Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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And before the break,
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with guest
Attorney Allen Reinach,
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we were really getting
into discussion of this,
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the whole
movement toward gay rights.
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And, and--yeah,
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there is a developing
threat to Christian expression
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but how it really shouldn't be,
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it doesn't have to be, does it?
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But it's
certainly emerging that way.
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Well, as of we said
the legal structure now
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favors gay rights
over religious freedom.
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That's very unfortunate.
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Implications of
that are really profound
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especially for institutions.
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So for example, can you imagine
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in our society a
white supremacists group
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being permitted
to operate a school
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according to racist teachings?
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So that they would
only admit white students
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and only hire white teachers.
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What would
happen the first time,
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an Asian, a
Latina, an African-American
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applied to be a student
or applied to be a teacher
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and was rejected,
they filed the lawsuit?
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What happens is...
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You're actually--
your point is correct.
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Speaking facetiously,
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Bob Jones came
under that charge in 2000.
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Well, but my
point is this because
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we are legally acquitting
homosexuality and race, okay.
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And so the status of
religious institutions,
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schools, hospitals,
social service agencies,
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adoption
agencies, childcare centers,
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you name it, nursing homes,
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the status of
religious institutions
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that hold to traditional,
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moral and
biblical views of marriage,
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whether they are
Christians, Jewish, Muslim,
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you name it, are going to
be the functional equivalent
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of Iron Nations of a
white supremacist group
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and we will only be permitted
to operate institutions
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if we will conform
to the thought police
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and agree with values that say
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that homosexual conduct
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is morally equivalent
to heterosexual conduct.
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It's a total
clash of value systems
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as a secular value
system is really adapted,
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not a secular neutrality,
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but an active promulgation
of account of viewpoint
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that it doesn't
accept from religion--
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It's a zero-sum game
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and in the name
of equality and--
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Which is anything but...
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And inclusiveness,
traditional values,
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Christians are being excluded.
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And along the way
we get this nonsense.
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I know my son and daughter
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go to public schools in--
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And they're already being
softened up the idea that,
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maybe students might go to
any bathroom that strikes them.
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That's becoming law in
California that schools--
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But I heard my
son talking about it
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the other day
and I was surprised,
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you know what, you
know what's going on?
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Whether it will happen?
I hope not. But anyhow--
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Also they're gonna start putting
urinals in the ladies room,
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I mean you know there
is a biological difference.
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Well, it's not
the way it was meant,
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but it seems to me that
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there is a protection of
privacy in the constitution
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and this distracts to
that in the worst way.
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And state constitutions
have much more explicit
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and extended
protections for privacy.
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There is no
explicit mention of privacy
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in United States Constitution,
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but there are in most
of our state constitutions.
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Explicit but it's the protection
of the individuals. Right.
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Well, I can tell
you one, the quartering,
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I mean it's a privacy issue
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the quartering of
troops in private homes.
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We've spoken of them
and the main objection
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to look through the
war of independence.
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What muddy is this and we
need to at least allude to it.
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Yes, it's more and more
developing unfortunately,
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at least the secular argument
sees the church as recalcitrant
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and it has to
be forced into line
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which compromises its own stand.
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But many within Christian
and other religious communities
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themselves proponents of
gay rights and gay. Sure.
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So, it isn't just the case
of the Adventist church let say,
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it isn't just
that we have this view
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and you know we're
not going to hire gays
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or wouldn't like to
because it's inconsistent,
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not personal prejudice but it's
inconsistent with the message
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that we're teaching to
our young children and so on.
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But many already
are revealing themselves
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to have this moral viewpoint
and are calling on these laws.
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So I don't know the way
around but we have to recognize,
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this is a huge complication
to the faith position.
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And not all faiths speak
the same way already. Sure.
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Some, it doesn't matter
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if ordaining homosexual priests
and so on and priest, well--
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Clergy.
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Well, there
are, some are priests
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but not Roman Catholic
priests. Right. Openly.
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But you know there
are things happening
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that I think are just going to,
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you know, the
marginal line is not
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where we imagine
it is, it's within.
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Well, that's true
but I think talking about
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within the questions
that many have been asking are
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whether pastors are
going to be required
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to perform same sex marriages,
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whether churches
are going to be required
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to allow same sex
weddings in their churches.
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And at least at
present to me those represent
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the farthest extension
of the so called pendulum.
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I think it's fairly
unlikely that in America,
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we're gonna get to the place
where the laws compel clergy
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to perform weddings that
they cannot morally conduct.
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I could think of
one scenario right away,
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it's not
uncommon, certainly with,
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even with Adventist churches
but other denominations,
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they have the church,
they have the services
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and they rent it out
to another denomination.
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In our case it'll be on Sunday,
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we have our services on Saturday
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and then they're
on Sunday. Right.
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What's going to happen
when that other denomination
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say performs the gay marriage
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and we begin to say we object
because it's our property.
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What's going to happen is
we'll terminate the lease.
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You can't easily
terminate the lease
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for reasons like that, can you?
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You can terminate, well,
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the lease will
expire typically here on,
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anyway, the point--
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But that's a wrinkle
that just occurred to me
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because I'm sure
that will happen.
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Yeah, when the
church is being used
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by another
denomination, of course,
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they're free to and
you know it's not immoral,
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I don't know that it
somehow reflects badly
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on the property owner
if somebody does something
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you don't like when
they're renting your property.
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No, I think that--
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The bigger
problem is what happens...
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Educational institutions.
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Adventist churches
in Hawaii for example,
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some of them have done
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a thriving business in weddings.
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The Japanese like to
come over and rent churches
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and do Hawaiian weddings.
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Well, in that case it
could be very problematic
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if you are
advertising to the public
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that you're open and
doing a wedding business,
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then I think you probably are
not going to be in a position
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to refuse a same sex wedding.
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Then you become subject to
the public accommodations laws
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if you're willing
to run the business.
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But there is a
whole front on this
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and we know from
Canada where the gay rights
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are far more advance,
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I mean the
government is aggressively
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pushing it against really--
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Well, and religious freedom
is far less protected there.
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Yeah, and we know
that there'll be pastors
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that declare
themselves to be gay
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and have the
church to let them go.
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There are pastors
that apply for employment
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saying they're gay,
there will be schools
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that again gay
students, gay teachers,
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it's just almost endless,
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the test both
already existing members
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and others
wanting to be employed.
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Now thankfully, here
in the United States,
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there is Hannah Tabor case
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I believe a leg up for church
prerogative with its employees
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in its clearly
defined church operations.
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So the church can fire you
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and I for no good reason,
we're discriminated against--
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Don't give ideas to--
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Yeah, we don't-- we
don't have any recourse--
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I'm not a Supreme Court.
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But still whether that,
even that will be a bulkhead,
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watertight bulkhead
against this, I'm not so sure.
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The problem is with
our schools and especially,
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I mean one of the first
battle is gonna be curriculum,
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our graduate programs
and social works, psychology,
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the accrediting
bodies. Absolutely.
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Eventually may wake up
and say if you don't conform
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to the values of
homosexuality being moral
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and teach this in your programs,
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then you will lose
your accreditation.
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And that will be
a new development
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to have
accreditation as an issue
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over whether we
retain control with it.
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Well, Jerry Powell sued
the American Bar Association
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for denying
accreditation to the law school
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there at Liberty University.
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And what the court said was that
the American Bar Association
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can't be sued for
religious discrimination
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because it's not a state
actor, even though you can't--
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They're empowered by the state.
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They're empowered by the state.
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Government organization.
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Exactly. So that's a big issue.
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So it's going to be clearly
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some very dynamic
ongoing issues with this.
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We've just seen
the beginning of it,
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rather than the Supreme Court
thing is not the end of it,
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it's probably just
one of the opening shots
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in a culture war of sort.
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It's hard to talk about
the conflict between gay rights
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and religious liberty
without somehow coming across
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as hostile to homosexuals,
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but without being
hostile the reality is,
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this conflict between gay
rights and religious freedom
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is likely to define the
future of religious freedom
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and future court cases
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from many, many years to come.
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It's a very serious
conflict and right now,
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religious freedom is at the
back of the civil rights buzz.
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Religious
freedom is so important.
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Very few people
realize that in some countries
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where there is
little religious freedom,
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like Saudi Arabia for example,
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it's actually the death
penalty to change your religion.
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They don't realize that because
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very few people
are killed there.
00:10:59.71\00:11:02.19
In the war on terrorism where
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so many people
are being surveilled
00:11:04.44\00:11:06.51
and the easy assumption
by authorities gathering
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innumerable reams of
information on people
00:11:09.04\00:11:11.17
is that they are,
perhaps up to something no good.
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The end of that is a
stultifying of freedom itself.
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As in Saudi Arabia, few people
dare to step outside the norm,
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so in this global
security that's developing,
00:11:24.93\00:11:27.48
very few people dare
to think independently.
00:11:27.51\00:11:30.30
Very few people dare to
adapt a religious viewpoint
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that might come under suspicion.
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The net affect is a
restriction on civil liberty,
00:11:35.74\00:11:39.03
a restriction on
religious freedom.
00:11:39.06\00:11:42.49
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:42.52\00:11:45.95