Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - February 25, 2021


Ep 376 | How the Equality Act Opposes Science & Faith | Guest: Lila Rose


Episode Stats

Length

41 minutes

Words per Minute

176.76735

Word Count

7,393

Sentence Count

370

Misogynist Sentences

22

Hate Speech Sentences

17


Summary

Lila Rose of Live Action joins me to talk about the Equality Act and why it needs to go. She also talks about evangelicals who voted for Joe Biden, and why they should have voted for Donald Trump instead. Relatable is a podcast about the intersection of politics, culture, and religion. Hosted by and .


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable.
00:00:10.760 Happy Thursday.
00:00:12.300 Man, we have a really awesome episode for you today because I have a really wonderful
00:00:16.760 guest, Lila Rose of Live Action.
00:00:19.760 She is a pro-life activist.
00:00:21.140 She has been in the fight against abortion and for loving both babies in the womb and
00:00:27.100 their mothers for many years in a way that she has been a pioneer for this movement,
00:00:32.080 especially for young Christians.
00:00:34.280 And I'm just continually proud of her and impressed by her and thankful for the wisdom
00:00:39.240 and the insight and the leadership that she gives in this area.
00:00:42.080 Today, we are going to talk about the Equality Act.
00:00:45.660 We've talked about that multiple times on this podcast.
00:00:48.400 I'll link at least two past episodes that we've done on the Equality Act in the description
00:00:53.860 of this podcast.
00:00:54.960 But we're going to talk about how it relates to abortion, how it relates to pro-life, the
00:01:02.500 pro-life industry and the pro-life movement, pro-life organizations, charities, religious
00:01:08.360 doctors, and the implications, the very frightening implications that this has for abortion.
00:01:15.100 And then we're also going to talk about what this means in the way of protections for girls
00:01:21.240 and women.
00:01:21.980 I really want to get into a lot of different details about this, but I don't think that
00:01:28.020 we're going to have time to get into all of the nooks and crannies, the legal nooks and
00:01:32.680 crannies of the act today, because there's so much.
00:01:36.080 And actually, Lila sheds a lot of light into what this act means in a variety of areas, not
00:01:43.620 just for people of faith, but just for Americans in general.
00:01:46.580 So this is a crucial episode for you to know what's going on, to know why this piece of
00:01:52.180 legislation matters, to know why it's not going away, and to resolve right now to stand up
00:01:58.080 against the craziness that you are about to that you're about to hear about.
00:02:03.860 After I have this conversation with Lila, I am going to give you a monologue about evangelicals
00:02:14.800 who voted for Joe Biden, because looking at some of the organizations and the people who
00:02:21.120 for the past few months, for the past few years, have been talking about what an absolutely terrible
00:02:27.480 choice Donald Trump was, and how it is a vote for decency, a vote for moderation, a vote for
00:02:32.900 kindness and love to vote for Joe Biden, even from the Christian perspective.
00:02:37.120 To see some of these people now complain about or sound the alarm about the dangers of the
00:02:44.120 Equality Act really has me frustrated in a lot of ways, because we have been talking about this
00:02:50.620 for several years, Christian conservatives have.
00:02:53.200 We have talked about what a threat this is to not just religious liberty, but to vulnerable
00:02:57.580 communities and vulnerable people, especially women and babies in the womb for a very long time.
00:03:03.920 And the reaction that we got from Christians who decided that they were going to vote Democrat
00:03:09.640 in the past election was basically an eye roll, or basically, yeah, we know that's bad,
00:03:15.920 but look, Trump is even worse.
00:03:17.360 These tweets are even worse.
00:03:18.580 The things that he said, these headlines, his personality is even worse than this assault
00:03:26.440 on religious liberty.
00:03:27.780 It's even worse than taxpayer-funded abortion.
00:03:32.140 And so we're not going to talk about the Equality Act right now.
00:03:36.380 We're going to focus on how bad Trump is, and then we're just going to continue to push people
00:03:41.180 implicitly or explicitly to vote for Joe Biden.
00:03:44.100 And I've been watching that happen over the past few years, and only now those same people
00:03:49.460 are sounding the alarm about the Equality Act.
00:03:52.880 I have a lot of frustration surrounding that.
00:03:55.160 And so I'm going to kind of vent that frustration just a little bit.
00:04:00.480 But I'm going to end, of course, with love, because that's what it is.
00:04:06.520 It is tough love.
00:04:07.560 The monologue that I'm going to give is tough love towards my fellow Christians, who I believe
00:04:14.740 made a bad choice when it comes to voting for Democrats, not just when it comes to Joe
00:04:20.800 Biden, but also when it comes to the congressional votes as well.
00:04:25.260 And so that's what you can look forward to after my conversation with Lila Rose.
00:04:37.560 Lila, thank you so much for joining me.
00:04:42.960 Can you first talk about Xavier Becerra, this HHS secretary pick, who he is and what he represents
00:04:50.800 in the way of abortion?
00:04:55.060 Yes.
00:04:55.600 Great question.
00:04:56.460 So it's a big deal what's happened with recommending Xavier Becerra to be the Secretary of Health
00:05:03.300 and Human Services.
00:05:04.120 First of all, he's a lawyer, an attorney.
00:05:06.060 He has no medical background whatsoever.
00:05:07.800 So he's holding one of the highest positions for health in the country.
00:05:12.140 But most seriously, he has been one of the most extreme pro-abortion activist politicians
00:05:18.320 we've had in, I think, history, certainly in California.
00:05:22.200 When he was the attorney general here, he was the one who actually levied criminal charges
00:05:28.240 against David Delighted and Sandra Merritt, two friends of mine, because of their undercover
00:05:33.180 journalism of Planned Parenthood, exposing them willing to sell baby body parts.
00:05:38.680 And this is instead of going after Planned Parenthood and working to investigate what their misdeeds
00:05:44.840 are, he went after investigative reporters.
00:05:47.380 Now, this was especially serious because other journalists have never been prosecuted in the
00:05:52.900 state of California for undercover journalism.
00:05:54.620 So this happens regularly.
00:05:55.860 You know, you've had other news groups in California go undercover to expose, you know,
00:06:00.620 illegal marijuana or to expose factory farms.
00:06:03.600 But that has never happened where they've never been actually prosecuted the way that pro-life
00:06:09.320 journalists have.
00:06:09.960 So the double standard is egregious.
00:06:11.360 It was clearly a political prosecution.
00:06:12.980 And it's still ongoing here in California.
00:06:15.460 He also, as attorney general, required or worked to demand that pregnancy care centers,
00:06:22.740 so pro-life pregnancy centers, had to list abortion notices in their facilities or undergo
00:06:28.780 tremendous fines.
00:06:30.580 So he was trying to force, in the name of a choice, of course, trying to force pregnancy
00:06:36.040 centers to actually list abortion notices in their centers to effectively make them advertisements
00:06:41.240 for, make them market abortion.
00:06:44.460 So he has been, on multiple counts, extremely pro-abortion.
00:06:48.340 And I think we can look at the current Biden administration.
00:06:51.860 I mean, Kamala Harris is our VP, as you know.
00:06:54.620 She was actually the one who, before Attorney General Becerra, you know, before Becerra became
00:06:59.320 Attorney General of California, she was Attorney General.
00:07:02.000 And she handed off her seat to Becerra.
00:07:04.400 And when she was Attorney General, she was the one who sent state agents to raid David DeLighton's
00:07:09.780 house as a pro-life journalist, his apartment.
00:07:12.040 And she was the one who actually started those proceedings.
00:07:14.300 And Becerra, when he became AG, he continued them.
00:07:17.260 So the combination of these California politicians, Kamala Harris as vice president, and now Xavier
00:07:23.760 Becerra being appointed to Secretary of Health and Human Services is really a potentially not
00:07:31.400 just lethal one for pre-born children and the policies that they would push, but it's trying
00:07:35.300 to, they actually are using the force of law to penalize pro-life activism and pro-life
00:07:41.140 reporting so that those who are even trying to protest or stand up against the abortion
00:07:46.840 industry at large in our country will now face prosecution and persecution.
00:07:51.960 It's a, it's a huge concern.
00:07:53.800 And, um, you know, we, we, this shows the extremism, of course, of the Biden administration on abortion.
00:07:59.560 And you can tell he's a very deft politician because when he has been questioned over the
00:08:03.960 past couple of days, trying to kind of pin him on where he actually lands on abortion restrictions
00:08:09.660 and abortion in general, he's very good at kind of avoiding those questions.
00:08:14.160 Senator Mitt Romney asked him why he voted against a ban on partial birth abortion.
00:08:19.400 And he kind of just said, you know, people have different convictions about that.
00:08:22.940 Uh, they have different beliefs about that.
00:08:24.820 And then you saw the pro-abortion lobby saying, well, you know, partial birth abortion, that's
00:08:29.760 not a real thing.
00:08:30.780 That's not something that happened.
00:08:32.180 So that question is irrelevant anyway.
00:08:34.960 Is that question irrelevant?
00:08:37.300 Well, of course it's not, you know, partial late, very late-term abortions happening in our
00:08:40.940 country by the, by the tens of thousands.
00:08:42.940 And, um, Becerra, you know, definitely was very, uh, squishy in his response.
00:08:50.160 He was not willing to actually respond to Romney's line of questioning.
00:08:53.960 Um, he didn't have a good response because he promotes and he supports partial birth abortion,
00:08:58.180 but he wouldn't admit it.
00:08:59.100 I mean, that's the part that's so, um, you know, deceptive.
00:09:02.300 He's, he's for these things.
00:09:03.700 It's clear his record as a legislator before becoming attorney general in California, when
00:09:08.080 he was in the legislature, um, when he was, uh, in, in the representative, his record is
00:09:14.480 clear on this, but at the same time, he's refusing to even acknowledge it.
00:09:19.040 Um, another line of questioning that was very powerful with Senator Ben Sasse, uh, interviewing
00:09:24.100 him, um, interrogating him really about his role in using, you know, his position to go
00:09:31.400 after the nuns, um, to try to go basically to fight a federal law that would protect nuns
00:09:37.440 from having to give out contraception.
00:09:39.800 And this is that famous case where the little sisters of the poor were being required to
00:09:43.640 potentially required to give out contraceptive, including a board of patients.
00:09:47.440 And he was the one who was leading the charge against them.
00:09:50.400 So when Senator Sasse was saying, why were you going after nuns repeatedly?
00:09:54.380 I'm in this line of questioning.
00:09:56.000 Um, the Sarah would respond by saying, oh, it's not about nuns.
00:09:59.700 It's about rule of law.
00:10:00.820 I mean, he would continuously try to avoid, uh, admitting and acknowledging his extreme bias,
00:10:07.000 not just for abortion, but as a bias against those that stand against abortion, whether
00:10:11.300 it's David the Lydon, Sandra Merritt, or nuns who have nothing to do with contraception
00:10:15.680 and oppose abortion.
00:10:16.500 So it's a, it's an all around terrible pick and it would be frightening to see what he would
00:10:22.980 do as our secretary of health and human services and what that would mean for not just pre-born
00:10:28.900 children who are already being killed by the thousands each day, but for the activists and
00:10:33.800 the advocates and even the business owners or the nonprofits who are standing up for them.
00:10:39.100 So tell me what you think the implications or consequences would be to have him as, as
00:10:44.560 the secretary of health and human services.
00:10:46.260 He doesn't have a background in health or healthcare at all.
00:10:49.540 Like you said, he was attorney general of California.
00:10:53.040 So the politician, yes.
00:10:55.020 So what would his role be?
00:10:56.280 And how do you think that would actually affect abortion and abortion policy and pro-life
00:11:01.300 centers and Catholic charities, Christian, you know, other kinds of Christian charities?
00:11:06.420 How do you think that would, that would influence what's going on in the abortion industry and
00:11:11.560 in the pro-life industry?
00:11:13.500 Well, first of all, we know that anything that was done in the last four years under president
00:11:17.860 Trump will be undone.
00:11:19.140 Some of it already is undone.
00:11:20.500 So there was a ban on title 10 funding to go to abortion providers.
00:11:25.240 So that, that is going to be undone.
00:11:27.820 Um, obviously there's things like the Mexico city policy that was already undone by executive
00:11:31.600 order, reversed by executive order.
00:11:33.460 So now taxpayer funding goes towards abortion overseas.
00:11:36.260 But what I think he could do is, I mean, really the, the bureaucracy or the, the, the legal
00:11:43.500 lease that, um, runs a lot of federal programs and the money that runs through those federal
00:11:49.200 programs, I can see him, uh, tremendous, really favoring abortion chains and especially abortion
00:11:56.220 chain, Planned Parenthood and using his department to fund them even more.
00:12:02.040 So right now, Planned Parenthood receives over half of a billion in taxpayer dollars from the
00:12:06.700 federal government.
00:12:08.060 I think under Becerra, he will not only remove any restrictions to them, but he's going to use
00:12:13.640 whatever he can on the administration side to allow taxpayer funding for abortion.
00:12:19.760 Now, technically the Hyde amendment prevents that.
00:12:22.060 Um, that's something that president Biden has said he wanted, wants to undo.
00:12:25.320 He flip-flopped on that.
00:12:26.260 He wants to basically make it so that federal money can directly reimburse for abortion,
00:12:30.540 but there's a lot of other ways you can help fund abortion besides directly reimbursing.
00:12:35.140 Um, you can fund Planned Parenthood, other services.
00:12:38.320 You can promote Planned Parenthood's other services.
00:12:40.860 You can favor them and in forms of Medicaid distribution, the, the, the distribution of
00:12:46.560 Medicaid money.
00:12:47.140 So I think we can anticipate that a lot of the favoritism for federal money for who gets
00:12:53.740 it will be, will go to Planned Parenthood.
00:12:56.220 He's demonstrated favoritism to them already, um, by going after pro-life reporters.
00:13:01.600 And I think we can expect to see more of that.
00:13:03.880 Here's the problem, Allie.
00:13:04.800 It's very difficult to track some of this stuff, um, because there is so much, uh, regulation
00:13:10.700 around different elements of, you know, federal funding of healthcare.
00:13:14.800 And because of Obamacare, there's so much leeway right now for health and human services.
00:13:20.240 That's the problem with big government.
00:13:21.360 There's so much space for him to sort of play, um, with existing laws that have been passed.
00:13:26.360 And his job is to, of course, administer them.
00:13:29.100 So anything to do with healthcare.
00:13:30.600 So I, I, you know, the sky's the limit for him in his role.
00:13:34.740 And the problem is we don't have a Congress that can check his power right now.
00:13:38.240 It's certainly not a president.
00:13:39.320 So it's, it's a, it's a, it, it, it, it's a very serious problem.
00:13:45.080 From a faith perspective, I think, I think Xavier Becerra identifies as a Catholic.
00:13:50.560 He said something about his mother praying the rosary.
00:13:53.140 We know Joe Biden identifies as a Catholic, Kamala Harris identifies as a Baptist.
00:13:58.700 So these are all people who profess to be Christians and yet are very adamantly pro-abortion.
00:14:05.280 Does that trouble you in particular as a Catholic woman of faith?
00:14:11.780 Um, I mean, it's like, yeah, yeah, it absolutely does.
00:14:15.600 It's, it's, um, a really, uh, in, in, in many ways, the worst kind of lie to use the faith
00:14:22.540 of Jesus Christ, the religion of Jesus Christ, um, to justify the killing, your promotion of
00:14:29.220 the killing of pre-born children.
00:14:31.240 And that's what the president is doing, President Biden.
00:14:34.400 That's what, um, Pelosi has done for decades.
00:14:37.360 And that's what now Becerra, I think is doing by referencing his faith in a political context.
00:14:42.720 He's saying that his so-called faith, I should say.
00:14:45.300 I mean, I, I think that there is a crisis in the church, in the Western church of catechesis.
00:14:51.500 So there's a lot of, uh, a challenge with properly educating people on what Christianity
00:14:56.980 even teaches, but they should know better.
00:14:59.880 I mean, it's pretty clear that God says thou shalt not kill, um, abortion kills and Jesus
00:15:05.500 Christ gave his life for us instead of taking lives.
00:15:08.720 I mean, that was the example he, he said, and he said that no, any man, no man has any
00:15:13.060 greater love than this, that he'd lay down his life for a friend.
00:15:15.780 Um, abortion is the antithesis of the example that Christ set.
00:15:19.760 So there's no excuse.
00:15:21.600 And I think it needs to be called out.
00:15:23.700 And the, one of the greatest shames is when it's not called out by leaders in the church.
00:15:27.300 Um, so that's why I think people like, I'm grateful for you, Allie, and your voice.
00:15:30.840 I think we need to continue to call this out because they're trying to normalize, uh, this idea
00:15:35.940 that you can be Christian and support killing children.
00:15:38.920 And if you repeat a lie enough times, it's easy to accept it and just move on with your
00:15:43.740 life because continually fighting the battle, um, just takes grit and it can be tiring, but
00:15:49.000 we have to keep fighting the battle and say, this is a lie.
00:15:51.860 And it's a lie that costs the lives of millions of people.
00:15:55.760 Yes.
00:15:55.820 And you do that so well, pushing back on those lies.
00:15:58.520 Uh, can we talk about something else that is, uh, very confusing for a lot of people
00:16:03.540 and that is the Equality Act and what it actually, uh, has to do with abortion.
00:16:09.280 Most people don't know that the Equality Act has anything to do with abortion, but it actually
00:16:13.160 does, right?
00:16:14.880 Yes.
00:16:15.440 Well, first of all, it's, it's so, again, the lie using lies to cover what they're doing.
00:16:21.260 It's the Equality Act.
00:16:22.740 It's the farthest thing from equality.
00:16:24.520 It's actually enshrining discrimination, um, in our law and forcing discrimination in our
00:16:31.380 law.
00:16:31.660 And, and the two biggest victims of that discrimination, the biggest one is pre-born
00:16:35.140 children.
00:16:35.660 I'll explain that in a minute.
00:16:36.580 But the second biggest one are women because now women have been erased.
00:16:41.040 Basically the law says that, um, you're, you're, you're a female or you're, you're basically
00:16:45.780 the gender that you decide or that you identify with the stereotypes of it and your biological,
00:16:51.640 your body doesn't matter anymore.
00:16:54.400 So if you're a woman and you're, you know, on a sports team or you're a woman and you're
00:16:57.580 in locker room and you're a man who says, I identify as a woman, all of a sudden you
00:17:01.520 have, you get to be in all those places.
00:17:03.580 And the fact that you can never get pregnant, you don't menstruate, you actually aren't a
00:17:07.540 woman.
00:17:07.720 Those facts don't matter anymore.
00:17:09.680 Um, but pre-born children are also at huge risk with this piece of legislation.
00:17:13.780 And that's because again, the devil's in the details, the way that they, uh, include.
00:17:18.740 And so, you know, the idea of making, um, sexual orientation or gender identity, the same
00:17:23.500 as sex, which is the same as, um, race, which is an immutable characteristic.
00:17:28.420 So now people's opinions about themselves, um, are now an immutable characteristic that gets
00:17:34.020 federal protection, um, which means you get to decide, you know, again, you can go in a
00:17:38.460 woman's locker room when you're a man, but it also talks about pregnancy and it talks
00:17:42.420 about, um, pregnancy as a medical condition, which is actually a kind of a code word for
00:17:47.780 to include abortion because in, in laws passed, it has included, um, abortion covering abortion,
00:17:53.120 because if you are pregnant and you have a medical condition, abortion would be a medical
00:17:57.320 treatment for that quote unquote condition.
00:17:59.940 And so what this means is that now if a woman is seeking an abortion, if she's, or if she's
00:18:04.800 being pressured into abortion, whatever the case is, and you are a doctor or a nurse,
00:18:08.460 it is now like being a racist to refuse to, uh, commit her abortion.
00:18:15.120 So now it's the same for a doctor.
00:18:17.480 If a person of color came into their waiting room and they said, I'm not going to serve
00:18:21.000 you.
00:18:21.220 I'm a racist.
00:18:21.800 I'm not going to serve you.
00:18:22.560 That would be discrimination.
00:18:23.480 It would be unlawful.
00:18:24.560 It would be just as unlawful in the same category as racism for someone to come into your
00:18:29.720 Christian doctor's office and say, I want an abortion from you.
00:18:32.400 And for him to say, I do not, I cannot do an abortion for you.
00:18:35.600 So this is a severe attack on not just religious liberty, because obviously people of faith
00:18:41.820 should be pro-life, but on anybody.
00:18:44.380 You're now saying that if you are a medical provider, you are required to commit an abortion
00:18:48.860 or to help someone have an abortion.
00:18:51.360 Otherwise you're as bad as a racist under law.
00:18:53.780 And this is where this is a huge Trojan horse, um, in the legislation, it's very deceptively
00:19:00.200 written.
00:19:00.480 So it's difficult to see this on face value.
00:19:02.440 You read the 30 pages and you're like, okay, don't see, you know, don't be talking about
00:19:05.560 abortion, but because of how the they're categorizing pregnancy as a medical condition and making
00:19:11.620 it up to par with your immutable characteristic, like your race, all of a sudden the treatment
00:19:16.840 of that medical condition can be considered, um, you know, your right to the degree that
00:19:21.340 you're being discriminated against if your doctor won't give you an abortion.
00:19:24.920 So this doesn't just affect, um, doctors and nurses, this could affect nonprofits,
00:19:29.340 um, and businesses who are going to be told they have to pay for abortions.
00:19:34.280 This removes the, the legislation also, Ali specifically says that religious, um, exemptions
00:19:40.860 don't apply and that's really scary.
00:19:43.520 So that means the existing case law that says, or law that says that, you know, if you're
00:19:48.120 a non-for-profit, like, you know, um, Hobby Lobby, you don't have to provide contraception,
00:19:52.420 whatever it might be, um, not just contraception, but abortion that is no longer going to apply.
00:19:57.300 So it is a earthquake to existing conscious exemptions, um, in law today, and it could increase
00:20:05.620 the numbers of abortion because it can also be used for federal funding for abortion because
00:20:10.440 now for the government to not pay for an abortion when it's your right, it's like discriminating
00:20:15.140 against you because of the color of your skin that can be applied to the government to, and
00:20:19.320 to taxpayer funding.
00:20:20.520 So this is, um, a dramatically, uh, uh, harmful legislation that again, because it's deceptively
00:20:28.500 written, very few people are even talking about this and it's about to pass the house
00:20:32.540 of representatives today.
00:20:33.540 And then we'll go to the Senate.
00:20:35.260 Right.
00:20:35.500 And it's that same line of reasoning, as you were saying at the beginning of your answer
00:20:39.160 about expanding the definition of sex and sex discrimination to not just cover pregnancy,
00:20:44.020 but also to discover, uh, cover so-called gender identity, which means a variety of things
00:20:49.960 like allowing men into women's spaces, like you were saying, but also in the same way that
00:20:54.060 a healthcare provider would be forced to perform an abortion, um, if requested of him or her,
00:21:01.980 uh, uh, a similar situation would also be the case in, um, um, for example, if a teenage woman said,
00:21:11.000 you know, now I identify as a man and I want a double mastectomy to be able to have a body that more
00:21:16.920 aligns with my so-called gender identity, um, a healthcare service provider in that industry
00:21:22.440 would then be required to perform that service, whether or not he actually agrees with it,
00:21:28.840 conscience wise, faith wise, or he just in his own medical judgment, doesn't think that it's
00:21:34.840 a good thing to do.
00:21:36.020 This law is also saying, no, that would be discrimination, like discriminating against
00:21:39.820 someone because of their race.
00:21:41.820 So it completely wipes out conscience protections, religious liberty protections in particular for
00:21:47.560 doctors.
00:21:48.000 But like you said, also for businesses, for organizations, for Christian business owners
00:21:51.980 and Christians, uh, in general.
00:21:54.540 Um, so this is a very, it's a frightening law.
00:21:56.960 Go ahead.
00:21:57.280 And, and also schools.
00:21:59.160 I mean, this, I'm a parent, I know you're a parent and my, our children are very young,
00:22:03.560 but, um, schools, not just public schools, but potentially private schools and charter
00:22:08.740 schools and maybe even homeschool, maybe even what you teach your children in your home, because
00:22:13.040 now, um, teaching your children that your biology, your immutable characteristics was written
00:22:19.220 into the DNA of every single one of your cells with your sex chromosome, that that is actually
00:22:23.580 not your gender, that your gender is what you decide.
00:22:26.560 And you know, that, that is now going to be bigotry.
00:22:29.860 That is by law considered discrimination, not just to make choices around that, like having
00:22:35.780 a women's only bathroom or a women's only sports team, but to teach that.
00:22:41.200 Yeah.
00:22:41.320 And it's, it's like teaching racism, um, you know, specifically like proactively teaching
00:22:46.240 racism.
00:22:46.580 They're equating it to that.
00:22:47.880 So this can affect, you know, school curricula.
00:22:51.220 It will affect school curricula because now children are going to be taught this as, they
00:22:56.340 already are taught this in many public schools, but now if a private school isn't teaching
00:22:59.660 this, I think there could be definitely, um, you know, with the right federal, uh, uh, you
00:23:05.740 know, person with the right, um, lawsuit, this could actually, I mean, I can see Xavier Becerra
00:23:11.560 going after a Catholic school to say, why aren't you teaching?
00:23:14.560 Um, why aren't you teaching non-discrimination when it comes to sex?
00:23:18.820 You know, I can see that happening.
00:23:20.540 Um, and, and that is going to be catastrophic.
00:23:24.180 That means we can no longer teach our children about their God-given biology.
00:23:28.500 We have to tell our children, you get to, we don't know if you're a boy or a girl yet.
00:23:32.440 You get to decide that, um, which is, I think, devastating to a child's psychology and sense
00:23:37.680 of self.
00:23:38.120 And it certainly goes against, um, nature.
00:23:40.440 So that is another area which we have only begun to see the potential fallout from it
00:23:46.120 and it could get really, really bad.
00:23:49.040 Oh man, there's so many implications to that, that we could explore.
00:23:52.420 I think that you did such a good job and, um, an important job in pointing out that they
00:23:59.900 are trying to equate race with sexuality and gender identity.
00:24:04.260 And therefore they are saying that there is, um, there's nothing morally contentious about
00:24:11.640 disagreeing with this idea of gender identity as separate from biological sex.
00:24:16.600 And I feel that if I were someone who cared, you know, if, if I were someone who had experienced
00:24:23.180 racism myself, or if I were, uh, you know, um, looking for protections based on race, I think
00:24:31.140 I would be highly offended by this idea that race is the same thing as a man declaring himself
00:24:36.460 a woman that seems to kind of, um, de-emphasize the importance of not discriminating against
00:24:43.320 someone based on race.
00:24:45.300 The waters get very, very muddy.
00:24:47.740 I agree.
00:24:49.040 And it's, it's much more than that though.
00:24:50.940 It's not just saying, um, a man can declare himself a woman and everybody has to play along
00:24:55.500 with that, including doctors and schools and everything, you know, women's sports teams.
00:24:59.380 But it's also saying that if you teach otherwise, you are a bigot, right?
00:25:03.900 If you teach otherwise, if you say otherwise, you are as bad as a racist.
00:25:09.560 And we also, you know, we haven't even talked about the, uh, consequences for churches and
00:25:15.740 for, um, for marriage, because already, as you know, marriage is under attack.
00:25:20.540 Marriage has sort of lost its, um, its reality in our public square as between a man and a woman
00:25:25.800 lifelong, but it means now that if you're a Catholic church, you're a Baptist church and
00:25:31.140 you won't do a same sex wedding, that is as bad as not willing, being willing to do a
00:25:37.180 wedding of people because of the color of their skin.
00:25:39.980 That is what this law does.
00:25:41.920 So now we're talking, you know, schools, we're talking, you know, this is much bigger than
00:25:46.480 bathrooms.
00:25:47.200 This is much bigger than bathrooms.
00:25:48.580 We're talking the way that children are taught to see their own, their own selves and what we're
00:25:52.640 allowed to teach.
00:25:53.840 We're talking how our churches are allowed to marry and churches potentially being shut
00:25:58.620 down if they were completely shut down because now they are refusing to comply with anti-discrimination
00:26:03.120 laws.
00:26:03.800 And so now they are, um, you know, either forced to do same sex weddings or, you know, entered
00:26:09.240 sex weddings or whatever kind of wedding that anybody wants, um, or they're shut down because
00:26:13.720 again, the equality act specifically says religious exemptions don't apply.
00:26:17.820 And these aren't just religious, this shouldn't just be about religion because it's also
00:26:21.280 just science and biology, but it is basically saying, if you disagree, you're going to be
00:26:26.360 in trouble and you're a bigot.
00:26:28.580 Yeah.
00:26:29.340 And I also think that you do a good job of making the argument on its merits.
00:26:33.360 Obviously, religious liberty is important, but so often conservatives are afraid to just
00:26:38.740 argue for, for example, that, okay, no, we shouldn't even be having this conversation
00:26:43.860 because men aren't women and women aren't men.
00:26:46.180 We can't just push this conversation into the realm of constitutionality and religious liberty,
00:26:50.600 even though that is so important, we have to, we have to have this conversation in the
00:26:56.420 moral sphere because that's what the left is doing.
00:26:59.020 The left really doesn't care whether or not this infringes upon religious liberty or what
00:27:03.180 the first amendment says, or what the constitution says about protections for churches and Christian
00:27:08.220 schools and things like that.
00:27:09.420 They are concerned with what they see as the morality of not being able to quote discriminate
00:27:15.400 against someone based on gender identity.
00:27:17.360 And so we have to meet them in the moral conversation and have that discussion first of what is good,
00:27:24.800 what is not, what is right, what is wrong, what is true, what is false.
00:27:28.220 We have to be willing to have that foundational conversation.
00:27:31.380 I think before we move into the realm of talking about religious liberty and constitutionality,
00:27:35.960 conservatives so often kind of like push the conversation into that realm.
00:27:40.280 The left isn't having that conversation.
00:27:41.800 They're having a moral, ideological conversation about gender identity and abortion.
00:27:47.260 They're really not concerned with the constitutionality of that.
00:27:50.880 Yes, I think that's an excellent point, Allie.
00:27:53.020 I totally agree.
00:27:54.440 We can't just, you know, try to build a little ghetto around ourselves and say, okay, we are
00:27:58.820 the religious people over here and this is what we believe.
00:28:01.460 What we believe is not such even a matter of belief.
00:28:04.240 A lot of it has to do with scientific realities.
00:28:06.920 Biology is not bigotry.
00:28:09.120 The fact that I am a woman, I have female sex chromosomes does not mean that I am, you
00:28:17.560 know, I can change and all of a sudden become a man because I whim it or because I, you know,
00:28:21.400 change my physical external characteristics or because I, you know, have a personal preference,
00:28:27.980 you know, some other way.
00:28:29.140 We need to engage that debate directly because that's the source of the confusion.
00:28:33.320 And the religious liberty argument, I think ultimately will be a losing argument if it's
00:28:37.960 steamrolled by this higher moral ground that they're claiming.
00:28:42.460 The good news is we have the truth on our side, not just the truth, like in a, you know,
00:28:47.240 in a moral sense, but in a scientific sense, the science around gender ideology, most of
00:28:52.160 it is, and a lot of the studies I've read, it's a lot of junk science.
00:28:54.920 It's not built on, you know, the realities of our bodies.
00:28:58.800 It's built on a lot of focus group, case study type stuff that has to do with people
00:29:04.680 who have serious challenges.
00:29:07.240 You know, a lot of them are struggling with gender identity themselves, but that doesn't
00:29:11.780 mean that that struggle isn't something that should be treated and cared for instead of
00:29:15.540 lifted up as actually a form of freedom or empowerment, which is what the left is trying
00:29:20.480 to do.
00:29:21.020 So the more we get into the debate directly and debate on the merits of the argument, instead
00:29:27.500 of just saying, leave us alone, I'm religious, the more effective we're going to be in actually
00:29:32.020 helping people.
00:29:33.540 And, you know, it's really about helping people and serving people.
00:29:36.200 Yeah.
00:29:36.440 And going on the offense to not only just saying, hey, it's not it's not bigotry to believe
00:29:41.580 these things, but actually saying in the positive sense that it's actually love to believe these
00:29:46.420 things that we are calling for love of the most vulnerable people, babies inside the womb.
00:29:51.960 We are calling for love of the body that God has given you.
00:29:55.780 We're talking about loving God's creation, protecting God's creation and having a culture
00:30:02.000 that reflects that goodness and reflects that love that we have of the bodies God gave us
00:30:07.500 and babies in the womb and all kinds of vulnerable people.
00:30:11.400 So it's actually a message of love that we have, certainly not a message of bigotry.
00:30:15.760 And I think conservatives, in particular Christians, have to do better at pushing for that positive
00:30:21.120 message rather than only, you know, being on on the defense.
00:30:26.340 Yeah.
00:30:26.780 And if you have I mean, if you have same sex attraction or you have gender dysphoria and
00:30:32.460 you're struggling with your your sexual identity, that doesn't mean you should be discriminated
00:30:38.220 against.
00:30:38.560 I think we can all agree that we should not mistreat or discriminate against someone because
00:30:44.400 of their desires or because of their own struggles or because of their own attraction, that what
00:30:50.360 matters is what people choose to do with those things.
00:30:52.740 And then, of course, that we treat everybody with equal dignity and respect.
00:30:56.700 So I think that that should be the message, that we're not wanting to discriminate against
00:31:01.520 anyone.
00:31:01.960 In fact, we want to help others and see their God-given dignity equal.
00:31:05.900 All of us have this equal God-given dignity.
00:31:07.840 But it is to recognize a struggle and call it a struggle.
00:31:13.340 You know, if someone's saying, you know, even though a biological male, like I'm a female
00:31:16.540 and to say this is a struggle, we want to serve you in this struggle instead of we want
00:31:20.920 to make the struggle your entire identity and basically doom you to your struggle.
00:31:28.700 You know, the suicide rate for transgender kids and adults is sky high.
00:31:34.200 I mean, it's dramatically higher than for other young people or for other adults.
00:31:39.640 That's not helping people to push them towards that identity.
00:31:43.760 So I think that needs to be part of our message, too.
00:31:46.580 Yeah, absolutely.
00:31:48.060 Can you tell people how they can support you?
00:31:50.160 You have a book that's coming out.
00:31:51.360 So please tell people what it is, where they can buy it or pre-order it, and then how they
00:31:55.940 can support you in live action.
00:31:58.180 Thanks, Allie.
00:31:59.080 So thank you so much.
00:32:00.300 Yes, I'm coming out.
00:32:01.220 I know you've been through the author thing.
00:32:02.700 Congratulations on your book last year.
00:32:04.780 I am coming out with my first book in May.
00:32:07.060 It's called Fighting for Life.
00:32:08.220 And it's really a guidebook for everyone who wants to stand up and do something about what's
00:32:12.800 happening in our culture, whether it's on abortion or really any cause that we think
00:32:16.800 is important.
00:32:17.580 It's the lessons I've learned over the last 15 years about standing up when you're feeling
00:32:22.020 unsure of yourself, overcoming mistakes, knowing what to say when you're not sure what to
00:32:27.500 say, having courage to stand alone when other people are against you and opposing you.
00:32:32.560 So it is, I hope, encouragement and inspiration for people.
00:32:35.660 And that comes out on May.
00:32:36.960 It's available for pre-order now.
00:32:38.940 And then liveaction.org is our website for our pro-life work.
00:32:44.120 We're the digital leader in education.
00:32:46.000 So we are daily putting out content to change hearts and minds, and we hope it's helpful
00:32:50.300 to you, especially if you're talking to friends about abortion or you're wanting to learn more
00:32:53.780 yourself.
00:32:54.500 There's a lot of resources for you there to learn more about this issue and how to be a
00:32:58.980 very persuasive pro-life advocate yourself.
00:33:00.800 So check that out.
00:33:01.540 And we're also all of our social media.
00:33:02.780 You can look at that too.
00:33:03.940 Awesome.
00:33:04.860 And we will put the pre-order link to your book in the description of this podcast,
00:33:08.000 just so everyone knows exactly where to get it.
00:33:11.140 Lila, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.
00:33:13.720 You informed us a lot on these two areas, not just in relation to abortion, but in relation
00:33:19.560 to the so-called culture wars in general.
00:33:22.140 So thank you so much.
00:33:24.340 Thanks for having me, Ali.
00:33:25.260 So as promised, I want to speak for a second to the evangelicals who have spent the past
00:33:41.980 few years and especially the past few months leading up to the election, either explicitly
00:33:48.240 or implicitly condemning a vote for Donald Trump as a vote for hate and hailing a vote for Joe
00:33:55.180 Biden as a vote for love and decency and respect and dignity and normalcy and moderation and
00:34:00.520 all of that.
00:34:01.360 These are Christians who say that they care very much about obeying God, both publicly and
00:34:08.000 privately.
00:34:09.160 Many of them claim to even care about religious liberty.
00:34:12.060 And yet they outright insisted or at least just implied that voting for Trump was worse
00:34:20.280 than anything that Biden and Democrats could ever do, could ever usher in.
00:34:25.180 There are organizations who claim to be bipartisan, who say that they care about religious freedom
00:34:30.560 and protections for LGBTQ people who are only now sounding the alarms on what the Equality
00:34:37.540 Act actually means when they had ample opportunity to do so ahead of time.
00:34:41.800 These are Christians saying that this is the greatest legislative threat to religious liberty
00:34:46.440 that we've seen.
00:34:47.420 And to them, I just have one question.
00:34:51.480 Where have you been?
00:34:52.360 We have been saying this about this bill for years now.
00:34:56.460 We have raised the flags about this for a very long time.
00:35:00.560 We tried to warn people that if you vote for Democrats, this is just one thing that you will
00:35:05.860 be getting.
00:35:06.620 They haven't tried to hide this.
00:35:08.380 We tried to tell people, look, Biden isn't keeping a secret about who he is.
00:35:12.680 He is not a moderate.
00:35:14.200 He is for taxpayer funded abortion through nine months.
00:35:17.920 He is against religious liberty.
00:35:19.360 He is against school choice for predominantly poor students.
00:35:22.660 He is for men having access to women's spaces.
00:35:25.060 He is for haphazard immigration policy.
00:35:27.560 He is for the toxic lie that is critical race theory pervading government agencies and the
00:35:32.780 military.
00:35:34.100 And a lot of you just rolled your eyes and said, yeah, but Trump, look at what Trump said.
00:35:38.840 Look at look at this headline.
00:35:40.340 Look at how bad he is.
00:35:41.480 Anyone who votes for him is a racist.
00:35:43.240 And that's the worst thing that you could do.
00:35:44.540 Voting for Joe Biden, we were told, is a vote for kindness and for love.
00:35:48.780 That's what a lot of you said.
00:35:50.640 And I agree.
00:35:51.580 Trump has some very serious flaws and failures, obviously.
00:35:55.600 But I do not want to hear your concerns about this legislation that you basically have had
00:36:00.820 nothing to say about for the year leading up to the election that Joe Biden said that
00:36:05.480 he supported.
00:36:06.440 If you are really concerned about it, you should have talked about it just as much as you talked
00:36:11.720 about how mean Trump was.
00:36:13.760 The truth is, the fact of the matter is, the evangelicals for Biden crowd decided not
00:36:19.460 to heavily highlight the things like the Equality Act or Biden's pro-abortion agenda before the
00:36:24.380 general election or before the Georgia special election, because at the end of the day, they
00:36:29.200 still wanted people to vote Democrat.
00:36:31.680 They decided that getting the the mean orange man out of the White House was more important
00:36:38.020 than conscience protections for doctors who don't want to perform abortions on a kicking,
00:36:42.700 moving, feeling, unborn baby or who don't want to surgically castrate a teenage boy who
00:36:47.300 now identifies as a girl.
00:36:48.880 They decided that beating Trump was more important than ensuring girls could go to the bathroom
00:36:54.180 or change in the locker room or compete in sports with only girls.
00:36:58.460 They decided it was more important than ensuring that women in prisons or or in abuse shelters
00:37:03.920 would be protected in women only spaces.
00:37:07.580 They decided that making sure Trump lost was more important than ensuring taxpayers aren't
00:37:12.580 forced to fund abortions.
00:37:14.340 And in exchange for what?
00:37:16.960 Like, what did they get for their vote for Biden?
00:37:20.420 They got a guy who has said and continues to say as many allegedly racist things as Trump
00:37:25.580 has, who said that poor kids are just as smart as white kids.
00:37:29.420 He said that he doesn't want his kids to go to school in a so-called racial jungle.
00:37:34.520 He said that he can't even go into a 7-Eleven without hearing a person with an Indian accent.
00:37:39.700 He authored a crime bill which has disproportionately affected black and brown communities and who
00:37:45.240 is now going to do what for so-called racial justice, support more funding to Planned Parenthood
00:37:51.400 and oppose school choice?
00:37:53.080 What will Biden and Democrats accomplish in this area that Trump did not?
00:37:57.000 You didn't get better facilities at the border.
00:37:59.820 All you got is Washington Post changing their language from, quote, kids in cages, which
00:38:04.480 is what they call the border shelters under Trump, to, quote, influx facilities, which
00:38:09.400 is what they're calling them now.
00:38:10.640 Either way, by the way, they were built by the Obama administration.
00:38:14.300 I will note what should tell you how utterly affected so many people were by the media hatred
00:38:20.560 of Trump and the glossing over of Biden, including the Christians who voted for Biden, who thought
00:38:26.660 that they were making a good exchange.
00:38:29.540 One day, the long tentacles of the Equality Act and progressive totalitarianism will come
00:38:36.100 for your church.
00:38:37.300 It will come for your pastor.
00:38:38.760 It will come for your kid's school.
00:38:40.860 It will come for your daughter's sports team.
00:38:43.140 It will come for your local women's shelter, your florist, the pro-life pregnancy center that
00:38:48.280 you sponsor, your business, your speech, your beliefs.
00:38:51.420 And I do wonder if then you will realize that your vote in the name of supposed decency was
00:38:57.440 not worth it, that you linked arms with people who hate you and everything that you believe
00:39:03.160 in.
00:39:04.080 I have many qualms with the Republican Party, but understand, Christian, that the Democratic
00:39:09.720 Party hates you.
00:39:11.320 And they dupe so many people every few years into thinking that they care about religious
00:39:17.300 people's rights and beliefs and that they are the party of compassion.
00:39:20.480 And the fact that they can convince people of that, even while openly celebrating abortion
00:39:24.980 and gender confusion and kids and having absolutely nothing to show in the way of compassion is
00:39:29.880 honestly so remarkable.
00:39:31.960 They're amazing at PR and advertising, marketing, messaging.
00:39:35.980 And look, I believe that if you voted Democrat, you did so because you thought it was the best
00:39:42.060 thing to do.
00:39:42.560 I don't think that you're some bad person.
00:39:44.240 I certainly don't hate you.
00:39:45.620 I don't think that you're stupid or anything close to that.
00:39:49.000 I just think that you were wrong, that you were very wrong.
00:39:52.320 And I just want to be candid in saying that it's hard for me to hear and see some of you
00:39:56.940 complaining about this legislation and policies and nominees that so many people warned you
00:40:03.340 about for months on end.
00:40:05.220 And I'm not saying that Trump was the perfect candidate or that you had to have voted for
00:40:10.120 him to be on the right side.
00:40:11.260 I think faithful people decided to vote for neither candidate.
00:40:14.760 But even so, you could have at least expressed some concern over Biden's radicalism before
00:40:20.640 the election.
00:40:21.180 But you didn't because, again, at the end of the day, you felt that defeating Trump was
00:40:25.300 more important than protecting taxpayers from funding abortions or Christian doctors from
00:40:30.260 being forced to perform sex change surgery.
00:40:32.280 And I simply believe from my perspective that you made a bad trade and maybe you're realizing
00:40:38.660 that.
00:40:39.120 And if that's the case, I'm not angry.
00:40:40.920 I'm not shunning you.
00:40:41.800 I'm not canceling you.
00:40:43.080 I'm not in any way gloating.
00:40:45.220 Certainly not because I'm not happy about it.
00:40:47.100 But as the saying goes, elections have consequences.
00:40:49.420 And now we are going to continue to live with these.
00:40:53.160 But it's not too late to speak up.
00:40:55.120 It's not too late to push back.
00:40:56.680 And I would argue as a Christian who cares about these future generations, who cares about
00:41:01.460 these vulnerable populations, that it is your obligation to do so.
00:41:06.580 All right.
00:41:07.000 That's all I've got to say about that.
00:41:09.280 I will see you guys back here on Monday.
00:41:19.420 I will see you guys back here on Monday.