Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 719 ｜ Christians v. the State of Colorado… Again

00:00:00.000 Religious liberty is on the line once again in a Supreme Court case that is being argued

00:00:05.760 right now before SCOTUS, 303 Creative via Alinas. This is a Christian who is just trying to 1.00

00:00:14.680 represent her values in the workplace. This is a case to watch and to understand. So we will be

00:00:21.740 discussing that today. Also, some interesting, interesting components that I missed yesterday

00:00:27.160 from this whole Kanye story, some theological stuff, some cultish stuff. And so we will be

00:00:33.220 discussing that. And then I will also be touching on some interesting and very sad, disturbing aspects

00:00:39.220 of the story of the little girl in Texas who was murdered by a FedEx driver. I have some questions

00:00:46.100 and some recommendations for the state of Texas. This episode is brought to you by our friends at

00:00:51.160 Good Ranchers. Go to GoodRanchers.com and use promo code Allie. That's American Meat Delivered. 0.99

00:00:56.140 Go to GoodRanchers.com, promo code Allie.

00:01:07.540 All right, guys. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week. So much to talk about today.

00:01:12.400 Before we get into it, remember that we have amazing merch up for 20% off using promo code

00:01:20.140 Allie when you go to ShopBlazeMedia.com slash Allie. It's actually promo code Allie20. And we will link

00:01:29.720 it in the description of this episode. Also, I know that the large in the green, a thrill of hope

00:01:36.340 sweatshirt that you can see if you're watching on YouTube is sold out. And I don't know when that's

00:01:43.060 going to be coming back. It makes me very sad because that is the most popular item that we have.

00:01:47.900 But because I know a lot of you want a large in that, I asked you which color you would rather

00:01:54.320 have or you want in addition to the white one that we have. And most of you said navy. And so I think

00:02:01.360 we're going to put up a navy crew neck sweatshirt with that design on the back in a size large so you

00:02:08.500 can get it. I know it says on the website that it might take a week for you to get your sweatshirt.

00:02:13.220 People are getting it in like 48 hours. So you'll have plenty of time to wear it before Christmas.

00:02:18.260 And of course, you can get it after Christmas to relate a bros. Get your wife some merch from

00:02:24.000 relatable. She'll be really happy. Also, speaking of that, we can take down the graphic. Speaking of

00:02:30.420 that, we put up a poll on YouTube asking you guys what you would like to be called. I mean,

00:02:39.160 four and a half years later, I figured we should finally come up with something for listeners.

00:02:44.480 And most of you, I think the results of the poll were, I think it was Related Bells. Is that correct?

00:02:51.580 Can anyone tell me? 74 to 26 Related Bells. So it was Related Bells versus Related Gals. Related

00:03:01.000 Bells just kind of seems obvious. It dawned on me the other day, even though I kind of liked Related

00:03:05.900 Gals better. But the people have spoken. Related Bells and Related Bros. So here we are. Related

00:03:12.760 Bros. Get the Related Bell in your life. Some relatable merch for Christmas. She'll be happy 1.00

00:03:18.740 that you did. All right. Also, if you love this podcast, leave us a five-star review wherever

00:03:23.920 you listen and subscribe on YouTube if you haven't already. And it's end of year. And so I just kind of

00:03:30.200 like to do an audit of the podcast. The podcast has grown so much since last year, looking at our

00:03:35.680 numbers. But I always want to make sure that we are growing and that we are improving. I want to

00:03:40.840 make sure that I am serving my audience, the Related Bells and the Related Bros out there, 0.88

00:03:45.500 as best as I possibly can. That I am giving you the content that you are looking for specifically

00:03:49.900 when you come to my show. Relatable is very unique. As far as conservative podcasts go,

00:03:55.520 there's not another show out there that interweaves theology and politics in culture as heavily as we

00:04:06.800 do. There are a lot of conservative politics or conservative shows that will talk about politics

00:04:12.080 and will sometimes bring theology or God into it. There are a lot of Christian shows out there that

00:04:17.260 will sometimes bring politics into it and culture wars into it. But from the beginning, I have really

00:04:24.600 tried to have this be kind of a worldview podcast from a specifically, uniquely female Christian 0.93

00:04:33.960 conservative perspective. And the reason why it's called Relatable is because I am navigating the

00:04:40.200 chaos and the craziness and the confusion of this world, just like all of you, simply by using,

00:04:47.560 trying my best, of course, and perfectly to use the Word of God as our guide to make sense

00:04:52.220 of all of it. And what I love to hear from y'all is that it sounds like I'm sitting down and that

00:04:59.580 we're having a meal or that we're having a cup of coffee and that we're just talking about the

00:05:03.680 things that matter. That's what I've always wanted this show to be. And actually in 2023, we already

00:05:08.800 have some plans to make it even more that, if that makes sense. We're going to have some set plans,

00:05:15.720 some set changes rather, and a few things coming down the pipeline that I'm excited about. But as

00:05:21.680 far as content goes, I would love feedback from you guys. You can tell me in the YouTube comments.

00:05:26.480 You can send me a message on Instagram. You can send us an email and just say, Hey, I really like

00:05:32.340 when you do these kinds of episodes, or here's what I find so unique about Relatable that I wish you did

00:05:37.380 more. I wish you did more of this. I wish you did less of this. I really want to ensure that we are

00:05:43.300 always growing and always improving this in service to you guys. You guys are ultimately

00:05:50.680 my executive producers and I want to produce things of value for you. And so I don't take

00:05:57.920 it for granted at all that you guys are taking about an hour out of your day where you could be

00:06:02.380 doing a million other things to listen to this show. And that means so much to me. So just to ensure

00:06:09.420 that it is still worth your while, always please give me some feedback. I would love to hear it.

00:06:15.040 Maybe I'll post, I might post like a quiz, not a quiz, but a survey on Instagram and you guys can

00:06:23.160 respond to that. It would help us out. All right, before we get into some of the things today,

00:06:26.740 I did just want to do a follow-up quickly on yesterday's episode that we did breaking down

00:06:31.420 Kanye West breakdown. One of the things that he posted was, as I explained, a swastika within a

00:06:38.440 star of David. It was a picture of what looked like a design of that in Adobe Photoshop that he

00:06:43.900 posted. That ultimately is what got him kicked off Twitter. Now, some of you have pointed out to me

00:06:49.580 something that I did not realize, that the symbol that was posted is not something that Kanye West

00:06:55.300 created, but it is actually the symbol of a UFO-based religious movement called the Raylan Movement,

00:07:02.960 Intelligent Design for Atheists. Now, this is not something that I, I don't think that I have ever 0.99

00:07:09.760 heard of this before, but I looked it up and it was true. And actually, Snopes had covered it. So

00:07:15.580 I don't always rely on Snopes because I do think that they have a particular slant. But when it comes

00:07:21.580 to things like this, I think they're giving pretty interesting information. So they rate this claim

00:07:27.360 true. The tweet that got Ye suspended for incitement of violence actually contained a symbol

00:07:31.740 associated with the UFO-focused religion known as the International Raylan Movement. Ye did post the

00:07:38.440 symbol of a UFO-based religious movement containing both a swastika and a star of David, but he did so

00:07:44.420 without any additional context just hours after praising Adolf Hitler. So that is true. If you 0.98

00:07:49.420 listened to yesterday's episode, he did indeed say that he loves Hitler when he was on Alex Jones'

00:07:56.160 show. On December 1st, 2022, Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West had his Twitter

00:08:02.060 account suspended for what CEO Elon Musk described as a violation of Twitter's policies. So we explained

00:08:08.480 that yesterday. Here's how Snopes describes the Raylan Movement. It's a new religious movement

00:08:14.060 based on a belief in UFOs and extraterrestrial life. The movement was founded in 1976 in France.

00:08:20.660 So many weird things happened in the 60s and 70s in France. Thanks a lot to the French. That's just an 1.00

00:08:28.120 evergreen statement right there. An evergreen sarcastic statement. Thanks a lot to the French and to the 0.95

00:08:34.560 German for importing a lot of your crazy sexual ideas in the 60s and 70s. This is not a sexual idea, but 0.93

00:08:41.580 it's a weird, kooky religious movement that, of course, is because of the French in the 1970s. 0.97

00:08:46.660 So, Claude Vorilhon, born in France, claims that he encountered extraterrestrial

00:08:53.640 beings on the 13th of December 1973 and received a message for humanity stating that humanoid

00:09:00.260 extraterrestrials called Elohim came to Earth 25 years ago and created life with their ability to 1.00

00:09:06.040 control human DNA. Now, this is not that different from a conversation that we recently had with the

00:09:11.040 Nephilim, but about the Nephilim. Not with them. I have never talked to them. Vorilhon says that he was 0.86

00:09:17.660 told that humans were implanted on Earth by the Elohim, created in laboratories from the Elohim's DNA. 0.99

00:09:25.060 The Elohim gave Vorilhon the name Ra'ol, who brings the light of Elohim, or messenger of the Elohim,

00:09:33.240 and appointed him as their ambassador. So, that's interesting. His task is to warn mankind that

00:09:45.460 enter the age of the apocalypse after the first nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945.

00:09:55.120 Humanity was then at a point where it had to decide whether to destroy itself in a nuclear war or learn

00:09:59.520 to live together peacefully. So, I don't really know why, but they decided to trademark this symbol

00:10:08.160 of the swastika within the Star of David. Now, here is an interesting part of all of this. Well,

00:10:15.820 first of all, I do think it's interesting just to say that Elohim is a Hebrew word that denotes God or

00:10:24.820 a God. So, it's interesting that they took a Hebrew word, they put a swastika in the Star of David.

00:10:32.820 It's all very interesting. So, this actually, I wish I had known this yesterday because this makes

00:10:39.480 a lot, doesn't make sense, but it makes a lot of sense with what Kanye West, with what I said he posted

00:10:45.180 on Instagram about Elon Musk being a hybrid and thinking that he is not fully human, but that he

00:10:57.120 is like this super intelligent hybrid. And another part of this, because that's part of what Raylian

00:11:03.900 believes that some of these people exist, one of the Raylian leaders recently praised Elon Musk or said

00:11:13.640 something positive about Elon Musk. And also, people are linking this Raylian movement with Elon Musk

00:11:22.960 because of Elon's participation in the Neuralink thing, which is really like a microchip that is

00:11:30.280 implanted in someone's brain. Of course, they say that it can help with all different kinds of

00:11:35.380 neurological problems, but Elon Musk is a big backer of this. He is a big part of this. And so,

00:11:42.080 some people are saying that Kanye West was communicating about Elon Musk being a part

00:11:53.240 of this Raylian movement and that he is some kind of extraterrestrial hybrid, I guess.

00:12:03.980 And also, I think that he is trying to say, I told you I'm not an interpreter of Kanye West, but I think

00:12:13.660 he's saying that when he posted the Raylian symbol. And then when he posted a picture, as we said

00:12:19.100 yesterday, of Elon Musk with Ari Emanuel, who is someone who I think Kanye is saying has influence

00:12:26.780 over Elon Musk, who also happens to be Jewish, I think Kanye West is saying, this is my theory,

00:12:35.560 I think he is saying with all of these cryptic messages, that somehow the Jewish people, along

00:12:42.720 with this, like, Raylian belief of hybrids and not fully human elites have some sort of powerful cabal

00:12:54.380 to, I don't know what, but I guess to negatively impact people like Kanye West.

00:13:01.160 Oh, so I just wanted to piece that together. As I said yesterday, there are so many layers to this

00:13:11.440 story. And there's actually so much theology too. I mentioned yesterday, the Black Hebrew Israelites,

00:13:17.660 the Nation of Islam, how they also claim to be God's real chosen people and how the white Jews are 0.99

00:13:23.740 just frauds. But there's another theological aspect to this. James Cone, Black liberation theology. 0.98

00:13:32.800 It's very interesting. If you look at almost all Black left-wing theology, there is like an anti-Jewish

00:13:40.940 part of it. And I'm not saying that's exclusive to Black liberal theology. There are certainly different

00:13:46.300 parts of all different kinds of theology that have like an anti-Jewish strain in them. But it's

00:13:51.000 interesting. Like Nation of Islam, Black Hebrew Israelites. And then you have James Cone, who 0.93

00:13:57.600 said something that I think is similar to what Kanye West says when he says that Black people are the

00:14:05.400 real Jews. James Cone argued, he says, Jesus is Black because he was Jewish. So James Cone,

00:14:19.120 the father of Black liberation theology, a very far left Marxist, and I mean that in the literal sense,

00:14:25.280 theologian, false teacher, who did not believe in the saving grace of the gospel, who also said that

00:14:31.860 anyone who believes in a theology of liberation is his brother, including Malcolm X. So including

00:14:37.580 Muslims, he did not believe in that Jesus was the only way truth in the life. And yet still professing 1.00

00:14:43.320 Christians follow some teachings of James Cone. He said that Jesus is Black because he was Jewish.

00:14:50.580 And what he meant by that was that Jesus' oppression as a Jewish person parallels to the oppression of 0.71

00:15:01.160 Black people in the present day. And so he basically says that Judaism and Blackness is interchangeable

00:15:10.760 with oppression. And so the Jewish identity is not really, according to James Cone, about true ethnicity

00:15:19.680 or even about the fulfillment of prophecies or about a particular chosen people, but it's just about an

00:15:26.400 identification with oppression. And so that kind of goes along with something that Kanye West recently said

00:15:34.760 when he said Black people are the real Jews. In a sense, there are some people who ascribe to Black

00:15:41.260 liberation theology who believe that in the sense of oppression, that Black people are the quote-unquote

00:15:48.560 real Jews. So I doubt that Kanye realizes where all of his statements are coming from, but a lot of them 0.99

00:15:56.540 do come from different forms of Black supremacist theology, whether it's masquerading as Christianity,

00:16:02.560 like liberation theology, whether it looks like some form of Islam through Nation of Islam, whether it

00:16:09.400 looks through some perversion of Judaism through the Black Hebrew Israelites. These are all kind of 1.00

00:16:18.720 different doctrines that assert that Black people today, because of their oppression, are God's real

00:16:24.600 chosen oppressed people. And so, again, it doesn't happen in a vacuum.

00:16:31.560 There is a lot of theology, a lot of religion, a lot of worldview actually at play here. And I'm sure

00:16:38.100 a lot of pieces that I don't even fully understand. Anyway, I didn't even plan to follow up on that,

00:16:42.860 but I just thought that those were interesting pieces. And I know it's easy to just kind of dismiss

00:16:48.660 it as like, well, these are the rantings of a person with suffering from bipolar disorder. And I think

00:16:54.020 that that is true. I think that is true. I think it does seem like this was some kind of manic

00:16:58.780 episode. But like there are a lot of pieces here, I think, for people to think through and to

00:17:07.500 understand like how Kanye came to the egregious conclusions and statements that he has come to.

00:17:14.320 Okay, let's talk about this really important story about 303 Creative. So there is a Supreme Court case

00:17:31.880 right now, and it's titled 303 Creative v. Alinas. And this is how the Alliance Defending Freedom,

00:17:42.380 the group of attorneys that is defending 303 Creative. This is how they describe this case

00:17:50.620 that is ongoing right now. They're in front of the Supreme Court arguing in defense of Lori Smith,

00:17:56.500 the owner of 303 Creative. Smith specializes in graphic and website design and loves to visually

00:18:02.380 convey messages in every site she creates. She left the corporate design world to start her own small

00:18:07.100 business in 2012. So she could use her skills to promote causes consistent with her beliefs and

00:18:12.060 close to her heart, such as supporting children with disabilities, the beauty of marriage, overseas

00:18:16.460 missions, animal shelters and veterans. She was excited to expand her portfolio to create websites

00:18:22.640 that celebrate marriage between a man and a woman. But Colorado made clear she's not welcome 1.00

00:18:27.580 in that space. A Colorado law is censoring what she wants to say and requiring her 1.00

00:18:32.540 to create designs that violate her beliefs about marriage. She enjoys working with people from all

00:18:38.040 walks of life, but like most artists, can't promote every message. Her decisions about which projects

00:18:43.660 to design are based on what message she's being asked to express, not who requests it. After realizing

00:18:48.560 that Colorado was censoring her, and after seeing Colorado use the same law to punish masterpiece cake

00:18:54.840 shop owner Jack Phillips, she challenged the law to protect her freedom and her art studio. 0.99

00:19:01.220 So this is another case of the state of Colorado, what has become a very liberal state thanks to

00:19:07.900 the migration from blue states into what used to be a solidly red state Colorado. The activists who are

00:19:15.800 in the government there are using their power to crush the speech and the expression of the beliefs of

00:19:27.120 Christians. This is the same thing that they did to Jack Phillips. You'll remember Jack Phillips was the 1.00

00:19:34.540 cake shop owner who said he was not going to bake a cake for the marriage, so-called marriage, between

00:19:42.660 two men. He said, I'll bake you anything else. He's not refusing to serve them, but he is saying,

00:19:49.060 I'm not going to bake you that specific cake because that violates my conscience. End of story.

00:19:53.740 And any sane people would have said, you know what? That's fine. There are a lot of different cake

00:19:58.300 shops around here. We'll be happy to go somewhere else. Thanks for your time. They didn't. Like

00:20:03.340 psychopaths, like activists, like the malignant cancer that leftism is, they decided to sue him. They 0.99

00:20:11.680 decided to try to ruin his life. They decided to attack him and to drag him through court and to suck up 0.99

00:20:21.780 all of his time and resources with lawyers and with litigation, trying to force him to bake them a

00:20:29.760 cake that I guarantee they didn't even want anymore in order to make a point. And the state of Colorado

00:20:35.200 and the liberal activists in the state of Colorado were more than happy to oblige. And the Supreme Court

00:20:42.340 found that the lower courts had so mistreated Jack Phillips when he was in court that that alone,

00:20:54.220 that his treatment in court of how they talked to him, of how they compared his beliefs about marriage

00:20:59.620 to segregation and to Nazism, that that alone was a violation of his rights. And so the ruling on the

00:21:12.560 masterpiece cake shop, it was not broad enough to say, hey, you know what? This is protected speech

00:21:20.900 and he should be able to say and do whatever he wants. The state cannot compel him

00:21:26.020 to create a cake that he doesn't want to create. It was a very narrow ruling. And so now we've got

00:21:34.340 another designer, another artist in the state of Colorado going back to the Supreme Court,

00:21:39.780 hoping for an even better ruling that will truly protect the First Amendment rights of the First

00:21:47.080 Amendment rights of people, of individuals, of business owners. So here's how CBS is reporting this.

00:21:56.020 The Supreme Court's conservative bloc appeared sympathetic Monday to a Colorado graphic designer

00:22:00.500 who argues a state law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation violates her free

00:22:06.620 speech rights by forcing her to express a message that conflicts with her closely held religious

00:22:10.940 beliefs. I kind of hate the adjective that is so often used closely held religious beliefs. How are we

00:22:16.800 measuring that? If she has loosely held religious beliefs or those religious beliefs that are not

00:22:21.720 protected under the Constitution, if she's kind of wishy-washy on her beliefs, if she only reads the

00:22:27.760 Bible every other week, only goes to church once a month, but she still doesn't want to create 1.00

00:22:34.200 websites that are celebrating gay unions or transgenderism, does that mean that that's not

00:22:41.460 protected under the First Amendment? So I hate, I've probably said it before and I've stopped now

00:22:46.540 saying sincerely held or sincere beliefs or closely held religious beliefs. It is not up to the

00:22:54.220 Constitution, up to a lawyer, up to a judge to determine whether someone holds their theology

00:23:00.280 firmly enough for their religious beliefs and religious expression to be protected. I don't care

00:23:06.860 if she is deconstructing right now. Like if she believes that this violates her conscience, if it does

00:23:13.600 violate her conscience, if she doesn't want to do it, the state should not be able to compel her

00:23:18.200 to say or express something that she does not want to say or express. So it doesn't surprise me that

00:23:25.540 CBS describes closely held religious beliefs. I don't care if they're closely held. I don't care if they're

00:23:30.720 held a mile away. They are her religious beliefs and therefore they should be protected, period. You have a

00:23:37.220 First Amendment right to express your religious beliefs, to say what you want to say without the state forcing

00:23:46.560 you to say something or forcing you to express or to not express those religious beliefs. And that right

00:23:55.060 supersedes any desire that a person may have to get a certain cake or to have a certain person design a

00:24:04.880 certain website. You don't have a constitutional right to that. During oral arguments, CBS says,

00:24:10.820 in the case known as 303 Creative LLC v. Alinas, the court seemed to move closer to resolving a

00:24:16.980 question it has left unanswered since 2018 when it narrowly ruled in favor of a Colorado baker who

00:24:21.300 refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. Whether states like Colorado can, in applying their

00:24:26.500 anti-discrimination laws, compel an artist to express a message they disagree with. With the court's

00:24:31.880 conservative majority appeared prepared to find that Colorado cannot force web designer Lori Smith

00:24:36.500 to create websites for same-sex weddings, several recognize that there are differences between

00:24:40.620 artists who are conveying a message and vendors selling goods and services in the marketplace.

00:24:45.760 The case comes down to a fairly narrow question of how do you characterize website designers?

00:24:52.240 Are they more like the restaurants and the jewelers and the tailors, or are they more like publishing

00:24:56.880 houses and other free speech analogs that are raised on the other side? Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked.

00:25:03.400 Justice Amy Coney Barrett told Kristen Wagner, who argued the case on behalf of Smith, that she was

00:25:08.540 on strongest ground when talking about the uniqueness of the websites Smith makes and work that goes into

00:25:14.020 creating them. It's about the message, Barrett said, after posing a hypothetical scenario to Wagner

00:25:18.840 focused on whether Smith would design a site for a heterosexual couple getting married after

00:25:23.500 divorcing other people. Wagner said Smith likely would not. Well, I don't even like that. I'm sorry,

00:25:33.280 I don't even really like that hypothetical because it's not the same thing.

00:25:40.920 There are a thousand different scenarios that could justify, maybe not a thousand different

00:25:57.920 scenarios, but there are some scenarios that could justify a man and a woman divorcing, whether it was

00:26:04.440 for sexual immorality or whether it was for abuse, and say that woman, she went to go marry someone else. 0.87

00:26:10.600 And it was in line with the biblical commands about marriage and divorce, and Laurie Smith wanted to 0.98

00:26:17.340 make a website for them. Okay. And again, like, is the court really judging whether someone's theology

00:26:24.600 is entirely consistent? Like, based on what? To me, I mean, and obviously, I don't know as much as

00:26:33.360 Justice Amy Coney Barrett, but doesn't it simply come down to a person's beliefs, a person's religious

00:26:39.760 beliefs in the state not being able to decide what is sincere, what is not, what is an okay expression

00:26:48.400 of that speech? Of course, there are other laws on the books. I think Smith v. Employment Division

00:26:55.920 also kind of addressed that, that obviously there are limits to certain kinds of expression and speech,

00:27:02.240 but it's not here. This is not the line that we draw. So I don't know. I don't know if I really like

00:27:07.140 that hypothetical scenario, because I'm not sure if that makes enough of a difference, even if the

00:27:12.400 answer had been yes, that she would create a website design like that. Smith's stance could

00:27:17.280 violate Colorado's public accommodation law, which prohibits businesses open to the public from

00:27:20.960 refusing service because of sexual orientation and announcing their intent to do so. Smith, in turn,

00:27:25.320 argues that the law violates her First Amendment rights since the state is forcing her to express a

00:27:29.000 message she disagrees with. Exactly. Wagner told the court that Smith's speech has been chilled for six

00:27:34.120 years, and she has put on hold plans to expand her business to create custom websites for weddings

00:27:39.380 while her court fight played out. And of course, that is what the leftist activists want. Of course,

00:27:44.660 the people who asked her to design the website could have gone to someone else. There's a million

00:27:48.260 other people. That's remote work, by the way. You could have gone to anyone outside of the state of

00:27:52.980 Colorado. You could have gone to absolutely anyone to design your website, but they dragged her through

00:27:58.820 court. They cost her who knows how much money, who knows how much time, how many resources,

00:28:03.420 time that she could have been spent not just building her business, but with her family,

00:28:07.340 simply at peace. Because as I have said before, when leftists say live and let live, they are only

00:28:13.700 talking about you letting them live. They're not talking about the other way around. They don't want 0.96

00:28:19.260 to leave you alone. They don't really care about your sincerely held religious beliefs. They do not

00:28:25.580 really care about the separation of church and state when it comes to the state involving themselves

00:28:31.520 in the affairs of the church or in the lives of Christians. They believe in separation of church

00:28:37.140 and state, meaning that Christians should not allow their worldview to have a say in politics.

00:28:42.680 That's what they mean when they scream separation of church and state, that Christians, you shouldn't 1.00

00:28:47.140 vote in accordance to your conscience. You should simply allow the legal slaughter of children 0.99

00:28:51.680 up until nine months paid for by the taxpayer. Christian, you shouldn't allow your worldview to

00:29:00.000 determine how you vote on things like marriage or sexuality or gender or anything like that.

00:29:06.700 Progressives, secular progressives, think that they are the only ones who can allow their worldview

00:29:11.580 into the public dialogue, into public policy, into curriculum. They think that their worldview is the one

00:29:20.260 that should dominate and that if you speak up about your worldview, if you try to represent your faith,

00:29:25.360 your values at your business, at school, at the voting booth, then you're a Christo-fascist bigot.

00:29:31.540 It's all a manipulation game. It's projection. They just want to be the ones in charge and they don't

00:29:38.200 believe, just like all progressives for all of time, they don't actually believe in dissent.

00:29:44.340 They talk about democracy. They talk about freedom. They don't actually believe in these things.

00:29:49.920 Not the activist class. Not saying everyone who votes Democrat believes this, but I'm talking about

00:29:56.120 the leftists who control the party, who are in power, the activists who run a lot of these

00:30:04.600 organizations. They do not believe in your religious liberty. They do not believe in your free speech.

00:30:09.860 They do not believe in live and let live. They do not really believe in separation of church and state.

00:30:13.760 They very much want the state at their behalf to be involved in your schooling of your children,

00:30:22.500 in the doctrines that your church teaches, and what you're allowed to say, and how you conduct your

00:30:29.300 business. Just look at this case, look at the Jack Phillips case, and see that they believe that it is

00:30:36.600 worth it. To ruin your life until they can compel you to go along with their sexual preferences.

00:30:44.420 Not just go along with it, but to celebrate it and to compromise every belief that you have until you

00:30:51.260 comply with what they believe and how they live. So just remember, live and let live was a lie,

00:31:00.340 a manipulation tactic to make you shut up. And to make you believe that speaking up about what you

00:31:06.640 believe in and voting in accordance to your values is bigotry. That you, only you, conservative

00:31:14.180 Christian, you have to be the one to compartmentalize your faith. Secular progressives never do. 0.95

00:31:20.340 They allow it to inform corporate policy, again, curriculum, their vote, the laws that they

00:31:28.300 might be a part of drafting. They allow their moral compass, their worldview, to infuse every sphere

00:31:36.080 that they occupy. But you, conservative Christian, you apparently are the only one who is supposed to

00:31:40.960 check your worldview at the door. Because if you even speak up about what you believe in,

00:31:45.920 if you even try to represent your morality and your values in the public, well, that's imposition.

00:31:52.040 That's bigotry. That's fascism. That's theocracy. That's Christian nationalism. Scary. Don't buy it. 0.91

00:32:04.040 Don't buy it. If you believe, as I've said many times, that God created the heavens and the earth,

00:32:08.580 that is a total statement. That means you believe he created all of it. He is the authority over all of

00:32:14.040 it. And we, as ambassadors of that truth, have no choice, no logical choice, no theological choice

00:32:21.480 other than to live that out, to act like it, to vote like it, to speak like it, to think like it.

00:32:26.660 Of course, how you conduct your business must be in alignment with what you know God's Word says is

00:32:32.220 good and right and true. Of course it must. Of course that must be how you vote. Of course that must be

00:32:37.120 how you teach. Of course that must be how you raise your kids. Of course. We don't believe that the idea,

00:32:43.080 the belief that God is sovereign, that God is the creator, that God is the authority,

00:32:48.080 that he made all of this, that he says what is and what isn't, what's right and what's wrong,

00:32:51.780 what's good and what's bad, what's true and what's false can be compartmentalized. That doesn't even

00:32:54.860 make any sense. It's a manipulation tactic. And some people are paying the price of that tactic,

00:33:04.260 I mean, with their resources, with their lives. Now, let me keep going with what CBS is saying about

00:33:11.520 this because it's kind of interesting to see the other side or see the other side try to give some

00:33:17.340 kind of argument. The dispute before the Supreme Court pits the First Amendment right to free speech

00:33:23.500 against LGBTQ rights and state laws designed to protect from discrimination, a conflict that the

00:33:28.580 court has been asked to address before, but has declined to definitively resolve. And of course,

00:33:33.280 this was always going to be the case going back to Obergefell. Justice Thomas said that. Justice

00:33:38.100 Thomas said in his Obergefell dissent, which said that marriage between two men or two women is a

00:33:44.840 legal right. He said there is going to be a conflict between religious liberty and between this now

00:33:53.120 invented right of two men or two women to get married. That's going to cause problems in the future. 1.00

00:34:02.740 And he, of course, was right. It didn't take long at all. The complicating fact here is not a

00:34:07.820 hotel. Justice Clarence Thomas said, this is not a restaurant. This is not a riverboat or a train.

00:34:12.560 I'm interested in the intersection of public accommodation law and speech. The court's three

00:34:19.380 liberal justices, Alina Kagan, Katondi Brown-Jackson, and Sonia Sotomayor expressed deep concerns about

00:34:26.660 whether exempting Smith from Colorado's public accommodation law would open the door to businesses

00:34:31.280 denying services on the basis of race, ethnicity, or disability. If the court rules in her favor,

00:34:38.940 Jackson, the newest member of the Supreme Court and the first black female justice, wondered whether

00:34:43.460 a photographer seeking to depict Christmas scenes from the film It's a Wonderful Life could limit their

00:34:47.840 photography to white children. Sotomayor echoed that premise. What about people who don't believe in

00:34:54.300 interracial marriage and people who believe that disabled people shouldn't get married? They also

00:34:59.440 questioned Wagner about whether the websites should be considered Smith's speech or that of her

00:35:05.940 clients. I keep looking at all the mock-ups and all of them relate to what a couple is doing.

00:35:11.540 I don't understand. How is this your story? It's their story, Sotomayor said. Wagner, who heads the

00:35:17.440 group Alliance Defending Freedom, replied that the speech is still Smith's, comparing her service to the

00:35:22.700 work of a newspaper editor or ghostwriter. What matters is what the objection is that the speaker is

00:35:29.060 being asked to create. If you don't believe they should be telling their story and what they're

00:35:34.120 asking you to do is to tell their story, then you don't have to do that. Justice Gorsuch argued,

00:35:43.120 though, that it is not the people she is discriminating against, Smith is discriminating

00:35:48.560 against. It is, it's the message that she is discriminating against. So it's not like if a gay 0.75

00:35:55.180 person came to Lori Smith and said, hey, can you please make me a website about Christmas trees?

00:36:01.900 That she would say no. She is discriminating based on the message. And so that's the difference here,

00:36:08.220 is that she is not discriminating. This is not giving license to people to discriminate

00:36:12.520 against someone to say, you can't come in my business because you are Black or because you 0.60

00:36:17.940 have a disability. This is not about the people that she is working with. This is about the message 0.80

00:36:24.840 that she is being forced to convey. This is about her speech. This is about her religious expression.

00:36:31.260 So she is not discriminating against people. She is discriminating against messages, which is at the

00:36:37.660 core of the First Amendment that you get to discriminate against which messages you want to say.

00:36:43.720 That the state cannot tell you that, okay, if you want to talk, you have to say that two plus two

00:36:48.680 equals five. No free speech means that I don't have to say that. So that's what Gorsuch really gets

00:36:55.020 down to in his, in some of his arguments and his back and forth with the representation from Colorado,

00:37:02.740 Eric Olson. And I think that's a really important distinction. That's why I think the liberal

00:37:07.500 justice's argument really falls flat. That it is not, it's not the person that she is discriminating

00:37:14.660 against. It is the message that she is not going to celebrate a same-sex union. She's not going to

00:37:20.660 celebrate gender transition surgery or whatever it is. You can't be compelled by the state to say

00:37:28.100 something and to say something that doesn't align with your religious beliefs. And so we're not going

00:37:33.720 to have a decision from the Supreme Court until the end of June on this. I think we know which way

00:37:38.620 the court is going to go, but we don't know exactly what it's going to look like. We don't know

00:37:44.740 exactly what the decision will encompass. Like we already said with Jack Phillips, it was a narrow

00:37:50.820 ruling. We're hoping for something more broad with the current makeup of the Supreme Court. I think that

00:37:56.800 we can be encouraged by the possibility of this conclusion. And if there's one good thing, like

00:38:05.260 okay thing that we have in our country right now, as far as policy goes, as far as the government goes,

00:38:14.680 it is the makeup of the Supreme Court. Of course, we saw that with the Dobbs decision, with the overturning

00:38:22.080 of Roe v. Wade. That's why politics matters so much. It took electing so many different kinds of

00:38:27.620 people over so many decades to get the makeup of the Supreme Court that we have. And that is one of

00:38:34.160 the only things that's really protecting the Constitution right now at all. So thank God for

00:38:39.720 that. And God bless Lori Smith and the attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom. Them, First Liberty,

00:38:47.400 how they go to bat for those who are simply trying to live and to speak and to work as Christians in

00:38:55.620 this country. I'm just so thankful for it. Okay, so I don't have as much time again as I wanted to today

00:39:13.060 to talk about all of the things that there are to discuss. But I did just want to mention this terrible

00:39:19.060 story coming out of Texas that I saw that I just thought was so stunning. But I also had so many questions

00:39:24.500 about it just to, I don't know, just to make sure that we are being so vigilant as parents, but also to pray

00:39:31.840 for this family. So there was a seven-year-old girl by the name of Athena Strand, who was murdered in the

00:39:40.080 state of Texas. She went missing for several days and she was murdered by a FedEx driver. And this is

00:39:46.620 how Daily Mail reports it. My princess was taken by a monster. Texas mother's heartbreaking tribute to

00:39:52.300 daughter seven, who was snatched from driveway and killed by FedEx driver. As woman says, she was

00:39:57.020 raped by killer and has been warning about him for four years. So Athena, seven-year-old girl,

00:40:05.560 she was kidnapped apparently from her neighborhood right in front of her house after she had an

00:40:11.840 argument with her stepmother. So she had an argument with her stepmother. She went outside and the FedEx

00:40:18.620 driver took her away. We don't know right now if she was sexually assaulted, but we do know that she

00:40:23.680 was murdered apparently within an hour after she was taken. And it took several days for investigators to

00:40:31.740 find her body. But man, it is just absolutely devastating. And there are a lot of different

00:40:39.760 aspects to this story. One, I think it's very odd. And I don't know all the answers to this. I just

00:40:46.880 am saying that there are some questions to ask. I think it's very odd that a seven-year-old little

00:40:52.340 girl, so we're talking about first grader here, that she had such an argument with her stepmother 1.00

00:40:58.700 that she went outside to the point, I guess, where she could be abducted by a FedEx driver without

00:41:07.320 anyone seeing or stopping. I just think that that's very odd. Now, maybe there was nothing wrong

00:41:13.980 that went on here. Like maybe she just went outside to play. The stepmother was going in the back room 1.00

00:41:21.660 to fold laundry. She didn't see what was going on. And then when she looked out to check on her,

00:41:27.600 she was gone. As a mother myself, I find that scenario a little bit hard to believe. That she

00:41:38.120 would be so ignored for that amount of time that she would have been abducted without anybody noticing. 0.80

00:41:47.000 I also think it's hard for me to picture such an argument between a seven-year-old and an adult

00:41:52.540 to where the seven-year-old would storm out, I guess, of the house in the front yard for that

00:41:58.640 long of a period of time without the mother saying or the stepmother saying, no, this is not how things

00:42:04.740 are going. So I think that's devastating. I think that's a strange scenario that I have a very hard

00:42:12.320 time kind of understanding how that went down. Also, there are so many questions about this sicko of

00:42:18.880 a FedEx driver. Did he know the family at all? Had he been passing by? Did he know when she was going

00:42:25.720 to be outside, that she was going to be outside? Was this completely random that he just decided to do

00:42:32.900 this? And really, I mean, what possesses a person to do something like this? I know that crimes like

00:42:38.760 this have always existed. Of course, there has always been the victimization of people, the

00:42:43.180 victimization of children. Children are the most vulnerable. They can't speak up for themselves.

00:42:48.380 They can't defend themselves. They can't physically fend off an attacker. And so that is, of course,

00:42:55.020 why the worst of the worst are always preying on children, whether it's ideologically or whether

00:42:59.960 it's spiritually or whether it's physically. And so we have someone who preyed upon a weak little girl.

00:43:05.540 Again, I don't know how she got into the vehicle. Was she screaming? I mean, how in the world did that

00:43:13.260 happen without anyone seeing it? I just don't understand how that went down. My first thought,

00:43:19.420 and I know that this isn't necessarily proven, and it's not a necessary component of this because,

00:43:24.620 as I said, victimization has always happened. But I just have to wonder, especially because this guy

00:43:30.500 has been accused by another woman of rape several years ago, what role pornography played here?

00:43:40.480 What role violent and the growth and the increase of violent pornography and the violent depiction of

00:43:48.600 the sexual abuse of children, what role that played in something like this? It's hard for me to see how

00:43:58.720 this person couldn't have had a very active, a very sick, a very dark and depraved and violent fantasy

00:44:06.020 life and virtual life that would have led him to something like this. It's hard for me to see

00:44:13.060 how there would not be a correlation there. As we've talked about before, sexual violence,

00:44:21.140 the promotion and the popularization of sexual violence is prominent, even on places like TikTok,

00:44:26.620 even on places like Twitter and Instagram, trends of young girls saying that they want to be choked

00:44:34.060 during sex. I mean, sexual violence is something that is on the rise thanks to its pervasiveness,

00:44:40.900 its accessibility on social media. So I just have to wonder if that played a part here. She was vulnerable

00:44:48.780 in so many different ways because of apparently some kind of fraught relationship within the home,

00:44:55.260 some kind of brokenness going on there, of course, just because of her age and her size and 0.97

00:45:01.080 because of this apparently evil monster. Now, here's one other thing that I want to say. 0.52

00:45:07.080 The death penalty, if he is convicted, is the only just punishment. It is the only just punishment.

00:45:14.220 It is actually profoundly unjust for him not to get the death penalty. I know that there are a lot of

00:45:19.940 Christians out there who think that they can out-compassion God, that they are more just than 0.98

00:45:24.200 God, that they are more loving than God by saying, oh, no, no, we shouldn't inflict the death penalty

00:45:28.820 on anyone. We should just allow someone to stay in prison forever, get three square meals, and have 1.00

00:45:37.100 food and have shelter, not really have any needs, have security for the rest of their life. No, that's a

00:45:44.500 better alternative to death. Well, I don't think so. And the God of the Bible doesn't think so either.

00:45:49.580 As we've talked about many times, you go all the way back to Genesis 9. This is pre-Israel, 0.95

00:45:54.160 pre-civilization, where God says, I made man in my image. I'm paraphrasing Genesis 9, 6. I made man

00:46:00.540 in my image. And therefore, taking man's life away means the death penalty. That is the only just,

00:46:07.060 the only sufficient punishment for taking the life, purposely taking the life of an innocent

00:46:17.960 image bearer of God. That's what God says. Yes, there are exceptions in the Bible. God makes

00:46:23.220 exceptions. He makes exceptions for Moses. He makes exceptions for David. But that does not negate the

00:46:29.280 rule that he lays out in Genesis 9, that he reiterates in ancient Israel, that he also reiterates

00:46:35.320 in the New Testament, in Romans 13. People who use verses about vengeance being the Lord's and not

00:46:41.980 taking revenge on us, but allowing the Lord to exact revenge. Well, according to that reasoning,

00:46:47.840 according to that logic, if you're saying that Jesus saying, turn the other cheek, means that

00:46:54.300 we're not supposed to inflict the death penalty, according to that reasoning, you're saying that

00:47:02.720 we shouldn't have any enforcement of laws at all. Like, if you believe that God warning us against

00:47:07.720 vengeance means that we are not supposed to inflict the death penalty, then why people, why put anyone

00:47:14.700 in prison? Why have any punishment for assault or for rape or for murder at all? Of course, the death

00:47:25.220 penalty is just. God says that it's just in Genesis 9. He reiterates that in Romans 13.

00:47:29.940 The death penalty is the only just punishment in capital murder. And so should he be convicted,

00:47:38.880 he should absolutely be punished. And actually, the injustice having to do with the death penalty

00:47:44.760 in this country is that it takes way too long, is that it is deferred justice. It's deferred justice

00:47:50.500 for the families. It's deferred justice for this victim. It's deferred justice for the community that was

00:47:57.020 affected by this. It is deferred justice for other victims. I guarantee you it would disincentivize

00:48:03.700 murders if after a swift and fair and impartial trial, we had a quick and a swift execution.

00:48:13.400 Share the gospel with him. Allow him opportunity to repent. That's what I hope. God can save

00:48:19.760 everyone. But God is totally sovereign over that timing. And God's sovereignty over or God's desire

00:48:26.440 for people's salvation does not preclude earthly justice. What he calls justice is the death penalty

00:48:31.880 for capital murder. If there is any case that deserves the death penalty, it is this. And it is

00:48:38.300 an injustice by the United States of America to not push for the death penalty in cases like this.

00:48:45.580 It would be an injustice by the state of Texas to not push for that. That was one thing that I really

00:48:50.400 appreciated about the Trump administration is that they resumed federal executions for some of the

00:48:55.440 most heinous murders that you have ever heard of. That is justice. That is not cruel. That is justice.

00:49:04.220 God calls it justice. And you are not, none of us are, more just than God.

00:49:15.580 All right. That's all we had time for today. Thank you guys so much for listening. We've got lots of

00:49:25.160 good stuff for the rest of the week too. And again, give me, um, give me feedback on the show and what

00:49:31.920 you want to see improve next year. All right. See you guys back here tomorrow.

00:49:36.440 All right.

00:49:44.400 Bye.

00:49:46.320 Bye.

00:49:46.920 Bye.

00:49:47.480 Bye.

00:49:47.920 Bye.

00:49:48.100 Bye.

00:49:48.720 Bye.

00:49:49.660 Bye.

00:49:50.060 Bye.

00:49:54.600 Bye.

00:49:56.060 Bye.

00:49:57.740 Bye.

00:49:58.120 Bye.

00:49:58.320 Bye.

00:49:58.580 Bye.

00:49:58.620 Bye.

00:49:58.820 Bye.

00:49:59.660 Bye.

00:50:00.220 Bye.

00:50:00.540 Bye.

00:50:02.680 Bye.

00:50:03.220 Bye.

00:50:03.360 Bye.

00:50:05.360 Bye.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - December 06, 2022

Ep 719 ｜ Christians v. the State of Colorado… Again

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript