Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 333 ｜ SCOTUS Stands Up for Religious Liberty

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone has had a wonderful week so

00:00:15.020 far. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving. We didn't talk about that on Monday. If you haven't

00:00:20.880 listened to Monday's episode, make sure that you go back and do that. It's a really interesting

00:00:26.080 conversation that I had with someone named Rachel Bovard about how tyranny doesn't necessarily just

00:00:33.580 come through the government. It also comes through these major corporations who we have given,

00:00:39.040 specifically the Republican Party, so much power in the name of loving free markets, not realizing

00:00:45.940 that giving so much leverage and preferential treatment to these companies has actually

00:00:52.160 led to a limitation of our freedoms. And we talked about the solutions to that and how

00:00:59.660 conservatism and libertarianism need to tweak themselves to realize that tyranny doesn't just

00:01:07.060 come in the form of government interventionism, that it looks like a big tech oligarchy, that it

00:01:14.120 looks like major corporations discriminating against particular viewpoints. And so go back and listen to

00:01:20.680 Monday's conversation. I think it's super eye-opening. That's the feedback that I've gotten from a lot of

00:01:25.620 you. Today, we are going to talk about the recent SCOTUS case, Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn,

00:01:31.840 New York, versus Andrew M. Cuomo, governor of New York. We're going to talk about what that means,

00:01:39.120 what the decision was, why there are a lot of people that are pushing back on it who don't like the

00:01:44.600 decision, and why this is such a victory for religious liberty, and why people everywhere,

00:01:49.840 no matter your political stripe, no matter your ideological leanings, should be happy about a

00:01:57.420 ruling like this. So first, let me back up and give a little background on this case. So there

00:02:04.040 was an executive order that was issued by Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York. He zoned New York in

00:02:11.060 different colors based on the threat of COVID, according to him, his administration, and whatever

00:02:19.120 quote experts he is consulting, red, orange, yellow zones that were based on the level of COVID spread,

00:02:27.700 and also the risk in that area. And he placed different restrictions on these zones that

00:02:34.620 corresponded with the perceived risk. So according to what color they zoned you, you would have

00:02:41.600 particular restrictions on your establishment. The Diocese of Brooklyn fell into one of these

00:02:47.380 restrictive zones and decided to sue Cuomo over the order, which they argued, according to SCOTUS

00:02:53.820 reporter Amy Howe, effectively bars in-person worship at effective churches, a devastating and

00:03:00.480 spiritually harmful burden on the Catholic community. So the Diocese went to the Supreme Court on November

00:03:06.540 12th, asking the justices to block the attendance limits after the lower courts declined to do so.

00:03:13.300 SCOTUS decided to take up the case in conjunction with a case covering the same issue. And that was

00:03:21.300 that had to do with synagogues that were filing the same complaint. The argument is that this order

00:03:26.980 effectively violates the First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion of these religious

00:03:32.660 institutions. And that that is proven not just by the restrictive nature of this order and the

00:03:39.100 zoning restrictions, but also its discriminatory nature. So other businesses and smaller buildings

00:03:45.380 had fewer restrictions than these synagogues. And these churches, which were in many cases,

00:03:51.080 large buildings, which held a lot of people, it didn't make any kind of logical sense for them to

00:03:55.880 have to abide by the restrictions that were placed on them by this executive order. So the institution sued

00:04:02.880 Cuomo to receive injunctive relief. Injunctive relief restrains a party, in this case, Cuomo from

00:04:08.960 following through with an act that would cause irreparable harm. And so that's what they were

00:04:13.800 seeking, an injunction from the Supreme Court. The harm in this case is the violation of the First

00:04:19.220 Amendment rights of the churches and synagogues. And what the diocese argued was spiritual harm as well.

00:04:26.140 SCOTUS ruled in favor of the diocese in the synagogue, stating that, quote,

00:04:30.320 the loss of First Amendment freedoms for even minimal periods of time unquestionably constitutes

00:04:36.300 irreparable injury. And, quote, even in a pandemic, the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten.

00:04:45.020 They also go on to explain the favorability offered to some businesses, secular businesses,

00:04:51.000 that was not afforded to these synagogues and these churches. Based on no science, based on no data,

00:04:57.420 in not meeting any kind of constitutional standard. Quote, because the challenged restrictions are not

00:05:03.400 neutral and of general applicability, they must satisfy strict scrutiny. And this means that they

00:05:09.740 must be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. Stemming the spread of COVID-19 is

00:05:15.740 unquestionably a compelling interest, but it is hard to see how the challenged regulations can be

00:05:21.020 regarded as narrowly tailored. They are far more restrictive than any COVID-related regulations that have

00:05:27.000 previously come before the court, much tighter than those adopted by many other jurisdictions hard

00:05:33.280 hit by the pandemic, and far more severe than has been shown to be required to prevent the spread of

00:05:39.240 the virus at the applicant's services. The district court noted that, quote, there had not been any

00:05:45.240 COVID-19 outbreak in any of the diocese churches since they reopened, and it praised the diocese's record

00:05:51.540 in combating the spread of the disease. The majority's argument goes on to say not only is there no

00:05:57.300 evidence that the applicants have contributed to the spread of COVID-19, but there are many other

00:06:01.760 less restrictive rules that could be adopted to minimize the risk to those attending religious

00:06:06.760 services. Among other things, the maximum attendance at a religious service could be tied to the size

00:06:11.920 of the church or synagogue. The majority decision was made by five justices, Justices Gorsuch,

00:06:18.660 ACB, Kavanaugh, Alito, and Thomas. Those are our five consistently conservative justices,

00:06:25.300 although I will say that Gorsuch and Kavanaugh have disappointed conservatives in the past.

00:06:31.060 Gorsuch did very recently. That's how it goes for conservative justices, though. They rule according

00:06:37.320 to the Constitution, not the latest ideological dogma of our side, unlike liberal activists, which

00:06:43.880 they believe that the Constitution is a living document, so they will always fall on the side of

00:06:50.360 the popular opinion among Democrats at the time. That is not how conservative justices make their

00:06:57.680 decisions. They interpret the law according to the Constitution, which means that there will be some

00:07:04.060 disagreement between what conservatives think the interpretation should be and what these

00:07:08.600 conservative justices believe that the interpretation should be, which means that we are going to be,

00:07:13.880 sometimes disappointed by these conservative justices, whereas Democrats are never disappointed

00:07:21.340 by a decision that a liberal justice makes. These are our five conservative justices. Chief Justice

00:07:27.480 Roberts, though he was nominated by George W. Bush, is at best a swing vote, if not an all-out liberal

00:07:33.740 justice. He has ruled with the liberal justices on a variety of monumental cases. So anytime someone

00:07:41.020 tells you that we have a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, that is actually not accurate.

00:07:47.020 I remember when ACB was confirmed, the Washington Post reported that we have a 6-3 conservative

00:07:52.760 majority. Just because a justice was nominated by a Republican president doesn't necessarily mean

00:07:59.340 that they are conservative. You have to actually look at their judicial record. And again, it doesn't ever

00:08:05.700 seem to go the other direction. When a Democrat nominates a liberal justice, they fall in line

00:08:11.980 exactly where liberals want them to and where they predict them to. Whereas when a Republican nominates

00:08:17.460 a justice, sometimes you just don't know how conservative they're going to be. That is certainly

00:08:21.840 true of Chief Justice Roberts. He has ruled with the liberal judges on a lot of big cases. So they just

00:08:35.680 voted, though. So he voted against the slim conservative majority in this case. But we do have that 5-4

00:08:45.560 conservative majority, which means that no matter what you think of Trump, his presidency was,

00:08:51.620 this is insanely consequential because three of those five justices were nominated by him. And not

00:08:59.040 only nominated by him, but the confirmation was made possible by Mitch McConnell, which just shows,

00:09:05.760 once again, how important that Senate majority is. Like we are talking about decisions made by the

00:09:11.620 Supreme Court that were made possible by President Trump that wouldn't have been possible. His nominations

00:09:17.360 wouldn't have gotten confirmed without a Senate majority led by Mitch McConnell. And so I'm just reminding

00:09:24.460 you Georgians out there who are discouraged or dejected because you feel like your voting process in Georgia

00:09:30.340 is not fair. The best way to ensure that we lose this majority in the Senate, the best way to ensure that

00:09:39.260 Trump's legacy is stymied is to not vote. Because yes, maybe you're right that there are some fishy things

00:09:46.280 going on in Georgia. But a really good way to guarantee that you lose is if you don't vote. And I know some

00:09:53.160 people are saying, well, I'm going to teach Mitch McConnell and those establishment Republicans a

00:09:56.860 lesson. That's not what it's doing. They don't care. That's not what it's going to do. You're not

00:10:02.220 teaching anyone a lesson. You are, on behalf of the entire country, you are deciding to lay down your

00:10:10.800 sword and to refuse to fight for things like religious liberty, which are being protected

00:10:17.700 because of the providence of God, because of the leadership of President Trump and Mitch McConnell.

00:10:23.420 No matter what you think about it, that's exactly what's happened. And so it is more important than

00:10:29.820 ever, Georgians, that you go out and vote for Republicans in these Senate races. So this decision

00:10:36.760 protects religious liberty, which is obviously a huge win. This is finally and decisively declaring

00:10:42.900 that, hey, just because we're in a pandemic, that doesn't mean that we can suspend people's First

00:10:47.380 Amendment rights. That doesn't mean that we can't have any restrictions ever at all. But this decision

00:10:54.180 is saying that the government cannot put an unbearable burden on churches and other houses of worship in

00:11:00.060 a way that restricts their worship, especially one that specifically and unfavorably discriminates

00:11:05.800 against places of worship. And Justice Gorsuch explains this reasoning very well in his

00:11:12.020 concurring argument. I'll include the link in the description. I really encourage you to go

00:11:17.200 read his concurrence. He says this, quote,

00:11:21.180 Government is not free to disregard the First Amendment in times of crisis. At a minimum, that

00:11:26.900 amendment prohibits government officials from treating religious exercises worse than comparable

00:11:31.980 secular activities unless they are pursuing a compelling interest in using the least restrictive

00:11:37.580 means available. In New York, people may gather inside for extended periods in bus stations and

00:11:43.920 airports and laundromats and banks and hardware stores and liquor shops. No apparent reason exists why

00:11:49.520 people may not gather subject to identical restrictions in churches or synagogues, especially when

00:11:55.500 religious institutions have made plain that they stand ready, able and willing to follow all the

00:12:00.560 safety precautions required of, quote, essential businesses and perhaps more besides. The only

00:12:06.780 explanation for treating religious places differently seems to be a judgment that what happens there isn't

00:12:12.480 as, quote, essential as what happens in secular places. Indeed, the governor is remarkably frank about

00:12:19.400 this. In his judgment, laundry and liquor, travel and tools are all essential, while traditional

00:12:27.020 religious exercises are not. That is exactly the kind of discrimination the First Amendment forbids.

00:12:34.900 We may not shelter in place when the Constitution is under attack. That is a great line. It is time,

00:12:41.500 Justice Gorsuch says, past time to make plain that while the pandemic poses many grave challenges,

00:12:47.620 there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor

00:12:53.040 stores and bike shops, but shuttered churches, synagogues and mosques. The dissenters to the majority,

00:13:00.600 Roberts, Kagan, Breyer and Sotomayor, they made these arguments. Roberts wants to delay this,

00:13:07.380 to punt this to December or just never rule on it. Here's what he said in his dissent, quote,

00:13:13.860 I would not grant injunctive relief under the present circumstances. There is simply no need to do so.

00:13:19.520 After the diocese and the synagogue filed their applications, the governor revised the

00:13:25.840 designations of the affected areas. None of the houses of worship identified in the applications

00:13:31.080 is now subject to any fixed numerical restrictions. So he's saying this is pointless. It's been rezoned,

00:13:37.860 and now these houses of worship do have relief without us having to do anything. The problem with

00:13:43.300 that is, and Gorsuch addresses this in his concurrence, the problem with Roberts' argument is that the

00:13:48.820 executive order has not been repealed. It's still in place. And so those zones could change at any

00:13:55.220 moment. So even though temporarily those houses of worship were moved out of the zoning, they could

00:14:00.960 at any time be re-included in the zoning and would again have to request injunctive relief. The other

00:14:07.940 justices, in addition to Roberts, basically said, look, you can't question the governor. We shouldn't be

00:14:15.180 questioning the governor in an emergency. This is his authority. Justice Breyer wrote a dissent

00:14:20.920 arguing that the Constitution entrusts public health decisions to government officials. Justice

00:14:25.540 Sotomayor said this, quote, free religious exercise is one of our most treasured and jealously guarded

00:14:31.040 constitutional rights. States may not discriminate against religious institutions, even when faced with

00:14:36.460 a crisis as deadly as this one. But she says those principles are not at stake today. The Constitution

00:14:43.340 does not forbid states from responding to public health crises through regulations that treat

00:14:47.660 religious institutions equally or more favorably than comparable secular institutions, particularly

00:14:53.400 when those regulations save lives. And so I am a little bit stunned by this argument because it

00:14:59.300 seems completely disconnected to the facts of this case. First of all, the virus does in fact kill

00:15:06.220 people, but 99.9% of people it does not. And so she is not providing any factual evidence here that the

00:15:13.520 regulations that have been set in place and that have been placed upon these religious organizations

00:15:18.340 are actually saving lives. It is debatable at best that there is a compelling interest of the state to

00:15:25.020 impose such restrictive regulations that effectively shut down businesses and churches. And as Gorsuch argued,

00:15:31.280 there is definitely no defense of the discrimination against these churches and synagogues,

00:15:35.440 which Sotomayor seems to just believe in the statement is not happening. And I'm not sure how you can even

00:15:42.780 make that case based on the facts of the executive order. So this was absolutely, according to my amateur

00:15:51.560 opinion, but according to the majority of the court as well, a constitutionally sound decision. There is no

00:15:56.580 asterisk by the First Amendment saying that these rights are completely suspended during a pandemic. The court had

00:16:03.220 refused to rule in similar cases in California and Nevada earlier in the year and agreed that the

00:16:09.880 governors should be able to restrict worship services as they see fit. That was a mistake. That was when

00:16:15.340 Ginsburg was on the court. In Nevada, casinos had fewer restrictions than churches. And Gorsuch dissented

00:16:23.460 in that case when they refused, when the court refused to step in and offer any kind of relief to this

00:16:30.080 church, which was, which is called Calvary Chapel in Nevada. He said this, quote, the First Amendment

00:16:35.880 prohibits such obvious discrimination against the exercise of religion. The world we inhabit today with

00:16:41.060 a pandemic upon us poses unusual challenges, but there's no world in which the constitution permits

00:16:46.820 Nevada to favor Caesar's palace over Calvary Chapel. I love how Gorsuch always tries to work in

00:16:53.460 witty alliterations and just clever, clever little quips like that. Gorsuch was right then. He is right

00:17:04.140 in this case. The court, like I said, has changed since making those decisions about Nevada and California

00:17:10.440 with ACB replacing RBG, which has been a positive change for our constitutional rights, namely religious

00:17:17.740 liberty. This decision helps ensure that the government does not have the power to effectively

00:17:24.360 suspend or inhibit our right to worship as we see fit or to discriminate against worshipers by halting

00:17:30.420 our activities in a way that, uh, in a way they do not for other institutions in the name of saving us

00:17:41.220 from a crisis. That is excellent news. The power to crack down on worship has been, is right now,

00:17:49.080 and will be abused in the name of public health as long as tyrants are allowed to do so. And so

00:17:55.780 thankfully, the court protected religious people from that kind of dictatorial action. Uh, and as we've

00:18:02.700 seen the same government officials who are willing to uphold one part of the constitution, the right to

00:18:07.480 peaceably assemble, peacefully protest, and in some cases recently not so peacefully, uh, are not willing

00:18:14.760 to honor the other part of the first amendment, which honors free exercise of religion, despite the

00:18:19.860 fact that these houses of worship from everything that we know are taking all the, the, the safety

00:18:26.640 precautions necessary. Our conservative church in a conservative area, uh, is taking all of the safety

00:18:33.840 precautions necessary to be able to gather together. I guarantee that is the case for the vast majority

00:18:38.860 of churches in this country. Remember, uh, you as church leaders, you as congregants care more about

00:18:47.320 your fellow church members. You care more about the people in your church than the state does. I guarantee

00:18:51.940 you that when given the freedom to make good choices that mitigate risks that could possibly, potentially,

00:18:59.400 rarely, but, but possibly take people's lives, uh, churches are going to do that. And I think that's

00:19:05.680 the case for the vast majority, if not all churches in the country, but in particular, according to the,

00:19:12.580 the, the lower courts, the, the lower courts observation, especially these religious institutions

00:19:17.960 in New York, they were doing everything to take every precaution that they could. And there was no

00:19:22.200 evidence whatsoever that they had been spreading, uh, the virus by meeting together how they were.

00:19:27.700 So people like Paul Krugman at the New York times who tweet things like this are speaking from a

00:19:33.440 place of lunacy, of misunderstanding, and it seems like malice towards religious people. He says,

00:19:42.340 quote, the first major decision from the Trump pact court, and naturally it will kill people.

00:19:48.680 The bad logic is obvious. Suppose I adhere to a religion whose rituals include dumping neurotoxins

00:19:54.300 into public reservoirs. Does the principle of religious freedom give me the right to do that?

00:19:59.640 Freedom of belief. Yes. The right to hurt other people in tangible ways, which large gatherings in

00:20:05.060 a pandemic definitely do. No. Go read the replies to this tweet and the anger from many liberal

00:20:12.160 journalists and activists on Twitter. This is the sentiment, it seems of a lot of people, at least that

00:20:17.500 I have seen on the left, that this is a deadly, awful, terrible decision. Let's, let's back up and break

00:20:24.620 down a little bit of what Paul Krugman says. Number one, again, there is no evidence, none, no evidence

00:20:31.740 that what these houses of worship are doing is killing people. There have been no reports of spread from

00:20:37.720 these churches and synagogues and many reports on how well, uh, they are taking precautions to mitigate risk.

00:20:43.200 Remember, these churches and synagogues, um, they have, they have a special interest. They have a

00:20:49.260 particular interest in mitigating the spread of this and protecting their congregants. They are not

00:20:55.120 flouting rules for the sake of rebellion. That's number one. Number two, going to church or to temple

00:21:00.900 is in no way comparable to dumping neurotoxins in a river. It's not the same thing. It's not comparable

00:21:08.880 at all. Again, there's no scientific or logical rationale to what he's saying. You might have

00:21:15.620 an argument if you can prove that these congregants are going to church sick, and then they're going

00:21:20.220 out and they're coughing on people and getting everyone else sick as well, and that those people

00:21:24.740 are dying. But do we have any evidence of that? No. Do we have some evidence to the contrary? Yes,

00:21:30.160 we do. Just a reminder that 99.9 to 99.5% of people survive coronavirus. That doesn't mean that

00:21:40.480 we shouldn't take it seriously. That doesn't mean that we should be, uh, completely reckless and

00:21:44.380 careless and that we should think that it's a hoax. I'm not saying that, but let's be a little

00:21:48.400 bit realistic when we're talking about the possibility of suspending people's first amendment

00:21:52.300 rights. Uh, number three, the first amendment is not just the freedom of belief, as he says.

00:22:00.100 And that is what I want to focus on because I think that this is something that needs to be

00:22:06.040 discussed. Uh, this has been a trend in leftist circles for a while. Uh, demeaning religious liberty

00:22:13.720 is a dangerous excuse for bigotry, is a dangerous excuse for harming people, and thus attempting

00:22:19.120 the left is attempting to limit it to just belief, the privately held belief that you have in your

00:22:25.320 mind. That's all the first amendment protects. But that is, that is not just what the first

00:22:30.400 amendment protects. Uh, they want to, to limit religious liberty to the thoughts that you hold

00:22:35.680 in your head, but everything else, anything that becomes public must be regulated and must be

00:22:41.720 controlled by the state. That is the argument that some people on the left are making. There's a real

00:22:46.080 resentment against religious liberty, and so the attempt is to try to limit it as much as possible.

00:22:51.260 But let's read the first clause of the first amendment. Quote, Congress shall make no law

00:22:57.620 respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Exercise. Not just

00:23:06.480 privately held belief, but exercise of your religion. That is religious expression. Of course, you cannot

00:23:14.280 break, the Supreme Court has ruled on this, you cannot break generally applicable laws to exercise

00:23:19.320 your religion. You can't murder people, you can't assault people, uh, you can't steal people, or you

00:23:24.140 can't steal things, you can't, uh, deal drugs in the name of your religion. But the government cannot

00:23:29.020 inhibit you from worshiping, and they especially cannot inhibit you from worshiping in the name of

00:23:33.720 public health while allowing secular institutions to function as they see fit or in less restrictive

00:23:39.240 ways. Uh, what I have observed for a while, but especially in the past week or so, looking at, um,

00:23:47.520 some of the pieces that have been written up about this and the liberal reaction to this decision

00:23:51.740 is that the liberal perspective seems to be unable to separate its preferred outcomes from

00:23:59.380 constitutionality. So the sentiment is, like, what I see as good should be forced, and what I see as bad

00:24:05.960 should be banned rather than something like, you know what, I don't, uh, agree with churches meeting

00:24:12.160 right now. You know, I really wish they wouldn't meet, but I understand this is their constitutional

00:24:16.040 right, and I'm glad that we have a right to religious liberty, and I, I support that First

00:24:21.060 Amendment right even if I do not agree with the decision to meet together. This is how conservatism

00:24:27.380 thinks about decisions. Um, I don't like, for example, a lot of things that people say. I don't agree

00:24:32.960 with a lot of people's religious beliefs, obviously, but I would rejoice over a Supreme

00:24:39.120 Court ruling that protected the speech of someone who offended me with their words. That is the

00:24:44.180 difference between the leftist view of judicial decisions and the conservative view of judicial

00:24:49.000 decisions. The conservatives, uh, are concerned with the principle protected more than with our

00:24:55.460 agreement with the particular policy that it is ruling on. But because liberals, for example,

00:25:01.040 believe that abortion should be a choice, they want Obamacare, they support gay marriage, they believe

00:25:08.320 all the Supreme Court decisions defending these things were good and sound decisions, despite the

00:25:14.260 fact that each of these cases were made by activist just, justices who think like they do, whose arguments

00:25:20.020 are not actually supported by the Constitution. I am neither Catholic nor Jewish, but I believe in their

00:25:27.420 right to worship. I can see how this is a win for not just religious people, but also non-religious

00:25:33.200 people. The right to worship or not to worship as we see fit is a right that has been time and again

00:25:39.400 protected by the court, and it has in this case as well. I am against tyranny as a rule. I am against

00:25:45.580 religious discrimination by governments as a rule. So it doesn't matter whether or not I am Catholic or

00:25:51.060 Jewish or whether this was a Muslim making this case, I am for religious liberty. Liberals, it seems,

00:25:58.160 are incapable of saying, I don't agree with this particular position, but I respect the Constitution,

00:26:04.920 and I am thankful that this right protects me too. Brett Stevens at the New York Times explains the

00:26:12.200 importance of liberals seeing this from another perspective in an op-ed that I thought was really

00:26:17.180 good. He says, quote, imagine slightly different circumstances in which, say, a conservative

00:26:23.240 governor of a red state had used pandemic concerns last summer to impose draconian limits on public

00:26:28.860 protests and that he had done so using color-coded maps that focused on denser urban areas and that

00:26:35.180 seemed to apply most restrictively to predominantly black neighborhoods. Now, imagine this governor had at

00:26:40.680 the same time loosened restrictions on large gatherings such as motorcycle rallies, business conventions,

00:26:45.820 and football games, on the grounds that these were essential to the economic well-being of the

00:26:50.280 state. Any objections? The point here isn't that the interest of public safety and respect for

00:26:56.020 executive authority must always and fully give way to the assertion of constitutional rights.

00:27:00.880 They shouldn't and don't, nor is the point that the behavior of religious communities during the

00:27:04.220 pandemic has been beyond reproach or beyond the reach of justifiable legal sanction. It hasn't.

00:27:10.220 That's his opinion. The point is, there are no second-class rights, and the right to the free

00:27:16.660 exercise of religion is every bit as important to the Constitution as the right to assemble peaceably,

00:27:21.680 petition government for redress, and speak and publish freely. That goes in circumstances both

00:27:26.980 ordinary and extraordinary. As Justice Samuel Alito put in a speech this month that caused some gnashing

00:27:32.540 of teeth, quote, all sorts of things can be called an emergency or disaster of major proportions.

00:27:38.880 Simply slapping on that label cannot provide the ground for abrogating our most fundamental rights.

00:27:45.120 And so he is attempting, and I think effectively, to have liberals look at this a different way.

00:27:50.460 If you discriminated against people for exercising another part of their First Amendment rights and say

00:27:55.460 those were people who were exercising political activities that you as a liberal agree with,

00:28:01.700 would you think it's okay for the governor, say it's a Republican governor, to discriminate against

00:28:06.720 those people while showing favor to the groups that he views essential? You would think that was wrong.

00:28:12.740 And so it's important for liberals and conservatives, but I just think that it seems like in these

00:28:17.660 cases liberals have a harder time thinking past just the initial, well, I disagree with what the

00:28:22.980 churches are doing and thinking about the constitutional ramifications of decisions. I think that it's

00:28:30.120 important for you to be able to see the different perspective of that and realize that a decision

00:28:34.760 like this protects people of all different stripes who are making all different kinds of decisions that

00:28:39.660 have to do with the First Amendment. And that is why, no matter your political background,

00:28:43.860 we should be happy about a decision like this.

00:28:52.980 I also think that there is some confusion that I've seen, especially among liberals, but maybe

00:29:01.460 among some conservatives too, about this phrase, the separation of church and state. What I've

00:29:07.260 realized is that the people who say this the loudest and the most often are usually the least

00:29:11.700 understanding of what it means. First, as most of you guys know, this is not a phrase that's in the

00:29:17.260 Constitution. But I don't think that a lot of conservatives say that's not in the Constitution. They just

00:29:22.640 leave it there. But we should emphasize that this is an important American principle. It is meant to

00:29:29.300 protect the state from the establishment of a national church, of a national religion, or the

00:29:35.100 forcing of religious beliefs and practices on the populace. That's very important. And this principle

00:29:42.500 protects the church from the state. This is a First Amendment principle, even though the words aren't

00:29:49.100 directly in the Constitution. So what many of our liberal friends, it seems, don't realize is that

00:29:57.080 second part, that separation of church and state, is to protect the church from the state, not just the

00:30:02.440 state from the church. And protecting the state from the church does not mean that the Bible, that the

00:30:08.580 belief in God, cannot influence lawmaking. I know that that's frustrating for a lot of people, both on the

00:30:15.640 left and the right, who consider themselves secular. But the Bible has always influenced our lawmaking,

00:30:22.500 laws against murder and theft, laws guaranteeing due process, were based first on the Bible. God is the

00:30:29.840 moral lawgiver. There is no basis for morality and therefore no basis for laws without the moral law

00:30:36.920 that he has given. Yes, our founders understood this. Anyone who says that we started as a secular nation

00:30:43.080 is wrong. No, we were, the reason that we were started, the reason that our founders believed

00:30:48.800 in freedom is because we believe, they believed that we were given certain unalienable rights endowed

00:30:55.500 to us by our creator, among them being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The belief in God

00:31:00.840 is necessary for the construction of the republic, of the kind of republic that our founders established.

00:31:08.560 The belief that there is an authority that is higher than the government, that gives every

00:31:14.020 individual rights, that therefore can only be recognized by the government, not given or taken

00:31:18.740 away arbitrarily by the government. And so the belief in God was absolutely necessary for the foundation

00:31:24.540 of our country. It's absolutely necessary now for the protection of our rights. What many leftists seem to

00:31:32.380 mean when they say separation of church and state, like you'll hear people on the left say this about

00:31:38.800 abortion, for example, that we shouldn't restrict abortion because the separation of church and state,

00:31:45.120 that is a complete lack of understanding of what the separation of church and state actually means.

00:31:52.180 What it seems, what they seem to mean is that they do not want any religious type of thinking

00:31:59.580 to be welcomed into the public square. They want complete separation of religious views and religious

00:32:09.520 talk and religious influence from the public square. And that is not what the separation of church and

00:32:16.080 state means. And that's not going to happen. It can't happen in a society in which the First Amendment

00:32:21.460 exists. Thankfully, we do still live in a country with religious liberty, and we should be thanking

00:32:27.100 the Lord for that. We are the exception in the history of the Christian church. Most Christians

00:32:34.780 throughout time, I know I've said this a lot recently, and still today have no freedom of religion. They

00:32:39.720 don't even have a concept of the freedom of religion. Many Christians, millions of Christians around the

00:32:45.440 world have only ever been able to be Christians in secret for fear of persecution, imprisonment,

00:32:51.460 torture, martyrdom. Western and especially American history over the past couple centuries has

00:32:57.600 provided a small bit of relief for God's people to worship freely. And that is a right, that is a

00:33:06.980 freedom that has also benefited people of other faiths as well. That is a gracious gift that we have

00:33:12.780 been able to enjoy. That is not the norm for religious people, especially Christians throughout the

00:33:17.760 world. We should be taking advantage of that religious liberty while we still have it. We don't

00:33:22.020 know how much longer it's going to last. I mean, there are people, obviously, that don't like religious

00:33:26.900 liberty, that resent religious liberty, that think it's nothing more than an excuse for harm. If those people

00:33:33.180 get more and more power, cultural power, governmental power, then we could be looking at the effective

00:33:39.000 end of our religious liberty. So right now, while we still have it, and while we do still have a

00:33:45.320 conservative Supreme Court before, literally, God forbid, Joe Biden and a Democrat-controlled

00:33:51.120 Congress tried to pack the courts, we should be taking advantage of this religious liberty as much

00:33:58.400 as we possibly can. It doesn't seem like we should be using this time to sit on our hands and insist

00:34:02.720 that loving our neighbor means shutting down our schools and staying home indefinitely. John MacArthur

00:34:07.780 tweeted this, caused a little bit of controversy.

00:34:10.680 It's divine providence at work as the Lord uses the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the hubris of

00:34:17.340 Governor Cuomo, and the determination of Donald Trump, and the convictions of Justice Barrett to

00:34:22.760 protect the freedom of his church. And of course, anyone who believes in the sovereignty of God agrees

00:34:28.980 with that statement. That doesn't mean that we are saying, hooray, Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, and we're

00:34:35.100 going to rub it in the face of people who are sad about her death. That is not what we're saying.

00:34:38.660 But the sovereignty of God is in control of all things, and he has used the series of events

00:34:45.400 over the past year, as terrible as some of them have been, to protect this very sacred right of

00:34:51.760 religious liberty, which, like I said, is a unique right that we should be thankful for and taking

00:34:56.260 advantage of. God is still, and always has been, never for one second stopped being completely in

00:35:05.400 control of everything that is going on, even and especially in 2020. Daniel 2.21 says this,

00:35:14.400 He changes times and seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and

00:35:20.800 knowledge to those who have understanding. Psalm 135.6 says, Whatever the Lord pleases,

00:35:27.100 He does in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. There is a lot of bad that's going on right

00:35:33.840 now. There's a lot of confusion. There's a lot of reason to be worried, to be scared. But let's

00:35:38.640 take a second to rejoice in a consequential decision protecting religious liberty. Praise

00:35:43.460 the Lord for His sovereignty in that. Remember, as we've talked about before, when God is doing one

00:35:48.220 thing, He's doing a million things. And they're not necessarily trending on Twitter. The vast majority

00:35:53.780 of them are not. They're not always making headlines. But He is on His throne, no matter who is on the

00:35:59.140 court, no matter who is in the White House, no matter who is in Congress. Therefore, our peace

00:36:04.260 does not waver in our responsibility to be good stewards, to be righteous, obedient ambassadors.

00:36:12.520 And the aroma of Christ does not change. Just as there is not an asterisk by the First Amendment,

00:36:18.880 our constitutional rights in the time of a pandemic. So there is not a big asterisk by the command that

00:36:25.280 Jesus gave us to go and make disciples, to love our brothers and sisters in Christ, to be generous

00:36:30.180 and to be hospitable. Again, I'm not encouraging recklessness or carelessness. I'm not saying that

00:36:35.200 we shouldn't heed the danger of the virus at all. But our obedience as Christ's disciples, as servants

00:36:44.280 of the Lord, as children of God, as children of light, as Ephesians 5 calls us, is not suspended

00:36:53.600 in times of crisis. It is actually elevated, I would argue, in times of crisis, that now more than ever,

00:37:00.680 we need to show the world what it looks like to be light in the midst of darkness.

00:37:05.700 Okay, that's all I have time for today. We will be back here on Friday.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - December 02, 2020

Ep 333 ｜ SCOTUS Stands Up for Religious Liberty

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