Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

It’s time to wear those rainbow colors again, students and faculty. Because lacrosse coach Amanda Kammes is right where she belongs.

About those rainbow colors. They are not confusing.

Not in a day when same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 states, when the biggest city in the culturally moderate Midwest elects a gay woman as mayor, and when a teen pop star, JoJo Siwa, dances with her same-sex partner on “Dancing With the Stars.”

We knew exactly what students and teachers at Benet Academy in Lisle were saying earlier this month when they wore rainbow colors on campus, even if Head of School Stephen Marth claimed to find it a little “confusing.”

They were standing up for tolerance, acceptance, love and — they stressed — their Christian values by protesting the school administration’s decision to rescind a job offer to a respected girls lacrosse coach, Amanda Kammes, solely because she was married to another woman.

And if any more clarity was necessary, they spelled it out in an online petition demanding that the school reverse course and hire Kammes:

“By rejecting a talented potential staff member on the basis of whom she loves, you have utterly failed to uphold the principles of dignity and charity that you purport to practice as a Christian institution,” they wrote. “We are ashamed of your narrow interpretation of Christian morality.”

“The right candidate”

Well, things all worked out. If only for the moment.

After a Benet Academy board of directors meeting on Sept. 20, the administration decided to hire Kammes after all, saying her “background and experience” made her “the right candidate for the position.” The school’s board and administration actually had listened to the arguments of the students and teachers, and many of us dared to hope this might mark a new attitude by Catholic schools with respect to hiring LGBTQ people.

Well, again. Not so fast.

On Tuesday, the school’s chancellor, Abbot Austin Murphy of St. Procopius Abbey, said he was “deeply troubled by the school’s decision which calls into question its adherence to the doctrines of the Catholic faith.”

It’s unclear whether Murphy has the authority to override the decision to hire Kammes, but the school was founded by the abbey, and Murphy serves on the board of directors. He’s in a position, at the very least, to throw this hiring decision up for grabs.

It’s time to wear those rainbow colors again, students. It’s time to remind Murphy that gay rights are human rights, that nobody’s going back into the closet, and that when any religious group is deeply divided on a question of right and wrong — as American Catholics are on this one — it is always better to lean toward greater compassion and acceptance.

Plus, great instructors like Kammes, a Benet alum herself, don’t come along every day.

“Ministerial exceptions” must be true exceptions

As a legal matter, it is an open question whether Benet Academy, or any faith-based school, is on firm ground in refusing to hire a teacher or coach because of their sexual orientation.

Last year, a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court, in the case of Bostock v. Clayton County, ruled that an employer who fires a person for being homosexual or transgender is violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race color, religion, sex or national origin.

But the court also has allowed for a “ministerial exception” to this prohibition when it comes to religious institutions choosing their clergy and others who work in ministry.

The question then becomes whether teachers and coaches — such as a girls lacrosse coach at Benet Academy — credibly can be claimed, in a secular American court, to be working in ministry.

To our thinking, that’s an absurd stretch, not unlike claiming a ministerial exception to hiring an African American teacher or coach. In a nation that holds civil rights to be precious, ministerial exceptions should be truly exceptions.

And yet, more than 100 Catholic church workers in the last decade, including teachers, have lost their jobs in LGBTQ-related employment disputes that went public, according to New Way Ministry, an organization that advocates for LGBTQ Catholics.

The administration of Benet Academy listened to its better angels, as channeled by the school’s students and faculty, in reversing course and hiring Kammes. May it never stop listening or standing up for what’s right.

Send letters to [email protected].

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Kendrick Lamar (from left), Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg, Eminem and Dr, Dre are scheduled to perform for the first time together on stage at the 2022 Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show. | AP Photos

The Feb. 13 show Inglewood, California, will be the artists’ first time on stage together.

LOS ANGELES — Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar will perform for the first time on stage together at the 2022 Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show.

The NFL, Pepsi and Roc Nation announced Thursday that the five music icons will perform on Feb. 13 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Lamar are Southern California natives.

“The opportunity to perform at the Super Bowl Halftime show, and to do it in my own backyard, will be one of the biggest thrills of my career,” Dr. Dre said in a statement. The seven-time Grammy winner added that their halftime performance will an “unforgettable cultural moment.”

The Super Bowl returns to the Los Angeles area since 1993. It’s the third year of collaboration between the NFL, Pepsi and Roc Nation.

Roc Nation and Emmy-nominated producer Jesse Collins will serve as co-producers of the halftime show. The game and halftime show will air live on NBC.

The five music artists have a combined 44 Grammys. Eminem has the most with 15.

Roc Nation founder Jay-Z said in a statement that their show will be “history in the making.”

Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Blige and Lamar join a list of celebrated musicians who have played during Super Bowl halftime shows, including Beyonce, Madonna, Coldplay, Katy Perry, U2, Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, Shakira and last year’s performer The Weeknd.

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Gov. J.B. Pritzker speaks at a Little Village news conference today. The governor said he’d be disappointed if the Chicago Bears left Soldier Field. | Mark Capapas/Sun-Times

Today’s update is a 5-minute read that will brief you on the day’s biggest stories.

Good afternoon. Here’s the latest news you need to know in Chicago. It’s about a 5-minute read that will brief you on today’s biggest stories.

This afternoon will be sunny with a high of 81 degrees. Tonight will be mostly clear with a low around 59. Tomorrow will be sunny with a high near 84.

Top story

Pritzker punts on funding potential new stadium for Bears as lawmakers line up to block it

Gov. J.B. Pritzker today said he’d be disappointed if the Bears leave Soldier Field in favor of a new stadium in Arlington Heights, but the Chicago Democrat was noncommittal about the prospect of publicly financing a billion-dollar project — something a group of state lawmakers are lining up to block.

“I’m a Bears fan, and I know that it would be disappointing for me if the Chicago Bears moved outside of the city of Chicago,” Pritzker said at an unrelated news conference in Little Village. “I think that the Bears and the city of Chicago need to work out their differences in order for us to end up with the Bears staying in the city.”

“There’s something about having them in the city. … There’s a tradition I think that we all feel, many of us, about the city of Chicago. Having said that, this is a private enterprise engaging with city governments to decide what’s best for them,” he said.

The team announced yesterday it reached a $197 million deal to buy 326 acres previously home to Arlington International Racecourse, which likely ran its final races last weekend. Mayor Lori Lightfoot sounded resigned to the idea of the team skipping town, but has urged the team to return to the negotiating table to keep them on the lakefront.

As for whether he’d support using public money to sweeten the pot for the Bears — either for a new stadium or for more upgrades at Soldier Field — the governor said “that’s not something that we’re looking at,” but he didn’t rule it out.

“It’s very important for us to focus on our fiscal situation in the state, making sure that we’re building up the infrastructure of the state and that we’re balancing our budget,” he said.

Read the full story here.

More news you need

Breaking their Soldier Field lease could cost the Bears nearly $90 million, according to our analysis of the team’s lease with the Chicago Park District. Mitchell Armentrout has more on the Bears’ deal with the city and what it means for their potential move to Arlington Heights.

New CPS CEO Pedro Martinez committed today to exploring the possibility of expanding remote learning options for parents who don’t yet feel comfortable sending their children back to school. But he stressed there were no promises those inquiries would yield a change.

In a nationwide effort to target cartels selling counterfeit medication containing fentanyl, the DEA worked with a high-paid informant who provided tips. The efforts led to the arrests of 22 people in stings in the DEA’s Chicago field division, which includes Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana, according to authorities.

Chicago artists and creative workers financially impacted by the pandemic could soon find relief from the city. A $2.3 million relief fund for creatives will be dispersed through grants ranging from $2,000 to $5,000 by the end of the year, Mayor Lightfoot’s office said.

A local man is singing the praises of his service dog, who alerted him early this morning to a fire filling the coach house where he and his uncle lived. They saved their three dogs and five puppies, but lost three other dogs they owned to the blaze.

Tom Hardy returns in the titular role for “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” which opened in theaters today. Check out Richard Roeper’s two-star review of the sequel, which he calls an improvement despite “the yawner of a climax.”

A bright one

Local sex shop celebrates 20 years, touts resilience and self-care. ‘We’re looking out for people.’

Andersonville sex shop “Early to Bed,” 5044 N. Clark St., just marked its 20th anniversary — a journey owner Searah Deysach framed as both challenging and rewarding.

“It wasn’t something I set out to do,” said Deysach, 48, on opening the store in 2001. But she noticed there was a need in the city for a store where you could buy sex toys and not feel judged.

“That was the ‘aha’ moment. I thought, ‘This is ridiculous. Stores that sell these products are staffed by people who make you feel terrible for wanting the products,'” she said.

Unable to secure a loan (“Nobody gives a sex toy store a business loan,” she said), Deysach got seed money from her mom and opened “Early to Bed” — a welcoming, destigmatized environment where customers can freely browse the products and ask questions.

Neil Steinberg/Sun-Times
Searah Daysach began Early to Bed, her Andersonville shop, 20 years ago because she felt the experience of buying sex toys was not as fun as it should be.

Deysach and her clerks have worked over the last 20 years to make the store the fun, exciting experience she always thought shopping for sex toys should be.

In many instances, it has required them to be highly attuned to their customers, and take on the role of sex educator or couples counselor.

Couples visiting the shop often have “this gorgeously exciting experience, and they are on the same page, exploring together, talking, having conversations about sex, which is what you want everyone to do,” Deysach said.

“Then you see the opposite end of that, couples where communication is just not happening and we have to help facilitate that, because we’re looking out for people.”

Columnist Neil Steinberg has more on Deysach and her shop here.

From the press box

Bears-Lions predictions for Week 4.
Courtney Vandersloot’s playoff excellence has the Sky dreaming big.
The Fire dismissed coach Raphael Wicky late last night, but the club may need more than a new coach to solve its problems.
Hall of Famer Frank Thomas is leading a group that’s purchased the Field of Dreams site.
There’s definitely something old-school about Bulls forward DeMar DeRozan. Joe Cowley has more on the team’s new veteran scorer.

Your daily question ?

It’s International Podcast Day, so we want to know — if you could create a Chicago-focused podcast, what would it be about? Why?

Email us (please include your first name and where you live) and we might include your answer in the next Afternoon Edition.

Yesterday we asked you: How do you feel about the Bears’ efforts to leave the city for a new stadium in Arlington Heights? Here’s what some of you said…

“About time! Chicagoland deserves an amazing state-of-the-art stadium. Soldier Field is great but it’s not awesome. It’s too small. Arlington Park is a great location with the train already there.” — Mackenzie Currans

“San Francisco does not play in San Francisco, New York does not play in New York, Dallas does not play in Dallas. It’s okay if the Chicago Bears play in Arlington Heights.” — Gloria Chevere

“In retrospect, they probably should have built a new stadium elsewhere in Chicago 20 years ago instead of trying to fit a modern stadium at Soldier Field. The NFL has changed since then, so this might be the best option.” — Kurt Regep

“Bear management has shown us time and time again that all they care about is money — not the players, not the city, not the fans. Let them move. But they should forfeit the right to use ‘Chicago’ in their name.” — Greg Berezewski

“They lose in the city and they will lose in Arlington Heights too.” — Diane Gioia-Esposito

Thanks for reading the Chicago Sun-Times Afternoon Edition. Got a story you think we missed? Email us here.

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The cast of the Berkeley Repertory Theatre is shown in a scene from “Paradise Square.” The show will have its pre-Broadway run in Chicago starting in November. | Kevin Berne

Black Americans and Irish immigrants in 1863 meld their cultures in the new musical opening in Chicago on its way to Broadway.

If you’re never heard of Five Points, New York, or the draft riots of 1863, you’re in for a potent history lesson courtesy of a new Broadway-bound musical opening in Chicago this fall.

The Five Points of this musical was a real place — one of the poorest and run-down tenements in 19th century Lower Manhattan (the same gritty setting for Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York”). By all historical accounts, it was not a pretty site, but it was, for a brief moment in time, a place where, in spite of the hardship and the racism of Civil War-era America, two diverse cultures lived and thrived together. Until some of the bloodiest riots in U.S. history raged for four days in 1863.

That’s the setup for “Paradise Square,” receiving its pre-Broadway engagement at the James M. Nederlander Theatre Nov. 2-Dec. 5. (“Paradise Square” has been in development for the past decade and was produced in January 2019 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.)

As the war between the states boils over, newly arrived Irish immigrants and free-born Black Americans and others who had escaped slavery in the South are living and working together amid the worst of conditions, but making the best life they could. Two cultures melded. Blacks and Whites married, had children, worked hard and believed in the American dream. Dance halls and bars dotted the neighborhood (the show’s title is one of the local watering holes, and setting for most of the action) and dance battles broke out. Irish step dancing and African Juba obliterated genre lines, ultimately birthing tap dance. And the music of Stephen Foster (a character in the play) set the tone for the milieu.

Kevin Berne
“Paradise Square” (shown here in a scene from the Berkeley Repertory Theatre production) marks the return of Broadway vetrean producer Garth Drabinsky.

The show, conceived by Larry Kirwan and based on his 2012 musical “Hard Times: An American Musical,” has morphed into a wholly new iteration from the Berkeley Rep version, with a book by Christina Anderson, Marcus Gardley, Craig Lucas and Kirwan, who also contributed to Jason Howland’s score, along with Nathan Tysen and Masi Asare. Tony Award winner Bill T. Jones created the powerhouse choreography.

The musical also marks the big-time return of Tony Award-winning producer Garth Drabinsky, one of the leading Broadway impresarios of the 1990s, who was convicted of fraud and served time in a Canadian prison (all charges in the U.S. were subsequently dismissed). Drabinksy is no stranger to the Chicago theater scene; his now-defunct Livent production company brought “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” with Donny Osmond in the title role to the Chicago Theatre for a record-breaking run. It was Drabinsky’s Livent that brought the battered Oriental Theatre (now the aforementioned Nederlander) back to life in 1998, ushering the rebirth of Chicago’s downtown theater district.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
Veteran director Moises Kaufman is at the helm of “Paradise Square,” which will receive its pre-Broadway debut at the James M. Nederlander Theatre in the Loop.

“I said to this cast, of all the shows I’ve done, this is the first time I’ve come into rehearsal with the script and music being so exquisitely sculpted and prepared, and frankly it’s because we’ve had the time in the last 18 months not to grieve and be depressed but to refine and make better and finally bring to fruition the essence of everything we were doing,” Drabinsky said of working on “Paradise Square” amid a pandemic, and his fervent desire to tell the Five Points story.

Moises Kaufman, the director of “Paradise Square,” added, “I’ve lived in Manhattan for 30 years and I never knew that Five Points had that kind of intensity,”

“I was very taken in by the story,” Kaufman continued. “In my work I’m interested in the intersection of the personal and political, whether it’s [Kaufman’s other stage works] ‘The Laramie Project” or ‘I Am My Own Wife’ or “Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde,’ I’m really interested in this idea of what happens when what society deems to be ‘the other’ becomes the recorder of history. What happens if we look at history through the eyes of these people who were at the margins of a certain culture? What do we see? … I immediately felt like this [show] was something that I wanted to do.”

That Five Points existed in this manner 150 years ago is something Kaufman said should resonate with all who encounter the production. “What’s encouraging and sad is that a lot of what’s happening in our streets is happening on our stage,” Kaufman mused. “… And we started doing [this production] way before Black Lives Matter.”

The people of Paradise Square (it too is a real place) co-existed because they had to in order to survive, he said. The violent Civil War draft riots, though not the core of the show, hammer that home, as do the show’s powerful anthems of anger, hope, despair and promise.

“The riots (led by working-class Irish immigrants) went north, uptown, because they wanted to hurt the rich people who could avoid the draft altogether by paying $300,” Kaufman said, the fee signifying an out-of-reach sum for immigrants (Blacks were not considered citizens and therefore not subject to the draft). “Then they came back downtown to attack African Americans” as well as white abolitionists and business owners.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
Lyricist Masi Asare poses for a photo after the media preview of “Paradise Square” at the James M. Nederlander Theatre in September. T

Kaufman is adamant that the show does not romanticize the subject matter. “This is not ‘Camelot,’ ” he said with a chuckle.

The production also exemplifies the need for increased diversity on theater stages and also behind the scenes (“Hamilton” comparisons have been made).

“Our team is Black, Latinx. It’s exciting,” said composer/lyricist Masi Asare, an assistant professor at Northwestern University, where she teaches a course in musical theater history. “There are people of a lot of backgrounds on the show and I have to say it’s an interesting time to be a Black woman writer of musicals. The projects I signed on to and have been really excited to join are those where there has already been a long history of having women in the room, people of different races in the room; and that is certainly the case with this project.”

Asare said she was tapped to help with major rewrites this past year, lending a key Black voice to the Black voices of the show, in addition to bringing her historical perspective to the Stephen Foster character.

“Audiences can now very clearly see how [Foster] took up material from Black artists that he met and repackaged it as his own in ways that he and the music business at the time profited from those uncredited contributions of Black artists.”

Added Kaufman, “The musical takes a look at the social conflicts that are still the basis today of how we live in America. These people at this time and place believed that some of these social contracts could actually work. … They saw a new kind of world that was possible. It’s an exploration of what it took to create what they created, not just an ode to what they did.”

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
The newly introduced cast of “Paradise Square” performs during a media preview at the James M. Nederlander Theatre.

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Rick Majewski/For the Sun-Times

Putting Republican state legislatures in charge of certifying elections is an ominous development.

The big question isn’t whether Donald Trump plans to run for president come 2024. Assuming that he’s alive, relatively healthy and not under criminal indictment, of course he will. He pretty much has to.

Never mind that at age 75, Trump looks like a stroke or coronary event waiting to happen. The show must go on. He needs all the cash he can raise. Otherwise, his lifelong grift could come to an ignominious, if not farcical, end. Tax fraud convictions and spiraling bankruptcies would be the least of it.

And if he runs, Republicans will surely nominate him.

What’s left of the party he’s torn apart won’t be able to help themselves. Formerly apostles of “small government” conservatism, the GOP has morphed into a quasi-authoritarian cult of personality.

Despite the staggering incompetence and low comedy that marked his 2020 “Stop the Steal” campaign, it’s worth remembering that people laughed at Mussolini, too. Charlie Chaplin’s merciless satire of Hitler in “The Great Dictator” didn’t appear until October 1940, a full year into World War II.

So it’s definitely worthwhile heeding thoughtful warnings that next time, an electoral coup might work. Although there’s almost no chance that Trump could come anywhere close to winning a majority of American voters, GOP skullduggery could put him back in the White House … assuming that a complacent majority allowed it to happen.

Longtime neoconservative author Robert Kagan has recently published a thought-provoking Washington Post essay arguing that a constitutional crisis is already upon us. Kagan, who left the GOP in 2016, warns that “(m)ost Americans — and all but a handful of politicians — have refused to take this possibility seriously enough to try to prevent it. As has so often been the case in other countries where fascist leaders arise, their would-be opponents are paralyzed in confusion and amazement at this charismatic authoritarian.”

Certainly, Republicans are doing all they can to game the 2024 presidential election. Should they retake Congress in 2022, they’ll do even more. So while it’s possible that efforts to prevent minorities from voting could backfire — discouraging older white voters while energizing African Americans — putting Republican state legislatures in charge of certifying elections is an ominous development.

Had that been so in 2020, Trump’s comic opera coup attempt might have succeeded. Bob Woodward and Robert Costa’s book “Peril” detailed a six-part plan dreamed up by right-wing law professor John Eastman, who harangued the crowd along with Trump and Rudy Giuliani on Jan. 6. The scheme required Vice President Mike Pence to invalidate electoral votes won by Joe Biden on the grounds that seven states had sent rival sets of electors to Congress.

“If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election,” Trump told the mob before promising to march with them to the Capitol and “fight like hell” to save the country.

“You can either go down in history as a patriot,” Trump reportedly told Pence, “or you can go down in history as a pussy.”

Meow!

Never mind the constitutional absurdity — how can the vice president decide an election in which he’s himself a candidate? — Eastman’s scam failed for the simplest of reasons: No states sent rival delegations to the Electoral College.

Indeed, had they done so, the likeliest outcome would have been that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have dissolved the joint session of Congress, leading to her temporarily assuming the presidency as the next in succession.

Oops!

As usual, Trump had neglected to read the fine print. (The fact is, he probably can’t. But that’s another issue altogether.)

Kagan’s point is that, next time, Trumpist legislatures will definitely send those rival delegations. Or worse. Some Republican-dominated bodies are even considering overriding their state’s popular vote, if necessary, to reinstall Trump.

Purged of dissenters like Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, today’s Republicans have become what Kagan calls a “zombie party” in thrall to a poseur. “They view Trump as strong and defiant,” he writes, “willing to take on the establishment, Democrats, RINOs, liberal media, antifa, the Squad, Big Tech and the ‘Mitch McConnell Republicans.”‘

In other words, basically a list of cartoon enemies. If my own hostile reader emails are any guide, this is certainly true. To Trumpists, their rivals are fundamentally illegitimate. It’s basically a pro-wrestling audience, excited by spectacle. To them, Trump’s egomania is a feature, not a bug. He’ll give no quarter to his enemies — and theirs.

“A Trump victory,” Kagan concludes, “is likely to mean at least the temporary suspension of American democracy as we have known it.”

Which is exactly why it’s not going to happen. Kagan is a learned and intelligent fellow, but he has a melodramatic imagination of his own. As a co-founder of the Project for a New American Century, he pushed hard for remaking the world by invading Iraq.

His warnings are well-taken, but Kagan badly underestimates the determination of the democratic majority.

Send letters to [email protected].

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Gov. J.B. Pritzker speaks at a Little Village news conference Thursday. The governor said he’d be disappointed if the Chicago Bears left Soldier Field. | Mark Capapas/Sun-Times

Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the possibility of publicly financing a new stadium is “not something that we’re looking at” — but he didn’t rule it out.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Thursday said he’d be disappointed if the Bears leave Soldier Field in favor of a new stadium in Arlington Heights, but the Chicago Democrat was noncommittal about the prospect of publicly financing a billion-dollar project — something a group of state lawmakers are lining up to block.

“I’m a Bears fan, and I know that it would be disappointing for me if the Chicago Bears moved outside of the city of Chicago,” Pritzker said at an unrelated news conference in Little Village. “I think that the Bears and the city of Chicago need to work out their differences in order for us to end up with the Bears staying in the city.”

“There’s something about having them in the city. … There’s a tradition I think that we all feel, many of us, about the city of Chicago. Having said that, this is a private enterprise engaging with city governments to decide what’s best for them,” he said.

The team announced Wednesday it reached a $197 million deal to buy 326 acres previously home to Arlington International Racecourse, which likely ran its final races last weekend. Mayor Lori Lightfoot sounded resigned to the idea of the team skipping town, but has urged the team to return to the negotiating table to keep them on the lakefront.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Arlington International Racecourse, pictured earlier this week, is in line to be purchased by the Chicago Bears.

As for whether he’d support using public money to sweeten the pot for the Bears — either for a new stadium or for more upgrades at Soldier Field — the governor said “that’s not something that we’re looking at,” but he didn’t rule it out.

“It’s very important for us to focus on our fiscal situation in the state, making sure that we’re building up the infrastructure of the state and that we’re balancing our budget,” he said.

But state Sen. Robert Peters, a Hyde Park Democrat whose district includes Soldier Field, took a hardline stance against the potential move. He filed legislation dubbed the “Monsters of the Midway Act” that seeks to prohibit the Bears from moving without an agreement with the city.

Peters noted taxpayers will have shelled out $660 million by the time the total debt from Soldier Field’s oft-ridiculed renovation is paid off a decade from now.

“If the owners want to move the team, that’s fine, but they owe a debt to the city and its taxpayers, who have been paying for their stadium,” Peters said in a statement.

Other lawmakers are calling for a timeout before throwing public dollars at the team. A House resolution sponsored by state Representatives Mike Zalewski, D-Riverside, Kam Buckner, D-Chicago and Margaret Croke, D-Chicago, would urge the General Assembly to “take all necessary steps to ensure that no state or local taxpayer money is used in the construction of new professional sport stadiums.”

That measure would offer legislators a chance to “step back, catch our breathe and say we want to be involved in this process,” Zalewski said.

There was a “serious social and public commitment to the Bears and to Soldier Field and the city of Chicago in the early 2000s, and it was done with a lot of public funding,” Zalewski said.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times
State Rep. Michael J. Zalewski, D-Riverside, pictured in March 2020.

“The indications are that if this were to go forward and the Bears were to relocate to Arlington Heights it would be a private transaction, but that’s a big assumption,” Zalewski said.

“There’s not just the stadium, there’s transportation costs — the only way to get in and out of Arlington Heights is Route 53, that’s 85,000 people moving in and out of the northwest suburb on a weekly basis, not to mention if there’s a Final Four or a Super Bowl … The sense of the chamber resolution’s to just ask everyone to take the temperature on how they feel as an initial starting point.”

Zalewski said he didn’t think the resolution would get total agreement in the chamber and other legislators, such as state Rep. Jonathan Carroll, D-Northbrook, could have different ideas.

Carroll, whose district currently includes part of Arlington Heights, said he hasn’t been asked to support the measure and isn’t sure he would.

“The Chicago Bears haven’t asked us for anything yet, and, as a matter of fact, they put out $197 million of their own money to buy the site,” Carroll said. “I understand why some of the reps that are on that resolution are, because nobody wants to be the person that lost the Bears. I think everybody wants to do everything in their power to certainly keep them, but at the same time until there’s pen to paper, it’s kind of hard to know where we’re going with this.”

Pritzker said he hasn’t been approached by the Bears nor by officials from Chicago or Arlington Heights, who he said “are going to have to make their own decisions” about potentially subsidizing upgrades for the team.

Arlington Heights Mayor Tom Hayes declined to comment on whether the Bears have made any specific asks or if he’d be open to them.

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A Banned Books Week display in a Franklin Park library in 2007. | Sun-Times file photo

In my suburban high school library this past week, we have displayed books behind fake police tape just to make a point.

The last week of September brings images of autumn leaves starting to change, high school football games lighting up small towns, and yellow police caution tape lining book displays in libraries and schools.

No, crimes aren’t being committed in libraries, but this last week has been Banned Books Week in America. Educators and librarians across the country have been leading the charge against a fierce enemy: censorship.

In my high school library this past week, we have displayed books behind fake police tape and offered informational pamphlets about Banned Books Week, a movement that began in 1982. Banned Books Week has been a 40-year response by librarians, including school librarians, to a growing number of book challenges and bans. During this week, I have taught lessons about censorship and book bans over the years.

My students are often surprised by the wide range of books that appear behind that yellow police tape, from Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” (1937) to Jason Reynolds’ and Ibram X. Kendi’s “Stamped” (2020). Students wonder aloud why some of their favorite books have been banned or challenged in libraries and schools across the country.

The continued relevance of Banned Books Week comes down to simply this: There are still lots of people out there trying to ban or challenge books.

Recently, for example, a slew of new bans and challenges have been urged against books that promote anti-racism and can be connected with Critical Race Theory (CRT) or the New York Times’ 1619 Project. And last week, students in a southern Pennsylvania public high school protested a ban on books and media with anti-racist messages, including a children’s book about Rosa Parks and a “Sesame Street” TV episode about race.

Last week as well, I received emails from school librarian colleagues across Illinois informing me that they had just received Freedom of Information Act requests for information about books written by Ibram Kendi and texts related to the 1619 Project. The requests, relayed to them by school administrators, were from a company called LocalLabs, which claims to be in the business of pressing government agencies for information. But who exactly is asking for that information from LocalLabs remains unclear.

Over the years as a public school librarian, I have had experience in dealing with parents and students who challenged various materials. One year, as a librarian in a Chicago high school, a student asked to be allowed to read a book other than the assigned one, “October Mourning,” which tells the true story of the murder of a young gay man, Matthew Sheperd.

“My parents don’t want me to read it because it’s against my religion,” the student said.

“I understand,” I replied. “The description of his murder is too violent.”

“No, it’s that he was gay,” the student replied. “Homosexuality is against my religion.”

Instead of calling for a parent meeting — a meeting at which I knew I’d likely lose — I helped the student choose another book. It was just easier to do so.

I regret that now. I wish now that I had pushed harder to defend a controversial text. Because when librarians like me fail to fight the good fight in this way, which is what Banned Books Week is all about, it’s the students who lose out. They don’t get to hear and consider the many voices and perspectives that could enrich their lives in so many ways.

This is what books are supposed to do.

Gina Caneva is the library media specialist for East Leyden High School in Franklin Park. She taught in Chicago Public Schools for 15 years and is Nationally Board Certified. Follow her on Twitter @GinaCaneva.

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Bernard Stratton sits on a neighbor’s front porch and cradles his puppy with burn injuries after the dog was rescued from his burning home early Thursday in the 4900 block of South Princeton Avenue in Fuller Park on the South Side. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

Firefighters responded early Thursday to the 4900 block of South Princeton Avenue.

Coy Freeman was sleeping soundly in his Fuller Park home early Thursday when his service dog Rello began making a lot noise.

“He was barking outrageously and scratching on the door,” said Freeman. Then he noticed that fire and smoke was filling the coach house where he and his uncle lived.

“We grabbed as many dogs as we could before the smoke got so bad the firefighters wouldn’t let us in there,” said Freeman, 43.

They saved three dogs and five puppies, all of which were American Bullys. Three animals didn’t make it, a mother, daughter — both of which were also service dogs — and granddaughter.

“I’m heartbroken,” Freeman said. “I spent every moment of my life taking care of these dogs. I’m visually impaired and I love the dogs.”

He credited 6-year-old Rello for alerting him to the blaze.

“The dog woke us up… He’s the hero.”

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Chicago Fire Department firefighters work to extinguish hot spots Thursday morning after an overnight fire broke out in a vacant building and spread to six other buildings, including two coach houses, in the 4900 block of South Princeton Avenue in Fuller Park on the South Side.

The fire broke out in a vacant building around 3:30 a.m. and spread to six other buildings, including two coach houses, in the 4900 block of South Princeton Avenue, according to the Chicago Fire Department.

Eight people were displaced and none were injured, fire officials said. During a search, firefighters rescued the four puppies and paramedics provided oxygen to them.

Freeman said he lived on the block for five years and suspects the fire may have been set on purpose.

“This is the work of a professional arsonist,” he said. “Just like what’s been through the rest of this neighborhood. Houses don’t catch on fire like that over here. We’ve been in this neighborhood forever. This type of s— don’t happen. But in this last year or so, in the wee hours of the night, abandoned houses are catching on fire, burning up surrounding houses.”

The fire department said the cause of the blaze was under investigation.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Three dogs and five puppies were rescued from a burning home after a fire broke out in a vacant building early Thursday and spread to six other buildings in the 4900 block of South Princeton Avenue in Fuller Park on the South Side.

Freeman’s uncle sat on a neighbor’s porch cradling a 3-month-old yet-to-be named puppy with burns on his back.

“I was telling [the firefighters] I got more dogs in there to get out,” Bernard Stratton said softly. One puppy that wasn’t breathing well was given oxygen and taken to an emergency vet, he said.

Stratton, 57, said this was the second tragedy to strike him in two months. His 29-year-old son, who went by the same name, was shot and killed on the Dan Ryan Expressway near 33rd Street on Aug. 6, he said.

Stratton said his son’s ashes were still in the home but he hasn’t been allowed back in to retrieve them. “I hope they’re OK and that I can get them,” he said.

Freeman said the loss of his dogs was painful because he had invested a lot of time and effort raising them.

“I love these dogs. I’m hurt so much right now,” Freeman said. “I’m trying to figure it out right now. I can’t tell you what my next move is. I’m trying to wrap my head around it.”

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Coy Freeman, left, and his uncle Bernard Stratton look at their dogs, some of whom have burn injuries, after their home was destroyed in a fire early Thursday in the 4900 block of South Princeton Avenue in Fuller Park on the South Side.Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Chicago Fire Department firefighters work to extinguish hot spots after a fire broke out early Thursday in a vacant building and spread to six other buildings, including two coach houses, in the 4900 block of South Princeton Avenue in Fuller Park on the South Side.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Chicago Fire Department firefighters work to extinguish hot spots Thursday morning after an overnight fire broke out in a vacant building and spread to six other buildings, including two coach houses, in the 4900 block of South Princeton Avenue in Fuller Park on the South Side.Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
Chicago Fire Department firefighters work to extinguish hot spots Thursday morning after an overnight fire broke out in a vacant building and spread to six other buildings, including two coach houses, in the 4900 block of South Princeton Avenue in Fuller Park on the South Side.

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