Earlier this year, a Gallup poll announced that one in six Gen Zers identify as LGBT. That was a significantly higher number than ever reported in any previous years. Then, last month, a new survey released by Arizona Christian University reported that about 39 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds claim the label.

Even granting that polling data should always be carefully studied, and often taken with a grain of salt, that’s a shockingly high number. And, in addition to challenging Christians about how much the culture around them has changed, these numbers also challenge the way people have been taught to think about sexuality and, specifically, cultural assumptions about sexuality.

“Born This Way”

For years, the main idea driving activism around sexual orientation was that gay and lesbian people were “born this way.” Since, went the argument, no one is attracted to someone of the same gender through any fault of their own, we must let them be who they truly are and love who they want to love. And we must, the argument continued, erase any notion that heterosexuality is “normal,” and homosexuality is not.

That idea proved quite persuasive, especially the more it was portrayed in song, film, and television. Millions of dollars went to research looking for the genetic causes of same-sex attraction. Though such causes were never found, professional activists were successful in conflating sexual decisions with already protected classes of race, sex, and disability. Even as it has become more and more obvious that sexual orientation is not fixed, the idea that it is an innate, unchangeable component of identity has already served its purpose, shifting the moral norms of society and establishing this new way of thinking about sexuality. So, today, most Americans either believe that sexual orientation is something not chosen or that it is something that should never be questioned.

The Ever-Growing Acronym

However, polls like this one should make us question what many in our culture now take for granted about sexual orientation. Otherwise, how can the explosion in self-identified LGBTQ youth be explained?

The obvious answer is: it can’t. We either have to keep foolishly pretending that nearly 40 percent of young people have always been gay, lesbian, bisexual, or (especially now) transgender, or we must admit that our ideas about sexuality have consequences for others. After all, it didn’t take long for the other letters in the ever-growing acronym to ride the success of this strategy. So today, anyone who defies traditional “sexual norms” is given elevated moral status, considered “courageous” and experts on all kinds of things, and basically given a free pass not afforded to anyone else. Given the new social climate, is it any wonder young people want to join those ranks, at least on a subconscious level?

As one of my colleagues pointed out recently, a teen who identifies as “bisexual” doesn’t actually have to do anything to gain a status boost. They can keep dating people of the opposite sex or not date at all. They can be sexually active or not. It’s the label that does the magic. It’s no accident that the B and the T in the acronym have seen the most growth.

Choices and Consequences

Even if the social costs of identifying as a sexual minority are lower than ever (and the benefits higher than ever), the consequences for young people are severe. For one thing, young people are constantly taught to see every relationship they have as potentially sexual. Among other things, this robs them of platonic friendships, especially with members of the same sex. C.S. Lewis famously wrote that “few value (friendship) because few experience it.” This has become even more true today for the loneliest generation on record.

To be clear, people’s sexual desires almost never feel “chosen.” Though the research has not fully eliminated any biological or genetic factors in same-sex attraction, there’s no justification for treating it as immutable (much less for treating gender dysphoria that way). However, given all of the cultural pressure to assume such things, it’s clear that merely believing the right things about sexuality is insufficient for eliminating someone’s same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria. To put it differently, this generation has been thoroughly catechized into anthropological confusion, literally changing the definitions of normal and abnormal, of moral and immoral, of who we are and what we do.

The sexual choices people make create, reinforce, and amplify their sexual feelings. It’s a vicious cycle that mirrors the Apostle Paul’s words, “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”

Though the Gospel doesn’t promise instantly repaired sexual desires, it does tell us to “be transformed by the renewing of [our] minds.” In a culture obsessed with sex, drowning in loneliness, and careening towards self-harm, it’s good news that renewing our minds is even possible. We must point a generation of confused youth toward the compassion and clarity of this much better story as if their lives depend on it, because they do.

The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system—rife with systemic bias against conservative views of sex and sexuality—has announced its newest effort to cultivate “inclusivity” and “equity” in all of its K-12 schools. The “social justice” activists, pudden-heads, and lemmings who lead the CPS have banned all single-sex bathrooms for children and staff. Instead, children and staff are free to use any bathroom they are “comfortable” using.

Subjective feelings now trump objective scientific reality in determining bathroom usage policy. All bathrooms are now co-ed. No word yet on how the CPS plans to include and respect children and adults who are uncomfortable sharing bathrooms with opposite-sex persons.

As of December 1, 2021, all bathroom signage in CPS schools was supposed to be replaced with signs making clear that multiple occupancy bathrooms are now sexually integrated bathrooms.

What is especially noteworthy and alarming is that this policy allows not just “trans” students and teachers to invade the private spaces of opposite-sex persons; it allows all students and teachers to do so. This misguided policy will also affect all visitors to the school who will be forced to use co-ed bathrooms.

In a Twitter video, CPS Title IX Officer Camie Pratt explains that the new signage “will make it clear that all restrooms are open for use by anyone who feels comfortable.”

ICYMI: We’re requiring all schools to adopt new signage to make our restrooms more inclusive. This is a big step forward for gender equity for our students and staff. pic.twitter.com/4JPBdd1jQy

— CPS – Chicago Public Schools (@ChiPubSchools) November 30, 2021

Banning sex-based bathrooms necessarily excludes all children and staff who believe feelings of modesty and the desire for safety and privacy when engaged in personal bodily functions emerge from and are based on sexual differentiation. In other words, girls, boys, women, and men who believe biological sex matters are excluded from policy consideration. All that matters in bathroom usage policy and practice are the radical beliefs of those who affirm controversial, ahistorical, anti-science “gender theory.”

Now, any 5th-grade boy who is “comfortable” using a formerly girls’ bathroom is free to use it with 1st-grade girls. Any 12th-grade boy may use a formerly girls’ bathroom with 9th-grade girls. Any male staff member may use formerly women’s bathrooms. And in schools that permit adult staff members to use student bathrooms—as many do—male teachers will be free to use formerly girls’ bathrooms with female students.

How will these co-ed bathrooms be monitored to protect against sexual abuse or consensual sex? And how will the CPS retain students and staff now that the CPS has stripped them of their human rights? In Feb. 2021, U.S. Representative Grace Meng (D-NY) reintroduced her bill that seeks to protect girls and women in refugee camp bathrooms. Meng explained,

[U]nfortunately, many bathrooms in refugee camps do not provide appropriate safety protections. … [O]ften times the restrooms are mixed-sex, public, and without locks. … These conditions create a lack of privacy and dignity and make women and girls afraid to use the restrooms, fearing that they may be assaulted and subjected to violence while using the bathroom. These types of conditions are unacceptable. Nobody should have their safety jeopardized in order to care for their most basic hygiene needs. (emphasis added)

The new CPS policy and the accompanying signage implicitly teach children that physical privacy has nothing to do with physical embodiment as male or female. The explanations offered by leftists about this radical policy change teach children that in order to be respectful, inclusive, compassionate, and equitable, they must relinquish their feelings of modesty, their desire for privacy, and their good and right beliefs about the meaning of biological sex.

Case in point, WGN-TV cites self-identifying “education program manager” Curran Cross who says, “We want to make an environment as respectful and inclusive as we can.”

Cross believes respect for “trans,” “nonbinary,” “genderfluid,” and “gender nonconforming” girls and boys entails disrespecting the natural and good feelings and right beliefs of those who do not want to use bathrooms with opposite-sex persons.

Further, conservative parents do not want their children’s school undermining their beliefs about modesty and privacy.

Curran Cross

Word to Cross, respect for humans does not require disrespect for their objective sex which never changes.

A parent identified as “Mandal Golden” told WGN-TV that “I’m fine with [sexually integrated bathrooms]. … We have boys and girls at home, it’s the same policy.”

Generally speaking, in one’s home, by age 7-8, brothers and sisters are not sharing the same bathroom at the same time, except for tooth-brushing.  And they’re not sharing the same bathroom at the same time with unrelated opposite-sex peers, strangers, adults, and older kids.

Golden also claimed that his or her kids are “not scared to use the washroom at home.” Maybe they would be scared or uncomfortable if they were using the bathroom at home and in walked an unrelated child of the opposite sex who was four years older.

Moreover, while safety is a serious concern, it is not the foundational issue. The foundational issue pertains to the meaning of biological sex. “Trans”-cultists believe it has no meaning—except, of course, when it matters to them as when they lop off healthy body parts to masquerade as the sex they are not and never can be.

The end goal of the “trans” cult and its ideological allies has never been the freedom of a small number of gender dysphoric persons to access opposite-sex private spaces. The end goal has always been the eradication of all public recognition of sex differences. No more sex-segregated bathrooms, dressing rooms, locker rooms, saunas, dorm rooms, nursing home rooms, prison cells, sports, or book clubs. The policy CPS has implemented signifies a giant leap toward that end.

No child can be properly trained up in the way they should go by adults who don’t respect the reality and meaning of biological sex. The systemically corrupt and crumbling public school system needs to collapse. Get your kids out now. And on your way out, find out exactly who came up with the dumb idea of co-ed bathrooms. He, she, or they need to feel the righteous wrath of taxpayers.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/No-More-Single-Sex-Bathrooms-in-Chicago-Public-Schools.mp3

A new poll from Arizona Christian University has some shocking findings regarding the indoctrination of America’s youth. For decades the percent of those who identify with the homosexual lifestyle has consistently been less than 3 percent of the population. However, the LGBT agenda has now thoroughly saturated our nation’s schools, pop culture, media, politics, and society.

According to this new survey, 39 percent of young adults ages 18-24 self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning. This result, if anywhere close to accurate, blows holes in the claim that people are born homosexual, (something science has never confirmed.) Clearly, young people are choosing this lifestyle due to cultural conditions and moral anarchy.

One caveat to this poll is that this is a self-identification poll. The researchers note that 33 percent of those who identified as LGBT are actually in opposite-sex relationships. In other words, identifying as LGBT is so culturally supported that many are claiming this label while living in a heterosexual relationship. It is possible that bisexuality has seen a dramatic rise as only 3.7 percent in the poll are exclusively homosexual. If nothing else, sexual confusion is widespread according to these results.   (A recent Gallup poll placed the LGBTQ number at only 5.6 percent.)

No matter the actual numbers, young people following this agenda place themselves at significantly elevated mental health, medical health, and spiritual health risks.  (More than 7 in 10 in the Harvard survey admitted to searching for purpose in their life.  Anxiety and depression levels were also very high, appearing in 40-70 percent of those surveyed.)

Not long ago, I wrote a fact sheet touching on just the tip of the iceberg of the personal dangers of the LGBT lifestyle.  You can read that fact sheet here: “The Dangers of Pride.”

Another fact sheet we have is titled, “Born That Way?” which looks at the science or lack thereof to the claim that homosexuality is inborn.

This poll also found that depending upon the demographic 48-63 percent of these individuals consider themselves spiritual or religious. What does the Bible say about this behavior? Some say it’s OK, others disagree. You can read more on that in our fact sheet HERE.

This article was originally published by AFA of Indiana.

At the most recent School District 200 Board Meeting in Wheaton, Illinois, new school board member and cunning rhetorician, Mary Yeboah, Director of Graduate Student Life at Wheaton College, posed six questions to the board,  beginning with a prefatory statement that let the woke cat out of the bag:

I would like to ask six rhetorical questions regarding the proposed October 10th, 2022 and October 9th, 2023 no-school all-grades Columbus Day/Indigenous People’s Day in relation to district purposes outlined in the mission of School District 200, Vision 2022, and the portrait of a graduate work. To be very clear, these are not questions that I expect you to answer right now. I am asking them for the benefit of reflective thinking for the district, especially in the month leading up to the approval of these calendars.

One, does the District 200 administration recognize the impact of holidays, statues, and other memorials on shaping school culture, which in turn shapes student experiences and outcomes?

Two, does the District 200 administration consider celebrating extreme violence, theft, genocide, and dehumanization to be in line with the study of social science to help students develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the benefit of the global society in which they live?

Three, does the District 200 administration affirm the accurate telling of history and recognize the impossibility of “discovering” land already inhabited?

Four, does the District 200 administration take into consideration the perspectives of Indigenous people regarding this particular calendar event?

Five, could maintaining this District 200 calendar event unintentionally support a myth of U.S. exceptionalism that could undermine district efforts to create diverse, inclusive schools for all children?

Lastly, does this calendar event advance the vision and mission of District 200 goals? And if it does not, must it remain despite state-level support?

It was so considerate of Yeboah to make very clear that she didn’t expect her six loaded questions to be answered immediately. It was also odd in that she had declared these were rhetorical questions, which are questions intended to make a point—not to be answered.

After some reflective thinking, I have some reflective thoughts and questions on Yeboah’s questions.

1.) Does Yeboah recognize the impact of using a leftist lens through which to view, socially construct, revise, and impose a particular interpretation of the meaning of holidays, statues, and other memorials, which in turn shapes student experiences, beliefs, and outcomes—including outcomes like the 2020 riots?

2.) Yeboah’s second question presumes an astonishing premise that she doesn’t even attempt to prove: She presumes that Columbus Day is a celebration of “extreme violence, theft, genocide, and dehumanization.” That is akin to saying Martin Luther King Day is a celebration of plagiarism, marital infidelity, and the exploitation of women.

What school has ever used Columbus Day to celebrate extreme violence, theft, genocide, or dehumanization?

Historian Victor Davis Hanson offers a relevant critique of the impulse that animates Yeboah:

Campuses and Western critics in the last half-century have turned a once risk-taking and heroic Christopher Columbus into an evil emissary of disease and destruction. History is now seen as one-dimensional melodrama in which our contemporary duty is to pick sinners and saints of the past based on our own modern (quite imperfect) perceptions of morality and then judge them worthy of either hagiography or banishment from memory.

And Hanson shares a fact inconvenient to the narrative of those who love to hate America:

[K]nocking down images of Columbus will not change the fact that millions of indigenous people in Central America and Mexico are currently abandoning their ancestral homelands and emigrating northward to quite different landscapes that reflect European and American traditions and political, economic, and cultural values.

3.) Does Yeboah affirm the accurate telling of history? Does Yeboah believe children at every age should be alerted to every serious foible, sin, or moral failing of every human involved in significant historical events or achievements? Should children of every age be taught about MLK Jr.’s significant moral failings? Should children of every age be taught the sordid stories of the abuse of women by John F. Kennedy and his lady-killer brother Ted Kennedy? Should kindergartners be taught that Harvey Milk was a homosexual ephebophile who acted on his sexual interest in teenage boys?

Regarding Yeboah’s concern about the impossibility of “discovering” an already inhabited land: Good teachers should and do explain that “discover” means “to obtain knowledge of something through observation, search, or study.” Benjamin Franklin “discovered” electricity in this sense. James Wilson Marshall “discovered” gold at Sutter’s Mill in this sense. The gold was always there in the ground. Erasmus Jacobs, son of a poor Boer farmer in South Africa “discovered” diamonds along the banks of the Orange River—diamonds that had always been there.

4.) Does Yeboah consider the perspectives of indigenous people about celebrating their histories of extreme violence, theft, genocide, and dehumanization on Indigenous People’s Day?

5.) In her fifth point, Yeboah again presumes a premise she doesn’t attempt to prove: In her fifth rhetorical question, she presumes that American exceptionalism is a myth. But is it? What objective standards or criteria has Yeboah applied to conclude that America is not exceptional?

6.) Yeboah implies that honoring Christopher Columbus’ exploratory achievement and how it transformed the world violates the vision and mission of District 200, which are here set forth:

Our vision is to be an exemplary, student-focused school district that is highly regarded for the competence and character of our students and people, programs, and learning environment.

Our mission is to inspire, encourage, and challenge, and to support all students to reach their highest level of learning and personal development.

Yeboah has yet to make her case that honoring a history-making explorer undermines the development of competence and character, or how it undermines the mission to inspire, encourage, and challenge students to reach their highest level of learning and personal development. Do District 200 taxpayers even know how District 200 distinguishes between good character and bad?

Yeboah’s reference to the vision and mission of District 200 raises other questions:

• How does the sexual integration of restrooms and locker rooms support all students to reach their highest level of personal development and character?

• How does the wildly obscene  (*WARNING*) graphic novel/memoir Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, which is available in both District 200 high school libraries, foster character and personal development?

• How was the invitation to lesbian activist Robin Stevenson, who promotes cultural approval of both the “LGBT” ideology and the legalized slaughter of the unborn, to speak to 8-11-year-olds at Longfellow Elementary School in Wheaton supposed to foster character and personal development?

• How did the offensive student drawings defacing the walls of Monroe Middle School through positive portrayals of homosexuality and opposite-sex impersonation, some accompanied by ignorant and troubling captions, contribute to character development?

In a Facebook post, Yeboah announced she’s all in for “anti-racism,” which everyone should know by now is a euphemism for anti-white racism.

In an upcoming “Table Talk” at Wheaton College, “Topics for White students” include “Invisible Racism” with guest speaker Mary Yeboah.

Yeboah is also a promoter of the  controversial “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards” that garnered nationwide condemnation, including by National Review.

In a Feb. 7, 2021 Facebook post, Yeboah admits that one of her “favorite scholars” is Tyrone Howard who wrote the book All Students Must Thrive. Howard’s publisher writes that Howard’s book “brings together three frameworks relevant for equity in schools–wellness, critical pedagogy, and critical race theory.”

If there’s any doubt about Yeboah’s “progressive” bona fides, this should dispel it: In 2020, as BLM was destroying cities across the country, Yeboah was part of a “white moms” group in Wheaton that created signs to encourage support–including financial support–for the Black Lives Matter organization, which is hell-bent on destroying the nuclear family and normalizing homosexuality and cross-sex impersonation.

And Yeboah worries that Columbus Day will undermine character development in children? Sheesh

Public schools are no longer places that foster character development or provide the highest level of learning. Get your kids out now.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Wheaton-Illinois-School-Districts-Wokest-Board-Member.mp3

Written by Patience Griswold

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul recently joined 18 other attorneys general in asking a federal court to remove religious freedom protections for colleges and universities. In an amicus brief filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, the attorneys general urge the court to rule against Christian colleges and universities in the case Hunter v. U.S. Department of Education. The lawsuit is seeking to strip religious colleges and universities of funding for holding to Biblical beliefs on marriage and sexuality.

As Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, put it, this lawsuit “is a deliberate effort by a major means of coercion to bring an end to institutions of Christian conviction, that operate as colleges and universities and seminaries.”

Although the case focuses on Christian colleges and universities, initially, the only defendant in the case was the Department of Education. By suing the Department of Education, the lawsuit would have been able to target religious institutions without giving them an opportunity to speak in their own defense. This was especially concerning given the federal government’s reluctance to come to the defense of religious freedom.

In June, the Department of Justice initially promised to defend the religious freedom of the schools in question but quickly walked that back when LGBT activists complained. Within 24-hours, the Department of Justice amended their filing to say that they would offer an “adequate” defense of religious freedom, in contrast with their earlier statement promising a “vigorous” defense. It also removed its initial statement that the Department of Education and religious colleges and universities “share the same ultimate objective, … namely, to uphold the Religious Exemption as it is currently applied.” Given the Justice Department’s unwillingness to commit to meaningful religious freedom protections, the importance of allowing the schools to step in and come to their own defense was clear.

Thankfully, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, as well as three Christian colleges represented by Alliance Defending Freedom have been allowed to intervene and will be representing the concerns of religious colleges and universities in the case.

As defenders of religious freedom have stepped up to protect the right of Christian schools to practice and teach in accordance with their beliefs, those who would like to see strict limits placed on religious freedom have also intervened. 19 state attorneys general, including Illinois Attorney General Kwame Rauol filed a brief urging the court to remove religious freedom protections, arguing that a 2020 rule clarifying the religious freedom protection in place for colleges and universities is too expansive because it includes protections for religious practices, as well as beliefs.

For religious freedom to truly exist, there must be freedom not simply to believe something, but to live and act in accordance with those beliefs. That includes the freedom of religious people to establish educational institutions that teach and practice in accordance with their beliefs. Raoul and the other attorneys general filing this brief have a thin view of religious freedom that offers very little real protection to people of faith who want to live out what they believe.

Religious organizations have a right to maintain policies and teach in a manner that is consistent with their beliefs, and students have a right to pursue a religious education. If successful, this lawsuit would threaten that by forcing any college or seminary that accepts tuition grants, student loans, or any other federal financial assistance to embrace the LGBT agenda, regardless of their religious beliefs.

It is not pro-religious freedom to force religious beliefs to the margins of society and insist that people and organizations have a right to believe certain things only if they keep quiet and do not allow their beliefs to turn into practice. By joining this amicus brief, Rauol is pitting himself against the religious freedoms of Illinoisans and Americans.

A similar article was originally published by Minnesota Family Council.

Twenty years ago, Christian leaders warned the church in America of the “slippery slope” that we were descending. Homosexuality was becoming more accepted and the gay community was demanding tolerance. Leaders like Dr. James Dobson and Franklin Graham warned us then that the outright acceptance of sin would lead to tolerance for other types of abominations. Academics, politicians, and advocates of homosexuality all insisted that tolerance of the LGBTQ+ community would not lead to other non-traditional lifestyles. These advocates decried the “slippery slope” theory as a fallacy. Fast forward to 2021, and the truth of the descent of morality is becoming clear. The church has dealt with not only homosexuality but now is facing problems with the expanding sexual, gender, and species dysphoria of transexuals, “furries,” “therians,” and “otherkins.”  

Many likely have never heard of furries, therians, and otherkins. Furries are individuals that identify as an animal, frequently a cat, dog, or wolf. People identifying as a furry will dress up in animal ears and tails and act like that animal in their everyday life. Therians claim to have the spirit of an animal trapped in their human bodies. Otherkins typically claim to identify as something more mystical like elves, dragons, or vampires. As bizarre as all this may sound, it is spreading and becoming a commonplace occurrence in our schools.

At the beginning of this school year, the Meade County School District in Kentucky had a large group of students dressing and acting like animals. Their behavior included hissing, barking, growling, and pretending to scratch others. It became such a disruption that a petition was created and signed by over 1,000 people to force the school to prohibit the practice.

Kentucky, however, is not the only place where this is occurring. In Twins Falls, Idaho, parents complained of teens acting like animals and disrupting class. The school district denied any knowledge of the behavior. Parents in several other states have had similar reports of this behavior, and the schools are doing nothing to address the problem. Parents of children in one Iowa school have even claimed that a girl requested a litter box in the girl’s restroom. The school district has denied the claim.

Public school districts have already proven they lack transparency and are willing to tolerate any abhorrent behavior. In 2018 a blog for school counselors published a post entitled “Making a Safe Place for Students Who Identify as Furries, Therians, and Otherkins.” The author states that these students are five times more likely to be homosexual and seven times more likely to be transexual. They also recognize that students claiming to be furries, therians, or otherkins may suffer from isolation, depression, and anxiety, but never state that the identity the students are creating may directly correlate to the psychological problems they are exhibiting. Instead, the author claims the lack of tolerance and acceptance causes emotional difficulties.

The blog encourages school counselors to be supportive and to prevent others from bullying the students. Although I agree we should not promote bullying, the school counselors that accept this type of behavior are doing a great disservice to these children. They are creating a false reality in which a person can do anything without repercussions. As a result of this accepted behavior, our society is yet again slipping further down the slope of moral decline.

It is time for parents, churches, and Christians to rise up and declare that not everything is acceptable, and disruptive and repugnant behavior will not be tolerated. Believers are called to show love and mercy; however, the secular world has defined that mercy as tolerance. Christians must put into practice what the Word tells us in Proverbs 28:13:

“He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”

Our job as Christians is not to idly sit by as these misled children suffer in their confusion. It is our job to love them to Christ and reveal their sin so they may confess and renounce evil, and therefore find mercy.

Christian parents first and foremost must protect their children, and this means renouncing the government-run schools that not only allow sin to run rampant but encourage sinful behaviors. As good stewards of our tax dollars, including the funding of our local public schools, we all should be demanding that the school board address these problems with dress and behavior codes that all students must follow. It is long past time for churches to become more directly involved in these students’ lives. Today’s children are desperate for guidance and love, often lacking two-parent homes and seeking attention from any avenue. Our churches should be the first place they think of for that love. It is time to draw a line in the sand and stand against the slippery slope of immorality in our public schools.

Over the weekend, the Republican National Committee (RNC) announced its newest endeavor called the “RNC Pride Coalition.” The RNC is colluding with Log Cabin Republicans to get Republicans elected. The Log Cabin Republicans is the country’s largest “LGBTQ+,” allegedly Republican group. Make no mistake, the RNC Pride Coalition will seek to get elected their ideological kind of Republican—the kind that believe marriage has no connection to sexual differentiation or reproduction, the kind that believe children have no right to a mother and a father, and the kind that believe celebration of homosexual acts and relationships is necessary for a healthy social order. Log Cabin Republicans and the “RNC Pride Coalition” believe that homosexual acts and relationships are worthy of pride. Such beliefs are neither conservative nor good for America.

The RNC has decided that sacrificing principle for power will build a better America. The RNC, under chairwoman Ronna McDaniel’s leadership, has calculated that the homosexual and cross-dressing communities are more politically valuable to the RNC than are stalwart conservatives who have been fighting for decades to make America a safe place where families, children, and liberty can flourish.

While conservatives are awakening from their slumber, working tenaciously to get critical race theory, the “trans” ideology, and homosexual porn out of their schools, McDaniel is working tenaciously to curry favor with homosexual “Republicans.”

Once the “RNC Pride Coalition” has fundraised and successfully shoved their kind of Republicans into office—and by “their kind,” I mean those who are ignorant of the critical importance of marriage, of the traditional family structure, and of sexual morality—the speed at which conservative principles and policies will be abandoned will accelerate. And the corruption of culture will continue.

Just as Democrats are too spiritually blind to see how their policies are destroying America, so too is the “RNC Pride Coalition” too spiritually blind to see that there is no greater domestic threat to our First Amendment protections, children, families, and education than the sexuality ideology of the “LGBTQ+” communities. Therefore, there is no greater domestic threat to America’s freedoms and future than partnering with Log Cabin Republicans, thereby strengthening their political and social power.

The announcement was made at a swanky event, offensively named “Spirit of Lincoln Gala,” held at former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate where McDaniel gushed,

Conservatives in Log Cabin don’t just share our vision for a free, secure and prosperous America—they enrich it by adding unique perspectives to our party and recruiting even more diverse candidates and supporters to join our cause.

Perhaps McDaniel could be a tad more explicit and transparent. What, pray tell, are the “unique” perspectives that Log Cabin members bring to the GOP? What is the nature of the diversity that the recruited candidates and supporters will bring to “our cause”? How exactly will these “unique” perspectives and unidentified form/s of diversity help the GOP and America?

Homosexual political consultant Richard Grenell, who has worked for George Bush, Mitt Romney, and Donald Trump, made this curious claim at the gala where he was given the “Game Changer Award”:

[T]he thing about gay conservatives is that we have normal lives. … We’re not going to make sexual orientation be the be all, end all center of everything that we do.

Grenell didn’t define “normal,” nor did he explain what he was referring to when he said, “normal lives.” If by normal, he means “adherence to a standard that is associated with well-being” or “functioning in a natural way,” the lives of homosexuals are not “normal.” Engaging in sterile homoerotic acts is not normal or natural. Two people of the same sex legally “marrying” in imitation of true marriage is not normal. Renting wombs and purchasing genetic material to create motherless or fatherless children is not normal, right, or good.

And take note, Grenell didn’t say they wouldn’t make sexual orientation an issue. He said they wouldn’t put it at the “center of everything” they do. In other words, they will be making “sexual orientation” an issue.

If anyone doubts what the goals of the “LGBTQ+” community are for the GOP, here’s Grenell hinting at what he views as progress—and it has nothing to do with religious liberty, speech rights, or children’s needs:

Now … we were at an event where the former president of the United States [Trump] and first lady are welcoming us, and hosting 600 influential gays, lesbians and their straight allies. It is phenomenal for me to look back and see this and to champion an organization like Log Cabin.

Unless conservatives get busy and bold, the GOP will hoist aboard the “LGBTQ+” community and toss overboard conservatives and their pesky principles like so much jetsam.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and other GOP Officials to urge them to uphold the GOP Platform on marriage, family and society (pages 31-32). Conservative Christians expect GOP officials to uphold foundational principles critical to the health and future of America, not undermine them.  You can also call the RNC at (202) 863-8500 during business hours to let them know how bad an idea the “RNC Pride Coalition” is.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/The-GOPs-Shameful-Pride-Coalition-1.mp3

“Peter” Fray-Witzer, a privileged white female student at uber-woke Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio claims to have been recently triggered big time by the presence of workmen in her dorm room who came to install a spanking new radiator so Fray-Witzer (birth name “Ava”) would be cozy in her segregated dorm throughout the cold Ohio winter.

The regressive Oberlin is deeply committed to “identity-based” segregation. Oberlin is so committed to segregation that it provides student housing segregated by race, ethnicity, and “gender identity.”

In an editorial published in the student newspaper, Fray-Witzer waxed aggrieved that she “had less than 24 hours to prepare for the arrival of the installation crew.” She “was further perturbed by the ambiguous” period of time the installers would be in her room. Evidently, she expected to know precisely how long it would take for workers to install a new radiator. Good luck when she moves into the real world.

The too easily triggered, self-absorbed Fray-Witzer wants all of Oberlin to know that she is “very averse to people entering” her “personal space.” And she wants the Oberlin community to know that the likelihood of the radiator installation crew being “cisgender men” exacerbated her “anxiety.” To be clear, “cisgender men” are normal men. In other words, they are men who accept the scientific reality that they are biologically male and will remain so in perpetuity.

The bewhiskered, male-appearing Fray-Witzer lives in Baldwin Cottage, one of Oberlin’s two housing facilities reserved for women and “trans”-identifying students. If her melodramatic retelling of her response to an ordinary dormitory occurrence is truthful, she is mentally unwell:

I was angry, scared, and confused. … I waited apprehensively. The workers began installing in common spaces, and I could see immediately that they were all men. It was clear that the College had not made a special request that male workers not be allowed onto the upper floors of Baldwin.

How exactly could the terrified Fray-Witzer determine the workmen’s sex, let alone their “gender identities”? By looking at them? By their clothes? Is she a genital policeperson? Does she have x-ray vision? Is she a mind reader? Did she ask for their pronouns? Is she herself controlled by the ugly tyranny of socially constructed gender norms? I thought “transmen” were actually men, and Fray-Witzer is a “transman.” So, is she male or not?

Maybe Fray-Witzer is not as fully woke as she thinks she is. What went wrong? Surely, her wealthy, woke parents, attorneys Evan and Sharon Fray-Witzer, did the best job they could in affirming the “trans” ideology.

By the time Fray-Witzer returned from class, the workpersons who Fray-Witzer assumed were “cisgender males” were done but had to return the next day, which left Fray-Witzer feeling “mildly violated and a little peeved.”

Why would any college student feel violated by the presence of college workmen in her room during the day accompanied, I might add, by a college official? Fray-Witzer explains:

[M]any people—myself included—choose to live there [i.e., Baldwin Cottage] for an added degree of privacy and a feeling of safety and protection. A significant portion of students choose to live in Baldwin because they are victims of sexual assault or abuse, have suffered past invasions of privacy, or have some other reason to fear cisgender men.

Does living in a safe rental place require excluding every member of the feared sex from every setting foot in the safe space for any reason?

Why would women who have been sexually assaulted or suffered past invasions of privacy fear only “cisgender” men? Aren’t some biological males who identify as women capable of sexually abusing women? Aren’t some biological males who identify as women capable of invading the privacy of women? Do women who have been sexually abused or had their privacy invaded know the “gender identities” of the men who violated them?

Most important, don’t women who have been sexually assaulted or had their privacy invaded by biological males have a right to be free of the presence of all biological males—including males who identify as female—in their private spaces (with the exception of workmen who occasionally have to fix stuff)?

Fray-Witzer’s fears and “gender-normative” assumptions expose the incoherent, self-contradictory nature of the “trans” ideology, which is also exposed by the demands of  “trans” students that they be free to use private spaces intended for opposite-sex students. “Trans” students claim they want to use private spaces with only those whose “gender identities” they share. “Gender identity” is defined as the subjective, internal feelings one has about one’s maleness or femaleness. So, how do “trans”-identifying students know the “gender identities” of the persons in their private spaces? How do they know, for example, whether the boys in boys’ spaces identify internally as boys or whether the girls in girls’ spaces identify as girls?

Obviously, they can’t know the “gender identities” of all the students using restrooms and locker rooms. Boys who pretend they are girls cannot know the “gender identities” of the boys in the boys’ locker room or the girls in the girls’ locker room.

So, what their demands reveal is that they want to use private spaces with only those who have the anatomy they wish they had. In other words, biological sex as manifest in anatomy is incredibly important for “trans”-identifying persons,” but biological sex is supposed to be meaningless for everyone else.

The truth—something colleges and universities used to pursue—is that biological sex is profoundly meaningful. How we understand embodiment will determine the future of America. How we think about biological sex, what we think about the proper use of our bodies, and what ideas about sex society affirms will determine whether our cultural collapse continues. If individuals, churches, schools, and political parties do not stand boldly for sexual truth, America will no longer be a place conducive to human flourishing. Getting sexuality right is far more important to the health and future of any society than tax rates or business regulations.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Oberlin-College-Student-Exposes-Transinsanity.mp3

Written by Patience Griswold

Recently a transgender activist claimed, “Abortion rights and trans rights are two sides of the same coin.” Jennifer Finney Boylan, a man who identifies as a woman, argued that

In many ways, the decision to terminate a pregnancy is not unlike the decision to go through transition: It is a fundamentally private choice that can be made only by the individual in question — a person who alone knows the truth of their heart, who alone can understand what the consequences of their choices will be in the years to come.

While Boylan is incorrect in how the two movements are two sides of the same coin, it is true that abortion and transgenderism are rooted in the same set of ideas. Both rest on the assumption that one’s “true self” or personhood can be separated from biological realities and both have a distorted understanding of the purpose of medicine.

Just as the abortion movement insists that an unborn child is not a person even though science has proven that life begins at conception, the transgender movement insists that a person’s “true self” can be separate from his or her physical body. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Justice Anthony Kennedy infamously stated, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” In that statement, he captures the mindset that is behind both abortion and transgenderism — the idea that each of us has the “right” to define our own concept of existence.

The right to define one’s own concept of existence suggests that existence has not already been clearly defined by the One who created it. If there is such a thing as reality, then we do not get to “define our own concept of existence” and attempts to do so have life-altering and even life-ending consequences. The stakes could not be higher. A baby in the womb exists, is alive, and is a person regardless of how anyone else “defines their own concept of existence.” Similarly, male and female are realities that do not depend on one’s own concept of existence but on biological fact.

This so-called “right to define one’s own concept of existence” distorts medical practice in such a way that it is no longer viewed as a means of healing but as a means of forcing, or attempting to force reality to match one’s own desires. This happens in abortion when the reality of an unborn child’s right to life is dismissed in favor of a woman’s “choice.” Instead of doing no harm, abortionists intentionally kill an unborn child while insisting that the child was not truly a person.

Transgender ideology also rejects the “do no harm” principle and replaces it with the notion that whatever the patient believes will lead to personal fulfillment is right, even if it causes direct harm to his or her body. What is “loving” under this view is not what is in the best interest of the patient or what honors their human dignity by caring for their body, but doing whatever the patient feels will give them the most “autonomy” over his or her body. Boylan writes,

Let’s be clear: It is not love to force a trans child to go through a puberty that will scar them for the rest of their life. It is not love to force a woman to bear a child against her will. It is not love to deny anyone autonomy over their own body.

The heartbreaking and horrifying irony of this argument is that a writer who is claiming that going through puberty will leave a child “scarred” for the rest of his or her life is literally arguing that children should be given hormone-blockers that prevent their natural development and undergo surgeries that will leave them permanently scarred.

Arguments for “bodily autonomy” as a justification for abortion or transgender surgeries have a very low view of the human body, treating it as a “flesh prison” in the words of some transgender activists, or in the case of abortion, something to be disposed of as medical waste. The truth is our bodies matter and should be treated like they matter. Embodiment is a fundamental part of what it is to be human and we cannot separate our humanness from our embodiment. Because of this, “bodily autonomy” does not make it right to remove or mutilate healthy organs in order to make someone’s body resemble that of the opposite sex. Similarly, “bodily autonomy” is not a justification for taking away the life of another human being, whatever their stage of development, as abortion does.

Far from being about fear or control as Boylan claims, rejecting abortion and the so-called “treatments” offered by the transgender movement is a matter of respecting human life and the human body and living consistently with biological reality. Not only do we not have the right to redefine reality, we do not have the ability to do so. The abortion movement and the transgender movement both deny this and leave destruction in their wake as a result. The two really are two sides of the same coin and in a classic “heads I win, tails you lose” scenario, the “patients” that these movements claim to serve never benefit.

This article was originally published by the Minnesota Family Council.

Leftists used their favorite tactics for silencing those who won’t kowtow to their perverse, deceitful, and destructive sexuality ideology. When conservatives warned that allowing males in female private spaces puts girls and women at risk, leftists called them ugly names and mocked them. And now it’s been revealed that on May 28, 2021, a 15-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by a skirt-wearing boy who was allowed to use girls’ restrooms at Stone Bridge High School in Loudoun County, Virginia. The administration then transferred the boy to another district school where he sexually assaulted another girl. He has now been charged with “two counts of forcible sodomy, one count of anal sodomy, and one count of forcible fellatio.”

The first victim’s father, Scott Smith, attended his first school board meeting ever on June 22, 2021, just 3 1/2 weeks after his daughter’s sexual assault. Many community members attended the meeting to discuss the board’s policy of sexually integrating the private spaces of minor students and of compelling teachers to lie by using incorrect pronouns when referring to cross-sex impersonators. A woman who through her rainbow t-shirt identified herself as an “LGBTQ+” activist, quarreled with Smith including telling him she did not believe his daughter was raped by a skirt-wearing boy in the girls’ restroom. The police-intervened and Smith—like the Covington Catholic High School boys—was turned into a national villain by leftist activists who identify as “journalists” and no longer have the patience or integrity to investigate stories before maligning people.

I wonder how leftist fathers would react if their 15-year-old daughters had been sodomized in a girls’ bathroom at their “safe” schools and then had an activist tell them she doesn’t believe it happened.

When conservatives and feminists who oppose men in women’s private spaces express fear that the actual safety—not “microaggressions” that hurt feelings but macro-assaults that hurt bodies—of girls is jeopardized, leftists assert that no female-impersonator would ever assault a girl or woman. Apparently “trans”-identifying persons are not only the picture of mental health but the picture of moral perfection as well.

When conservatives and feminists express concern that sexual predators may pretend to be gender dysphoric in order to access their prey more easily, soothsayer “trans”-activists aver that no predator would ever do such a thing.

Now that that thing has been done, expect leftists to dismiss these crimes as few and far between.

Leftists justifiably decry the sexual abuse of minors in religious institutions and yet say virtually nothing about the sexual abuse of minors by both school employees and students in government-controlled schools.

Instead, school administrations and teachers’ unions protect teachers who prey on minor children. And now school districts, state boards of education, state lawmakers, and the federal government collude to increase the risk of girls being sexually assaulted by implementing policies that sexually integrate restrooms and locker rooms.

The Loudoun County School Board bears some responsibility for the assault of Mr. Smith’s daughter. Perhaps Mr. Smith and the parents of the other victim have the basis for a successful lawsuit against a district that failed to take reasonable measures to protect their daughters.

Now that rational parents have finally had enough of leftist usurpation of public schools for their own pernicious ideological purposes, Biden has sicced the big federal guns on them. Biden’s audacious attorney general Merrick Garland has issued a “memorandum” in which he declared,

I am directing the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working with each United States Attorney, to convene meetings with federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial leaders in each federal judicial district within 30 days of the issuance of this memorandum. These meetings will facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff, and will open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment, and response.

Americans should disabuse themselves of the mistaken notion that Garland is taking aim only at threats of violence. His “memorandum” concludes with this:

The Department is steadfast in its commitment to protect all people in the United States from violence, threats of violence, and other forms of intimidation and harassment. (emphasis added)

Expect Biden’s Newspeakers to redefine “intimidation” and “harassment” in whatever way suits their dogmatic fancy.

In addition to the physical safety of girls, there are several other important principles at issue:

1.) Safety: Children are not made safe by facilitating a delusion that often leads to lifelong drug dependency and surgery that can cause sterility, reduced libido, erectile dysfunction, inability to experience orgasm, deep vein thrombosis; pulmonary embolism; hyperkalemia; hypertension; Type II diabetes; stroke; cardiovascular disease; weight gain; high triglycerides; osteoporosis; weight gain; polycythemia;  dyslipidemia; vaginitis; urinary tract infections; pelvic pain; clitoral discomfort; sleep apnea; male pattern baldness; and an increased risk for anxiety depression, and suicide.

2.) Scientific reality: We now have cultural leaders, including lawmakers, physicians, and teachers saying anti-science, nonsensical, deceitful things like men can menstruate, give birth, and “chestfeed,” and some women have penises.

3.) Identity and religious discrimination: We have school administrations—taxpayer-funded government employees—commanding teachers and students to speak lies, coercing them under threat of punishment to participate in a destructive delusion that violates their conscience and for many their religious beliefs. There is no ethical or constitutional justification for subordinating some students’ religious identities to the socially constructed “gender identities” of other students. There is no ethical or constitutional justification for discriminating based on religion, which is exactly what punishing Christian faculty, staff, or students for refusing to lie constitutes.

4.) Sex-based rights: Women and men have a right to be free of the presence of persons of the opposite sex in private spaces where they undress, shower, or tend to bodily functions. That right exists because men and women are fundamentally different, and in some contexts, those differences matter. Feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy when undressed or engaged in bodily functions are natural and good and should be respected. All men and women are entitled to such privacy protections, but girls and women have an additional need for such protections. Girls and women are vulnerable to sexual assault from males—from both adolescent and adult males.

Parents must fearlessly persevere in this battle for truth in the schools that our taxes subsidize. This a stewardship issue. This is a citizenship issue. And this signals whether we love children–all children–or not.

This is a fight for the future of America. Leftists in control of public schools are in the process of destroying America from within by indoctrinating the next generation of culture-makers. They are destroying America by destroying the hearts, minds, and bodies of children.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Girl-Sexually-Assaulted-in-Girls-H.S.-Bathroom.mp3

The great evil in America for over two centuries was slavery and its ugly aftermath. Too many Christians for too long stood passive as Satan attacked the humanity of African Americans. Too few had the courage to do what Wheaton College founder, pastor, and tenacious abolitionist Jonathan Blanchard did. Here is but one example:

During their trip from Cincinnati to Galesburg, in order to observe the Sabbath as a day of rest, the Blanchard family took lodgings in a hotel in slave territory. On that Sabbath morning, just before breakfast, out in the back yard of the hotel, a slave girl was unmercifully flogged, so severely that blood from wounds in her back fell to the ground around her. At the breakfast table some of the guests of the hotel were laughing and joking about the incident. Finally, Jonathan Blanchard could stand it no longer. He arose, and was about to leave the room. Then, realizing the meaning of retreat on his part, he turned and apologized for being too cowardly to testify against their actions. Directly facing those who made light of such barbarity, he said, “For every drop of slave blood that was shed, God will require white blood!”

Then came the Civil War.

Blanchard was not alone among pastors. Charles Spurgeon spoke too in plain, bold language about the evil of slavery:

I do from my inmost soul detest slavery . . . and although I commune at the Lord’s table with men of all creeds, yet with a slave-holder I have no fellowship of any sort or kind. Whenever one has called upon me, I have considered it my duty to express my detestation of his wickedness, and I would as soon think of receiving a murderer into my church … as a man stealer.

Lest anyone in our post-racial society think that such a statement was without cost, here’s some of what Spurgeon endured:

Spurgeon’s character was assassinated throughout the Confederacy. His sermons, which in 1862-1863 sold one million copies annually, were censured. His books, which sold 1,000 copies per minute at trade shows, were publicly destroyed. Sermon bonfires illuminated jail yards, plantations, and bookshops throughout the Southern states.

Here’s another response from the citizens of Montgomery, Alabama prior to the burning of Spurgeon’s books:

We trust that the works of the greasy cockney vociferator may receive the same treatment throughout the South. And if the pharisaical author should ever show himself in these parts, we trust that a stout cord may speedily find its way around his eloquent throat.

Today, Satan remains committed to dividing people by race, but he’s also attacking other biblical truths with a delighted vengeance. For 70 years, he has been attacking with relish biblical truths regarding sexuality and marriage.

So, where are today’s pastors and political leaders who are willing to speak unpopular truths about the evil of the normalization of sexual perversion as Blanchard and Spurgeon spoke about the evil of slavery? Are today’s pastors willing to say that they “detest” “trans”-cultism and that they will “have no fellowship of any sort or kind” with those who chemically and surgically mutilate children’s bodies? Are there pastors—including pastors of the renown of Charles Spurgeon—who consider it “their duty to express their detestation” of the madness and wickedness of gender theory, same-sex faux-marriage, and sexually integrated private spaces?

I know of one political leader who recently dared to speak truth in a culture where evil is taught as good. North Carolina’s black, Republican Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson is under fire for speaking this truth in April at Asbury Baptist Church in Seagrove, North Carolina:

There’s no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth. And yes, I called it filth. And if you don’t like it that I called it filth, come see me and I’ll explain it to you.

To be clear, “filthy” means “contemptibly offensive; objectionable.” So, yes, socially constructed leftist ontological and moral beliefs about homoerotic acts and cross-sex impersonation are filthy. Teaching them to children is evil.

Most conservatives can’t muster sufficient courage to oppose the wickedness leavening our culture even as children are being chemically and surgically mutilated. Many Christians have the means to homeschool, to educate their children in co-ops, or to send them to Christian private schools but choose instead to send them to government schools to be tutored by people who lack the wisdom or fortitude to oppose evil lies. Those parents are not fulfilling God’s command to “train up a child in the way he should go.”

If conservatives don’t realize that teaching children anything positive about cross-sex impersonation and homosexuality is evil, we are in deep trouble. If Christians don’t so realize, we’re in even deeper trouble. If Christian conservatives have become so worldly and deceived that they believe the chief end of man is to please the ungodly, the church is lost. If Christians believe that being a “welcoming, inclusive, and diverse” church entails silence on or affirmation of sexual sin, the church and culture are lost.

In 2014, I first wrote that the end goal of the “trans” cult is the eradication of all public recognition of sex differences. I have written that every year since 2014. Because of the ignorance, cowardice, silence, and capitulation of conservatives, that end fast approaches.

No more single sex bathrooms, locker rooms, dorm rooms, or prison cells. British Airways, Congress, and government schools are eliminating all things “gendered.” No more addressing “boys,” “girls,” “ladies,” or “gentlemen.” No more references to “sisters” and “brothers.” No more references in medical schools to “pregnant women.” Tampon machines in boys’ restrooms in elementary schools.

Our cowardice now bequeaths a neutered future to our children and grandchildren, maintained by tyrannical oppression that we should all be able to see on the darkening horizon.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Cowardice-and-The-Orwellian-Neutering-of-America.mp3

Written by Patience Griswold

This week is Banned Books Week, a week that the American Library Association claims “brings together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.” However, in a year that saw major corporations engaging in viewpoint discrimination, two books that faced bans this year for daring to question the transgender agenda, When Harry Became Sally by Ryan T. Anderson and Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier, were notably absent from this year’s “Challenged book list.”

As Thomas Spence, President of Regnery Publishing noted, Banned Books Week is proving itself to be nothing more than a “gimmicky promotion [that] caters primarily to those who believe that schoolchildren should have access to anything bound between two covers without the interference of those busybodies we call parents.”

Earlier this year, Amazon removed Anderson’s book on transgenderism without any warning or explanation. When they finally broke their silence, they doubled down, insisting that When Harry Became Sally, which had been listed on their website for three years without any issues, violated their standards.

However, as Anderson pointed out, Amazon can’t argue that they simply don’t sell books that they disagree with — if that were the case, then they have some explaining to do when it comes to many of the books that they do choose to sell. “[T]he way that they’ve marketed themselves to customers is that they sell all books worth reading, not just books they agree with,” said Anderson. Nor is Amazon’s argument that they won’t sell it because they won’t sell books that refer to transgenderism as mental illness compelling considering that the only times in the book where transgenderism is referred to as a mental illness are direct quotes, one from a man who identifies as transgender, and the other from University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins.

Additionally, with 40 pages of notes reflecting the rigorous academic research behind the book, and endorsements from leaders in the field, no one can reasonably accuse Anderson of cheap arguments or shoddy research. What he can be accused of is challenging the transgender agenda, and for that, his book has been banned by the world’s largest online retailer.

Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage received similar treatment from Amazon when its ads were removed last June, although Amazon has not removed the book itself. Target, on the other hand, pulled Irreversible Damage from shelves after a single complaint from an anonymous Twitter user. After briefly reinstating it, Target quietly removed the book again, along with The End of Gender by Dr. Deborah Soh, another book that critiques the transgender agenda.

The theme for this year’s Banned Books Week is “Books unite us. Censorship divides us.” As such, one would think that Banned Books Week would take the time to highlight the censorship coming from major corporations, but the organizations behind Banned Books Week have remained conveniently silent on this issue. Instead, proponents of Banned Books Week use the week as an excuse to celebrate increasingly explicit content filling library shelves under the name of free speech while conveniently turning a blind eye to the egregious viewpoint discrimination that takes place when authors challenge radical gender ideology.

If Banned Books Week is really about celebrating free speech and giving a voice to unpopular points of view, then using it to push an agenda that enjoys the support of top elected officials, woke corporations while ignoring the censorship of dissenters is hardly the way to do that. For my part, I’m celebrating Banned Books Week by revisiting When Harry Became Sally and Irreversible Damage.

Patience Griswold received her BA from Bethlehem College and Seminar and writes from the greater Twin Cities area.
This article was originally published by the Minnesota Family Council.

A public-school board in Virginia (Gloucester County Schools) has been court ordered to pay a $1.3 million dollar settlement to a transgender student who wanted to use the boys’ bathroom.

“Gavin Grimm” was born a biological female in 1999, but eventually underwent a legal name change in her freshman year and reconstruction and hormone therapy treatments to transition to her desired status of being considered a male. (Throughout this article, the author will refer to Grimm as a biological female to avoid unnecessary confusion.)

In an attempt to accommodate Grimm, the school built a single-stall restroom as an “alternative” for students with “gender issues.” Apparently, the concession from the school wasn’t good enough for Grimm. Grimm reportedly occasionally refused to use the provided restroom and in 2015 embarked on a six-year court battle to earn the legal right to use the boys’ bathroom (even though she has long since graduated from the school herself).

According to the court decision, “Grimm suffered from stigma, from urinary tract infections from bathroom avoidance, and from suicidal thoughts that led to hospitalization.”

Judge Henry F. Floyd of the Fourth Circuit Appeal Court wrote the majority opinion, in which Judge James A. Wynn joined. Their decision, straight out of Critical Legal Studies, sounds more like an LGBTQIA+ apologetics manual than a legal ruling: “There is no question that there are students in our K-12 schools who are transgender. For many of us, gender identity is established between the ages of three and four years old.”[i]

The justices go on to assert:

“Of course, there are other gender-expansive youth who may identify as nonbinary, youth born intersex who do or do not identify with their sex-assigned-at-birth, and others whose identities belie gender norms. See generally PFLAG, PFLAG National Glossary of Terms (July 2019 – website omitted — explaining that ‘transgender’ is ‘also used as an umbrella term to describe groups of people who transcend conventional expectations of gender identity or expression’)”[ii]

This legal battle regarding transgenderism in schools will help establish case law precedent around the nation. The usual suspects were involved. When it comes to cases involving the destruction of morality and the traditional family, we expect to see the ACLU on scene, and they did not “disappoint.”

Grimm’s case was elevated all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, who decided not to hear it, thus allowing the favorable Fourth Circuit Court decision to stand. Immediately, Grimm turned her activism to other school boards.

Speaking recently to the nearby Newport News public school board, Grimm said, in what sounded like a legal threat: “I’m speaking to you to make it very clear that discrimination is an open-and-shut conversation here in the Fourth Circuit in Virginia, and it’s very expensive.” She also said: “Any further resistance to affirming the transgender young people in this county is an act of aggression to these students and an act of political preservation by members of the school board.”[iii]

The school board quickly changed their school’s policy and will allow transgender students to use the restrooms of their choice moving forward.

What Could This Mean for Students?

According to the Fourth Circuit Court, there are approximately 150,000 transgender students in the United States today. Now that Grimm has successfully won a heavy lawsuit against a public school, most schools will not risk paying out millions of dollars. They will do as Newport News did and throw open the bathroom and locker room doors as a free-for-all. Far from providing security and protection this puts many students at risk.

One example is the case of an 18-yr-old female student in Seattle, WA who was attacked in a gender-neutral high school bathroom by a male football player named Demonte Rigney. She was forced against her will to perform sex acts on him. [iv]

Another is a 5-yr-old girl in Decatur, Georgia who, because of the school’s pro-transgender policies allowing boys in girls’ bathrooms, was attacked by a male student who identifies as “gender fluid”. The predator student “forcibly touched her genitals despite her protests, causing her both pain and fear.”[v]

The courts are clearly deciding that the rights of some students who pretend to be (or believe to be) of the opposite gender (less than 1% of all students) trumps the right of all students to be assured of their safety on a school campus.

Too many parents hold to the naïve assumption that the public schools of today are the same as the ones they grew up in. Nothing could be farther from the truth! Today’s public school system is an absolute tsunami of leftist indoctrination on topics ranging from Marxism to Critical Race Theory, to gender fluidity, to naturalistic atheism. It is anything but neutral and has strayed far from promoting true academic education.

It is well past time for parents to remove their children from the immoral government school system and choose explicitly Christian education.

Footnotes

[i] https//www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/191952.P.pdf, p. 11.

[ii] Ibid, p. 12.

[iii] https://www.dailypress.com/news/education/dp-nw-newport-news-special-meeting-trans-policies-20210827-pmm3vs4kabdnxda6vcvwqmhuta-story.html

[iv] https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/ballard-high-student-charged-with-on-campus-rape/797502564/

[v] https://adfmedia.org/press-release/us-opens-investigation-sexual-assault-minor-child-georgia-violation-title-ix

Government schools in the cities and suburbs alike are unfit places to educate children. In the past week, school controversies in Illinois and California have exposed the unfitness of schools.

First up, there was the story of woke third grade teacher Lauren Crowe from Abraham Lincoln Elementary School in Glen Ellyn, Illinois whose social media posts in which she boasts about her “LGBTQ+” classroom indoctrination efforts have split the community.

Talking directly to little ones in one TikTok video, she announces that in honor of “pride” month, she’s going to teach about “the history of the LGBTQ+ community,” about the “amazing individuals who have made this community better and who have stood up for our rights,” and about what each child “can do as an ally to support those members as well.” She also passed out “gay-and-bisexually-themed stuffed animal ‘plushies’” to her 8-9-year-old students.

Crowe, who on TikTok calls herself “classroomyogi,” is not merely suggesting her students “can” support homosexuals and cross-sex impersonators. The enlightened yogi Crowe really means students should support them and all their beliefs and cultural goals. She seeks to transform her students into activists for her controversial pet cause.

Closing her eyes with a beatific smile, Crowe says to little ones, “Black and Brown transwomen are the ones who made our rights possible.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1433291676081180674

Many parents, grandparents, and other taxpayers believe that homoerotic acts and relationships are profoundly immoral. They believe that 8-9-year-olds should not be taught anything about sexual deviance. They believe elementary school children should not be introduced to sexual deviance by government employees at taxpayer expense. And they believe that taxpayer-subsidized employees should not be promoting their arguable moral beliefs as objective facts to children.

Change Agent Crowe, who is 24 but acts like she’s 14, continues:

[Pride month] is also a time that we need to be aware that throughout history … there’s been a lot of … homophobia. This is a month when we can take action. … to make the world a safer, kinder, and better place for the LGBTQ+ community.

By “safer, kinder, and better,” she means a world in which theologically orthodox Christian beliefs about homosexuality and cross-dressing are eradicated or forced underground. And by “homophobia,” she means moral propositions about homoerotic acts with which she disagrees.

It is neither kind nor good to affirm lies to children. Affirming the “LGBTQ” ideology does not make anyone safer. And children can be taught to treat all people with respect without teaching them to respect false and destructive beliefs.

In another video also directed to students, Crowe, whose classroom is adorned with pro-“LGBTQ” paraphernalia, shows a series of picture books used in her classroom to advance her moral beliefs.  To see Crowe’s other videos, click here, here, and here.

I share the outrage of Glen Ellyn community members, but I am a bit surprised by it in that Illinois laws—laws about which Illinois Family Institute warned many times before they were passed—mandate this indoctrination in elementary schools.

In Carol Stream, Glenbard North teacher Scott Grigoletto, hostilely confronted a student about not wearing his mask in accordance with government diktats, threatening to call the police, and calling the student “a piece of sh*t.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1434540670077870080

According to his website,  Grigoletto is Director of Percussion at both Glenbard North High School and York Community High School in Elmhurst, Illinois.

Curiously, just before his unhinged rant, 30-year-old Grigoletto was photographed not wearing his mask in accordance with government diktats. Grigoletto’s mask was below his potentially virus-brimming nose which could have spewed cooties on the “pieces” of “sh*t” he teaches:

Moving from the Midwest’s land of leftists to the Pacific’s land of fruit and nuts, we find Antifa member Gabriel Gipe who, until last week, was an AP Government teacher at Inderkum High School in Sacramento, California’s seat of government.

A Project Veritas undercover investigation recently exposed what many have been warning about for years: Leftist propagandists posing as educators are taking taxpayer money to mal-form other people’s children into leftist ideological clones. No need to speculate about Gipe’s goal because he stated it explicitly:

I have 180 days to turn them into revolutionaries. … I post a calendar [of leftist political events] every week. … And I do it for extra credit, so they get points for doing it so that encourages them to do it. Because I can’t just like, “Hey, here’s some things going on.” They’ll never go. … When they go, they take pictures, they write up a reflection, that’s their extra credit.

In addition to having an Antifa flag and poster of Mao Zedong in his classroom, Gipe bought rubber stamps that he used to “mark student work as complete.” According to the superintendent, “These stamps include an inappropriate image of Josef Stalin with an insensitive phrase, as well as other stamps with Fidel Castro, Kim Jung Un and others.” Gipe shared that there are three more teachers in his department alone who are on his “same page.”

Leftists know the younger the child, the easier their indoctrination work will be, so that’s why they’ve got preschoolers in their sights.

In northern California, a polyamorous preschool teacher who goes by the name of “Koe Creation,” posted a TikTok video to exuberantly tout her efforts to indoctrinate two-year-olds with her destructive sexuality ideology.

Koe Creation and another “queer, neurodivergent educator” co-teach toddlers in the hope of co-creating “queer, pagan, poly,” neuro-nuts like themselves out of their innocent little charges. Koe Creation proudly admits to talking to toddlers about “gender, and skin color, and consent, and empathy, and our bodies, and autonomy.” Creation exults, “It’s been fabulous!”

So, what did Creation say to her malleable students? There’s nothing wrong with talking about skin color if she’s telling toddlers that what matters is the content of their character, not the color of their skin. There’s nothing wrong with talking about skin color unless she’s telling them that if they have colorless skin they’re privileged oppressors, and if they have colorful skin, they’re oppressed by systemic racism.

We also don’t have to speculate about what she and her co-propagandist teach about gender because she eagerly recounted this anecdote:

Today at the lunch table when the topic of gender and genitals came up, one of our students plainly said, “Well, I’m a girl today, but I know Teacher Koe isn’t. No, they’re enby!”

This odd statement from a preschooler requires some explanation: She has been taught that her teacher is “enby” or “NB,” which stands for “nonbinary,” and she has been taught to refer to her clearly female teacher by the third person plural pronoun “they.”

This nut could end up being your child’s teacher and you wouldn’t even find out the craziness they’re teaching until your kid tells you about it. If you aren’t disturbed after watching this, you’re a lunatic. School choice is the civil rights issue of our generation. pic.twitter.com/y1V3Rotx9k

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) August 17, 2021

Enquiring minds might want to know how the topic of “gender and genitals” came up at the lunch table.

Koe Creation was raised by five adults, two of whom were her biological parents. She describes her family as “new-agey liberals who date multiple people, are naked more often than clothed and think sex is perfectly natural.” When asked if her subversive upbringing might be the cause of her “identities” as “queer, polyamorous, and sex-positive,” she declares unequivocally and non-credibly “no.” She also describes herself accurately as a “professional pervert.”

Creation has written a book all about her peculiar upbringing titled This Heart Holds Many: My Life as the Nonbinary Millennial Child of a Polyamorous Family. One of the other children raised in the same unfit poly family is also “nonbinary” and also goes by “they/them” pronouns. If her anarchical family structure had nothing to do with her anarchical identities, it’s a remarkable coincidence that another child in the “family” would grow up to have those exact same anarchical identities.

Just as leftists can no longer identify obscenity, they also can’t identify perversion, child abuse, or indoctrination. Get your kids out of government schools. The systemic corruption is too entrenched to change in time for your kids. In the meantime, fight for change. This is a stewardship issue. Our hard-earned dollars are being used to destroy the hearts and minds of the next generation and, thereby, America.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Indoctrinating-from-Cradle-to-College.mp3