Laurie's Chinwags
Laurie's Chinwags
Laurie Higgins
Laurie’s Chinwags are podcasts of her articles and are part of our new effort to provide IFI subscribers with another way to access information and ideas. We will be making these podcasts available for her new articles as well as select articles from the past on topics of pressing importance. The primary focus of these podcasts is sexuality, particularly how leftist views of sexuality harm the public good. Laurie examines the flaws in the specious secular arguments used to normalize homosexuality and “gender” confusion and which confuse, deceive, and even persuade Americans. She looks at how these flawed arguments harm individuals, families, marriage, and education. We call these discussions “chinwags” in the hope that listeners will figuratively chat with Laurie as they listen and later will literally chat with neighbors, co-workers, lawmakers, church leaders, friends, and family members on these topics.
PODCAST: Smidge of Hope on the Education Horizon
For those who for years have been battling critical race theory-infused and sexually deviant material in public schools with little help from their friends, recent developments offer a smidge of hope. I began opposing both types of resources in about 2005 when I was a member of the highly partisan English Department at District 113’s Deerfield High School on Chicago’s North Shore. At that time, my opposition and warnings fell on deaf ears—well, except for the propagandists. Theirs were hostile ears—very hostile. Teachers in District 113 were pushing CRT-tainted content in the classroom and in what is loosely called “professional” development. Teachers who claimed to “honor all voices” and “value diversity” were pushing arguable regressive assumptions about sexuality while censoring all dissenting voices in the classroom. They hoped that the voices of conservative parents had been effectively silenced. They were largely right. And now District 113 has wasted taxpayer money to put tampon machines in boys’ bathrooms. That’s what happens when we allow bullying and fear to paralyze us. Racism and disordered sexuality eagerly promoted by leftist change-agents in government schools are destroying the hearts, minds, and bodies of children; the integrity and safety of families; and all institutions of public life that previously protected order and liberty. Read more...
Dec 18, 2021
8 min
PODCAST:  Fools and Hypocrites Defend Abortion
Nothing exposes the ignorance and evil of “progressivism” quite like discussions of the rights of the most vulnerable among us. Nothing exposes the hollowness of leftist claims to care about social justice, the poor, and the weak like their bloodthirsty eagerness to keep the slaughter of humans in the womb legal. Nothing exposes the loathing of leftists for those deemed “other” by the powerful than their seething rage at the possibility they may lose the right to kill those they “other.” Leftists view humans with defects and humans created by the criminal acts of their fathers as undeserving of existence. Leftist “othering” of imperfect humans and humans conceived through evil acts is so extreme that they shriek apoplectically at the claim that even these tiny, innocent humans are part of the human family. Read more...
Dec 15, 2021
5 min
PODCAST: No More Single Sex Bathrooms in Chicago Public Schools
The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system—rife with systemic bias against conservative views of sex and sexuality—has announced its newest effort to cultivate “inclusivity” and “equity” in all of its K-12 schools. The “social justice” activists, puddenheads, and lemmings who lead the CPS have banned all sex-based bathrooms for children and staff. Instead, children and staff are free to use any bathroom they are “comfortable” using. Subjective feelings now trump objective scientific reality in determining bathroom usage policy. All bathrooms are now co-ed. No word yet on how the CPS plans to include and respect children and adults who are uncomfortable sharing bathrooms with opposite-sex persons. Read more...
Dec 8, 2021
6 min
PODCAST: Critical Race Theory at IMSA HS
Have you recently heard the scornful claims of “progressives” who assert that critical race theory (CRT) is absolutely, unequivocally not taught in public schools? Never, no way, no how. Have you heard the suspiciously uniform proclamations that CRT is an academic theory originating and taught exclusively in law schools? Well, take a gander at this upcoming course offered at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy—a public high school: Read more...
Dec 5, 2021
8 min
PODCAST: Rittenhouse and Justice in a Leftwing Dystopia
A gang of college students at Arizona State University committed to “social justice” as redefined by leftists are trying to get Kyle Rittenhouse kicked out of online nursing school, calling him a “bloodthirsty murderer” who makes the campus “unsafe.” They want to “abate” the “danger” posed by Rittenhouse’s online presence in a nursing class. In the real world, where many of us still live and move and have our being, this is called industrial strength bullying. In addition to demanding the administration “withdraw” Rittenhouse from the school, the four oppressive, tyrannical, exclusionary, leftwing organizations—MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán), Students for Socialism, Students for Justice in Palestine, and the Multicultural Solidarity Coalition—are demanding that the school issue a public statement against the “racist murderer Kyle Rittenhouse.” Read more...
Nov 30, 2021
8 min
PODCAST: Downers Grove HS Obscene Books Biased Journalism
Chicago Sun-Times education reporter Nader Issa offers a classic example of biased opinion writing masquerading as objective reporting in his “news” narratives about a recent controversy in the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove over an obscene “graphic memoir.” The memoir titled Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe may sound familiar to IFI readers. I wrote this about her memoir in early August 2021: Maia Kobabe, author of Gender Queer: A Memoir, which is carried in high school libraries, tells the peculiar tale of her journey to her “identity” as a genderqueer, asexual woman with a lesbian aunt and a sister who dates a woman who pretends to be a man. The far-left American Library Association awarded Kobabe an Alex Award for her “graphic” memoir. Her memoir is graphic in both senses of the word. It’s a sexually explicit, 240-page comic book about her journey into sexual confusion and perversion. Kobabe, who uses the “Spivak” pronouns ey/eir/em, also teaches art workshops to middle school children, mostly, she says, “AFAB” girls, which means “assigned female at birth.” Kobabe evidently doesn’t know that children aren’t assigned either a sex or “gender identity” at birth. That’s not a thing obstetricians do. Obstetricians identify the objective sex of babies at birth, a characteristic that never changes. Public school kerfuffles over Kobabe’s obscene memoir have been justifiably emerging as parents learn that their children’s school carries it, and one of those kerfuffles took place at a Downers Grove School Board meeting on November 15. Read more...
Nov 26, 2021
11 min
PODCAST: Anti-Science Public High School Discriminates Based on Religion
Exeter High School in New Hampshire is being sued by a Catholic student (identified in the lawsuit as M.P.) who was suspended from playing in a football game because in a private conversation, off school grounds, initiated by a “progressive” student, M.P. expressed his view that there are only two genders: male and female. To be clear, by “genders,” he meant sexes. Until recently when the “trans”-cult redefined “gender,” the term was synonymous with “biological sex.” The conversation was precipitated by an incident in Spanish class when a student declared that he or she is “nonbinary” and wished to be addressed by the third-person plural pronoun “they.” On the bus ride home after school, M.P. and his friends were discussing the “difficulty of addressing a non-binary person in Spanish,” which has two gendered words for “they,”: “ellas” and “ellos.” A girl identified as A.G. interrupted their conversation to assert the silly idea that there are more than two “genders.” After M.P. got off the bus, A.G. texted him to resume the debate during which she demanded M.P. “Give me one valid reason why there's only two genders.” That’s like demanding someone give her a valid reason why there are tigers. Tigers—like boys and girls—just are. Read more...
Nov 18, 2021
7 min
PODCAST: Wheaton Illinois School District’s Wokest Board Member
At the most recent School District 200 Board Meeting in Wheaton, Illinois, new school board member and cunning rhetorician, Mary Yeboah, Director of Graduate Student Life at Wheaton College, posed six questions to the board beginning with a prefatory statement that let the woke cat out of the bag: I would like to ask six rhetorical questions regarding the proposed October 10th, 2022 and October 9th, 2023 no-school all-grades Columbus Day/Indigenous People's Day in relation to district purposes outlined in the mission of School District 200, Vision 2022, and the portrait of a graduate work. To be very clear, these are not questions that I expect you to answer right now. I am asking them for the benefit of reflective thinking for the district, especially in the month leading up to the approval of these calendars. One, does the District 200 administration recognize the impact of holidays, statues, and other memorials on shaping school culture, which in turn shapes student experiences and outcomes? Two, does the District 200 administration consider celebrating extreme violence, theft, genocide, and dehumanization to be in line with the study of social science to help students develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the benefit of the global society in which they live? Three, does the District 200 administration affirm the accurate telling of history and recognize the impossibility of “discovering” land already inhabited? Four, does the District 200 administration take into consideration the perspectives of Indigenous people regarding this particular calendar event? Five, could maintaining this District 200 calendar event unintentionally support a myth of U.S. exceptionalism that could undermine district efforts to create diverse, inclusive schools for all children? Lastly, does this calendar event advance the vision and mission of District 200 goals? And if it does not, must it remain despite state-level support? Read more...
Nov 16, 2021
10 min
PODCAST: Fatuous Floor Debate on Parental Notice of Abortion Act
The euphemistically titled “Youth Health and Safety Act” (HB 370) has passed both the Illinois House and Senate. Leftists who believe it takes a village to strip parents of their natural rights and strip preborn humans of their right to live are close to fulfilling their promise to make Illinois America’s bloodiest killing field.  HB 370 will repeal the Parental Notice of Abortion Act passed in 1995 that requires parents of minor pregnant girls to be notified at least 48 hours before girls can have their babies killed. In another repugnant floor debate in Springfield, State Representative Anna Moeller (D-Elgin) asserted without proving that there is a “fundamental principle that everyone has the right to make their own reproductive healthcare decisions without interference.” Translated, she means there exists a right for underage pregnant girls to have their babies slaughtered without their parents being notified. Let’s remember, girls as young as eight can become pregnant. Read more...
Nov 12, 2021
14 min
PODCAST: The GOP’s Shameful Pride Coalition
Over the weekend, the Republican National Committee (RNC) announced its newest endeavor called the “RNC Pride Coalition.” The RNC is colluding with Log Cabin Republicans, the country’s largest “LGBTQ+,” allegedly Republican group, to get Republicans elected. Make no mistake, the RNC Pride Coalition will seek to get elected their ideological kind of Republican—the kind that believe marriage has no connection to sexual differentiation or reproduction, the kind that believe children have no right to a mother and a father, and the kind that believe celebration of homosexual acts and relationships is necessary for a healthy social order. Log Cabin Republicans and the RNC Pride Coalition believe that homosexual acts and relationships are worthy of pride. Such beliefs are neither conservative nor good for America. The RNC has decided that sacrificing principle for power will build a better America. The RNC, under chairwoman Ronna McDaniel’s leadership, has calculated that the homosexual and cross-dressing communities are more politically valuable to the RNC than are stalwart conservatives who have been fighting for decades to make America a safe place where America’s families, children, and liberty can flourish. While conservatives are awakening from their slumber, working tenaciously to get critical race theory, the “trans” ideology, and homosexual porn out of their schools, Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel is working tenaciously to curry favor with homosexual “Republicans.” Read more...
Nov 9, 2021
6 min
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