Posts on Illinois

The Illinois Family Institute, former stomping grounds of militant homophobe Peter LaBarbera before he launched his own Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, has unveiled its new Division of School Advocacy program designed to ensure that public schools do not teach anything about homosexuality, religion, socialism, abortion, or any “immoral, unhealthy, and dangerous ideologies” that might conflict with what the IFI considers “biblical truth”: 

The Illinois Family Institute helps to fight against pervasive secular humanism that exists in our public schools. Through the newly developed Division of School Advocacy, parents will be able to find answers and resources to help identify areas where the school curriculum strays from Biblical Truth and to recognize the influence from outside organizations such as Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which pressures administrators and educators to present this organization's views and agendas.

The purpose of the Illinois Family Institute's (IFI) new Division of School Advocacy (DSA) is to protect children from immoral, unhealthy, and dangerous ideologies and agendas in public schools. In the service of that critical goal, the DSA is committed to assisting Illinois residents to address issues related to the breakdown of Judeo-Christian family values and community standards in public education.

In addition to assisting each citizen who contacts IFI regarding school issues, Illinois Family Institute's Division of School Advocacy will continue to work tirelessly toward affecting morally sound legislation in Illinois public schools.

The DSA will provide constituents with the training, resources, and counsel needed for positive changes in public schools. Through this training, resources, and counsel, taxpayers will become better equipped to address administrators, faculty members, and school board members in appropriate and effective ways. The Division of School Advocacy will address such public school problem topics as Human Sexuality, Religion/Atheism, Race/"Social Justice", Marxism/Socialism/Income Redistribution, Gender/Feminism, Environmentalism, Abortion, Fetal Stem Cell Research, Population Control, and Miscellaneous Political Topics.

Group wants to make local police enforce federal violations. Also eyeing localities in California, New York, and Texas.

But group looks forward to possible ballot initiatives in California, Illinois, and Arizona – where voters just rejected a ban.

Right-wing complained “Nativity” movie not in city’s Christmas market, despite presence of nativity scene. Now city approves movie for different location. Meanwhile: AFA launches “Public School Christmas Project.”

Peter LaBarbera, president of a group called Americans for Truth, is upset with President Bush for his supportive comments on the parenthood plans of Mary Cheney and her long-time lesbian partner. Although Bush has made a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage one of his platform issues, in the case of the vice president’s daughter he struck a different tone.  “I think Mary is going to be a loving soul to her child. And I'm happy for her,” Bush told People magazine. “He blinked,” complains LaBarbera.

In August, a group calling itself “Mothers Against Illegal Aliens” targeted one immigrant in particular – Elvira Arellano, the undocumented mother of a 7-year-old U.S. citizen. Now, as Arellano faces deportation and separation from her son, Chris Simcox’s Minuteman Civil Defense Corps can’t get it done fast enough. In an alert to their subscribers:

We are appealing to people across the United States: take time to write a letter! We cannot allow the fugitive Elvira to stay here in the United States and create precedence for illegal aliens across America. The country you save may be your own!

David Limbaugh, Robert Knight, Concerned Women complain. City said “Nativity Story” clips were “too commercial”; the festival has its own nativity scene.

Last year, a Chicago judge allowed a wrongful-death suit to go forward against a fertility clinic that had accidentally destroyed a couple’s frozen embryos. This month, religious-right groups have signed on to the cause, reports the American Family Association’s AgapePress:

On November 17, a coalition of nine Illinois and national pro-life organizations filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the case in support of the parents. Comprising the coalition are Illinois Citizens for Life, Concerned Women for America, the Illinois Right to Life Committee, Life Advocacy Resource Project, Illinois Federation for Right to Life, Concerned Christian Americans, the Illinois Family Institute, Lutherans for Life, Inc., and the Catholic Conference Center of Illinois. The case is now pending before the Illinois appellate court.

Paul Linton is special counsel for the Thomas More Society of Chicago, which is representing the pro-life coalition. He says the trial judge was correct in concluding that the embryos were human beings under the state's wrongful death statute and should be protected by the law in the event of their destruction.

"Of course," Linton points out, "we want to maintain the standard that human life begins at conception -- understood as fertilization -- and not at a later stage of development, for example, where there is implantation."

According to Thomas Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, this case, on the cutting edge of abortion politics, “is the modern equivalent to Dred Scott in a Petri dish” – one in which the far limits of the “pro-life” position could potentially be legally delineated. But given that in-vitro fertilization involves the fertilization of a number of embryos, most of which will be discarded, one has to wonder what the Illinois couple was thinking when they began the process.

For 43 states.

Chris Simcox on a ten-state tour for Minuteman PAC. Also: Grassfire.org scores GOP as party of “stopping illegal immigration.”

So-called “family policy councils.” More here.

The California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation has posted video its activists took of Minutemen protesting day-labor sites in the San Diego area. For his part, the founder of the San Diego Minutemen – who are seen in the video clips taking pictures of employers and arguing with or threatening workers and others – complains that “These camera people are getting in our faces.”

A few miles to the north, the city council of Escondido appears poised to pass a Hazleton-style anti-immigrant ordinance, including California’s first ordinance to target landlords who rent to undocumented immigrants. Even as cities that passed such measures – like Riverside, New Jersey and Valley Park, Missouri – are straining under the effects, more cities are looking to crack down on a certain part of their populations. Altoona, Pennsylvania approved such an ordinance Wednesday, and now Carpentersville, Illinois is looking to join in:

In what experts said was a first for the Chicago area, two Carpentersville trustees have proposed that the village punish landlords and businesses that "aid and abet" illegal immigrants.

The ordinance, expected to be formally introduced at Tuesday's Village Board meeting, would also make English the official language of Carpentersville, a town whose population of 37,000 is almost half Hispanic.

“What we're seeing around the country is local entities saying, you know what, folks, we have to take matters into our own hands,” says Minuteman Civil Defense Corps’ Illinois state director. “That's the proper response, because they were voted in to protect American citizens.”

The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund has a list of anti-immigrant local ordinances.

While anti-abortion activists are looking to a referendum on a total abortion ban in South Dakota as a turning point in their movement, the Chicago Tribune reports on a faction of the Right that is one step ahead – attacking access to contraception. At the same time as this weekend’s Values Voter Summit in Washington, Pro-Life Action held a rally in Chicago called “Contraception Is Not the Answer.”

"Contraception is more the root cause of abortion than anything else," Joseph Scheidler, an anti-abortion veteran whose Pro-Life Action League sponsored the conference, said in an interview.

No one knows how many supporters Scheidler and his colleagues have, but conservative leaders are watching to see if the anti-contraception rhetoric gains traction. …

What's … likely, experts suggest, is an ongoing "chipping away" at access to contraceptive services. This could entail cuts to federal programs that pay for birth control. Likely it also would involve a state-by-state push to allow pharmacists to refuse to fill birth-control prescriptions for reasons of "conscience."

Rev. Thomas Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, opened Saturday's session with a clear tactical agenda for the budding movement: "It's time to get serious about denying Planned Parenthood funding for birth control or sex education and abortion. We need to hold them accountable for this contraceptive welfare. We have to work very carefully to keep that sword away from Planned Parenthood."

Euteneuer believes a single argument holds the greatest potential for changing how the anti-abortion community thinks about birth control. "Chemical contraception doesn't prevent abortions, it causes abortion," he said in an interview. "If we believe life begins at the moment of conception, we have to defend it against [this] chemical attack." Euteneuer was referring to the possibility that hormonal birth control, including the pill, the patch, injections and some IUDs, might prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in a womb. Scientific evidence suggests that this occurs infrequently, if at all, and that birth control works primarily by preventing a woman from ovulating.

There is some hesitation to embrace this strategy quite yet, reports the Tribune:

Dr. John Willke, who heads the International Right to Life Federation and the Life Issues Institute in Cincinnati, sees peril in the attempt to shift the movement's strategy. "I'm here to stop abortions... and we're coming close to winning on this issue," he said. "If we take up an anti-contraception agenda, we won't win the abortion fight in the foreseeable future."

But Scheidler is anxious to take advantage of the anti-abortion movement's successes. "We've been trained to steer clear of discussing contraception, as if it were a distraction," he said. "I'm tired of this `Don't get off the subject' mentality. Contraception is the subject."

After Miller Brewing Company briefly faced criticism for donating to Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin), architect of the draconian House immigration reform bill, the company turned around and donated money towards a pro-immigrant rally in Chicago, the Chicago Tribune reported. Despite the company’s denial, the Right Wing reacted quickly, calling for a national boycott of Miller beer. “The last thing we need is more illegal aliens driving drunk and killing American citizens,” said Jason Mrocheck of WeHireAliens.com.

Now RightMarch.com is calling on its members to join a boycott of Miller beer, offering specific steps consumers can take at bars and other locations, such as:

If you patronize bars, go and comment loudly to your friends so other patrons can hear you say, "NO, don't buy me a Miller! They support illegal aliens, and I won't give ONE RED CENT to Miller! Why would I want to buy beer from a company that sells out American values?!!!"

Illinois lawsuit to let them deny Plan B moves forward.