The Discriminatory “Equality Act” Is Unfortunately Back: The Left is using a tactic to get this passed. The Equality Act is the greatest assault on constitutional and religious liberties in the history of the nation. Tune in now to learn more!

Air Date: 08/05/2019

Guest: Mat Staver

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

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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.

Faith And The Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders Live! Where we’re talking about today’s hottest topics on policy, faith, and the culture, always doing that from a Biblical, historical, and Constitutional perspective.

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Alright, guys later in the program Matt Staver is going to be with us. We got one of these crazy pieces of legislation we’ve talked about quite a bit on the program in the past, the Equality Act. It’s a terrible piece of legislation.

The Equality Act Is Being Broken Up Into Multiple Pieces

Apparently, the Bill is not going to get to the Senate but the House is trying to break it up into multiple pieces.

David:

Yeah, what’s happening is a very effective strategy. I mean this literally becomes like whack-a-mole. Instead of having one bill that we can target and focus on, they say this Bill is made up of 150 different lines, so let’s make 150 different measures.

 So, they’re taking little bitty parts of this Bill, sometimes just a few words, and introduce it into other measures. 

If they get their way done, they’re going to get a whole lot of this done through other measures that you really are not going to see it or notice that measure, or you’re not willing to kill the whole measure just because it’s got some bad language in it. 

If I go back to what President Obama did and his administration, as you look back over it, there were so much that actually happened and the culture. The way we made regulations, and the way we did the Justice Department, the way we did the court, the way we approached education, the way that we did commerce, the way we did environmental protection – it just changed everywhere. 

So Many Different Measures

And what we know is that you know he came up with so many different measures. It’s like he came up with 10,000 different bad measures and we were very good at killing 97 percent of those measures. 

But if you kill ninety-seven percent of 10,000; that’s 300 bad measures that still get through. 

We’re dealing now with a lot of bad measures; executive orders have reversed some, laws have reversed some. The courts have reversed much of it. 

But that’s kind of what they’ve done to the Equality Act, instead of putting all their eggs in one basket, they said oh we’ve got 100,000 eggs here we’ll just put one in every little location. So (with the Equality Act) we’re now looking at the danger of having it be passed. 

Greatest Assault On Constitutional And Religious Liberties 

By the way, the Equality Act is probably the greatest assault on Constitutional liberties and religious liberty in the history of the nation. I do not know of a single Constitutional attack on religious liberty greater than this one that’s going right now.

Tim:

How can equality be an attack on liberty, sir? Equality is a wonderful thing. What is wrong with equality? How dare you? (You) Just sound like you’re probably bigoted, you’re hateful, you oppose good things, and you probably don’t like puppy dogs and ice cream.

Their Definition Of Equality Works Like Their Definition Of Socialism

David:

Yeah, their definition of equality works like their definition of socialism. 

In socialism, they want everybody’s income to be equal, but instead of making everybody prosperous, what they do is they make everybody poor. 

So we have equality because we all have the same low-level of income, same non-production. Their version of equality is not everyone has the same rights, as we’re going to take away from people who have rights until everybody has the same amount of low-rights regulated by the government. 

Equality for them means that Christians, they can’t have rights we want them to have, so we got to take away their rights. 

Literally, they are targeting constitutionally protected rights. They’re trying to take Constitutional rights, make them statutory rights and then they’re trying to write them out of existence with other statutory laws. 

Their view of equality is a whole lot like what happens with their view of socialism or at least what works out when they implement socialism. 

They promise all this great prosperity that everybody is going to have all this great prosperity – actually socialism does not create new wealth. It takes the wealth of everybody and redistributes it.

Rather than everyone becoming prosperous, they limit and cap the production or the creation of wealth. They start taking what’s left and spreading it around. 

And that’s why socialistic nations are less prosperous than other nations.

The Government Wants To Control Our Money

Tim:

Wait a second, are you saying that the government controls production and controls our bank accounts and controls our property?

I’m not going to have more money? What?

David:

 I think. That’s what I’m seeing, but that’s what all of history proves.

Tim:

That is not what Bernie Sanders told me! That is ridiculous. You know what?  

Rick:

Probably not what he told his employees on his campaign either.

Tim:

I’m going to go work for his campaign, and I’m going to get wealthy except – oh wait, no. He’s gonna have to cut my hours to give me the wages I want, but then if I have fewer hours, I’m actually not making as much money as I wanted. 

OK, yeah I don’t think social’s is going to payout. 

But dad, you’re right. These are the arguments they make, and we don’t stop to consider what does that produce. 

The Argument Is: We’re In Favor Of Equality

So, the argument is: we’re in favor of equality. 

Everybody should be equal; everybody has great things, and yet they don’t treat everybody as equal. They actually try to destroy people that oppose their views in many situations. 

In this case, there’s no religious exemption for any churches or any ministries, or Christian organizations. You either believe what they believe or you are penalized or fine.

You might be thrown in jail if it comes to that if you don’t agree with their definitions.

David:

What they’re doing is literally taking constitutionally guaranteed religious rights; the religious right of conscience, in First Amendment, they’re saying we’re going to eliminate that. 

That’s equality. 

Taking Away From Other People Is Not What Gives You Equality

We’re going to take that away from you. Which is so crazy. 

People think that’s the Equality Act, no. Taking away from other people is not what gives you equality. Instead of raising everyone, what they’re doing is taking it down. 

What’s so interesting is: they’re taking a constitutionally guaranteed right, and they’re making it a statutory right. 

They’re saying we can take that part out of the Constitution by passing a law. Then they say once we pass that law; here’s the new law we will pass to replace the rights you used to have. 

The Equality Act, It Is A Dangerous Thing

The Equality Act, it is a dangerous thing. 

The rhetoric is really good on their part, and they got this passed in the House. The chances of it passing in the Senate all in one bill are pretty slim. And the President’s not going to sign it. 

So, they’re coming back with this new strategy of breaking it up into 100 different parts, and we’ll put it in 100 different bills. Once we get to the other side, we’ll reassemble it all, and we’ll have it all in the laws; just can be 100 different laws. 

We can make it an end to one law because it’s there. 

That’s what’s going on right now. It’s a very smart approach. 

If you just look at it from an objective standpoint of tactically and strategically what they’re doing is very smart. And if we’re not really awake and alert on this; we will end up losing rights that we never thought we would lose. 

This Is The Greatest Attack On Our Religious Freedom

This is the greatest attack on our religious freedom since the First Amendment guaranteed us our religious freedom. 

We’ve not seen anything that has come after the rights of conscience like we’re seeing here. This is saying you will conform to our beliefs; you will not have individual beliefs based on religion. All of that goes out the door. 

We ‘ve had lots of attacks on religion, but this is probably the broadest one I’ve seen on an entire right been eliminated by statutory law. It’s crazy.

Rick:

Well, Matt Staver at Liberty Counsel keeping a close eye on this and following it. (He’s) Going to give us a little heads up on how to fight this thing so stay with us. 

You’re listening to WallBuilders Live. Matt Staver our special guest when we come back from the break.

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Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. Matt Staver back with us from Liberty Counsel.

lc.org is their website. You can get on there, get on their email list or donate to help him continue the great work that they’re doing. 

Matt always good to have you, brother. Thanks for some time today. 

Matt:

Thank you. Good to be with you. 

Rick:

Hey, you have been keeping us updated on the Equality Act; apparently now being broken down into multiple pieces of legislation that they’re trying to push through.

That Would Be Their Wishlist

Matt:

Yeah, the Equality Act has the boatload of information that they’re trying to push through. That would actually be their wishlist. 

It amends many different federal laws by elevating sexual orientation and gender identity, which are very broad terms by the way to the same level as race and then expands what is in current federal law. 

So, they passed that overwhelmingly in the House, but they’re having trouble moving that in the Senate. Consequently, what they’re trying to do is take pieces of the Equality Act and put it in other laws so that they can do what I would call equality lite. 

Equality Lite

Therefore, when they get all these different things in the different laws, then they could put it together and have the full Equality Act. So that is the focus that we’re looking at right now. 

Obviously, stopping the Equality Act for sure in the Senate, which I think we can do if we continue to keep the pressure on them. Right now there’s a majority of Republicans in the Senate. 

On the other hand, what’s going to be more difficult is taking these pieces out and putting them in other legislation that otherwise people would vote for, but then it has this poison pill. That’s going to be the more difficult thing to push against. But that’s their strategy, and that’s where we’re focused.

Rick:

What are some of the key elements that seem to have the most momentum that we need to be watching for? Is it the Senate where we need to be fighting this because it’s already come through the House? Are they actually piecemeal in it in the House first? 

It Started From The House

Matt:

Piecemeal on the House.

None of this is originated in the Senate. The House is the one piecemeal in it. That’s the one that started the Equality Act. They’re the ones that are spinning off different sections and popping it into other bills, that are amendments and then it goes over to the Senate. 

Again the focus continues on the Senate, but we have to really make sure that these Senators know what is buried in some of these bills. The number of bills is growing. 

They Are Throwing In A Poison Pill

They even tried to push this in through the National Defense Authorization Act, the Budget that would keep the government going and also the military spending intact. 

You want to do that – you want to keep the government going, you want to support the military, but then they throw in a poison pill. They’re doing this both with abortion as well as the LGBTQ issue. 

So, that’s going to be the area of focus. Sometimes, because it’s buried as an Amendment, it could only be a few words. In some other Bills that are quite lengthy, some of these members may not even realize it’s there. 

We Have To First Raise Attention And Awareness

We have first to raise attention and awareness. Then when it gets into the Senate, have those amendments struck or have the Bill passed without that amendment attached to it.

Rick:

Let’s hit a couple these major ones before I let you go. The one major piece, this Customer Non-Discrimination Act, which sounds wonderful just like the Equality Act, sounds wonderful, but very much puts especially our ladies in danger at public restrooms across the country.

The Customer Non-Discrimination Act

Matt:

Yeah, it sounds interesting sounds like something you’d want to support but then when you look at it, what it is is the same thing that’s in the Equality Act. 

That is allowing men to use the women’s private facilities, whether it’s restrooms, shower rooms, locker rooms, changing rooms whatever it may be for men to literally come into these private facilities and make mischief. Certainly, women don’t want men in these facilities. 

Also, there are other areas that otherwise might sound good; like having some research done with regards to different kinds of bullying or other things.

Then they put in this particular area of that research, something that they’re going to build on later on “€” lots of different tactics that they’re using. 

We Have To Be Vigilant

What it really underscores is we have to be vigilant. And also there are people in Congress, their whole focus is not really the benefit of our country, in the best interest of the American people, but it really is driven by an LGBT and an abortion agenda. 

They’re permeating everything that they do through that lens, through that worldview and trying to push it as much as they can in all these different pieces of legislation.

Rick:

One of the areas Matt that they’ve gone even further than in the past, they would go with this radical legislation, and they would always have exemptions for churches or religious convictions or whatever might be. 

Now, they’re saying forget that they’re going for these things and saying you don’t get the exemption: churches, Christian business, Christian people, I mean we’re all going to be open to literally not being able to distinguish between basic biology.

Matt:

Yeah, that’s exactly right. In the past, they tried to silence the churches. Some denominations backed off opposition to various kinds of laws both in the State and Federal that push those LGBT agenda because churches were exempt.

They breathed a sigh of relief even though their members and the businesses and schools, they would be covered. 

Now what has happened with this whole radical LGBT agenda is they say, no way we’re not going to exempt churches at all and will not support anything that does.

Consequently, what you have in the Equality Act and some of these spinoff bills: they want churches to be under the thumb of the LGBT agenda just like anything else. 

So churches are not exempt, religious Christian universities and colleges they’re not exempt, K-colleges are not exempt. All of these religious schools, their tax exemption, their accreditation for the schools; all that would be in jeopardy. 

Plus it’s not just that, Somebody might say, I can give up my tax exemption maybe it’s time to do that. Maybe but that’s not the issue here because with or without tax exemption, they can still file suits that are debilitating.

If you don’t comply, you can have daily fines that literally would bankrupt your Christian organization, be it a church or a college or a school.

Rick:

It just seems like the more we back up, and say we’ll back down as long as they leave me alone and my church or my home; the more we do that, the stronger they get.

The more they push us into smaller and smaller areas where we can actually live freedom.

The Utah Compromise

Matt:

That’s right. There was something that was percolating last year called, the Utah Compromise. 

Essentially, what it was is people in some different denominations saying let’s just compromise with the LGBT, homosexual community and let’s give them what they want as long as we’re exempted. That was so naive. 

Now what you find is that’s not what their agenda is; they want churches under their thumb. The reason why is because it’s the church.

It’s the Judeo Christian Biblical values, that are the last target, the last impediment for them to reach their ultimate agenda. 

They not only want it to be crushed but they also want those of faith churches, religious organizations to either go out of existence or to wave the LGBT flag if you want to stay in existence.

Stay Updated At Lc.org

Rick:

Yeah, no doubt about it. They won’t stop until that’s what they get. 

We’re so appreciative for the updates. You just don’t hear these details certainly from the major media, even in our other opportunities to find out what’s going on.

You just do a great job at diving in. 

Matt, for people to stay updated on these specific bills and where they are, the best thing to get on the email lists at lc.org? 

Matt:

They get on the email list and also lcaction.org. We also have information there as well outlining some of these particular areas like Labor, Defense, Energy and Water, State and Foreign Ops, just to name a few.

How they’re trying to sneak some of these Equality Act provisions into other areas of the law.

Rick:

Just last question for you: do you feel like there are some champions on the Hill right now, both in the House and in the Senate that are keeping some eyes on this and doing everything they can to defeat these little things? 

It’s like whack-a-mole, man. You kill a major bill over here, and then the little pieces come up over here and then over here and over here.

When you’re working the Hill, do you feel like there are some good folks there on both sides of the aisle?

There’s Definitely Some Good People On Both Sides

Matt:

There’s definitely some good people on both sides.

 Of course, they’re so outnumbered in the Senate. Just to give you an example, the vote there on the Equality Act was 236 to 173 

Rick: 

 Do you mean on the House? 

Matt: 

 On the House, yes. But it’s almost evenly divided on the Senate cause there’s a couple of Republicans that are breaking ranks like Collins and some others. 

There are some really good advocates; for example, Lindsey Graham has become a very good advocate. 

Even the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell he has become a good advocate. Of course, ultimately it rests in his hands as to whether he’ll bring any of these bills up for a vote. 

He’s been doing a very good job in that respect. That’s why there’s not a lot of movement right now in the Senate because you’ve got some good people chairing these committees, and a good speaker that understands we’re not going to put this into the President’s desk if the President would veto it and if their constituents don’t want it. 

That’s where we’ve been able to gain some headway. But it becomes harder when it’s a really good bill and necessary Bill. 

Then there’s one provision in it that actually enacts a provision of the Equality Act, so that’s really where the challenge is. 

Rick: 

 Love it. I love that we get some good people there to fight it. But I didn’t realize it was that close. So we’ve got to pay attention.

 Get on the on these emails folks. Stay on his website, make the phone calls we’ve got to let our voice be heard.

Matt Staver always a pleasure. Thank you, sir. Appreciate coming on. 

Matt:

Thank you good for being with you. 

Rick:

Stay with us folks to be right back with David and Tim Barton.

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It’s Significant

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. A special thanks to Matt Staver and Liberty Counsel. Check out lc.org today to learn more about their organization and how to follow that legislation. Back with David and Tim now. 

Guys, Matt laid it out. I mean each one of these individual pieces by themselves is horrible. But put the whole thing together I mean, as you said earlier in the program David, it’s a massive threat perhaps the greatest threat to our freedom that we’ve seen in legislation.

Matt:

Well, it’s significant too. I mean Matt really pointed out some things that people should pay attention to. 

This is a bill that would disassemble so many of the guaranteed Constitutional, religious rights that we have from the First Amendment. 

The National Defense Authorization Act

Notice he said that a lot of this is being put in the NDAA. That’s the National Defense Authorization Act. 

This is the Bill that funds the military every two years, why would you put attacks on religious liberty in a bill funding the military?

Also, notice he also said it’s in the Water Bills? And it is in the Energy Bill? What does water have to do with protecting religious liberty? 

See, they’re putting it in all these Bills, and they are, as he points out are called must-pass bills. 

We have to pass the NDAA every year. There is no permanent military in the United States. 

The Constitution does not permit us to have a standing army. So if we do not fund the military every two years, it will go away. It can only last two years at a time. That’s why you have to have the NDAA passed. That’s a must-pass Bill. 

So they stick this a little provision in there, and nobody is going to vote to defund the military. Nobody’s going to vote against that Bill just because I’ve got this little provision in there. 

You’ve got to fund the military. You do the same with the Water Bill Oh, all of the Republicans are trying to kill good Water Bills. No, they’re trying to stop a bad Amendment in that Bill, but that’s not the way the media will portray it. The same thing with energy or anything else. 

Must-Pass Bills

They break it up, and all these Bills and they put these little provisions in there knowing that you can’t afford to vote against that Bill.  

This is because the U.S. Congress does not have what is called germaneness rules. In other States, you have to have amendments that are germane to that issue. 

So an Amendment to the military defense Bill has to be something built dealing with military defense or with water or whatever. That’s not what Congress has. 

So that’s why they can do this. 

You look at what they’re doing here; the strategy is so good. I loved what Matt said; it really hit me when he said it. 

They Want A LGBTQ Theocracy 

He said look they want us to wave their LGBTQ flag or they want us to go out of existence if we don’t. So what they want is they want coercion. They want to force us to carry their message and their water.

They want to force us to be an evangelist for their message. They want us to practice their beliefs and convictions.

They want a LGBTQ theocracy is what they want. They want to coerce us into believing what they believe and carrying their water and carrying their message.

They like to talk about how Christians want a theocracy, no. That’s not what we want, but that’s what they’re wanting because we’re not forcing people to our beliefs. 

If you don’t believe what we believe, then we will punish you and give you fewer rights, and we’ll take away the rights you do have. 

That’s why I say this is such a massive attack on religious liberties like we haven’t seen anything the scope or size.

The way they’re doing it really is significant. I’ll go to what Matt said, the problem with this is many members are not even aware of all of these Amendments.

They look at between five to a thousand Bills every session. They’re not aware of all these. 

And as he said, some of these amendments are just two or three words. It might be just putting in a ‘shall not’ or ‘might’ are some of the wordings that just changes the meaning. 

Let Our Legislators, Particularly Our Senators Know

So this is where we can have an impact. We can let our legislators, particularly our Senators, know that a whole lot of the provisions out of the Equality Act are being tucked away and little Bills. Do not pass any bill that has that Equality Provision Act in it or that language from it.

This is a good thing for us to do for our Senators. Give them a heads up because they likely will not know this yet.

Rick:

Some people may think that we’re naive to say that a Senator wouldn’t know about this, but as you said, they get so many things they deal with. That’s what we’re there for as constituents; is to bring things to their attention constantly.

Because they are dealing with so much, we got to make sure they know this is a priority and that they go dig into these minor details and make sure that they’re blocking these bad pieces of legislation that are coming through.

Folks, that’s our role as citizens. We can sit back and complain about what’s happening in Washington, D.C., or we can actually get engaged and do something about it. 

That’s what we do here at WallBuilders. We encourage people to get engaged in the system, locally and nationally.

Today, of course, we’re talking about a national piece of legislation. But the biggest difference you can make is right there in your home, in your community, in your backyard and every citizen can do exactly that. 

We challenge you to do that there’s a lot of ways to do that. 

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Again, as I mentioned in your home all kinds of ways that you can help equip people back home in your community to make a big difference and help restore America’s constitutional republic. Every one of us that it gets to enjoy this freedom.

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