A National Review article warns of a troubling new collaboration between the European Union (EU)and social media sites including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Microsoft to police and censor the Internet.

In a document with Orwellian overtones titled “Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech Online,” the EU announces this unholy alliance. While offering a token commitment to free speech,  assuring protection of even ideas “that offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population,” the dominant commitment is to suppressing “hate speech.”

This document makes clear that part of the motivation for global censorship is combatting the use of the Internet to advance terrorism, which is certainly a worthy goal. Unfortunately, the presumptuous “progressive” project to impose leftist moral and political views on the entire world corrupts even worthy goals.

For clarification of what constitutes “illegal hate speech,” this new alliance (henceforth referred to as Big Brother) directs readers to a document titled “Acts Adopted Under Title VI of the EU Treaty” which states that “‘Hatred’ should be understood as referring to hatred based on race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin.’” “Hatred should be understood as hatred”? Say what?

The initial structure of the sentence suggests a definition of “hatred” is forthcoming, but instead what follows is a list of conditions (i.e., “race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin”) toward which rhetorical hatred may not be expressed.

But what constitutes hatred? Does criticism of the tenets of Islam—moderate or radical—constitute hatred? Does criticism of Judaism constitute hatred? Do the vulgar rantings of homosexual bigot Dan Savage who referred to orthodox Christians as “bat sh**, a**h*le, dou**ebags” constitute ban-worthy hatred? (Read more about Savage HERE.)

The list of conditions that these Internet language police seek to protect from public expressions of “hatred” is neither exhaustive nor fixed. Big Brother’s anti-First Amendment Code of Conduct concludes with this portentous statement:

To this end, regular meetings will take place and a preliminary assessment will be reported to the High Level Group on Combating Racism, Xenophobia and all forms of intolerance by the end of 2016.

It’s not just undefined “hatred” that is being banned from the Internet. It’s undefined “intolerance” as well. And it’s not just the aforementioned six privileged conditions toward which no Internet-user may express hatred or intolerance, but all other conditions or identity groups toward which “intolerance” could conceivably be directed.

This sentence is poorly constructed in that a grammatically correct reading suggests that it is condemning the forms intolerance could assume. The forms of intolerance could be, for example, hurling epithets at or urging assaults on members of the six groups. But since the phrase “all forms of intolerance” is included in a list that alludes to conditions for which persons may be hated (i.e., racism alludes to race and xenophobia alludes to national origin), it is clear that Big Brother is expanding the groups toward which “intolerance” may not be expressed.

So what might those unnamed groups be? What other groups identifiable by some shared trait might the Internet censors believe must be free from “intolerance”? Perhaps a speech given by the EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality can help us discern the gerrymandered boundaries of Internet safe spaces.

Here is an extended excerpt from a speech delivered last October by EU commissioner Věra Jourová to the European Region of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA-Europe):

I am pleased to lend my support to this vibrant space for discussion on LGBTI rights in Europe and beyond.

We have recently seen homophobic statements made by a number of political leaders. At the United Nations General Assembly in September, First Vice-President Timmermans made it clear that human rights are for everyone and LGBTI people must not be an exception. I fully endorse his views and will not hesitate to speak out against homophobia and transphobia.

We are also seeing that a narrative undermining LGBTI rights is quietly spreading, often disguised as so-called religious principles. This is unacceptable.

First Vice-President Timmermans and I recently held a conference in Brussels on antisemitism and islamophobia, where we also discussed online hate speech and how to combat it. It is clear that we must fight all hate speech, online and offline, whatever group of society it targets. We will work with internet providers to ensure hate speech is taken off the web as soon as it’s reported.

…

[W]hen it comes to social acceptance of LGBT people in daily life situations, respondents are less accepting. Less than half of respondents (44 percent) say they would be comfortable if their son or daughter had a relationship with a person of the same sex, and only 49 percent are comfortable with gay couples showing affection in public. For transgender people, the levels of acceptance are also low….

What we need is to raise awareness of the benefits of diversity. To this end I will launch an EU-wide campaign to promote LGBTI-equality in 2016….The campaign will be part of Commission’s wider effort and actions I plan to implement in coming years to ensure the rights of LGBTI people and their acceptance are enforced.

…

If we want to move the equality agenda forward, we need a united effort from civil society, businesses, straight allies and national governments.

Lest the naïve among us mistakenly believe that Jourová is solely concerned with existential threats against particular groups, take note of one of her concerns: In this speech in which Jourova condemns hate speech and commits the EU to wiping it off the Internet, she offers parental “discomfort” with a son’s or daughter’s homoerotic relationship as something that society, the world of commerce, and national governments should unite to change.

Another clue as to what constitutes “intolerance” can be found in an EU document titled “Homophobia and Discrimination on Grounds of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in the EU Member States”:

The term ‘hate speech’, as used in this section, includes a broader spectrum of verbal acts drawing upon or expressing homophobia and/or transphobia in degrading or disrespectful public discourse. Based on available data, it is possible to identify at least three types of hate speech as having particular importance in a homophobic context: hate speech by public figures, hate speech by public religious figures and hate speech published, often anonymously, on the Internet.

…

[A]nti-LGBT statements are mainly articulated by conservative politicians and religious (Catholic, Lutheran or Evangelical Christian) public figures. These statements draw mainly upon the theme that LGBT persons and ways of living constitute a threat to society….it became clear that certain types of arguments were being used over and over again to speak out against lesbians and gays’. Among these are arguments:

• aiming to preserve the ethnic homogeneity and integrity of the nation and the state by excluding or subordinating gays and lesbians;

• drawing upon Christian belief to support the exclusion of gays and lesbians from the ‘moral community’ which is understood as encompassing the entire nation;

• referring to an unspecified morality, often invoking family values to argue for the exclusion or subordination of gays and lesbians. [emphasis added]

To the EU, any expression of the belief–including religious belief–that homoerotic activity is immoral or contrary to the health and integrity of the family and the larger community constitutes hate speech. Chew on that subversive idea for a while.

What do “progressive” leaders of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Microsoft view as evidence of hatred? What do they view as evidence of intolerance? Do they view expressions of disapproval of homoerotic activity or relationships as evidence of hatred or intolerance that should be banned? Do they view condemnation of the legal recognition of homoerotic unions as “marriages” as evidence of hatred or intolerance of those who believe differently and act in accordance with those beliefs? Do they view criticism of leftist assumptions about gender-dysphoria as hateful and intolerant?

To tolerate means to put up with or endure something objectionable. It does not mean approving of all actions or ideas or refraining from criticism of actions or ideas. And hatred of pernicious ideas does not constitute hatred of persons who espouse those ideas. Will this newly formed alliance of speech vigilantes make these distinctions? Doubtful.

Rather, it appears that in the service of expunging from the global public square ideas leftists don’t like, this alliance will, with Comstockian fervor, whitewash the Internet.

When liberal journalists come out and confess their bias, it’s tempting to say, “The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.” But don’t. This is good news.

Writing at the New York Times recently, columnist Nicholas Kristof took that hard first step. The title of his piece says it all: “A Confession of Liberal Intolerance.”

“We progressives,” he writes, “believe in diversity, and we want women, blacks, Latinos, gays and Muslims at the table, so long as they aren’t conservatives.” (Or, one might reasonably add, evangelical Christians).

Kristof and fellow liberals profess a love for tolerance and diversity. But when it comes to the most important kind—diversity of thought—he admits that the gatekeepers in academia and the media actively stigmatize those who hold views different from their own.

“We’re fine with people who don’t look like us,” he writes, “as long as they think like us.”

Universities, once recognized as bastions of tolerance and diversity, bear perhaps the greatest blame. Kristof cites studies showing that just 6 to 11 percent of humanities professors are conservatives. Fewer than one in ten social-studies professors call themselves conservative. For perspective, consider that twice that number identify as Marxists!

And lest anyone blame this on conservative self-selection, a third of academics openly admit that they would be less likely to hire a qualified candidate who voted Republican. Black, evangelical sociologist George Yancey says he faces more discrimination on campus for his Christian beliefs than he does off-campus for the color of his skin. This aggressive bias turns classrooms into hard-left “echo-chambers” where only one side of any debate is ever heard.

Kristof took his concerns to Facebook, where he asked his mostly liberal followers why those who pride themselves on tolerance can be so intolerant. The replies he got were stunning.

“Much of the ‘conservative’ worldview consists of ideas that are known empirically to be false,” commented one fellow liberal.

Why stop with conservatives? asked another. “How about we make faculties more diverse by hiring idiots?”

Wow. Kristof was understandably dumbfounded. “My Facebook followers have incredible compassion for war victims in South Sudan, for kids who have been trafficked, even for abused chickens, but no obvious empathy for conservative scholars facing discrimination.”

Speaking of Facebook, Kristof wasn’t the only one this month coming clean about left-wing bias. Several former Facebook employees recently told Gizmodo that the social media titan’s “news curators” “routinely [suppressed] conservative news” on the site’s trending module.

Rather than serving as an unbiased meter of what people are talking about, concluded Gizmodo, “Facebook’s news section reflects “the biases of its workers and the institutional imperatives of the corporation.”

Whatever your political persuasion, this skewing of education and news to push an agenda is toxic to free societies. It’s gotten so bad that even a few brave liberals are asking, “Is this really what we stand for?”

And we should applaud them! But it’s only a start. If we want other voices heard in academia and the media, we have to make the case for why that’s crucial—both by helping our friends and neighbors recognize the bias, and by offering our own voices in answer to the echo.

Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News
Michael Nunez | gizmodo.com | May 09, 2016

Facebook news selection is in hands of editors not algorithms, documents show
Sam Thielman | The Guardian | May 12, 2016

This article was originally posted at BreakPoint.org

In my eight years with IFI, I have had good experiences with journalists, including even leftist journalists. They have largely treated me graciously and chosen comments from our interviews that accurately represented IFI’s positions on issues. Last week, however, that streak came to a screeching halt. I had an experience that bore out the charges of bias leveled against the mainstream press.

After reading my article on the Chicago Public Schools new “guidelines” that permit gender-dysphoric students and teachers to use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms, Bettina Chang, a writer for Chicago Magazine, interviewed me for some twenty minutes on IFI’s views of the guidelines. When her article came out two days later, I was, to put it mildly, surprised.

The bias of Chang is evident not only in the space allotted to quotes from leftists but also in the particular quotes from our 20-minute interview she chose to include and in her remarkable defense of her bias.

Amount of space allotted to leftists vs. conservatives

Chang included quotes from representatives of four far-left, pro-“LGBT” organizations: The Center on Halsted, Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, Chicago Gender Society, and Howard Brown Health.

Chang included quotes from one conservative organization: Illinois Family Institute.

She used 33 words from The Center on Halsted, 101 words from the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, 86 words from the Chicago Gender Society, and 75 words from Howard Brown Health. She also paraphrased additional ideas from these organizations.

From our 20-minute interview, Chang used 8 words.

The 8 words she chose from our interview represented two points, one of which had nothing to do with the substance of the arguments against the use of opposite-sex restrooms by gender-dysphoric students, and the other misrepresented what I said.

Interview comments to Chang

To better understand the problems with her article and her defense of it, it’s important to know more about my initial answers to her questions.

I explained that IFI believes restrooms and locker rooms should correspond to students’ objective, immutable sex rather than their feelings about their sex because physical embodiment as male or female is profoundly meaningful and is the source of feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy.

I asked rhetorically why gender-dysphoric boys should be permitted to go to the bathroom, change clothes, or shower with only girls but girls should be denied that right.

I suggested that if curtains and stalls provide sufficient privacy to separate objectively male students from females, then there remains no reason to maintain any single-sex restrooms for any students.

I asked how the Left can be sure that if there is a mismatch between mind and body, the error rests with the body and not the mind.

Chang asked me to respond to the Leftist belief that prohibiting gender-dysphoric students from sharing restrooms with opposite-sex students is equivalent to prohibiting blacks from sharing restrooms with whites, which I did both in our initial conversation and an email that followed. Here was my response:

The only difference between blacks and whites is skin color, which is analogous to eye or hair color. So, would skin color (or eye or hair color) be relevant to restroom, locker room, shower, or shelter usage? Of course not. Even whites have diverse skin, eye, and hair colors. No one suggests that any of those color differences are relevant to feelings of modesty or the desire for privacy. So, any imposed separation was generated not by feelings of modesty or the desire for privacy. Rather, imposed separation of races in restrooms was motivated by racism.

Now with regard to sex, virtually everyone—including gender-dysphoric persons and homosexuals—acknowledge that men and women are substantively and significantly different. When homosexuals claim they are attracted only to persons of the same sex, they are implicitly and necessarily saying men and women are different, and those differences include bodily differences. When gender-dysphoric persons say they don’t want to use restrooms or locker rooms with persons of their same sex, they are saying there are fundamental and significant differences between men and women, and those differences include bodily differences. In fact, the intense desire to have an opposite-sex body is the central desire of virtually all gender-dysphoric persons. They are necessarily saying that their desire to use opposite-sex restrooms is based on those physical differences. They are demanding privacy based on sex differences while denying that privacy to others.

And if the demand for privacy based on objective sex differences is equivalent to racism, then why is the demand of gender-dysphoric persons for privacy based on sex differences not equivalent to racism? If separate restrooms for men and women are analogous to separate restrooms for blacks and whites, then are separate restrooms for gender-dysphoric males and non-gender-dysphoric males analogous to separate restrooms for blacks and whites as well? They are acknowledging sex differences and demanding to have those desires accommodated. So, why are sex differences meaningful only for those who have gender dysphoria but not for those who don’t?

So, from all those comments, here is what Chang wrote:

But acknowledgement remains an obstacle for conservative groups. Suburban-based Illinois Family Institute posted a blog this week decrying the CPS policy. The author, Laurie Higgins, says she does not believe the medical consensus that transgender people are mentally healthy, adding that “physical embodiment” of a sex should dictate bathroom use—though the group has no plans to petition CPS for changes to the policies because “that’s for community members to do,” she says.

That’s it.

While she got IFI’s position correct that we believe restroom use should correspond to physical embodiment as male or female, she conveniently omitted the reasons we believe that. She also omitted the points about the incoherence and inconsistency of the CPS guidelines that I raised through rhetorical questions. She did, however, manage to include six words about the unimportant point that IFI is not getting directly involved in efforts to overturn the CPS guidelines.

Chang’s defenses of her bias 

Even more interesting are Chang’s defenses of her imbalance.

First she told me “Sadly my editor has cut down the portion where I quoted you because he wanted me to focus on Chicago-only groups.”

Then she told me this stunner, which oddly has nothing to do with the location of IFI’s office:

[I]n writing the story, I could not ignore that your opinion is based on factual inaccuracies.

We address the question of balance by looking at accuracy as well as representation. It is your personal belief that transgender people are mentally ill, which is why you are against the policy. I think that’s important for our readers to know, and I included that in the article. I asked follow up questions to get a better view of how you came to that conclusion, but the reasoning you provided was too far outside the facts to responsibly report. [emphasis added]

Her rationalization of bias is remarkable for two reasons, the first of which is that I never said that “transgender people are mentally ill.”

Second, Chang is factually and absolutely incorrect when she claims that my opposition to gender-dysphoric persons using opposite-sex restrooms is based on my “personal belief that transgender people are “entally ill.” In point of fact, I told her specifically that IFI opposes gender-dysphoric persons in opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms because we believe objective, immutable physical embodiment as male or female is deeply and profoundly meaningful and is the source of the desire for privacy and feelings of modesty.

Here’s what I said when she went fishing for a statement from me about the mental health of gender-dysphoric persons: I asked how leftists can be sure that if there’s a mismatch between mind and body, the error rests in healthy, normally functioning bodies. And I said that the highly politicized mental health community is prescribing protocols that do not advance health.

What’s more remarkable still are the opinions of leftists that Chang evidently believes are based on factual accuracies and, therefore, suitable for print:

• From the Center on Halsted: “It’s a great day for gender-diverse students in CPS.” What is the “fact” on which this opinion is based? Gender-diverse students may have the opinion that it’s a great day, but what is the objective and accurate fact upon which that opinion is based? What is the objective factually accurate definition of “great”?

• From the Center on Halsted: “This is an affirmation of their viability as human beings.” What does this even mean? And what is the objective factual accuracy on which the opinion that affirmation of viability of gender-dysphoric persons as “human beings” requires allowing them in opposite-sex restrooms? What is the objective factual accuracy supporting the implicit opinion that people who oppose opposite-sex persons in their restrooms view gender-dysphoric persons as not viable human beings?

• From the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance: “Obviously it’s helpful when people have the support of their parents, but if it’s not possible, it’s great that a student can still be who they are in school.” What is the objective factual accuracy on which the opinion that it’s “great” that a student can pretend he or she is the opposite sex at school? What is the objective factual accuracy on which the opinion that parental support requires affirmation of the desire to be the opposite sex is based?

• From the Chicago Gender Society: “You’re not born with hate. You have to be taught hate. Like we’ve seen in North Carolina and Mississippi in recent months.” What is the objective factual accuracy on which the opinion that people who oppose opposite-sex persons in restrooms hate them?

• From Harold Brown Health: “So for kids to have the option to be in a safe environment…it’s a new day. A clean slate.” What is the objective factual accuracy on which the opinion that allowing gender-dysphoric girls in boys restrooms and locker rooms enhances school “safety.” What is the objective factual accuracy on which the opinion that allowing gender-dysphoric students to use opposite-sex restrooms and locker rooms creates a “clean slate”?

Apparently, leftists believe that opinions must be based on “factual accuracies” as defined by them. Hint: These factual accuracies are actually assumptions with which leftists agree.

So much for fair and balanced reporting and intellectual diversity.

Target recently announced its new restroom policy, which embraces the absurd notion that in order to be inclusive, sex differences cannot be acknowledged or respected. In light of Target’s sex-integrated, co-ed restroom policy, I called my local Target and had this enlightening conversation with the store manager:

Me: Is it true that all Target restrooms are now co-ed?

Store manager: That’s not exactly how I would describe them.

Me: Well, are your women’s restrooms now open to people who are objectively male, and are your men’s’ restrooms now open to people who are objectively female?

Store manager: The restrooms are available to “transgenders” who identify as the opposite sex.

Me: But humans have both a “gender identity” and a sex, so your restrooms are now co-ed because co-ed means “having or including both men and women.”

Store manager: Our customers can use the restroom of the sex with which they identify.

Me: If a person who appears to be a man enters a women’s restroom, how do you determine whether he’s gender dysphoric or not.

Store manager: If a female customer reports that a man is in the women’s restroom, we would follow-up.

Me: What is your procedure for following up?

Store manager: I don’t know.

Me: So, if I and my three-year-old granddaughter are in the women’s restroom, a man enters, and I report it to store management, you don’t know what would happen next?

Store manager: Well, if this person were not bothering you, he could be in there.

Me: But sharing a restroom with someone of the opposite sex bothers me.

Store manager: Well, Target believes people should be able to use whichever restroom they feel comfortable in.

Me: What if non-gender-dysphoric men—you know, men who share the same sex as “transgenders”— feel more comfortable in women’s restrooms? May they use them? And how would you stop them anyway? You evidently have no procedures to determine if males in women’s restrooms have been diagnosed as gender-dysphoric.

Store manager: (silence)

Me: So, your restrooms are in reality co-ed because people have a sex that cannot change.

Store Manager: Yes, it can.

Me: Are you a science-denier? Even gender-dysphoric persons know they can’t change their sex.

Store Manager: I’m not going to argue with you. 

So, there you have it folks. If women don’t want to use restrooms with men, they will have to use the family restroom, but if gender-dysphoric men don’t want to use restrooms with men, they don’t have to use the family restroom. They get to use the women’s restroom. Gender-dysphoric men are permitted to use restrooms with only women, while women are not permitted to use restrooms with only women.

Many conservatives perplexed by the lies and dragooned by the tactics of body-rejecting activists and their “progressive” allies do nothing when there is much to be done. And they get little help from conservative punditry who seem not to grasp the significance of allowing objectively, immutably male persons in women’s restrooms and vice versa.

Last week the estimable Charles Krauthammer dismissed the so-called “bathroom wars” as “a solution in search of an issue,” suggesting that because those who suffer from gender-dysphoria are few in number, laws requiring that restrooms correspond to sex are silly. Astonishingly, Krauthammer blamed these laws on conservatives:

[D]o we really have an epidemic of transgenders being evil in bathrooms?

Krauthammer…said transgenders using public bathrooms has become a problem “precisely because Republicans in North Carolina decided it was a problem.”

Though it is true that Republicans proposed and passed the North Carolina law that Krauthammer was discussing, they were merely responding to the efforts of gender-dysphoric activists to access opposite-sex restrooms. In other words, Republicans didn’t “decide” that men in women’s’ restrooms was a problem. It is in reality a problem created by gender-dysphoric activists.

As a percentage of the population, there are few gender-dysphoric persons, and until recently, they were using restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their actual sex, so of course we have no “epidemic of transgenders being evil in bathrooms.”

Further, the concern is not centrally about gender-dysphoric persons “doing evil,” but of male predators pretending to be gender-dysphoric in order to easily view, record, or assault women and girls.

The other and at least as serious concern is with what these policies teach about physical embodiment as male or female. Arguing that because few “transgenders” have been “doing evil in bathrooms,” there is no problem, Krauthammer ignores the fact that men in women’s restrooms is the problem, and it is evil.

An uncharacteristically superficial Krauthammer ignores the radical ideas that are embedded in and taught by liberal “bathroom” policies:

• Such policies teach that if people are uncomfortable with their sex, the problem is with their sex—not their feelings.

• Such policies teach the arguable belief that subjective feelings about one’s sex are more important, indeed more real, than objective physical embodiment as male or female.

• Such policies teach that while gender-dysphoric men should be permitted to use restrooms with only women, objectively female persons should not be permitted to use restrooms with only women.

• Such policies teach that in order to be compassionate, one must treat gender-dysphoric persons as if they are in reality the sex they wish they were.

• Such policies teach that feelings of modesty and the desire for privacy derive not from physical embodiment as male or female but from desires about one’s sex.

• Such policies teach that stalls and curtains provide sufficient privacy to separate women from gender-dysphoric men but not sufficient privacy to separate gender-dysphoric men from normal men.

If we define “evil” as reductively as Krauthammer seems to when he says there is no “epidemic of transgenders doing evil in restrooms,” he’s right. If evil is understood as direct physical harm to another, there is no epidemic. But for many, evil is defined as “morally wrong,” and “harmful” and includes doing violence (i.e., “injury, as from distortion of meaning or fact”) to the idea that objective, immutable biological sex carries profound meaning and is the source of feelings of modesty and the desire of privacy that men and women naturally experience. This epidemic of philosophical violence is infecting not just corporate policies but school policies and thereby the minds and hearts of children far too young to comprehend the evil being done.

Take ACTION:  So, here are three things that conservatives must do:

1.) Those with children in public schools must tell their administrators that under no circumstance are their children permitted to share restrooms or locker rooms with children of the opposite sex. If gender dysphoric children have the right to refuse to use locker rooms and restrooms with those whose “gender identity” they don’t share, then other children have the right to refuse to use locker rooms and restrooms with those whose sex they don’t share.

2.)  DO NOT use Leftist language. Language matters:

Do not call them “gender neutral” restrooms. Call them sex-integrated or co-ed restrooms to keep attention on the objective reality the Left seeks to deny.

Do not use the term “transgender.” Use gender dysphoria or gender-dysphoric persons.

Do not use opposite-sex pronouns when referring to gender-dysphoric persons. Using opposite-sex pronouns does not constitute an act of love. It constitutes participation in and facilitation of a destructive fiction.

3.) As much as possible, avoid using Target. It is not possible to boycott every business that violates true principles, but policies as egregiously offensive as Target’s sex-integrated restroom policy demand a response. And while you’re boycotting Target, call the store manager of your local Target to ask about their co-ed restrooms. Ask management the hard questions, and don’t use liberal language. Use precise, clear, reality-based language. And consider signing on to the AFA Boycott Target pledge.

In this brave new world remade in the image of the Godless, confused, solipsistic, and sexually anarchical, objective, immutable biological sex is meaningless. Please stand for truth and reality publicly, courageously, perseveringly, and unapologetically—and not just when it’s cost-free.

Well known Christian radio host Mark Elfstrand, of WYLL’s “Let’s Talk,” often has Laurie Higgins on his program to discuss cultural issues in the news.  His show airs weekdays from 4 to 6 pm on 1160 AM in the greater Chicago area.

Last week Mark interviewed Laurie about a number of important issues, including GLSEN’s “Day of Silence,” which is a political hijacking of the classroom for the advancement of the LGBT agenda.

Mark also asked Laurie about the Left’s push to end sex segregation in bathrooms and locker rooms, and the proposed $80K fine of Christian businessman Jim Walder by the Illinois Human Rights Commission.  As you may remember, Mr. Walder simply declined to allow his Timber Creek Bed and Breakfast to be used for the celebration of a same-sex union. (Read more HERE.)

Mark wraps up their interview by discussing HB 6073, a legislative proposal under consideration in Springfield which would make it easier for men and women who wish they were the opposite sex to obtain falsified birth certificates by merely getting a declaration from any licensed medical or mental health professional stating that the person has undergone clinically appropriate “treatment.”  No surgeries or hormone treatments would be necessary to change their birth certificate.

I recommend that you stream or download the podcast of this program and take 12 minutes to listen to it in the near future, and then please consider sharing this interview with your friends, family and neighbors.  It will bless you and equip you in defending our faith.

Click on the button below to stream the MP3, or right click and “save link as” to download the file:

Support IFI

Your support of our work and ministry is always much needed and greatly appreciated. Your promotion of our emails on Facebook, Twitter, your own email network, and prayer for financial support is a huge part of our success in being a strong voice for the pro-life, pro-marriage and pro-family message here in the Land of Lincoln.

Please consider making a donation to help us stand strong!

Lake Forest, Illinois resident Dianne Casuto in a letter in the Chicago Tribune on Sunday criticized a previous commentary in which Elizabeth Edens expressed concern over the safety to women posed by female-impersonators being allowed in women’s restrooms. Cassuto wrote, “It is inconceivable to me why Edens would feel ‘unsafe’ in a restroom simply because a transsexual or transgender individual is present there as well.”

Let’s clean up the euphemistic language, eliminating the Newspeak and rewriting her sentence more clearly: “It is inconceivable to me why Edens would feel ‘unsafe’ in a restroom simply because a man is present there as well.”

If Casuto is unable to conceive of why women might be concerned for their safety when forced to share restrooms with men, she suffers from a serious imagination deficit.

Why she would place quotation marks around “unsafe” is baffling. “Progressives” feel “unsafe” if they see presidential candidates’ names written in disappearing chalk. They feel “unsafe” at the thought of voluntarily attending a talk by scholar Christina Hoff Sommers. They feel “unsafe” at the thought of a debate on abortion. They feel “unsafe” if Chick-fil-A is on their college campus. So, why are safety concerns about the presence of men in women’s restrooms “inconceivable”?

Leftists, recognizing the importance of language in cultural battles, insist that everyone use their dogma-drenched diction. Those “transgender individuals” about whom Casuto writes who are seeking to use women’s restrooms and locker rooms are actually men.

George Orwell warned about the abuse of language by cultural dictators, a warning that should teach us to resist social pressure to surrender to their imperious commands—while we can:

The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of IngSoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible….Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meaning and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meaning whatever….

Your support of our work and ministry is always much needed and greatly appreciated. Your promotion of our emails on Facebook, Twitter, your own email network, and financial support is a huge part of our success in being a strong voice for the pro-family cause here in the Land of Lincoln.

Please consider making a donation to help us stand strong!

I can barely contain my exuberance! Last week, IFI’s own Laurie Higgins recorded an interview with Craig Dellimore for his weekly “At Issue” news program to discuss religious liberty versus the radical LGBT agenda.  Make no mistake, this type of mainstream media exposure — an uninterrupted half hour examination of the issues from a conservative perspective — is exceedingly rare.  While the media usually misrepresents orthodox Christians and how we live our faith in the public square, this was an amazing opportunity to elaborate on the Judeo-Christian principles we seek to uphold.

Laurie hit a grand-slam in terms of articulating and explaining our position. This message was aired on WBBM radio, a 50,000-watt station, reaching a large secular audience in the greater Chicago area and beyond. It is likely that many listeners have never heard a conservative defense of these issues. I thank God for this rare opportunity.

Please pray that what Laurie was able to communicate would resonate with those who were listening, and bring greater awareness of the plight of religious liberty in our culture and a greater understanding of sexual morality.

Laurie is an invaluable member of the IFI team.  Anyone who reads her writings knows how extraordinary she is at composing thought-provoking and compelling articles that help us think through contemporary issues and godless worldviews that dominate the public square. These same skills came across winsomely in this interview as she answered tough but important and fair questions by Mr. Dellimore.  Few people are able to do what she did in this interview so effectively.

I highly recommend that you stream or download the podcast of this program and take 28 minutes to listen to it in the near future, and then please consider sharing this interview with your friends, family and neighbors.  It will bless you and equip you in defending our faith.

Click on the button below to stream the MP3, or right click HERE and “save link as” to download the file:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Higgins-At-Issue-Religious-Freedom-41020161.mp3

The interview aired on WBBM News Radio twice on Sunday, and is now available as a podcast on the “At Issue” webpage.  If you are as grateful as I am for Mr. Dellimore’s willingness to interview IFI, please take a moment to send an email to the station at wbbmnewsradioweb@cbsradio.com. To send a letter of encouragement to Laurie, please email us HERE.

Support IFI

Your support of our work and ministry is always much needed and greatly appreciated. Your promotion of our emails on Facebook, Twitter, your own email network, and prayer for financial support is a huge part of our success in being a strong voice for the pro-life, pro-marriage and pro-family message here in the Land of Lincoln.

Please consider making a donation to help us stand strong!

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?

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.

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.

I saw the #4 movie in the nation over the weekend.  (Last week it was #3 at the box office.)   The fact that a Christian movie like this shot straight up to the top should be an encouragement in the midst of a decaying culture.

The movie is called Risen.  It is a fictional story based upon history we know occurred just after the crucifixion of Christ.   The story is about a Roman soldier who is the top commander under Pontius Pilate. He is assigned with the task of finding the body of Jesus which has disappeared from the tomb.

Some have criticized Risen for not being Biblical. I would argue that it is not unbiblical and the story is entirely plausible.  By such hypercritical standards, we must also discard the massive box office record setters and cherished films, The Robe and The Ten Commandments.

I am generally not a sword and sandal style movie enthusiast, but like many others, I found Risen to be very enjoyable, well made, engaging and uplifting.   For someone who might not be churched or familiar with the story of Christ beyond His crucifixion, I believe this movie would be very helpful.

Watch the trailer below:

Written by Monica Cole

FOX’s new drama “Lucifer” is spiritually dangerous. The new program “Lucifer” glorifies Satan as a caring, likable person in human flesh. The character Lucifer Morningstar makes being the devil look cool and irresistible to women. “Lucifer” airs on Monday evenings at 9:00 p.m. ET/8:00 p.m. CT with a 14-DLSV rating.

The series focuses on Lucifer portrayed as a good guy “who is bored and unhappy as the Lord of Hell.” He resigns his throne, abandons his kingdom, and retires to Los Angeles, where he gets his kicks helping the LAPD punish criminals.

At the same time, God’s emissary, the angel Amenadiel, has been sent to Los Angeles to convince Lucifer to return to the underworld. Lucifer questions Amenadiel, “Do you think I’m the devil because I’m inherently evil or just because dear old Dad decided I was?” The question is meant to make people rethink assumptions about good and evil, including about God and Satan.

The program included graphic acts of violence, a nightclub featuring scantily-clad women, and a demon. The message of the show is clear. Lucifer is just misunderstood. He doesn’t want to be a bad guy, it’s God who is forcing him to play that role.

Please use the information we have provided to contact Academy Sports and ask that they pull their financial support from “Lucifer.”

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact Academy Sports and ask that they pull their financial support from “Lucifer.”

This cannot be good for free speech and the open exchange of ideas. Not for Christians and conservatives anyway.

Twitter announced on Wednesday that it has assembled a new “Twitter Trust & Safety Council” to “ensure that people feel safe expressing themselves on Twitter.”

Who’s for safety?

Yay safety!

Still, we need only look to the so-called “safe space” craze on America’s college campuses to gain a glimpse into what Twitter undoubtedly means here. Understand that, for the left, the word “safe” has nothing to do with, well, safety, and everything to do with censorship.

Let’s define the terms:

Safe Space: noun, 1. progressive circle of self-entitled, everyone-gets-a-trophy basement-dwellers sheltered from critical thinking, differing opinions, reality and oxygen.

With its new initiative, Twitter says it seeks to “strike the right balance between fighting abuse and speaking truth to power.”

What, exactly, constitutes “abuse,” “truth” and “power” remains to be seen, but, based on Twitter’s long history of blacklisting and “unverifying” conservatives from its rolls, I think we all know who gets shafted on this.

“To ensure people can continue to express themselves freely and safely on Twitter, we must provide more tools and policies,” the company claims. “Twitter does not tolerate behavior intended to harass, intimidate, or use fear to silence another user’s voice.”

Color me über-skeptical, but as Daniel Payne observes over at The Federalist, “Twitter already allows its users to either mute or block anyone who is being bothersome or threatening. There is no practical necessity for a ‘council’ to make people feel ‘safe’ on Twitter. Blocking is an effective tool for anyone who needs it. You can always report to the Twitter staff the rare troll who just won’t give up.

“The seemingly superfluous formation of a ‘Trust and Safety Council,’ then, suggests a kind of procedural overhaul of Twitter’s internal speech policy,” concludes Payne.

I agree.

Indeed, to the fragile liberal mind, any disagreement with its rigid, and decidedly one-sided, brand of “tolerance” and “diversity” constitutes “behavior intended to harass” or “intimidate.” To those who cannot win an argument on the merits, the path of least resistance is to silence all dissent.

Yet, if there was any question as to whether Twitter will be adopting the above-referenced definition of “safe space” in its effort to make tweeters “feel safe,” that question is immediately resolved by virtue of whom it has deputized. While there are a handful of legitimate, left-of-center anti-bullying organizations on the “council,” the list is likewise comprised up a rag-tag gaggle of fringe “progressive” groups like Feminist Frequency and GLAAD (formerly the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation).

Conspicuously absent is even one conservative or Christian organization.

So, what will GLAAD and the rest of the “Tweet Police” be doing? It’s hard to say for sure since Twitter won’t, but, considering what GLAAD already does, we can venture a fair guess.

GLAAD is an extremist homosexual censorship group that, for its defamatory antics, was certified last year by the well-respected American Family Association as an “openly bigoted anti-Christian organization.” GLAAD’s primary purpose is to strong-arm the entertainment industry and news media into presenting unrealistically favorable portrayals of the homosexual and gender-confused lifestyles, while at once censoring positive portrayals of natural marriage and the natural family, and silencing those who hold biblical values relative to marriage and human sexuality.

One of GLAAD’s most troubling censorship efforts was its Orwellian “Commentator Accountability Project.” This was a desperate effort to “suppress the biblical worldview from media.” Various homosexual activists were conscripted to contact, badger and otherwise intimidate media outlets, such as CNN, Fox News, the New York Times, et al., into blacklisting leading Christian cultural analysts (yours truly included) from providing commentary and political analysis over the airwaves and in print.

While the smear campaign ultimately failed, it did betray, for all the world to see, GLAAD’s overt designs on anti-conservative, anti-Christian censorship. And now it has its grubby little rainbow-hued fingerprints all over one of the world’s largest and most popular social networking sites.

Enjoy your Twitter free speech while you can, conservative Christians. Your tweets are birds on a wire, and GLAAD’s got the pellet gun.

In this day and age American culture is a virtual assault on the Christian/biblical worldview: movies, music, and television serving up a tsunami of offensive themes and language.

Even many films with redeeming storylines push the language envelope. Think American Sniper or Forrest Gump: both tremendous movies with some blue language and/or nudity. Yet their themes—patriotism, heroism, self-sacrifice, loyalty, courage—are uplifting and intrinsically good.

We’re instructed in Philippians:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Phil. 4:8

Adherence to the Apostle Paul’s admonitions has become pretty tricky in post-Christian America. Parents who are mindful to safeguard the media consumption of their children run a virtual gauntlet, filtering out objectionable material at breakneck pace.

It seems moms and dads must constantly discern between entertainment offerings which might support or attack their biblical worldview. And even the adult who wants uplifting, non-compromising entertainment may have a struggle finding films.

Now, to the rescue, an ingenious digital developer has created Vidangel (Vidangel.com).

Vidangel is purely inspired, allowing the consumer to choose the filters they prefer. The service offers a wide range of movies to buy. So far, that is indistinguishable from other services such as Netflix or Amazon.

But Vidangel departs the standard movie rental/purchase format with their filters and their buy-back policy/feature.

Here’s the drill. You purchase a movie ($20) from Vidangel, stream it with your personal filters, on your preferred device. You may choose exact words to delete, you may choose to delete nudity. YOU and you alone control what is filtered so that what remains is entertainment which is not at odds with your worldview and values.

Once you’ve watched the movie, Vidangel will buy it back within 24 hours for 18 movie credits less a $2 charge. Thus, they offer a great, wholesome movie experience for the price of $2. In addition, the next movie can be paid for with your movie credits, and then sold back within 24 hours.

Brilliant. Great movies your way.

Thankfully, more and more gifted people of faith—artists, musicians, screenwriters, directors, actors, producers—are producing quality movies. But still the preponderance of films are offered up by Hollywood, and Hollywood separated from moral moorings decades ago.

Sure, there are MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) film ratings: G (General), PG (Parental Guidance Suggested), PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned – Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13), R (Restricted – Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). But with the progression of the years, those ratings have become a general guideline as the movie creators’ morés further depart from a once-moral foundation.

Vidangel offers a customizable and affordable solution.

Thanks to Vidangel, Christians and others seeking uplifting and inoffensive movies have an option that will allow us to watch “whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely.”

Isn’t innovation married to virtue a wonderful thing?

Spread the Word!

Do you have friends or acquaintances who could benefit from IFI’s informational emails? If you do, please forward this email to them and encourage them to join our e-mail list!  Then, check us out on other social media platforms:

Follow us on Twitter – @ProFamilyIFI

Like us on Facebook – Pro-Family Illinois

Subscribe to us on YouTube – ILFamilyInstitute!

It is only because of concerned citizens like you that we are able to continue promoting pro-family values in the Land of Lincoln.

Thank you for helping us to reach more families!

The cause of “media activism,” now popular at some American colleges and universities, is taking an ominous and interesting turn. If this trend continues, the moderators of the stacked anti-Republican CNBC presidential debate will look like moderates.

Quite literally, the purpose of this new kind of “media activism” is to make you sick.

A so-called “Media Activism Research Conference” is being held next year in Canada to expand even further the “progressive” causes available to journalists. The event is described as a “Gathering for Grassroots and Transformative Media” at Lakehead University and “an opportunity to develop collaborations and networks among anti-capitalist, feminist, anti-racist, trans, queer and Indigenous alternative media activists and activist-researchers by sharing knowledge, skills and experiences on grassroots and transformative alternative media.”

Brace yourselves for one of the seminars, which concerns “Queer anarchist autonomous zones and publics: Direct action vomiting against homonormative consumerism.”

According to my research, and I may not have gotten to the bottom of this, it seems as if media activists in Canada are exploring vomiting as a form of social protest against capitalism. The concept of “social justice” is taking on very strange and bizarre adventures in academia.

One member of the Anarchist Studies Network defines vomit itself “as emblematic of the unsustainable contradictions inherent in capitalism, and of the body’s rebellion.”

A Lakehead University professor, Dr. Sandra Jeppesen, actually wrote an article entitled, “Projectile: stories about puking.” Apparently, to vomit is to reject the capitalist system.

Jeppesen is the point of contact for this field of study. Identified as a professor in media studies, cultural studies and anarchist theory, she was awarded almost $500,000 in research funding from the federal government of Canada two years ago, in order to “study how social activists are using ‘cutting-edge’ digital technologies to further social causes around the world and what the rest of us can learn from them.”

In fact, this forthcoming media conference is underwritten by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of the government of Canada.

If you are as curious as I am, you may find it interesting that “anti-consumerist vomiting” is described in a broader context, and that “Global anarchist movements and queer politics are integrating in mutually informing ways. The characteristics of this synthesis include liberatory theories and practices of embodied genders and sexualities in private and public, direct actions to visibilize and extend queer publics, and queer intersections with capitalism, the environment, race, disability, public space, private property and citizenship, among others.”

I don’t know how to precisely translate this material, except I did discover that “liberatory pedagogy” refers to “educational theories and practices intended to raise learners’ critical consciousness concerning oppressive social conditions.”

A paper on the topic explains, “As students and educators join the struggles to recognize oppression and domination within the sphere of popular culture, individuals whose voices were once silenced will become heard. For this reason, liberatory pedagogy seeks to empower individuals and encourage them to formulate reflective communities in and outside of the classroom that highlight social justice.”

An entire paper by Jeppesen, entitled, “Queer anarchist autonomous zones and publics: Direct action vomiting against homonormative consumerism,” goes into detail on this. I almost got sick reading it.

Meanwhile, here in the United States, things aren’t too much better. Some of our “progressive” journalists are still recognizing—and being recognized by—Playboy founder and publisher Hugh Hefner, whose Playboy Mansion was a notorious hangout for such personalities as accused serial sex abuser Bill Cosby.

Some “progressives” consider Hefner a champion of the First Amendment.

Malkia Cyril, Executive Director of the Center for Media Justice, was just given a 2015 Hugh M. Hefner Foundation First Amendment Award. We are told that during her acceptance speech, “In a small ceremony that took place beside the Playboy mansion’s infamous grotto, Malkia started off by thanking her mother, a former Black Panther who passed away in 2005, and the nearly 200 organizations that make up the Media Action Grassroots Network.”

In the Playboy Mansion and its “infamous grotto,” a place known for sexual orgies, it appears that the notorious Bill Cosby exercised a lot of power over women, some of whom may have been drugged.

Nevertheless, Cyril seemed proud of the award and proclaimed, “My mother was a member of the Black Panther Party in New York City. She ran the Party’s Breakfast Program and was editor of their national newspaper, but she was my first teacher. I sat on my mother’s shoulders at rallies for undocumented migrants, queer youth rights, women’s reproductive freedom. And I sit on her shoulders today.”

The Black Panther Party was notorious for targeting police officers as “pigs.”

The so-called “grassroots organizations” of the Media Action Grassroots Network include the George Soros-funded Ella Baker Center, formerly headed by Van Jones, the Obama Green Jobs Czar who lost his job when his communist background came to light. He is now a CNN commentator.

The Hefner awards are determined by “judges” from the media, who in the past have included Margaret Carlson, a journalist at Bloomberg News; Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office, and Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Editor and Publisher, The Nation.

Each award includes $5,000 and a commemorative plaque. The awards represent just some of the millions of dollars over the years that Hugh Hefner has paid to the media and various “progressive groups.”

Taking money from a pornographer and vomiting to protest capitalism are some of the current “progressive” trends in the media.

And you thought media bias couldn’t get any worse?

This article was originally posted at AccuracyinMedia.org.

Media bias is less about slanted stories than about what’s covered – or not.

For example, when a Muslim extremist cut off a woman co-worker’s head in Oklahoma City in September 2014, there was minimal coverage. A year later, the media went crazy over a Muslim boy’s suspension in Texas for bringing a clock to school that authorities mistook for a bomb.

The first incident undermined the progressives’ theme of America’s evolution toward seamless “diversity.” The second reinforced the narrative of a racist, nativist America, so they went big. The same with shootings by police.

Or take November 3rd’s stunning, off-year conservative election victories. The media are spinning a tale of low turnout, vowing that 2016 will be different.

Missing is the subtext of many conservative wins, from Republican Matt Bevin’s upset victory in the Kentucky governor’s race to the GOP’s retention of the Virginia state Senate, to the defeat in Ohio of marijuana legalization and in Houston of a gay/transgender nondiscrimination ballot measure.

How about the ouster of the pro-sanctuary San Francisco sheriff? Pay no attention, folks. There’s nothing to see here.

The progressive media’s “super story” is always about how America is getting over its reactionary past and embracing redistributive economics, alternative lifestyles, multiculturalism, limitless immigration and gun control. Never mind that when citizens actually get a chance to vote, they tend to ignore the cultural elites’ instructions.

Events merit extensive coverage only if they go the progressive way. If you don’t hear much media chatter, that usually means the progressives lost. If you hear a lot, they’ve either won or are denouncing the outcome.

Any speed bumps on the way to the New Age of Equality are treated as outrageous anomalies, not rejections of leftist ideology. The New York Times, which is to progressives what Mao’s Little Red Book was to Chinese communists, was furious over the overwhelming, 2 to 1 vote of Houstonians against what opponents called the “bathroom bill.” The gender identity component, the critics said, would open women’s restrooms and locker rooms to males who think they are female.

Headlined, “In Houston, Hate Trumped Fairness,” the Times editorial began with this accusation: “Sometime in the near future, a transgender teenager in Texas will attempt suicide — and maybe succeed — because vilifying people for their gender identity remains politically acceptable in America.”

We need to pray that some poor, confused teen doesn’t take a cue from this reckless assertion. The Times editorialists seem positively eager for just such an incident so they can editorialize again about other people’s “hate.”

A subtext ignored by the media was that Houston Mayor Annise Parker had ordered a city attorney to subpoena the sermons, notes and e-mails of five pastors who had led opposition to the ordinance. The First Amendment? That’s for pornographers, not men of the cloth.

Speaking of totalitarianism, the Times editorial did find a bright spot in the U.S. Department of Education’s stunning order last week to an Illinois high school to allow a transgender boy, against parents’ wishes, to use the girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms – or lose federal funding.

Other than the Times’ loony editorial board, does anyone think America’s founders had this kind of thing in mind when they wrote the Constitution as a limited set of powers shared by the national and state governments? Sexual politics aside, this speaks volumes about the Obama Administration’s voracious appetite for abusing power.

Getting back to election coverage, suffice to say the real “super story” of American pushback against societal decline was either ignored, downplayed or recast as the work of misguided hicks who could have starred in President Obama’s 2008 crack about rural Pennsylvanians who “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment ….”

In Ohio, where pro-marijuana legalization forces spent $20 million and created a mascot named Buddie (a cartoon character based on a pot plant bud), Buckeye State voters burned down the proposed constitutional amendment, 64 to 36 percent. Proponents complained that the wording had confused the voters.

In Kentucky, Tea Party favorite Matt Bevin, who trailed Democrat Jack Conway in election eve polls by five points in the governor’s race, confounded not only the pundits but Establishment Republicans who darkly warned GOP candidates to stay away from social issues.

Bevin ignored them, and even visited jailed county clerk Kim Davis, who had refused to ignore Kentucky law and issue same-sex marriage licenses. Mr. Bevin’s ad campaign hammered Obamacare and tied his opponent to President Obama, who is as popular in coal country as a cave-in. But the religious liberty issue, as in Houston, was a major concern the media suppressed.

In Virginia, an anti-gun group founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent $700,000 in a failed attempt to gain an open Richmond area Senate seat. Incumbent conservatives such as Dick Black and Bob Marshall also defeated Democrats, preserving GOP control of the Senate.

Finally, even in San Francisco, voters fired pro-sanctuary Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi. The sheriff had a record of bungling, but he was best known as chief law enforcement officer in a city where an American woman, Kate Steinle, was gunned down by an illegal immigrant criminal who had been turned loose.

Across America, voters dealt the elites and the media some stinging losses.

But don’t expect them to alter the narrative. They’ll report some of the news, but only in a manner that advances the progressive “super story.”

This article was originally posted at Townhall.com.