Illinois recently passed a law requiring public school history classes to teach the “roles and contributions” of LGBTQ people, and for some reason, this is controversial. A law that undoes the systematic whitewashing of certain historical figures because they were LGBTQ shouldn’t be seen as a special gift to that community. Rather, it’s righting a wrong. It’s teaching history in a more comprehensive way. It’s making sure students are taught about people like Bayard Rustin and Alan Turing — though the law doesn’t include any specific names — when, in the past, those figures might have been skipped over because they happened to be gay.

The point is: It’s not a controversial law. Some people are just hardwired to feel oppressed at every turn.

Take the hate-based Christian group, the Illinois Family Institute. In a post denouncing the new law, Laurie Higgins describes the bill like this:

This law, which takes effect in July 2020, requires that all children ages 5-18 in public schools be taught about the deviant sexual proclivities of men and women who have made some significant cultural contributions. Well, not all deviant sexual proclivities are included. Only the deviant sexual proclivities currently and publicly approved by homosexuals and cross-sex pretenders will be included — for now. When the time is right, those who identify as polyamorous — er, I mean, “sexually non-monogamous” — or as hebephiles, ephebophiles, kinksters, zoophiles, or infantilists will claim their proclivities constitute a “sexual orientation” and will demand to have the “roles and contributions” of fellow deviants be included in curricula.

This is why IFI is considered a hate group. They can’t see LGBTQ people as people, just a set of genitalia. The law is about including LGBTQ people in the curriculum, and IFI suggests kids will soon be learning about the favorite sexual positions of various historical figures. Somehow, when kids are taught about the Founding Fathers, the whole section about George Washington being a bottom gets left out, but Turing can’t be discussed, in their heads, without going into his sex preferences.

It’s a lie. That’s not how the law works. That’s not how history class works.

And because one lie wasn’t enough, Higgins claims that this law is really a slippery slope to teaching kids about famous furries and diaper fetishists. (She’s getting sloppy. Usually, she can’t mention gay people without the word “pedophile” in close vicinity.)

In any case, none of that is happening.

Higgins also condemns Equality Illinois, a group that supported the bill, for saying the new law would ensure “that LGBTQ youth will now see themselves in the history they are taught.” (The bill’s sponsor, State Sen. Heather Steans, said something similar.)

… when teachers affirm the unproven, non-factual, subjective beliefs of the “LGBTQ” community, they are implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) condemning the beliefs of many people of faith.

Imagine how much bigotry runs through your blood when a few minutes spent talking about the historical contributions of a famous gay person goes against everything you stand for. We’re used to hearing about anti-LGBTQ Christians who oppose civil rights, but these Christians can’t even handle hearing the names of LGBTQ people. Even when you thought you were looking at the bottom of the barrel, these people found a way to dig deeper.

I’ll give Higgins credit for this: She has excellent advice for fellow bigots to act before the law goes into effect next school year.

Conservatives, if you don’t have a plan to exit the state of Illinois, you’ve got 11 months to come up with a plan to exit Illinois public schools. The inept and corrupt miscreants who run the state want you to stay put for two reasons: 1. They want your money, and 2. If they weren’t able to kill your children in the womb, they want to corrupt their hearts and minds via government schools and your money.

Our public schools would indeed be better if these people left. But what do I know? Apparently people like me are on a life-long mission to murder fetuses and corrupt the ones who survive. (Someone should inform Higgins that “children,” by definition, cannot be in the womb. Neither can toddlers or infants or babies.)

Ah well. Too bad for her. For all the faults of our state’s government, at least Democrats now control it at all levels, which means people like Higgins can be ignored without much thought. Members of her group are the anomaly here even if they run the federal government and the national GOP.

(Image via Shutterstock)

