5 Religious Liberty Cases Won At The Supreme Court This Year And More – 5 religious liberty cases have been fought and won at the Supreme Court this year! The Supreme Courts in Texas and Ohio blocks judge’s decision that would reinstate abortions and more!

Air Date: 07/15/2022

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

Listen:

Download: Click Here

Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

 

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. I’m Rick Green, former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach; here with David Barton, he is America’s premier historian, he’s our founder at WallBuilders; and Tim Barton is a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders.

You can learn more about all three of us at our websites wallbuilders.com if you’d like to book us to come in to speak or wallbuilderslive.com to listen to more of the programming, especially if you miss some of the previous weeks.

Notice today’s Good News Friday, you’re going to get hooked on the good news and you’re going to want more of it. So I promise you, there’s more at the website, wallbuilderslive.com. That’s also the place to make your contribution. Yeah, I’m asking you to donate. Why? Because it takes lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to save the country, to restore the constitutional republic. When you donate to WallBuilders Live, it allows us to train more pastors, train more legislators, train more young people, it allows us to take this program and reach more people out there all across the nation to get them in the fight as well, get them studying to be good biblical citizens, and then also be in force multipliers in their community. So help us grow that reach and get that truth into as many hands as possible. You can do that by donating today at wallbuilderslive.com.

Alright, David and Tim, time to dive into that good news for today. First piece of good news is going to come from David who’s wearing a green John Deere hat. If everybody could see it, you would love it.

David:

A green John Deere hat, you see, I am now at the ranch for the third day in a row, and the three days in the row at the ranch is more than I’ve had the entire year. So it’s nice to be off the road…

Rick:

See, that’s not good for David Barton psyche. David Barton loves the ranch, folks. I think Luke would rather be with the ranch than anywhere. So I’m glad to see you were the John Deere hat. You all getting a lot done at the ranch, is that part of the good news today?

David:

Oh, yeah, a lot done. And I feel like I’m back to be a human again, because getting to work on the ranch and do this stuff, It was really good. I love it.

Rick:

So he’s still wearing the John Deere hat because we drug him away from the ranch for a little recording and I can tell your answer, you want to get all this good news in so you can go back and get some more good news which is at the ranch life.

David:

Oh, yeah, life at the ranch, I love it. I’ve now had three days in a row at the ranch and that’s more days than I’ve had the entire year up to now at the ranch. So we’ve been on the road so much doing so much. It’s nice to have three days at home on the ranch. I can’t tell you how much fun that’s been.

Rick:

So first piece of good news today, folks, David’s had a few a little bit of time at the ranch. Okay, Tim, what’s our next? No, I’m kidding. David, what’s your other piece of good news?

David:

Do I have to take off my John Deere hat to talk about it or kind of with the hat on?

Rick:

No, no, that stays on this whole session, yes.

David:

I’m going to cover a piece of good news we’ve been covering for a few weeks, it’s not going away. It is really the way the Supreme Court session ended the way, the term ended. They have opened the door for us in so many areas that we can now walk through if we’re willing to do that. We talked about it’s going to be fights and struggles, the other side’s not going to roll over and play dead. Matter of fact, they are gearing up to try to do something in the elections as retaliation for having lost ground, the Supreme Court. So, there’s a lot of fights out there.

But still, having said that, we look back was three, four years ago, we got the Bladensburg case at the Supreme Court. And so we’ve had a couple of good cases in the last four years at the Supreme Court. But this year at the Supreme Court case, we won five religious liberty cases, and they’re all really, really big at the Supreme Court. I mean, five religious liberty cases. We talked about Coach Kennedy’s case, the fact that he can pray, this is the interesting thing. He wants to go back to the same school because they fired him because he was praying. So I’m curious as to how that’s going to work out because he wants to get back there and coach again. Will they hire him? Do they have to hire him? Who knows? We’ll see. But that’s where he wants to be. So we want to Coach Kennedy case. And I think…

Rick:

And David, just for context for everybody, what everybody’s heard about is the abortion case, right, the Dobbs case overturning Roe v. Wade, you’re saying there’s five other cases out there that are great victories on religious liberty in well, specific religious liberty issues, but you’re just saying, beyond Dobbs, this was an amazing?

David:

This is the closest we’ve been to original intent of the First Amendment since 1947. So we’re going back here 70-80 years of judicial activism, and even Justice Breyer. One of the cases that was won this year was the case that Mat Staver had, it was Boston refused to fly a Christian flag, they flew this 200 other different flags for any group, anybody, anything you want, but we’re not going to do a Christian flag. And so that’s where the case went was, wait a minute, you can’t just exclude a Christian flag. If you’re going to do everything else, you can’t just say everybody except Christians. And so that was a 9-0 decision at the US Supreme Court.

And that decision for a Christian flag was written by Justice Stephen Breyer, who was considered one of the most liberal on the court by far. And in that unanimous decision, 9-0, which means get Soda Meyer, we got Kagan, got everybody on it, in that decision, that’s where Justice Breyer said, look, this is no longer the freewheeling days of the court in the 1960s. And he’s right. I mean, even he, as a liberal acknowledges that what happened back in the 60s were freewheeling days of the court, they did so much judicial activism without any precedent whatsoever.

I mean even going back to when they took prayer and Bible out of schools and 62-63, the court openly acknowledged that what they did was without historical or legal precedent, I mean, that’s freewheeling activism. And so the fact that we got five cases this time, and that even the liberal say, look, this is no longer the day of freewheeling activism, we’re going at 9-0 uphold Boston flying a Christian flag, and if you got to do it for everybody else you got to do for Christians too. So things have changed. I mean, this is a really, really big deal. And I think it’ll take us years to find out how much has changed. And part of that is going to be because we would have to keep litigating on some of these stuffs.

I mean, just count on it. When fall comes and football season is here, you’re going to have about 10,000 coaches say I’m going to pray at my school at football game. And there’s going to be about 10,000 lawsuits because the school district is going to say no, or the local ACLU or Freedom from Religion Foundation, or Americans United for Separation of Church and State, somebody’s going to sue and say wait a minute, the court was talking about this because in this situation, because he was praying by himself over on the side but this coach prayed and publican. It’s going to be all these challenges. So it’s going to take years to sort it out. But we’re going to keep one in these cases.

But one of the significant cases that came down this year is actually the case that came out of Maine, and it dealt with what we might call school choice. Except Maine had said, look, we’re going to be a school choice, except you can’t choose a Christian school because we can’t have state funds going to a religious school, and again, the Supreme Court said, no, no, if you’re going to make it available for everybody, you make it available for everybody, you don’t make it available for everybody except Christians. You make it available for everybody.

Now, in talking to the Supreme Court attorney who is in charge of that case, we were talking about it afterwards, he said you just don’t understand how big this is. This says that if any government offers any kind of a service at all, you can’t exclude Christians out of the service. So if a state offers help for adoption, they can’t say, well, we’re helping all adoptions except Christian adoptions; or if they offer marriage counseling, we’re offering marriage counseling except Christian marriage counseling; r if you give gender therapy, we’re offering gender therapy, except Christian gender therapy. I mean, anything at all, any government services offered at all by the government now has to be opened for everybody.

And so this is not just a school choice case. This opens every bit of social services up, it opens every bit of education up. Anything that the government offers, it has to offer for all. Now, if it doesn’t offer any scholarships, that’s fine. If there’s no scholarships, there’s no scholarships. And if you’re not going to help anybody to tuition, tax credit, it’s great. But if you do, you can’t single out Christians and say they can’t be there. So that’s another big case, you know…

Rick:

And it’s not saying you have to take it. It’s just that government can’t say, hey, we’re going to put this pot of money over here for educational choice and parents can take it anywhere they want as long as there’s no religion practice there. Instead of that, it’s hey, parents can take it wherever they want. And even if it is a place that practices religion, that’s perfectly fine.

David:

See, this breaks the back of the secular monopoly, the secular government-enforced monopoly. Now, at the time of the founders, it would have been the other way around, is secular, that’s really weird. No, no, we’re going to promote religion and morality. And that’s what Washington made clear in his farewell address, two terms under the Constitution, helped draft the Constitution. It was all based on religious moral foundation. John specifically said that. So for them, it’s like no, no, there’s no way we’re going to exclude Christian religious moral stuff. And now on the other side is where you can have everything except that, so we’ve completely reversed it.

So I mean, you take the Coach Kennedy case, you take the case on the Maine case on school choice, but it really is all government services, you take the Christian flag at Boston City Hall. And then there were two other cases that were significant. There was an inmate in Texas about to be executed that wanted a pastor to lay hands on him and pray for him. And that is a regular part of several Christian denominations. And they said, no, you can’t do that, the state, this is a secular, it’s an execution, whatever. No. No.

If this inmate wants that kind of religious expression, that kind of religious activity from a chaplain, you can’t say no to that because you allow all sorts of other things for the secular folks, so you can’t say no to a Christian. So that’s another big one. And that goes in the area of criminal justice type stuff, which that’s going to get into funding of faith based programs, prison Reform and drug rehab, etc.

And then there was another case that came out of Georgia where that two Christian students, and they were both foreign students that were doing education there, but they were Christians. ad they wanted to share their faith on campus and the Gwinnett College said, well, okay, if you’re going to do that, we have this little two foot square over here, and you can stand in there and that’s your free speech. And I don’t know if there’s two foot square, but it was just a tiny, tiny, tiny, little area on campus and that’s the only place you can share your faith.

And so they limited to that area, the courts came back and said, no, you can’t do that. If you’re going to have free speech on the other parts of campus, you can’t keep Christians in a box. And so, all five of these cases this year have expanded the boundaries for Christianity. Secularism has so squeezed it in that the box in which Christianity can be exercised publicly is so tiny, it almost doesn’t exist. It now is free market, it now as everybody competes again, and Christians are no longer they don’t have their hands tied behind their back to get punched in the face anymore. Now they can fight back. Now they have the same constitutional rights as everybody else.

And this is a huge year at the Supreme Court in five cases this year on religious liberty. This is the most religious liberty that the court has given Christians in again, 60-70 years. And if we don’t take advantage of this, it’s going to be our fault because now our hands are untied, we’ve got to start walking into these battles.

Tim:

Well, more specifically, I don’t know that I would say our hands are untied. But the Supreme Court has said you can’t tie their hands. Because with that being said, we already know on college campuses that so many of these secular campuses, they’re not going to all of a sudden reduce their hostility toward Christianity or toward biblical values, they’re not going to all of a sudden change their position and go, you know what, guys, we were almost again, we’re all now going to recognize free speech and fair play. That’s not what’s going to happen.

But it does set us up for the opportunity that people that are now Christian or conservative cannot blatantly be discriminated against without there being negative repercussions to the facility, university, the campus, whatever it is. So they, in essence, have untied our hands on some level. But at this point, the universities will still fight to make sure that there’s not an equal footing for everybody.

Nonetheless, the good news is that now there’s a precedent from the Supreme Court cases, that when groups like Alliance Defending Freedom or First Liberty or Liberty Council or Pacific Justice Institute, or I mean, go down the litany of these incredible Christian religious liberty organizations, when they step in, now there’s a lot more power and weight. When they write a letter to the administrator of the university or college campus, whatever it might be, and they say, guys, just so you know, you telling a student they cannot have the same freedom of expression and speech as everybody else does, that’s not going to go well. Here’s the latest court ruling and precedent.

And so now, hopefully, instead of having these cases have to go to court to be resolved, hopefully, now, they literally can just have a letter that is going to give them new information on some level and hopefully that will restrict their discrimination against Christians on these campuses.

David:

And let me point out one of the things because Tim, you hit something really important. Most of these college campuses or administrators or others, they don’t sit around listening to Supreme Court decisions, and they’re completely unaware that these decisions have been granted this year probably. And so as Tim said, we’re going to have to say, hey, guys, here’s the recent decision from this year, you may not know about it, but you really don’t want to do what you’re doing right now because the court just rolling and they’re going to go, oh, really. So this is a good way to educate them.

Tim:

Well, and especially as you mentioned, like with religious liberty, because I would assume probably every campus will talk about the Dobbs decision, right, probably every campus will talk about the New York gun decision. So there definitely are decisions they will talk about. We assume that probably there’s Democrats who will try to run campaigns on these issues. So there will be definitely be decisions from the Supreme Court that will be known and promoted, but probably not on the religious liberty front on the same level and scale. They’ll probably try to suppress a lot of that conversation or redirected to something else.

So this is a great opportunity for people that if you are in one of those institutions or facilities, if you are on those campuses, this is a great time for you to stand up and flex that constitutional muscle, that you actually have the same rights as everybody else. And we’re not even suggesting that you are braggadocious and you go unnecessarily to pick a fight. No. Just do what your Christian faith, your conservative principles would suggest. Promote the Bill of Rights. Teach biblical truth. Teach about Jesus. Witness to your friends. Do your normal daily routine and behavior of being a conservative, of being a Christian. And if somebody tells you not to, then you know that there’s a lot of ammunition.

And as we mentioned, so many great groups and organizations that will defend you for free in those scenarios. So definitely, there is reason to be hopeful and optimistic that we can make a difference on these college campuses. Even though, guys, we largely don’t suggest most people go to these campuses and universities anyway. But if you are there, definitely continue to stand up, speak out and be bold.

Rick;

Alright, guys, we’re going to take a quick break. We’ll be back with more good news. Before we go to break, a quick reminder, you all have to help me remember, was it last year at our pro-family legislators conference or the year before that Kelly Shackleford got up and he told us this was coming; he said, I’m telling you all there’s going to be some great decisions as a result of the court that Donald Trump appointed as a result of these three justices? And hinted he didn’t know for sure, I guess, but nobody knew absolutely for sure. But he gave a great presentation with great hope saying, listen, we’re in for years of really good decisions.

And I would take us back even further. Five years ago, guys, we would have been ecstatic to have just one of these five decisions, just one and we would be we’re super excited, five of them. This is really, really good news for not only this year, but future years to come. It’s exciting, an exciting time. Quick break, we’ve got a lot more good news for you. We’ll be back in a moment. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

PATRIOT ACADEMY

Have you noticed the vacuum of leadership in America? We’re looking around for leaders of principle to step up and too often, no one is there. God is raising up a generation of young leaders with a passion for impacting the world around them. They’re crying out for the mentorship and leadership training they need.

Patriot Academy was created to meet that need. Patriot Academy graduates now serve in state capitals around America in the halls of Congress, in business, in the film industry, in the pulpit and every area of the culture. They’re leading effectively and impacting the world around them. Patriot Academy is now expanding across the nation and now’s your chance to experience this life changing week that trains champions to change the world.

Visit patriotacademy.com for dates and locations. Our core program is still for young leaders 16 to 25 years old, but we also now have a citizen track for adults, so visit the website today to learn more. Help us fill the void of leadership in America. Join us in training champions to change the world at patriotacademy.com

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday. And we’re now headed over to Tim for our next piece of good news. Who, by the way, just so you can get a picture of the studio right now, folks, is not wearing a green John Deere hat. I don’t know if that means you haven’t been at the ranch, Tim, or it’s because you have the best hair of any of us and you don’t want to mess it up. Oh, you do have a hat. It’s just not a green, John Deere hat. What is that? It’s just…

Tim:

No. So I was, in fact, squatting one of my WallBuilders hats. Just in case anybody out there is wondering, hey, what hat should I be wearing this summer? We do have some WallBuilders hats at wallbuilders.com. You know, not that I’m suggesting you should go there and buy one right now.

Rick:

But if I want to go there now or later, either one works.

Tim:

They are available. Yeah. So no, I didn’t take off my hat before we started.

Rick:

And we are not selling the John Deere hats. Nope, can’t get on there.

Tim:

We are not. Correct!

Rick:

And they sponsor the program. We didn’t get any sponsorship… Somebody send on the program and tell him hey, these WallBuilders guys like you, so you should donate to help them out.

Tim:

Although probably this point, somebody is going to contact us to be like, hey, do you guys know that John Deere is not as conservative as you thought and maybe you shouldn’t have any more John Deere stuff? So we might we might be opening a can of worms on some level, not trying to do that.

However, as far as the good news goes, we have a massive stack. And I mean, we, wow, three, four inches thick right here in front of me right now that’s part of my stack. But with all this being said, something that just came out in the last week, the title of the article says Supreme Courts in Texas, and Ohio block efforts to reinstate access to abortions. After the decision came down, the Dobbs decision from the Supreme Court where Roe vs. Wade was overturned, it was like the state’s issues, there were a lot of states including in Texas and Ohio that already had existing laws that banned abortion.

And so when Roe was overturned, it goes back into defaults those laws, and we knew there would be people like Planned Parenthood kind of organizations that would bring lawsuits trying to challenge those things, trying to slow down what was happening. And in Texas, and Ohio, those things happened. And of course, there were judges who decided to side with Planned Parenthood or those type of organizations that were bringing these challenges.

For example, in Texas, and this is probably no surprise, dad or Rick, to either one of you, it’s a Judge from Harris County that decided that abortion should be legal in Texas and therefore, the Texas abortion law striking down was not correct. Although something I did not expect. Guys, the Texas abortion law that bans abortion unless necessary to save the life of the mother, this was the law as identified as, when was this Texas abortion law passed?

David:

It would be prior to Roe v. Wade.

Tim:

It definitely would be prior to Roe v. Wade

David:

So, probably 1858?

Tim:

Okay. I liked what you’re thinking. Except if you go back to 1858, you’re talking before the Civil War and that definitely, I mean…

David:

Oh, that’s right. We had a new constitution after Civil War.

Tim:

Yeah. And there’s a different value system in Texas, slavery life before the Civil War.

David:

I’m going with after the Civil War reconstruction time, 1870s or 80s.

Tim:

Okay, the fact that you’re going back that far, that was way earlier than I was expecting. This is a 1925 Texas law, which…

David:

Oh, this would have been our push back against the progressives or what it was, it takes to stand up progressives.

Tim:

Although back then, Texas was not a Republican state. Anyway not to derail too much on that. Nonetheless, in Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, when this challenge was brought up, and this Judge from Harris County issued a temporary restraining order. He went to the Texas State Supreme Court and sought an injunction. And there’s actually going to be a case coming up really anytime the next couple days, next week or so the actual case will be heard.

But the Texas State Supreme Court did issue an injunction blocking the lower Judge’s decision, similar in Ohio, where it was Senate Bill 23 in Ohio that had passed actually several years earlier. And there was a Democrat who came against it and brought the challenge. And actually, this was signed by Governor Mike DeWine. And when the Supreme Court did the overturning of Roe v. Wade, when that Dobbs decision came down, it was less than an hour after that decisions. What this article says, less than an hour, the Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost asked for a federal Judge to let the state’s 2019 abortion ban to take effect. And then within hours, the Judge granted the request and eliminated the injunctions.

So both in Ohio and Texas, guys, we’ve talked about the US Supreme Court and the incredible things that happened there. This is really cool looking at actually states and there’s Supreme Courts that are stepping up to secure that recognition from the US Supreme Court of states really have some level of authority in this. And we’ve said it several times, I don’t think states have as much authority as we are pretending like they do. States don’t have the right to approve murder or rape or some of these things in their state.

Well, the same way I would argue they don’t really have the right to say it’s okay to murder an unborn child. That’s not really something that state should have the authority to do, just like state shouldn’t have the authority to say slavery is legal in their state, very similar. Nonetheless, that’s good news from a couple of state Supreme Courts.

Last article real quick is from the US Supreme Court. The title of the article says “Following landmark Second Amendment decision, SCOTUS overturns four appeals Court’s decision in four states.” And I think I’ve mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, this article goes in much greater detail in depth about what happened in those four states. So in California, New Jersey, Maryland and Hawaii, they all had passed very, very restrictive gun laws. And based on this New York decision, where the Supreme Court said that not only do you have the right to keep guns inside your home, which it goes back to the District of Columbia versus Heller in 2008, where in Washington DC, the laws at that time in the District of Columbia said that you could not even keep a firearm inside your home and the Supreme Court came out and said yes, you can have a firearm inside your home.

Well, this one goes further, and this is part of what the Supreme Court, even Justice Clarence Thomas identified, is not only do you have the right to defend yourself in your home; if you have the inherent right to defend yourself in your home, you certainly have the right to defend yourself when you’re out in public. And that’s where the New York Supreme Court decision went with the Second Amendment.

So in California, New Jersey, Maryland, Hawaii, they’d all pass very restrictive gun laws dealing with things like what kind of guns you could own, and what size magazine capacity that your gun could have and even on the ability that you had to request permission to be able to get a concealed handgun license. And for example, Hawaii was one of those states that was told to revisit their law. Hawaii, well, actually from 2000 until 2020, in 20 years, Hawaii is one of the states that did not say that you could have one. They said, well, you have to ask we might give you permission. So it’s a may issue, not a shell issue. In 20 years, guys, here’s your question, in20 years, how many permits did Hawaii give to people? From 2000 to 2020, how many permits they give to people to be able to concealed carry a handgun on the island of Hawaii?

Rick:

I was going to say thousands, I’m sure. I’m kidding. I’m kidding. Not thousands, not many I bet

Tim:.

4.

Rick:

Wow! In 20 years?

David:

That was twice too high.

Tim:

In 20 years, they only granted 4. And so one of the really good things from the Supreme Court is they said look, all these restrictions you’re putting on the Second Amendment, Hawaii, New Jersey, California, Maryland, you need to go back and based on what this decision was, you need to go back and revisit your laws, which means they’re clearly identifying that those are not constitutional, and the right of restricting the access or ability of people to keep and bear arms etc. So this is just we’re continuing to see this snowball rolling down the hill of rights being restored on some level to defend and protect the Constitution. Guys, this is really good news.

Rick:

Good news indeed. And as I said at the top of the program, if you want more good news, if you got hooked today, if it was your first time to listen, and you enjoyed that good news so much that you want more, it’s available at our website right now, wallbuilderslive.com. Again, that’s the website wallbuilderslive.com, the place where you can make that one-time or monthly contribution, you can get archives of the program and listen back over the previous weeks and months.

And then we also just have some great links to some of our other programming and also to articles and other great information and be sure to check out our regular website, our main website, I should say, it’s not regular at all, it’s outstanding, it’s phenomenal, it’s amazing. Why would I use the word regular? Anyway, wallbuilders.com is other website. Wallbuilders.com, there you can get access to the Mp3, the videos, the books. There’s so much available. And here’s the good news. It’s not boring. This isn’t history and government like you had in high school or college where you slept through the class.

WallBuilders, and this is part of what I admire so much about David Barton as he just set this amazing tone for studying history through the eyes of the people that experienced it. He brought it to life. I hated this stuff when I was in high school in college. But somebody gave me one of those cassette tapes that David Barton years ago, I’m not going to say how many years but let’s just say multiple decades, gave me one of those cassette tapes and I fell in love with history because of the way David teaches it. You can get all of that at wallbuilders.com.

Get your family excited about studying these things, become students of freedom, become biblical citizens, and become the catalyst in your community for restoring biblical values and constitutional principles. Thanks so much for listening today. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.