35 Burst results for "Alliance Defending Freedom"
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
Could Trump Be Worse the Second Time Around?
"It's not, it's a little more nuanced than that, but I do think you don't credit evangelicals generally with being smart about their vote. My whole view of the evangelical affair with Trump is that the relentless ascendancy of secularism drove evangelicals into his arm and that that election was really about the Supreme Court. And that evangelicals were quite smart to go with Trump after he published his list, and they ended up with justice, Gorsuch justice, Kavanaugh, and justice Amy Coney Barrett, and that was a good deal for evangelicals concerned about freedom of worship. Response I understand all that, I, you know, my perspective was at the time and remains that he was that Trump was pretty clear about his disregard for the constitution for history for sort of the architecture of our democracy. He made that pretty clear in his comments in different ways. And I think he proved that his words meant something when it came to January 6th. So I think, you know, sure, you got a Supreme Court that you like, and we came to a constitutional crisis where we came closer than I and many others would have liked to. Okay, tangent. Tangent, John. If Mike Pence had done the wrong thing and put aside the ballots, what do you think would have happened? It wasn't a constitutional crisis. It was a riot, and it was dangerous, and I hope they're all prosecuted who broke in, but I've had this argument with Liz Cheney. What do you think would happen if Mike Pence had bought it? Well, we don't know what would have happened. I think there's another scenario where they delay it where lawmakers are killed, where they can't get enough lawmakers to actually certify the election. And I think there was talk, I think, by general milley, of concerns about Trump, you know, declaring martial law or some excuse to take military control of the country. We don't have evidence that I think John Roberts would have gotten the court together and they would have declared count the votes in about 24 hours. Maybe not that long. And they would add a Nixon versus the United States 9 zero vote and we weren't close to a constitutional crisis. In fact, my biggest argument with you about your book is you don't actually have a lot of faith that evangelicals believe in the constitution and that there are concerns about the secularization of the society are overstated when in fact I spend a lot of time talking to the alliance defending freedom, they're out there every day combating anti Christian bigotry. I mean, it's real. I've been reporting on this since 1992. It's a constant, secularization, advance that has triggered a lot of the response that you deal with, although covenant life church is different. That's why I'm trying to, that's a very different part of the general evangelical world, isn't it? You know, in some respects, coming to life was not very political. It wasn't involved with things like alliance defending freedom. And you know, I have no problem with people doing those things in through the system that we have. But I think going back to the point about January 6th, were we at the point of a coup, we don't know the point my point is we were way too close for my comfort level and we're now at a point where the same guy is potentially going to be the Republican nominee again. And if he brought us that close last time, my concern is where do we go from here if he's president again?
The Charlie Kirk Show
For the Hawleys, Abortion Rights Is a Family Affair
"I want to make sure I mention this, and then I want to close on just some general thoughts on midterms. You were one of the main leaders behind the Dobbs case. Is that correct? Tell us about that. Sure, so I was privileged to serve as counsel to Mississippi and adopts case on behalf of alliance defending freedom and is the mom to three little ones. It was really just an amazing experience. I've told this story before, but when I first went down to meet with Mississippi's team, our daughter Abigail was about 6 months old. And I was like, I can't go. I've got a baby, and so ADF said just bring her. And it was this really incredible, also really hard experience having her there. My babysitter hadn't arrived yet, so we were rushing, trying to get her to sleep, and she falls asleep, and we're discussing the ins and out of what legal argument will appeal to which justices, you know what we'll just Kavanaugh, what will justice bear it? What will the chief justice think? These are the justices that are really crucial to getting a decision in our favor and Abigail wakes up screaming, just flooding murder. And on the one hand it's a little embarrassing, sorry guys. But on the other hand, she was just this incredible picture of why the case matters. You know, red hair, chubby cheeks. But the reality is, as we've talked about, she's not any more precious, any more love by God than any other child. And each and every one of them are deserving of life. And that's a bottom what dobs is about.
The Eric Metaxas Show
Liz Wheeler and Eric Discuss a SCOTUS Case for Religious Liberty
"Our Friends at the alliance defending freedom were at the Supreme Court, arguing this case for religious liberty. It seems that everything. In other words, no matter what the constitution says, you have to keep defending it. Because there are going to be crazy people in places like Colorado, who are just going to do whatever they want and the state government is going to be fine with it. And then you have to go to the Supreme Court otherwise you've got to deal with their Marxist madness in places like Colorado. That's basically what's going on in this case. It is. It's sort of a repeat of the Jack Phillips master. Except in that case, I blame the Supreme Court a little bit. They ruled so narrowly in the masterpiece cake shop case that it only applied to Jack Phillips. It wasn't something that established a precedent that said, okay, well, a religious person, like this florist, I believe she is. This florist is allowed to exercise her religious beliefs in the workplace without facing a lawsuit from the state over their anti discrimination act. And the Supreme Court at that time could have said this applies to everyone. Instead, what they actually ruled in the masterpiece cake shop case was that Jack Phillips had been treated with animus by the state. So they didn't comment or set any precedent on religious freedom. This case is sort of sort of, I would call it a retrial of that same principle. This is hopefully it will lead to a little bit of a broader rule. And I don't think it's a florist. I think stutzman was the florist, and that was a previous case. This one website created a website. That's right. But what I find fascinating, really, is, again, like the supreme, I mean, sorry, the constitution and this nation have always been super clear that we can not force people to say things they don't want to say to do things they want to do. It's a free country. And if you have religious beliefs, they are sacred. But in places like Colorado, they're challenging that, which is
Dennis Prager Podcasts
The Death of Free Speech
"So this passage yesterday in the Senate of the respect for marriage act. Which again is just completely duplicitously and deceptively named. It does not respect marriage. And in fact, trash's marriage, along with trashing and most importantly, the constitution, that's what a trash is. The constitution on the First Amendment. I want to give you some of the language from the alliance defending freedom in response to this passage yesterday. Ryan bangert is the senior vice president of strategic initiatives. Speaking of the respect for marriage act, this is what he said. This dangerously cynical and completely unnecessary Bill is a direct attack on the First Amendment. It does nothing to change the legal status of same sex marriage anywhere. That's exactly what I said. But it undermines religious freedom everywhere. And exposes Americans throughout the country to predatory lawsuits by activists seeking to use the threat of litigation to silence debate and exclude people of faith from the public square. Today, the Senate has chosen to disregard legitimate concerns about the undeniable harms of this bill. If the Senate truly cared about protecting religious freedom, it would have included comprehensive amendments proposed by senators Lee, Rubio and Langford. And by the way, just FYI as an aside, that's what they took up yesterday was the amendments. Nobody was trying to undo. Same sex marriage protections. No one. The amendments were solely to protect people from being railroaded into civil suits or even criminal suits or criminal prosecution for not participating in something they may have a religious or a conscience objection of.
The Dinesh D'Souza Podcast
Danielle Joins Dinesh to Talk About a Controversy at Yale Law School
"So Danielle, let's talk a little bit about this business, Yale law school, a prominent judge, James hole, says I'm not going to hire any more clerks from Yale law school because they're regularly suppressing free speech. In fact, there was an event in which a conservative speaker. This is Christian Wagner of the alliance defending freedom. Was there to speak at Yale? The students began to shout and scream and prevent her from speaking. There was a dean of Yale in the audience who did nothing even to ask them to quiet down and then later the dean of the law school, this has had the gherkin said no action would be taken against any of the students. And so this judge has mentioned that incident and others and he goes, listen, you know, I don't really want to punish the students, but I want to punish Yale. I like what he says, you know, he goes, I don't want to cancel Yale. I want Yale to stop canceling people like me. So, and now if it was just him, it'd be one thing, but other judges have joined in and Yale is having a freak out. Yeah, that is good because Yale should not be able to get away with this. And the reason they get away with it is because people continue to hire them. That's the main reason these students want to go to schools like this and so that they get these Supreme Court clerkships and so that they get good jobs afterwards. So if more judges like him say we don't want to hire these students, these graduates, then Yale is not going to like that because they will not be able to supply those jobs for some of those students. So if other judges are doing the same thing, that will hurt Yale overall.
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"alliance defending freedom" Discussed on The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"I think that we could save that for a later date. Okay, you know, what's interesting to me, Phil, as I say things on Twitter, and I don't reproduce them because I can't authenticate whether or not they're actually in books and materials being presented to children. You have no concerns about proof in this matter, do you? No, no, concerns at all. And we have a pretty good record in the court right now that pretty well lays out what happened, there's not much of a dispute about that. Is this being litigated in state quarter and federal court? It's in federal court. District judge? Judge Moore. Who's he or she appointed by? You know, I believe judge Moore was appointed a while ago by George W. Bush, but I need to double check that. All right. And then I should know this. Is it the 11th circuit? What's Georgia? Yes. 11th circuit. How's the 11th circuit looking right now? Good. They have great cases, very recent cases. The First Amendment is strong, not just in the Supreme Court, but in the 11th circuit. And they've made it clear that citizens, people can't be punished for expressing their opinions on matters of public concern. And that's exactly what Lindsay did. Now, there will be an argument that as a teacher, she has a different set of rights and some responsibilities than of just a parent. How do you respond to that, though? Yeah, none of what she said or none of what she said related to her teaching responsibilities. I mean, the book that she was concerned about was being read as part of the library program, not by her. She did not interrupt her responsibilities to take action on this and it didn't she had no involvement really in the curriculum that she was expressing concern about. Her concern came from the fact that she had two children who were going to be part of the reading program and she asked that they be excused and she had concerns about this material. Lindsey outside of the school retaliating against you. Have you had activist retaliate against committee laws? Well, I have had just a few nasty things in our we live in a really small community. And so it's been kind of public. And just ugly, you know, some people are just really unkind. You know, it just takes so much spine and courage to step up and do this. I just want to thank you for doing so. And I want to ask my audience to support you and everyone like you whether it's Jack and masterpiece cake shop or Laurie in three or three creative or baran Allen or floor shop. When people speak up in aid, you have to find them. They sometimes get targeted. And we talk about the law here. We don't talk about the clients. And it just takes such courage and thank you, Lindsay. Phil. Connie your question here, do you get the help? I'm sorry, what was that you? How many requests a year do you or does ADF get to help people? You know, it's really how many requests a day. I mean, we get called daily all over by people all over the country who are facing problems in schools and schools are just bullying people. Saying they don't want to hear views. They don't want dissenting opinions. You have to follow the schools viewpoint and that's it. And that's unconstitutional. The school can't force orthodoxy on the citizens. It never happens. It's what China has right now. It's just China. And it's coming. Lindsey, thank you, Phil. Thank you. Please help them help us save our constitution. 8 6 6 three 5 9 96 44. Help them save our children's education, our grandchildren education. 8 6 6 three 5 9 6 44. I said at the beginning of the show that I was stunned on my recent tour when I lost my voice in Pittsburgh, of course. How depressed people are, not realizing that the window of opportunity to change the course of the law opened with the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett. And there are 6 solid originalists now. So one of them might just disagree for this reason or that. Justice Gorsuch will go off Brett Kavanaugh will go off. Chief justice will go off. Amy Coney Barrett, all you need is 5. You've got to count to 5. Now we're working with 6. Sometimes 7 because justice Kay can get to write occasionally. And those 7 can reaffirm the constitutional liberties, but not without people like alliance defending freedom, supporting clients like Lindsey. So I need you to call today right now, 8 6 6 three 5 9 96 44. Every first contribution is matched. Even if you're a longtime donor, if you have a lot, this is what I've been practicing law since 1983..
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"alliance defending freedom" Discussed on The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"Yeah, Jeremy, I do want to present good news as we go along. Yesterday I'm watching the NFL watching the browns lose. And for the first time in a long time, I saw an ad that upheld an organization that I support prison fellowship. Coca-Cola local Coca-Cola inside the beltway, put up an ad about how they support a fellowship with prison fellowship to serve the children of people in jail. First time, and then that's a mid probably 50 ads, many of which have very highly politicized messages either explicit or implicit. And I think that's because corporations are beginning to get pushed back from the center right about being so uniformly hard left and progressive. Do you think that's underway? Yeah, I do think that's underway. Probably seen some of the states. I was pushing back against the ESG and BlackRock, one of the big institutional investors that's still involved in pushing all these corporations down the ESG and left wing path. But you're also assuming the state of G starts to stand up investigations of these big banks for their complicity in the ESG, political scheme. And this is really softening up the corporations, I think. Even what happened down in Florida, we were on desantis and him starting to pull away some of the benefits that Disney had, and even just the blowback Disney job from engaging in the parental rights issue down there. And so I really do think you're right that corporations at least understand that there is a counterweight in that are going to receive some public backlash and some scrutiny if they continue down this path unabated. That is counterweight is often obscured, Jeremy. I don't think people want to get involved. For example, but don't say gay law is not a don't say gay law. That's completely mislabeled, it's fake news. People hear that, and they know that it's fake, but they don't want to stand up because they don't want to be thought to be anti LGBT. All right, so they don't. But now ADF is there. And if people contribute to ADF, they are contributing. What's the name of the project, the new project, Jeremy? Do you point diversity scores? You can do their website viewpoint diversity scored out organ, all the information is right there, all the results of the index. And how do you score people? Yeah, well, we actually we're in development for quite a while on this. We have a 42 question scoring matrix that we put the corporations through. We collect data in two ways. We spend the corporations. We want to study a survey to ask them to be transparent around some of the issues that we're studying. And then we also do kind of exhaustive search of the publicly available data as well. And we're looking at three things. How do they keep their workforce? How do we treat your customers and vendors and suppliers? And then how do they engage from our charitable giving and political advocacy perspective? And so are they cooperating with you? Corporation. Well, the first year we had two corporations respond to our survey. 250 that we were growing this over time. It's an annual next week, 50 to first year. Next year, we're going to add 25 more companies. We should notice that Blackstone's getting slammed. I mean, they're getting slammed because they've gone so left wing. I am hoping that will incent other corporations to get on the viewpoint diversity as a means of protecting themselves. If they are genuinely viewpoint neutral and genuinely encouraging of all viewpoints, you don't want to silence anybody's speech. You just want to make sure it's a fair playing field. Am I right? That's exactly right. The left's proposition all these corporations as you might silence the people we disagree with. Our proposition is don't politicize your businesses don't treat anybody poorly because of their religious or political beliefs..
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"alliance defending freedom" Discussed on The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"Gloria America bonjour high Kennedy here at live back inside the beltway after a ten day trip that took me from Maine to D.C. to Denver to D.C. to Detroit to Pittsburgh to Columbus to Cleveland talk with live actual honest thousands of people and answer hundreds of questions about the election that are coming up at voter enthusiasm on the center right is extraordinary. It's off the charts, but they're also down the mouth and they forgot what got done in the last 5 years because of Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump. We have for the first time in my 60s, 6 years, a Supreme Court devoted again to originalist understanding and constitutional decision making not living constitution, but written constitutional decision making. One of the people is out there defending this window of opportunity trying to keep it open and bring cases forward is the senior council on senior vice president for corporate engagement at the alliance defending freedom. Jeremy tedesco, I've known for more than a decade. Hey, Jeremy, good morning. Hey, how are you? Good. This is a new role for you, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, we started this department in ADS a year ago. Well, tell us about this department because I think a lot of people are going to want to donate to ADF. And I'm going to give them the phone number to do that at shortly. But tell people what this is all about. Yeah, you know, we started this focus on corporate America and trying to solve the problem of the corporate threat to free speech and religious freedom and life. And all the other issues that we work on day to day in the courts and the legislatures because we are very aware, both as an institution ourselves, but also from a broader movement perspective. How the left was the incorporations as an end to run around all of the great victories that we have in courts. And in legislatures protecting these fundamental freedoms. And so when you can convince the Fortune 500 to regulate in a way that the First Amendment doesn't allow you to, if you're the government, then you factor regulated America without changing the law or winning a court case. And so you have to sustain these freedoms that have to make sure that we don't allow businesses to become politicized in a way that they become essentially weapons in the culture wars. And right now, unfortunately, the left really controls what side of that those questions, the corporations follow up. Are you telling me they're exactly two proxy advisory firms in the world that advise most of the companies on how to vote. ESG actually stands for evading, scrutiny of government. Because if you adopt the right things, the left wing progressives of the permanent bureaucracy want you to adopt. They'll leave you alone. And those left wing things, penalize people of Christian faith, other faith, and people of no faith at all, but who have different opinions from the ESG world. And finally, we're on the field, Jeremy. It took us a while, but we're on the field. Yeah, and so one of the things though that we learned was we looked at all this is unfortunately a lot of our tools in the toolkit like First Amendment litigation. And even proactive legislative measures to protect these fundamental freedoms are very difficult tools to use when private corporations are involved in censorship and religious discrimination. Not that it can't be used, but it's not as easy a path to using those regular tools. So what we did was we stood up as viewpoint diversity score business index. Which is a essentially a third party accountability tool to measure corporate respect for free speech and religious freedom. And we're using that plus a lot of other efforts, but that's really our cornerstone of our work right now to shed light on what's going wrong in corporate America, why are they censoring speech and why are they so hostile to religion? What are the policies and practices that are causing those things? And then ultimately to recommend corporate policies and guidelines and parameters to get these corporations to stop discriminating against speech to stop discriminating against religious faith. And build up a culture that respects these values because they're so essential to free market and living in a free society..
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"alliance defending freedom" Discussed on The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"She has been for the United States. Welcome back, America. I'm yukio. Just back from a ten day trip in advance of the election, which included a stop at my Detroit affiliate. The patriot and a wonderful gathering in Detroit with Mike Gallagher and our local guy and we just had a great time. But that was the beginning of my alarm about proposition three and it's so serendipitous that I'm talking to alliance defending freedom. One of my favorite lawyers, John birch, senior council and vice president of appellate advocacy because I hadn't heard about proposition three until I went to Detroit, Jonathan. Good morning, how are you? Good morning. I'm great here. How are you? Well, I'm sort of got laryngitis in the tenth degree, but I wasn't going to miss this show because I need you to tell people, first of all, who you are, why you work for alliance defending freedom, why they should support alliance defending freedom and then what proposition three is and why they've got to vote. No in Michigan. You bet. If you can't speak this morning, I'll just show you the water for you. There I gave you your outline. I know you're a great appellate advocate. First of all, who are you? Why do you work for ADF? What is ADF doing? Why should they vote against proposition three? Yes, I am the vice president for appellate advocacy at alliance defending freedom, the largest organization in the world, defending religious liberty free speech the right to life and parental rights. You probably seen our work in numerous places everywhere from Jack Phillips, the cake artist and the U.S. Supreme Court to the female athletes who are struggling against male competitors who identify as female and winning in all their races. And we're defending everyday people. And we do it slowly through the contributions of generous folks so that our clients do not pay a dime on any of the cases where we represent them. I'm specifically in charge of the Supreme Court litigation and the other appeals and that is a great honor to have such a wonderful client base. And in the case of proposal three, this is in Michigan. Jonathan, a question for a moment. Mister, like the justice interrupting you at oral argument. I asked you about why do you do this? Because Jonathan, if you went to work with Paul Clement, or one of the other great Supreme Court litigators, you'd be making 7 figures a year, which I know you're not making at ADF. Why do you do it? Yeah, I've argued 12 U.S. Supreme Court cases and about three dozen state Supreme Court cases across the country. So I've been doing this a while and have a lot of experience. But I do it specifically for these clients because I feel like this is God's docket. God is definitely called me and the other team members that alliance defending freedom to stand up and try to build his kingdom here on earth. And our mission statement is to keep the doors open for the spread of the gospel. So everything that we do is to make sure that others have the opportunity to be able to spread the good news without the government interfering and squelching their speech and stopping them from living out their faith in the public square. It took us a thousand years to get, it took us 2000 years to get to have the ability to speak the truth, internationally, at a moment, just as the Supreme Court started to close down the opportunity to do that. You're keeping the door open to do that. So I thank you for that. Does misses birch ever turn to you and say, you know, we could have a nice house on lakeshore drive in Michigan or we could buy most of Grand Rapids for the big little off firm partner in Washington, D.C.. Why don't you just say you've done your part and go into private practice? She has never once said that. She loves EDF clients the same way that I do. She prays for them. She will often help me find them. She'll be reading the news and she'll see about somebody who's being persecuted by the state or local or federal governments and not able to live out their faith and helps me and others at ADF connect to them. So she's been a wonderful partner in this. Everyone can contribute at 8 6 6 three 5 9 96 44 8 6 6 three 5 9 9 6 44 or go to Hugh Hewitt dot com make a contribution. If you're a first time contributor, it will be matched..
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"alliance defending freedom" Discussed on The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"And it's got to be litigated. I don't know if you heard President Biden yesterday did a presidential forum in which a trans woman presented this question to him. Cut number 7. Do you think states should have a right to ban gender affirming healthcare? I don't think any state or anybody should have the right to do that. As a moral question as legal question, I just think it's wrong. Now, you know, Nathan, that hides the real question of who decides for children. That's what California is trying to usurp, correct? Yeah, that's exactly right. They are basically saying that California can raise your kids better than you can. And therefore, they should have the authority to do that. And typically, especially in the case of minors and you're talking about who has legal custody of a child to make these sorts of decisions, courts defer to the custody decision of the courts of the state where that person lives. So it's also an assault on the full faith and credit clause in the constitution. So I expect that the first time minor flees one state to come to California for these sorts of life altering and irreversible procedures. Those parents need to take the state of California to court and the state from wherever that kid came from needs to take the state of California. And alliance defending freedom will help them. ADF health. Everyone free of charge. I don't often talk about the transgender issue. Lathan, because behind every case, there's a troubled child, and a child is having difficulty in a family that's in crisis. And the last thing Christian should be is other than compassionate. But the law is different from the individual. The law can not be made to conform to the progressive worldview that gender doesn't matter. And that boys can be girls and girls can be white. These are decisions that adults can make for themselves when they become adults, but children have to be kept. And schools can not become advocates for this. And the entire controversy is collapsing our education system into the narrowest of focuses at a time when it's collapsed so broadly. Certainly, I mean, this is part of the work ADF does in protecting parents rights. Which also helps protect children. So much of this stuff, as you mentioned, that's being put into curriculum in schools. It's being put into curriculum at younger and younger ages, where kids are not ready for this sort of discussion at all. Yeah, this is not up for debate. Anyone who follows it knows this is inappropriate and it's highly unconstitutional. It's infringement on religious beliefs. But lathan, do individual donors matter. I keep telling people to call 8 6 6 three 5 9 9 6 44. 8 6 6 three 5 9 9 6 44 to go to my website. You're here at dot com, but they got to wonder that's a $100 matter and the answer is absolutely. Yes, every donation matters. We can not do what we do. On the scale that we do it, fighting things like this all over the country without very, very generous support your listeners and others around the country. This is what makes it possible for us to take on the cases to do the litigation to do all of the work that leads up to the litigation and all of it. Without ever billing the client because the clients, no one wakes up wanting to be a client of alliance attending freedom. I mean, they could not, but at some point they have decided, this is more important than me, this case is bigger than me. And they understand that when we win for them, we're winning for people all over the country. Everyone's free speech right, whether they are believers or not, if they're believers, they're free exercise, right? Lathan, thank you, go to Hewitt dot com, let the banner for ADF load at the top and make a donation be a generous as you can be pleased..
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"alliance defending freedom" Discussed on The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"They're just in the border. Joe Biden gave up on it. Do you know they caught 98 known terrorists? People on the watch list at the southern border in 2022, 98. That's more than the previous 5 years combined. Unknown suspected terrorists on the terrorist watch list. That doesn't talk to us about how many got away. And one would have to assume that state sponsored terrorists or at least better equipped than those from less state sponsored. If your ISIS, you haven't got a state behind you, but if you're on Iran's agents you do. So we catch a few of the Iranian agents coming into America to kill people. And that's what they're doing. But we don't catch them all. And they get here. The Secret Service told us that. And so the border is wide and wide open. There's lots on your mind. I think I mentioned, as well, China is on people's mind. But what out of it? And so people are depressed and they're activating their voting in the early votes are great. Democrats have given up. In fact, I don't think Democrats want to win. I think Democrats knowing their heart, we can't have two more years of Democrats running to Congress. Or will I inflation at 15% than 8 and a half percent. And they took it from 2% to 8 and a half percent in two years. Okay, add another 6 and a half. I will be at 15%. Democrats spend like they spent the first few years. That's all they do. That's all they know how to do and spend money. And they don't understand what $31 trillion in debt is. And our military has never been this week in the modern era. And the modern era begins with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Never been this week. She's never been this strong. So it's an important election. You've got to get out there. You got to vote and Democrats know they're going to get crushed. Good. Make it make it make it hurt. Make it stick. Tell me you'll love the constitution. Morning glory in America, bound your high candidate to your challenge by laryngitis, but not missing today is Monday's show from inside the beltway. I am back from a trip from Maine to D.C. from D.C. to Detroit back to PC then to Denver, then to Pittsburgh, then the column was sent to Cleveland to talk to affiliates about this election. And they're all juiced up. They're ready to march. Republicans are going to win. But they're also a little downhearted, and they don't realize the great victory achieved over the last 5 years by Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump in securing an originalist majority on the Supreme Court. And circuit courts that are now balanced and fair. And alliance defending freedom, which is a sponsor of this show, but I'm not obliged to do what I'm doing today, which is devoting the entire show to ADF. I'm doing that so you understand the opportunity, the window of opportunity before us is open to bringing to the federal court's challenges to protect our religious liberty and our free speech rights. And the people doing that are an alliance defending freedom, including lathan watts, who is ADF, vice president of public affairs. Good morning, lathan boy. I'm glad you're here because my voice can not keep going. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. And I hope you get to feel better soon. I feel great. You just can't talk when you've got it. And that's my job. Lathan, first, would you tell people who are turning in for the very first time? What alliance defending freedom is? Certainly. So we are a nonprofit law firm that specializes in cases that protect religious liberty, free speech, sanctity of life, marriage and parental rights for all Americans. As a nonprofit, we are supported by donors so that our clients are never billed for our work. We handle cases all over the country. And all levels of the state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court where we've been fortunate enough blessed enough to have won 14 times at the United States Supreme Court and hopefully number 15 will be coming up. Soon, we have three O three creatives that will be arguing in December. How many lawyers are on staff and staff, lathan? Total, I think we're now north of 300 employees and that's all in. That's folks like me and public affairs and press and media that's litigators that's folks that work on our legislative team that's HR accounting finance. That's our paralegals. That's our secretary. That's everybody who's doing the courier services. It's a big offer..
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"alliance defending freedom" Discussed on The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"But they can't do it unless you help. So please go during this brief window 8 6 6 three 5 9 9 6 44. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. 8 6 6 three 5 9 96 44. 8 6 6 three 5 9 9 6 44. Alliance defending freedom of just creating the caption up for today's podcast and it says Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump saved the constitution. By the former, with his GOP Senate colleagues, by holding up in this good as vacancy after justice Scalia's death. And by the latter, nominating in the former confirming three originalist justices. Most of today's show is a discussion of how a life depending freedom is using the opportunity to preserve in some cases restore our constitutional rights to free speech and free exercise. And it's the most important thing. That's it. What's the purpose of existing to get to heaven? That's the purpose of existing. Get to heaven. How do you do that? You tell people where you learn it, you hear the word, you read the word, you get it. You get there. And then you pass it on to other people. And that requires for exercise and religion it requires free speech. That's what alliance defending freedom does has done for 30 years. They are 12 out of 13 victories. I'm expecting Matt sharp senior council and state government relations for the national director of ADF, but he may not be calling we'll talk to lathan Watson at the top of the hour about this. But all they will tell you is the thousands of lawyers who serve for free and that dozens of lawyers who labor for less a lot less. I mean, we've got some of the best lawyers in America working for alliance defending freedom for a fraction of what they could be making in the private sector. Whereas alliance, if any finger does not charge their clients and charge a dime, they get like 10,000 requests a month for legal assistance. Maybe it's a year. I think it's a year. And they take as many as they can, and they do it all because of donors like you, making small contributions. The first time contribution will be matched, whether it's a $100 or a thousand or 10,000 or a 100,000. Go to Hugh Hewitt dot com or call 8 6 6 three 5 9 96 44. And please make a generous donation today. And with my voice going downhill, I do not know if I'll be here tomorrow if I can't talk at all. So I'm going to spend today just telling you, driving at home, alliance defending freedom is saving the constitution because Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump put in place a Supreme Court majority in justices on the circuits who will send forward questions about limited government and personal freedom to the court that are framed correctly and pose the most important question. And we are winning. We won with Dobbs. I had to remind the audience again, you're just tuning in. My voice is shocked because I went from Maine to D.C. from D.C. to Denver from number to D.C. from D.C. to Detroit, from Detroit to Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh to Columbus Columbus to Cleveland. Talking to thousands of people in conversation with hundreds. And they are insufficiently appreciative of the window that is opened. They're very glum because inflation is killing them. Education has failed their children public education. It's failed their children. Public health failed the country throughout COVID for two years. Didn't sound the alarm as early as Tom cotton did reacted with caution, but the lockdown was a terrible idea. They should have locked down seniors, vaccine is a great breakthrough, operation warp speed, but it is of COVID and the overkill just destroyed children, education, for that number today are going to be terrible. And look, the people are afraid to go out of their house in big cities. There were two rapes on the Philadelphia mass transit system of a 13 and a 12 year old over the weekend. There was a carjacking in a Killian Washington D.C.. Everywhere I went. Everywhere I went. There were terrible stories of chronic. Everybody knows the border, just Ted. 2.3 million people cross it. They closed the books on fiscal year 2022. In the borders, there is no border..
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"alliance defending freedom" Discussed on The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"And again, the semper 5 fund or the fund dot org. Now, alliance defending freedom is a sponsor of this show. And in the course of the last few weeks, I've been telling you about it. And I pay Salem a little money for the mentions. But this is all doing on my part. I don't have to do this. I'm doing this because the crowds I spoke to did not understand what has happened. A unique window has opened. They talk about winning in your Super Bowl window where your World Series window. The Cleveland Browns are clearly not in their window if you watched yesterday because the NFL rests are not going to let them be in there. But it just didn't come up. They're not going to be in their window until next year. We're in the window for saving the constitution right now. Because of the originalist majority right now, returning limited government reaffirming our right to free speech. Our right to assembly from our right for the state to leave us alone from interference with our ideas and especially our right to free exercise of religion. It is a window that opened with the confirmation of justice Amy Coney Barrett and the arrival of a 6th originalist constitutionalist conservative on the court. They will undo the bad decisions with regards to free speech and religious liberty, just like they have done undone the decision on abortion, which always should never have been torn away from the state. We would not be in the terribly polarized situation. They've got to stop the abuse of children. They've got to stop the simple dismissal of law that the president did when he approved the student loan bailout. They've got to do a lot of things. But they can't do it unless advocates bring forward cases, well argued while prepared well briefed, talented people, best lawyers in American alliance depending freedom. Now, during this month, a donor stepped up and said, I'll match every first time gift. If you've never given to a life defending freedom, you will have your gift matched. All you have to do is call them at 8 6 6 three 5 9 96 44 8 6 6 three 5 9 9 6 44 or go to Hugh Hewitt dot com. Wait for the bandit to load at the very top of the count one two three in the banner loads. Done on purpose so that you watch for it. You know where it is, highly secure, very effective way. For your first time donor will be matched. If you get 50,000, it'll be a 100,000. I hope someone out there is going to do that. To give a quarter million, be 500,000, have someone out there is going to do that. These people, I'm going to talk to 9 of them today. Devote their life to defending you. And I began the show by telling you, last night, because of this laryngitis illness, it doesn't really hurt, maybe a little fatigue, but you do cough occasionally. So I woke up at 3 a.m. and when I wake up at 3 a.m., what do I do to go back to sleep? I listen to will Durant or Churchill. And I'm done with Churchill for the time being silenced in a will Durant. By chance, I'm in the age of faith. I think it's will Durant's third book. And I ended up listening for an hour and a half to his three chapters on Augustine, St. Augustine. Who was a center center, man, that guy, I remember reading the confessions as a college freshman, had a great teacher. He went off to the university of Colorado. I wish I could remember his name, maybe somebody he taught great idol biography. So you know your freshman and college you know what you're doing. I have no idea what courses. I don't even know how to do, of course, schedule. I don't. In John Kennedy high school, they tell you where to go and what to do. You arrive at Harvard and they give you this big, thick book, of course, as they pick for. So I'm looking through and you've got a bunch of course. You have a bunch of requirements, one of those is a humanities course. I'm there to study government. That's why I want to be at Harvard. So I'm looking around and here's the thing on great autobiographies taught by this long haired hippie, and it was a fabulous course, might have been the best course I took outside of political theory with RV Mansfield. And Judith klar was pretty ago on good too. But John Finley, I shouldn't say the best. It was one of the best courses I've ever taken. I can't remember his name, though. If any of you know, we talk great out biographies. And we read confessions, which I'd never read. By Augustine, I thought, wow, there's a guy I understand. Young and full of sin and pride and brilliant and off he goes to he leaves Africa. Where he's born, Africa was the cesspool of the world according to one wag at the time and hippo was the cesspool of Africa. So Agustin goes off to Rome to continue his education. Saint Monica, she knows her son is a philandering sleep with anything that moves kind of guy. And she's praying for him all the time that he finds Christ. And he dumps her at the port jumps on a boat. Skips off, doesn't get married, she arranged a marriage with him with a 12 year old girl. For four years later, in steady takes a concubine, which is perfectly legal in Rome. And as he details in the confessions, he just lives the life of a lusty young man in Rome, and that was a pretty lusty life until he had his conversion experience. There was manicheanism. There was done autism. There was pelagian heresy in a career that is epic. St. Augustine just completely defends the idea of being saved by grace and predestination, but he also understands free will much better than Luther ever did. Luther was an augustinian monk, by the way, before he became Luther. And what Benedict the 16th had all roads of Latin Christianity run to hippo and from hippo run all roads to modern Christianity is true. But you don't get to know that. I don't get to say that in China on the air. I don't get to say that in Russia on the air. I don't get to say that in Iran on the air or in Israel on the air. But I get a First Amendment protecting my right to say that in a free exercise amendment that says I can say it as often as I want, I can proselytize to you and tell you the way the truth the life is Christ, and you should read the Bible and take up and read, take up and read. Augustine's famous conversion. So alliance defending freedom is out there pressing. The Supreme Court and lower federal courts to, again, revitalize our preeminent place as individuals in a free society with limited government, individuals who can speak their mind and believe and pray as they wish to do. And there are some secular voices that argue this and there are some great conservative leaders. I think of archbishop who wrote render under Caesar and things worth living for two great modern improvisations on the city of God. Augustine's great theological treatise. And I need ADF to be in the field to protect this because I need my kids and my grandkids to have these same freedoms. An ADF has been doing it for 30 years and I'm going to keep doing it with your help..
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"alliance defending freedom" Discussed on The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"Democrats know Democrats have lost. This is Nancy Pelosi yesterday, cut 12. And the fact is, is that when I hear people talk about inflation as I heard them there, we have to change that subject. Inflation is the global phenomenon phenomenon. To EU, the European Union, UK, the British have a higher inflation rate than we do here. It's not the fight is not a bad inflation. It's about the cost of living. And if you look at what we have done to bring down the cost of prescription drugs to bring down the costs, she admitted there, I got to change the subject. We can't talk about inflation. In Cleveland on Saturday night, I asked him as a crowd of maybe 650 people. I'm going to give you 5 issues. I want you to stand up for the number one issue. I gave them inflation, crime, the border, education, and China. Inflation one, but it was close. And it was a dead heat for number two. The issue sets are all with us, all with us. That's why Republicans are winning across the United States. They've got to stop the destruction of individual standards of living. We have to restore the schools. We have to put safety first. We have to cabin China and we've got to control the border. So we're going to win. We got to win big. We're going to get the Senate back. Let me do a little business so I can really concentrate on why it's defending freedom. I will tell you go to the banner at Hugh Hewitt dot com, make a donation to alliance, depending freedom where you can call 8 6 6 three 5 9 6 44 right now. If you're making a first time gift, it will be doubled by a generous donor to ADF. And if you're making your 50th gift, make it the biggest gift ever, because now is the time. We've landed on the beaches of restoring the constitution. It's there. Now I've got to move inland. And we've got to take the constitution back. Enzyme, you do it inside the beltway live, where I hope to go back to bed, at least into a quiet room for the rest of the day. I don't want to miss a minute of the program between now and the election. It's going the right way. It's going to be a landslide for Republicans and everyone is throwing in the towel about that in the legacy media. They know it. They're beginning to true up the polls. Keep adding at least four points in every poll that you see for the Republicans because Republicans want to talk to pollsters. At least for. I think we're going to make a clean sweep of Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, maybe Colorado, maybe Washington state, outside chance in New Hampshire. I may be forgetting something. But Herschel, JD Vance, Doctor Oz, they all look like locks to me. Like matches is I think at least even Katie Hobbs is falling apart and Democrats are falling apart, Terry Lake is going to win easily for the governorship in Arizona. I think he's been pretty going to bring Blake masters across the line with her. And I think Tiffany smiley can beat patty Murray who's done nothing. When these test scores come out today, parents are going to realize again, oh my God, what did we do? We got to get Democrats out of power. And in the state legislatures in the judiciary. We've got to get education to be back about kids again. We need school choice. We need to follow the doocy example. Everywhere I went, huge enthusiasm on the Republican side. But also, a lot of questions. Probably the most misunderstood thing is the huge victory that was won by Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump. When the former with his Senate colleagues held open the vacancy created by the untimely death of justice Scalia. So that the American people could vote on who would fill that. They voted for Donald Trump. He felt that as well as with justice Gorsuch, along with justice Kavanaugh, justice Amy Coney Barrett, and we have for the first time in my lifetime. Something I've worked my whole adult life for. I finished law school in 83. Up until then, so I went to law school I was a national security guy working for Richard Nixon, studying it was an undergraduate thinking that was going to be my life national security and instead going into law and law professing in law representing people, so I know both sides of it. And now I do my best work when I tell you about alliance defending freedom. My very best work when I tell you to go to Hugh Hewitt dot com and give some money. We have 5 fingers. I've told you this many times. 5 fingers to remind this is our 5 obligation. Number one, you got to support your church. Your number one job is to support your church. Number two, a parrot church ministry. Something that does the work that a church can't do for a variety of reasons. Churches don't have lawyers. They can't bring cases, defending the free exercise of religion, alliance defending freedom does that. So that's the second one. Third, someone that educated you. The tutor can be a high school can be a college. It can be a graduate school, someone who educated you. I support Warren JFK when they need it. Four. Another college or another education solution that is trying to save the next generation, which has got so much saving to do after the pandemic. And then 5, a charity that supports wounded warriors. I picked the semper 5 fund, and those are the 5 deaths. And then do it again. More for your church, a second parachute organization, a second educational opportunity, a third educational opportunity..
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"alliance defending freedom" Discussed on The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"Joe Biden on MSNBC yesterday cut number one. So let's say Trump doesn't run again. Convince on Gloria that she should stick with you. Well, I think and Gloria should take a look. I think it's a legitimate thing to be concerned about anyone's age, including mine. I think I told her that I think the best way to make the judgment is to, you know, watch me. You know, am I slowing up in my don't have the same pace of her, you know, and that old joke, you know? Everybody talks about the, you know, the new 70s, 50s, and all that stuff. You know, you know, it could be, I'm a great respecter of faith. I could get a deceased tomorrow. I could drop dead tomorrow. But in terms of my energy level, in terms of how much I'm able to do, I think people should look and say, they still have the same passion for what he's doing. And if they think I'm going to take the president his word, watch him. He's not up to this job. He could drop that tomorrow. President Harris, if you want the Republicans in charge in the Congress if that happens, you want the Republicans in charge with him. Joe is very confident. Cut number two. I'm going to say something I was probably should consider not saying. Don't say it. Is that. I have more substantive experience. On the issues facing a country, both in foreign policy and investment policy in any president ever. Robert Gates. He's been wrong on everything for 40 years. He's still been wrong. Remember that substantive experience in Afghanistan. Remember that substantive experience of not arming Ukraine before Putin advanced. Now, here he is one more cut number 5. Do you support a federal fund for individuals like myself who need to take time off work, obtain child care? The answer is absolutely, but guess what? We need the same votes we need to overrule that to real estate the decision that was struck down by the court. I mean, I do support that. And I've earned it. You can't remember roe V wade. And then cut number 7 quickly. Do you think states should have a right to ban gender affirming healthcare? I don't think any state or anybody should have a right to do that. Right there, the national health service of Great Britain yesterday announced grave new concerns over transgender healthcare for children under the age of 18. So the president is wrong again. We're just used to him being wrong. Today I want you to be right. Go to you here at dot com, make a first gift to alliance defending freedom, make a large gift to alliance defending freedom. Let's get out there and defend our religious liberty in our free speech. I'll be right back voice impacted, but not intellect on you. Welcome back, America, Hugh Hewitt, voice challenge, but with you this morning. Back from a ten days, I want to thank Morgan Ortega's first time in brilliant radio talk show host. I want to thank Kurt schleicher. I want to add more seat bob France. They all filled in for me. As you know, I took off from Maine with the Denver first came to D.C. to the beltway, went off to Denver, came back to D.C. went off to Detroit, went from Detroit to Pittsburgh, got sick in Pittsburgh, of course, moved on to Columbus, moved on to Cleveland, came back yesterday, can't talk. Now, laryngitis is a funny thing occupational hazard happens once or twice a year. Am I going to get it? You power through until it goes away completely. And I really wanted to power through today because today is alliance defending freedom day. I told you in the first segment. I'm focused exclusively on alliance defending freedom today. And begging you to become a first time supporter because what I learned on this road trip is a lot of you just, you're not celebrating enough that we have the first originalist court, the first constitutionalist court. The first center right court of my lifetime because of Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump and the GOP Senate. And they are restoring individual liberty across the United States, limited government, a circuit court yesterday, put on old President Biden's unconstitutional attempt to forget $400 billion minimum in student loan, they're protecting your ability to pray and to evangelize their protecting your ability to speak out. They are stopping cancel culture. They will protect school choice. They will protect at all. But it's a limited window, and we need to say that in an election that are coming up. Now, the good news is, legacy media is thrown in the hat. They know Democrats have lost..
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"alliance defending freedom" Discussed on The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
"This Halloween Duncan's ready for you to hunt harder so sip the bone chillingly bold peanut butter cup macchiato savored with a frightfully enchanting spider donut or sink your fangs into the dunkle lantern donut with a blood orange Duncan refresher. Present participation may very limited time offer. Your high candidate gives you it live inside the beltway on this Monday morning. It's going to be a sort of a rough day for me. I came back from my ten day tour of affiliate cities, Denver and Detroit, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Cleveland with a whomping case of laryngitis, which of course I caught in Pittsburgh. But I'm going to get through the day. At least today, hopefully the whole week, political news is breaking so well for constitutionalist Republicans everywhere our surging Democrats have all been thrown in the towel. They're so desperate. They sent the president out yesterday to talk to Jonathan capehart, the safest place in media for him. And I will get to that. But before I do, I want to tell you that the quick bottom line of my travels. In the course of it, I decided that I was not explaining the urgency and the opportunity of this election to you. A brief window exists in which we are assured of a constitutional majority on the Supreme Court, an opportunity to reestablish the constitutional order of limited government and liberty. Mitch McConnell provided the opportunity to save the constitution when he in the Senate GOP held open the Scalia seat after justice Scalia died. Donald Trump nominated in McConnell led GOP Senate, used their opportunities to put three constitutionalists on the court. There is now an originalist majority for the first time in my 66 years. The mission of alliance defending freedom is to use their extraordinary collective abilities to bring cases before all the courts, but especially the Supreme Court, cases that preserve our constitution and especially our rights to free speech and the free exercise religion. And thus our ability to broadcast our faith openly to everyone in the United States and the world and to remember the importance of St. Augustine's admonition, seek not to understand that you may believe that believe that you may understand. So I'm doing a lot of today on the alliance defending freedom. It was the last week in which they sponsor are asking you to help them, but I'm doing something I've never done in 23 years of radio. I've held all day fundraisers on Veterans Day and Memorial Day since 2003, I think. For the semper 5 fund, those are not sponsored. I've never done a three hour sponsor, and I'm not doing one today. ADF is not paying us to do this. I am a free agent here. It just hit me in the course of talking to thousands of people over the last ten days. We don't understand what a massive victory was. We understand that Dobbs is a massive victory. Return the constitutional order. Questions of reproduction and intimacy and privacy are back with state legislatures where they belong. So that's about a federal legislation, but not to constitutional throwdowns, such as roe V wade. We will get additional religious liberty decisions coming out of this court. We will get private property rights decisions getting out of this court. We will cabin the administrative state, but it's not forever and it's not guaranteed justice Jackson is going to be a reliably left wing vote like justice Sotomayor. Justice Kagan is sort of center left, but she's more left than she is center. We've got 6 original of 6 constitutionalists on there. And we need to follow Augustine's St. Augustine's not the emperor Augustine, but St. Augustine's admonition that you take up and read, you be aware, you try and understand. Benedict the 16th Pope emeritus said once, I don't know if you know this. All roads of Latin Christianity run to Augustine. And from Augustine, they run the hippo. And from hippo and Augustine where he was bishop. They run the rest of Christianity. Everything depends on the city of God and the confession. And if you're doubting that because you're a Protestant, understand that Luther began his life as an augustinian monk. So he departs from Augustine on a number and by the way, some people say, Augustine, I know that. Some people, I just say St. Augustine. I don't know. It's like my montane Montana or archbishop U and chapu and I've got audio dyslexia and I always have when it comes to names, but you know who I'm talking about. Benedict XVI held up Augustine in Augustine held up the idea that you have to believe before you can understand. And you're not going to be able to believe unless people can talk to you about it. And you're not going to be able to hear what is true unless the free exercise clause and the free speech clause remain defendant..
The Eric Metaxas Show
Eric Welcomes Kellie Fiedorek From the Alliance Defending Freedom
"To bring on senior counsel with the alliance defending freedom, Kelly, fedorak, Kelly, did I even pronounce that close to correctly? You were very close. It's fedora. It's what? It's fedora, like fedora with the cave is in height. It's a rough one. I'm excited to introduce you in ADF to a lot of my listeners because I've known what you all are doing for years. And people always ask me, what can I do? What can I do right now where they're being going crazy? I say, well, here's a number of things you could do. One of the things you can do is give to the alliance defending freedom. And I'm not making that up. I'm not trying to be clever. If you actually care about liberty in America, giving something to ADF at metaxas talk dot com. Folks really, it's important. So Kelly talked to us about the case about any case you want to talk about, but I want to get to Laurie Smith. I know she's waiting in the wings to talk about her case as well. But give my audience an understanding of what you guys are dealing with. Well, we're defending freedom across the country in the courts and in the courts of public opinion in the legislatures. And ultimately, we're standing for everyone's freedom to live consistent with their convictions, but that they're college students, whether they're in high school, whether they're ministers, whether they're ministries, teachers, parents, we ultimately are working toward a nation where everyone has the freedom to live and to work consistent with their convictions without fear of the government punishment. We want to keep the doors open for the gospel.
The Eric Metaxas Show
Lorie Smith Shares Her Story About an Attack on Creative Expression
"You say, well, what kind of people get bullied? Oh, I don't know. What about Lori Smith, a graphic artist who is on the program right now, Lori, welcome. Hi, thank you for having me. This is, I wanted to have you on, I'm excited to have you on because I thought, you know, you're like anybody. You're a graphic designer. This is pretty basic stuff. This is not difficult for people to comprehend. Somebody comes to you and demands that you create something for them, which is not consistent with your values. And you say, well, I can't do that. And they say, well, we're going to make you do that. And where do you go? You either get put out of business or you get sued and legal bills or you go to the alliance defending freedom. So, but tell the case of what happened to you that caused you to turn to the alliance defending freedom. Sure. Well, I've always been a creative person. I've enjoyed creating all my life for many years. I worked in the public and private sector and I ultimately wanted to start my own business, and that's what I did. And the best part of my job is that I get to work with people from all walks of life, including those who identify as LGBT. But what's important to know is that while I work with everyone and that brings me a lot of joy, I can't promote all messages through my business. And so what the government is saying is that they have the right, which they do not, to force me to speak and celebrate and create messages to pour my time and my talent into promoting things that violate my deeply held beliefs. And I believe strongly that all Americans, whether your views on marriage are the same as mine or they're different, we all must live and work freely without the fear of government punishment.
ToddCast Podcast with Todd Starnes
Help Alliance Defending Freedom Fight Biden, Fight for You
"You a pretty important update on what's going on with the lines defending freedom. The fundraising effort we're raising money all this month for Elijah defending freedom. And it's not going well to be perfectly blunt with you. It is not going well. And there are a lot of factors, I would suspect the economy is really giving people a second thought as far as charitable giving. But folks, this is serious and we need your help right now. We are trying to raise $20,000 for lies depending freedom, and the challenge with ADF right now is they're getting so many cases. The Biden administration has just waged a fierce and brutal crackdown on religious liberty in this country. And they need our help. And they don't charge any of their clients any money, a Jack Phillips, the baker. We've had them on the program, a number of times over the over the years. Those are the people they represent. People that listen to our radio program, people that we go to church with, and that's why they need our help
The Dan Bongino Show
Jack Phillips: 'Alliance Defending Freedom' Is Fighting for Everyone
"Jack my audience when I announced you were going to be on the show the other day I got an enormous amount of feedback and inordinate amount for the show for a guest usually people say you know oh great We get a few here and there and they like certain guests but I got tons of email You have really really generated and national and international response We have listeners in other countries too And one of the questions they had and they wanted to know is what has this been like for you personally This has got to be exhausting Jack You know being a businessman my son had been involved in litigation for a long time And nothing on the scale you have It is a nightmare Depositions constant information gathering It's a time suck It's a vampire in your life What has this been like for you personally This has to really be getting under your skin Well with the help of alliance depending freedom that's who Jake works for They've represented as pro Bono for this entire ten year period They've never charged me a dime Because this is not just about me and my case This is about like Jake who's the same the right of every American to speak and live and work freely according to their conscience who have fear of punishment from the government And so there have been hard times there have been good times but in the end we know that our system should work It worked when we were at the Supreme Court And we hope that this latest ruling will be overturned by the Colorado Court of Appeals
The Eric Metaxas Show
Eric Welcomes Ryan Bangert of the Alliance Defending Freedom
"Doing a campaign this month with the alliance defending freedom. In case you didn't know who that is, their heroes. That's all you need to know. You'll get the details as I discussed this, but their heroes, we want you to go to metaxas to talk dot com, click on the banner, give generously. But if you say, hey, what are they doing? Can we meet them? I'm going to work it out. Right now I actually talked to two people who can give you details. First of all, we have one of the main councils, lawyers at ADF, Ryan banger at Ryan, welcome to the program. Eric, thanks for having us on. Listen, I get so excited about what you guys do. Because I've known you all for years. And I know that you're fighting, you're on the front lines of freedom. Sounds like a cliche. Unfortunately, it's quite true. But today I want to talk to you about one of your clients because you guys go to bat legally for all kinds of people. You do it pro Bono. You guys are not getting rich doing this. And I want my audience to know that they need to step up and help you guys at ADF because so many cases of religious liberty being abrogated being challenged all across the country, where do people turn, they turn to ADF. So today we have also doctor Andrew Fox, who I believe is on doctor Andrew Fox welcome. Thank you. Appreciate you having me on. So I want to talk about your story. Can you tell my audience what happened with you and why you turned to ADF for help? Well, most certainly, and as you've just been saying about ADF, I find myself thrown onto the front line, and I would be defenseless without ADF, so as you mentioned, I am truly grateful for their highly professional support and counsel in my case. My case is simply a matter of being punished by a government agency for expressing my broadly held and widely believed and historically believed Christian views in a private blog. And it resulted in me being canceled in a council culture from being the lead chaplain of the Austin fire department serving those zoo themselves, selfless selflessly serve.
America First with Sebastian Gorka Podcast
New Law Aims to Make California a Sanctuary for Transgender Youth
"One of the stories in today's rundown for the show is the idea that California is to become a sanctuary, a sanctuary state, according to the bill signed by Newsom for trans gender surgery on children. Why not? You know? Again, I asked you the question I ask you always because you are right there behind enemy lines. Is this something that Californians are clamoring from the rooftops for or is this just the work crazies? This is the attempt by the left to destroy the nuclear family and to take away parental rights. I mean, this is another one of those crazy bills. We talked about how abortion our sanctuary state for abortion is allowing kids to come without their parents permission under the age of 18 to California all expenses paid to get a free abortion and return to their home states. What this transgender bill does is exactly the same thing. It replicates that. You can come to California. You can have gender reassignment surgery, or you can get prescriptions for hormones, whatever you're looking for, California taxpayers will pay for it. Oh, and by the way, you don't need parental consent. Or if you're a parent who's living in a state where this kind of child abuse is illegal, like it should be, and you bring your kid to California, medical professionals in California can not work with agencies in other states to try to press charges against parents who would make this decision. And what's really interesting and I know that you do a lot of work with ADF. The alliance defending freedom. They put out a take on this that I hadn't even thought of. So not only are you is this damaging for all the reasons that we can think of. But they're also saying that there are people from around the globe who are going to come to California that are criminals that are into sex trafficking that are into all of this crazy behavior that we probably don't even want to wrap our brains around, and they're going to use California as ground zero to make changes and chop up kids to make them into the shapes and sizes and genders that they want.
The Eric Metaxas Show
ADF's Tyson Langhofer Recounts the Case of Pamela Ricard
"In these crazy times, people constantly ask me what can I do? What can I do? Well, here's one thing you can do. You can help our Friends at the alliance defending freedom. These guys are heroes. In fact, I wanted to have Tyson langhart for he's a senior counsel at ADF and director of the center for academic freedom at ADF to talk about to us about something they're working on now. So you get some sense of what these heroes at ADF are doing Tyson Lang hoffer, who is currently in loudoun county, Virginia, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me here. You tell us about the case of Pam Ricard. This is just so classic. I mean, the evils that people are dealing with that parents are having to deal with with schools effectively telling them we can do what we want with your kids. We don't need your permission. I mean, this is as un American as anything imaginable. It's happening now and you guys at ADF are dealing with it. You're fighting the battle. So tell us about the case of Pam Ricard. Yeah, sure. So Pam's a middle school math teacher in junction city, Kansas. And. A year ago, Pam was forced to basically was forced to use pronouns of students at the request and she said, look, I'll be happy to use their name, but I just don't want to lie to the students. But on top of that, the school told her that she had to use the legal name and biological pronoun communicating with parents, but yet when the students who use the preferred name and she said, okay, so what you're saying is she had to participate as a teacher. She was being told to deceive the parents. This is what she was being told to do.
The Eric Metaxas Show
"alliance defending freedom" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"So our friend Ryan bengard from the alliance defending freedom joins us now, Ryan, welcome to the program. Eric, thank you for having us on. Well, listen, people need to know that the alliance defending freedom ADF. You guys are heroes, unfortunately, you're very important at this time in American history. We need folks like you. Fighting in the courts for the constitution. So we're great to we're grateful for what you all do and we're grateful for you in particular today for coming online because many people want to know what happened in the Supreme Court in the Supreme Court recently with the two rulings. So for people who really haven't followed the ruling specifically the one about the one that was struck down, I guess it was 6 to three. And then the one that was not struck down, tell us a little bit about those rulings. Sure. So back in September, President Biden announced that he was going to require the federal agencies to mandate vaccination. And his chief of staff even called this a workaround knowing that federal authority wasn't there to implement these requirements. And so the agencies, the federal agencies, began going one by one and requiring vaccination in areas that they could control. And the occupational safety and health administration, which is part of the Department of Labor, issued a requirement back in November that all private employers with 100 or more employees require those employees to be vaccinated or if they chose not to get vaccinated. They had to be tested every single week and they had a mask up if they were unvaccinated. So they sweeping mandate covering over 80 million American employees. Simultaneously, the center for Medicaid and Medicare services CMS issued a mandate requiring healthcare workers at 15 different types of facilities that receive either Medicare or Medicaid funds to be vaccinated with only very narrow exemptions. So that covered over 10 million workers. So right there, you have almost a 100 million Americans covered by federal mandates. And those were the two mandates that the Supreme Court took up at Earl argument on January 7th and issued decisions last week. The osha mandate, the one that covered the private employees, the 80 plus million private employees was struck down like you said 6 to three. And the Medicare and Medicaid mandate that covered healthcare workers was upheld by a 5 to four
The Eric Metaxas Show
Ryan Bangert of Alliance Defending Freedom on the Latest Supreme Court Rulings
"So our friend Ryan bengard from the alliance defending freedom joins us now, Ryan, welcome to the program. Eric, thank you for having us on. Well, listen, people need to know that the alliance defending freedom ADF. You guys are heroes, unfortunately, you're very important at this time in American history. We need folks like you. Fighting in the courts for the constitution. So we're great to we're grateful for what you all do and we're grateful for you in particular today for coming online because many people want to know what happened in the Supreme Court in the Supreme Court recently with the two rulings. So for people who really haven't followed the ruling specifically the one about the one that was struck down, I guess it was 6 to three. And then the one that was not struck down, tell us a little bit about those rulings. Sure. So back in September, President Biden announced that he was going to require the federal agencies to mandate vaccination. And his chief of staff even called this a workaround knowing that federal authority wasn't there to implement these requirements. And so the agencies, the federal agencies, began going one by one and requiring vaccination in areas that they could control. And the occupational safety and health administration, which is part of the Department of Labor, issued a requirement back in November that all private employers with 100 or more employees require those employees to be vaccinated or if they chose not to get vaccinated. They had to be tested every single week and they had a mask up if they were unvaccinated. So they sweeping mandate covering over 80 million American employees. Simultaneously, the center for Medicaid and Medicare services CMS issued a mandate requiring healthcare workers at 15 different types of facilities that receive either Medicare or Medicaid funds to be vaccinated with only very narrow exemptions. So that covered over 10 million workers. So right there, you have almost a 100 million Americans covered by federal mandates. And those were the two mandates that the Supreme Court took up at Earl argument on January 7th and issued decisions last week. The osha mandate, the one that covered the private employees, the 80 plus million private employees was struck down like you said 6 to three. And the Medicare and Medicaid mandate that covered healthcare workers was upheld by a 5 to four
Dennis Prager Podcasts
"alliance defending freedom" Discussed on Dennis Prager Podcasts
"Being published as preprints in what are called preprint servers med archives and other servers that put up un peer reviewed manuscripts and basically each person is the peer reviewer each person who reads it as the peer reviewer has to decide whether the data and their report is valid. And that's where medicine is today. Everybody has to basically draw their own conclusions from the original studies because every person has got a bias, including me. I have my own scientific fellow science, though. Early COVID care dot org that is where people should go, doctor rich, I would like to have you on regularly and you don't even have to say yes now, but I just want you to be happy. Oh, wonderful. God bless you, sir. A man of science and a man of courage. So when I tell you folks that I have lost faith in the American medical establishment, I am not alone. There are major physicians who have as well. My Friends, it's the last week raising funds for the alliance defending freedom if you love freedom in this country. Then you have to help the people fighting for it. And that is, the lawyers at ADF, who give pro Bono to people who can not afford them. Please contribute today last week of fundraising. The banner for the alliance defending freedom is on my website Dennis prager dot com. Now at the break is a perfect time to contribute. You will help the country and you will feel better about you. The ADF banner at.
The Eric Metaxas Show
"alliance defending freedom" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Back. I'm talking to Kelvin Cochran, facing the fire is the book. Kelvin, have you ever thought about the fact that your name Kelvin, many people think of temperatures? Yes, I think one of those divine indications that God probably wanted me to be a firefighter in the first place, before the foundation of the world as the virus. And aren't you glad your parents didn't name you Celsius? Or centigrade or fan? Kelvin is the one I would go with. I'm just telling you. So when the book you talk about your faith, what I did not know, and I'm not kidding until just now is that the way the alliance defending freedom walked with you through the hell of this experience. Made you decide you want to become a part of the alliance defending freedom. I didn't realize that. I was just going to talk to you today and we're doing this fundraiser with them trying to get people excited. But you are now a part of the alliance defending freedom, which I honestly did not know until a seconds ago. Yes, about three months ago, I was appointed to senior fellow and vice president for a lasting freedom. It's just another addition to the chapter of God's story in this whole saga of how I was a client. And then I was a member of the board of directors and now I'm on the executive team of alliance defending freedom. And one of the joys of this appointment Derek is one of my primary responsibilities is to develop a national deployment strategy to respond on behalf of any Christian who has publicly attacked for living out their faith. And so if you can imagine a coordinated effort from allies of alliance defending freedom, the body of Christ that every time a school teacher, a homeschool, mom, a firefighter or a police officer or whoever is a tax for living out their faith. We're going to have an organized coordinated response so that they all know as totally max sounds say help is on the way. And we'll do that every single time a believer is
The Eric Metaxas Show
Evangelical Hero Kelvin Cochran Accepts Position With Alliance Defending Freedom
"Back. I'm talking to Kelvin Cochran, facing the fire is the book. Kelvin, have you ever thought about the fact that your name Kelvin, many people think of temperatures? Yes, I think one of those divine indications that God probably wanted me to be a firefighter in the first place, before the foundation of the world as the virus. And aren't you glad your parents didn't name you Celsius? Or centigrade or fan? Kelvin is the one I would go with. I'm just telling you. So when the book you talk about your faith, what I did not know, and I'm not kidding until just now is that the way the alliance defending freedom walked with you through the hell of this experience. Made you decide you want to become a part of the alliance defending freedom. I didn't realize that. I was just going to talk to you today and we're doing this fundraiser with them trying to get people excited. But you are now a part of the alliance defending freedom, which I honestly did not know until a seconds ago. Yes, about three months ago, I was appointed to senior fellow and vice president for a lasting freedom. It's just another addition to the chapter of God's story in this whole saga of how I was a client. And then I was a member of the board of directors and now I'm on the executive team of alliance defending freedom. And one of the joys of this appointment Derek is one of my primary responsibilities is to develop a national deployment strategy to respond on behalf of any Christian who has publicly attacked for living out their faith. And so if you can imagine a coordinated effort from allies of alliance defending freedom, the body of Christ that every time a school teacher, a homeschool, mom, a firefighter or a police officer or whoever is a tax for living out their faith. We're going to have an organized coordinated response so that they all know as totally max sounds say help is on the way. And we'll do that every single time a believer is
The Eric Metaxas Show
Kelvin Cochran Shares His Story of Religious Persecution in New Book 'Facing the Fire'
"Folks, I have a privilege of speaking with somebody I think of as a friend. Kelvin Cochran, you've heard him on this program before if you've been listening for a while. Since we're doing a fundraiser with the alliance defending freedom, it's appropriate that Kelvin Cochran would come out with this book now, because he has been the victim of what has happened in America where elites don't have any idea of what religious liberty is. They've been ham handed in overreaching and in squashing people's religious liberty and at the top of that list is Kelvin Cochran, who is a hero. The new book, he has written is called facing the fire. The faith that brought America's fire chief that's him through the flames of persecution, Kelvin Cochrane, welcome the program. Thank you, Eric. It's good to see you, my friend. It's great to see you. You're an encouragement to me. For my audience, tell the story briefly of what happened to you briefly because I want to get to what the rest of the book says. But you've been through the fire and the Atlanta, the folks in Atlanta were not good to you. You were the fire chief in all of Atlanta. Yes. Yes. I was a fire chief in the city of Atlanta and of course serving my profession honorably and faithfully. And while living out my faith at the same time, at my church, Elizabeth baptist church, Eric, I wrote a book for Christian me and Bible study that dealt with me and who struggled with condemnation and double mindedness. And in the book, who told you that you were naked? I was addressing sexual sand because many Christian man still struggle with sexual sin. I used the book of genesis to talk about God's view of sexuality, simple phrases like he created their male and female that eventually mother and father cleve to his wife and to become one flash and that created them appropriate because he wanted a big family of kids. Those few paragraphs cost me my childhood dream come true 34 year fire service career when an Atlanta city council member complained to the mayor about what I wrote about biblical marriage and sexuality. The mayor suspended me for 30 days to see if I had discriminated against anyone from the LGBTQ community based on my beliefs that investigation exonerated me, however I was terminated
The Eric Metaxas Show
"alliance defending freedom" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Sometimes we bring on folks from the ice spending freedom to help explain what it is that they do in case you don't already know. I have a with me, Jake Warner, who's a legal counsel with the alliance defending freedom and their client Scott chin. Guys, God bless you for coming on the program. Jake explain to my audience what this issue is about. Everywhere we look, there are issues like this. They're crazy. And if it weren't for 80, if the government would be getting away with murder, almost literally, go ahead and explain what this case is about. Sure. Thanks, Eric. A few months ago, the Washington Supreme Court said the state could punish a religious organization for declining to hire someone who did not share the religious faith of the organization. The Seattle's union gospel mission serves the homeless in the city of Seattle and they've done so for nearly a century. But back in 2017, a lawyer tried to apply for a position there, but he did not share their religious organizations beliefs. He didn't attend church. He didn't agree with the religious lifestyle requirements of the mission and he even applied trying to change the mission's religious beliefs to understandably the mission went with a different candidate. But this a lawyer turned around and sued the mission and the case went all the way up to the Washington Supreme Court and the Washington Supreme Court said that the mission could be punished for declining to hire this person. He did not share their beliefs. And we've now asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in and hear this
The Eric Metaxas Show
Jake Warner Describes How Alliance Defending Freedom Is Protecting America
"Sometimes we bring on folks from the ice spending freedom to help explain what it is that they do in case you don't already know. I have a with me, Jake Warner, who's a legal counsel with the alliance defending freedom and their client Scott chin. Guys, God bless you for coming on the program. Jake explain to my audience what this issue is about. Everywhere we look, there are issues like this. They're crazy. And if it weren't for 80, if the government would be getting away with murder, almost literally, go ahead and explain what this case is about. Sure. Thanks, Eric. A few months ago, the Washington Supreme Court said the state could punish a religious organization for declining to hire someone who did not share the religious faith of the organization. The Seattle's union gospel mission serves the homeless in the city of Seattle and they've done so for nearly a century. But back in 2017, a lawyer tried to apply for a position there, but he did not share their religious organizations beliefs. He didn't attend church. He didn't agree with the religious lifestyle requirements of the mission and he even applied trying to change the mission's religious beliefs to understandably the mission went with a different candidate. But this a lawyer turned around and sued the mission and the case went all the way up to the Washington Supreme Court and the Washington Supreme Court said that the mission could be punished for declining to hire this person. He did not share their beliefs. And we've now asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in and hear this
The Charlie Kirk Show
Exposing Loudoun County's Radical Gendered Speech Tyranny with ADF Plaintiff Monica Gill
"The loudon county public schools. Many people kinda know the outrage. That has been happening. In recent months especially over the last year in regards to critical race theory And in all the different kind of measures that have been put forward monica. You are suing loudon. County public schools in loudon county circuit court represented by the alliance defending freedom. What is your complaint against loudon county public schools. Well largely the issue is is such a huge magnitude. Because what's happened here is our school. Board is pursuing policies that our ideological are not educational in this palestinian particular. Eighty forty is harmful to kids. You know we have thousands of teachers and students who interact with each other every day in very loving respectful ways and we can do that without having policy like this which forces teachers and students to stay things that are harmful to kids. Say things that they don't believe in things that are adjusted quite. Frankly not true by on just you know a kid saying hey i want to be addressed by this particular pronoun. I'm no longer a he. Now a she. And that's you know they're pushing this very radical gender ideology on the entire public school system and quite frankly they're using our kids as pawns in a political battle which is just wrong. It is completely heartbreaking to me. And you know i can't be a party to that because these are our most vulnerable and so. That's one of the reasons why i wanted to get involved in this
The Eric Metaxas Show
"alliance defending freedom" Discussed on The Eric Metaxas Show
"Like yours which help protect the freedom but one everybody needs you. Know these freedoms protect everyone not catholic believers but muslim believers and non-believers. Everyone's rights to speak on campus. Are on the line here. Well okay so the fact is that there are very few organizations. Almost none i mean i can count them on half of my right hand The they think freedom is doing something that if they weren't doing it okay. I don't know where they are. The ones going to supreme court. They're the ones doing this. Pro bono. so we need your help. They need your help. But you're only helping yourself because you're helping america and i mean this sincerely i know these folks so we're asking you to give a gift to the alliance defending freedom. Anybody who can give very generously. I wanna say folks please please. They need your help. They've come to us on this program saying we need your help. You know that we're in these battles. If you don't know it take my word for it. We are in tremendous battles on the religious liberty front right now. The nation is at stake. And i'm telling you bluntly. Atf is as good as it gets without them. I cannot imagine where we'd be in the nation so all they need from. You is money if you can spare it because they do this stuff for free. They take on every case that they can so the number if you wanna call his eight five five five four seven fifty three thirty three eight five five five four seven fifty three thirty three even easier than that. Go to metaxas..
AP News Radio
Montana Asks Court Not to Block New Laws Targeting Abortion
"Montana house accord not to block new laws targeting abortion Montana's Republican Attorney General is asking a court not to block enforcement of several new abortion laws Planned Parenthood filed the suit in the Yellowstone District Court claiming the laws would unconstitutionally restrict access to the procedure in the state the laws are set to take effect October first they would ban abortions after twenty weeks of gestation and restrict access to abortion pills the state is represented by the alliance defending freedom a conservative Christian legal group I'm Walter Ratliff
The Dan Bongino Show
"alliance defending freedom" Discussed on The Dan Bongino Show
"This is an intimidation campaign. The biden administration because these absolute losers. Zeros wanna cheap again. They wanted to cheat again. They're don't even go back to twenty twenty you go back to two thousand eighteen. Go back to two thousand eighteen twenty sixteen rules you use forever. Forget about new rules that make it harder to cheat. You even go back to twenty 2018. We're gonna watch you now. You understand the fear campaign reason number one for the new cova fear campaign. They want to cheat again. They want to cheat again. Say it with me folks. They want to cheat again. On the second part they have to keep the teachers unions. Happy and their money coming in from the teachers unions. The good part about this. There's a good part to wanting to keep the teacher's union yes. It is backfiring in spectacular fashion. Folks i'm going to get to my second spot but after similar to read to you a twitter threat from a former democrat. Mom in new york. Who is one example of thousands if not tens of thousands of people in every congressional district around the country who are starting to realize. The democrats are the party of tyrannical shutdowns. I'm gonna read that. Say this is important. You're not gonna wanna miss it. Hey congress is in chaos control by far-left ideologues trying to crush the values and institutions. That have made america a beacon of freedom and liberty since its founding for over twenty seven years alliance defending freedom alliance. Defending freedom has been standing up for religious liberty. The sanctity of life freedom of speech marriage and parental rights in america's highest courts alliance defending freedom does all of this at no cost of their clients. That is completely funded by the generosity of patriots like you. We need groups like this with the family. Freedom and even basic.