Simon senior research fellow in American Principles and Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation, is the author of “Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom.”


This article was originally posted at TheFederalist.com




Gender Dysphoria Madness: 21st Century Superstition Run Amok

We buy and sell children as commodities through egg and sperm donations. We legally allow imperfect, inconvenient, or unwanted children to be killed in the womb. And we permit confused children to be chemically and surgically altered in a grotesque and barbaric science-denying social experiment. The harm done to children in contemporary America is incomprehensible.

On Monday, the Chicago Tribune ran a guest essay written by Tucker Fitzgerald, the deceived father of a six-year-old gender-dysphoric boy who is being permitted to pretend he’s objectively female. This boy is permitted to wear dresses and use girl’s restrooms. Fitzgerald wants his son to be able to continue this restroom practice, foolishly writing, “[W]hen confronted with trusting her [sic] heart and mind, or trusting her [sic] genitals, I chose her [sic] heart and mind.” What “heart and mind” refers to are feelings and thoughts, desires and ideas.

In a culture less fearful of the power of the pro-sexual-deviance lobby and the organizations (e.g., professional mental health organizations) shaped more by this lobby’s ideology than hard science, people would be asking this question: If a person wishes to be the sex opposite from his or her actual sex, is it more likely that the error is with the person’s healthy, well-functioning body or the person’s “heart and mind”?

Fitzgerald addresses concerns about predation, focusing first on the risks for his son as a “transgender” person–risks that Mr. Fitzgerald should recognize can be eliminated for all “transgender” persons by not cross-dressing.

Fitzgerald then moves on to the purported risks for women if or when de facto co-ed restrooms become the law of the land as he would like. He presents an astonishingly ironic and convoluted argument to defend “gender-identity-based” restrooms policies over what he reductively calls “genital-based restroom laws.” He argues that restroom policies that require people to use restrooms that correspond to their sex make sexual assaults of women more likely. How’s that, you may reasonably ask.

His argument goes like this: If bathrooms correspond to objective sex, then gender-dysphoric women who are now successfully lumbering about looking like burly men from a Duluth Trading Company ad would be compelled to use women’s restrooms. Once burly, bearded women with bulging biceps are seen in women’s restrooms, actual men who are predators will be able to freely enter women’s restrooms looking like the men they are. If, upon entering women’s restrooms, these men-predators are questioned, they can merely lie, claiming they are actually women who are “transmen” but aren’t permitted to use the men’s restroom because of archaic restroom policies that require restrooms to correspond to actual sex. Therefore, according to Fitzgerald, the threat of sexual assault actually increases unless restroom policies allow men who are pretending to be women in women’s restrooms.

This is a win-win for Leftists. Either way, they will get co-ed restrooms. They will either get their sex-obliterating policies that allow fake-women (i.e., actual men) to invade opposite-sex restrooms, or we will retain “genital-based” restroom policies that require burly fake-men (i.e., actual women) to use women’s restrooms, which will make actual women uncomfortable and will result in actual men-predators who look just like burly fake-men easily accessing women’s restrooms. No need for the man-predator even to cross-dress. Got that?

So, let’s make this quagmire a tad more quaggy and miry. In challenging current “genital-based” restroom policies,  Fitzgerald asks, “[W]ho is going to do genital inspections?” Let’s assume sexuality-perverts (i.e., those who seek to pervert a proper understanding of all matters sexual) manage to win “gender-identity-based” restroom policies. Who is going to do “gender-identity” inspections? What will society do with the genderfluid, bigender, and trigender among us? What is required to establish a “transwoman” or “transman” identity? Must they cross-dress? Take puberty-blockers? Take cross-sex hormones? Have their breasts amputated and fake-penises affixed to their nether regions or conversely have their penises amputated and fake breasts affixed upstairs?

Fitzgerald conveniently omits discussion of locker rooms. Should locker rooms be “gender-identity”-based rather than “genital-based”? Hmmm, what to do, what to do about those pesky penises in women’s locker rooms? Should young girls have to see the naked bodies of gender-dysphoric boys with penises? Should they have to be seen naked by these boys? Should women and teenage girls have to see the naked body of the man who identified as a woman and who is attracted to females as happened in a Washington state health club?

What’s clear is that this foul mess of assaults on privacy, modesty, safety, and the nature and meaning of biological sex lays squarely at the feet of LGBTQQ activists and their foolish Leftist ideological accomplices. This tangled web is their execrable creation.

Now that cross-dressing has been released from the confines of closets, and more elaborate disguises are chemically and surgically available, restroom and locker room use has been complicated. Fake-men (i.e., actual women), whose use of cross-sex hormones, body-mutilating surgeries, and cross-dressing render them visually indistinguishable from actual men does complicate restroom use for actual men and for women who won’t want bearded ladies in their facilities. Allowing fake-women (i.e., actual men), whose expensive costume conceals their immutable nature, to use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms becomes equally problematic.

Who’s to blame for this new problem? The blame rests with those who subordinate commonsense and truth about the nature of objective, immutable sex to disordered subjective desires and perverse ideas about objective, immutable sex. The father of lies has again spawned foolishness and confusion, and sin-bred foolishness and confusion are being affirmed as truth and goodness. Now the chief promoters of sin-bred foolishness and confusion are demanding that society has a moral obligation to acquiesce further to the corrosive effects of their sin-bred confusion and foolishness.

The Left lies, telling parents that the inevitable outcome of attempts to help gender-dysphoric children accept their immutable sex is suicide. Despite evidence suggesting that unless adults facilitate the confusion of gender-dysphoric children, the vast majority will come to accept their sex, the Left intentionally terrifies parents into facilitating confusion. In so doing, parents destine their children to lives in which true human flourishing is impossible. Neither the intensity nor depth of love deceived parents feel for their hurting children justifies the harm done to them.

The Left, usually on the really wrong side of history, is perpetrating another pernicious deception on America with children again at the center. I suspect that a century from now, Americans will read in their history books about the gender-dysphoria madness that gripped the nation in the early part of the 21st Century. Future Americans will be aghast and incredulous that Americans could ever have fallen for this bizarre, science-denying superstition and barbaric social science experiment that so harmed the bodies of confused children.


Follow IFI on Social Media!yellow-balloons-shutterstock_63832522

Be sure to check us out on social media for other great articles, quips, quotes, pictures, memes, events and updates.

Like us on Facebook HERE.
Subscribe to us on YouTube HERE!
Follow us on Twitter @ProFamilyIFI




Thanks to ‘Transgender Equality’ Laws, Boys Are Now Sharing Girls’ Locker Rooms

Even as I write these words, different cities in America are considering dangerous and irrational laws that impose unfair and potentially dangerous burdens on the vast majority of citizens, all in name of helping a tiny number of deeply confused individuals. When will we learn?

To put it simply, you are guaranteeing trouble when you effectively make public bathrooms and locker rooms gender neutral. It is an experiment in social madness, and it is completely without justification, no matter how much we care about men and women who struggle with gender identity issues.

Many of us in the pro-family movement have warned for years that so-called anti-discrimination laws that include “gender identity” and “gender expression” as categories open the door to a host of potential problems and abuses.

First, these laws do not consider the needs of a multitude of women and children who will feel quite uncomfortable when a biological male comes walking into their bathroom or locker room, understandably so. (Note to LGBTQ activists: The fact that a biological male dresses like a female does not make women and children feel any more comfortable.)

Second, there is no way to keep heterosexual predators out of the ladies’ rooms, since a heterosexual male could simply pose as a woman to satisfy his voyeuristic (or worse) desires.

[Two weeks ago] in Seattle, “A man undressed in a women’s locker room, citing a new state rule that allows people to choose a bathroom based on gender identity.”

As reported by Krem.com, “It was a busy time at Evans Pool around 5:30pm Monday February 8. The pool was open for lap swim. According to Seattle Parks and Recreation, a man wearing board shorts entered the women’s locker room and took off his shirt. Women alerted staff, who told the man to leave, but he said ‘the law has changed and I have a right to be here.’”

Was he transgender? Heterosexual? Something else? Does it matter? If he feels he should be able to use the women’s locker room, he can, and no one can stop him.

In the words of pool regular Aldan Shank, “Sort of works against the point they’re trying to make. They’re causing people to feel exposed and vulnerable with the intention of reducing people feeling exposed and vulnerable.”

When I posted this report on my Facebook page, a woman named Kati commented, “This is VERY real. This new policy that was recently adopted by our local YMCA in WA allows for people to use whatever locker room they self-identify with. Just two weeks ago a boy around the age of 13 walked right into the girls side of the women’s locker room. All he did was sit down and scroll through his phone. Little girls where surprised when they came in from showering with their towels wrapped around them to see him sitting there. My daughter was one of those girls. This policy opens the door to those who have malicious intent.”

What kind of lunacy is this?

Last year, at a Planet Fitness gym in Midland, Michigan, Yvette Cormier was in the ladies’ locker room when a man, dressed as a woman, entered the locker room. According to local ABC News, “Cormier, who had been a Planet Fitness member for two months, said she went to the front desk immediately. The man at the desk told her that Planet Fitness policy is ‘whatever gender you feel you are, that’s the locker room you’re allowed to go in,’ she said.

When Cormier warned other members about the Planet Fitness policy, her own membership was revoked.

Even more alarming, in 2012, in Olympia, Washington, female high-school students sharing a college campus swimming pool were shocked to see a naked, 45-year-old male student who identifies as “Colleen” sitting in their sauna. (The police report stated that “she” was exposing “her male genitalia.”)

The girls were traumatized and the parents outraged, but college officials said they could not do anything because of state policies against gender-identity discrimination: “‘The college has to follow state law,’ Evergreen spokesman Jason Wettstein told ABC News affiliate KOMO. ‘The college cannot discriminate based on the basis of gender identity. Gender identity is one of the protected things in discrimination law in this state.’”

Adding to the insanity is the fact that it was subsequently discovered online that Colleen also identifies as a lesbian and is strongly attracted to women, in other words, just like most heterosexual males. Yet it is perfectly legal for Colleen to sit in a sauna with naked teenage girls.

Who can possibly justify abuses like this?

Last October it was reported that, “The University of Toronto (U of T) is temporarily changing its policy on gender-neutral bathrooms after two reports of voyeurism in a student residence.

“Two women showering in Whitney Hall, a residence at U of T’s University College, reported they saw a cellphone reach over the shower-stall dividers in an attempt to record them, in two different incidents, police Const. Victor Kwong told The Toronto Star.”

But of course. Is anyone surprised?

Recently, before speaking at a chapel service for a Christian middle school and high school, I stopped in the restroom, which, I discovered, was in the elementary school wing of the building.

As I walked out, three little boys walked in, perhaps 6 years old.

I thought to myself, “How could any adult possibly think that it is fair to these little boys to have a confused little girl use their bathroom, or a confused little boy use the girls’ room?” And how could any adult possibly think that it was fine for a confused (or opportunistic) teenage boy to share a locker room with teenage girls?

Yet in schools across the nation, this is hardly a theoretical question. In fact, in an extraordinary example of government overreach, last November a headlineannounced: “Department of Education orders school to allow boys to use girls’ locker rooms, showers.”

It’a time we say enough!

I urge every man or woman of conscience and decency to stand against these laws while, at the same time, working to help those who are gender-confused get to the root of their struggles.

This social madness must stop.


This article was originally posted at Townhall.com