Veteran Actors Leave Hallmark Channel Because Of LGBTQ Issues And More – Veteran actors are leaving Hallmark Channel for a new TV channel that is family friendly. Governor Ron DeSantis signs election integrity law and more!

Air Date: 05/13/2022

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.

 

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live. Thanks so much for joining us today. It’s Good News Friday, which means we’re going to be sharing some good news, with rapid pace we get as many of those stories in as we possibly can. David and Tim Barton have been collecting those. We’re never get to all of the good news that they’ve got for you. But we’ll do as much as we can.

David, meaning David Barton, he’s America’s premier historian and our founder here at WallBuilders, Tim, meaning Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders, and I’m Rick Green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. You can find out more about us at our website, wallbuilderslive.com, that’s the place to make your one-time or monthly contribution. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, those dollars go a long way. I’m telling you, this is a ministry that is very careful and stewards the dollars incredibly well. Wallbuilderslive.com is the place to make that contribution. If you’d like to help us expand this voice, reach more people, train more legislators, train more pastors, more young people, all the different things that we do at WallBuilders, you can be a part of by donating today at wallbuilderslive.com.

Alright, David and Tim, let’s get to some good news. David’s got our first piece of good news.

David:

Okay, Rick, I’ve got the first one and it deals with education. And I have to say that education has become more of an issue in the last two years than I think we’ve seen it maybe in our lifetimes. And it’s a focus that has not been a positive focus, whether it be critical race theory or transgender clauses, or whatever you want to name, all the stuff that’s going on right now, the school is keeping information from parents and school is taking over the role of parents and trying to replace the role of parents, you name it. It’s been really bad. It’s been really progressive.

And we’ve seen parents really start to rise up against, I think, maybe a year and a half ago, when we saw what was happening in Loudoun County, in Fairfax County, Virginia started making national news and parents started looking at their own schools and saying, hey, this is not good what they’re doing at my school. And so we’ve just seen over the last really two years, so many folks running for school board and trying to take out this wacky kind of progressive agenda that’s really permeated all the schools. And even places we consider to be conservative areas or rural areas, they found really, really crazy stuff going there as well.

So while there are some good teachers, the system is really pretty broken. And this is an issue, you know, this progressive education, we’ve been talking about this at least for a decade. I remember programs we’ve had long ago talking about how crazy the National Education Association was. And at their annual meetings, they’re not doing things like how to improve math or English, it’s how to get single payer health care, how to move the LGBTQ agenda and all the things they’re doing.

So the National Education Association has always been right on the forefront of the crazy things that have happened sometimes by years and years, which makes a lot of sense is if educators and the NEA are really teaching this stuff, it takes a few years before parents see it trickle out through the schools. But here’s what really surprised me. I had no idea that the NEA was a federally chartered organization. As a matter of fact, they are the only federally chartered labor union in the United States. No other labor union, no other group like this is federally chartered. The NEA was chartered way back in the days of Teddy Roosevelt, of all people, and they were chartered.

And their purpose was really clear. The charter says is “To elevate the character and advance the interests of the profession of teaching, and to promote the cause of education in the United States.” Now, that’s a noble statement. That’s a great charter. I think we could replace education with indoctrination. I think they’re trying to promote the cause of indoctrination in United States, because academically, America has been falling for years now in global competitions and international testing. But we’ve done a really good job of getting woken and being progressive and believing all sorts of things that really don’t make a difference in real life.

So as it turns out, there’s a bunch of members of Congress who have introduced a bill to revoke the federal charter of the NEA. 116 years it’s been there and they’re saying, why would the federal government support this? And it’s a great idea to revoke the charter. Now, I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere. But it’s a great idea. And actually, it’s a great way of educating because I mean, I had no clue that they were federally chartered and the only federally chartered organization. And that federal charter, by the way, they reported the Department of Labor in the last cycle, that they spent $117 million in political campaigns, and 96% of that went to Democrats. Now, how is that a federally chartered organization that’s helping education?

Tim:

I don’t think that’s biased at all. I mean, that seems totally down the middle. Which, first of all, why are they taking tax dollars to use it on political things? That’s a different side note. But I mean, yeah, just because 96% or 97% of the organization leans one political direction that happens to be against the Constitution, I don’t know why that would be a problem.

David:

I bet you they would say that they were fair and balanced. If you ask them, they would say well, we’re bipartisan, we support both parties. Yeah, at about a 97-3 rate. So I don’t think this bill would go anywhere. But I hope it’s used for education because people like me, and I think I’m fairly informed on education. I had no clue the NEA was federally chartered.

Tim:

Well, that’s also a caveat, as you’re saying you hope they get back to education. I mean, really, we’ve talked about we’d like to see the Department of Education, we’d like to see a lot of these things done away with. So not that we’re encouraging we want the government to get back to doing things in education really. We’d love this all to be done away with and let’s just keep those tax dollars actually, maybe the pockets of the people or in things that actually make sense that tax dollars be advocated for. However, with that being said, it is great to see that in Congress there’re so many people willing to push back on something that is clearly out of lines like the NEA.

Rick:

Okay. Tim, we’re headed over to you, what’s your first piece of good news for today?

Tim:

Alright, guys, I’m going to go to South Carolina. And there was a law just a couple of weeks ago that was signed by Governor Henry McMaster and this one, the title of the article is really very helpful in understanding the context of the article. But the title says “Churches are an Essential Service during Emergencies”. According to New South Carolina law, South Carolina passed a law where they identify that churches and other religious organizations are essential services during emergencies. And the law essentially prohibits churches from being closed down during emergencies.

Now it does in the law, there are two small caveats where churches could be closed down on some level. But here’s the caveats because it actually does give me even more encouragement with. So there’s two instances in which churches can have some level of closure from the government. But the first one says that all organizations or businesses providing essential services are also limited. So churches can’t be singled out and being limited. But if they’re saying, hey, we’re closing down to every single business, well, churches can be included in that, but they’re designated as a central service. So churches can’t be held in their own category where they’re not as essential as something else. That’s number one.

The second thing, it does say that “The limit does not impose a substantial burden”, meaning if the government comes and limits what the church can do versus hey, you all can’t meet seven days a week or whatever the case might be, and I’m kind of making up something arbitrary right now just for the example, but if the government comes and gives a limitation and it says it cannot impose a substantial burden on religious services and the state demonstrates that the burden is necessary to further a compelling state interest and as the least restrictive means of furthering that interest.

Now, it does seem that there’s a few words in there, you’re like, ooh, I’m not sure about this. Because when you say a compelling state interest, well, who determines what that is except when they then come back and say in the least restrictive means possible? That does open up the opportunity for pushback if the state says, hey, we’re going to let you guys do this, you can have religious service. No, the law actually says they can have religious service. And if there’s any limitation, it has to be the least restrictive means possible. And as the first one already identified, it can’t be a restriction that all of the businesses aren’t subjected to.

So guys, this is really great to see in South Carolina, this law and along the lines of this law being passed, not only is it great that Governor McMaster signed this law, it passed out of the House 102-2, and in the Senate, 392-2, so overwhelming majority in South Carolina, and their state legislature, and even their governor recognizing that churches are essential and should not ever be closed again and these emergencies.

David:

Tim, I think there’s a good chance that that brand new law is about to get altered. Because the part you just quoted about, the compelling government interest and substantial burden, that is directly out of a Supreme Court case. That’s language from a Supreme Court case that says, well, we can’t regulate religion, if it’s a compelling government interest in the least restrictive. And that is the case that just about three years ago, several justices on the US Supreme Court and an opinion said, hey, we need somebody to sue so we can get this clause out of there. That was considered a bad decision when they rendered it. And that was one of the very few bad decisions that they point to Justice Scalia said, he got it wrong on this.

And so the court is looking to go back and say, hey, we don’t have any right to regulate churches. There’s no compelling government interest first to do that. And so that’s a case that’s at the Supreme Court this year. This is one they asked for three years ago, bring it to us and let us argue this question. So if we win that case, hopefully, that part of the law is going to be out and gone.

Tim:

Which means even more good news for churches in South Carolina and actually, that law would then be applied arguably, from the US Supreme Court’s decision, that ruling would apply, obviously, in all 50 states. But in South Carolina, it gives them more freedom, which Supreme Court case is that that’s being heard? Because we know there’s a lot, whether it be the coach Kennedy, and we know there’s a Dobbs case and there’s a lot of things we’re waiting to get a ruling from the Supreme Court? Which case is this?

David:

It’s Coach Kennedy case. And originally, when this was brought up the court several years ago, they brought it up to the Supreme Court and the court sent it back down said, work through the process, bring it back to us. And so when the court originally got it, the arguments from the attorneys were well, religious liberties, free speech, all that kind of stuff. And when it got sent back down and the decision, the court several Justices says, hey, when you bring this back to us, bring it back with an aspect of Oregon v. Smith case Employment Division, which is the case in which they said there’s got to be compelling government interest. I think that was the case as was in 1980 maybe. I mean, it goes back a long time, but they thought it was wrongly decided and so they asked for to come back with that argument.

Tim:

Well, I think to your point, it was even strategically worded the way you’re saying that they asked for it. My recollection was they didn’t come out and say, hey, guys, when you all come back, will you please ask us this? They just said, you know, it’d be interesting if someone came back and asked this question. It’d be interesting for us to discuss this question. So it even was a little more playful and vague, but definitely, giving the idea that somebody should bring this up because we’re ready to correct this mistake.

And even as we’re having this conversation, it was interesting, since Alito’s first draft from back in February of this Dobbs decision, the abortion case, it came out and people are just going crazy and berserk. It’s interesting there has been some discussions of what is proper and appropriate for the US Supreme Court. And can they rule on this? And people think they make law. And that’s not really what the Supreme Court does which actually, we might need to go back on a Foundation of Freedom and revisit some of the roles of Supreme Court. And probably, once we have some of these rulings out, we’ll have many of our attorney friends on and we can have some of those conversations.

With it being said, though, it is interesting that even as you’re alluding to in this Coach Kennedy decision where the Supreme Court said, hey, you know, it’ll be interesting if you all asked us this question next time you come up here, it’s interesting the Supreme Court identifies that there are times when there was a ruling that definitely was wrong that needs to be corrected. Because even like the Roe v Wade decision, people are looking going you can’t change it, that’s the law. Well, technically, it’s not a law. It was ever passed by Congress. It wasn’t signed by the President. So it’s not a law.

But the idea is if the Supreme Court rule on something, then it can never change. That’s not historically accurate at all. The Supreme Court has changed position in very significant ways multiple times in our nation’s history, and actually corrected some many egregious things over time. So this is just interesting, in this case, maybe not the same levels egregious obviously was like a Roe vs. Wade or the Dred Scott decision. But interesting, the Supreme Court’s identifying that we definitely can correct things when we got them wrong, so you all bring this case back. So that’ll definitely be one this summer when some of these rulings come out, and we’re praying that they go the way of religious freedom, they go the way of prolife, etc based on these cases. We’ll definitely have to come back and revisit these.

Rick:

Hey, guys, we’re going to take a quick break. Stay with us, folks, we’ve got more good news for you, when we return. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

SUMMER INSTITUTE

Hey, guys, this is Tim Barton, I am interrupting the normal broadcast to bring you something pretty special. This summer, we are doing a special program for college aged students 18-25 year olds. And it’s something that is becoming more and more special based on where the climate is.

In the middle of a crazy culture, in the middle of a nation going in crazy directions and right now we’re seeing in academia where even Christian universities are promoting critical race theory, teaching the 1619 project, we want to do something to help equip young people the next generation, to know the truth, the truth of the Word of God, the truth of America, the truth of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the free market, we want to get into a lot of this. And this is something that if you are an 18-25 year old, or if you are a parent or grandparent, if you have an 18 or 25 year old, if you’re in church, you know 18-25 year olds, this program is something that can be life-changing for them, you want them to be a part. Go to wallbuilders.com and look for the summer institute to be part of this program.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. It is Good News Friday. Thanks for staying with us on this Friday. If we don’t get enough good news in here for you today, be sure to visit the website wallbuilderslive.com. Go into the archive section. And guess what? Most of those Friday programs, more good news for you there. But let’s get some new good news right here. David, what’s our next piece of good news today?

David:

Okay, Rick, I’m going to go to a story on entertainment. And when you look at cable and you look at on-demand TV and you look at DVDs or whatever else, there’s a lot of family entertainment out there. And one of the available family entertainment kind of networks has been the Hallmark network.

Tim:

Now, let me just pause for a second. You mentioned this thing called DVD, for all of our younger people in the audience, let’s go back historically. I mean, guys, it’s so crazy. I was talking to somebody just a couple days ago when I said, man, let me pause this, let me rewind and go back and start over. And I thought you know what, it won’t be long before people are like what’s rewind? I don’t know what that is. Because so much as digital now, so not I mean, I’m just kind of tongue in cheek joke. But DVD is not that old. However, not to digress, dad, let me throw it back to you. You were mentioning the Hallmark Channel, which I don’t know a lot about, but I’m going to leave this in your area of expertise.

David:

Man, I wonder how much I would have messed you up but said VHS, if I’d said VHS, is that a DVD?

Tim:

Oh no, I definitely remember that, I remember the “Be Kind Rewind”, like I get it. But I turned 40 this year. So I’m just thinking there might be some younger individuals listening. I’m just trying to help the gap right here. I definitely think people know what a DVD is. Nonetheless, it’s not going to be long before they’re like, what is that effect. In one of really, I mean, pretty much all the rental vehicles we drive now there’s no DVD player. My truck right now does not a CD player, I’m even confused about that, doesn’t have a CD player, which is crazy to me for decades, that was so cool. We went from having a cassette tape player to a CD player. Well, you see you had these pencils and you would put them in and you would spin it and they would help get the reel back in. And that’s how you kind of did an operation on a cassette. Anyway, we’re digressing. Let’s go back to Hallmark, tell me about this Channel?

David:

So Hallmark has been a very family friendly channel. They have produced a lot of original programming, original movies. They replay a lot of really series from 10, 15, 20 years ago that were family friendly. They’ve been that. And yet in 2019, they came out with a position that said, hey, we’re moving LGBTQ+ stuff. And so you started having same sex couples kissing on screen. And so this family friendly channel which is how they had been built, which is why a lot of people watch them, all of a sudden, you’re now seeing that the gay agenda move into that.

And so as a result, there have been about a dozen major stars that have been doing Hallmark movies for a number of years that have now announced that they’re leaving and going to a new cable production company to GAC, which is great American channels. So they’re moving over there. And that’s an area that does have a lot of family friendly stuff. But it’s a new channel that’s coming up. But they’re getting a lot of veteran stars moving over there.

And it’s really nice to see that there were so many veteran stars who really were committed to family friendly programming in what we consider traditional morality. And so they’re moving over there because they don’t even want to be with what the channel is calling itself family friendly, but he’s really taken on the woke agenda. So I thought that was a great piece of news that you’re getting people who are in Hollywood and acting and media that are following their convictions and trying to make that really clear for the movies they produce. Good piece of news on entertainment.

Rick:

Alright, Tim, next piece of good news for today. What you got, brother?

Tim:

All right, guys, so this one is going to Florida actually one of our favorite governors in America right now, Governor Ron DeSantis, he’ signed a couple bills becoming laws just this last month. And one of them is Senate Bill 524. And the description says Strengthening Voting Rules in the State and Establishing the Nation’s First Office of Election Crimes and security at the Department of State Specifically Formed to Investigate and Prosecute Voter Fraud.

Ron DeSantis has made his own special unit in Florida to investigate and prosecute voter fraud, which is awesome. Over the last two years, I mean, guys, we’ve talked so much about it how there’s been so much censorship. If you even mention the idea of voter fraud, right, you can get banned, whether it be YouTube or Facebook or Instagram and just crazy. And actually, this last week, Dinesh D’Souza has movie 2000 Mules came out. And there is actual video evidence on there showing people doing ballot harvesting in areas where it is illegal, were areas that you could only go and drop off, deposit your own ballot and they would show up with stacks handfuls of ballots and just one after another.

And after that first ballot was dropped, every ballot after that was a felony. And it’s showing people on camera doing this. Now, of course, the federal government said yeah, we don’t prosecute any of that. And so it’s falling now to some states and actually, even some state attorney generals have seen some of these videos of things happening in their state and they said we’re not really going to do much with this.

There’s actually some campaigns going on right now where some Republican State Attorney Generals are being primaried, for example, in Georgia over a lack of initial involvement and wanting to do something about this. And that’s not the only one. There’s several places this is going on.

With that being said, what is awesome is Governor Ron DeSantis is been so vocal about this, he said we need to do something, we need to stop this. What’s also interesting in this article is it quotes Hans von Spakovsky, who identified, if you look at ballot harvesting and the operation in the 2020 election, he says it was largely funded by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder who gave over $400 million in campaign to convert official government election offices and to get out to vote operations, etc, etc.

I mean, guys, it’s interesting seeing some of these videos that Dinesh D’Souza has in his 2000 Mules movie and recognizing that, right, obviously, these people are getting paid to do this and where’s this money coming from? And you have people identifying. This is what Facebook paid. It’s paying people to commit these felonies. So, just really interesting stuff.

The good news, again, is that Governor Ron DeSantis signed this bill saying, we’re going to actually have an office to in investigate these kinds of crimes, people that their only job, their very job is to protect the integrity of the election. He also signed Senate Bill 90, which was strengthening voter ID laws to confirm on mail-in ballots and in various places that they’re checking IDs and what that really means with some of this. So, several things coming out of Florida.

And we’ve talked about this before. If you look at Ron DeSantis in general, in 2018, he was part of a really, really messy election where it took 4.5 weeks after the election before he found out officially that he was the governor because of a lot of shenanigans in that 2018 election. Well, part of the shenanigans they were places like Broward County, they kept finding ballots and boxes of ballots and more ballots. And as you can imagine, those ballots were pretty much all going in the Democrat direction. So it was tightening up the vote.

When Ron DeSantis finally is declared the governor four and a half weeks later, he says alright, we’re going to change a lot of this. And so voter ID, election security has been a big deal for him. And we are seeing more and more where he is championing this. And he definitely is having some major fights in Florida. A little bit like Trump in Washington, DC, not everybody in Washington, DC was in favor of Trump. In fact, many were against Trump. Ron DeSantis definitely has some people in the state in Florida, even in politics and government in Florida that are not supportive of him. He’s fighting some uphill battles. But it’s really great to see him fighting some significant battles and winning on lots of really great areas.

And so having now a place in Florida where they’re actually going to investigate what happens at the polls and prosecute people who break the law than having a greater level of voter ID for melon ballots, etc, really great news coming out of Florida.

Rick:

Okay, David, we’ve got just enough time for one more piece of good news. What are we going to close it out with today?

David:

I’ve got one from Ohio. This one comes from Shawnee State University. And in Shawnee State University, some four years ago, there was a political philosophy professor, Nick Merriweather, who was teaching a course and they got some questions and answers at the end. And so as it was going back and forth, and he was answering questions and asking questions, there’s a student who responded and he responded to that student, said, yes, sir. Well, it said that because the student, by all physical appearances was a male and he was indeed a biological male.

But after the class, the student came up to him and said, hey, I identify as female and you called me sir, and I’m highly offended. And so don’t do that again. Call me she, call me her, use female pronouns. And the professor said, no, I’m not going to do that. You’re biological male. Now, if you want me to, I’ll call you by your first name, or whatever else. But I’m not going to call you something I don’t believe you are. And biologically, you’re a male and I’m not going to call you something that I don’t think aligns with biological physical truth.

So the student goes to the university and says, hey, he won’t call me what I want him to, he won’t use the pronouns I want him to. So the university came after the professor and he got in trouble and they disciplined him, etc, said you will use these pronouns. And he says, no, my religious convictions don’t let me essentially say something that is not true and particularly when it refers to biological genders. And so he ends up in a lawsuit.

And by a unanimous decision, the Sixth Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, this thing has been going on for now four years, Sixth Circuit came back with a unanimous decision that says, hey, you cannot force him to violate his religious convictions because he’s not woke enough for you. You can’t impose your wokeness on him when it violates what he believes or biblical convictions about genders that God didn’t make them “male and female”. And so he gets a $400,000 settlement from the State University as a result of them trying to control his religious faith.

Tim:

And let’s point out too, this is different than somebody having a name that might seem odd or different for the gender. Because there could be a boy named Sue, apparently, there’s nothing wrong about that. You definitely could have some things you’re like, I’m not sure that name fit. It’s one thing to call someone a name that seems odd for maybe the biology you’re seeing in front of you. It’s something totally different when someone asks you to deny the reality of biology for whatever reason, and this is where there’s been many different commentators talking about this and say, hey, guys, why does it matter, just say what they want to say. The reason it matters is you don’t want to reject the basic reality that male and female is a real thing and does exist. And so this is really great news that for this individual, the idea of recognizing basic reality and truth, he did not get penalized. At least the penalty did not stay and then he did get some compensation on the backside. So this is good news that someone taking a stand for truth won in the end.

Rick:

Alright, friends, that is all the time we have today for good news. We’ve got more on our website, wallbuilderslive.com. And we’ll have more for you next Friday. Now that doesn’t mean to only listen on Fridays. Look, we got great programming here at WalBuilders Live all throughout the week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Typically, that’s going to be an interview with somebody that’s out there on the frontlines defending freedom. And then Thursdays we’ve got our Foundations of Freedom Thursday program. You don’t want to miss that. And you might even want to send in some questions for that program. And then most Fridays, we do Good News Fridays around here. And so there’s a lot of that on our website, if you’d like to go get some of it. Wallbuilderslive.com is the website and the archive section is where you can find more of that good news.

As I mentioned yesterday, want to encourage you to join us on our constitutional defense course, May 22nd to the 26th of this will be the last one of the spring. We won’t have another one till the fall. So if you want to get trained to defend yourself and your family, whether you’ve ever touched a gun in your life or you’ve consider yourself an expert, you will improve, I promise you, and you’ll have great fellowship with folks from all across the nation. We’re going to have a great time and then you get the intellectual ammunition, the constitutional knowledge in the evenings. So it’s a great time, I really hope you’ll consider joining us.

You can visit patriotacademy.com today to learn more, just click on constitutional defense. Or take the shortcut and send an email straight to my son Trey. Trey Green runs these programs for us [email protected] That’s [email protected] It’s a great time for all. I hope that you will be a part of that.

By the way while you’re at patriotacademy.com, check out those legislative congresses, that’s our flagship program, the ones we do in state capitals all across the nation. We’ve got room for more young people 16-25 years old. Check out all these academies in Colorado, in Idaho, in Arizona, in Delaware, in Florida. We really encourage you to attend this and get leadership training, you get to be a legislator for the week in the real Capitol on the real floor in the real committee rooms. It’s a great time of training and fellowship as well. So whether you want to attend the constitutional defense course or you want to attend a leadership congress, be sure and check all that out today at patriotacademy.com.

Thanks so much for listening to WallBuilders Live.