Who to Choose?

Written by Thomas Hampson 

Women’s rights are the central theme of the Harris/Walz campaign and central to Eric Sorensen’s campaign for reelection to Illinois’ 17^th Congressional District. Because of the Dobbs decision, former President Trump is being demonized as an enemy of women, and if he is reelected, women will suffer.

Is this true?

According to the Democrats, the U.S. Supreme Court decision returning abortion to the control of the states threatens the bodily autonomy, the physical health, and the freedom of all women. Women’s rights are embodied in what Democrats euphemistically call “reproductive health rights,” which were destroyed when Roe v. Wade was overturned.

What this means is that Democrats have reduced women’s rights to the right to get an abortion at will. That’s it.

Already, ten states, including Illinois, plus the District of Columbia, allow abortion up to the moment of birth, where they join company with China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Canada.  (Such a great club.) The Dems want all 50 states to allow abortion on demand at any point in the pregnancy.

This seems to be the extent of the Democrat view of women’s rights.

Are they protective of women’s privacy rights in locker rooms and restrooms? Do they make sure biological men are prohibited in those places? Do they work to ensure men are not allowed behind the same prison bars as women? Do they work to protect women’s sports from being coopted by men pretending to be women?

They don’t.

Instead, the Democrat Party is working to delete womanhood. President Biden even appointed a woman, Ketanji Brown Jackson, to the Supreme Court, who said she could not define a woman because she was not a biologist.

I wonder, is she really a woman? Is Kamala Harris a woman? How could anyone know?

The Biden/Harris administration completely rewrote Title IX, redefining sex and cutting the definition loose from any biological determination.

The regulation literally revises reality.

The Dems also ignore the massive increase in sex trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and girls that they caused by illegally opening the border. Millions have been raped in their journey to the U.S. by the coyotes, and tens of thousands have been put to work on US streets to earn for the gangs and cartels.

So much for their concern over women’s health.

Eric Sorensen marches in lockstep with all these Democrat positions. During his time in Congress, he hasn’t done much of anything except support Democrat positions. He has sponsored a mere handful of bills, only one of which became law—The All-American Flag Act, which requires all federal government agencies to buy flags manufactured only in the USA. (A good purpose, but why would we have to pass a law to direct U.S. bureaucrats to buy flags made in the U.S. instead of some foreign country? It would have been better for him to submit a law to get rid of the unpatriotic bureaucrats.)

He also got $149 million in earmarks for selected constituents. According to GovTrack and Sorensen’s website, here are the earmarks:

• $120 million to Illinois Corn Growers Association for “Upper Mississippi River Basin Lock and Dam Updates”
• $4 million to Bloomington Normal Airport Authority for “Design/Construct Air Cargo Road with Signalized Intersection.”
• $4 million to the City of Freeport for the “Freeport Well and Well House No. 12 Improvements Project”
• $10 million for the City of Rock Island to construct a new water treatment plant.
• $5 million for the City of Moline to develop a new public safety building.
• $6 million for the City of Peoria for flood control and stormwater management projects.

Not too impressive.

One thing he did do for Illinois women was vote to erase them from sports. Sorensen, along with all the other Democrats who voted (ten Democrats and three Republicans didn’t cast votes), voted against HR734, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.

This is not at all surprising.

HR743 would have prevented school athletic programs from allowing biological males to play on a girls’ sports team. Sorensen wants to allow it, as does the whole Democrat party. Sorensen, the first openly LGBTQ person elected to Congress from Illinois, dresses and performs in drag himself.

I wonder, did this influence his vote?

Females are not allowed to have their own Sports teams, according to Sorensen and the Democrats. If you think you are a woman, you are a woman. Biology is irrelevant. (So, I guess being a biologist won’t help someone to define a woman.)

While Sorensen claims he supports the 2^nd Amendment, he wants “assault rifles” banned nationally. Despite being a meteorologist who should know better, he is sold out to the hysteria that climate change is an existential threat, and he supports the immediate and draconian restrictions on carbon emissions.

If they become policy, these positions will hurt, not help women.

The AR-15, which is typically characterized by the uninformed as an “assault rifle,” is the most popular rifle in the United States for hunting, self-defense, and recreational use. Because of the light weight of the rifle, the small frame, and the limited recoil, it is especially easy for women to use the rifle.

Banning the AR-15 and weapons like it significantly limits the availability of long guns that are easily used by women.

This position does not help women.

The movement to severely reduce carbon emissions likewise fails to advance the interests of women. The Green New Deal, which was mislabeled as The Inflation Reduction Act, dramatically increased the cost of everything, especially energy. And it’s not even green. Wind turbines and solar panels do more damage than most alternatives available in America.

Electric vehicles, given the current nature of our power grid and the mining and manufacturing requirements for building EVs, increase carbon emissions.

The net result is that costs go up and emissions increase. Where’s the benefit? It costs everyone, including women.

Sorensen supports

• abortion up to birth
• men in women’s sports
• men in women’s prisons
• government-paid “sex change operations”
• taking the most popular rifle away from women and men
• forcing all of us to subsidize electric vehicle manufacturing
• making electricity production far more expensive
• and ignoring the sexual exploitation of women and children.

Even so, he is poised to win re-election.

Because of his loyalty to these and other Democrat positions, Sorensen has five times the financial support of his opponent, former Judge, Joe McGraw. To date, Sorensen has raised $5.3 million to McGraw’s $1.1 million.

Most Congressional campaigns today depend not on donations from constituents but from national sources. For example, McGraw has received almost $1.1 million but only $300,000, or 1/3^rd, donated by people in Illinois. Of the total Illinois donations, $59,000 was given by people in the Chicago Metropolitan area, a long way from the 17^th district.

Let’s compare that to Sorensen. Of his $5.3 million in donations so far, only about $1 million came from Illinois. That is 1/5^th of the total. Almost $700,000 of that $1 million is from the Chicago metropolitan area. Almost $2 million was donated to his campaign from addresses in Massachusetts, $1.6 million of which was donated by ActBlue, an organization the Texas Attorney General has accused of facilitating illegal campaign contributions.

With this kind of lopsided financial support, the only chance McGraw has is if enough conservatives in his district get to the polls and vote.

Far too many Christians don’t vote.

According to a study by Rice University, 14% of African-American Christians, 21% of Hispanic, 28% of Asian, and 11% of White Christians did not vote in the 2016 election. Indications from other sources are that an even more significant percentage will stay home this year.

Less than 30,000 votes determined the outcome of the last Presidential election out of more than 150 million cast. Sorensen won with less than 10,000 votes out of 233,000 votes cast in 2022 in the 17^th District.

Ignoring civic responsibility is not an option for Christians.

We are called to be engaged in our culture and our government. Our vote is a sacred duty and should be cast for candidates and parties whose policies conform with the biblical worldview.

In the race to represent the 17^th District, Sorensen v. McGraw, the central issue is women’s rights. When you cast your vote, consider where the two stand on that.

“So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.”
~Genesis 1:27

“. . . you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born.”  ~Didache
(Early Christian text written in the late 1st or early 2nd century AD. It is also known as “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” and served as a handbook of Christian moral teachings.)