Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break,
with Greg Hamilton,
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we were getting into the
weeds of the Supreme Court
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and who's what and
where we might be going
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with Justice Gorsuch...
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You mean Judge Gorsuch...
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He's not quite
Justice yet. It's true.
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Where we need to be
going with Justice, of course,
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but I'm sure he's
going to be confirmed.
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Yeah, I'm sure he will be too
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with the Republican
controlled Congress.
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But I'll pick up
on one of my themes
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that you agree with that
this is not a legislative body
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by determination
nor I think in practice.
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Now and then they
distinguish themselves
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or whatever,
embarrass themselves
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but they don't get to
choose out of the wide world
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what they're going to deal with.
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These have to be legal
cases that work their way up.
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I see them as
reflective of goings on
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and if we have a shift
on the new administration
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to favoring Christian activists
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or certain Christian viewpoint,
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it follows then
that the Supreme Court
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would probably tend to
endorse that new model.
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So they would be
an enabling factor.
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You understand
Neil Gorsuch ruled
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in favor of Hobby Lobby, okay.
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Which is a horrible thing.
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It came out of
the Tenth Circuit,
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all right, so you
have to understand...
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Well, I wouldn't say
it was entirely horrible,
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but what it does is it
prepares the groundwork
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for even small business owners
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to claim an
exemption from having
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to serve same sex
couples and so on and so forth.
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To follow on, on
what was a horrible thing,
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Citizens United,
which took the whole model
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back to a corporate model
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rather than an individual right.
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Right.
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Plus, then you're
mixing in the ability of people
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of faith to act
prejudicially towards others.
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Right, which I
think is a real problem
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and how far do you
take liberty of conscience
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and then say that I
don't have to do this
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and I don't have to do that
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and I don't have to serve
this person or that person
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because of
liberty of conscience.
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While that
becomes very much, I mean,
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you might as well get
in the school of the rabbis
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and start to
argue which is kosher
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and which is not
and all the debates
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and accompanying
debates that the town mood
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that just goes crazy.
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In the late '60s
when I came to the U.S.
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it was the culmination
of the civil rights movement
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but down south, I remember
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we drove across the
country coming from Australia
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and you could still
see some of the signs,
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"people not allowed,
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certain people
are not allowed here."
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And I remember at the time
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there was
theology cited for that.
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That was religious freedom
and we know that it wasn't.
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Right.
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But once you
start allowing someone
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to have the right
to withhold service
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or to deny
someone else something
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in the name of their
religious freedom or mine,
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I don't think that ends well,
so I don't like that dynamic.
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Yeah, I don't either personally.
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It presents favorably.
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Religious liberty, why
should I be part of this?
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But in reality
in a civil society,
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it means that
you are restricting
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and even harming other people
in the name of your religion.
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Yeah, and that's, I don't know
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how they're going
to slice that baby,
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I mean, that's
a Solomonic moment
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for the court
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if that should come
up to the Supreme Court,
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that would be a
very Solomonic moment,
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and we've talked
about the Oregon surprise
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or Sunshine Bakery
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and that decision out there
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by the Labor
Commissioner, Brad Avakian,
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who is a close
personal friend of mine,
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but someone who,
I think went too far
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in finding them too much money.
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See what I think is missing
from most of these discussions
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even in our own
group is the idea
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that there are some
things as Jesus said,
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"When you make
a faith commitment
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and follow Jesus"
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in this case it
could be Muhammad,
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you know,
elsewhere for other faiths,
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but when you
make that commitment,
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there may be some
penalties or some costs
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that you have to pay.
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The law can't, even
a well-intentioned law
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can't part the
Red Sea in every case.
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There was a judge in Wyoming
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that just was in
the news two days ago,
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where she refused
to marry a couple,
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same sex couple,
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and the Wyoming
Supreme Court chastised her,
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and basically
said, they censured her
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but they didn't say
that she would lose her job
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which was interesting
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because there was a
similar incident in Oregon
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where they insisted that
the judge lose his job over it.
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I found that it was
wise what Wyoming did
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in the sense that they said,
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"You know, we
censured you for this,
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but we're not
going to fire you."
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So what happens if another
same sex couple comes for them
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for her to marry
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then is that just giving her
a pass for future situations?
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I tend to think, I tend
to read the message into that
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that they're giving her a pass.
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And I think
that there is a point
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where individual
conscience must prevail
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in something like that,
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but I also say to myself,
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"Okay, so you're going to
marry a couple that is Christian
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and goes to your
church and who, you know,
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is getting remarried,
they just got divorced."
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I mean, you know,
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and for illegitimate
reasons so then what?
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I mean, how
pharisaical do we get.
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Where do the courts get into
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in terms of all
this religious "legalism"
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I mean we're going to become
like the Pharisees of old.
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That's what my point is.
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It's not necessarily
always a court thing.
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I'll take a really super
easy to understand situation.
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If you're Jewish,
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it's not going to be possible
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for you to run a
hog butchering business.
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Yeah.
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There's no way the law
is going to make that easy
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for you to do.
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Right, right.
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Your conscience and your beliefs
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get in the way.
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Yeah.
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Or to, you know,
to run a racetrack
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that only makes on Saturday,
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there's just no accommodation
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for a Seventh-day
Adventist or a Jew,
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and there must be a
conflict between your faith
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and the way that
civil society works.
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And I know we get into this
generally applicable law thing,
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but if something has
nothing to do with your faith,
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but your faith in that situation
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creates a penalty
that may be the penalty
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that you accept for
being a person of faith.
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And that's what I think
they're going to have to do.
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I think the courts are
going to have to draw a T chart,
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a T chart with a line
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and they're going to
have to say the pros and cons
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like under Title VII Law
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when it comes to
defining undue hardship
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and religious
discrimination law,
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you basically say
employers have rights
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and employees have rights.
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So they try to
determine whose rights prevail
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in any given situation.
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An employer has to
meet the definition
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at least in Oregon.
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The definition undue hardship
has to meet the standard.
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They have to have
a significant cost
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and significant
administrative difficulty
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before they can claim
it's an undue hardship
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to accommodate
someone for their Sabbath
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or for their holy day
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or for the wearing of
particular religious garb.
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So therefore,
employers have rights
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but the employee
has rights as well,
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which is basically,
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hey, you have to meet
the standard of burden,
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the employer does,
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and so I think when
it comes to baking cakes,
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when it comes to florists,
when it comes to, you know,
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refusing services
to same sex couples,
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I think the courts are
going to have to go down
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that road of Title VII,
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they're going to
have to look at that,
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they're going to
have to determine
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what is the right
of the business owner,
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what is the right of
the person seeking services.
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That's uncharted territory
in terms of determining a law
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and this is going to
take years to work itself out.
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And so we, and so
we have to be patient.
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And when you say rights,
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what goes with
that is obligations.
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Yes. It's a two way thing.
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Well, the obligation
of the business owner,
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you're providing
a business service
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to the general public,
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so when you're open up
for the general public,
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you cannot be discriminatory.
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In fact, some city ordinances
require business owners to say
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that they will not
discriminate with the permission
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that in
receiving the certificate
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you will abide by our code
and you will not discriminate.
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Yeah, seems reasonable,
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and it gets very close to what
I've said in other programs,
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which it's been a
helping host of mine
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even before working
on Liberty magazine,
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the social contract.
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Yes. It's very important.
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It's basically an agreement
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on the governed
and the governed...
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Right.
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Those that are
governed and the government
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and the
shopkeeper and the other,
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we agreed to
have a civil converse.
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Right
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And once that you
throw something in between
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which is the right.
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I may not do it because
of my faith or whatever,
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I think you've threatened
the whole social order.
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Well, in a way yes,
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I wouldn't take it
that far, I mean...
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Well, it's a grand
statement to make it for it.
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If you think about
every course that comes,
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every case that
comes before the court,
00:09:19.29\00:09:21.72
they're being
like Solomon, I mean,
00:09:21.76\00:09:23.59
it's a Solomonic decision
where they got to, you know,
00:09:23.63\00:09:25.86
decide how to slice the
baby so to speak, I mean,
00:09:25.89\00:09:28.20
that's a very cruel statement,
00:09:28.23\00:09:29.90
But in reality if
you analyze that case,
00:09:29.93\00:09:32.40
it was more psychology than law.
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Right, of course, of course.
00:09:34.54\00:09:36.37
But maybe that's
what's needed here
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is a little insight
00:09:38.31\00:09:40.74
into the
dynamic of the situation
00:09:40.78\00:09:42.44
rather than the law here.
00:09:42.48\00:09:44.91
Right, right, right.
00:09:44.95\00:09:46.31
But that's
basically what the law does,
00:09:46.35\00:09:48.45
I mean, the law is,
00:09:48.48\00:09:51.99
and I want to
emphasize this point
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because a lot of
people miss this point
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and I keep coming back to it,
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but if you think about it.
00:09:58.43\00:09:59.76
Our entire constitutional system
00:09:59.79\00:10:01.13
is made up in such a way,
00:10:01.16\00:10:02.70
written in such a way
00:10:02.73\00:10:04.07
to actually
regulate and harness,
00:10:04.10\00:10:05.97
we the people
00:10:06.00\00:10:07.34
and why that's
important is this,
00:10:07.37\00:10:09.34
we assume that, we the people,
00:10:09.37\00:10:10.81
the majority get
whatever they want.
00:10:10.84\00:10:12.84
That's not the case,
00:10:12.87\00:10:14.21
that's why you
have the Bill of Rights
00:10:14.24\00:10:15.68
to protect against...
00:10:15.71\00:10:17.48
The minority
against the majority.
00:10:17.51\00:10:18.91
Against the
abuse of the majority
00:10:18.95\00:10:20.95
and the Constitution
protects the majority
00:10:20.98\00:10:23.65
against the abusive
will of the minority.
00:10:23.69\00:10:26.19
And so, courts have
to weigh that stuff,
00:10:26.22\00:10:29.26
and so when they're looking at
when Neil Gorsuch, for example,
00:10:29.29\00:10:33.56
when he becomes a Justice,
00:10:33.60\00:10:34.93
he's going to have
to weigh these issues
00:10:34.96\00:10:37.37
and so we have to be
careful of condemning...
00:10:37.40\00:10:40.77
And we should be
sympathetic with...
00:10:40.80\00:10:42.14
The new president's
nominee to the Supreme Court.
00:10:42.17\00:10:44.57
Yeah, yeah, you're right. Yeah.
00:10:44.61\00:10:46.04
And they
shouldn't be polarizing,
00:10:46.07\00:10:48.24
in fact, as Christians
00:10:48.28\00:10:49.61
we should be praying for rulers,
00:10:49.64\00:10:52.18
but the Supreme
Court is not ruler
00:10:52.21\00:10:53.62
but we should pray
for these in public
00:10:53.65\00:10:55.08
across these judges
00:10:55.12\00:10:56.52
because a sign
of the end of times
00:10:56.55\00:10:58.15
is judges that subvert justice.
00:10:58.19\00:10:59.55
Well, Ellen White says,
00:10:59.59\00:11:00.92
when the courts
is the last basically
00:11:00.96\00:11:05.39
is the last defense for justice
00:11:05.43\00:11:08.23
and religious freedom.
00:11:08.26\00:11:09.70
And when the
Supreme Court decides
00:11:09.73\00:11:11.77
that religious
freedom is a luxury
00:11:11.80\00:11:13.27
we can no longer afford,
00:11:13.30\00:11:14.97
then we know that the
Lord's coming is very soon.
00:11:15.00\00:11:19.04
When I was quite a bit younger,
there was a television program
00:11:19.07\00:11:22.61
that had a lot of
levity to it supposedly,
00:11:22.64\00:11:26.01
where one of their
common statements was,
00:11:26.05\00:11:27.98
"Here comes the judge."
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We laughed a lot
00:11:30.29\00:11:31.62
and I didn't
really know what it meant,
00:11:31.65\00:11:33.19
but I know today,
when we talk about a judge,
00:11:33.22\00:11:36.09
nearly always is in the
context of the Supreme Court.
00:11:36.12\00:11:40.40
It's a much
debated body nowadays
00:11:40.43\00:11:44.00
when I think the
framers of the constitution
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and the fathers of the country
00:11:46.37\00:11:48.07
saw it as a
quiet deliberative body
00:11:48.10\00:11:50.31
off to the side.
00:11:50.34\00:11:51.71
It is important who
is on that august body.
00:11:51.74\00:11:57.81
It should be
important to have it
00:11:57.85\00:11:59.65
somewhat
reflective of the population.
00:11:59.68\00:12:01.98
We don't want it stacked.
00:12:02.02\00:12:03.52
We don't want it
full of video logs.
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What we want of those
that answer in the positive
00:12:05.72\00:12:08.69
to what the Bible says,
00:12:08.72\00:12:10.29
the end will be characterized
by judges that pervert justice.
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God help America to
devoid that sort of a fate.
00:12:15.30\00:12:18.93
Justice should not be thrown
into the streets casually.
00:12:18.97\00:12:24.64
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:12:24.67\00:12:27.71