Our state legislature has done it again. The progressives in the Illinois General Assembly have taken another step in their efforts to slaughter our language and in the process undermine our culture. And they did so as part of a classic backroom deal worked out in complete darkness.
Let me explain. Please bear with me as it is a little complicated to explain.
House Bill 2568 recently passed both houses. The bill started as an amendment to the Trust Code on February 4, 2025. It was amended a couple of times before being adopted by the Illinois House on April 10, 2025.
The Illinois Senate took up the bill on April 14, 2025. Senate Committee Amendment One for the bill was adopted on May 13, 2o25. The amendment made several changes, but the bill still dealt with Trust issues.
All this changed on May 28, 2025, with the introduction of Senate Floor Amendment Number 2 filed by Senator Don Harmon. The entire bill was gutted and replaced by the Equality for Every Family Act, which amends the Illinois Paternity Act of 2015.
All references to the Trust Code completely vanished. The original bill was gone.
On the same day that the Amendment was filed in the Senate, the Chief Co-Sponsors for the House Bill in the House were changed to State Representatives Tracy Katz Muhl, Kelly M. Cassidy, Kam Buckner, Eva Dina Delgado, and Theresa Man. Also on the 28th, thirty-three other Democrats in the House signed on as co-sponsors. This is simultaneous with the bill being gutted in the Senate.
Clearly, this was planned in advance.
The next day, five more House Dems signed on as co-sponsors. That makes 43 of the 78 Dems in the House. On that same day, the 29th, the Senate passed the bill 36 to 19, with all Democrats voting for the bill and all Republicans voting against.
Because the bill was changed entirely, it was sent back to the House to approve the amendment. On May 31st, the House passed the bill by a vote of 77 to 40, again on straight party lines. The only Dem who didn’t vote for the bill was State Representative Sue Scherer, who was excused and not present for the vote.
House Bill 2568 was a shell bill, disguised as actual legislation. Most shell bills are placeholders and readily recognized as such. There are legitimate reasons for shell bills, but I won’t bore you with all that.
This bill was camouflaged. It was never intended to pass as introduced. It was there only to allow a last-minute switch so the Democrat Legislators could jam through a bill without any opportunity for public input or debate.
Where was the news media? There were no reports, no condemnation for this underhanded, deceitful action by the Democrats. The truth is we can’t count on the news media, the so-called fourth estate. Given that they act like propagandists for the left, they now more resemble a fifth column.
Why would our elected representatives do that? Aren’t they supposed to represent us, our wishes? The legislators and any other government officials who were part of this should be ashamed.
I understand why they did it. The Democrats knew that their action would be unpopular. The key part of their revisions to the Paternity Act was to remove father, mother, and man from the act. Fifty-five times in the Act, the word “father” was replaced by “parent.” The word “fathering” is found twice in the act. In one instance, “fathering” was replaced by “conceiving.” In the other, it was left alone (which seems to have been an oversight, since there is no apparent reason for leaving it the same).
The word “man” is used thirty-nine times in the act, and in each case it is replaced with the word “person.” As for “mother,” the word appears thirty-five times in the act. In all cases, “mother” is crossed out and in most cases is replaced by “woman or person who gave birth.”
Who wants that? I’m a father, not just a parent. My wife is a mother, not just a person who gave birth. There is a difference.
Many words, like father and mother, carry meaning far beyond their dictionary definitions. They bring with them an emotion, a spiritual dimension, connotations, not just denotation.
The leftists who gutted the original bill weren’t just gutting the bill; they contributed to gutting our language, a process that has been ongoing for some time. Prostitute has become “sex worker.” Convict has become a “justice-involved person.” Child molester is soon to become “minor attracted person.” Husband or wife has become “spouse” or “partner.” Illegal alien—“undocumented immigrant,” autistic or dyslexic—“neurodivergent,” addict or drug abuser—“person with substance use disorder,” chairman—“chairperson,” mankind—“humankind.”
It goes on and on.
Many of these words have centuries of meaning attached to them through their use in literature, in music, in poetry. Changing the words, wokefying them, sterilizes our communication and diminishes our culture. Even more it is rebellion against our Creator.
Consider the first sentence of the Gettysburg Address:
“Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Does this moving passage have the same meaning in woke language?
“Eighty-seven years ago, our parents started a new government, one that gave us freedom and ensured equity for all.”
It doesn’t work.
In our communication about matters other than the purely factual or technical, anywhere from 65% to 70% of the meaning comes from body movement, tone, cadence, facial expressions, eye contact, etc., according to Ray Birdwhistell, the founder of Kinesics. The other 30 to 35% comes from the social meaning of the words, which includes the dictionary definition of the words and the connotations associated with the words.
Changing “mother” to a “person who gives birth” changes a word that carries the meaning of love, nurturing, sacrifice, warmth, for a cold and clinical substitute. This is not just a word being changed; it is a piece of our humanity being erased.
Father is not just a male parent; he is a protector, a leader, a guide, an encourager, a provider. (See Proverbs 1:8-9 and Ephesians 6:1-4)
Changing these words is not about inclusivity or progress. It is about control. If you control the language, you control the culture. Getting rid of the words, mother and father, reduces mothers and fathers to mere functionaries, easily replaced—cogs in a wheel.
Changing convict to justice-involved person, pedophile to minor-attracted person, prostitute to sex worker, illegal alien to undocumented immigrant, is not softening the term; it is normalizing the activity. These changes do not clarify; they obscure reality to fit a narrative.
Sanitizing language makes the unacceptable palatable. It’s a deliberate push to shift how we think and feel, to rewrite morality through vocabulary.
That’s not evolution; that’s engineering.
