Yesterday, IFI wrote about the decision by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) to terminate all contracts with Catholic Charities in four Illinois dioceses. There is some good news to report: Sangamon County Circuit Judge John Schmidt has issued a preliminary injunction that will temporarily permit Catholic Charities to continue to serve children and families as per existing contracts. DCFS will not be permitted to terminate contracts between Catholic Charities in these four Illinois dioceses as it sought to do last Friday.

Also yesterday, IFI learned that State Senator David Koehler’s office sent out the following email in response to our article:

Sen. Koehler did not intend to force religious organizations to compromise their own beliefs. He introduced an amendment in the Senate that exempted faith based organizations such as Catholic Charities from the civil union law. The amendment did not receive enough votes to pass committee.

Kyle Dooley
Office of Senator David Koehler

Kyle Dooley’s response is somewhat misleading, whether intentionally so or not. It seems to suggest that without the religious exemption amendment passing, religious organizations are not protected.

The civil union law is actually titled the Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act. Senator Koehler’s legislative intent clarification (the dialogue between State Senator Bill Haine and Senator Koehler) that was included in yesterday’s article took place during the debate about this very bill. The clarification of legislative intent that Koehler read was not exclusive or original to discussions of the religious exemption amendment that didn’t pass.

At the hearing to discuss the subsequent proposed religious exemption amendment, Koehler read aloud from the transcript of the original floor debate on the civil union bill. The religious exemption amendment should be unnecessary because the sponsor of the civil union law, David Koehler, made it perfectly clear during the original debate that the Religious Freedom Protection part of the Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union bill was intended to protect religious child welfare agencies.

This adoption/foster care debacle points to the fact that religious protections will never suffice to protect religious liberty in the face of homosexuality-affirming activists who will use any means available — including even deceit — to achieve their pernicious ends. Here is what the homosexual activist organization Equality Illinois has posted on its website regarding the Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act:

How would the Act affect religious affiliated adoption agencies?

Answer: The Act would not impact faith-based adoption agencies or adoption procedures. The Act does not amend the Adoption Act, which governs both public and private adoption agencies.

This adoption/foster care mess also exposes the disastrous consequences of allowing the contrived euphemism “sexual orientation” to be allowed into laws and public policies. The use of the term “sexual orientation” is a deceitful rhetorical machination that falsely equates heterosexuality with homosexuality, suggesting both ontological and moral equivalency. The fanciful notions that homosexuality and heterosexuality are ontologically and morally equivalent are radical, unproven, subjective beliefs that have no place in law or public policy. And the term “sexual orientation” ignores the objective biological realities that inhere heterosexuality and render it utterly distinct from homosexuality.

Whenever homosexual activists and their ideological accomplices insert the term “sexual orientation,” into public policies or laws, they’re really referring only to homosexuality — not heterosexuality. To see the truth of that, replace “sexual orientation” with “heterosexuality,” which homosexual activists claim “sexual orientation” includes, in any anti-bullying policy or anti-discrimination law and see if it makes sense.

Removing the term “sexual orientation” from public policies and laws does not mean it’s open season to mistreat those who make their sexual desires central to their identity. Similarly, the absence of the term “polyamory,” another condition constituted by subjective desire and volitional sexual conduct, from anti-bullying policies does not mean it’s open season to mistreat polyamorists.

So, conservative friends, strike the term “sexual orientation” (along with the terms “gay,” “transgendered,” “gender nonconforming,” “gender identity,” and “gender expression”) from your vocabulary. Then work to strike all of them from public policies and laws. Everyone has the right to discriminate, that is, to make distinctions between and judgments about homosexuality (and cross-dressing). It is that act of making moral distinctions about volitional conduct that the sexual anarchists among us seek to eradicate.

Take ACTION: Contact Illinois Governor Patrick Quinn and DCFS Director Erwin McEwen asking them to cease their attacks on religiously based foster care agencies. Politely point out that Catholic Charities are within their First Amendment rights to disqualify those applicants who self-identify as homosexual.

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