Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider
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before the break
with guest Greg Hamilton.
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I am not, it
doesn't take much doing,
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I'm trying to
extract some highlights
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of your illustrious career
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in religious
liberty starting from...
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We didn't quite
start in the cradle,
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but when you were young
and what led you toward it.
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And just before the break
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you were talking
about the Oregon,
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what is it, the religious?
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Oregon Workplace
Religious Freedom Act.
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Yeah, but it dealt
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with religious
garb a lot, right?
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Well, it dealt with holy
day accommodations for anybody
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that had a particular
Sabbath that they needed
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to have
accommodated in the workplace.
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And that was
interesting in and of itself,
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we can talk more about
the legal aspects in a minute
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but what happened was,
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we got the bill passed
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in both the House and the Senate
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and Governor Ted
Kulongoski signed it,
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but then immediately a
number of religious minorities,
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Sikhs, Hindus, Jewish sects,
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and also Islamic
sects wanted to repeal it,
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because it didn't
allow for the wearing
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of any religious clothing
or garb in the workplace...
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Yeah, I guess, I was
getting ahead of things.
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In public schools,
while teaching school.
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And so teachers were
basically barred from that
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and they went
back to that statute
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in the bill that we
passed and it remained.
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Was a statute that
went clear back to 1920,
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and it was a statute
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that was inspired
by the Ku Klux Klan
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in the state of
Oregon at the time.
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Governor Pierce was the governor
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and both chambers in
the House and the Senate,
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Republicans and
Democrats were basically owned
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by the Ku Klux Klan
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and claimed Ku
Klux Klan membership,
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it basically had
become a very racist state.
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And they believed
that the greatest threat
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to their sense
of white supremacy
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and if you will "Protestantism".
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Well, that was Ku Klux
Klan, it wasn't just racism,
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it was a White
Christian country.
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And so by definition they
were against Catholics and Jews.
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Yes. Very much so.
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And so, but they
believed that communism.
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I didn't wanna say Christian,
Protestant, I meant Protestant.
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Yeah, they
believed that Communism
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or Leninism at the time,
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because of Lenin
rising up in Russia
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and creating a revolution there.
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Would best or
easiest to infiltrate
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through Catholic
schools and so they thought,
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well, if it's
through Catholic schools,
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it might be even
through Protestant schools too.
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So they came up with this plan
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and put a bill
through the legislature
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basically banning
all religious schools.
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All right, now go figure.
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I mean, who would
think of doing that?
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And by the way it
resulted in the greatest,
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biggest
religious freedom decision
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by the US Supreme Court
ever in American history.
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It's called St. Mary's Academy
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or Pierce v. Society of Sisters
which is St. Mary's Academy
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on 5th Street right there
in Downtown Portland, Oregon.
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And so they had,
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the governor had signed the law,
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the bill into law,
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and it banned all
religious schools,
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so everybody was
in a state of fear.
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The Adventist Church came,
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you know, wrote a
Supreme Court brief,
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it was one of the
strongest ones actually,
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and the Supreme Court ruled
9 to nothing against governor.
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It said, are you
nuts, you know, so that's,
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that was
interesting history but that,
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there was a statute
still remaining in our bill,
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the Oregon Workplace
Religious Freedom Act
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that didn't allow any
wearing of religious garb
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or clothing in public school
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while teachers were
teaching in public school.
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And it was aimed specifically
at Catholic priests and nuns.
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Okay, if they were to come in
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and teach in
public schools and so,
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that still
remained on the books.
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And by the way there
were still three states
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that had that by the time
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we passed the Oregon
Workplace Religious Freedom Act.
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Pennsylvania, Oregon
and I believe Tennessee
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were the three.
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And so, the other two have
been since repealed by the way,
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but Oregon started that movement
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to help the other
states get it repealed.
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And maybe for our viewers,
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even though from time to
time we've revisited the...
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Religious freedom...
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Religious
Freedom Restoration Act.
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Was passed on a
federal level a long time ago,
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what was it '96?
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'93.
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'93, it was in the 90s.
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And it was
declared unconstitutional
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because it
gained a lot of its...
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And the Supreme Court decision
called Boerne v. Flores, 1997.
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Because it was piggybacked
on inter-state commerce, right?
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Yes.
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Not because there was anything
really wrong with the law
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and since then,
you as a major figure
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and others tried
to do the equivalent
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by getting it
state by state, right?
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Yes, and we did that
in Idaho in year 2000.
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I know you had
great success on it.
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We had State Religious
Freedom Restoration Act passed,
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that was our
first victory in 2000.
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I'd come on board at the
Union Conference office there
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at the North Pacific
Union in the year 1998,
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and that was a
huge victory for us
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with Senator Grant
Ipsen, who is now deceased.
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And my good Mormon friend
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who was just a dear, dear man.
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Just a good soul and
very conscientious person.
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Now, when you got this through,
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did you have any trouble
with groups wanting to add,
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add on bits and
pieces to the basic bill
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with their own agenda,
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'cause that's the
problem now in a nutshell?
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Well, The American Civil
Liberties Union, the ACLU,
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you fought us
tremendously including
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with our Oregon
Workplace Religious Freedom Act.
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And by the way
just to finish off
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with the Oregon
Workplace Religious Freedom Act,
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when we, when the
religious minorities,
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the ethnic religious minorities
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wanted to repeal
our original victory
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with the Oregon
Workplace Religious Freedom Act,
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we convinced
them to stay on board.
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After 10 years of
effort to stay on board
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to help us amend the bill
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instead of repealing it, okay,
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repealing the statute or the law
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that we just
passed the year before.
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And so they
decided to work with,
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thanks to our
representative Dave Hunt
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who was a man called
for such a time as that.
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Former American Baptist
Conference president nationwide
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and he served as a short time
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as speaker of the
House there in Oregon.
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And truly his power,
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his consciousness
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really worked in our behalf
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and so we lobbied
legislators day and night,
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and the reason being
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is because the ACLU
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had convinced a number
of Democratic legislators
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to go ahead and repeal the bill.
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That, because, but
their reason was opposite.
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Okay, their
reason was they wanted
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to keep the statute in there,
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that the Ku Klux
Klan put in there
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regarding banning
all religious garb
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by public school
teachers in public schools.
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They wanted to keep
that in place to ban that.
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'Cause they kept religion
out of the public schools.
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In the name of the
constitutional separation
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of church and state
which is an irony in itself.
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But Attorney Steve Greene
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from Willamette
University School of Law
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which is right across
the street from Salem.
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The Oregon
legislature there in Salem
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came to our defense
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and he was the
biggest proponent of the ACLU,
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one of their
chief spokesmen, okay.
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So he backed them down
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and yet we still had
to convince legislators,
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in fact, going into the,
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both the House and the
Senate for votes and debate.
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We had a number
of them, who said,
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"No, we're
gonna vote to repeal."
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And when we got there,
Dave Hunt even came to me,
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the speaker of
the House, he says,
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"I don't know
what's going to happen
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but this does not look good."
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And so, just sit in the chamber
and we'll see how it comes out.
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I had the worst ulcer
I've ever heard in my life
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when I was sitting
up there in the chamber
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and I'm telling
you it was a miracle,
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especially the Senate one.
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We got it through
the House just fine,
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at 66% of the vote, okay.
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But the Senate
was the most dramatic
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where one by one
Democratic senators got up
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and said, I've changed
my mind and here's why.
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And one of the
reasons that drove them
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to change their mind
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was the fact that
when they understood
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the Ku Klux Klan
historical connection,
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that really convicted them.
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And number two,
the other reason,
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this is the irony
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is that there were a
number of Republicans
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who were very pro big business.
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And they didn't want
to accommodate anybody
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for anything in the workplace.
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It was all about
the mighty dollar bill
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and they said, "Oh, it
affects small businesses."
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So they voted against it,
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but nevertheless as
Democrats came through
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and we had another
66% vote in the Senate.
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You pulled it off.
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So then we had
our April Fool's Day
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signing ceremony on April
1st with Governor Ted Kulongoski
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with that famous...
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That picture.
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It's a beautiful
picture on April 1.
00:09:07.91\00:09:09.24
And we can't show it here,
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but go on the Liberty
website and you'll see it.
00:09:10.65\00:09:12.61
Yeah, it's just amazing and...
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But what... We're
running out of time,
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but one thing
that I got out of that
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and hearing it again from you,
00:09:18.62\00:09:20.29
this was not a simple thing,
00:09:20.32\00:09:22.29
it involved a lot of people,
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and a lot of time,
and a lot of persistence.
00:09:23.83\00:09:25.83
Yeah, it did.
00:09:25.86\00:09:28.23
And religious liberty
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is not something
to take casually?
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No.
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It rewards
consistent and diligent effort,
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doesn't it?
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There's a lot of
nuance and substance involved
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when it comes to defending
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and passing
religious freedom bills.
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I'm thankful for the career
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that God has given
me to be a sentinel
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on the walls of
religious freedom,
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and I wouldn't
trade that for anything.
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I would do it all over again,
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and I love the
ministry of religious freedom.
00:09:58.16\00:10:01.56
And I would encourage
you that if you are young,
00:10:01.60\00:10:05.10
and you're
watching this program,
00:10:05.13\00:10:06.77
you're a boy or a girl,
00:10:06.80\00:10:09.40
and you want to champion
00:10:09.44\00:10:10.77
true religious
freedom in this country,
00:10:10.81\00:10:12.14
you wanna be a
true American patriot.
00:10:12.17\00:10:14.44
I would encourage
you to go to school,
00:10:14.48\00:10:18.25
get your college
degrees, whatever it takes,
00:10:18.28\00:10:20.98
become either an attorney, a
historian, a business person,
00:10:21.02\00:10:25.19
a nurse, and doctor, whatever.
00:10:25.22\00:10:27.49
But set out to
make your life goal
00:10:27.52\00:10:29.96
to champion religious
freedom, both in your home,
00:10:29.99\00:10:34.43
in the workplace and
at your state legislature.
00:10:34.46\00:10:38.57
Thank you. God bless.
00:10:38.60\00:10:39.93
Only a few years ago,
it seems George Bush Sr.
00:10:46.17\00:10:49.81
was commenting that
freedom and democracy
00:10:49.84\00:10:53.11
seems to be breaking
out all over the world.
00:10:53.15\00:10:55.12
Well, those days are
past, authoritarianism,
00:10:55.15\00:10:59.15
and despotism, and repression,
00:10:59.19\00:11:01.79
and visceral sort of
nationalistic movements
00:11:01.82\00:11:05.39
are the order of
the day in our day.
00:11:05.43\00:11:08.40
And often, very
often religious conflict
00:11:08.43\00:11:12.13
is the center of this movement.
00:11:12.17\00:11:14.04
It's very unfortunate
00:11:14.07\00:11:15.40
that religion
seems to be hastening
00:11:15.44\00:11:18.27
these bad tendencies.
00:11:18.31\00:11:20.04
Much better as we
promote religious freedom,
00:11:20.08\00:11:23.01
and tolerance, and respect,
00:11:23.04\00:11:25.21
and allowance for
all faiths of conscience.
00:11:25.25\00:11:27.92
Much better that
that's the movement.
00:11:27.95\00:11:30.39
Much better that we
work to the day for that
00:11:30.42\00:11:32.79
to break out all over.
00:11:32.82\00:11:36.22
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:11:36.26\00:11:38.69