By Pastor Rick Barnard

Now that the civil unions law for homosexuals has passed and come into effect in Illinois, religious freedom for citizens and religious organizations has been put in jeopardy. The irony is that this law is titled “Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act.”

This law, in actuality, represses constitutional religious freedom!

Attacks on religious liberty came just a month after this act was passed when a homosexual couple filed complaints with both the Illinois Attorney General and the Illinois Department of Human Rights for the refusal of two innkeepers to rent privately owned bed and breakfasts for a homosexual civil union ceremony and reception. One of the bed and breakfasts is owned by a Christian father of five children who has been deluged with vicious, hateful e-mails and phone calls. This new law is certainly not protecting his religious freedoms!

On July 12th the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services notified Catholic Charity Organizations in Joliet, Peoria, Springfield and Belleville that it will not renew its recently expired adoption and foster care contracts with them because they will not abide by the new Civil Union Act and place children with homosexual couples. Apparently, the State of Illinois wants to force Catholic Charities to either give children the care of homosexual couples even though it is against their own Christian teachings or to give up helping the state placing any children for adoption or foster care.

And not only that, but this decision by the State could possibly force the 2,500 children already in the Catholic Charity foster system out of their current foster homes! Because of that latter possibility, a Sangamon County Circuit Court has issued a temporary injunction, reinstating the state contracts relating to children in Catholic Charities supported foster homes. The outcome of this case won’t be decided until after an August 17th court hearing, with no guarantee that the contract with Catholic Charities will be renewed by the State. Again, how ironic is it that the State of Illinois is trying to use the “Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act” to suppress the religious freedoms of a nonprofit, religious organization that is trying to find homes for orphaned children?!

The activist homosexuals not only want freedom to “marry” or have “civil unions,” they also want all of us to be forced to accept their lifestyle as acceptable and good. They want our public schools to teach this to our children. They want us to do this even though our Christian values, which are taught in the Bible, teach us otherwise.

This is the opposite of religious freedom! It will ultimately lead to more losses of our religious freedoms as well as the further destruction of the traditional family and the downfall of our society and nation because the family is the basic foundational unit of any society and nation.