I was given a booklet from Haggai International Ministries called “What in the World is Going On?” It presents the changing demographics of faith around the globe.  Here are some interesting findings:

• 100 years ago the geographical picture of Christianity was pretty simple: most Christians lived in the U.S. and Europe. Everywhere else was unreached.  In 1900, 83 percent of the world’s Christians were in “the west.”  Today, in 2017 only 34 percent of the world’s Christians are in the west, (i.e. areas like Europe, North America and Australia).  Now 66 percent of the world’s Christians are in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

• By 2050 those numbers are expected to be 24 percent in the west and 76 percent in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

• While Christianity is on the decline in the U.S., it is on the rise in the former USSR, China and large portions of Africa.

• Today 25 percent of the Christians in the world live in Africa and 25 percent live in Latin America.

• On any given Sunday there are more Christians worshiping in China than in the United States.

• Muslims are increasingly mobile. Where they go, Islam goes.  As Christians have fled from areas of the Middle East, Islam has moved in.  In Jesus’ birthplace of Bethlehem the current population is 80 percent Muslim.

• 75 percent of the world’s population lives in areas with religious restrictions. Approximately one in 12 Christians today experience persecution.

• Of the world’s 7.5 billion people, 2.4 billion (33 percent) profess to be Christians.  However, one in four people in the world have never heard the Gospel message.

This article was originally published by AFA of Indiana.

As a Wikipedia editor, I’ve made many edits and updates over the years to the American Civil Rights Union’s Wikipedia page without interference.

So, imagine my shock when I was alerted this past Monday that someone had made the page revert to a very old version with content deleted and outright errors inserted. I went online and corrected a couple of things, but my corrections were instantly undone. Then, it got worse.

On Wednesday, another editor removed a lion’s share of the content describing the ACRU’s activities and issues. Gone were entire sections on election law, environmental regulation, gun laws and religious freedom.

Some of the worst damage was done to the personnel section. Judge Robert Bork, who died in December 2012, was updated as a current ACRU Policy Board member. So was James Q. Wilson, the celebrated political scientist who died in March 2012.

On Friday, another editor restored the severely outdated issue sections but left the personnel errors. Earlier, an editor “nominated” the entire ACRU page for “deletion.”

What might seem at first like a trivial nuisance is indicative of the power those hostile to liberty have over those who defend it. To a new generation, Wikipedia is Britannica, but without factual safeguards.

Virtually all of the updates I added over several years were deleted. According to the site history, the revisions by several “editors” began this past April and continued right up through this week.

When I contacted a Wiki administrator who was listed as one of the revisers, I was told that because of my ties to the group (I am an ACRU Senior Fellow) I have a conflict of interest and could not fix anything myself. Instead, I should review a complicated procedure for suggesting edits, which may or may not be made. My request to restore my previous edits in order to correct the many errors was flatly denied.

This is very serious business. It amounts to sabotage.  When people want to learn about an organization or person, they often go straight to Wikipedia. While it’s bad form to cite Wikipedia as a sole source, it’s an excellent starting point for research on any topic. Millions of people access it daily, making it one of the top six websites in the world.

If viewers see an absurdly outdated, sloppy page, it could deeply affect an organization’s ability to get out its message. Frustrated by the intransigence, I looked up Wikipedia’s conflict of interest policy, which is murky and geared toward preventing hostile edits that are defamatory or false, or self-serving inaccuracies, not edits of an entirely factual nature, such as listing current personnel or programs.

One of Wikipedia’s cardinal rules is: “If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it (boldface in original).”  In the essay, “Wikipedia: Ignoring all rules – a beginner’s guide,” it states, “Perhaps the spirit of the rule could be said in an even better way: Use your common sense over anything else.”

Common sense tells me that fixing blatant errors is something that Wikipedia should appreciate.

There is no guarantee that certain administrators will even make suggested edits if they have an ideological axe to grind, as indicated by many of the changes and deletions to the ACRU page even before the big purge.

The editing history reveals these:  “Environmental and property-rights litigation: rename to ‘Environmental regulation’”… “Second Amendment and gun litigation: rename to ‘Gun control.’”

What’s wrong with the previous entries? Ah, one mentions property rights, and the other cites the Second Amendment. The progressive Left prefers they not be mentioned, or even known to younger Americans.

The question is: After years of being left alone, why did the ACRU page suddenly come under such attack? And, have Wikipedia editors subjected other pages of nonprofit groups to this kind of micromanagement? This is beginning to smack of the Obama IRS’s targeting of the tea parties.

Could this have something to do with the fact that the ACRU has been fighting vote fraud by forcing counties to clean up their inaccurate voter rolls and has a case pending in federal district court against high-profile Broward County, Florida?

The malicious trashing of the ACRU’s Wikipedia page is not unlike the damage done to Christian charities by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s false designation of them as “hate groups,” which the charity index GuideStar affixed to these groups’ entries. One of them, D. James Kennedy Ministries, is suing the SPLC for defamation. Good for them.

In May 2016, a report by the website Gizmodo accused Facebook editors of intentionally suppressing articles with conservative content, a practice long suspected by many conservative activists.

Last Monday, PragerU, a nonprofit educational website run by conservative talk show host Dennis Prager, filed a lawsuit accusing Google and its subsidiary YouTube of censoring more than 30 of its videos as “inappropriate.”

As fewer and fewer companies control the flow of information, we must be increasingly vigilant for attempts to silence conservative voices.

Wikipedia is supposed to be “self-correcting.” Let it be so.

Article originally posted at Townhall.com.

Months before I started alternating between Identity Politics and Paraphilias, incest was featured in one of my articles. At the end of it was this question: “How will society respond when those who practice incest start self-identifying as such and begin clamoring for their ‘rights’?” “Rights” in this context means, among other things, the right to get married, complete tolerance and acceptance by society and for their incestual relationships to be viewed as completely normal.

Earlier this month, the Daily Wire featured a post with this headline and lede:

LOVE WINS: Cosmo Pushes Incest
“This Is What It’s Like to Fall In Love With Your Brother”

Recently, the Illinois Family Institute’s David E. Smith said that “this is no longer your father’s culture war.” Rather, he said, it has “evolved into a debate over identity politics and even common-sense biology. That’s a war we can win.”

Joshua Mitchell, a professor at Georgetown University, backs up Dave’s optimism in a 3500-word article at City Journal titled “The Identity-Politics Death Grip.” He makes many good points – here are just a few excerpts:

Normal politics—liberal politics, classically understood—involves speech, argument, and persuasion, followed by voting on ideas or proposals that can be overturned in the next election cycle. Normal politics presumes that we can rise far enough above our small-group attributes—our race, class, gender, ethnicity, religion—and that we can arrive at a political arrangement that works well enough for us to live together as part of a larger polity until the next election, when we commence the process again. But for the Democrats, absolute certainty has prevailed over normal politics—and the certainty, at bottom, rests on a single idea: identity politics.

Identity politics rejects the model of traditional give-and-take politics, presupposing instead that the most important thing about us is that we are white, black, male, female, straight, gay, and so on. Within the identity-politics world, we do not need to give reasons—identity is its own reason and justification. Because identity politics supposes that we are our identities, politics does not consist in the speech, argument, and persuasion of normal politics but instead, in the calculation of resource redistribution based on identity—what in Democratic parlance is called “social justice.”

The irony of identity politics is that it does not see itself as political; it supposes that we live in a post-political age, that social justice can be managed by the state, and that those who oppose identity politics are the ones “being political.” What speech does attend this post-political age consists in shaming those who do not accept the idea of identity politics—as on our college campuses. In the 1960s, college students across the country fought so that repressed ideas would receive a fair hearing. These days, college students fight to repress all ideas except one: identity politics.

“Thoughtful Democrats see that identity politics is a dead end,” Mitchell writes, but the “militants are hunkered down.” Hence, he adds, “the Democratic Party is on life support.”

That doesn’t sound like victory in the culture war to me. Later in the article Mitchell writes:

It may be that the only way that the Democratic Party can rise, Lazarus-like, from its deathbed is if African-Americans call out identity politics as the disaster that it has been—for them and for the country. If the party cannot find a cure for its confusion, it will expire in the paroxysm that identity politics produces.

David Smith also said that today, if you don’t bow to the reality of 63 genders “you’re on the wrong side of history. Yes, really, 63 – Google it.”

If you want to dismiss that kind of foolishness as just plain silly, you might want to read another City Journal article, this one by Seth Barron:

What’s in a Pronoun?
An awful lot, say transgender activists.

The word gender or transgender or gender-free (etc.) shows up 34 times. I challenge you to read it without laughing or rolling your eyes. I’ll close this post with a paragraph from Seth Barron’s article:

A new California law, the Gender Recognition Act, allows people to designate their gender as “nonbinary”—meaning that they “may or may not identify as transgender, may or may not have been born with intersex traits, may or may not use gender-neutral pronouns, and may or may not use more specific terms to describe their genders, such as agender, genderqueer, gender fluid, Two Spirit, bigender, pangender, gender nonconforming, or gender variant.” The Golden State has also required nursing homes and other long-term care facilities to “use a resident’s preferred name or pronouns after being clearly informed of the preferred name or pronouns.”

That’s why Dave Smith is right — this is a war we can win.

Up next: Our next paraphilia of the day.

The Left is working overtime to silence and/or marginalize conservative voices in America
The time to support IFI is now!

Written by Elise Bouc
State Chairman, Stop ERA Illinois

We have been successful in fighting the ERA in Illinois for many years due in part to the truth of our claims about the problems with the ERA.  When I met with legislators recently, I learned that the supporters of the ERA are trying to blunt our claims by telling the legislators that the ERA will not have any impact on abortion.  You and I know that is simply not true.  State ERA’s have already been used in state courts to expand Medicaid funding for elective abortions.

In addition, abortion rights advocates (and ERA supporters) have demonstrated their belief that the ERA is connected with abortion in court briefs that they’ve filed stating that state ERA’s require unrestricted access to abortions.

Take ACTION: We need your help to set the record straight with your state representative as well as your friends and neighbors who may be equally confused.  It is vital that your state lawmakers in the Illinois House and the Illinois Senate hear from you and other pro-life voters regarding this proposal. Please call the offices of your state senator and representative today to urge them to vote NO on the ERA.

The Springfield switchboard number is (217) 782-2000.

The second part of the 2017 veto session is scheduled for November 7th, 8th and 9th.  Therefore, it is urgent that you call as soon as you are able.

Background

Click HERE for a new question and answer sheet that answers all the questions we’ve been hearing about the ERA abortion connection.  Each answer is well documented to provide clear proof of our claims.  For those who like a quick summary, click HERE for the main points.

Please do three things:

1)  Contact both your state representative and state senator and encourage them to vote no on the ERA (SJRCA-4).  Please be civil with them.  Let them know that the ERA is clearly an anti-life bill, and it will negatively impact the unborn child.  If you are able, gather some friends and request a meeting with your legislators to better educate them on the ERA abortion connection.  Share both the executive summary and question answer piece with your legislators if possible.

2)  Share this email with others in your area who will help in our efforts.

3)  Educate your friends, family, and associates about the strong ERA abortion connection.

The Illinois General Assembly will meet again next week for 3 days (November 7-9) during which they could vote on the ERA, and then they are done for the year.  However, this issue may come up again during the 2018 legislative session.

Thank you for taking action on this important issue.  Truth is on our side, and we don’t fight this battle alone.   Please pray that our state lawmakers understand what is at stake.

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For those who weren’t politically active in the 70’s or never got around to learning the specifics about the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), here is a thumbnail sketch of the purpose and danger of the ERA.

This proposed U.S. Constitutional Amendment is deceptively named. Men and women already have equal standing and equal protection before the law and possess God-given rights which are delineated in the Bill of Rights.

If the goal is to ensure equal opportunity, then the path is not the broad and ambiguously written ERA. Even supporters of the ERA cannot answer questions about its full impact on existing legal protections for women (and children) in state and federal statutes.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote Sex Bias in the U.S. Code when she was with the ACLU. In her book, she admitted that at least 800 federal laws would likely be struck down – laws aimed at protecting women.

Are men and women different? Over the course of centuries, common sense and science have detailed the physical and mental differences that are biologically based. The push today by Leftists to pretend these obvious differences don’t exist is not a new phenomenon — and the ERA was once such an effort that ended in failure in the 1970s.

The Equal Rights Amendment says: 

“Equality of rights under law shall not be denied or abridged
by the United States or any State on account of sex.“ (Emphasis added.)

The Equal Rights Amendment is a poorly worded amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would restrict all laws and practices that make any distinctions based on gender or “on account of sex.” Under the ERA men and women could not be treated differently, even if the different treatment is due to physical differences.

The ERA is centrally about abortion.

Since abortion is unique to women, any attempt to restrict a woman’s access to abortion would be seen, under the rules of the ERA, as a form of sex discrimination. As a result, abortion restrictions would be overturned.

In addition, since medical procedures unique to men are funded by Medicaid (such as circumcision and prostatectomies), then abortion which is unique to women, must also receive Medicaid funding under ERA requirements.

Pro-abortion groups, including Planned Parenthood, NARAL, the ACLU, the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, and the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund have all submitted legal briefs stating that the ERA supports abortion rights.

Using this same ‘sex discrimination’ logic, legal scholars have reasoned that the ERA would do the following:

• Eliminate all abortion restrictions including the federal partial birth abortion ban, third trimester abortions, and parental notification of minors seeking abortions.

• End conscience clauses for nurses, doctors and hospitals who do not want to facilitate abortions in any way.

• Threaten tax exemptions of private religious schools that do not believe abortion is moral and that discourage it when teaching students.

• ERA would also provide a new basis for abortion rights in the U.S. Constitution. Roe v. Wade is founded on an unwritten “right to privacy” assumption that is vulnerable in legal challenges. The ERA would insert a written, defined right based on sex discrimination into the U.S. Constitution, and thus provide a strong legal basis for overturning all abortion restrictions.

Americans need to become informed on this issue and seek to help educate others on the consequences of the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. Then they must make sure their state representatives and state senators know both the dangers of the ERA and their opposition to it.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email to your lawmakers, urging them to protect women’s rights by opposing the Equal Rights Amendment.

The Illinois Family Institute has posted important articles outlining what the ERA is all about – examples can be found here, here, here, and here.

State lawmakers will be back in Springfield for the veto session November 7-9, and this legislation may come up for a vote during that time.  PLEASE speak out today!

IFI depends on the support of Christians like you. Donate now

-and, please-

Who isn’t for equal pay for women? Proponents of the ERA claim that’s what it’s about, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

The ERA states:

“Equality of rights under law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article. This Amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.”

Notice that “women” isn’t in the text? That’s because it’s not at all about equal rights for women. It’s about eliminating all legal distinctions between sexes.

There are many more reasons to oppose the ERA, but here are 10.

It’s Been Rejected 13 Times — Previous Illinois lawmakers understood the true intention of the ERA and voted it down 13 times from 1972 to 1982. Every time it has been presented in Illinois General Assembly committees since 1982, it was stopped. Five states rescinded their passage of ERA: Nebraska — 1973, Tennessee — 1974, Idaho — 1977, Kentucky — 1978, South Dakota — 1979.

Proponents Ignore the 1979 Ratification Deadline — Congress granted an extension to 1982 which was ruled unconstitutional by a U.S. District Court in 1981 and the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. On October 4, 1982, the Court dismissed it as moot, stating, “The amendment has failed of adoption no matter what the resolution of the legal issues presented here.” Additionally, no states passed ERA during the time extension.

Liberal Feminists Have Misled the Public on True Intentions – The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees equal protection for everyone. Women have used this amendment successfully in discrimination cases and will continue to do so. For well over 30 years “equal pay” has been law. This means paying the same wages for people who do the same work. However, differing wage earnings are based upon different factors such as: job experience, risk/danger involved, seniority, level of training, and other factors – not because of discrimination.

It Will End Social Security Benefits for Spouses — According to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s book Sex Bias in the U.S. Code, the ERA will change 800 federal laws including the elimination of social security benefits for wives and widows. (pages 206, 211-212) “Equality of rights under law shall not be denied…on account of sex.”

It Will Force States to Pay for Abortion — In Doe v. Maher, on April 9, 1986, the Connecticut Supreme Court stated, “Since only women become pregnant, discrimination against pregnancy by not funding abortions…is sex-oriented discrimination…The Court concludes that the regulation that restricts the funding of abortions…violates Connecticut’s Equal Rights Amendment.” In New Mexico Right to Choose, NARAL, et al v. Johnson, the New Mexico Supreme Court ordered the state to pay for Medicaid abortions, saying the state could not differentiate between abortions and medical procedures sought by men. “Equality of rights under law shall not be denied…on account of sex.”

It Will Force Women into Combat — “Not only would women, including mothers, be subject to the draft, but the military would be compelled to place them in combat units alongside of men … (U.S. House Judiciary Committee Report (No. 92-359, July 14, 1971). “Equality of rights under law shall not be denied…on account of sex.”

It Will Eliminate Child Support — “…[I]t could relieve the fathers of the primary responsibility for the support of even infant children, as well as the support of the mothers of such children…” (U.S. House Judiciary Committee Report (No. 92-359, July 14, 1971). “Equality of rights under law shall not be denied…on account of sex.”

It Will Invalidate Legal Privacy Protections — The ERA would be used to invalidate any laws or policies that prohibit men and women suffering from Gender Dysphoria from using restrooms, locker rooms, and dressing rooms designated for the opposite sex. “Equality of rights under law shall not be denied…on account of sex.”

It Will Give More Power to Federal Government — Section II of the ERA states that “The Congress shall have the power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article.” This would give enormous new powers to the Federal Government that now belong to the states.

State and Local Laws Favoring Females Would be Unconstitutional – Areas of law which include traditional differences of treatment “on account of sex” would be challenged and declared unconstitutional. Laws including marriage, divorce, family-property law, child custody, adoptions, abortions, alimony, some criminal laws, age limits for marriage and the age of consent, public and private schools, prison regulations, and insurance rates, veterans benefits, boy and girl scouts, tax exemptions for single-sex schools would be challenged if ERA is passed. “Equality of rights under law shall not be denied…on account of sex.”

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to email your lawmakers to urge them to oppose the ERA, SJRCA 4.

Please also make a call to reinforce the point. To find your lawmaker’s names and numbers, click HERE. Once you fill in your zip code and address, a screen will appear with your elected officials. Your state rep is the very last one. Your state senator is just above. Click on their names for contact information.

Read more here, here and here.

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We’ve stood firm for 25 years, work diligently to accomplish our mission to
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Written by Chad Groening

Recently the Pentagon “severed all ties” to the SPLC after previously relying on the group’s training materials on extremism. The Justice Department confirmed that the Department of Defense has removed any and all references to the Alabama-based group in training materials used by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute.

The action came in a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the Immigration Reform Law Institute.

“What we discovered here from the Department of Justice in their response to our FOIA lawsuit was that they’ve actually removed any SPLC material from their current training material that they use,” reports Dale Wilcox, the IRLI’s executive director and general counsel. “So the DOD has decided that the SPLC is not trustworthy in this regard, apparently.”

According to Wilcox, IRLI filed the FOIA because its parent group – the Federation for American Immigration Reform – has been labeled a hate group by the SPLC.

“If you believe in the rule of law like my organization does, [if you believe] in enforcing immigration law, you can be labeled a hate group,” he offers. “And in fact, my organization has been labeled a hate group because we are pro rule of law – just enforcing the laws that are on the books – and anti-illegal immigration.”

The IRLI leader explains that taking that particular stand – actually wanting current immigration laws enforced – earned his group the misleading label “anti-immigrant.”

This article was originally posted at OneNewsNow.com

Following a contemptible Facebook post by the now nationally infamous School District U-46 school board member Traci O’Neal Ellis in which she asserted that the American flag means no more to her than toilet paper, Monday’s board meeting saw a slew of impassioned comments most of them in support of Ellis. Most, however, failed to address the crux of public outrage: The public is outraged by the incivility of Ellis and by her myopic, imbalanced view of America.

Fifteen people spoke, twelve in favor of Ellis and three in opposition to Ellis’ comment. One of those fifteen people, Megan Larson, spent her entire time criticizing board member Jeanette Ward for condemning Ellis’ offensive comment–a comment condemned by many news outlets including the Daily Herald.

My question is, what the heck is wrong with conservatives? How can Ellis’ comment, which elicited national condemnation, including from former governor Mike Huckabee, motivate only three people to speak at a board meeting?

The meeting began as always with a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance during which Ellis was the only member not to cover her heart.

Let’s closely examine just one of the 12 Ellis-supporting statements, self-righteously intoned by Larson and capturing succinctly several Leftist arguments:

There are seven rules in the Board Members’ Code of Conduct which also form the basis of the board members’ oath.

The code states that “members of the board of education shall represent all school district constituents honestly and equally and refuse to surrender responsibilities to special interest groups or partisan political groups.”

I ask if implying that parents, staff, and students are Marxists, and radical Leftist extremists is apolitical.

The code states that “members shall take no private action that might compromise the board or the administration and shall respect the confidentiality of privileged information.”

I ask if twice issuing a call to outside agitators is apolitical.

“Members shall encourage and respect the free expression and opinion of other board members.”

I ask if taking private information and posting it publicly and then continuing to post 7 times in 4 days on the same topic is apolitical.

The failure to uphold this oath makes one unfit to represent the students and families of U-46. In my opinion, if one refuses to follow the tenets of the oath they [sic] took, they should be reprimanded.

Larson must have turned off her irony/hypocrisy detector when she wrote this.

So, here are my thoughts about Larson’s thoughts:

• The board members’ oath that Larson cited to criticize only Ward does not require that members refrain from expressing “political” statements while serving on the board. If, however, that’s how Larson interprets the oath, I would ask her and the board if Ellis’ multiple references to the Republican National Convention as the “Klanvention” were “apolitical.” More important, does referring to Republicans as Klansmen suggest to anyone that Ellis “honestly and equally” represents all U-46 constituents? Which is more offensive: being compared to Marxists and radical Leftist extremists or Klansmen?

• If Larson expects board members to honor their oath not to engage in “private action that might compromise the board or administration,” perhaps she should remember that it was Ellis’ supposedly “private” Facebook post in which she likened the American flag to toilet paper that set in motion the controversy that has compromised the integrity of both the board and the administration.

• The part of the board oath regarding “privileged information” quite obviously refers to privileged information available to board members in closed sessions—not to board members’ Facebook postings—which no one considers private. The Daily Herald Editorial Board wrote this on the brouhaha in general and privacy specifically:

You’ll recall, [Ellis] was the Elgin Area School District 46 board member who said on Facebook that the American flag represented “nothing more than toilet paper” to her. An apology was warranted for that appalling statement….

Unfortunately, her apology had a lot of qualifiers, including one that needs further review.

Ellis seems to think that because she made her statement on her personal Facebook page, it shouldn’t be a factor in her public role as a school board member.

“I make no apologies for my comment about the flag. I made them as a private citizen, as a taxpayer in this country on my personal Facebook page on a matter of import in the current national discourse based upon my personal experiences,” she said.

Indeed, she has that right. But when it comes to commenting on a public forum, there can be no distinction between public and private for elected officials, especially on social media, where every post, utterance and picture can be saved in a virtual locker forever.

When you run for office, your actions — both official and personal — are open for support or criticism. Voters in Ellis’ district should and will take what she said into account when and if she seeks re-election in 2019. That will be the consequence of her free speech rights.

• If it’s important for board members to respect the opinions of other board members, how much more important is it for board members to respect fellow board members themselves? In light of that, what do these words from Ellis signify to Larson:
  

  Jeanette Ward is the most absurd hypocrite I have ever had the personal misfortune to know and have to yield any of my personal time to. She dares to claim free speech to castigate U-46 kids and deny the humanity of our LGBTQIA students. She constantly WHINES about lack of tolerance to diversity of thought and CRIES like a 2 year old that her freedom of speech is being impinged on when anyone dares to disagree with her.

  There is a substantive and important difference between criticizing the ideas expressed by a colleague and hurling epithets at a colleague. Does anyone consider this kind of attack by one board member on another respectful?

  Ellis here is alluding to Ward’s opposition to sexually integrated restrooms and locker rooms. What Ellis is deceitfully saying without saying is that opposition to co-ed restrooms and locker rooms constitutes “castigation of U-46 kids” and the “denial of the humanity of LGBTQIA students.” This is, by the way, an arguable proposition and highly political.

• This past August, Ellis suggested that it’s “deplorable” to oppose the sexual integration of restrooms and locker rooms in public schools and implied that State Representative Jeanne Ives is deplorable because she opposes them. Further, Ellis falsely claimed that because Rep. Ives opposes co-ed private spaces in public schools, she seeks to deny students “safe learning spaces.” I would ask if these claims by Ellis are “apolitical.”

• Larson engaged in a bit of “truthiness” when she said that Ward posted seven times over four days about the Ellis mess. Technically, Larson may be right, but she forgot to mention that five of the posts were merely links to press accounts of the mess. Only in two did Ward herself write anything, and here is one of those posts:
  

  To those of you who agree that my fellow board member’s statement about our flag was despicable, but…who are also:-sending death threats (!!!?)

  -sending messages laced with profanity and name
  -calling-making comments on Facebook laced with profanity and name
  -calling-categorizing all African-Americans as believing or behaving a certain way…

  STOP.

  Disagree with Ms. Ellis over what she said in a coherent and cogent manner befitting to free people in the greatest country on earth.

  Maybe Larson didn’t actually read Ward’s posts. I wonder if Ellis ever chastised those who savaged Ward on Facebook last spring.

  In contrast, while Ellis may have posted only twice (i.e., the initial toilet paper post, and then her defense of it), her defense was 842 words long—6 times the number of words Ward wrote collectively.

At the end of the public comments, Ms. Ward offered an eloquent and moving defense of American ideals and a brief critique of the offensiveness of Ellis’ toilet paper comment. Then Ellis followed, providing further evidence of her unprofessionalism, incivility, childishness and vindictiveness.

Ellis began her statement with a formal salutation that included “teachers, staff, students and families in U-46,” nine district administrators by name, and all school board members by name—except Jeanette Ward. I have never witnessed anything as mean-spirited, immature, and unprofessional at a school board meeting as Ellis’ salutation.

In the body of her pseudo-apology, Ellis said to the aforementioned persons that she was “sorry” for her inelegant language and for unintentionally causing a “distraction.” Then she patted herself on the back for attending the meeting despite having been warned that it would be a “modern day lynching.” (Where’s an eyeroll emoji when you need one?) Painting criticism of her comments as a modern day rhetorical lynching is a cunning way for Ellis to silence her critics. So, what would Ellis call the vitriol spewed at Ward by her and her fans? Hmmm…

Despite how tenaciously Ellis tries to color the controversy as a denial of her liberties, the issue at the heart of this dust-up has never been the First Amendment. Rather, it’s about Ellis’ unprofessionalism, divisive and inflammatory vulgarity, and her ignorant lack of appreciation for the principles for which the American flag stands even when citizens—including Ellis—fail to perfectly embody them. It’s about Ellis’ refusal to recognize or acknowledge the remarkable strides America has made in deracinating racism. And it’s about the terrible example Ellis sets for students. The fault lies not with Jeanette Ward for exposing yet more ugly words from Ellis but with Ellis for uttering them.

And to Ms. Larson: If we at the Illinois Family Institute are the “outside agitators” to whom you referred, rest assured that no one issued a call to us to cover this unfortunate incident. Like press outlets all over the country (we were not first), our actions were impelled by the words of Traci O’Neal Ellis, who has demonstrated repeatedly that she is unfit for her position on the U-46 School Board.

Listen to Laurie read this article in this podcast:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Conservatives_and_U46.mp3

PLEASE consider a financial gift to IFI to sustain our work.
We’ve stood firm for 25 years, work diligently to accomplish our mission to
“boldly bring a biblical perspective to public policy” in Illinois.

With a vote of 237 to 189, the U.S. House voted yesterday to pass H.R. 36, the 20-week ban on abortion.  The official title of this important legislation is the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” which restricts most abortions after 20 weeks of gestation, with limited exceptions.  It also specifies that any baby born alive in the process of an abortion should be given the same care as a baby born prematurely.

This federal legislation was sponsored by U.S. Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ), and cosponsored by 182 other lawmakers, including the following Illinois Congressmen: Mike Bost (R-Carbondale), Peter Roskam (R-Wheaton), John Shimkus (R-Collinsville), Daniel Lipinski (D-Chicago), Randy Hultgren (R-McHenry), Rodney Davis (R-Decatur), and Darin LaHood (R-Peoria).  See roll call vote for the Illinois Congressional delegation below.

This legislation now moves to the U.S. Senate for consideration.

We are proud to see that our pro-life leaders in Congress are advancing this commonsense legislation in order to protect the life and dignity of some of the victims of abortion. Regardless of party affiliation, every member of Congress should recognize the scientific research which demonstrates that pre-born babies can feel pain beginning at 20 weeks gestation.  We must pray that the members of the U.S. Senate, including Illinois Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, will put their partisan allegiances aside and act in the best interest of our pre-born neighbors and their mothers.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to our U.S. Senators to ask them to support H.R. 36, the 20-week abortion ban, also known as the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.”  President Trump’s Administration has made it clear that he intends to sign it, if and when it reaches his desk.

H.R. 36 is a step in the right direction when it comes to affirming the dignity, sanctity and value of every human life, from conception to natural death.

How Did They Vote on H.R. 36:

Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D)—NAY
1st Congressional Dist.
Washington Phone: 202-225-4372
District Phone: 773-779-2400
Webform

Rep. Robin Kelly (D)—NAY
2nd Congressional Dist.
Washington Phone: 202-225-0773
District Phone: 773-321-2001
Webform

Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D)—YEA
3rd Congressional Dist.
Washington Phone: 202-225-5701
District Phone: 773-948-6223
Webform

Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D)—NAY
4th Congressional Dist.
Washington Phone: 202-225-8203
District Phone: 773-342-0774
Webform

Rep. Mike Quigley (D)—NAY
5th Congressional Dist.
Washington Phone: 202-225-4061
District Phone: 773-267-5926
Webform

Rep. Peter Roskam (R)—YEA
6th Congressional Dist.
Washington Phone: 202-225-4561
District Phone: 630-232-0006
Webform

Rep. Danny K. Davis (D)—NAY
7th Congressional Dist.
Washington Phone: 202-225-5006
District Phone: 773-533-7520
Webform

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D)—NAY
8th Congressional Dist.
Washington Phone: 202-225-3711
District Phone: 847-413-1959
Webform

Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky (D)—NAY
9th Congressional Dist.
Washington Phone: 202-225-2111
District Phone: 773-506-7100
Webform

Rep. Bradley Schneider (D)—NAY
10th Congressional Dist.
Washington Phone: 202-225-4835
District Phone: 847-383-4870
Webform

Rep. Bill Foster (D)—NAY
11th Congressional Dist.
Washington Phone: 202-225-3515
District Phone: 815-280-5876
Webform

Rep. Mike Bost (R)—YEA
12th Congressional Dist.
Washington Phone: 202-225-5661
District Phone: 618-457-5787
Webform

Rep. Rodney Davis (R)—YEA
13th Congressional Dist.
Washington Phone: 202-225-2371
District Phone: 217-791-6224
Webform

Rep. Randy Hultgren (R)—YEA
14th Congressional Dist.
Washington Phone: 202-225-2976
District Phone: 630-584-2734
Webform

Rep. John Shimkus (R)—YEA
15th Congressional Dist.
Washington Phone: 202-225-5271
District Phone: 217-347-7947
Webform

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R)—YEA
16th Congressional Dist.
Washington Phone: 202-225-3635
District Phone: 815-708-8032
Webform

Rep. Cheri Bustos (D)—NAY
17th Congressional Dist.
Washington Phone: 202-225-5905
District Phone: 309-966-1813
Webform

Rep. Darin LaHood (R)—YEA
18th Congressional Dist.
Washington Phone: 202-225-6201
District Phone: 309-671-7027
Webform

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Hugh Hefner, the bachelor hedonist who brought us female exploitation and sex clubs, passed away Wednesday at the age of 91. The media has erupted in praise for his alleged championing of “free speech” through the pornographic magazine, Playboy, which was founded in Chicago in 1953. Hefner’s Playboy Club featured bow-tied women in bunny costumes, as “pets” of deviant and perverted men. In an article in The Washington Post, columnist Derek Hawkins points out:

He portrayed himself and his magazine as defenders of women’s rights, but his critics have called him anything but, pointing to his rotating cast of girlfriends, multiple divorces and general objectification of women in the pages of Playboy (“They are objects,” he once told Vanity Fair).

Christian pro-family groups have long believed pornography is not only degrading to women, but it reduces them to mere sex objects solely for the pleasure of men. And it should not be surprising that the “progressive” agenda for sexual “rights” was among Playboy’s themes.  In multiple ways, Hefner worked hard to advance the antithesis of Biblical morality, by helping to change the cultural understanding of God’s plan for human sexuality.  Hefner and other porn pushers were on the front lines of the culture wars for decades, even promoting the LGBTQ agenda before the media, academia and Hollywood became advocates for sexual amorality.

“Hugh Hefner leaves behind a legacy of sexual exploitation and public health harms,” says Patrick Trueman, President of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. “Playboy popularized the commodification of the female body in soft-core pornographic magazines in the 1960s, and it laid the groundwork for the public health crisis of Internet pornography that America is experiencing today. Reams of research show that Internet pornography is linked to neurological harms, sexual dysfunctions, and increases in rates of sexual violence.”

“Hugh Hefner was not a champion of free speech. He was a pioneer in the sexual objectification and use of women,” Trueman continued. “Research shows that Playboy historically portrays female sexuality as subordination and universal availability to the male gaze. How can our society accept, let alone applaud, these messages about the value of women when we are simultaneously struggling with campus sexual assault, military sexual assault, and the culture of sexual harassment in Silicon Valley?”

Kimberly Drake, a former stripper in a topless club couldn’t agree more, pointing out that pornography dehumanizes women.  She depicts it well:

In Playboy, the centerfold is called a playmate. That makes her a toy. There are playboy bunnies and penthouse beavers, that makes her an animal. The problem here is that if she is seen as an object she can be used, abused and thrown away. If I wreck my car I might be sad I wrecked my car, but I can go out and get another one. This is just another lie it tells us about women. How then do we view ourselves? How does our spouse or significant other view women if he has been caught up in this lie? This attitude is a key factor in violence towards women.

To this point, Trueman stresses that it’s  “time to acknowledge the reality that Playboy is actually just another brand for old-fashioned misogyny.”

A terrible consequence of pornography is its affect on men, women, and children. The regular viewing of porn changes our attitudes about relationships. It even affects how we view ourselves. It touches every level and every relationship we have.  Even Psychology Today acknowledges that porn affects relationships.  However, a Biblical understanding of the purpose of sex within marriage is a great blessing.

“I will set nothing wicked before my eyes…”
Psalm 101:3a

See also Proverbs 6:27-33; Matthew 5:27-28; James 1:14-15; Matthew 5:28; 1 Corinthians 6:18-20; Job 31:1; Psalm 119:37; Hebrews 13:4; Galatians 5:19 and Proverbs 6:32-33.

Read more:

The Human Costs of the World Hugh Hefner Created

Playboy Was Dedicated to Replacing the Faithful, Married Man With a Rakish Figure

The Death of Hugh Hefner and the End of the Sexual Revolution

Hugh Hefner Isn’t Dead. He Lives Rent Free Inside Our Heads

Hugh Hefner Did Not Live the Good Life

Hugh Hefner’s Legacy Is About More Than Sex

Hugh Hefner’s Legacy of Despair

Hugh Hefner and the Sexual Revolution

Learn more about the public health harms of pornography: The National Center on Sexual Exploitation, Concerned Women for America and Focus on the Family.

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-and, please-

Written by Josh Hetzler

“Gene Editing for ‘Designer Babies’? Highly Unlikely, Scientists Say”

That’s the title from a recent New York Times piece highlighting last month’s successful modification of DNA in a human embryo by scientists for the first time in the United States.

The scientists were able to “edit” a known disease-causing mutation at life’s earliest stage in order to prevent the disease from manifesting later in the person’s life. With this sort of “germline” editing, a person’s DNA is not only permanently altered to prevent the contracting of a particular disease, but those mutations that cause the diseases would no longer be inherited by successive generations.

This means that we’re talking about the potential for significantly benefiting (or harming) the human race not just today, but in perpetuity. Talk about power and influence. The possibilities are seemingly endless to the imaginative and the motivated.

Of course, it doesn’t take long for inquisitive minds to wonder: If we can harness scientific methods to prevent “bad” traits, couldn’t we use the same methods to enhance “good” or “preferable” traits – like height, intelligence, skin or eye color, etc.? (Hence, the term “Designer Baby”) And couldn’t this create a number of foreseeable problems?

Not to worry, say the “scientists,” because doing those things would be really hard since modifying other traits is more complex. So for that reason – and that reason alone, apparently – permanently altering human embryos for purposes other than eliminating disease-causing genetic mutations is “highly unlikely” to occur.

Gee, that’s reassuring.

But as the saying goes: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Meanwhile, it’s hard to think of a scenario in which one person possesses more absolute power over another person than when the latter consists of only a few cells under a microscope, created by the former in a lab for the purposes of scientific experimentation. If human nature holds true, we can be certain, then, that no matter how much “good” may come out of this kind of “genetic engineering,” by man’s corruption that good is destined to be far outweighed by its as-of-yet incomprehensible destruction of human life.

Let’s think about this: When was the last time someone said “that’s just too complex” and everyone else simply responded “well, I guess there’s no use even trying then”? That’s just not the America I know. No – we’re the ones who resolve to put a man on the moon (and bring him safely home) within a decade for little more reason than because we don’t want the Russians to get there first! Do you suppose the Russians – who seem to have even less regard for human life than Americans – might be thinking at this very moment how they could harness this science to create a form of genetically-modified super-human for a superior military force, for example? I’d be surprised if they weren’t already working overtime to make it a reality.

If man’s ability to split an atom and harness its power led within a few decades to a nuclear arms race that brought the world to the brink of utter destruction (not that long ago), imagine what might become of man’s ability to split the DNA of a human cell and to harness the power of bending it to our will.

“Highly unlikely,” my foot. Not only is the experimentation, exploitation, abuse and destruction of innumerable human lives highly likely to occur if we continue any further down this path of embryonic gene editing. It’s a guaranteed certainty.

“Scientists” can predict whatever they want about what humans will do in the future, but as long as they ignore history and human nature, they’ll always get it wrong. And as long as we as a society fail to respect the value and dignity of every human life, we will continue to justify mass carnage upon the human race by dressing it up with words like “abortion,” “death with dignity,” and most recently, “embryonic gene editing.”

This article was originally posted at FamilyFoundation.org

At 5:55 (CDT) this morning, President Donald Trump tweeted the following:

After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.

Finally, a president who listens to the voices of reason, wisdom, and military expertise rather than to the cacophonous, incoherent voices of fools, Leftists, and military-antagonists.

This momentous decision comes at a critical juncture. The military was poised to allow men and women with serious psychological disorders to serve openly in the military.

Last September an Army Training Power Point presentation included this astounding “guideline”:

Understand that you many encounter individuals in barracks, bathrooms, or shower facilities with physical characteristics of the opposite sex despite having the same gender marker in DEERS [the army’s personnel system].

All Soldiers should be respectful of the privacy and modesty concerns of others. However, transgender Soldiers are not required or expected to modify or adjust their behavior based on the fact that they do not “match” other Soldiers.

As Americans are all too aware the disorder that threatens military order, cohesion, morale, and strength is the disorder that threatens the cohesion, strength, and social fabric of America. That disorder is gender dysphoria or as Leftists call it “transgenderism.”

Gender dysphoria leads to profoundly destructive actions that have moral, political, social, and military ramifications. Gender dysphoric men and women who wish they were the opposite sex are cross-dressing and engaging in chemical and surgical mutilation of their healthy bodies. They seek to force all of society to treat them as if they are the sex they are not. They seek to force all citizens to pretend that subjective, internal feelings about one’s sex are more important than objective, immutable biological sex. They seek to invade the restrooms, locker rooms, showers, shelters, semi-private hospital rooms, nursing home rooms, and sports teams of persons of the opposite sex. They seek to impose hefty fines on citizens who refuse to refer to them by pronouns that correspond to the sex they are not. They seek to force all citizens to pretend that men can menstruate, become pregnant, and “chest-feed.” They offer children as sacrifices to Moloch.

They also seek to serve openly in the military, which means impersonating and being housed with persons whose sex they do not share. That is an offense against nature and nature’s God, and a violation of the rights of the men and women who serve every American and every non-citizen who lives in this once-great nation.

What a grotesque outrage that so few Americans have said anything as the military stood poised to force men and women who are willing to sacrifice their lives for us to suffer the indignity of showering and toileting with persons of the opposite sex. If Leftists can get women in silly costumes to march for the mythical right to have the government subsidize feticide, conservatives should be able to get men and women to march against compulsory co-ed showers in the military.

We underpay these men and women and their families. We take for granted their service, forgetting how spouses and children are affected. We forget the suffering they endure when grievously injured in war. And then we say virtually nothing while a small group of biological-sex-rejecting persons with perverse desires impose their twisted, truth-denying vision of human nature on the rest of our young soldiers.

This anarchical sexual revolution is the most significant revolution in the history of the world and we treat it like another offensive Hollywood movie. Never in the course of human history has a society denied the reality, immutability, and meaning of the sexual binary. Subjective feelings do not trump reality. If Americans can’t be roused to defend the meaning of sexual differentiation—and yes, that will require enduring Leftist ire in the service of perversion—America doesn’t deserve to survive as a nation.

No matter how Americans feel about President Trump, his tweets, or his positions on other issues, the position he expressed this morning is something for which all Americans who care about the military should be thankful. And they should express their thanks to him.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send President Trump a message thanking him for protecting the integrity of the military and preserving a strong national defense. Thank him for listening to our generals and military experts.

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Tax, Spend, Repeat…

Tuesday (July 4th), the Illinois Senate took up the misguided proposal (SB 9) to massively increase the income taxes of citizens and corporations in Illinois, approving it by a vote of 36-18. State Senator Dale Righter of Mattoon was the only Senate Republican to vote in favor of this tax hike. (See the full roll call below.) This tax grab was approved in the Illinois House last Saturday afternoon, by a vote of 72-45.

It is ironic that the General Assembly voted to impose oppressive government taxes on Illinoisans during Independence Day weekend.

The good news is that Governor Bruce Rauner vetoed this proposal as soon as he could. The bad news is that the Illinois Senate already overrode his veto. So now it goes back to the Illinois House were we need to convince two or three state representatives to change their votes to ‘no.’

Apparently to lawmakers in Springfield, it was easier to dig deeper into the wallets of citizens than to address decades of irresponsible government spending and mismanagement. This is egregiously unfair to the citizens they are supposedly working to serve. It is a shameful offense that so many politicians chose to acquiesce to the inexhaustible demands of our ever-expanding and inept state government by placing a heavier burden on families and businesses in Illinois.

In approving these taxes, our state lawmakers ignored the “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households” issued just two months ago. This alarming report suggests that 62 percent of Americans can’t cover unexpected expenses and almost a quarter cannot pay all their monthly bills. Taking more resources away from citizens to feed the insatiable appetite and reckless spending habits of state government will only exacerbate these problems.

For far too long, Illinois lawmakers have proven to be fiscally irresponsible. Why should hard-working and over-taxed citizens trust them with yet more of their money?

We’ve been here before. Between 2011-2014, Illinois citizens paid these higher taxes after Springfield politicians promised to pay down the backlog of bills, stabilize the state’s pension crisis, and strengthen the economy. That didn’t happen.

Unpaid bills and pension debt are out of control, and according to USA Today, our state economy is ranked 49th. Instead of using those increased taxes in an effective and efficient manner, government leaders squandered it. We have no reason to believe they will do better with more of our tax dollars.

Take ACTION: Please urge your state representative to reject any legislative proposal to increase tax burdens for Illinois citizens.  Ask him/her to vote NO to SB 9. You can also call the switchboard number Springfield at (217) 782-2000.

More:  Check out the Illinois Policy Institute’s online calculator to find out how much damage this tax hike will do to your family budget.

How Did They Vote?

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