Ep 719 ｜ Christians v. the State of Colorado… Again
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Summary
Religious liberty is on the line once again in a Supreme Court case that is being argued right now before SCOTUS. This is a case to watch and to understand. Also, some interesting, interesting components that I missed yesterday from this whole Kanye story: some theological stuff, some cultish stuff. And then I will also be touching on some interesting and very sad, disturbing aspects of the story of a little girl in Texas who was murdered by a FedEx driver.
Transcript
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Religious liberty is on the line once again in a Supreme Court case that is being argued
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right now before SCOTUS, 303 Creative via Alinas. This is a Christian who is just trying to
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represent her values in the workplace. This is a case to watch and to understand. So we will be
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discussing that today. Also, some interesting, interesting components that I missed yesterday
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from this whole Kanye story, some theological stuff, some cultish stuff. And so we will be
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discussing that. And then I will also be touching on some interesting and very sad, disturbing aspects
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of the story of the little girl in Texas who was murdered by a FedEx driver. I have some questions
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and some recommendations for the state of Texas. This episode is brought to you by our friends at
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Good Ranchers. Go to GoodRanchers.com and use promo code Allie. That's American Meat Delivered.
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All right, guys. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week. So much to talk about today.
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Before we get into it, remember that we have amazing merch up for 20% off using promo code
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Allie when you go to ShopBlazeMedia.com slash Allie. It's actually promo code Allie20. And we will link
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it in the description of this episode. Also, I know that the large in the green, a thrill of hope
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sweatshirt that you can see if you're watching on YouTube is sold out. And I don't know when that's
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going to be coming back. It makes me very sad because that is the most popular item that we have.
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But because I know a lot of you want a large in that, I asked you which color you would rather
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have or you want in addition to the white one that we have. And most of you said navy. And so I think
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we're going to put up a navy crew neck sweatshirt with that design on the back in a size large so you
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can get it. I know it says on the website that it might take a week for you to get your sweatshirt.
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People are getting it in like 48 hours. So you'll have plenty of time to wear it before Christmas.
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And of course, you can get it after Christmas to relate a bros. Get your wife some merch from
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relatable. She'll be really happy. Also, speaking of that, we can take down the graphic. Speaking of
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that, we put up a poll on YouTube asking you guys what you would like to be called. I mean,
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four and a half years later, I figured we should finally come up with something for listeners.
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And most of you, I think the results of the poll were, I think it was Related Bells. Is that correct?
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Can anyone tell me? 74 to 26 Related Bells. So it was Related Bells versus Related Gals. Related
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Bells just kind of seems obvious. It dawned on me the other day, even though I kind of liked Related
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Gals better. But the people have spoken. Related Bells and Related Bros. So here we are. Related
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Bros. Get the Related Bell in your life. Some relatable merch for Christmas. She'll be happy
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that you did. All right. Also, if you love this podcast, leave us a five-star review wherever
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you listen and subscribe on YouTube if you haven't already. And it's end of year. And so I just kind of
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like to do an audit of the podcast. The podcast has grown so much since last year, looking at our
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numbers. But I always want to make sure that we are growing and that we are improving. I want to
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make sure that I am serving my audience, the Related Bells and the Related Bros out there,
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as best as I possibly can. That I am giving you the content that you are looking for specifically
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when you come to my show. Relatable is very unique. As far as conservative podcasts go,
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there's not another show out there that interweaves theology and politics in culture as heavily as we
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do. There are a lot of conservative politics or conservative shows that will talk about politics
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and will sometimes bring theology or God into it. There are a lot of Christian shows out there that
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will sometimes bring politics into it and culture wars into it. But from the beginning, I have really
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tried to have this be kind of a worldview podcast from a specifically, uniquely female Christian
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conservative perspective. And the reason why it's called Relatable is because I am navigating the
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chaos and the craziness and the confusion of this world, just like all of you, simply by using,
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trying my best, of course, and perfectly to use the Word of God as our guide to make sense
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of all of it. And what I love to hear from y'all is that it sounds like I'm sitting down and that
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we're having a meal or that we're having a cup of coffee and that we're just talking about the
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things that matter. That's what I've always wanted this show to be. And actually in 2023, we already
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have some plans to make it even more that, if that makes sense. We're going to have some set plans,
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some set changes rather, and a few things coming down the pipeline that I'm excited about. But as
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far as content goes, I would love feedback from you guys. You can tell me in the YouTube comments.
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You can send me a message on Instagram. You can send us an email and just say, Hey, I really like
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when you do these kinds of episodes, or here's what I find so unique about Relatable that I wish you did
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more. I wish you did more of this. I wish you did less of this. I really want to ensure that we are
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always growing and always improving this in service to you guys. You guys are ultimately
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my executive producers and I want to produce things of value for you. And so I don't take
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it for granted at all that you guys are taking about an hour out of your day where you could be
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doing a million other things to listen to this show. And that means so much to me. So just to ensure
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that it is still worth your while, always please give me some feedback. I would love to hear it.
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Maybe I'll post, I might post like a quiz, not a quiz, but a survey on Instagram and you guys can
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respond to that. It would help us out. All right, before we get into some of the things today,
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I did just want to do a follow-up quickly on yesterday's episode that we did breaking down
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Kanye West breakdown. One of the things that he posted was, as I explained, a swastika within a
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star of David. It was a picture of what looked like a design of that in Adobe Photoshop that he
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posted. That ultimately is what got him kicked off Twitter. Now, some of you have pointed out to me
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something that I did not realize, that the symbol that was posted is not something that Kanye West
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created, but it is actually the symbol of a UFO-based religious movement called the Raylan Movement,
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Intelligent Design for Atheists. Now, this is not something that I, I don't think that I have ever
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heard of this before, but I looked it up and it was true. And actually, Snopes had covered it. So
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I don't always rely on Snopes because I do think that they have a particular slant. But when it comes
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to things like this, I think they're giving pretty interesting information. So they rate this claim
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true. The tweet that got Ye suspended for incitement of violence actually contained a symbol
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associated with the UFO-focused religion known as the International Raylan Movement. Ye did post the
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symbol of a UFO-based religious movement containing both a swastika and a star of David, but he did so
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without any additional context just hours after praising Adolf Hitler. So that is true. If you
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listened to yesterday's episode, he did indeed say that he loves Hitler when he was on Alex Jones'
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show. On December 1st, 2022, Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West had his Twitter
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account suspended for what CEO Elon Musk described as a violation of Twitter's policies. So we explained
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that yesterday. Here's how Snopes describes the Raylan Movement. It's a new religious movement
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based on a belief in UFOs and extraterrestrial life. The movement was founded in 1976 in France.
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So many weird things happened in the 60s and 70s in France. Thanks a lot to the French. That's just an
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evergreen statement right there. An evergreen sarcastic statement. Thanks a lot to the French and to the
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German for importing a lot of your crazy sexual ideas in the 60s and 70s. This is not a sexual idea, but
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it's a weird, kooky religious movement that, of course, is because of the French in the 1970s.
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So, Claude Vorilhon, born in France, claims that he encountered extraterrestrial
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beings on the 13th of December 1973 and received a message for humanity stating that humanoid
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extraterrestrials called Elohim came to Earth 25 years ago and created life with their ability to
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control human DNA. Now, this is not that different from a conversation that we recently had with the
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Nephilim, but about the Nephilim. Not with them. I have never talked to them. Vorilhon says that he was
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told that humans were implanted on Earth by the Elohim, created in laboratories from the Elohim's DNA.
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The Elohim gave Vorilhon the name Ra'ol, who brings the light of Elohim, or messenger of the Elohim,
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and appointed him as their ambassador. So, that's interesting. His task is to warn mankind that
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enter the age of the apocalypse after the first nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945.
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Humanity was then at a point where it had to decide whether to destroy itself in a nuclear war or learn
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to live together peacefully. So, I don't really know why, but they decided to trademark this symbol
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of the swastika within the Star of David. Now, here is an interesting part of all of this. Well,
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first of all, I do think it's interesting just to say that Elohim is a Hebrew word that denotes God or
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a God. So, it's interesting that they took a Hebrew word, they put a swastika in the Star of David.
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It's all very interesting. So, this actually, I wish I had known this yesterday because this makes
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a lot, doesn't make sense, but it makes a lot of sense with what Kanye West, with what I said he posted
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on Instagram about Elon Musk being a hybrid and thinking that he is not fully human, but that he
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is like this super intelligent hybrid. And another part of this, because that's part of what Raylian
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believes that some of these people exist, one of the Raylian leaders recently praised Elon Musk or said
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something positive about Elon Musk. And also, people are linking this Raylian movement with Elon Musk
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because of Elon's participation in the Neuralink thing, which is really like a microchip that is
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implanted in someone's brain. Of course, they say that it can help with all different kinds of
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neurological problems, but Elon Musk is a big backer of this. He is a big part of this. And so,
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some people are saying that Kanye West was communicating about Elon Musk being a part
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of this Raylian movement and that he is some kind of extraterrestrial hybrid, I guess.
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And also, I think that he is trying to say, I told you I'm not an interpreter of Kanye West, but I think
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he's saying that when he posted the Raylian symbol. And then when he posted a picture, as we said
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yesterday, of Elon Musk with Ari Emanuel, who is someone who I think Kanye is saying has influence
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over Elon Musk, who also happens to be Jewish, I think Kanye West is saying, this is my theory,
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I think he is saying with all of these cryptic messages, that somehow the Jewish people, along
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with this, like, Raylian belief of hybrids and not fully human elites have some sort of powerful cabal
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to, I don't know what, but I guess to negatively impact people like Kanye West.
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Oh, so I just wanted to piece that together. As I said yesterday, there are so many layers to this
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story. And there's actually so much theology too. I mentioned yesterday, the Black Hebrew Israelites,
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the Nation of Islam, how they also claim to be God's real chosen people and how the white Jews are
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just frauds. But there's another theological aspect to this. James Cone, Black liberation theology.
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It's very interesting. If you look at almost all Black left-wing theology, there is like an anti-Jewish
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part of it. And I'm not saying that's exclusive to Black liberal theology. There are certainly different
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parts of all different kinds of theology that have like an anti-Jewish strain in them. But it's
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interesting. Like Nation of Islam, Black Hebrew Israelites. And then you have James Cone, who
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said something that I think is similar to what Kanye West says when he says that Black people are the
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real Jews. James Cone argued, he says, Jesus is Black because he was Jewish. So James Cone,
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the father of Black liberation theology, a very far left Marxist, and I mean that in the literal sense,
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theologian, false teacher, who did not believe in the saving grace of the gospel, who also said that
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anyone who believes in a theology of liberation is his brother, including Malcolm X. So including
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Muslims, he did not believe in that Jesus was the only way truth in the life. And yet still professing
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Christians follow some teachings of James Cone. He said that Jesus is Black because he was Jewish.
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And what he meant by that was that Jesus' oppression as a Jewish person parallels to the oppression of
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Black people in the present day. And so he basically says that Judaism and Blackness is interchangeable
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with oppression. And so the Jewish identity is not really, according to James Cone, about true ethnicity
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or even about the fulfillment of prophecies or about a particular chosen people, but it's just about an
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identification with oppression. And so that kind of goes along with something that Kanye West recently said
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when he said Black people are the real Jews. In a sense, there are some people who ascribe to Black
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liberation theology who believe that in the sense of oppression, that Black people are the quote-unquote
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real Jews. So I doubt that Kanye realizes where all of his statements are coming from, but a lot of them
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do come from different forms of Black supremacist theology, whether it's masquerading as Christianity,
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like liberation theology, whether it looks like some form of Islam through Nation of Islam, whether it
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looks through some perversion of Judaism through the Black Hebrew Israelites. These are all kind of
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different doctrines that assert that Black people today, because of their oppression, are God's real
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chosen oppressed people. And so, again, it doesn't happen in a vacuum.
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There is a lot of theology, a lot of religion, a lot of worldview actually at play here. And I'm sure
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a lot of pieces that I don't even fully understand. Anyway, I didn't even plan to follow up on that,
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but I just thought that those were interesting pieces. And I know it's easy to just kind of dismiss
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it as like, well, these are the rantings of a person with suffering from bipolar disorder. And I think
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that that is true. I think that is true. I think it does seem like this was some kind of manic
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episode. But like there are a lot of pieces here, I think, for people to think through and to
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understand like how Kanye came to the egregious conclusions and statements that he has come to.
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Okay, let's talk about this really important story about 303 Creative. So there is a Supreme Court case
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right now, and it's titled 303 Creative v. Alinas. And this is how the Alliance Defending Freedom,
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the group of attorneys that is defending 303 Creative. This is how they describe this case
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that is ongoing right now. They're in front of the Supreme Court arguing in defense of Lori Smith,
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the owner of 303 Creative. Smith specializes in graphic and website design and loves to visually
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convey messages in every site she creates. She left the corporate design world to start her own small
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business in 2012. So she could use her skills to promote causes consistent with her beliefs and
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close to her heart, such as supporting children with disabilities, the beauty of marriage, overseas
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missions, animal shelters and veterans. She was excited to expand her portfolio to create websites
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that celebrate marriage between a man and a woman. But Colorado made clear she's not welcome
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in that space. A Colorado law is censoring what she wants to say and requiring her
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to create designs that violate her beliefs about marriage. She enjoys working with people from all
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walks of life, but like most artists, can't promote every message. Her decisions about which projects
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to design are based on what message she's being asked to express, not who requests it. After realizing
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that Colorado was censoring her, and after seeing Colorado use the same law to punish masterpiece cake
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shop owner Jack Phillips, she challenged the law to protect her freedom and her art studio.
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So this is another case of the state of Colorado, what has become a very liberal state thanks to
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the migration from blue states into what used to be a solidly red state Colorado. The activists who are
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in the government there are using their power to crush the speech and the expression of the beliefs of
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Christians. This is the same thing that they did to Jack Phillips. You'll remember Jack Phillips was the
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cake shop owner who said he was not going to bake a cake for the marriage, so-called marriage, between
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two men. He said, I'll bake you anything else. He's not refusing to serve them, but he is saying,
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I'm not going to bake you that specific cake because that violates my conscience. End of story.
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And any sane people would have said, you know what? That's fine. There are a lot of different cake
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shops around here. We'll be happy to go somewhere else. Thanks for your time. They didn't. Like
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psychopaths, like activists, like the malignant cancer that leftism is, they decided to sue him. They
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decided to try to ruin his life. They decided to attack him and to drag him through court and to suck up
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all of his time and resources with lawyers and with litigation, trying to force him to bake them a
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cake that I guarantee they didn't even want anymore in order to make a point. And the state of Colorado
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and the liberal activists in the state of Colorado were more than happy to oblige. And the Supreme Court
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found that the lower courts had so mistreated Jack Phillips when he was in court that that alone,
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that his treatment in court of how they talked to him, of how they compared his beliefs about marriage
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to segregation and to Nazism, that that alone was a violation of his rights. And so the ruling on the
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masterpiece cake shop, it was not broad enough to say, hey, you know what? This is protected speech
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and he should be able to say and do whatever he wants. The state cannot compel him
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to create a cake that he doesn't want to create. It was a very narrow ruling. And so now we've got
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another designer, another artist in the state of Colorado going back to the Supreme Court,
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hoping for an even better ruling that will truly protect the First Amendment rights of the First
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Amendment rights of people, of individuals, of business owners. So here's how CBS is reporting this.
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The Supreme Court's conservative bloc appeared sympathetic Monday to a Colorado graphic designer
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who argues a state law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation violates her free
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speech rights by forcing her to express a message that conflicts with her closely held religious
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beliefs. I kind of hate the adjective that is so often used closely held religious beliefs. How are we
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measuring that? If she has loosely held religious beliefs or those religious beliefs that are not
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protected under the Constitution, if she's kind of wishy-washy on her beliefs, if she only reads the
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Bible every other week, only goes to church once a month, but she still doesn't want to create
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websites that are celebrating gay unions or transgenderism, does that mean that that's not
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protected under the First Amendment? So I hate, I've probably said it before and I've stopped now
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saying sincerely held or sincere beliefs or closely held religious beliefs. It is not up to the
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Constitution, up to a lawyer, up to a judge to determine whether someone holds their theology
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firmly enough for their religious beliefs and religious expression to be protected. I don't care
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if she is deconstructing right now. Like if she believes that this violates her conscience, if it does
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violate her conscience, if she doesn't want to do it, the state should not be able to compel her
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to say or express something that she does not want to say or express. So it doesn't surprise me that
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CBS describes closely held religious beliefs. I don't care if they're closely held. I don't care if they're
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held a mile away. They are her religious beliefs and therefore they should be protected, period. You have a
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First Amendment right to express your religious beliefs, to say what you want to say without the state forcing
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you to say something or forcing you to express or to not express those religious beliefs. And that right
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supersedes any desire that a person may have to get a certain cake or to have a certain person design a
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certain website. You don't have a constitutional right to that. During oral arguments, CBS says,
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in the case known as 303 Creative LLC v. Alinas, the court seemed to move closer to resolving a
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question it has left unanswered since 2018 when it narrowly ruled in favor of a Colorado baker who
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refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. Whether states like Colorado can, in applying their
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anti-discrimination laws, compel an artist to express a message they disagree with. With the court's
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conservative majority appeared prepared to find that Colorado cannot force web designer Lori Smith
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to create websites for same-sex weddings, several recognize that there are differences between
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artists who are conveying a message and vendors selling goods and services in the marketplace.
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The case comes down to a fairly narrow question of how do you characterize website designers?
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Are they more like the restaurants and the jewelers and the tailors, or are they more like publishing
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houses and other free speech analogs that are raised on the other side? Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked.
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Justice Amy Coney Barrett told Kristen Wagner, who argued the case on behalf of Smith, that she was
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on strongest ground when talking about the uniqueness of the websites Smith makes and work that goes into
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creating them. It's about the message, Barrett said, after posing a hypothetical scenario to Wagner
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focused on whether Smith would design a site for a heterosexual couple getting married after
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divorcing other people. Wagner said Smith likely would not. Well, I don't even like that. I'm sorry,
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I don't even really like that hypothetical because it's not the same thing.
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There are a thousand different scenarios that could justify, maybe not a thousand different
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scenarios, but there are some scenarios that could justify a man and a woman divorcing, whether it was
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for sexual immorality or whether it was for abuse, and say that woman, she went to go marry someone else.
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And it was in line with the biblical commands about marriage and divorce, and Laurie Smith wanted to
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make a website for them. Okay. And again, like, is the court really judging whether someone's theology
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is entirely consistent? Like, based on what? To me, I mean, and obviously, I don't know as much as
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Justice Amy Coney Barrett, but doesn't it simply come down to a person's beliefs, a person's religious
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beliefs in the state not being able to decide what is sincere, what is not, what is an okay expression
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of that speech? Of course, there are other laws on the books. I think Smith v. Employment Division
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also kind of addressed that, that obviously there are limits to certain kinds of expression and speech,
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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
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that hypothetical scenario, because I'm not sure if that makes enough of a difference, even if the
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answer had been yes, that she would create a website design like that. Smith's stance could
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violate Colorado's public accommodation law, which prohibits businesses open to the public from
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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
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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.
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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.