Kolby and Keegan Kemp are not among your best known names from the college football ranks. Both played the sport at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois—a school known for excellence on the gridiron and in academics. Moreover, a school steeped in the Christian faith. Kolby played wide receiver for his four years there. Younger brother Keegan was a quarterback and receiver.

Several essential characteristics separate humans from other mammals. The most significant among them is our complex reasoning ability. We can solve problems throughout the full range of our current awareness. We have a powerful capability to observe, collect, and analyze facts. We can formulate theories and design meticulous studies to test them out. And we can debate the meaning of the findings of those studies.

f you haven’t noticed, immigration has been a much hotter topic in Illinois news recently. As waves of migrants are bused up to Illinois from the southern border and as they try to find living space in shelters, airports and even police stations, Chicago and other cities are seriously struggling to find room for them all.

In a July 2010, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation featured a story by Ginger Gorman about a homosexual couple’s efforts to become parents. Peter Truong and Mark Newton of Queensland, Australia were celebrated as loving, caring, gay parents of their son, Boy 1.

Given the moral and fiscal bankruptcy of our state and so much of our nation, we might ask, “Are we as conservative Christians in Illinois good for nothing?” It may feel that no matter what we do, our witness and work bear no fruit. But it does not need to be that way.

In a sense, many of today's conservative Christians have an inferiority complex. Just mention higher education, the mainstream media, or the political dynamics of any major city in the U.S., and you'll likely be met with a series of sighs and slow head-shakes about how rigged everything seems to be against conservative voices.

“America's Chaplain” and Illinois Pastor, Steve Lee, now has a GiveSendGo account to collect funds for his legal defense: www.GiveSendGo.com/ChaplainLee. We at Illinois Family Institute have been raising funds for him too, collecting tax-deductible donations at www.IllinoisFamily.org/Contribute and letting people designate to the Pastor Lee Legal Defense cause.

Alexi Giannoulias, Illinois Secretary of State, recently testified before a U.S. Senate Committee on the issue of how to determine what books belong in libraries and who determines what stays and what goes. Under questioning by Senator John Kennedy (R-LA), Giannoulias found himself at a loss for words after Kennedy read obscene passages from two controversial books, Gender Queer and All Boys Aren’t Blue, often found in public and school libraries.

September 17th each year marks the historic moment in “the year of our Lord 1787” when the U.S. Constitution was signed in Philadelphia. This was a great milestone in world history. More of the constitutions around the world have been patterned after our nation’s governing document than any other frame of government.

Teacher union lobbyists and government employees work against every school choice bill and scholarship program they can; they reject the need for parental control over their children’s education. In doing so, they flatly dismiss the ability of parents to educate their own children or even to make viable decisions on their behalf.

The massive wave of illegal immigration coming across the U.S.-Mexico border is hitting Illinois and Chicago particularly hard, with authorities considering a plan to erect giant “refugee” tent cities to handle the influx. More than 1,500 migrants are currently staying in police stations across Chicago and ten times that many are spread across 16 shelters operated by the city.

Earlier this week, Governor Pritzker and U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona visited an after-school program at Fairview Elementary School in Springfield. This was just one stop on Cardona’s five-state midwestern bus tour to promote the Biden Administration’s new “Raise the Bar: Lead the World” education agenda.

“If I am to be effective, which I believe I am, we must always see the hurting human in front of us and compassionately, sensitively, truthfully confront that person with the everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ.” These are the honest and sincere words of Reverend Stephen Lee, also known as America’s Pastor. Recently, Reverend Lee was indicted in Georgia for so-called election interference, along with 18 others, including former president Donald Trump. The state alleges Lee and others “unlawfully conspired and endeavored to conduct and participate in a criminal enterprise in Fulton County, Georgia, and elsewhere.”

Gender-affirming care is the current standard for dealing with any child who is gender non-conforming, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The primary proponent of that standard in the administration is Rachel Levine, the transgender Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services. Levin claims that any other approach endangers the welfare of the transgender child. He said: “There is no argument among medical professionals – pediatricians, pediatric endocrinologists, adolescent medicine physicians, adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, etc. – about the value and the importance of gender-affirming care.”

In recent articles, we've addressed how the very presence of legal abortion in society disempowers women, and recent studies show that up to 70% of women who have abortions feel at least somewhat coerced or pressured into the decision. However, while boyfriends and family are common sources of this pressure, they aren't the only ones. The abortion industry itself—paragon of "choice" that it is—is sometimes guilty of pressuring women into abortion.