Lake County Gazette

A local GOP meeting was held last week featuring committees from Shields, West Deerfield and Moraine Township.

Lake County GOP Chairman Mark Shaw gave remarks and answered questions, along with discussing Republican values and candidates going into the 2022 Election Season cycle.

One of the topics discussed was the Republican opposition of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and why Democrats embrace it.

Watseka resident Beth Burton posted on Facebook that parents should do research on the topic and get involved in their local school board meetings.

“Parents in the area should be researching about the topic of CRT,” Burton wrote. “School districts in Illinois have been given a mandate to teach this to the students. Read up and go to your school board meetings. Get involved.”

The City Journal pointed to the Fourteenth Amendment and the protection of civil rights laws by the Supreme Court in opposition to CRT.

“Classifications of citizens solely on the basis of race are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality,” the Supreme Court has previously stated.

A grade school drama teacher, Stacy Deemar, from District 65 has filed suit in federal court charging discrimination over educators being forced to teach CRT policies, according to the Kankakee Times.

The district’s curriculum for pre-K through eighth grade includes books that reinforce discriminatory messages, such as Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness.

Also on the agenda was Republicans' opposition to a government takeover of health care choices.

The committee discussed how the local GOP is a medium in which to fight divisive and unnecessary ideas because “there's no need to create new silos and splinter the formidable forces of a united, local GOP.”

The Lake County GOP told attendees that they could help push GOP initiatives through the group by fundraising, social media, campaigning and candidate recruitment.

Judge Daniel Shanes, who is running as a Republican for the Illinois Supreme Court, was on hand at the event as a special guest.