Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
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This is your program
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for religious liberty
news, views, and discussion.
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My name is Lincoln Steed,
editor of Liberty Magazine.
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And my guest for this program
is Attorney Charles Steinberg.
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You're not an...
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You are an attorney,
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but your particular relationship
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to religious liberty
as you're vice president
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for The Northwest Religious
Liberty Association, right?
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Yes, Lincoln.
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And, of course, you and I
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have had a lot of
dealings over the years,
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but this is the
first time on this program.
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So in a way to
sort of introduce you,
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tell me how...
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What's your background
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and how you became connected
with religious liberty work?
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What was the appeal to you?
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Well, every
attorney is encouraged
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to do pro bono legal service,
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and my wife and I always
enjoy going to camp meeting.
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What's pro bono?
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Well, not
everyone's a Latin speaker.
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Pro bono is free legal services.
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And my wife and I
love going to camp meeting
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and the camp meeting
in Auburn, Washington
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is still a full
10 day camp meeting.
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For the
Seventh-day Adventist Church?
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For the
Seventh-day Adventist Church.
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And I was at one
of the camp meetings
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in 1998-1999,
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and I look back and
there was this large booth
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for Liberty
Magazine Religious Liberty,
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it had pictures of
Thomas Jefferson on it.
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And an announcement came through
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that they were
looking for someone
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to be their legal
go-to person, and I applied
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and it's been quite
a fun road ever since.
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So what year was that again?
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That was back in 1998.
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'98. 1997.
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Just before I began
with Liberty Magazine.
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Yes.
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I feel like I'm a new arrival,
but it's 20 plus years now.
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Yeah.
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In the Northwest
Religious Liberty Association,
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we encompass five
states in the northwestern part
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of the United
States, Washington,
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Oregon, Idaho,
Alaska, and Montana.
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You know, it's quite a big area,
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maybe not a
massive amount of people,
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although there's a few good...
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Seattle is a big center.
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But, you know, you saw the
need for religious liberty,
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but why did that
sort of resonate with you.
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Had you often thought about
religious liberty concerns?
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Yes, I thought about
religious liberty concerns
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when I was in undergraduate work
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at the University of Washington,
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I worked my way
through undergrad
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working in a retail store.
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And I'd fallen away
from my Jewish faith
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and not really
observing the Sabbath that much.
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And then when I met my
wife, she encouraged me
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to start
observing the Sabbath again.
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Good wife.
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Good wife. Yes.
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Not all of them, but
most good wives are lucky.
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Yes.
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And so I went to
my boss at the time,
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and my boss at the time
at Schuck's Auto Supply,
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which is a retail
chain in the Northwest.
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I said, "You know, I need
to have sundown Friday off
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to sundown Saturday off."
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And Jeff said,
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"You know, you know, Chuck,
I'm happy to give you that.
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You can work and open
and close all day Sunday."
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And that was my first
instant into requesting
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what I would learn later
was a religious accommodation...
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And not always
easy as that for people.
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A very hard for many
people to have to choose
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between their job and
their religious faith,
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but that was my
initial introduction into it
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and I was really excited
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to be able to put some
my legal skills to work
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on behalf of the region
and other people of faith.
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Okay.
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In our religious liberty work,
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both within our
Adventist community
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and then the larger
religious community,
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not just Christian,
many lawyers are involved.
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And there's clearly a
strong legal component
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and governance and so on.
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But what was it about for you
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when you look back
training as a lawyer that
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that sort of heads
you in the direction
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to see the
importance of religious liberty?
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Because it's not just
a legal question, is it?
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It's not a legal
question. It really...
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what it really comes down to is,
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you need to have the
freedom to be able to worship
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regardless of what
your faith background is.
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Yeah.
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And when you have somebody,
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whether it would be
the government, your boss,
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or some outside source,
basically trying to tell you,
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"You can't do XYZ
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because just
because of your faith,"
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that's outright prejudice.
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Yeah.
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And within the legal framework
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in the United
States and in Canada,
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you can go to
the courts sometimes
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to get redress.
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And a lot of times that...
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A lot of times that works well,
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a lot of times it
doesn't work well.
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Yes.
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And well, there's
the biggest story,
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which we might
talk more about later.
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Yes.
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But what I'm
fishing at, I have...
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And tell me if
I'm right or wrong?
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I've developed
views that that lawyers
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in the general lawyer community,
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they don't all
think of absolute values,
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the way lay
people think they do.
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It's often
whether this can be argued
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and president of
course carries that they said,
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where in religious liberty,
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we take a
preexistent value position,
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it does relate to the
rights of a human being,
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but it goes even further.
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We are created
being God's image,
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the power of choice and so on.
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But it may not be quite
as clear to some lawyers,
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that this is an absolute right.
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Yeah...
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Like for example, it
bothers me like crazy.
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I see the legislation
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that goes through
on religious liberty
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and it nearly always
says that this is allowed
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unless there's a
government, what's the term?
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Let's say some compelling
state interest otherwise.
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A compelling
government interest,
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one of the standards, yes.
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Well, if you
believe in a moral absolute
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that's such a
weaselly statement.
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And then also
lawyers always saying,
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"Yes, well you have this right,
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but it's in relation to
another person's right."
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And there might be times
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when it trumps your
right for religious liberty
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or at least religious
action in that situation.
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Yeah.
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When there are conflicts...
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when there are
conflicts the courts sometimes
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have to engage in
balancing tests and...
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Right, now you're getting...
Sometimes there's a winner.
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Thank you, I'm glad
you said that 'cause...
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Sometimes there's a winner
and sometimes there's a looser.
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Right and it's very practical.
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I mean, that's why lawyers do.
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But it is, a bit at
odds with moral absolutes.
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It's very much at
odds with moral absolutes,
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but you know, we're
not under theocracy.
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No.
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We're under a
constitutional republic
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in the United States.
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Yes.
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And the Bible, when I
read through the Bible,
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I see that God is
a God of free will.
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God's got a free choice.
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In our legal training,
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we are taught to muster
up whatever arguments we can
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for that certain proposition.
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Yeah.
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And then some... in
some of my law classes,
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we were told after we prepared
that side of the argument,
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we were told
immediately to flip the debate.
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The O.J. Simpson Law.
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Flip the argument.
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The Kardashian approach.
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Flip the argument
and argue the other side.
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Yeah. And it's a good exercise.
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I did that in a
lot of things myself.
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Yeah.
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You really need to put
yourself in the other position
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to fully
understand your own even.
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And one of the
things I remember from...
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It's been about 20 years now,
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one of the things I
remember about 20 years ago,
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is my colleague
and I were discussing,
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can you have a robust
free exercise of religion
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guaranteed by
the First Amendment
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of the U.S. Constitution?
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And also can you have a
robust antiestablishment,
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the government shouldn't
be establishing churches.
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Can you have both
of those coexisting?
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Well, we could have two
or three programs on that...
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I think so.
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Between free
exercise and the establishment
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as the whole game, at
least constitutionally.
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Yeah.
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But, it's all
basically done to help people
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to free up their
ability to worship
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as their conscience dictates.
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Yeah. It's the main thing.
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It's liberty of conscience. Yes.
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And that's what I
tell a lot of people
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on religious accommodation.
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The intent is to
accommodate people's religion,
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but usually when it comes up,
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the issue is not
what religion you have,
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or what your church says,
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or what
dispensation or otherwise,
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it's your conscience,
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you're under
conscience conviction
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for the stance, you alone.
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In court, if it's an
employee-employer situation,
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it's usually not
your church there
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standing up in court with
you, it's just one person.
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Yeah.
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One person who's very
strong in their belief
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and willing to
take on the consequences
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of them standing
up for that belief,
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whether it be
termination from their job,
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not being the
breadwinner anymore,
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or in some cases
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they would risk being attacked,
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have sugar
poured in their gas tank
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in different union,
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labor union job
places and things like that
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or have their scaffolding
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on a construction
job site sabotaged.
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Really soon it will be
shorting out the battery
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on your prayer suit.
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Possibly.
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Possibly, but...
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but it is a matter of
principle for everybody
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and the principles
of the Constitution
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and the Bill of Rights,
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they do stand for something
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and I see the
Religious Liberty Ministry
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as a way to breathe life
into that for each individual.
00:09:40.54\00:09:43.85
Yeah, absolutely.
00:09:43.88\00:09:45.35
You know, back again
to how you got into this.
00:09:45.38\00:09:48.98
But what attracted
you to being a lawyer?
00:09:49.02\00:09:51.92
What attracted me
to being a lawyer?
00:09:51.95\00:09:54.29
My...
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I've been told this is as corny,
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but it's really true.
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I've always been kind
of a larger girthed person.
00:09:59.33\00:10:01.93
And when I was 11 years old,
00:10:01.96\00:10:04.73
we were playing King of the Hill
00:10:04.77\00:10:06.10
at my neighbor,
Rob Maddox's house
00:10:06.13\00:10:08.10
and Rob Maddox
had this very large...
00:10:08.14\00:10:10.24
His parents had this
very large grassy hill,
00:10:10.27\00:10:13.14
and two of my best friends
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made it to the
top of the hill first.
00:10:14.54\00:10:16.58
For those of
you that don't know,
00:10:16.61\00:10:17.95
King of the Hill
can be a violent game,
00:10:17.98\00:10:19.48
you just
basically push everybody off
00:10:19.51\00:10:22.32
and the last man
standing is King of the Hill.
00:10:22.35\00:10:25.49
Young people play a
lot of violent games.
00:10:25.52\00:10:27.72
Yeah, and two of my friends
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made it to the top of
the hill at the same time,
00:10:29.36\00:10:30.93
and they started
fighting and duking it out.
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And I've always
been the larger guy
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and so I stood between them
00:10:35.70\00:10:37.03
and shoved them
both down and said,
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"There's a better
way to solve this.
00:10:38.70\00:10:41.04
We should talk it
out or flip a coin."
00:10:41.07\00:10:42.40
Mmm.
00:10:42.44\00:10:43.77
And we ended up flipping a coin.
00:10:43.81\00:10:45.14
I think Rich ended up
winning the coin toss,
00:10:45.17\00:10:46.81
but I've always been fascinated
with the law as a tool.
00:10:46.84\00:10:51.05
So how old were you...
00:10:51.08\00:10:52.58
I was 11 years old.
00:10:52.61\00:10:53.95
Eleven years. Eleven years old.
00:10:53.98\00:10:55.65
And then seeing how
the law has interacted
00:10:55.68\00:10:57.85
with so many
different people's lives,
00:10:57.89\00:11:00.22
for both better
and for the worse.
00:11:00.26\00:11:03.73
I thought it would be
a good skill set to use.
00:11:03.76\00:11:07.13
I've always been a
really good chess player
00:11:07.16\00:11:09.33
and analytical,
methodical thinking ahead.
00:11:09.36\00:11:13.23
Yeah.
00:11:13.27\00:11:14.60
Well, so it was
the law in general.
00:11:14.64\00:11:17.04
So you, but and I guess
you're thinking about justice.
00:11:17.07\00:11:21.48
Always thinking about justice,
in Deuteronomy, justice,
00:11:21.51\00:11:24.88
justice shalt thou pursue.
00:11:24.91\00:11:26.25
Yeah, that's true.
00:11:26.28\00:11:27.62
And as a lawyer,
that's what we strive for.
00:11:27.65\00:11:29.85
And sometimes you're left
scratching your head, but...
00:11:29.88\00:11:34.32
Yeah, very interesting.
00:11:34.36\00:11:37.66
And I thought, and
maybe it's true that you,
00:11:37.69\00:11:39.79
you had a parallel interest
00:11:39.83\00:11:41.46
in constitutional
things and history and so.
00:11:41.50\00:11:45.87
I'm very much interested
in constitutional law,
00:11:45.90\00:11:48.47
very much interested in history.
00:11:48.50\00:11:50.17
I majored in
history as an undergraduate
00:11:50.21\00:11:52.71
at the University of Washington,
00:11:52.74\00:11:54.94
focusing on history,
00:11:54.98\00:11:56.51
both of the northwestern
part of the United States
00:11:56.54\00:11:59.08
and also of history of Jews,
00:11:59.11\00:12:01.85
specifically history of
Jews during World War II,
00:12:01.88\00:12:04.25
which is a very...
00:12:04.29\00:12:06.05
Have you read that
book, "The Wandering Jew?"
00:12:06.09\00:12:08.22
I've not read the
book, "The Wandering Jew."
00:12:08.26\00:12:09.79
I forget the
author, but that, you know,
00:12:09.82\00:12:12.53
it's like war and peace.
00:12:12.56\00:12:14.10
Yeah. But it's an amazing book.
00:12:14.13\00:12:16.03
Yeah. Amazing book.
00:12:16.06\00:12:17.40
Yeah.
00:12:17.43\00:12:18.77
Because, you know,
maybe some people think...
00:12:18.80\00:12:21.54
I don't think
most people think much
00:12:21.57\00:12:22.90
about history
anyhow, but, you know,
00:12:22.94\00:12:24.27
they're still vaguely
aware of the holocaust
00:12:24.31\00:12:25.94
and the attitudes there,
00:12:25.97\00:12:27.48
and then some Christians
00:12:27.51\00:12:28.84
perhaps think of
the Old Testament,
00:12:28.88\00:12:30.98
but to me the overall
story that's continuous
00:12:31.01\00:12:35.85
through the ages
of the Jewish people,
00:12:35.88\00:12:37.65
an amazing story.
00:12:37.69\00:12:40.12
It's strange, in fact
a stranger than fiction.
00:12:40.16\00:12:42.19
Yeah.
00:12:42.22\00:12:43.56
A friend of mine
asked me the other day,
00:12:43.59\00:12:44.93
"How come Jews
are so persecuted?"
00:12:44.96\00:12:47.70
And you know, I said,
00:12:47.73\00:12:49.76
"You know, the
basic human nature
00:12:49.80\00:12:51.43
many times is jealousy,
00:12:51.47\00:12:53.84
many times at the root
of it jealous of power,
00:12:53.87\00:12:57.87
jealous of other things."
00:12:57.91\00:12:59.24
And part of me,
00:12:59.27\00:13:02.58
when the laws use systematically
00:13:02.61\00:13:05.55
to deny a person
their right to even exist,
00:13:05.58\00:13:08.48
there's a problem there.
00:13:08.52\00:13:10.09
It was a statement
and I think you're right
00:13:10.12\00:13:12.75
and no one think
could counter that.
00:13:12.79\00:13:15.59
But I remember
reading a statement
00:13:15.62\00:13:17.19
I think it was early
on in the Roman Empire.
00:13:17.23\00:13:20.73
They said that,
00:13:20.76\00:13:22.10
"No people were more dismissive
of the gods than the Jews."
00:13:22.13\00:13:25.53
Mmm.
00:13:25.57\00:13:27.04
And that could create troubles.
00:13:27.07\00:13:28.40
Yes.
00:13:28.44\00:13:29.77
Oh, yeah, there's
a reason for that.
00:13:29.80\00:13:31.27
We'll be back
after a short break.
00:13:31.31\00:13:32.77
So stay with us and we'll return
00:13:32.81\00:13:35.38
with Charles Steinberg.
00:13:35.41\00:13:37.71
We can delve into his past
00:13:37.75\00:13:39.38
and find out more
about religious liberty.
00:13:39.41\00:13:41.28