Trump Admin Stops University From Forcing Nurses To Assist In Abortions: We call it, “Good News Friday” because it’s a chance for David and Tim to share some good news from across the nation and around the world. We don”€™t often hear good news from major media, however, here on WallBuilders Live, we love sharing news worthy of celebration! Tune in now to learn more!

Air Date: 10/18/2019

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.

We’re here with David Barton, America’s premier historian and the founder of WallBuilders. Also, Tim Barton, national speaker and President of WallBuilders, and my name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas state legislator, national speaker, and author.  Today is Good News Friday, which means we’re going to be diving into some good news, encouraging you by giving you all kinds of stories from across the nation and around the world where the system works. What I mean by that is we’ve been given this great freedom and the opportunity to live out our freedoms, and when we engage in the process, we don’t always win, we don’t always get the results we want, but very often we do. We have the best system of freedom in the world! If will engage as citizens if we work the system, the system works! 

So all throughout WallBuilders history we’ve been equipping people on actually using the tools of freedom that God has given us. How do you restore the foundations of America? Well, you got to know what those foundations are, which is why we educate so much on the constitutional principles on the historical foundation. And then of course the biblical foundation of America, how do we apply biblical principles to make those foundations strong? 

That’s what we do here WallBuilders. 

God Blesses Those Who Bless Israel

We encourage you to check out our website today, WallBuildersLive.com, where you can learn more about the program, about us as hosts, and of course you can tap into some of those previous Friday good news programs and also those Thursday programs, where we dive into foundational freedoms, and Monday through Wednesday, where most of the time we have a fantastic guests on the program to talk about some subject in the culture where each of us can engage more effectively. 

But today it’s Good News Friday. I love these good news programs because there’s so much that we miss on the news that isn’t covered, and so David and Tim have some good news to share with us. David, you got it first.

David:

I’m going to go international for a little bit here, and it is international on a topic that we really like, and that is the topic of Israel. Of course, we’re huge supporters of Israel. The Bible clearly is a huge supporter of Israel, Bible believing Christians and conservative Americans tend to support Israel. That’s all really good from a biblical standpoint that goes back to Genesis 12, where that the way that we treat Jews, the way we treat Israel, God will either bless us or punish us on the basis of how we treat them. So this is a big thing. 

He said, “€œI made a covenant with that, people and the way you treat them, I’m going to take it personally.”€Â 

U.N backs Israel Against Palestinian Hate Speech

So the issue of how we treat Israel, and public policy, is a really, really big issue. It’s not that we say Israel is perfect, and we don’t do that, just like we don’t say our own kids are perfect. But we support our kids, we”€™ll stand by them, and we”€™ll defend them. That’s really our position with Israel. 

Well, you take a look at Israel at the U.N, it’s a very different climate at the U.N. 

As a matter of fact, if you look over the last decade or two—Tim, you may remember how many years it’s been—but there’s been 26 condemnations of Israel by the U.N. “€œIsrael is this terrible nation,”€ and whatever. There’s only six condemnations of any other nation in the world, and we’re talking about North Korea, Iran, China and all these other nations, and they”€™ve gone after Israel 26 times, which is the only open democracy of the Middle East where Muslims hold office in Israel, and Jews hold office in Israel, and Christians hold office in Israel, and this is where you really have the best economy in the Middle East, and the most open democracy. 

They condemned Israel 26 times, and all these other nations a total of only 6. I think that’s in the last 15-20 years. So the U.N. has not been a friend of Israel until now. And here comes a report from the U.N. that condemns the Palestinians. 

A Huge U.N Victory

The Palestinians, by the way, are the ones who have been behind getting these other 26 condemnations of Israel done. Now the U.N. has got this condemnation of the Palestinians for all the hate speech they use against Israel. By the way, in the last two years, there’s been a lot of documentation that what’s called the BDS movement, the Boycott Divestiture Sanction movement, a really big thing, in a lot of businesses, it was really big on campuses. 

It said, “€œIsrael is such a terrible, wicked nation. You need to boycott them. If you have any investments that have anything to do with Israel, you need to divest yourself of those those investments, and then you need to sanction Israel. Do bad things. Punish them.”€Â 

Palestinians have been behind that. And so now this U.N. report comes out and says, “€œYou guys have really done bad things in hate speech, in media outlets—especially those controlled by Hamas, which is Palestinian media group—social media public, official statements from leaders, mass school curriculum, school textbooks, they all fuel hatred and incite violence, particularly hate speech against Israelis. And that fuels anti-Semitism.”€Â 

So we actually have a condemnation of what the Palestinians are doing to fuel hate speech against Israel. I think this marks the first time, as a matter of fact, I notice even the U.N. says this is the first time we’ve had the U.N. take a position for Israel and against the Palestinians. That’s a really, really big deal coming out of the U.N, so that’s a huge victory.

A Shift in Tides?

Rick:

And David, just to throw out there, in recent programs we’ve had Mitch Danzig on to talk about this, even in an Arab scholar that was talking about the the history of the Palestinian people, and how there never wasn’t a Palestinian state. It just seemed like there’s kind of a running theme here. This is one of those things we seem to lose all the time, like you were saying, the U.N. is always denouncing Israel, and now we”€™re starting to see more and more positive things. I would argue a lot of that coming from the top in America where President Trump has led on good relationships with Israel. And these are some of the things that I think are happening more and more because of that. Would you agree with that?

David:

Yeah I would agree with that. Leadership makes a difference. Congressman Bob McEwen loves to tell us about how that just Ronald Reagan coming to power turned things around. Ronald Reagan, he is the guy responsible for bringing down the Berlin Wall, and the Soviet Union, and all the stuff they had. It was leadership. If you’d had a different president you would not have gotten the same results. When you had Jimmy Carter, look at what it wa,s when you get Ronald Reagan, look at what it is. The leadership definitely makes a difference.

I think that’s definitely the case here. President Trump has been a very, very strong, vocal leader in favor of Israel, and we’re starting to see other nations come behind that.

Rick:

Quick break, we’ll be right back. Tim Barton’s got the next piece of good news. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

Front Sight Training Course

Rick Greens here, from WallBuilders Live. What do Dennis Prager, Larry Elder, Ben Shapiro, Rick Green, Tim Barton, David Barton, have in common other than the fact that they’re conservative commentators that defend the Constitution?

They’re raving about Front Sight Firearms Training Institute. Go to my website right now at RickGreen.com. You can watch the video of Dennis Prager training at Front Sight, or Larry Elder, or Tim Barton and myself out there. It’s an opportunity for you to learn how to defend yourself and your family. It is a fantastic place to train. They train 30 to 40,000 people a year, and they’re just wonderful to work with. You can go with us. We’re headed back out.

We’re going to have a great time out there, and if you’re a supporter of WallBuilders, we’re going to treat you. If you’re a donor of WallBuilders, you”€™ll be able to go to this Front Sight class for free. It normally cost a thousand dollars, go to FrontSight.com right now. You’ll see that it’s a thousand dollars to attend their two-day class. You are going to be able to go for free, if you’re a supporter of WallBuilders Live.

So, check out that information at RickGreen.com and join us. We are going once a month for the next three months. You can pick one of those classes. All of our previous classes have filled up. Make sure that you get online today and get signed up. Whether you’ve never shot before, or you’ve shot your whole life, you will enjoy this class. You”€™ll enjoy the fellowship. We’ll be training on the range during the day and studying the Constitution at night. What a great combination. Check it out today at RickGreen.com.

Right of Conscious Victory in Arizona

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live! It’s good news Friday today. I always enjoy getting this good news. David and Tim compile pieces of good news from the last few weeks and share it with us on Fridays.

Tim has the next piece. What’s top of your stack today, Tim?

Tim:

All right guys, this one is from Arizona, and it is good news although there’s still a lot left to be determined to make it great news. It’s Good News Friday, not Great News Friday on this one. A lot of times it’s Great News Friday, and what we report on this one is a case where there were a couple of Christian artists who do wedding invitations, and like we’ve seen many attacks from groups that will target some of these individuals and say, “€œHey, we want you specifically to do our wedding invitation as a same sex couple, and if you don’t do it we’re going to sue you.”€Â 

“€œHey, you know what? There’s other groups, and these people do it.”€Â 

“€œNope. We don’t want another group to do it. We want you to do it.”€Â 

Well, these stories have continued to unfold. So this is Arizona. There are these two Christian artists who were sued because they didn’t want to do a wedding invitation, and they said, “€œOur religious conviction, our belief, is that marriage is between one man and one woman, and anything beyond that would be violating our convictions.”€Â 

Well, they lost in the lower court. It was appealed to the state Supreme Court, and the state supreme court came back and said, “€œYep, you can’t require them to do this and violate their religious convictions.”€Â 

Still Work to be Done

What’s significant about this is this was in Phoenix, and in Phoenix they have a nondiscrimination ordinance, and the nondiscrimination ordinance says that nobody in the city can discriminate against anybody else for any reason, whatsoever. So if you’re a Christian and you think that marriage is between a man and a woman, and whether you’re a cake maker, or you’re a florist, or a photographer, or you do wedding invitations, if someone comes to you and says, “€œWe want you to do all these things.”€Â 

And you say, “€œI don’t feel right about doing that. I’m so sorry. But let me get somebody that can do that for you.”€Â 

Nope. You can’t discriminate. That is what this ordinance is, and ultimately the ordinance is really discriminating against Christians for their beliefs. So one of the things that happened with this situation in Phoenix is, after this came out, the mayor said, “€œWell, we’re not changing our position, and just cause this one group is exempt doesn’t mean anybody else is exempt.”€Â 

The mayor’s a Democrat mayor holding a very, very strong stance that Christians shouldn’t have other beliefs. But as Alliance Defending Freedom pointed out, one of the cases that is the reason for some of this happening is back in 2018, you had the Colorado baker Jack Phillip,s who is the US Supreme Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court targeted Colorado and said, “€œHey, you targeted this guy because he’s a Christian. You discriminated against him because he’s a Christian by saying “€œ”€˜You can’t be anti-gay because you”€™re Christian.”€”€™ You need to go back and change what you did.”€Â 

So that ruling was reversed. 

A Hard Won Victory in the Courts

Now, the Supreme Court didn’t come out and say that all Christians are free to operate their businesses based on their Christian beliefs as a blanket statement. There was a little bit of limitation, the same thing with the state Supreme Court in Arizona. The Alliance Defending Freedom attorney pointed out that even in their ruling they said, “€œThis is only specific to these two artists. It doesn’t have a blanket application to every other Christian business organization. They will be tried individually. There will be individual cases that will be looked at as these situations arise.”€Â 

So it’s really good news for these two artists who do invitations, but it’s not quite as good of news as we would like where we haven’t seen the reversal of some of these bad policies as some these nondiscrimination audiences, which again, are really discriminating audiences against Christians. 

So we’re not where we want to be yet, but at least for these two artists this is really a good news scenario. They did win this victory at the state Supreme Court of Arizona. But even as we read this, we recognize, “€œOK, there’s some work to do. We need to be engaged in our cities and our communities and our states.”€

Not Tired of Winning Yet

Rick:

At this point it’s great news for those two artists, and I appreciate the fact like you’re saying, “€œYeah, we’ve got lots of work to do,”€ but man, what a trend. I mean, we’ve had—I’m losing count of course on these Friday reports of these types of victories at state supreme court levels, at local district court levels, where freedom of speech and freedom of religion are winning time and time again. I’m not tired of winning yet, don’t want to go there. I want to keep winning. But this is becoming a theme. This is very good stuff. 

Alright. Quick break, we’ll be back with more good news. David Barton”€™s up next. Stay with us on WallBuilders Live.

America’s Hidden History

DAVID:

Hi, this is David Barton.

TIM:

And, this is Tim Barton, and we want to let you know about a series that’s happening right now on TBN on Thursday night. TBN is the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Every Thursday night, there’s a series that we’ve filmed called America’s Hidden History.

And, this season is called “€œAmerica’s Hidden Heroes.”€ The reason is, we highlight heroes from American history. For years we’ve been focusing on the forgotten history and heros of the nation.

And now, we have a TV show just highlighting some of those heroes.

DAVID:

These are inspiring stories about some of the greatest people maybe you’ve never heard about. We go on location to the sites and show you where the events happened. It’s the stories of folks like Bronco Charlie, Stagecoach Mary, Jedediah Smith, Robert Smalls, and so many inspiring folks.

TIM:

Now, this happens every Thursday night, and the time is gonna be different based on where you live. Either way, we think this is something that will so encourage and inspire you in learning some of these great stories for America’s Hidden History.

Definitions of Words

Rick:

We’re back with WallBuilders Live! Good news Friday”€™s today, and David Barton is up next with good news.

David:

Working on the basis that words mean things, and that there are definitions for words, I’m going to throw out some words or phrases, and you guys tell me what they mean—not what they actually mean—just tell me what they mean and today’s language. So if I say women’s rights, what’s a synonym for women’s rights? 

Tim:

LGBTQ? Abortion? 

David:

When when you’re saying, “€œI’m pro-abortion,”€ you’re saying, “€œI’m pro women’s rights.”€ That’s the language they use. Tim got the other one. If I say, “€œSexual and reproductive health,”€ what does that mean? It means LGBTQ.

Tim:

See, that would’ve been easier because women’s rights is now all encompassing, right? So you have feminism, the MeToo, it’s a blanket term. 

David:

You’re right. So women’s rights, generally what’s argued the most often is related to, “€œIt’s her body, it’s her choice.”€Â 

The abortion issue, and certainly with the human sexuality, it’s everything goes. You just pick a letter of the alphabet and that should be accepted, which is crazy because women’s rights ought to include the right for her to keep and bear arms.

It ought to include the right to have free speech, or any other right we talk about, but women’s rights just means only—right now in today”€™s jargon—abortion. The same with sexual reproductive health. 

These are terms they use at the U.N, and so talking about leadership in the first segment, and President Trump, and Israel, and the U.N, here’s another change happening at the U.N.. President Trump has said that the U.N, “€œNeed to get rid of these ambiguous terms.”€Â 

U.N Committee to Remove Ambiguous Terms

They really are jargon for something different from what they say. So he’s working with a bunch of nations to get those terms out of U.N. documents, to get out terms such as “€œsexual and reproductive health,” to get out terms like “€œwomen’s rights”€.

And this is their explanation. 

They say, “€œWhen you have these terms, this is really bad for family, it’s really bad for good health, and so many other things.”€Â 

What they’ve done is they’ve created a coalition of nations at the U.N, and here’s what it says in the article. 

“€œThis new international coalition would focus on the value of the family, and it would not condone harmful sexual risk for young people, or promote abortion as a means of family planning.”€Â 

Now, that’s traditional, biblical family, conservative values, and you get this group at the U.N. that’s moving this direction.

Certainly you have other groups that are on the other side, and so not surprisingly the leader Sweden comes out and says, “€œHow dare you say that,”€ and the same with the Netherlands and these other nations.

But listen to the list of nations that have joined with President Trump and America to clean this language out of the U.N. documents. 

Here’s the list of nations: The United States, Bahrain, Belarus, Brazil, Congo, Egypt, Guatemala, Haiti, Hungary, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, UAE, Yemen”€¦. And I could keep going down this list. 

There’s the Middle East, and there’s Poland, and there’s Africa, and there’s all these different nations there. So it’s really good to see this headed through the U.N. this direction. 

Getting Ambiguous Language Out of There

Here’s what that group says, “€œWe do not support references to ambiguous terms and expressions such as sexual and reproductive health and rights in U.N. documents because they can undermine the critical role of the family and promote practices like abortion and circumstances that do not enjoy international consensus and which can be misrepresented by U.N. agencies.”€Â 

That’s a great statement. So here again, leadership under the United States. We got this push going in the U.N. to take it back and at least be neutral on family positions, not being pro-abortion, not being pro LGBTQ, at least being neutral and getting ambiguous language out of there. That’s a huge victory, just to have that movement going at the U.N. 

Rick:

David, you got international good news all over the place for us! And it’s really stemming from the United States taking a leadership role. So kudos to President Trump for taking this stuff on. I don’t think he gets any political points for doing this, particularly the media is certainly is not covering it, but this is like somebody out there. He does so many things and doesn’t get credit for and doesn’t even make the news. But he’s doing it because it’s the right thing to do. And so that’s a sign of a good leader not appreciate him doing that and taking on the U.N. over things like this. This really is big stuff for us in the trickle down effect. This is big stuff for the world, to get it going at least in a neutral position, hopefully back into a pro family position.

More good news when we come back on the break. Stay with us folks, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live. 

Moment From American History

This is TimBarton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. In the early seventeen hundreds the Reverend John Wise preached that all men were created equal, that taxation without representation was tyranny, and that God’s preferred form of government was the consent of the governed. 

All of which is language recognizable in the Declaration of Independence. Why? Because in 1772 the Sons of Liberty led by Founders Sam Adams and John Hancock reprinted and distributed the Reverend Wise’s sermons. 

Four years later, much of the Declaration reflected the language of those sermons by John Wise.  In 1926 on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, President Calvin Coolidge affirmed, “€œThe thoughts in the Declaration can very largely be traced back to what John Wise was saying.”€Â 

Few today know that the Declaration was so strongly influenced by the Rev. John Wise. For more information on this and other stories go to WallBuilders.com.

Good News from Vermont

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live! Tim Barton has got one segment left of good news. Left for today. What are you finishing us out with?

Tim:

All right guys, this one is good news coming from the federal government, which is always a relief to be able to say that. Often we talk about bad things that are coming from the federal government, which does tend to be the trend. When there are bad things happening, oftentimes federal government is involved somewhere in this one. There is a case from the ACLJ—which is the American Center for Law and Justice—Jay Sekulow is the guy that runs that. We’ve known Jay for a lot of years, really good guy, a great group. 

They’re defending a nurse who, in 2017 she was working in a hospital in Vermont, and she was required to help assist in an abortion. It’s a major problem for her because she was on a list of nurses who said that this violated their conscience and they did not want to be a part of it, but this is the University of Vermont Medical Center. It’s one of the hospitals in the state of Vermont, and she is one of the nurses who there are several nurses who were on a list saying, “€œAbortion is something that goes against our beliefs, and goes against our religious conscience. We don’t want to be a part of it.”€Â 

What’s really telling about this is that there were multiple non objecting nurses who were available to assist, and they said, “€œWe don’t want them. We want you.”€Â 

Reestablishing the Conscience Clause

So Jay Sekulow has taken this case, and he actually filed an appeal in a complaint to the Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. What’s significant is the Office of Civil Rights came out and they said, “€œWe’re going to review this.”€Â 

Well, not only have they reviewed this, they have reviewed many things that were done at this University of Vermont Medical Center, and they said, “€œWe notice that you have for several other people to violate their conscience in performing some of these operations, and that you have some policies that are inconsistent with the Conscience Clause,”€ because apparently there is a federal conscience clause that protects pro-life medical workers that is still on the books because one of the things under President Obama is they said, “€œWe’re no longer going to recognize that.”€Â 

Well, President Trump says, “€œNo, we’re going to recognize that.”€Â 

So the Office of Civil Rights came to the hospital, and they said, “€œOK. So here’s the problems we see, and you need to make some changes.”€Â 

They gave them 30 days to come up with a policy that will ensure that this medical center never forces nurses to participate in abortions again, and if they fail to do this they will lose their federal funding. 

“€œWe”€™re Not Gonna Let That Slide Anymore”€

So this is really, really good news. We’ve talked now for years about all the pro-life victories, but one of the things that we have not seen fully restored is protecting rights of conscience, which we even mentioned already earlier on the show, where you had the two artists in Phoenix, Arizona, who their religious conscience was protected because they were not forced to do something that, in that situation, doing a same sex wedding invitation and all the work design that goes into it because they thought that was wrong and they didn’t want to put their endorsement and their approval on that. 

We’ve not seen the full restoration of this, but now to have the Trump administration and the Office of Civil Rights from the Department of Health and Human Services come out and say, “€œYeah, we’re not going to slide anymore.”€Â 

This is an amazing victory, not just for life, but for the bigger picture for religious conscience, that now we’re going to protect medical staff and medical facilities again, and if this hospital doesn’t straighten up and start doing the right thing, they lose their federal funding. 

Trump Fulfilling His Promises

So, good news on so many levels with this. Like we’ve said many times, one of the question marks we had with President Trump when he was coming into office is we don’t have enough of a background and record of him to know where he”€™s going to stand on these issues. He said some things, but is he really going to do it? Is he just saying what he needs to get elected? 

He’s been a president who very consistently has kept his word. One of the things he said he was going to do was help in restoring religious liberty and the rights of conscience, and this is a great example of how that’s happening in America.

Rick:

We are out of time for our good news today. There is more at our website WallBuildersLive.com. Go into that archive section and you can listen to as many Good News Friday programs as you’d like. Please consider that contribute button at the top of the page. I say that because it’s good for you, and it’s good for us. It’s good for us because our ministry grows, we’re able to reach more people, it’s a blessing to more people, and it helps to restore America’s constitutional republic. It gets more people trained, inspired, and equipped. 

Trump Stops Hospital from Forcing Nurses to Preform Abortions and More on Good News Friday

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