Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider
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for the break with Greg Hamilton
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from the Northwest
Pacific Liberty Association.
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I was trying to draw you out
on what your association's done
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and we got not so attract,
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but there's a huge
story talking about the RFRAs,
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which have played a role
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in some recent
Supreme Court decision.
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You mean state
religious freedom acts
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like in Indiana and Georgia...
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The Indiana one hit the
headlines very negatively
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because some religious
factions had put really extra...
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Well, they want to
give a blank exemption
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to small business owners
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who have
religious objections to...
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Serving gays and another...
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Providing business
services for same sex couples
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who want to have a wedding cake
or photography services done
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or having their
flowers catered by a florist.
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All of these factors are
there and even the clerk,
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it was in Kentucky that refused
to sign marriage licenses.
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This is outcome and
it's a big issue right now
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and if they would
just stick to language,
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in fact we had a bill
that was radical in Montana
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that I actually helped
defeat just a year ago.
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And we actually put forward
four different amendments
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in terms of language that
would have cleaned up the bill
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including
establishment clause problems,
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violating the constitutional
separation of church and state.
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But the committee was dominated
by Tea Party Republicans
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and they wouldn't have
anything to do with it,
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and if they had...
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In fact, even the guy
who testified after me,
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a former retired
Montana Supreme Court justice
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who was a
spokesman for American united
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for separation of church
and state got up and said,
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you know what, Greg Hamilton,
what he said is exactly right.
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He praised my testimony
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which has never happened to
me before in my life, Lincoln,
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twice.
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And not that I should
take great credit for that
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but it was stunning
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because they went ahead
and passed it through committee
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on a straight party line vote.
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They took it to the House
floor for debate and a vote.
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They lost by one vote, 50,
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but they lost by
one vote in the...
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not by 50 but
they lost by one vote
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in the House side
of their assembly,
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and if they had just listened
to me by doing a more generic,
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not giving a blank exemption
to small business owners
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and just restoring the
compelling state interest
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and least restrictive means test
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like we're talking about
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the free exercise jurisprudence,
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their bill would have passed
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and it probably would have
likely passed in the Senate.
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Now I don't know
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whether the governor
would have signed it or not,
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because the
governor had vow to veto it,
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but I can guarantee you it
would have much better chance
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if they had listened to us.
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This is the sad story
of all of these referrers,
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state referrers now.
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The overreach is really
hurting the general cause
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because there is
a need to pass this.
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Well, do small
business owners...
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Most of our
viewers may not know,
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this was passed
on the federal level
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and declared unconstitutional
and the technicality of,
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not because the
bill itself was wrong...
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Well, that's too much
history to cover your notions.
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It applies only on
federal employees, so...
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You're talking about
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the Federal Religious
Freedom Restoration Act.
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Yeah, but there's
been an effort since then,
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that you've
actively involved with
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to establish the
same thing de facto
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by getting all the
state's individual.
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Right.
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That was good but with
this new element put in,
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it sort of
discredited this movement
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and I think it's gonna be
very hard from here on now.
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On what've done,
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I know you had a great
success on religious dress,
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right, a bill
you're referring to.
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Well, I know, it wasn't focused
on religious dress so much,
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it was focused actually
on holy day accommodation
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so Sabbath
accommodation at the workplace.
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I thought the title even had...
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Yes, Oregon Workplace
Religious Freedom Act,
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and a Workplace
Religious Freedom Act
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dealt specifically
with the Title VII law,
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federal and
state but in this case,
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in Oregon the state law
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which basically
gave to businesses
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based upon a
Supreme Court decision 1977
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called Trans World
Airlines versus Hardison,
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in which the Supreme Court
reversed the original intent
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of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964, under Title VII
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which said that
employers had to demonstrate
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that they had a
significant difficulty,
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administrative difficult
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and a
significant expense involved
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to say that this
was an undue hardship
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on their business,
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so therefore we
cannot accommodate you.
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If you want your Sabbath off
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or whatever whether
it's Friday, Saturday, Sunday
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whatever and the
Supreme Court 1977
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with a TWA versus
Hardison case said no.
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All you have to
do is have a minimum,
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a minimum expense
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or a minimal
administrative inconvenience,
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you can cite those two things,
wave it like a magic wand
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and say to your
employee work or else.
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And so we were trying to
restore the original intent
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in Oregon for Title
VII and we succeeded
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especially when it comes
to Sabbath cases and so on
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but, or Sabbath accommodation.
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But it also involved
religious garb in the workplace
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which helped a lot of
Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, Catholics
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and others especially
in the public school system
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where they would be marginalized
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in the State of Oregon
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for the wearing
of religious garb,
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I mean, they would,
it's part of their identity,
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they can't change who they
are and so that was lifted,
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in fact it was a probation
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put forward by the
Ku Klux Klan in 1920,
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so that's
something that we repealed,
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and we thought
that was a good thing.
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They thought that
communism would most infiltrate
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through Catholic
institutions and schools.
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The reason why they thought that
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is most of your
Protestant schools
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were actually the public schools
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in those days
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and the Catholic
schools were feared, okay,
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because they thought
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that religious garb and so forth
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and the Catholic
faith itself, okay,
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was very much aligned
with communism in those days.
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It's not aligned
but there is a...
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It seems like communism grew
out of strongly Catholicism.
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There was a
Protestant paranoia at the time
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and the Ku Klux Klan led
the way and then charged.
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They were
apparently a group there.
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And so anyways, so we
passed the Oregon Workplace
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for Religious Freedom
Act, thanks to Dave Hunt,
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the former's a
powerful speaker of the House,
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we're going to honor him
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at our 25th
anniversary gala banquet
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on August 16th of this year
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at The Empress Estate
in Woodland, Washington.
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It's a French
provincial mansion on a hill
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or a mountain
overlooking a valley.
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It's just gorgeous.
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Overlooks Interstate 5 actually.
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I'm looking forward to.
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Yeah, hope it's not too hot
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but it's gonna be
outside on the pavilion
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and it should be a lot of fun.
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But we also like I said,
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we passed Idaho's Free
Exercise Religion Act of 2000
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and we need to pray
for Senator Grant Ipsen.
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We wrote Alaska's Religious
Freedom Restoration Act
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which, you know,
was a huge success
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in terms of writing it
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but we never got it passed
through the final committee.
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We also were
influential in rewriting.
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In 2006,
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our direct intervention
allowed the rewriting
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of the inmate
religious preference law
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or regulation.
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Basically they
said you can only,
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especially
native American-Indians,
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you can only register either
as a native American-Indian
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or the religion
that you're baptized in.
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You couldn't
have both, all right.
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So there's one Catholic chaplain
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was harassing my client,
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a Seventh-day Adventist
on death row for murder
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and I won't say
his name of course but,
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and Todd McFarland
helped us at the very end to...
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He is the legal
counsel at headquarters.
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Yeah, at General
Conference headquarters
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who helped finalize everything.
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We did all the
work though however,
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and over three
years worth of work.
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And anyway, that case
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with the help of the Assistant
Attorney General at the time
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Melissa Stanhope
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and we worked together
00:09:08.38\00:09:10.65
and we used the
Religious Land Use
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and Institutionalized
Persons Act of 2000
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signed and passed
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by President Bill
Clinton at the time.
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It was a great
success at the time.
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It was a great success
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but he had to have
great encouragement
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by Hillary Clinton,
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the first lady to
get him to do that
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because he was reluctant
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on most religious
freedom legislation
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to sign anything and
I've got evidence for that
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where Hillary Clinton,
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whether you like
or whether you don't,
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she's a huge
champion of religious freedom,
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and I've always
appreciated that about her.
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Regardless of what else
anybody thinks about her
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and even what I
may think about her.
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She even recorded her promo
for Liberty Magazine one day.
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Yes, yes, she's been what?
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Extraordinary
friend and politician.
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She's been very
special that way.
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So we were able to allow
for dual religious preference
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for prison registration.
00:10:02.26\00:10:04.70
And by the way that has now
swept the entire United States.
00:10:04.73\00:10:07.14
So what we did in Washington
00:10:07.17\00:10:09.00
has affected every State
prison across the United States
00:10:09.04\00:10:13.14
allowing native American-Indians
00:10:13.17\00:10:14.71
to have dual
religious preference.
00:10:14.74\00:10:16.71
Their native American religion
00:10:16.75\00:10:18.91
which allows them to
smoke in their sweatshop
00:10:18.95\00:10:21.35
and lodges and also
their baptized religion.
00:10:21.38\00:10:25.32
Now do you think that this is...
00:10:25.35\00:10:26.69
which is a very
necessary legal change
00:10:29.92\00:10:33.36
but is this sort of bouncing up
00:10:33.40\00:10:34.76
against the
regrettable recruitment
00:10:34.80\00:10:38.63
for fundamentalist
Islam in the prisons?
00:10:38.67\00:10:41.67
I don't think so, no, I don't...
00:10:41.70\00:10:43.44
It seems to me that's writing
ahead on religious privilege.
00:10:43.47\00:10:48.44
Yeah, I don't see that at all.
00:10:48.48\00:10:50.81
But let me state
two other things.
00:10:50.85\00:10:52.61
We defeated Greater
Seattle's Growth Management Act
00:10:52.65\00:10:55.22
in 2001,
00:10:55.25\00:10:56.62
thanks to my
associate Charles Steinberg
00:10:56.65\00:11:00.22
at our office,
00:11:00.26\00:11:03.16
the County Council, King
County which is Greater Seattle
00:11:03.19\00:11:07.43
attempted to
place a moratorium on
00:11:07.46\00:11:09.33
the building of new
churches and schools
00:11:09.36\00:11:11.47
in rural King County,
that is Greater Seattle.
00:11:11.50\00:11:15.14
And so we defeated
that through a referendum
00:11:15.17\00:11:18.04
both in a vote at
the County Council,
00:11:18.07\00:11:20.68
of which we were
behind by I think a vote
00:11:20.71\00:11:23.08
of something like,
I forget what it was,
00:11:23.11\00:11:26.88
10 to 3 and we
were able to reverse it
00:11:26.92\00:11:29.35
to a two vote victory
on the County Council.
00:11:29.38\00:11:32.15
Then it went to a
referendum to the people
00:11:32.19\00:11:34.29
and we won by a
vote of 69 percent
00:11:34.32\00:11:37.36
in favor of our referendum.
00:11:37.39\00:11:40.73
So...
00:11:40.76\00:11:42.10
You've had a
string of successes.
00:11:42.13\00:11:43.47
But we had one more.
00:11:43.50\00:11:44.83
We defeated the
forced unionization
00:11:44.87\00:11:46.20
of all private
child care centers
00:11:46.23\00:11:48.90
in Washington State in 2010.
00:11:48.94\00:11:51.11
That was a big one as well.
00:11:51.14\00:11:52.74
Now one thing you've
brought in your article
00:11:52.77\00:11:54.24
and it's not the
only reason you do it
00:11:54.28\00:11:57.55
but this is proven to
be a very positive way
00:11:57.58\00:12:00.75
of projecting the Seventh-day
Adventist church in its place.
00:12:00.78\00:12:04.05
We need to be active.
We need to be involved.
00:12:04.09\00:12:05.95
We need to be active at
the State Legislative level,
00:12:05.99\00:12:08.36
we need to be seen,
we need to be heard,
00:12:08.39\00:12:10.89
and for the cause
of religious freedom,
00:12:10.93\00:12:12.69
we need to be counted,
00:12:12.73\00:12:14.10
we need to be accountable
in the public square.
00:12:14.13\00:12:16.67
If we're not, why do
we want to be so isolated,
00:12:16.70\00:12:20.37
we won't achieve
anything by isolation.
00:12:20.40\00:12:23.67
When I'm not
editing Liberty Magazine,
00:12:23.71\00:12:26.91
when I'm not doing this program,
00:12:26.94\00:12:29.51
I'm usually traveling around
talking to different groups,
00:12:29.54\00:12:32.55
church groups most of them
00:12:32.58\00:12:34.48
and the comment is
made over and over again,
00:12:34.52\00:12:38.02
what can I do?
00:12:38.05\00:12:41.16
At first blush, there
isn't much you and I can do
00:12:41.19\00:12:44.33
to stop major events.
00:12:44.36\00:12:46.43
We can't turn national
legislators on the dime.
00:12:46.46\00:12:50.97
We can't easily change
a whole societal attitude.
00:12:51.00\00:12:54.67
But as the Northwest
Religious Liberty Association
00:12:54.70\00:12:57.57
has shown, we can do a lot.
00:12:57.61\00:13:02.01
And over the years the advocates
00:13:02.04\00:13:04.95
working out of the Northwest
Religious Liberty Association
00:13:04.98\00:13:08.12
have affected legislatures.
00:13:08.15\00:13:11.39
They have made
contacts in governments
00:13:11.42\00:13:14.06
and in communities that have
made a very real difference.
00:13:14.09\00:13:17.56
And that it has
provided a vehicle for people
00:13:17.59\00:13:21.56
who want to be
involved to do something.
00:13:21.60\00:13:24.90
I could wish that
it was a bigger model
00:13:24.93\00:13:27.27
but there is
much more to be done
00:13:27.30\00:13:29.30
all across the United States,
00:13:29.34\00:13:31.07
there is much more to be done
all across this world of ours
00:13:31.11\00:13:35.11
and around this world.
00:13:35.14\00:13:36.88
All it takes are as individuals,
00:13:36.91\00:13:40.38
you perhaps to get involved,
do something, speak out,
00:13:40.42\00:13:45.39
make that contact
00:13:45.42\00:13:47.39
and many, many good
things will come from that.
00:13:47.42\00:13:51.03
It's our
privilege to work together
00:13:51.06\00:13:53.46
with the mechanisms,
00:13:53.50\00:13:55.23
and the powers,
and the neighbors,
00:13:55.26\00:13:57.50
and the legislators and
great things will happen.
00:13:57.53\00:14:02.34
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:14:02.37\00:14:05.27