Ep. 1337 - The Most Anti-Christian President In History Declares Easter 'Transgender Day of Visibility'
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 4 minutes
Words per Minute
179.29462
Summary
Joe Biden escalates his war on Christianity by proclaiming Easter as Transgender Day of Visibility. Leftists then proceeded to spend the day trying to explain why Jesus is pro-trans. We ll talk about all that today on the Matt Welch Show.
Transcript
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Today on the Matt Wall Show, Joe Biden escalates his war on Christianity by proclaiming Easter as Transgender Day of Visibility.
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Leftists then proceeded to spend the day trying to explain why Jesus is pro-trans.
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Also, under a new law in Vermont, parents will not have the right to find out what books their children are checking out from the library.
00:00:17.400
And Beyonce's new country album is out, and it's an even greater abomination than many had feared.
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We'll talk about all that and more today on the Matt Wall Show.
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Well, as they've done for thousands of years, Christians celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ this past Sunday.
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All over the world, the faithful gathered to celebrate the joyous news that the Messiah died and rose from the grave for the salvation of mankind.
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This is the central fact of our faith and the reason why Easter is our most sacred holiday.
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But at the same time, a cult that was invented mere decades ago and which opposes everything Christianity stands for was holding its own observances on Sunday.
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In a deliberate attempt to mock the very idea of Easter, they celebrated something called Transgender Day of Visibility.
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Joe Biden, who claims to be a Catholic, ushered in the festivities with a presidential proclamation that can only be described as not only blasphemous, but also completely counterfactual.
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So it's not overstating things to say that this proclamation document underscores once again that the Biden administration is the single most radically anti-Christian regime in American history.
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In the proclamation, Biden describes so-called transgender Americans as, quote, part of the fabric of our nation.
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He accuses millions of Americans of being, quote, hateful for supporting laws that ban the castration, sterilization, and mutilation of children, saying that these Americans seek to, quote, target and terrify transgender kids and their families.
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And he claims that there's a, quote, epidemic of violence against people identifying as trans, without mentioning that this violence almost exclusively relates to domestic incidents, prostitution, drugs.
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He also fails to qualify this statement with the fact that trans-identified Americans are murdered at a lower rate than the general population.
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Of course, nowhere in devout Catholic, quote, unquote, Joe Biden's proclamation is there an attempt to explain how the concept of transgenderism is compatible in any way with Catholicism.
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He doesn't grapple with how a Christian can ascribe to modern gender theory while also accepting what we're clearly told in the first chapter of Genesis.
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One can either believe in transgenderism or they can believe in Christianity.
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Just as one can either believe in transgenderism or they can believe in biology.
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And on both counts, Biden chooses, of course, transgenderism.
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And coming from the same alleged Catholic who pushes the mass murder of the unborn, that's not exactly surprising.
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But this decision to issue this blasphemous proclamation on Easter, it was so unbelievable.
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It's so unprecedented in modern politics that a lot of people wondered if it was real.
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I had to go check the White House website myself.
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And precisely because it's real, because it's easily verifiable and so damaging to the Biden administration at the same time,
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because of that, so-called fact-checkers instinctively jumped into action to tell us not to believe our lying eyes.
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And there are many examples of this, so I'll just pick one.
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Transgender Day of Visibility falls annually on March 31st, not always at Easter.
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International Transgender Day of Visibility takes place annually on March 31st to celebrate transgender and gender nonconforming individuals.
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It was not designed intentionally to fall on Easter Sunday, as claimed by some online accounts.
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Transgender Day of Visibility has been celebrated on the same date, March 31st, for years.
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Now, the point of fact-checks like this, of course, is to censor posts on social media platforms like Facebook by labeling information as misinformation.
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And they do this every time, not by debunking a claim, but rather by intentionally confusing an issue or by debunking a claim that nobody's actually making.
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Nobody made the claim that Transgender Day of Visibility and Easter always fall on the same day.
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It's like when PolitiFact said that it was false to claim that AOC was photographed crying in front of an empty parking lot because, in reality, they said it was an empty road.
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And instead of talking about that, they pick some phony misconception related to the episode in order to rate it all as false.
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Now, the problem with this excuse in this case is that, and this should go without saying, is that Joe Biden did not have to issue any proclamation recognizing the so-called Transgender Day of Visibility.
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Like, what the defenders are saying, basically, is that, well, Biden can't help that they fell on the same day.
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But he can help that he issued a proclamation about it.
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Even Barack Obama never did that, despite the fact that this holiday was invented a year after Obama took office.
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Now, of course, no president should recognize any transgender day, regardless of what date it falls on.
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But if you have any respect at all for the holiest day on the Christian calendar, then you would at least skip the proclamation this year.
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Secondly, it's not like the Democrats just begrudgingly nodded towards Trans Day because they felt like they had to.
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Okay, this wasn't a perfunctory checking of boxes.
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They went out of their way to celebrate the occasion.
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It wasn't just some staffer in the White House who put out that proclamation with Joe Biden's name on it.
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Here's Gavin Newsom's Easter message, for example.
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Today on Trans Day of Visibility, we celebrate the trans individuals in our communities and recognize their struggle.
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Struggles for recognition and increasingly survival in the face of unfathomable hate.
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Hate which leads them to often feel unsafe or like they don't belong.
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And we also celebrate the many contributions that they've made.
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We've had trans leaders at the forefront of progress in every field imaginable, from STEM to the arts to human rights advocacy to so much more.
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Now, it's not necessarily the most important point to make here, but notice how Gavin Newsom's wife claims that trans people have made many incredible contributions to human progress,
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but then fails to cite one single specific example.
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She just says they've done a lot of great things and then moves on.
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But the truth is that trans-identified people have accomplished nothing of significance in this country or any country ever.
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All they have done is contributed massively to increased rates of depression and suicide in the last decade by encouraging young people to castrate and mutilate themselves instead of actually improving their mental health.
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They've also committed several acts of terrorism, but beyond that, you know, they're just not doing anything of significance.
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Even if I was interested in celebrating the achievements of trans people, even if somehow I wanted to do this on Easter of all days,
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I still wouldn't be able to partake in that celebration for the simple reason that there are no achievements to celebrate.
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But politicians throughout the Democratic Party all over the country pretended otherwise yesterday.
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In New York, Kathy Hockel issued her own proclamation of Transgender Day of Visibility.
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reaffirms our commitment to see beyond the gender binary and create equity.
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And for his part, the HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra put out this message, quote,
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He also added a picture of a bunch of people without faces because that's what equity means.
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But, you know, first of all, like Newsom's wife, he doesn't mention what accomplishments transgender people have achieved.
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That's because there are no accomplishments to mention.
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On top of that, like the identity of transgender, so-called non-binary and two-spirit are nonsense labels.
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I mean, the two-spirit thing blew up in Canada a while ago,
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which is why Justin Trudeau goes around referring to 2SL, LGBTQIA plus people now.
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It was invented by some woman at a gay and lesbian conference in Canada in 1990.
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But there are other major problems with this statement,
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which, again, is from our HHS Secretary, who oversees health in this country.
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And the biggest one, perhaps, is that you cannot tell us that trans people will kill themselves if you misgender them,
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which is what they say, and then in the next breath insist that these people epitomize resilience and joy.
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Because if they really are resilient, joyful people, then we don't have to worry about what kind of language we use around them.
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They can handle a pronoun they don't like with resilience and joy.
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But if we do have to worry about the words we use, worry, in fact, that the wrong word might cause them to commit suicide en masse,
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then, you know, there may be many terms you could use to describe them,
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but joyful isn't one of them, and resilient even less so.
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As for doubling down on our commitment to their well-being, as the HHS Secretary claims to want to do,
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the only way to accomplish that is to tell them the truth and stop catering to delusion.
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But, of course, most importantly, Sunday was Easter.
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And Xavier Becerra, like all of us, should have spent the day thinking not about trans people,
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but about the lordship of Jesus Christ and the state of our own immortal souls.
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The same is true of Karen Jean Pair, who issued a statement about the courage of the trans community on Sunday.
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This is the same woman who claimed that trans kids are under attack in this country
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just three days after a trans terrorist murdered men, women, and children in a Christian school in Nashville.
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But Karen Jean Pair never praised the courage of the police officers in that incident,
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who put the trans terrorists down, never mentioned their heroism.
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They don't need to be visible, apparently, like trans people do.
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They don't have their own holiday, like the sacred trans day of visibility.
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A holiday so apparently important, so ingrained in our national tradition now,
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that it must be officially recognized by the White House,
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Now, it could be interesting to take a look now at the person who started this fake holiday,
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And just for your own reference, for no other reason really, I will show you this.
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This was invented, this holiday was invented by a man who identifies as a woman,
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Well, I tried to come out to my parents when I was eight years old, okay?
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I started the Transgender Day of Visibility nine years ago.
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And I was hoping that maybe a few people would like it.
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However, I started the International Transgender Day of Visibility.
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Now, this is the left's approximation of Jesus, I guess,
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the man who believes that eight-year-olds can change their gender.
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That's what he claims there, that he came out at eight years old.
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He achieved the incredible feat of starting a Facebook group back in 2009,
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which is where Trans Day of Visibility originates.
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Easter began with the Son of God emerging gloriously from the tomb.
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Trans Day of Visibility began with a guy starting a Facebook group.
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I guess this is what passes for a great accomplishment in the trans community.
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Another irony of this whole Trans Day of Visibility thing, of course,
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is that trans people are already more visible than any other group in the history of the world
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when you compare their population to the amount of media coverage, etc., that they receive.
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There has never been such a vast gulf between the attention paid to a group of people
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LGBT people in general are celebrated with dozens of special days and months just for them.
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We've gone over the full list several times on this show in the past, so I'll spare you.
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But we know, of course, that they have all of Pride Month.
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They have Agender Pride Day, International Pronoun Day, National Coming Out Day,
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Transgender Parent Day, Trans Awareness Week, On the Sexual Visibility Day, Bisexual Visibility Day,
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Bisexual Awareness Week, International Non-Binary Day, which is also a week for some reason,
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the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia,
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the International Lesbian Visibility Day, as well as Gay Uncle Day in August.
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In all, I counted more than 130 days on the calendar reserved to worship our LGBT deities.
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Government leaders, especially in the Biden administration, they make a point of recognizing
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most of these days, they will say something to recognize a great many of these days.
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Meanwhile, Christianity, the faith that built this country, the faith that many of the most
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important, most accomplished, most significant human beings in the history of humanity belong to,
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only has two holidays that somebody like Joe Biden will even pretend to care about.
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And now one of those two has been overshadowed by one of the 130 LGBT days.
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Because I've been saying for years that LGBT isn't just a collection of sexual and gender
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And never has that been more clear than it is today.
00:16:21.300
Well, you know, we all want our kids to be prepared for the future and for them to have
00:16:24.820
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00:16:27.700
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Now, before we move on from this topic, I want to play one more clip for you.
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This is David Jolly on MSNBC with Al Sharpton calling out Republicans for daring to object
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to the White House honoring trans people on Easter.
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Why are Republicans choosing this battle as a way to take on the president?
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I mean, there's a little bit of dirty political pull here, but I think we've got to hit it
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head on and suggest to President Trump and Mike Johnson and Senator Blackburn and others
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who are relying on the words of their Christ and their Jesus they celebrate today to condemn
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Joe Biden to suggest to them that actually the Jesus they celebrate today would be inclusive
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of the transgender community and would be supportive of the transgender community and
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command all Christians, including Donald Trump, Mike Johnson, and others who celebrate today
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that, in fact, they should love the transgender community as they love their own God.
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I am not sure the theology upon which they rely to criticize Joe Biden.
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I would say politically it's stupid because among the five to ten percent of actual persuadable
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voters, part of their concern about today's Republican Party is exactly this behavior.
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Why would you use time politically if you are Republicans to celebrate that you want to
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condemn and exclude fellow Americans, that you do not want to provide equity and equality to
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all people? Because that is essentially the message that was received by millions of Americans
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today. And I think it's wrong theologically, it's wrong morally, and it's absolutely stupid politically.
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I mean, stupid politically, you know, well, let's let's I'd like to see a poll on this.
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How many Americans are thrilled that that Biden issued a proclamation for transgenders on Easter?
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I'm willing to bet that most Americans are going to be on our side on this one.
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So you see a few things going on here. First, we see the usual routine. We see the game. We know how the game is played.
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Somebody on the left does something outrageous and ridiculous and repugnant, and then we react to it and we look at it and we say,
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wow, that's outrageous, ridiculous and repugnant.
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And then the left reacts in shock and horror at us for the way that we react. So they are shocked
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and horrified that we are shocked and horrified by the shocking and horrifying thing they have just
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done. That's the game. And there are too many examples of this to count. I mean, just think back
00:20:05.440
when they first started dressing in drag and reading to kids at libraries, you know, when drag queen story
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hour first became a thing. And obviously, people were disturbed by this. People still are disturbed by it,
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as they should be. But on the left, there was never a single moment where they said, even at the
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beginning, they never said, hey, look, you know, I know this is kind of alarming. Nobody has done this
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before, but it's a good idea and we'll explain why. Now, they never said that because, of course,
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it's not a good idea and they can't explain it. But also because the moment, the moment they decided
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to do it, the moment they decide to do something, no matter how bizarre it is, no matter how much it breaks
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from tradition, no matter how much it breaks from what people are accustomed to, no matter how much
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it defies common sense and our basic sense of morality and decency, the moment they decide to
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do it, we are expected to embrace it totally, absolutely, without hesitation. So when Joe Biden
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becomes the first president in history of the country to issue a proclamation on Easter that ignores
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Easter and instead celebrates trans people, the left will not permit us to be even slightly taken aback
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by this, despite the fact that it's never happened before. You would think that they could at least
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admit that it's like somewhat provocative. It's a little bit controversial. You'd think if they were
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honest people, they could at least admit that, but they can't. They can't. They never do.
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No matter what they do, the moment they are doing it, you not only are supposed to accept it,
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but you are supposed to accept it like you're not even surprised that it's happening.
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Accept it like you've seen it a thousand times already.
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And then there's the theological claim that Jolly makes, and he says that Jesus would be inclusive
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and supportive of the transgender community. The problem with this statement is that, in fact,
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Jesus never says a word about transgender people. In fact, the Bible never mentions them anywhere
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at any point. Instead, the Bible again and again and again and again affirms the reality of only two
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sexes, male and female. There is no indication anywhere that we can switch sexes or we can
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transition from one to the other. Again, everything in the Bible leads to the opposite conclusion. We are
00:22:14.360
told that we are designed, we are knitted together in the womb. And if we are male, then we are made to
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be male. If we're female, we are made to be female. That's what the Bible says. And this is a major problem
00:22:25.920
for guys like David Jolly because he would claim, right, that trans people are not a modern invention,
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which in fact they are. But he would say that this is not a modern invention. He would say that
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we did not come up with this category five seconds ago. He would claim that trans people have always
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existed. You know, that there were trans people back, you know, back in the time of Christ who
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were walking around and identified as female, even though they were men. But maybe they didn't say,
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you know, they just didn't come out and say it because they were so afraid. Well, if that's true,
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then that means, that makes it, you know, even more noticeable that they were in fact excluded from
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the Bible. Jesus would never exclude trans people. He did. I mean, according to you,
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if trans people existed back then, he did exclude them. He never mentioned them one time. In fact,
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again, everything that is said on the topic of sex in the Bible is the kind of thing that if you heard
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someone say today, you would accuse them of transphobia. So he did. He actually did in fact exclude
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them. They're excluded completely from the Bible. And again, not just, it's not just that they were
00:23:37.960
not mentioned. It's the fact that their claims about human biology and the nature of human identity
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are refuted and repudiated again and again and again. So there's the rub. Either the trans category
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is a modern invention, in which case Christians should deny its legitimacy, or it's an ancient
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invention, which was excluded entirely from the Holy Scripture, while the binary, quote unquote,
00:24:03.400
was affirmed countless times, in which case Christians should deny its legitimacy. So either
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way, you end up at the same place. Now, does that mean that Jesus rejects trans-identified people?
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You know, does it mean he turns them away, but he doesn't love them? Of course it does not mean that.
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Rather, Jesus says to the trans-identified person, as he does to all of us, repent and believe.
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Give up your sin. Go and sin no more. Jesus says that we must bow to him as Lord over our lives,
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ourselves, our identities, that we are not God over ourselves, that we do not determine our own identity,
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that it is in fact assigned to us, not at birth, but at conception.
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That's when our identity is assigned. And we don't get to come up with our own. We don't get to say,
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well, identify as this. Doesn't matter what you identify as. You're not God. You don't make that
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choice. Sorry. And the rejection of your biological nature, the claim that you can make your own
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identity. This is pride. This is blasphemy. This is sin. So what does God say to the trans person?
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It says the trans person must repent, just as any sinner must. Leave your sin behind. Leave behind
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your pride. Put on the armor of God. Follow Christ. Same for all of us. So is that a rejection? No,
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absolutely not. No, Jesus does not reject the trans label. Instead, he calls on you to reject it.
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Jesus doesn't say to the trans identified person, I reject you. He says to the trans identified person,
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reject your trans identification because it's not real. It is pride. It is pride. You are not the Lord
00:26:00.360
over your own life. You do not get to determine that. I made you a male. That is what you are. It
00:26:06.580
doesn't matter if you don't want to be. You must conform your mind to the identity that I have given
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you. That is what God says. And if you think, if you're of the opinion that this issue and this
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community of people should be discussed more in the Christian church, I actually agree with you.
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But that's what the discussion will be. That's what the discussion should be anyway. And I think
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probably that's actually not a discussion that you want, is it? No, actually what you want is you want
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Christ to bow before you as God and say, you know what? Yeah, it's totally up to you who you are.
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I made a mistake. Oops. I gave you the wrong identity somehow. I put, I put a soul in the
00:26:55.780
wrong body. I made a mistake. My bad. You should correct the mistake that I made. That's what you
00:27:00.800
want the Lord of the universe to say to you in your pride. All right. There's a, this is from
00:27:08.800
mynbc5.com. There's a new bill currently moving through the state house aiming to create stronger
00:27:15.720
regulations and provisions for libraries in Vermont. There are many aspects of it, such as
00:27:20.200
establishing school policies to prevent books from being removed based on gender identity,
00:27:23.880
race, and sexual health. Another is creating a state library consultant in the agency education
00:27:28.120
to support librarians. However, one major part of it highlights confidentiality for minors accessing
00:27:34.980
resources in libraries. Mary Danko, Fletcher of the, the director of Fletcher Free Library,
00:27:42.060
says libraries value privacy. We want anyone that borrows material from our library to know
00:27:46.840
what they take out is confidential. So what this law would do is it would, uh, lower the, it would,
00:27:53.780
it would, uh, lower the age from 16 to 12, where if a 12 year old takes out a book at the library,
00:28:01.740
uh, their parents are not able to find out what the book is. Their parents cannot go check their
00:28:06.940
library records of their 12 year old child to find out what book they took out. Uh, here's a local news
00:28:13.280
report on this. Wendy Hisco is the Brownell Library Director in Essex Junction. She feels the age limit can
00:28:20.740
be lowered. Age 12 seems reasonable for kids who are really starting to explore who they are. Hisco has
00:28:25.960
worked in two previous states that had no age limits. She's also a mom of an 11 year old and feels
00:28:31.260
allowing her kid to have free reign is the best approach. We always call it doors and windows. So
00:28:36.000
maybe opening a door or seeing a window to identify with somebody else. So I think that's really just a
00:28:41.280
great way to think about information at the library. Benjamin Morton feels it's essential for a child's
00:28:47.980
growth. They can't really grow and develop as a person because they aren't experiencing new things
00:28:54.400
and they aren't encountering things that go contrary to what their parents espouse. His mom
00:29:00.940
Barb agrees, but she can see how some parents may feel the bill unfairly restricts their rights. Some
00:29:06.620
people are go with the flow. Some people are not. So it depends on the Fletcher Free Library Director
00:29:13.100
Mary Danko, who has been working in libraries for 20 plus years, says her message to those parents is
00:29:19.000
at the end of the day, kids will process information at their own pace. Even if you are reading a book
00:29:25.000
that maybe is a little bit above your level, you don't take that in because it's your own mind and
00:29:31.340
your own development at the time that is taking the information that it needs. So they want to ban
00:29:38.640
parents from finding out what their 12 year old kids are reading. And now you notice something here.
00:29:44.800
Well, you might notice a lot of things. They claim that they just want the kids to have
00:29:48.980
privacy. You know, they want the kids to be able to check out any book that they want
00:29:52.860
without adults monitoring them. You heard the one guy there in the mask
00:29:56.140
with the stains all over his shirt, just a quite unsightly specimen. You heard him say that the way
00:30:05.580
that a child grows as a person is to do things that are contrary to what their parents espouse.
00:30:13.280
They're just flat out saying it now. Like this is how a child grows is by rejecting their parents
00:30:17.680
outright. I mean, these people are, this is the enemy. Okay. What you just saw there, like this,
00:30:24.440
this is the enemy we face in our culture. Those people, the people that say things like that,
00:30:30.700
the people that believe things like that and will say it out loud, that will directly say that they
00:30:36.180
want to sever the bond between you and your own child. That's the enemy.
00:30:42.400
Um, and, but you notice that, that, you know, they say they want privacy for the child,
00:30:49.340
but as always, that's not what's actually happening here. If it was, if that was the actual issue,
00:30:56.040
this law would still be horribly wrong, but it isn't. It's worse than that, right? Because when
00:31:02.240
you hear that schools want privacy, want kids to have privacy from the parents, that the library wants
00:31:07.520
kids to have privacy from the parents, what they're actually saying is that they, the adults in charge
00:31:13.020
of those institutions want to have exclusive access to this information about the child.
00:31:18.100
That's what they're actually saying. This is not privacy, right? The kids, the kids activity will
00:31:23.080
still be known by other adults. It's just that the other adults will be the librarians, uh, or the,
00:31:29.680
the school staff members rather than the parents. So with these policies, the adults that run these
00:31:35.260
institutions, what they are saying is I, I should know this, not you. That is what they're actually
00:31:40.740
saying. The librarian is saying that she should have the exclusive rights to know what your 12
00:31:46.240
year old child is checking out of the library. Librarian wants to know more about your child
00:31:51.480
than you do. Same for teachers who push similar policies in school and they frame it as privacy
00:31:56.040
rights for the child, but really it is access rights. Okay. They want more access to your child
00:32:02.000
than you, than you have. That's what they want. And, uh, what does that mean? It means that a, that a
00:32:10.960
creepy librarian can take your child aside and recommend a bunch of LGBT books, load them up with
00:32:16.800
those books. And you as a parent have no right to know, uh, the staff at the library wants to be able
00:32:22.840
to keep secrets with your child. And this is, I know we're not supposed to say groomer anymore,
00:32:30.240
but spade is a, you know, spades a spade here. Groomer is a groomer. This is a classic grooming
00:32:36.200
tactic. When an adult says to a child, this is between me and you, you don't have to tell your
00:32:41.360
parents about this. Don't tell your parents. We'll, we'll keep this between me and you. That is always,
00:32:46.520
always, always a major red flag. There is really no context where that is ever. Okay. The only
00:32:54.160
possible context is, is when a child confides in another adult that he, the child is being abused
00:33:00.240
at home. Okay. But even then it, it, it, it, it, uh, it wouldn't work that way because it's not,
00:33:06.460
it there's, it's not a secret to being kept by the child and the, and that one adult because the
00:33:11.320
adult hopefully is going to go and get help for the child. So many other people are going to be
00:33:16.500
brought in on this. It's not a secret. We're not just keeping this a secret, but of course,
00:33:21.360
um, that's, that's, uh, that's not what's happening here anyway, because these are not
00:33:26.960
abused children that are seeking refuge or seeking safety, right? This is a, this is the adult saying
00:33:33.880
to the child, oh yeah, this is something I know about you, but don't tell your parents. Just let me
00:33:40.120
know. And keep this in mind also, as referenced, uh, in, in the opening monologue,
00:33:46.500
we are constantly being told that kids who identify as LGBT are at a vastly increased risk
00:33:53.120
of suicide and other self-destructive behaviors. And that's true. You know, I, I certainly concede
00:33:57.560
that point, which means that if your child considers himself to be in that group, if he
00:34:02.100
considers himself to be gay or, or trans or whatever, then he is at an increased risk of
00:34:07.500
suicide. And that's one thing that everybody agrees on. There's not many things on these issues
00:34:11.440
that everyone could agree, but everyone agrees on that because it's statistical reality.
00:34:15.400
You can't deny it. Um, not that the left has any problem denying reality, but this is
00:34:19.520
one reality they won't deny. So you, as the parent, the person who raises him, who lives
00:34:27.180
with him every day, like it would seem that you would need to know that if we actually
00:34:33.240
want to protect these kids, if we want to make sure they don't hurt themselves, then
00:34:36.340
you need to know that your child is at an increased risk of suicide. But these schools
00:34:40.940
and now these libraries, they want to hide that information from you, uh, the information
00:34:45.420
that you need to protect your own child. How many children are dead right now? How many
00:34:49.880
children killed themselves because they were in a high risk group and the adults who knew
00:34:54.780
that didn't tell the parents? How many kids are dead because of that? We'll never know the
00:35:01.000
answer, but I can guarantee you it's not zero. It's a lot more than zero. I can guarantee
00:35:05.160
you that. Um, so that's one of the many problems here, but the main point is just again, uh,
00:35:14.140
to summarize, just get the hell away from my kids. You creeps. This is why I can never
00:35:19.380
live in a place like Vermont. This is why I could never send my kids to public school.
00:35:22.720
Um, I could not surrender my children to a system that thinks that it has more authority
00:35:26.640
over my kids than I do. I can never do it. Nobody is more qualified to raise my kids than
00:35:32.160
I am. No other adult should know more about my kids than I do. And my wife does. Uh, I
00:35:39.160
could never let these people anywhere near my kids. No parents should. Parents should
00:35:42.040
be the ultimate earthly authority. The ultimate earthly authority over their own children
00:35:46.060
should be the parents. Now, yes, a parent can lose, uh, that authority. A parent can
00:35:50.020
lose their rights to their own kids. A parent can lose their right to everything and be sent
00:35:53.320
to prison, um, if they're abusive, neglectful, and so on. But as a default position, as a default
00:35:59.180
position, authority must go to the parents. Why is that? Well, even aside from the fact
00:36:04.140
that the people trying to take that authority away happen to be creepy weirdos with insane
00:36:08.180
ideas about everything. Even aside from that, the point is that as a parent, okay, I love
00:36:15.460
my child. I care about my child in a way that you, you out there, you know, uh, any of you,
00:36:22.060
whether you work at a school or library or anywhere else, uh, in a way that you never could
00:36:25.800
and never would. So you might work at a school or a library and, and interact with my child
00:36:31.680
in that context. But when's the last time you laid awake at night worried about my children?
00:36:38.800
You never have. I have many times. How much sleep have you lost over my kids? None at all.
00:36:46.760
I've lost plenty. If my children died, how devastated would you be? That librarian in Vermont who says,
00:36:55.260
uh, I should know this and the parents should, if any one of those kids were to die, how devastated
00:36:59.560
would you actually be? Would you never be able to find happiness in the world again? In a world
00:37:04.660
deprived of, of, of their presence? No, if that was my child who died, that would be me, right? I life.
00:37:12.260
I would barely be able to find a purpose in living anymore without them. Um, but you would be fine.
00:37:17.180
You know, you, I mean, you might be sad, but you would ultimately be fine.
00:37:22.000
Are, are you animated every day to make sacrifices and endure hardships and take on enormous amounts
00:37:28.540
of stress and heartache so, so that my children can be provided for and happy and healthy?
00:37:33.840
You aren't. I am. You know, I love my children. I would die for them. I would kill for them.
00:37:42.820
I would do any moral thing to protect them. And I would probably do a lot of immoral things too,
00:37:47.080
to be perfectly honest with you. Uh, this is how I feel about my own kids, not anybody else's.
00:37:52.080
I love other people's kids in the sort of universal charitable way that we should love
00:37:55.440
other people, especially children. But my kids are mine. They're my own.
00:37:59.460
And, and for that reason, and maybe not that, not that reason alone, but for that reason to begin
00:38:09.940
with, for that reason, primarily the parent is, is the ultimate earthly authority over the child.
00:38:18.860
Unless something happens where we have to change that arrangement. But when we change it,
00:38:24.060
we realize, or we should realize what a serious, significant thing that is, which is why you only
00:38:30.240
change it in the worst possible circumstances. It's really a question. Who, who, who should have
00:38:38.100
ultimate earthly authority over the child by default? Should it be the parents who love the child beyond all
00:38:46.940
measure? You know, the people for whom that child is, is, is their, their purpose, their mission from God,
00:38:54.520
their vocation on this earth? Or should it be government employees at a school or librarians
00:39:03.180
who, who barely know the kid's name? That, that's really the question. And I think it's just,
00:39:12.780
the answer to that question is so exceedingly clear that it, we shouldn't even, it should not be a
00:39:20.300
conversation. All right. Another thing I want to mention is from Fox News headline, movie producer
00:39:30.420
of Cabrini responds to critics that film fails to show none's faith motivation. That's the headline.
00:39:36.440
The movie Cabrini now in theaters is getting a lot of positive reviews for its cinematography,
00:39:39.740
acting, and storytelling. But some of the most piercing criticisms of the film
00:39:42.440
have come from the faith media. The Catholic Exchange asked whether Cabrini is a feminist
00:39:47.020
social justice warrior or a Catholic saint. The EWTN critique said the movie is gutted of
00:39:51.940
religious meaning. In Catholic World Reports, Father Henry Graby commented on his review,
00:39:57.120
oddly missing from the film are several characteristics that would be considered
00:39:59.440
essential for anyone striving towards sainthood, namely holiness and prayerfulness.
00:40:03.960
The film reveals the struggles of Mother Cabrini, born Frances Xavier Cabrini, an Italian woman who was
00:40:08.740
the youngest of 13 children, became a Catholic nun. The film elevates her feistiness, which enabled her
00:40:13.260
to defy her frail health and challenge the power structure of the Catholic Church in the city of New
00:40:17.320
York to build orphanages, hospitals, and schools. And she came here in the late 1800s, and that's sort of
00:40:25.340
the story. But this film is sustaining some criticism from conservatives and Christians on the grounds
00:40:33.780
that Fox News mentions here. And I bring this up because I bring it up now because I just watched
00:40:39.640
the film last night with my family. And I'll be honest with you about this, that the honest truth
00:40:45.620
is that they sent me a screener of the film weeks ago, Angel Studios did, and I was hesitant to watch it.
00:40:51.720
In fact, I was not excited to watch it. I didn't jump at the chance to watch it. And the reason is
00:40:56.200
that it's a faith-based movie about a saint. And I've seen a lot of those kinds of movies over the
00:41:01.800
years. And in my experience, they are almost always boring, dull, poorly acted, poorly written,
00:41:10.040
clunky, sappy, corny, just not good films. And that's the case with most faith-based films
00:41:17.200
historically, for as long as they've been making them. Now, even though the stories they're telling
00:41:22.340
are important, are oftentimes the most important stories, but they tell the stories poorly. They
00:41:29.240
just don't tell the stories well. And so it's, and the fact that they are not only making a bad movie,
00:41:34.920
but they're making a bad movie about such an important story, makes it not only boring,
00:41:38.760
but actually frustrating to watch. I've actually been, I've watched these kinds of movies in the past,
00:41:42.720
and I get angry watching them because I say like, how can you ruin this, this story? How could you
00:41:49.800
not manage to tell it well? It's, it's, it's mind boggling. Now, Angel Studios, of course, made
00:41:57.920
Sound of Freedom, which was a good movie. But even with Angel Studios, again, to be honest, based on my
00:42:01.440
own experience of watching these kinds of films, I was skeptical that they could continue to grow,
00:42:06.180
that they could, you know, continue to improve artistically, actually do something interesting
00:42:11.280
and compelling with a story like this. Nothing against Angel Studios, you know, my skepticism,
00:42:16.000
not based on them, but just based on decades worth of Christian films. And that was the problem.
00:42:20.260
So I wasn't excited to watch it. We did finally watch it, though. Seemed like a good Easter movie
00:42:23.500
to watch. And, and I was wrong. I mean, it was an exceptionally well-made, well-shot film, powerful,
00:42:30.400
subtle performances, good writing, top, top shelf cinematography. Just the camera work was
00:42:36.280
fantastic. And, uh, it manages to suck you in. And the very first scene, you, you, you're,
00:42:42.140
you're brought in and you're, you're in it and you're with it. Um, a movie about a nun who opens
00:42:48.520
an orphanage in orphanage for immigrant children in New York could have easily lapsed into schmaltz
00:42:54.540
and melodrama, but, uh, it really never does. It feels authentic the way it's shot, the way it's lit,
00:42:59.880
the performances, it just, the script, it feels like, it feels real. Um, the problem that Christian
00:43:04.540
films have had in the past is that they, they depict dramatic things happening and they want
00:43:09.320
you to feel deep emotion while you're seeing these things, but you don't feel those emotions
00:43:14.700
because, because nothing about the film seems real or authentic. You know, there's kind of this gloss
00:43:18.980
over everything. It's all sort of sanitized, even the way I mentioned the lighting, even the way a lot
00:43:24.080
of Christian films in the past, but they all been lit sort of the same way. You feel you're watching a
00:43:27.820
commercial. It doesn't even, everything about it feels wrong. It feels acted. It feels not real.
00:43:33.180
Um, so maybe, you know, I've seen Christian films in the past, whatever, it's about a, a marriage,
00:43:39.440
a couple struggling with marriage or someone struggling with their faith or, uh, someone is
00:43:44.700
dying of cancer, you know, or whatever. And by all rights, you should be emotionally invested in that
00:43:50.780
sort of thing. Cause it's like the story itself is, well, that's a dramatic story, you know, but you
00:43:56.040
aren't because the writing is sort of bland and one dimensional and the performances lack the nuance to
00:44:00.980
make them feel real, uh, and all of that. But, you know, with this film, you're supposed to feel,
00:44:07.260
uh, like these Italian immigrants are in a desperate situation and you do, as you watch it,
00:44:11.840
you're supposed to feel sad and frustrated when Cabrini suffers setbacks throughout the story
00:44:15.820
and you do feel it. You're supposed to feel like the pain and triumph and everything on the screen.
00:44:20.040
And you feel all that as you watch it. It's just a good film. It's what good films do.
00:44:22.880
And, uh, and this is just talking about the artistry of the film, not even the message,
00:44:27.200
uh, but our artistic grounds alone, I think Angel Studios, uh, with this movie, again,
00:44:32.560
Sound of Freedom was good, but, uh, I think with this movie in particular, they've announced
00:44:36.460
themselves as serious, sophisticated players in the, in the film industry. And I'm really excited
00:44:42.380
about that. And that, you know, using the word sophisticated, it's hard to use that word
00:44:45.460
without sounding, you know, uh, uh, pretentious or something, but yeah, that's just it. I mean,
00:44:53.180
a lot of conservative Christian type films, if you were to sum up what they lack is they lack
00:44:58.560
sophistication. These are not sophisticated artists or really artists at all. Uh, and,
00:45:04.080
but this hasn't, it's, it's, it's a sophisticated film. Now, what are the critiques? Well, the movie's
00:45:09.000
20 minutes too long for one thing. And it also goes pretty heavy on, uh, the girl power stuff.
00:45:13.820
A little bit too much, you know, and, and sure, it's a true story. Cabrini really did encounter,
00:45:19.240
uh, St. Cabrini encountered obstacles in her quest to set up orphanages. Um, because, and,
00:45:26.020
and some of those obstacles were because she's a woman. I get that, but there must've been seven,
00:45:30.120
seven or eight different scenes where somebody, some man shouts, you can't do that. You're a woman.
00:45:35.180
It's a bit heavy handed, you know, after a while, but not so much that it ruins the movie.
00:45:38.900
And then there's the critique mentioned in this article, which we'll finally get to.
00:45:41.880
Um, and, uh, I was talking about this on Twitter yesterday and I heard some of this as well from,
00:45:48.340
from other people who were much stronger in the criticism than in some of the things I quoted
00:45:53.380
in the Fox news article. But the criticism is that it downplays the spiritual aspects of the story.
00:45:59.000
You know, that it's, uh, it, it downplays the religious themes, uh, even though this is a story
00:46:06.180
of a saint and it's a fair critique and there's truth to it. Now, religion is front and center
00:46:13.560
in the whole movie because basically every frame of the movie, the religion is front and center
00:46:18.720
because it's a, it's a movie about a Catholic nun. And there's several scenes where faith is discussed,
00:46:24.020
scripture is quoted and so on. But it's true that the film seems to explore Cabrini's personality
00:46:29.860
and character more than it explores her faith. Now, these things are all interwoven. They aren't
00:46:35.680
clearly distinguishable anyway, but there's some truth to that observation is what I'm saying.
00:46:41.760
Yet, I still think it's foolhardy for Christians to dismiss the film entirely because, because of
00:46:46.260
that, uh, as some have done from what I've seen. Because the fact is, this is a family friendly
00:46:51.900
movie about a heroic, uh, historical figure who's also a Catholic nun. Um, now I say family friendly,
00:47:00.400
by the way, it is, it's intense. So it might not be, you know, you might not want to sit your,
00:47:04.260
uh, four-year-old down to watch it, but it's, it's, uh, you know, it's still, I think very much
00:47:10.100
a family film. And, um, and not only are the religious people in the film not portrayed as
00:47:16.180
oafish villains as they would be in any mainstream Hollywood film, but, uh, they're the heroes
00:47:21.720
of the movie. And the most villainous creatures in the movie are politicians and bureaucrats.
00:47:27.420
So, I mean, you know, come on. And that on top of the fact that it is, again, a very well-made
00:47:31.940
film, uh, if, if that's not enough to see the movie as at least a net positive, then I don't know what
00:47:40.600
to tell you. Um, and, uh, you know, one thing you have to understand, and I think some conservatives
00:47:47.980
and Christians struggle with this, but you have to understand that, you know, filmmakers have to
00:47:54.220
put the story first. Their first priority, if they're good filmmakers, is to tell a compelling
00:47:58.900
story. That's the first thing that matters before anything else. The number one priority is to tell
00:48:05.200
a compelling story. Everything else, the message, everything else is second. It has to be, it has to
00:48:12.280
be because that's what they're doing. They're, they're telling us as storytellers that you have to
00:48:15.040
tell the story. And that requires them to make artistic choices and to take some risks for the
00:48:20.580
sake of the story. And the reason why Christian films were so God awful for so many years is that
00:48:26.180
filmmakers didn't put the story first. They didn't treasure the story and the craft and art of
00:48:31.940
storytelling the way that they should. Instead, they just looked at, at the story as nothing but a
00:48:36.780
vessel to deliver a message. And so you ended up with, with movies that were terrible stories, but they
00:48:41.460
were, you know, relatively, uh, sufficient sermons and that's all they were. Um, and they were flat,
00:48:48.420
boring stories that were poorly told, but you had the message in there. The problem is that nobody,
00:48:53.000
you know, the message didn't really get to anybody. It didn't affect anybody deep down
00:48:56.760
because it was wrapped inside an uninteresting story. And the problem is that when filmmakers try
00:49:03.100
to go the other way and they actually put the story first, there are going to be some members of
00:49:08.060
the audience, those who actually watched those bad Christian films and pretended to like them,
00:49:12.080
you know, cause those films did have an audience. Um, they were preaching to the choir,
00:49:16.500
but they did have an audience. Well, those people, they'll, they'll get angry, right? They'll get
00:49:22.460
angry when the storyteller like makes some artistic storytelling decisions in order to make sure the
00:49:27.300
story is good. Um, and, and, uh, you know, and that's when you get criticism of like, well,
00:49:33.200
we didn't see her praying enough, but, you know, look, you could have included a few more scenes of her
00:49:37.180
praying, but also it, it's just not, we're not going to sit for five minutes and watch somebody
00:49:41.540
pray in a movie. It's just not, it's just not praying. Praying is incredibly important to do,
00:49:46.680
but in this context of a film, when it's already kind of too long already, uh, it's, it's just not,
00:49:54.480
that's not a compelling thing to watch someone to do in a story most of the time. So it might be one
00:49:59.580
of the reasons why they didn't have it. And the problem is that, you know, again, some conservatives
00:50:04.040
will watch it and they'll, they'll go, well, why don't you check this box? And why don't you check
00:50:07.080
that box? And, and what about this one? And why didn't you, well, what about this sermon that you
00:50:11.440
could have told and you didn't? And they get mad when an artist tries to actually make art instead
00:50:16.860
of a homily. It's one of the reasons why the way, you know, we, we complain all the time that there
00:50:20.640
aren't enough movies about, um, by the Bible, you know, they're not a biblical stories being made into
00:50:26.840
films anymore. And I agree with that. I'd love to see, I mean, of course the whole Bible, we could have,
00:50:31.520
we could have 50 incredible films made in the last 20 years, um, just based on the Bible alone. But
00:50:38.520
yeah, the major reason why that doesn't happen, obviously, is that Hollywood is mostly a bunch of
00:50:43.760
heathen, uh, degenerate perverts who have no interest in, in telling those stories. But then
00:50:50.440
the other problem too, is that, is that the few filmmakers who would maybe want to tell those
00:50:56.480
stories and, and could tell a good story. They're hesitant because they know that they're going to,
00:51:02.780
any of these biblical stories, you're going to have to make artistic choices. You're going to have to,
00:51:06.920
you have to turn it into a film. These are not films. And a lot of these stories are, are, you know,
00:51:11.740
if you were just to tell, if you were to just make a movie and all you see is what's on the page,
00:51:18.200
the movie will be like 17 minutes long. It's like, you'd have to flesh it out and, and add in details
00:51:25.180
that are not included in the text. Um, it's the only way that you could tell, uh, a story.
00:51:31.220
Maybe the one exception to this is the passion of the Christ. But if you want to, if something
00:51:35.440
beyond that, it's going to require you to make artistic filmmaking decisions. And, um, so I think
00:51:41.640
a lot of those filmmakers, they, they just realized like, well, it's a, it's a lose-lose because,
00:51:45.500
you know, the, the, the non-Christian audience, they might not like it because they feel like
00:51:50.120
I'm proselytizing, but even the Christian audience, like they're going to be breaking,
00:51:53.540
they're going to have a fine tooth comb going through this film, looking for what they consider
00:51:57.820
to be, uh, exegetical or theological problems. Um, and so that's why we, we often don't end up
00:52:06.960
with a lot of the art that we could otherwise have. So anyway, that's a long way of saying,
00:52:10.100
uh, Cabrini, pretty good movie. You should check it out.
00:52:13.280
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And every once in a while, I'll take a position that I realize is risky. Even while I'm saying it
00:53:35.640
out loud on camera, I am conscious of the fact that I may well come to regret having said what I'm
00:53:40.320
saying. You might argue that it makes me imprudent and reckless to say something publicly that I know
00:53:44.860
I might soon wish I didn't say. Or you might argue that it makes me courageous. At least I'll try to
00:53:49.120
argue the latter case, but the former is probably more true most of the time. Either way, the problem
00:53:54.220
with venturing out onto a precarious limb, of course, is that the limb might snap and send you hurtling
00:53:59.020
down to the forest floor. And that is what happened to me after I publicly stated a few weeks ago that
00:54:04.620
Beyonce's new country song wasn't that bad. Now, I didn't say that it was good objectively. I didn't say
00:54:08.880
that I would be putting it on my Spotify playlist. I didn't say that it was a great song. I just said
00:54:14.280
it wasn't terrible. It was catchy. It was kind of not awful. It wasn't much of a ringing endorsement,
00:54:20.140
but it was the closest thing to an endorsement that I've ever given Beyonce. And so it was inevitable
00:54:24.740
that I would live to rue the day that I vaguely praised one of her songs, sort of. And in fact,
00:54:29.320
she's made me regret it multiple times in the intervening weeks. But the real catastrophe struck
00:54:33.060
when Beyonce released her new country album. And one of the other songs on that album made the
00:54:39.320
rounds online. And it's Beyonce's rendition of the classic Dolly Parton hit, Jolene. Now,
00:54:45.220
if you're a red-blooded American, then you are well familiar with the original song. It is
00:54:48.700
Dolly's mournful plea to the woman, Jolene, who is trying to steal her man. Let's listen to a little
00:54:56.780
Your beauty is beyond compare with flaming locks of auburn hair with ivory skin and eyes of emerald
00:55:04.120
green. Your smile is like a breath of spring. Your voice is soft like summer rain and I cannot
00:55:13.460
compete with you, Jolene. He talks about you in his sleep and there's nothing I can do to keep
00:55:23.320
from crying when he calls your name, Jolene. And I can easily understand how you could easily take
00:55:33.640
my man, but you don't know what he means to me, Jolene.
00:55:38.980
Okay, now what makes this song unique and interesting, which has caused it to resonate
00:55:42.980
over the five decades since it was made, is the vulnerability and the heartbreak and the longing
00:55:48.100
in the lyrics and the performance. Dolly Parton is insecure, fearful, desperately in love with a man
00:55:52.900
who she believes she cannot afford to lose. Those opening lyrics are iconic because of how they
00:55:57.060
kind of invert expectations. She's singing to the woman who is trying to break up her relationship,
00:56:01.700
but instead of attacking her, she praises her rival's beauty. And already there's more poetry
00:56:06.940
in those opening lines than in every Beyonce song ever written combined, but we'll get to Beyonce
00:56:11.380
in a moment. Later on in the song, Parton pleads with Jolene, quote, you can have your choice of men,
00:56:16.340
but I can never love again, which is really the essence of the song. She sees this woman of surpassing
00:56:20.680
beauty, who can have any man she wants, trying to take the best man that Dolly Parton thinks
00:56:25.060
she'll ever have. And that's where the song's sadness comes from. It's also why so many people
00:56:29.600
have related to it. Now, when I heard that Beyonce was covering the song, I of course knew that her
00:56:34.540
cover wouldn't get within a thousand miles of Dolly's original. Beyonce just doesn't have the soul
00:56:38.860
and gravitas to do a song like that any justice. But at the same time, in a weird way, I was initially
00:56:43.860
impressed with the idea. Because after all, it is a very tender, very feminine song expressing deep
00:56:49.280
insecurity and vulnerability. And Beyonce just doesn't make songs like that. So this seemed to
00:56:53.080
be an interesting departure, even if her performance was destined to pale in comparison.
00:56:58.060
But then I listened to Beyonce's version. Here's a little bit of it.
00:57:03.060
You're beautiful beyond compare. Takes more than beauty and seductive stars to come between a
00:57:10.660
family and a happy man. Jolene, I'm a woman too. The games you play are nothing new, so you don't
00:57:21.420
want no heat with me, Jolene. We've been deep in love for 20 years. I raised that man, I raised his
00:57:31.600
kids. I know my man better than he knows himself. I can easily understand why you're attracted to
00:57:42.540
my man. But you don't want the smoke, so shoot your shot with someone else.
00:57:51.080
Ah, well, there you go. Of course. Just when you think that Beyonce might be growing ever so slightly
00:57:57.880
as an artist and a person, she proves you wrong. It turns out that she has taken this song full of
00:58:02.480
pain and yearning and emotional honesty and turned it into yet another mediocre girl boss anthem.
00:58:07.980
She has, in other words, taken everything that makes the song great and replaced it with everything
00:58:13.200
that makes modern pop music terrible. Now, in Beyonce's molestation of the original, she sings,
00:58:17.920
your beautiful beyond compare. Takes more than beauty and seductive stares to come between a
00:58:20.940
family and a happy man. Jolene, I'm a woman too. The games you play are nothing new, so you don't
00:58:24.460
want no heat with me, Jolene. And later she adds, but you don't want this smoke, so shoot your shot
00:58:28.900
with someone else. And then sings, Jolene, I know I'm a queen, Jolene. I'm still a Creole
00:58:33.080
banjee from Louisiana. Don't try me. And finally, she warns, I'd hate to have to
00:58:37.940
act a fool. So, in other words, if you liked the original, but you always thought that it
00:58:42.800
needed less honesty, less heart, less soul, more feminist platitudes and a healthy heaping
00:58:48.880
of urban slang, well then, here you go. Your wish is Beyonce's command. And the problem
00:58:53.860
with this new version, aside from the fact that the performance is flat and uninteresting,
00:58:58.220
the lyrics are clunky and kind of stupid, and that Beyonce has ripped the song's heart out
00:59:02.940
of its chest and eaten it like some kind of nightmarish Aztec ritual, the problem is that
00:59:08.120
it lacks the vulnerability of the original song. In the original, Dolly Parton is desperate.
00:59:14.080
She's worried. She's anxious. She's lying awake at night listening to the man in bed next
00:59:17.820
to her as he dreams about a woman more beautiful than herself. In Beyonce's version, she's a
00:59:23.360
confident queen. She's unbothered. She's tough and independent and perfect and wonderful and
00:59:28.360
unafraid, and her man would never cheat on her anyway. Which, if that's the case, then why should
00:59:33.320
anyone even care about the story you're telling us in the song? There's no emotional resonance because
00:59:39.120
there's no emotion. There's no tension. There's no fear or longing or heartbreak. Beyonce's the
00:59:44.080
greatest. She's a queen. She's perfect. Everything's perfect. So, who cares? Why are you even telling us
00:59:49.100
about this? Like, why has this moved you to song in the first place? How am I supposed to be
00:59:55.480
emotionally invested in your own alleged perfection? This is what most pop and rap music
01:00:01.200
is these days. Not all, but most. It's a bunch of millionaires bragging about themselves. And the
01:00:07.100
question, among others, the main question is, why should anyone care? Your boasts are not interesting.
01:00:13.640
They are also not relatable to the rest of us mere mortals. Beyonce is a strong, confident queen,
01:00:20.760
she claims. Well, the rest of us are human beings. We're not kings and queens. We're just,
01:00:24.640
we're people. We have insecurities and pains and fears, anxieties, hopes, dreams, desires.
01:00:30.420
Music at its best expresses those universal human experiences. But Beyonce's music expresses nothing
01:00:36.380
more than how awesome Beyonce thinks Beyonce is. Never mind the fact that she isn't nearly as awesome
01:00:41.840
as she believes herself to be. If she is that awesome, then what are we even supposed to feel
01:00:46.960
while we listen to her brag about it? If her bluster is true, then it makes her music totally boring and
01:00:52.340
pointless. I can't think of anything less interesting than listening to a famous rich person
01:00:58.780
sing songs about how great they are. But the thing is, it isn't even true. And that's the biggest
01:01:06.300
problem with just about every song she's ever made and with much of modern popular music generally.
01:01:11.120
It just isn't true. It's not saying anything true about the human experience. It's not connecting
01:01:17.240
with anything real inside us. Because the truth is that any woman, okay, Beyonce included,
01:01:24.560
any woman who sees another woman, a beautiful, radiant woman, hitting on her boyfriend or her
01:01:29.940
husband will at some level feel insecure and threatened. If she's a human being, that's how
01:01:36.320
she'll react. That's how humans react in those situations. It's real. It's true. Like no woman would
01:01:42.560
just wave that off and say, whatever, I'm a badass queen. No man would ever leave me. Now she might
01:01:47.840
say that out loud perhaps, but deep in her heart, she'll have doubts. In fact, it would have been
01:01:53.560
interesting if Beyonce's version began with the blustery confidence. But then as the song went on,
01:01:59.800
the cracks start to show and she reveals herself to be insecure and anxious about the situation.
01:02:04.640
That would have been a smart artistic direction to take. It's still not as good as the original,
01:02:08.300
but at least a creative twist. But Beyonce has no capacity for creativity and has none of the
01:02:14.460
artistic intelligence or honesty to even conceive of something like that. So instead we get a version
01:02:19.680
that will only appeal to women who are as dishonest and lacking in self-awareness as she is.
01:02:24.680
But if it appeals to those women or men, it's not because they relate to Beyonce's corny feminist
01:02:30.860
bravado, but because they want to relate to it. That's the whole reason people like to listen to
01:02:36.200
rappers and pop stars brag about themselves. It's because they, the listeners, want to feel
01:02:41.780
as arrogant and self-assured as those rappers and pop stars pretend to feel about themselves.
01:02:46.740
It's all an act, right? And in reality, Beyonce is so incredibly insecure that she's won like 32
01:02:54.680
Grammys, but still whines because she hasn't won album of the year. She's won more awards at the
01:03:01.040
Grammys than any artist in history. And it's not enough. That's how desperate for affirmation and
01:03:08.040
approval she really is. And you know what? That would be an interesting subject for a song. If
01:03:13.120
Beyonce explored the fact that she has praised the world over, showered with money and fame and
01:03:19.480
critical acclaim, and yet she still hungers for approval. That would be honest. That would be
01:03:25.760
interesting. I would listen to a song like that. It would even be relatable actually, because none of
01:03:31.680
us have won 32 Grammys and most of us aren't nearly as rich as she is, but we all know that in our minds,
01:03:37.220
one insult outweighs a hundred compliments. Why is that? Well, that's the kind of thing a real artist
01:03:46.000
who has the courage to be vulnerable and honest might be able to explore. But Beyonce is not a real
01:03:54.820
artist. She's a mediocre hack. She's been making music for 25 years. And during that entire time,
01:03:59.820
she's never managed to say one interesting or insightful thing ever. She's bland and dull and
01:04:06.980
arrogant. And worst of all, she's a liar. And also, frankly, not a very good singer. And that is why
01:04:13.580
she is today canceled. That'll do it for the show today. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening.
01:04:18.940
Have a great day. Talk to you tomorrow. Godspeed.