As you may know, the Springfield LGBTQIA+ Pride Fest is scheduled for May 16, 2026. The number of these types of events are growing throughout the state, including Decatur, Alton, Belleville, Galena, Woodstock, Peoria, Champaign/Urbana, Moline, Olney and Salem.
The effort to normalize sexual immorality, perversion, and gender confusion is not slowing down. It is expanding, even into smaller, more conservative communities. Many are asking what can be done to defend their towns and neighborhoods.
For the past seven years, IFI has worked with local Christian activists in Springfield to post a billboard during the months of May and June with a prominent message: “The Rainbow Belongs to God” with a link to gone2far.net. Throughout this campaign, we pray that God will use this message to convict hearts, reveal truth, and turn people away from worldliness and back to Him.
Located on Clearlake Ave. near Livingston St. in Springfield.
Tens of thousands have seen this billboard. We pray many have taken the next step to look up the Scripture references displayed: Genesis 9:13–15 and 2 Peter 3:3–7.
This year, we would like to extend the campaign beyond June and keep the billboard up into the summer, or longer. Therefore we would like to raise $1,500 in order to extend these efforts in our Capitol City. If 30 people would donate $50 or more to bolster this billboard campaign, we’d be good to go!
Can you help with a tax-deductible donation to this campaign?
Our culture did not arrive here overnight. Since the sexual revolution of the 1960s, voices like Alfred Kinsey promoted the false idea that sexual immorality, even among the very young, was beneficial. He pushed the belief that morality is relative rather than grounded in truth. These lies have had devastating consequences.
Hugh Hefner further advanced this decline by normalizing pornography as harmless entertainment, eroding moral standards while objectifying women.
What began as a call for tolerance of homosexuality quickly shifted to acceptance—and now celebration. Civil unions became the steppingstone to redefining marriage, which in turn opened the door to sweeping “special rights” legislation.
Today, gender ideology has taken root, with an estimated 1.6 million young people (ages 13 and older) in the U.S. identifying as transgender.
According to a 2023–2024 Gallup report, 22.3% of Generation Z identifies as part of the LGBTQ+ community—including 28.5% of Gen Z women and 10.6% of Gen Z men. That’s more than 1 in 5.
We cannot remain silent. Silence creates a vacuum—one too often filled by the lowest standards. And the question remains: how much further will this decline go?
Consider this exhortation from our nation’s first president:
“It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn.”
~George Washington
Civic engagement is an essential part of the Christian life and witness. If we neglect our responsibility, we risk losing not only our freedoms, but also our ability to shine the Light of Christ in our communities. When that happens, both society and our witness suffer.
Would you prayerfully consider helping us continue our billboard campaign in Springfield this year and the years to come? With your support, we hope to expand this effort to every Illinois community hosting a Pride Fest, as the Lord provides.
