Perplexing Progressive Priorities

Last year, the Illinois Legislature passed Senate Bill 1584, which requires all doctors to refer anyone requesting an abortion to a doctor who will provide one; even if it goes against their religious beliefs.  No Republican lawmaker was dumb enough to vote for the bill; which was signed into law by Bruce Rauner, the state’s Republican governor.  I’m really struggling to come up with a reason why this bill was necessary.  Perhaps liberals in Illinois were jealous that states like California and Washington seem to be beating them in the contest for “Most Progressive State.”  The controversial law has faced its share of court challenges, with the organizations Alliance Defending Freedom and the Thomas More Society arguing on behalf of pregnancy centers and doctors who believe it violates their First Amendment Rights.   

 

Illinois has bigger problems to worry about than establishing street-cred with feminists.  The financial situation in the Prairie State is so out of control that it may find itself becoming the first state to declare bankruptcy.  Standard & Poor may end up downgrading the state’s bond rating to “Junk” status if it fails to adopt a budget. Illinois has the lowest credit rating in the nation; currently standing at BBB-, which is one level above junk.  Also, estimates from the United States Census Bureau show that Illinois is one of a handful of states actually losing population.  Let’s not forget about the out of control murder rate in Chicago.  Maybe instead of trying to impress Cecile Richards, the Illinois legislature should focus on getting its state back in shape. This law presents just one example of perplexing progressive priorities. 

 

 

Over on the left coast, Xavier Becerra, the recently appointed Attorney General for the People’s Republic of California, has barred state-funded travel to Texas, Alabama, Kentucky and South Dakota because he has a beef with laws in those states that allow adoption agencies to refuse service to same-sex families.   Earlier this year, California had enacted a similar travel ban to Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee because of similar religious liberty laws that the enlightened elders in the Golden State believed unfairly targeted the LGBT community. Apparently failing to understand the principles of federalism, Becerra hopes that he can use the travel bans as a sword to convince these states to scrap the “discriminatory” laws.  Liberals obviously fail to realize the rationale behind these laws.  In other states such as Massachusetts and Illinois, Catholic Charities has ceased its adoption services because of new state laws that would strip the organization of state funding if it refused to place children with same-sex couples; which violates the organization’s religious belief that all children deserve two married opposite-sex parents.  There are plenty of secular adoption agencies that would happily serve same-sex couples.  Yet, liberals still think it is in the national interest to bully religious adoption agencies who don’t see things their way.   Is it not kind of funny that a state that is so vehemently opposed to President Trump’s travel ban is instituting a travel ban of its own?  It baffles me that people who claim to love the LGBT community so much would want to import people into this country who believe is it perfectly acceptable to push them off buildings. 

 

 

The final law or series of laws that illustrate perplexing progressive priorities has to do with pronouns. In Canada, failure to address someone by their preferred gender pronoun could land you in legal jeopardy thanks to the implementation of Bill C-16.  A similar law is on the books in the Marxist Mecca of New York City; which would fine violators up to $250,000.  Simply “misgendering” or calling someone the wrong pronoun by mistake could cost New Yorkers up to $125,000.  The New York City law, drafted by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Commission on Human Rights, is directed towards employers and converted entities. 

 

If pressed on why these kinds of social justice laws are given top priority when so many other pressing problems exist, liberals would probably respond by invoking the expression “You can walk and chew gum at the same time.”  The problem is there seems to be a lot more gum chewing than walking going on.  The legislatures in California and Illinois are much more interested in taking political actions that make George Soros smile than they are in confronting the serious problems that face their states; many of them a direct result of out of control spending.      

 

 

 

All of these laws share one thing in common.  They seek to silence the voices of those who do not agree with the secular progressive agenda that is sweeping through western society at an accelerated pace. The most important left-wing priority is control, which is not perplexing at all. The left-wing thought police have achieved a commanding grip on our society; although they came to power a few decades later than George Orwell predicted. Even if they are a minority in our Federal government, they are the overwhelming majority in the permanent DC bureaucracy, Academia, pop culture and the media.  If the thought police ever gain an overwhelming majority in Congress, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of conscience may be gone forever.