Biden’s School Executive Order And Its Consequences – Mary Beth Waddell – Biden’s new school executive order is devastating in many ways. What is the executive order and what does it mean for families? Are all schools at risk from this? Mary Beth Waddell joins us to answer these questions and more today.

Air Date: 07/11/2022

Guest: Mary Beth Waddell

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 WallBuilders Live. Thanks for joining us today.

My name is Rick Green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. And it is my great honor to host this program while it goes live along with David Barton and Tim Barton. Tim, of course, national speaker and pastor that you should have speak in your community, whether to your church or corporation or whoever you want to have him come in for get that education. It’s fantastic. He’s president of WallBuilders here, and I’m thrilled to be able to work with him.

Also, David Barton, I mean, this is America’s premier historian, folks. I’m telling you, this guy has more of the Founding Fathers writings in his head. Not only do they have the largest private collection of actual writings from the Founding Fathers incredible, incredible museum. But I get to sit down with David all the time and ask him questions about the Founding Fathers and he can tell me right off the top of his head. It’s amazing, anyway. America’s premier historian, he’s also the founder of WallBuilders. And it’s my great honor to work with both these guys and to bring to you truth Monday through Friday here on WallBuilders Live.

Now, typically, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we have interviews with people that are on the front lines dealing with whatever the hot topics of the day are, and we talk about what’s happening from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. Then on Thursdays, we have what we call Foundations of Freedom Thursday, we dive into your questions about those foundational principles and the application of that constitutional biblical and historical perspective to whatever’s going on in the community today. And then Fridays are Good News Fridays, that’s where we bring a lot of good news, things that are happening in the culture victories at all kinds of levels, because it encourages us. I need to hear those victories. I need to know that what we’re doing is making a difference. So that’s what it looks like a WallBuilders Live throughout the week. If you missed any programs, you can get them in our website, wallbuilderslive.com.

 

Alright, David, Tim, little later in the program, Mary Beth Waddell will be with us from Family Research Council, we’re going to be talking about this executive order from Joe Biden. You would think that after you had Loudoun County and parents responding all over the country saying, we don’t want boys and girls bathrooms, we’re seeing girls get raped and all these things, bad things are happening, you would think the President might say, oh, that wasn’t a good plan. But nope, he’s doubling down. Now it’s an executive order. He wants to single handedly make this radical policy be forced upon every school district in the country.

David:

You know, it’s a strange thing. And you go, why would he do that? And just this last week, I was studying back in Washington, his farewell address, and just going through Washington’s farewell address, and the great advice he gave the nation in so many areas, he talked about keeping unity, and don’t get divided into sectional areas, north against south or east against west, he talked about not having a love of party more than you have a love of principles, he talks about how you have to have a religion and morality, is the basis of all public policy or you can’t survive, I mean it’s really good stuff.

And then I was looking at how people looked at that address afterwards and what they said about it and man, a century and a half later, people are still quoting that and using it. Even the US Senate to this day, every February, the US Senate in a special session, they read George Washington’s farewell address aloud every single year. Now, they don’t really pay attention to it. But they still commemorate it as being significant.

And so as I was thinking about what Washington said about look, don’t get this love of a political party going and I started looking at the development of parties in early America, because under Washington, you really didn’t have political parties. They kind of started developing in his administration between the Federalist and anti-Federalist. And Thomas Jefferson, who was part of his administration and so was John Adams, the Vice President, and then those two end up serving in the next presidential term together. Jefferson becomes Vice President and Adams is President. And those two hold some pretty different political positions. And that’s where you kind of start seeing parties really take off.

And I was reading in Thomas Jefferson. And Thomas Jefferson said, you know, he said, every nation will develop political parties. He said, doesn’t matter what they call themselves. And he went through names, I don’t know, 12 or 15 names, it could be Federalist or anti-Federalists, or he just went through names. He said, but they’re always going to be divided into a party that trust the people and a party that doesn’t trust the people. And the party that doesn’t trust the people is going to tell them what to do, and going to mandate what they have to do. A party that trusts the people is going to give them freedom, and let them make their own choices.

And what you see with Biden is I’m going to tell you all what you’re going to do about how to raise your kids. This is the values I want to see with your kids as you raised them. This is what I want to see you do with bathrooms. And it’s that thing that Jefferson talked about way back at the beginning that you either trust the people or you don’t trust the people. And when you don’t trust the people, you do a lot of mandates, a lot of executive orders, a lot of bureaucratic agency kind of stuff. You don’t go to Congress and you don’t go to the state legislatures. You do it like we see with Biden doing it now, he does this with executive orders, or he does it with the Educrats in education, or he’ll do this through union, he’ll do it through all these groups that don’t trust the people.

And I think that’s what you see here is, I can’t trust parents, and yeah, the parents in Loudoun and counting all over the nation are rising up, but they just don’t know what’s best for them. But I do. And here’s what they need to do with gender, and here’s what they need to do with bathrooms, etc. So he’s trying to make it a national policy, because he doesn’t trust the people.

Rick:

I think that is such a great description of the difference in the current parties. And it’s amazing to me that those people would flock together so easily. Because it is very consistent what you just describe. All of the major differences between the two major parties today fit exactly that description, the idea that we want individuals to decide how to run their business, when to open their business, how to raise their children, whether or not to gather, all of those things, whether or not to add a product or service to a particular business, or whether or not to even serve a particular group of customers that they want to go after to try to make money as they should in a capitalistic society. One group thinks that should be totally up to the individual that you decide. And another group really does think people aren’t smart enough to make those decisions, and it’s some bureaucrat somewhere should decide. And they’re the ones that always want new departments, department of agriculture, education, all these things so that more bureaucrats can decide because they don’t trust the people. That’s a really good description, David.

Tim:

Well, guys, one of the things too I think it’s interesting is we often hear the phrase that politics is downstream of culture, that culture is what impacts politics. And I think it’s interesting in some of these situations, what you see is you have some extreme activists who want to change policy so they can influence culture. Because on some of these cultural issues are not always the winning issues with the American people. When you look at this notion of a biological boy going into a girls’ locker room or bathroom, when you look at some of these gender-related issues, this is not a culture winning issue.

And so instead of politics being downstream of culture, they try to use politics to impact culture, where they’ll go to politics and say, we’re going to pass this legislation, we’re going to do these executive orders, we’re going to do something, to force this ideology, to force this philosophy on the American people, so that we can shift culture with politics. So I think this is one of those areas where you can see it working both ways.

And certainly, it’s interesting that you do see extreme minority that now are imposing some very radical views and beliefs on the American people and culture that do not reflect the vast majority that the values the individuals in American society and culture. But this is the problem when you have radicals in office, and you don’t have people that are involved helping you as the checks and balances available to them, where people are using politics to impact culture.

And again, I definitely see that this can work both ways and we have seen it work both ways. But I think we are now in an era where under President Biden, we are certainly seeing a time when you have extreme activist leftist really woke individuals who are using politics to impact policy to force it on Americans who by and large would not support that policy if it were in a free market and they had the option and choices of other things.

Rick:

Well, to learn more about that particular policy that has been forced through this executive order which is unconstitutional, once again, he’s decided that he can make law and force this on schools across the country and to learn more about just what that means to parents and to School programs across the country, Mary Beth Waddell will be with us from Family Research Council. Stay with us, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

AMERICA’S HISTORY

This is David Barton with another moment from America’s history. Today, there are numerous documented accounts of individual students being disciplined simply for bringing a Bible to school. Fisher Ames would have been appalled at this open hostility toward the Bible.

Fisher Ames was the Founding Father who authored the House of Representatives language for the First Amendment. In his day, he vehemently objected to any attempt to minimize the Bible at schools. In fact, he declared “Why should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book? Its morals are pure. Its examples captivating and noble. The reverence for the sacred book that is thus early, impressed last long; and probably, if not impressed in infancy, never takes firm hold of the mind.” Founding Father Fisher Ames, the man most responsible for the wording of the First Amendment believed that the most important school book was the Bible.

For more information on God’s hand in American history, contact WallBuilders at 1808REBUILD.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. We got Mary Beth Waddell with us. She’s the director of Federal Affairs for Family and Religious Liberty over and Family Research Council. Great work there, by the way, frc.org is the website, Mary Beth, thanks for some time today.

Mary:

Yeah, happy to be with you. Thanks for having me.

Rick:

Well, so we’ve got this executive order, again, the President got his phone in a pen like Obama had, and even with state after state saying, hey, we’re not going to do this crazy stuff of men in girls’ bathrooms, in locker rooms and boys in girls; sports and all these things, he decides he’s just going to try to sidestep everybody with an executive order. So what is this executive order do? I know it’s called Advancing Equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Individual, this title is quite long. But what does it actually do?

Mary:

What that really means is the President has given directives to multiple agencies, primarily within Health and Human Services and the Department of Education to push the leftist agenda as it relates to human sexuality and sex and gender issues, to make sure that only the progressive view of these issues is what is pushed and raised as the gold standard of how things should be.

Rick:

Are they able through this executive order, actually, for schools or communities to do anything? Or is it just the president pontificating and saying, this is what we wish you would do?

Mary:

Well, there certainly could be some repercussions in things that are actually mandated. It’ll depend on what actions the Departments of Health and Human Services and Education and the like take, because the language is rather broad, and gives broad directives. But you saw in the Obama years, a letter, simply a letter from the Department of Education basically threatening funding to schools if they didn’t adopt a bathroom policy that allowed boys and girls to use the same bathroom.

Rick:

And a lot of schools follow that?

Mary:

Absolutely.

Rick:

And that’s without any legislative action, right? I mean, that’s no law passed by Congress. I mean, that’s simply done through the administration?

Mary:

Exactly, that simply from a letter. And even when it was rescinded in the Trump administration, that letter said, you no longer have this mandate. But even then I’m sure there were schools and certain school districts that maintained what they had done, even though they were no longer mandated to.

Rick:

Yeah, so this has an impact. It’s not just pontificating. It’s not just the President gets to have a press conference and sound like he’s participating in “Pride Month”. This has real impact. I mean, this is what leads to, and maybe I’m connecting too many dots here, and you tell me, Mary Beth, but I mean, when a president pushes policy like this, this is what leads to the sexual assaults in what’s the County in Virginia, where kid goes in and assaults a girl and they move him to another school?

Mary:

Loudoun County.

Rick:

Loudoun County, yeah, yeah, so I mean, those are real, actual crimes and painful experiences that happen as a result of these kinds of policies being pushed. Am I going too far there?

Mary:

Yeah, these policies certainly have serious repercussions. You know, one of the specific issues that is addressed in the executive order is “Conversion Therapy”. You know, it’s this very nefarious type fear-mongering language that they use, that is really a counseling band. And that counseling has been used to help so many that are struggling with gender identity issues and unwanted same sex attraction and things like that. And he’s telling HHS to look into this and even the Federal Trade Commission is asked to evaluate this and determine if simple talk therapy that is patient directed should be considered an unfair or deceptive act or practice with consumer warnings on it.

California attempted to ban counseling, and more than 400 individuals who had come out of the LGBT lifestyle testified against the bill. And it was one of the largest public responses ever to a California Senate hearing, according to those who participated. And that event really launched the change movement, which is an organization of those individuals who have come out of the LGBT lifestyle and talk about how change is possible, that we shouldn’t have just this one track road that you can never come back from.

Rick:

That is so important to get across. What you’re literally talking about is an individual has, whatever the struggle is, whether it’s a gender identity issue or same sex attraction or whatever it might be and just confusion and they get advice, they get counsel just like we would all get on other issues in our lives as we should, wisdom in a multitude of counselors. So they go to get help on this and someone who helps them work through this and they can avoid the negative sides of the lifestyle. And we’re seeing the suicides, we’re seeing all the things that are happening to these transitions. It’s terrible.

And so they are able to avoid that and, and move into a healthy lifestyle. And they want to outlaw that. They want to prevent you from being able to get that kind of advice and counsel. And what you’re saying is it was over 400 individuals that got that kind of advice and that came and said, we’re thankful for what we got don’t outlaw this. That’s pretty powerful.

Mary:

That is. That’s very powerful. There are real people’s lives that that are affected by the bureaucracy and what the bureaucracy does. You mentioned girls’ sports, and women’s rights and things like that where the 50th anniversary of Title IX, and yet you’re seeing such an attack on Title IX and its protections for the safety and opportunity and equality of women and female athletes. And because this executive order touches on education, it could certainly have ramifications in that space, as well as in the safety of what should be private spaces, like locker rooms and bathrooms. And depending on how far the education department wants to go, what will they try and do regarding pronouns and mandating speech in these areas? So there are very real repercussions that the policy can have.

Rick:

It’s hard for me to imagine how tone deaf the White House has to be when they see what’s happening in the country and trying to make all 50 states the same. And I understand certain places in the country, the political winds may go towards this kind of stuff. But for the President to try to force this on the entire nation, completely outside of constitutional authority, completely outside of entire federal government authority under the Constitution, it’s just shocking. And another reason we need to study the Constitution understand the proper role of each level of government.

So, Mary Beth, let’s kind of switch a little bit and talk about, obviously, the President’s agenda has been known from day one, we knew he was going to push this kind of stuff. What are the ways that states can push back and how do you handle this subject itself?

Mary:

Yeah, I think there’s a lot that can be done. The states are passing laws, which is actually what prompted this executive order that protects parental rights, that protect children, that protect female athletes and athletics and their opportunity and equality. And individuals can support those bills and their legislators make sure that their voices are heard on these issues. We’ve already seen some pushback and delay on this administration from implementing other rules that would relate to these types of issues.

And because people have been speaking out and opposing it, letting them know that they oppose these things, they’ve not been able to put out rules as quickly as they would like, that would promulgate some of these types of things. And so you’re seeing a lot that can be done. Talk to your federal officials. Talk to your state officials. Go to your local school boards, talk to them, you know, about how this affects education and the specific school where your kids are going to be. And you can make a real difference.

Rick:

So even at the local level, I mean, that may be the place you can make the most difference, because it’s what that local school district implements with regard to these policies. They may be ignoring state laws that prevent you from allowing boys into girls’ bathrooms because they think that the executive orders from the president have legal sway over them. So if you go testify at the committees and you get people in the community involved, you can potentially be lead the charge at that local school and keep them from doing this kind of thing.

Mary:

Absolutely. As I mentioned, this bill in the California Legislature created this changed movement. This change movement came out of it. And so, even just one person speaking out can make a difference.

Rick:

Yeah. Amen. Well, I mean, I think, you’re probably seeing the same thing. People that have never been involved before, and never paid attention before, this issue has been the one to wake them up. And in a lot of ways, it’s the mama bears out there that are testifying at these school board meetings and saying, enough is enough, you’re not going to cram this stuff on my kid and you’re not going to put my daughter at risk in her locker room or her bathroom. And I think that’s encouraging. I mean, I think it’s awakening people that in the past we couldn’t motivate them to get involved. And now all of a sudden, they’re going okay, enough is enough and they’re pushing back.

And I really think that’s why I say tone deaf earlier about the White House. I think there’s very few states where these types of policies are going to be popular with most people realize this is dangerous stuff, most people realize this is just wrong to let guys compete in girls’ sports. So I think it’s a loser for the Democrats and the president. But I think what you’re saying is right, we have to push back where we can and that’s at the local level right now.

Mary:

Yeah, and we do. We see the headlines may look bleak in a lot of ways on these different topics. But the American people, they are largely of a like mind, like majority of Americans oppose these radical agendas and this radical ideology that’s trying to be imposed across the board. And so as people speak out and vote and all of that, their voices get heard.

Rick:

Amen. Amen. The system works if we’ll work the system. Appreciate your time, Mary Beth. Thanks for coming on today.

Mary:

Of course, thank you.

Rick:

Stay with us, folks, we’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

AMERICAN HISTORY

Hi, friends, this is Tim Barton of WallBuilders. This is a time when most Americans don’t know much about American history or even heroes of the faith. And I know oftentimes we, parents, we’re trying to find good content for our kids to read. And if you remember back to the Bible, to the book of Hebrews, it has the faith Hall of Fame where they outline the leaders of faith that had gone before them. Well, this is something that as Americans, we really want to go back and outline some of these heroes, not just of American history, but heroes of Christianity in our faith as well.

I want to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called The Courageous Leaders collection. And this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Key, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the Wright brothers. And there’s a second collection called Heroes of History. In this collection, you’ll read about people like Benjamin Franklin or Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman; friends, the list goes on and on. This is a great collection for your young person to have and read and it’s a providential view of American and Christian history. This is available at www.wallbuilders.com. That’s www.wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us, back with David and Tim. Guys, I am still convinced, though, when they push this radical agenda, whether it’s the “Pride month” thing and these crazy parades with the Boy Scouts even involved and nude people running around in these parades in front of kids or these drag queen, sex shows that they’re taking kids to and now the president essentially endorsing all of this stuff and trying to force it on people, I’m convinced this hurts them in November. I don’t know what polling they’re looking at. But it seems to me this is just going to push the American people, sort of like Terry McAuliffe did in Virginia, they really helped Republicans to win that Blue state when he said parents shouldn’t be making these decisions, but bureaucrats should. That’s essentially what the President saying here. Don’t you think this hurts the Democrats in November?

David:

Oh, yeah, it definitely does. But at this point, I think they’ve already agreed that they’re going to lose the House and probably lose seats in the Senate as well. I think most pundits, unless something really dramatic happens, it’s always possible for the wave to crest too soon. But I think most pundits think it’s going to be a landslide in the House for Republicans, and they’ll probably pick up three seats in the Senate as well.

So if you’re going to already lose it, go ahead and entrench as deeply as you can what you believe in while you have the chance because you’re not going to be able to do this after you lose control of Congress, you won’t have to support it all. The numbers we’ve seen in a number of states as in a couple states this past weekend, Biden is 20 points underwater in those states. And so there are state legislative races there that were not close six months ago, that are very close now where Republicans may pick up a bunch of state legislatures as well. So I think that’s at the time, they’re doubling down because they know they’re going to lose it in November.

Tim:

When I think one thing too that we’ve seen from the Democrat party, they’ve done a much better job than Republicans have in some situations is they’re willing to have election losses, if it means they got their policies in place, where oftentimes we see unfortunately a lot of what became known as like the Rayner Republicans, but a lot of established Republicans, people who become more concerned with winning elections than maybe advancing the agenda, and not that all individuals are like this. We certainly know some incredibly strong conservative leaders on the federal level in the House, in the Senate. But by and large the party, the party seems more concerned with winning elections and then accomplishing their objectives and their agenda.

And Democrats we’ve seen many times, when they were willing to sacrifice elections to get policy in place because they knew how hard it would be to change those policies going forward on some level. And this is certainly something I think now since they can kind of see the handwriting on the wall, so to speak, with what’s coming in this midterm election and the devastation of what’s happening under the Biden ministration for America, Americans aren’t going to continue on with the same idea of leadership, that they’re going to just try to do whatever they can policy-wise to promote a radical agenda that Americans by and large, won’t accept; because they’re already going to lose the election, it doesn’t really matter at that point. And so I do think that between now and the midterm election, they will continue to promote some pretty radical ideas.

Rick:

You know, Tim, that actually also speaks to the history of the last 25-30 years, where Republicans have not undone or taken back ground, right. They’ve allowed those radical gains to stand once Republicans got in, they didn’t take that ground back. So you’re right, I bet the Democrats are just gambling on that. They’re saying let’s get all we can right now. We don’t have to worry, the Republicans won’t push back once they actually get an office. They’ll think that just by holding the ground that they will end up with at that time, that that’s a win.

So hopefully, we’ll get Republicans that will push back and gain that ground back. That would be true victories. Kind of, I’m feeling like Donald Trump said man, we’re going to get tired of winning; well, I’m not tired of winning yet, but I sure like some of the winning that’s happening at this point and I think we’re going to see more of it in 2022.

Folks, you’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live, you can get more at our website wallbuilderslive.com, that’s where you can make a one-time or monthly contribution and also get the archives of the program. Thanks so much for listening to WallBuilders Live.