Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - July 25, 2022


Ep 648 ｜ DEBUNKED： “Republicans Voted Against Birth Control”


Episode Stats

Length

46 minutes

Words per Minute

171.59297

Word Count

8,052

Sentence Count

497


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Today we are talking about this contraception
00:00:06.540 bill, what the truth is about that, why so many Republicans voted against it.
00:00:11.020 We're also talking about the myths and the facts of monkeypox. Should people really be afraid of
00:00:18.280 it? And then we're also going to talk about this phenomenon that has been pushed on us
00:00:23.240 by the powers that be of eating bugs. Are we going to all be eating insects soon?
00:00:31.500 What does all of this have to do with our worldview as Christians? How does this speak to the view of
00:00:39.980 human beings and human nature of the people in charge? We are going to get into all of it. Of
00:00:45.480 course, as always, this episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to
00:00:50.640 GoodRanchers.com slash Allie for American Meat Deliver. That's GoodRanchers.com slash Allie.
00:01:05.280 All right, guys, let me know what you thought about that new kind of introduction of telling
00:01:09.980 you exactly what we're going to be talking about before we do the little intro music and get into
00:01:15.840 the rest of the episode. Give me your feedback. Send me an Instagram message. You can drop a
00:01:21.280 comment on YouTube. I look at those. I thought that would be kind of a better setup and give you an
00:01:25.800 idea, a better and a clearer and a faster idea of exactly what we will be talking about before I kind
00:01:32.340 of give my preamble that I usually do of saying something like, I hope you had a wonderful and
00:01:36.940 relaxing weekend. I hope you were able to stay cool. If you follow my baking endeavors, which is
00:01:41.840 something I started, I think, July 4th weekend, I'm now like baking something every Saturday or so,
00:01:49.460 I made a mixed berry pie. And actually, I felt pretty resourceful because I needed to get rid of
00:01:56.560 a bunch of fruit that was about to go bad in our refrigerator. Also, I had frozen pie crust left over
00:02:03.420 from, I don't know, maybe Thanksgiving. And so I used all ingredients that I already had. I didn't even
00:02:08.740 have to go to the store. And it was really good, if I do say so myself. Now, I am not that great of a
00:02:14.960 baker. I'm not like a baker that can make things pretty, at least not yet. I'm hoping that I will
00:02:19.840 get there. But it did taste good. I tried to do the latticing, you know, on the pie. And I was like,
00:02:25.620 this is for the birds. As soon as I started it, I was like, why would anyone, why would anyone do this?
00:02:31.000 Maybe this is something that is like you're good at. And maybe it is like soothing for you to do
00:02:36.800 something that was kind of mindless. It wasn't mindless for me. It actually took a lot of
00:02:40.140 concentration. I was bad at it. And it didn't look good. So I didn't have like a pretty baking
00:02:44.780 picture that I usually try to post. I'll post the recipe for that maybe on Instagram because some of
00:02:52.740 you were asking about it. I don't think that I'm going to be able to match the first baking endeavor
00:02:58.780 that I did of the summer, which was the peaches and cream. And now that recipe, I don't know if I
00:03:04.140 can post because it's my grandmother's recipe. I don't know if I can call it a secret recipe.
00:03:08.700 But I just don't know if I feel comfortable like giving it to the world. You know what I'm saying?
00:03:12.540 And so let me know what you think that I should bake this coming weekend and post of that. Although
00:03:19.440 I will say that today I am trying to eat less sugar starting today. And I am addicted to sugar. I
00:03:26.500 realized this about myself. It's really hard for me to cut back on it. I love sugar. I love sweets. I love
00:03:32.840 carbs. I love all different forms of sugar. And so I'm trying to cut back. So maybe if you can
00:03:37.940 recommend, I don't know about a sugar-free dessert. That doesn't sound good. But maybe
00:03:41.360 something that's a little bit healthier for me to bake this weekend. I would love your
00:03:45.400 recommendation on that. All right. Now let's get into the first topic. And that is this contraception
00:03:50.940 bill. You've probably seen a lot of propaganda on social media, in particular Instagram. I always say
00:03:57.240 that white woman Instagram is one of the worst places in the world. It's filled with so much
00:04:01.880 misinformation because we have these influencers and authors and self-empowerment, self-love,
00:04:09.480 new age gurus that also double as political commentators who are constantly posting these
00:04:17.980 infographics telling you about a certain piece of legislation or a certain news story. And it's
00:04:24.980 always wrong. It's always wrong. It always leaves out the correct information, the correct perspective,
00:04:31.060 or the other side of the story. I'm talking about Glennon Doyle. I'm talking about Jen Hatmaker.
00:04:35.600 I'm talking about even though I wouldn't necessarily put this person in that category,
00:04:40.560 but Chelsea Handler. Chelsea Handler is one of the biggest purveyors of political misinformation
00:04:45.820 that exists. She put out this video over the weekend saying, how could you ever vote for
00:04:51.600 Republicans? They just voted against access to contraception. They voted against codifying
00:04:56.200 interracial marriage. We talked about that whole myth last week. So go back and listen to that
00:05:00.900 episode. I think it was Thursdays. We can link it in the description of this episode. But she is
00:05:06.620 pushing this idea that Republicans, they not only want to ban abortion, but they also want to ban birth
00:05:14.120 control in contraception. And obviously, that's just not true. And we'll get into why in just one second.
00:05:31.760 All right, this contraception bill, which is called the Right to Contraception Act, is already passed
00:05:37.300 the House of Representatives, which of course, the Democrats have the majority there. So that's not so much
00:05:42.380 of a surprise. It faces an uncertain fate in the Senate. It probably won't pass in the Senate.
00:05:47.240 And I will tell you why. So here is what the bill, H.R. 8373, says that it does to protect a person's
00:05:55.020 ability to access contraceptives and to engage in contraception and to protect a healthcare provider's
00:06:00.580 ability to provide contraceptives, contraception and information related to contraception. Maybe that
00:06:07.340 sounds pretty innocuous. But the first question that you should ask yourself is, is this actually
00:06:12.500 necessary? Are people being blocked from accessing contraception? I actually saw it was Representative
00:06:19.480 Nancy Mace from South Carolina. She said that her state is about to pass a bill or is looking at a
00:06:26.920 bill right now that is restricting contraception in her state. And so I looked up the details of this
00:06:33.520 because I wanted to see what the bill was, what it said. And unfortunately, I couldn't find any
00:06:37.500 information on it. What I found is that in the state of South Carolina, they just a few weeks ago
00:06:42.380 made it easier for people to get birth control that actually you don't even need a doctor's
00:06:47.620 prescription in South Carolina now in order to get birth control. So I'm not really sure what
00:06:53.360 Representative Nancy Mace is talking about. She is also one of the one of the only Republicans,
00:06:59.820 one of eight Republicans in the House of Representatives to vote for this so-called
00:07:04.740 right to contraception act, which was authored by the Democrats. Why is that a problem? Why did these
00:07:13.220 eight? Why is it a problem that these eight Republicans voted? Yes. Why did the rest of the Republicans
00:07:17.900 vote? No. Well, National Review, John McCormick at National Review does a really good job of breaking
00:07:23.500 this down. So let me read a little bit of what he says in this article, which is titled Democrats
00:07:30.360 Contraception Bill Overrides Religious Freedom Law and Protects Abortion. Surprise, surprise. So it's not
00:07:36.760 really about just accessing contraception, which people are able to do already very easily in every
00:07:43.540 state. It's actually about overriding religious freedom and protecting abortion, which is something,
00:07:49.400 of course, two goals that Democrats are very fiercely intent on on pursuing. So he says this
00:07:57.740 Dems are rushing toward a vote. Democrats are rushing toward a vote on a bill this week that would
00:08:02.560 establish a nationwide right to receive and distribute any drug that may act as a, quote,
00:08:07.620 contraceptive, superseding the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The Religious Freedom Restoration
00:08:12.940 Act is a 1993 law that establishes a balancing test for courts to use when deciding religious liberty
00:08:19.040 cases involving federal laws and regulations. RFRA was overwhelmingly popular when it passed in the
00:08:25.020 House on a voice vote. It was actually sponsored by then Congressman Chuck Schumer, Democrat from New
00:08:30.500 York, and passed the Senate on a 97-3 vote in 1993. But since then, Democrats have turned against
00:08:35.960 the law. So that should also tell you, you hear constantly from the left, oh, Republicans have become
00:08:41.000 so extreme. They've become they've gone further to the right. We're turning into this Christian
00:08:45.280 nationalist hellscape. No, every single data point, every single statistical indication that
00:08:51.360 we have, even anecdotal information that we have shows us that it is Democrats that have moved to
00:08:57.420 the left dramatically over the past 30 years. It is not that Republicans have changed very much.
00:09:03.260 Democrats appear to be taking a page from their 2012 playbook, McCormick writes in National Review,
00:09:08.440 picking a fight over religious liberty in order to portray Republicans as opposing the legal right to
00:09:13.200 contraception. That is why, as we talked about last week, Democrats are pushing bills like this,
00:09:18.160 bills to codify Obergefell, to codify gay marriage and include interracial marriage for
00:09:24.860 some reason in there. It's just wild. And they're pushing this bill, the right to contraception,
00:09:31.420 as if that is something that is that is at risk of that people are at risk of losing. It's because
00:09:38.120 they are trying to portray Republicans as against these things, and they are packing the bills
00:09:43.080 with these poison pills that they know Republicans are going to be against so they can turn around
00:09:48.140 to their uninformed constituents or misinformed constituents, I should say. And they know the
00:09:53.800 media is going to carry water for them in doing this and say, look, Republicans are against
00:09:58.160 contraception. Republicans are against interracial marriage. Republicans are against liberty. They're
00:10:03.460 against all these things. They're trying to take us back to the 1950s when really they know that they
00:10:08.120 are including things in these bills that no conservative would stand for, like the overriding
00:10:12.920 of religious liberty. So here's one part that I think is really disturbing, although not surprising.
00:10:19.600 The Democrats' right to contraception act explicitly condemns state conscience laws that protect
00:10:25.640 health care providers who refuse to offer contraception, a term that the bill says includes
00:10:31.220 sterilization procedures. So what does this mean? If you've got a Catholic hospital, for example,
00:10:37.060 that does not provide birth control and will not perform sterilization procedures because it's
00:10:44.620 against their theology, it's against their sincerely held beliefs, this law tries to override that. It
00:10:50.140 says, no, actually, you have to provide contraception. Actually, you have to perform these sterilization
00:10:55.380 procedures on these patients if that is what they want. It doesn't matter what your religion says.
00:11:01.440 It doesn't matter what your theology is. Even for an individual doctor, an individual doctor is pro-life
00:11:07.480 and it is against their sincerely held beliefs to prescribe certain things or to perform certain
00:11:14.360 procedures. They're not going to stop their patient from being able to receive that in another way,
00:11:18.420 but they personally are not going to be able to act upon that without violating their conscience.
00:11:23.120 This law says too bad. You've got to give birth control, even though birth control pills
00:11:27.860 have an abortifacient property in them in that they're not just necessarily stopping ovulation,
00:11:36.080 but they also have the possibility to kill a fertilized egg. We've talked about this a lot
00:11:40.560 in the past. We can link a past episode on that if you're interested in more information. But this law
00:11:45.800 is saying too bad. You can't have any moral or conscience objections or religious objections to these
00:11:51.580 that is then going to inform the actions that you take as a doctor. Also, a really disturbing part of
00:11:58.920 this is that the bill states that a person with no minimum age listed has a statutory right under this
00:12:05.580 act to obtain contraception and sterilization. And so a minor could go to one of these places,
00:12:13.220 could go to Planned Parenthood and say 13 years old, get birth control, try to find a way to get
00:12:20.220 sterilized and the parents would not have to provide any consent. Marjorie Dannen-Felzer,
00:12:27.800 who is president of Susan B. Anthony List, Pro-Life America, writes this,
00:12:32.660 because the definition of contraceptives in this bill is overbroad, it could mandate access to
00:12:38.560 abortion drugs. H.R. 8373 states that contraceptives include drugs, devices, or biological products
00:12:45.580 intended for contraception, whether specifically intended to prevent pregnancy or for other
00:12:50.140 health needs. This could include non-controversial applications of the drug, but it could also
00:12:54.880 include the use of the drug to induce abortion. What follows is that this bill would then require
00:12:59.400 the right to obtain a chemical abortion, the right to provide a chemical abortion, and would overturn
00:13:03.920 any law that regulates chemical abortion by singling it out. And so this is why Republicans voted against it,
00:13:13.260 because the bill can be used to force any organization or individual, health care provider,
00:13:18.060 including midwives, nurses, pharmacists, to provide contraceptives to whoever wants it, minor
00:13:22.520 or adult, no religious exceptions, tries to undermine the Federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993,
00:13:28.840 tries to undermine state-level Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, no protections or reporting requirements
00:13:34.360 for minors who may be forced to obtain contraception by abusers and or groomers.
00:13:41.720 So that is why Republicans voted against it. I would say that most Republicans believe in allowing
00:13:48.500 access to birth control, although, of course, Justice Thomas did call into question how the right of
00:13:56.940 birth control came into being. That doesn't mean that he's morally against birth control. It doesn't even
00:14:01.060 mean that he is against the legal ability to access birth control. And so Democrats could say, well,
00:14:07.480 because in his concurring opinion, Justice Thomas called into question the the reasoning of Griswold
00:14:16.100 v. Connecticut, then that's why we have to kind of codify this. That's why we have to put this into law.
00:14:22.560 But of course, they included all of these poison pills that they knew that Republicans wouldn't support.
00:14:26.780 And I'm very glad that Republicans didn't support it. And I'm very concerned that there were
00:14:30.640 Republicans who did. I'm very concerned that someone like Nancy Mace, Republican from South
00:14:35.640 Carolina, voted for this bill, knowing that it gets rid of conscience objections, knowing that it could
00:14:41.940 include the so-called right to a chemical abortion. Now, what Republican in her right mind, what true
00:14:48.560 conservative in her right mind would support something like that? That's really disturbing to me.
00:14:53.340 That's what happens when you are purposely trying to seem like you can kind of walk the line or you're
00:14:59.280 moderate or you're so logical and nuanced or whatever it is. You actually end up supporting
00:15:04.160 laws or supporting bills that are not pro-life, that are not conservative. And that would really
00:15:11.920 be detrimental to the very constituents that voted for you, especially the Christians, the Christian
00:15:18.200 doctors who don't want to prescribe, who don't want to perform these procedures. Very troubling,
00:15:23.160 Nancy Mace. Very, very troubling.
00:15:36.180 So the last thing that I wanted to say on this contraception bill, I wanted to give a little
00:15:40.040 bit of encouragement to you and just remind you, because I know it can be hard, like the post-Roe
00:15:44.800 propaganda that we're seeing of, well, Republicans want to ban abortion, but they also want to ban
00:15:49.720 birth control. So they're really just trying to force births. The extreme example that you are
00:15:57.180 hearing of some random young girl in Indiana having to not being able to get an abortion or the stories
00:16:06.500 that you're hearing of doctors violating the laws by not caring for their patients who have ectopic
00:16:15.000 pregnancies or miscarriages. It's really hard. We're going to be constantly bombarded
00:16:19.700 with this kind of stuff from now until November. So my encouragement to you, whenever you hear
00:16:24.780 something, a headline, and this goes for the left or the right, but because most of the media is
00:16:31.080 dominated by left-wing ideology, I think it especially applies here. Whenever something sounds
00:16:36.940 too good to be true or too bad to be true when it comes to how conservatives are being characterized,
00:16:44.140 always stop, take a step back, and ask some questions. Ask the basic question, is this really
00:16:50.240 true? And then ask, how do you know? Read through the article. Try to discern the biases that are being
00:16:56.160 put forth. Try to break down the language that is being used. Ask yourself what information is being
00:17:01.840 left out. If you see, for example, a story of a woman who wasn't able to be treated for a miscarriage
00:17:09.800 in Texas because of the Texas law, go read the Texas law. You will see that the Texas law makes
00:17:15.740 an exception if the doctor believes that there is a medical emergency, not even just for the life of
00:17:21.000 the mother, but if the doctor believes that there is a medical emergency, also explicitly excludes care
00:17:26.680 for miscarriage or ectopic pregnancies in the Texas law. And so make sure that you know the facts.
00:17:33.380 Make sure that you are reading these bills and these laws for yourself so you can combat the
00:17:37.740 misinformation. And even if you don't have the information to combat the misinformation,
00:17:42.720 just start by asking some critical questions. That's something that unfortunately does not
00:17:47.360 happen on social media. You're probably seeing a lot of your friends very uncritically share these
00:17:52.820 headlines and share these stories without asking any questions whatsoever, including when it comes to
00:17:57.160 the contraception bill. But God gave you a mind. He gave you a mind to think. He gave you the ability
00:18:02.100 to ask questions. I get a lot of messages saying, can you break this down for me? Can you debunk
00:18:07.700 this? Which I'm happy to do? That is a huge chunk of what we do on Relatable, what I do on my Instagram
00:18:12.860 page. But do not underestimate your God-given ability and capacity to ask these questions and
00:18:20.300 to break things down and to debunk things for yourself. And always remember, Christian, that
00:18:26.980 abortion kills an innocent human being. Abortion kills an image bearer of God. And that is what we must
00:18:35.880 unashamedly push back against. You're going to hear the emotionalism from the other side, how
00:18:40.780 abortion must be a right because of XYZ. But look, abortion intentionally kills a human being. God
00:18:46.780 tells us not to murder. End of story. And we have compassion for the mother, but we also have
00:18:52.020 compassion for the child. And we don't sacrifice the physical life of the child for the needs or the
00:18:56.740 wishes of the mother. If the life of the mother and the life of the child are competing against each
00:19:02.120 other, then we do believe that the doctor should do everything possible to try to save both lives.
00:19:07.440 Unfortunately, sometimes early delivery is necessary to save the life of the mother. But we do not
00:19:12.300 believe in intentionally torturing, dismembering, and poisoning babies inside the womb. That's not a
00:19:19.200 radical position. That's a common sense and logical position. It's a compassionate one. It is also a
00:19:24.680 biblical one. All right, now I want to talk about monkeypox. And at the end, we're going to bring this
00:19:28.780 together because the subjects that we're talking about today, as I mentioned at the beginning,
00:19:33.440 do tie together and I think all speak to the same issue that we should be thinking through as
00:19:38.120 Christians. So monkeypox, we are being told by the WHO that we all need to take very seriously.
00:19:43.360 The general population needs to take very seriously. We saw some stories over the weekend. There's
00:19:48.180 an infant that's been infected. There's been a toddler that's been infected that we've been told over
00:19:52.940 and over again that anyone can get monkeypox, that everyone needs to take it seriously.
00:19:57.160 There was a tweet by Alejandra Caraballo. She says today, this is July 23rd, a couple days ago,
00:20:04.600 the World Health Organization declared monkeypox a health emergency and emphasized the focus on
00:20:09.100 men who have sex with men. Given the climate in the U.S., this will lead to a dark place
00:20:13.020 with rampant homophobia resulting from this. We have learned nothing from HIV AIDS.
00:20:19.520 Devda Padanake says monkeypox spreads from body fluid to body fluid via rashes, but people are
00:20:25.360 focusing on male to male transmission just as they did with HIV AIDS in the early 90s. Homophobia is
00:20:30.600 widespread even among scientists, forget usual suspects, media. How you report reveals your
00:20:37.500 bigotry. So this is a very common sentiment that you are seeing on Twitter. My friend, Bethany Mandel,
00:20:44.800 she tweeted last week, she quote tweeted like a, it was like a picture of people waiting in line to get
00:20:51.220 the monkeypox vaccine. They all had their masks on. And she said, wow, thousands of people are
00:20:56.880 waiting in line for a vaccine that they could for a disease that they could just avoid by not having
00:21:04.300 sex with multiple people. She didn't mention anything about homosexuality. She didn't mention
00:21:10.040 anything about gay men. And she was just absolutely dragged. She was dragged through the mud by people
00:21:14.280 on Twitter. I think I mentioned this briefly last week by people calling her homophobic, people calling
00:21:19.140 her bigot, even people who are conservative saying that she is being like stuck up in her heterosexuality.
00:21:26.220 I mean, it was just it was just wild because what she is saying is actually factually true. This is not
00:21:31.940 a concern in general for the general population. And here's how we here's how we know this. So the New
00:21:37.480 England Journal of Medicine released a study last week saying this monkeypox virus infection in humans
00:21:43.860 across 16 countries from April to June 2022. 98% of infected people were gay or bisexual men. 96% gay men,
00:21:53.040 2% bisexual men. 75% of infected people were white. 41% of infected people had HIV. 32% reported
00:22:02.960 attendance at a sex on site event in the previous month. The median age was 38 median number of sexual
00:22:09.840 partners in the previous three months. Five. Minimum was three. Max 15 in three months. Wow.
00:22:18.920 Transmission suspected to have occurred through sexual activity in 95% of the cases. No deaths were
00:22:25.240 reported. Also, there were no women in this report who had gotten who they saw as being infected with
00:22:36.020 monkeypox. And yet we are being told by Twitter warriors, by journalists, by public health experts
00:22:43.040 with blue checks on Twitter that anyone can get it. Everyone needs to be worried about it. I just
00:22:48.380 heard a story from a friend this morning who the mom of someone that they know at their pediatrician's
00:22:55.440 office went to the pediatrician to ask about a monkeypox vaccine. This is an STD. This should be
00:23:02.660 regarded as an STD. I know some people are saying it's not an STD, but when 95% of cases are to have
00:23:10.320 occurred through sexual activity, that is an STI. Sure. There, I mean, there are technically other
00:23:19.020 ways that you can get other kinds of STIs, things that we know to be STIs, but you can get in some kind
00:23:26.060 of like rare occurrence, rare way through having contact with the person's bodily fluids without having
00:23:31.720 sex. That doesn't make them not STIs. The only reason people are denying this is because they're
00:23:36.880 scared of homophobia. They're scared of stigma. But look, when this is affecting predominantly one
00:23:43.560 community, if you say that you care about that community, if you want to save them the pain that
00:23:50.160 comes with monkeypox, then maybe you should just talk plainly about this. There were these two threads
00:23:55.820 over the weekend. One of them was by this guy who worked for the Open Society, which is George Soros'
00:24:02.060 organization, a Swedish guy who talked about how getting monkeypox was so painful. But he had just
00:24:09.340 attended an orgy and had sex with like 15 guys, and he believes that he got it from there. And then
00:24:16.060 there was this other horrible thread, and I won't even get into the details of it because I didn't know
00:24:19.800 that some of these things existed, and it's really, really, really disturbing. But this guy
00:24:23.560 talks about getting monkeypox, and it was because he had attended two orgies recently. And if you
00:24:30.900 criticize this, if you say, hey, maybe like you shouldn't, maybe monogamy is better, or like maybe
00:24:37.220 you shouldn't engage in this kind of behavior, you're called a homophobe. You're called a bigot.
00:24:41.140 Not that I think anyone should even care about being labeled those names because they've just lost
00:24:46.120 all meaning because the left just launches them totally indiscriminately at anyone that they disagree
00:24:50.540 with. But you're basically saying, if you're saying that, if you're saying that it is bigoted
00:24:57.240 to say, oh, maybe you shouldn't like attend gay orgies when there is a pretty serious disease going,
00:25:03.600 at least when there's a pretty serious disease going around at these orgies. If you're saying
00:25:08.260 that that is homophobic, then you're saying that that kind of lifestyle, that having that many sexual
00:25:13.360 partners and being that promiscuous is so integral to homosexuality, that to criticize that
00:25:19.920 is to criticize homosexuality itself. I mean, that's a really big tell. That's a really big
00:25:25.300 tell. So Benjamin Ryan, he wrote for the Washington Post. He is he's been covering infectious disease
00:25:33.460 and LGBTQ health for two decades. He contributes to the New York Times, NBC News. He wrote for the
00:25:39.620 Washington Post that we are being misled about monkeypox. And he argues that gay men need the
00:25:45.540 unvarnished truth about the threat that monkeypox is and that we should try to lose the shroud of
00:25:53.080 political correctness and the concern about stigma and just talk about what is actually true. So he
00:26:00.480 says this, quote, anyone could get monkeypox. Countless public health experts have uttered statements such
00:26:06.060 as this in the past two months. Members of the media and politicians have parroted the message.
00:26:09.620 This broad strokes maximum maxim that everyone on Earth is susceptible to this viral infection
00:26:15.800 might be factual on its surface technically, but it is so egregiously misleading, he says,
00:26:21.360 that it amounts to misinformation. He says epidemiology is less concerned with whether
00:26:26.220 someone could contract an infection. Instead, much more vital questions focus on which groups of
00:26:31.140 people are most likely to be exposed. He said public health leaders are prioritizing fighting stigma over
00:26:38.540 their duty to directly inform the public about the true contours and drivers of this global outbreak.
00:26:43.900 Why do we trust any of these organizations or institutions anymore? I mean, this is really
00:26:48.500 actually dangerous. Wouldn't it be great to have public health institutions that we can trust,
00:26:54.380 that we know is actually going to tell us the truth? Of course, we learned how untrustworthy
00:26:58.620 they are during COVID, but now we're just seeing it again that they don't actually care about health.
00:27:04.260 This is also how progressivism destroys institutions. An uncomfortable truth, he says,
00:27:11.260 one documented and peer-reviewed papers is that sexual behaviors and networks specific to gay
00:27:15.560 and bisexual men have long made them more likely to acquire various sexually transmitted infections
00:27:21.380 compared with heterosexual people. Huh. This includes not only HIV, but also syphilis, gonorrhea,
00:27:26.820 chlamydia, hepatitis B, and sexually transmitted hepatitis C. Global public health experts agree that
00:27:32.480 skin-to-skin contact in the context of sexual activity between men has been the principal driver
00:27:36.440 of the monkeypox outbreak, at least thus far. Sadly, state and local public health departments
00:27:42.320 in the United States are failing to report the CDC vital demographic details about people diagnosed
00:27:47.380 with monkeypox because they're scared of stigma. I mean, really, how is this not hate towards this
00:27:53.400 group? How is this not hate? Because you're not willing to inform them and tell them the truth.
00:27:58.240 This stymies the nation's capacity to respond to the outbreak with impactful interventions such as
00:28:02.660 targeted vaccines and to promote health equity. So the truth always gets in, the truth always gets
00:28:10.880 in the way of whatever the left's primary goals are. In this case, their primary goal is to eliminate
00:28:16.920 stigma. When it was COVID, their primary goal was to take control. And so the data is always so muddled.
00:28:26.460 We can't actually ever get to the truth because they are so concerned with their political agenda
00:28:31.600 and being politically incorrect. But I will just say, and I know this is controversial,
00:28:37.500 but I mean, he's talking about some controversial and uncomfortable truths about the diseases that
00:28:41.900 are more prevalent among this community. And I will just say it is almost like it's almost like the
00:28:47.660 creator of the universe and the creator of human beings is made in the image of God knew what he was
00:28:52.780 talking about when he directed man and woman to preserve sex for marriage between man and woman.
00:28:59.600 It's almost like he knew what was good for us. It's almost like he directed that not because he is
00:29:03.700 hateful or not because he wants to rob us of good things, but actually because he wants to give us good
00:29:09.900 things. So maybe God's directions, maybe God's definitions, maybe God's parameters are actually for
00:29:15.980 our benefit, not just for our, not just for our spiritual health, but also for our physical
00:29:23.760 health. First Corinthians 619. We read this a lot. Or do you not know that your body, Christian,
00:29:30.280 is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God? You are not your own for you are
00:29:37.660 bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. Christianity actually cares very much about the body.
00:29:43.180 We believe that there will be, that we will be raised in new heavenly bodies. Jesus Christ became
00:29:49.860 flesh and dwelt among us. Some people believe that Christianity is just, we're all just sex negative.
00:29:57.260 The reason that we believe in preserving sex for the context of marriage between a man and a woman is
00:30:03.660 because we're just repressive and we don't like the body and we don't believe in physical desire.
00:30:08.020 That's not true at all. Actually, Christianity cares very much about the body. We care very much
00:30:13.160 about biology. We care very much about sex. We think sex is a wonderful thing, but we also believe
00:30:18.580 that the God who created these things has proper context for them and that the smartest thing that
00:30:23.420 we can do, the wisest and the most compassionate thing we can do both for ourselves and for each
00:30:27.440 other is to follow the design that God gave us in these things. But obviously not everyone is going
00:30:33.820 to believe that. Not everyone is going to follow that design. So as it is, we have communities who are
00:30:39.820 having orgies, who are having unprotected sex with multiple men on a weekly basis who are
00:30:45.640 spreading monkeypox. And if you care about this group, no matter what you think about the behavior
00:30:50.540 that they are engaging in, they deserve the truth about this. Unfortunately, when you don't have the
00:30:56.700 Christian perspective of seeing human beings as made in the image of God, as seeing them as valuable,
00:31:01.160 you actually do allow things like political correctness and political agendas to blind you to reality and to
00:31:07.460 inhibit you from being able to speak the truth about these things.
00:31:21.080 All right. If you're not getting your meat from Good Ranchers, you might have to start eating
00:31:24.980 bugs sometime soon because this is being pushed on us constantly. And it's really freaking weird.
00:31:31.700 Like it really actually disturbs me. I had some friends that went to Mexico recently and they were
00:31:36.220 actually like crickets on the menu, which I know. I know millions of people, millions of people
00:31:41.420 every day eat bugs. But that is not something we typically do in the West because we have the
00:31:47.800 luxury of livestock and we eat things like beef and chicken. And we just don't typically eat bugs.
00:31:56.240 And they went to Mexico and they actually have like crickets with their guacamole. It's just too much for me.
00:32:01.180 Well, the push to eat more insects in the West has been going on for a little while now.
00:32:07.860 Let me read you some some headlines, some recent headlines about this.
00:32:11.380 This is Tasting Table. Why Europeans may soon begin eating more insects in Europe.
00:32:17.100 Crickets, mealworms and grasshoppers were officially certified as safe to be eaten by humans in 2021.
00:32:23.460 The Guardian. If we want to save the planet, the future of food is insects.
00:32:26.960 Companies are using powdered insects in some of their products. You have to be careful.
00:32:31.200 Look at the ingredients if you don't want to be eating them.
00:32:33.620 A British company is making a milk substitute called Intomilk from black soldier fly larvae.
00:32:39.200 I want to barf. Time magazine. They're healthy. They're sustainable. So why don't humans eat more bugs?
00:32:44.760 So Time magazine is advocating for insects as an alternative source of protein for people in places without a lot of food diversity.
00:32:51.600 The U.N. Secretary General Special Envoy for the 2021 Food Summit said insects are 60 percent dry weight protein.
00:32:58.460 I mean, honestly, why wouldn't we use them?
00:33:00.860 The BBC. Why I prefer eating grasshoppers to beef.
00:33:04.500 Sure you do.
00:33:06.320 French restaurant serves up food of the future.
00:33:08.840 This is, according to VOA News, taking advantage of the new EU bug consumption approval.
00:33:18.000 A prawn salad with yellow mealworms.
00:33:21.580 Insects on a bed of vegetables.
00:33:23.040 Grasshoppers covered in chocolate.
00:33:25.180 No, no, no, no.
00:33:27.420 Here is 2018 Vanity Fair.
00:33:30.340 Nicole Kidman saying that she is a huge fan of eating bugs as well.
00:33:35.200 I am here to reveal my hidden talent, eating micro-livestock cornworms.
00:33:41.840 They're still alive.
00:33:47.020 Oh, you can hear the crunch.
00:33:50.540 She doesn't look like she's enjoying it at all, actually.
00:33:53.440 I mean, she's an actress, and even I didn't buy that.
00:33:56.580 She also ate some other things after that.
00:33:58.820 Still alive?
00:34:00.220 Why?
00:34:01.140 Why?
00:34:01.880 So, well, I'll tell you why.
00:34:03.720 I'll tell you what they say is why.
00:34:06.940 Because they believe it's sustainable, it's good for the climate.
00:34:09.720 Now, what do I mean by that?
00:34:11.040 They believe that eating meat, we've heard this for a long time, is bad for the climate.
00:34:15.020 That's why you've got Bill Gates, who is investing in all of these, like, beyond meat companies
00:34:20.680 that make synthetic meat, which is so bad for you.
00:34:23.340 Like, it's so much soy, which is especially bad for men.
00:34:27.160 It's terrible for you.
00:34:28.560 And they're not sustainable, by the way.
00:34:30.620 Like, it takes a lot of energy.
00:34:36.560 It creates a large carbon footprint, if you will, not that I really care about that.
00:34:40.980 But to create these synthetic meat products that are vegan, they are not good for you
00:34:46.180 at all.
00:34:47.500 But the climate change activists, including everyone at the World Economic Forum, they
00:34:52.240 believe that eating meat is bad for the climate.
00:34:54.200 Cows emit methane, a greenhouse gas, and they say that's damaging to the environment.
00:34:58.280 And that's partly why you're seeing what we talked about last week, that farms are being
00:35:02.900 shut down and property seized from farmers in places like the Netherlands.
00:35:05.920 I mean, you also have to wonder, we talked about this with Jackie Daly last week, if that
00:35:11.960 is also what is behind the series of very mysterious fires at these farms and these food plants that
00:35:18.140 we have seen over the past few months.
00:35:20.620 Humans are omnivores.
00:35:22.520 We really are supposed to eat everything.
00:35:24.300 And look, I know people who are vegan.
00:35:26.200 They're great people.
00:35:26.900 They're not some, you know, like, crazy animal worshippers.
00:35:30.780 They do it for health reasons.
00:35:32.160 Some people do it for ethical reasons.
00:35:33.880 They think it's wrong to kill animals.
00:35:36.480 That's fine.
00:35:37.220 I disagree with your contention about the morality of eating animals, but that's fine.
00:35:42.780 I don't think that it is wrong or immoral to eat vegan.
00:35:45.740 My mom, for health reasons, has been eating vegan for the past several weeks.
00:35:49.760 I'm super proud of her.
00:35:50.900 She's given up a lot of food that she really likes.
00:35:52.840 She's lost a lot of weight.
00:35:53.860 She looks amazing.
00:35:55.100 And so it's, you know, it can be good for either periods of time or maybe some people
00:35:59.700 commit to it for their whole life and they found that it's really good for them.
00:36:02.600 I'm fine with that.
00:36:04.080 But that doesn't change the fact that animal fat and protein is really good for you.
00:36:08.620 Insects will never provide what we get from cows and chicken and other animals.
00:36:13.060 Oh, and by the way, I wasn't saying that if you're vegan that you'll eat insects because
00:36:16.540 I'm guessing that if you're vegan, you won't eat insects either.
00:36:20.100 But they would prefer, the people in charge would prefer that we are vegan for the sake
00:36:25.400 of the environment.
00:36:26.240 I think that's fine.
00:36:27.940 But we have to have animals.
00:36:30.520 We have to have livestock and chicken and cows for everything that we need for our nutrients.
00:36:37.060 And also not just for that, but also we need the manure from these animals, from cows in
00:36:43.780 order to fertilize our crops to make the vegetables that they want us to be eating more of.
00:36:48.880 So if we cut the meat production, if we allow the government to continue to seize these farms
00:36:56.700 and property, if we demolish our farming and our ranching industries, not just in the United
00:37:02.320 States, but abroad as well, like people are going to starve because it's not just meat.
00:37:07.000 It's not just meat that you are losing.
00:37:08.840 It is also the other kinds of food that we eat that are fertilized by the manure from these
00:37:15.800 animals.
00:37:16.240 I mean, you are talking about mass starvation if they continue to try to push this stuff.
00:37:22.000 Insects are just not going to be able to replace everything that we get from these animals.
00:37:26.100 Now, from a theological perspective, it's not unbiblical to eat insects.
00:37:30.660 As I said, there are millions of people around the world, including Christians, that eat
00:37:35.940 insects on a daily basis.
00:37:37.220 Either they have to or they want to.
00:37:38.900 That's fine.
00:37:39.500 John the Baptist ate locusts, and we know that he was a holy guy who was dedicated to the
00:37:43.660 Lord.
00:37:43.940 So I don't think it is immoral, but to be forced to, based on the theory that doing so
00:37:49.820 is going to help the climate, is tyrannical nonsense.
00:37:52.780 It's dangerous.
00:37:53.740 It's going to hurt people.
00:37:54.960 It's going to hurt nations.
00:37:56.220 It's going to hurt economies.
00:37:57.700 Farmers are going to be out of jobs.
00:37:59.760 And we are absolutely allowed to eat meat, not just insects, but we are allowed to eat
00:38:07.660 meat biblically.
00:38:08.660 God says to Adam and Eve in Genesis 128, God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and
00:38:12.540 fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds
00:38:16.660 of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
00:38:21.260 So we are supposed to steward responsibly as we subdue the earth.
00:38:25.620 Now, a lot of leftists really don't like that.
00:38:27.840 They don't like the idea of human beings having dominion.
00:38:30.800 They don't like that idea of hierarchy.
00:38:32.740 They would like to believe that human beings really are just animals that were on the same
00:38:36.980 playing field and the same level of worth.
00:38:39.320 But we're not.
00:38:40.200 We are called to subdue and to steward the earth because we have authority over it.
00:38:44.640 And we're supposed to care for it well.
00:38:45.960 We're supposed to be compassionate for animals.
00:38:48.740 But we are not to be paranoid about climate change and we are never to sacrifice the immediate
00:38:55.800 needs of humans for the sake of greenhouse gas emissions or for the sake of making our
00:39:02.380 carbon footprint smaller or for the sake of protecting the lives of animals.
00:39:08.040 We're just not.
00:39:08.880 That's not the hierarchy that God set up.
00:39:10.600 That's not the stewardship responsibilities that he's given us.
00:39:13.060 And as far as climate change goes, I mean, obviously, there is a lot of debate.
00:39:18.480 There's a lot of debate out of the homogenous group of political activists that call themselves
00:39:24.580 climate scientists about what causes climate change, what human beings can do to actually
00:39:29.420 combat climate change.
00:39:31.020 But I always go back to Genesis 8, 21 through 22 and remind myself of the sovereignty of God,
00:39:35.960 which says,
00:39:36.420 The Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention
00:39:40.920 of man's heart is evil from his youth.
00:39:43.120 This is after the flood.
00:39:44.600 Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done while the earth
00:39:48.660 remains, while the earth remains, sea time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter,
00:39:52.980 day and night shall not cease.
00:39:56.380 Genesis 9, 3.
00:39:57.740 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you.
00:40:01.120 As I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.
00:40:05.140 So that would include insects, but that also includes our cows and our chickens and the
00:40:12.400 other things that we like to eat.
00:40:15.540 This is under the authority and the responsibility of human beings.
00:40:24.800 There was also, I think it's related, there was this New York Times article that came out
00:40:28.700 over the weekend titled A Taste for Cannibalism.
00:40:32.060 And the article argues that the time is now to start eating human meat.
00:40:39.700 The article says this, cannibalism is about consumption and it's about burning up from
00:40:43.760 the inside in order to exist.
00:40:45.460 Burnout is essentially over consuming yourself, your own energy, your own will to survive, your
00:40:50.400 sleep schedule, your eating schedule, your body.
00:40:54.580 And so basically what it sounds like is that cannibalism, which they are advocating for,
00:41:00.840 not just for sustainability and climate change purposes, but also for like self-rejuvenation
00:41:06.620 and restoration purposes, that it actually just is a part of a neo-pagan routine.
00:41:13.860 I mean, there is a movement in leftism, which I've talked about with James Lindsay before,
00:41:19.180 that glorifies like pre-civilization, that glorifies barbarianism, that glorifies paganism,
00:41:27.780 that actually believes that Western civilization has been exclusively bad and that we would all
00:41:32.820 be so much happier.
00:41:34.500 The environment would be better.
00:41:35.760 The earth would be better.
00:41:36.840 Human beings would be more peaceful.
00:41:38.260 If we went back to the time before there was civilization, before there was conquest,
00:41:42.740 before there was imperialism and colonialism and all of these things that they say have
00:41:48.140 only caused evil and bad in the world.
00:41:51.300 And of course, it is a rewriting of history.
00:41:53.880 If you look back at the Aztecs, if you look back at the Native Americans, how violent their
00:42:00.920 tribes were, how violent their religions were, how violent and short and brutal their lives
00:42:07.400 were, because of these kinds of beliefs, because of these kinds of routines, again, a complete
00:42:13.400 disregard for the worth of human beings, no one wants to go back there.
00:42:17.860 The only reason that we are civilized, the only reason for Western civilization, the only
00:42:23.340 reason for the idea of rights, the only reason that we do scoff at the idea or we're disgusted
00:42:29.740 by the idea of cannibalism, the only reason why there is any kind of hatred towards something like
00:42:37.540 murder or theft or assault is because of the Christian worldview.
00:42:41.740 And I know people say, no, it's just common sense.
00:42:44.340 No, people would be against hurting other human beings, even if it weren't for Christianity.
00:42:49.420 But that's just not true.
00:42:50.700 That is one thing that makes Christianity stand out is this concept of being made in the image
00:42:55.980 of God.
00:42:56.660 And look, you get rid of that, you get rid of that concept.
00:42:59.500 And that's when all rights start going out the window, because if there is no greater
00:43:03.320 authority than the government that gives us our rights and says that we are worth something
00:43:07.780 that says that we have innate value, then of course, the government will be given the responsibility,
00:43:12.860 the power to give and take away those rights arbitrarily as they see fit.
00:43:17.720 If we really are all clumps of matter, if we really are just accidental balls of cells that
00:43:23.840 happen to wind up here, then why shouldn't you promote cannibalism?
00:43:29.200 Like, why shouldn't you be OK with abortion?
00:43:30.960 Why shouldn't you be OK with murder?
00:43:32.640 Why shouldn't you be OK with assault?
00:43:34.440 Why shouldn't you be OK with mass starvation of people by taking away one of their main sources
00:43:41.040 of protein and nourishment, which is meat?
00:43:45.940 Why shouldn't you be OK with lying to people about the dangers of monkeypox?
00:43:50.780 Why shouldn't you be OK with all of the assaults on humanity and on the value of life, on the
00:43:59.100 existence of life?
00:44:00.620 Why shouldn't you be OK with depopulation measures that we are seeing come from the people at the
00:44:07.600 World Economic Forum?
00:44:09.400 Christianity is in direct opposition, is in direct opposition to the ideology of progressivism,
00:44:16.320 which sees us all as cosmic accidents and does not ascribe to us any innate value.
00:44:23.640 And that is really the worldview that we are seeing behind all of the stories that we talked
00:44:28.740 about today.
00:44:29.680 A degradation of human beings, a perspective of human beings as a debit to the world, as people
00:44:36.640 who take away from the world, who contribute to climate change and who take away our resources
00:44:47.820 and who weigh us down are really burdens on society rather than the Christian view of human
00:44:54.140 beings as a credit, as an asset.
00:44:57.220 And really, I mean, the whole idea of like the Malthusian catastrophe, which has been debunked for
00:45:02.940 a really long time, that we are going to get overpopulated, and that all of our resources
00:45:07.240 are going to be stripped, and we have to depopulate in order to save the world.
00:45:12.780 I mean, that is not only dangerous, it's just factually untrue.
00:45:16.320 The reality is, is that we need much, we need many more people than we have right now.
00:45:20.700 That's something that Elon Musk talks about a lot.
00:45:23.660 And the more people we have, the more innovation we have.
00:45:27.480 Because humans aren't just these vegetables who come on the scene and they take the resources.
00:45:34.960 There, of course, are people like that who just take and they never give.
00:45:38.900 But human beings are also very innovative.
00:45:40.880 They're very creative.
00:45:42.220 They're very inventive.
00:45:43.600 They are constantly coming up with more effective and efficient ways to care for people, to feed
00:45:48.760 people, to sustain people.
00:45:50.900 That is the Christian view of human beings.
00:45:52.940 It's not just innately valuable, but also capable of great and wonderful things that
00:45:58.780 can contribute to the world and can help us sustain ourselves, sustain our communities
00:46:07.580 and our countries.
00:46:09.160 That is directly opposed to the anti-human, the anti-natalist, the anti-image of God perspective
00:46:16.720 that we are constantly seeing pushed by the left that I believe is undergirding all of
00:46:22.020 the stories that we talked about today.
00:46:24.460 All right.
00:46:24.980 That's all I've got time for.
00:46:27.000 We'll be back here tomorrow.
00:46:28.180 We've got lots of good, lots of good episodes up our sleeve this week.
00:46:32.520 We've got lots of good interviews.
00:46:34.520 And I'm trying to get a debate for some time this week.
00:46:37.660 We'll keep you updated on that.
00:46:39.780 If you love this episode, please share it.
00:46:42.460 Tag me on Instagram.
00:46:43.920 Share it on Twitter or text it to your friends.
00:46:46.980 Also, if you love Relatable, leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts or wherever
00:46:52.140 you listen.
00:46:52.980 I appreciate you guys so much.
00:46:54.540 See you guys back here tomorrow.