0:00

This is Hemant. And Jessica. And you're listening

0:02

to the Friendly Atheist Podcast. Please

0:04

go to patreon.com slash friendly

0:06

atheist podcast to support this show.

0:09

Hello. Hey friend. What? You

0:12

have a fun thing to bring up.

0:14

Yeah, I just came back from

0:16

the barn where I had received,

0:18

somebody had reached out to me and asked them if they could send

0:20

a gift for a writing program.

0:24

And they did. They sent us a helmet that they

0:26

had and some cookies, which we

0:28

devoured. They wanted us to,

0:31

thank you so much. They just asked us

0:33

to plug their nonprofit, so what

0:35

else.org. So check that

0:38

out. They're doing

0:39

really good work. So thank you so much

0:41

for thinking of me in that, for that. Thank

0:44

you. My little personal thing here. Today

0:46

we're recording this on a Thursday. Friday's

0:49

New York Times Crossword Puzzle is by

0:51

me. It'll be available Thursday

0:54

night. It's a theme list. It's fun. Lots

0:56

of fun, long entries in

0:57

there. Friday means it's a hard one, right? Yes.

1:00

Is that an honor to like get the Friday one? Or

1:03

does it, is there like merit between?

1:05

Friday's hard, but doable

1:07

hard. Saturday's hard, but they're

1:10

evil about it.

1:10

What about Sunday? Sunday's easy. Oh.

1:14

It's just big. Oh, that

1:16

explains actually a lot. Yeah. But

1:19

yeah, it's fun. I hope you enjoy it. We'll see

1:21

what the backlash is. I don't know. If you have

1:24

any really good gossip about Cruciferbalists,

1:26

I would really enjoy to hear it. I think

1:28

it would be entertaining.

1:29

It's what we discuss on Discord.

1:31

Truly the stakes couldn't be lower. So

1:34

I really want to hear about your bad drama. Excellent.

1:36

There you go. Let's do it. Let's talk.

1:39

I will say there's not a lot of crazy, this is going to

1:41

annoy the hell out of everybody, every story.

1:44

Oh, so you rushed me home from my other job to

1:46

talk about stuff that's probably not that interesting? That

1:49

is correct. Neat. Neat.

1:51

Neat. Do you remember her? I

1:53

was surprised how many people do not remember

1:55

her, which makes me realize I am old.

1:57

Well... Wha...

2:00

What do you remember about Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Ayaan

2:02

Hirsi Ali was the president

2:04

of human, American Humanists or... Not

2:07

even close. ... an atheist? Nope. Okay,

2:09

then fuck it. I don't know. She

2:11

is... An activist. She kind

2:14

of was an activist. Okay, what if I just keep guessing? Shut up. You

2:16

can keep guessing.

2:17

Go for it. Well, I know she was some kind

2:19

of public figure in the atheism movement. Correct. I

2:21

know she's a person of color. I want

2:23

to see black. Correct. And black

2:26

women don't really hang out with us very much. Correct.

2:28

I'm just stoked on that. Dot

2:32

dot dot. I don't think she's doing

2:34

great vis-a-vis the atheism anymore. Yeah, it sounds

2:36

appropriate. Yeah. So she's an

2:38

ex-Muslim.

2:39

She wrote books, infidel,

2:43

nomad, heretic, basically documenting

2:46

her journey out of, you know, a pretty

2:48

radical version of Islam. And

2:51

she talked about her journey. She talked

2:53

about what she didn't like about it. And

2:55

I'd say a lot of atheists around the time of the

2:57

new atheism stuff 15 years ago were

3:00

like, yes, good. You speak out against

3:02

that stuff because we don't like Islam

3:04

either. And that was kind of her

3:07

thing. And she had good reason to be upset about

3:09

it.

3:09

And I think it's also really important to... What

3:11

year would this have been that she

3:13

kind of came to prominence? Her books, mid-awes.

3:15

So we're definitely deep in the

3:17

new atheist movement, which is also deep into

3:19

like the white male of it

3:21

also. Yeah, the fact that she wasn't that stood

3:24

out. And also,

3:25

I think the anti-Muslim

3:28

thing was really... If you weren't

3:30

alive and around in the early aughts,

3:33

like the Islam phobia was just

3:36

different. And so white guys

3:38

criticizing Islam wasn't a great

3:40

look. And so having somebody

3:42

who actually was Muslim and could come

3:45

in and could give genuine insight into

3:47

what it was like to actually grow up Muslim from

3:49

somebody who experienced it as opposed to white guys explaining it.

3:51

And not

3:51

just grew up Muslim, but grew up in a

3:54

radical version of it. So she was

3:56

someone who had genital

3:59

mutilation. done to her. She was a victim

4:01

of that, so she spoke out against that. And

4:04

so if your idea

4:06

of Islam is coming from her, you're

4:09

gonna think a lot of nasty things about Muslims.

4:12

And as many Muslims would say, okay, that's

4:15

not the version I practice, that doesn't represent

4:17

the version I came from, or what my community

4:20

believes. Again, like the general Christianity versus

4:22

the KKK. Yeah, exactly. From the

4:24

same route, not the same result. Mm-hmm.

4:26

So that's kind of her thing. She was also,

4:29

interestingly, when she came to

4:31

the United States, and this was, she

4:33

feared for her life, which is one reason she came

4:36

here, she kind of said there was a right-wing

4:38

think tank that kind of took

4:40

her in under their wings.

4:42

So it wasn't entirely

4:44

weird

4:45

that she worked with kind of a right-wing group because

4:47

she just needed to get the hell out and

4:49

things like that. Sure, okay. So anyway,

4:52

after she wrote a couple of those books, she

4:54

kind of went off the radar as far as atheism

4:57

goes. She kind of went from,

4:59

let me tell you why religion is wrong, and Islam,

5:02

my version of it, is wrong, to just

5:04

not being a player so much in that

5:07

world, which happens to a lot of people. Sure.

5:09

But the reason she's in the news this

5:12

week is because she just

5:14

wrote an essay for another right-wing website

5:17

called Unheard, like heard

5:19

mentality heard, unheard. And

5:22

it's not, she basically, she's

5:27

now a Christian. That's the bottom

5:29

line.

5:30

So I did happen to see this headline

5:32

that she is now a Christian

5:33

with you. The title, Why I am now a Christian.

5:35

I mean, fine. I

5:38

have to admit, and you know,

5:41

whatever, everybody can feel however they want

5:43

to feel,

5:44

nothing. Okay, the only thing

5:46

less interesting than somebody telling

5:49

me what religion they are is somebody telling

5:51

me why they convert it to whatever religion they are. Sure.

5:53

And I'm telling you what, that fucking includes atheism.

5:55

I've heard every coming out story about it. And

5:58

it's fine. Everybody has a story.

5:59

story, I redeserved Heather's story, but you personally

6:02

don't need to hear it. You've heard a million of them. I've

6:04

heard a million

6:05

of them and also I don't know why

6:07

your discovery of religion,

6:09

I don't care. I don't care. It's not my business.

6:12

Live your life. I don't give

6:13

a shit. So the only reason it might be interesting

6:15

is because she's a bestselling author

6:17

because she was well known in that world.

6:19

Sure. In our world

6:22

in a sense. And so it's like, all right, well, that's

6:24

interesting. Let's hear what your reasons

6:26

are for this magical conversion.

6:28

I mean, I am not accusing her

6:30

of anything. I want to be very clear with that. But

6:32

I have said for a long time that when

6:35

I finally get real desperate for money,

6:37

I am going to write a tell all of how

6:39

I'm actually secretly a Christian this whole time

6:41

and found Jesus or whatever. And

6:44

people will care about that. I don't,

6:46

but like people would want to read that

6:48

book. Yes. Um,

6:51

I was looking for like, all right, what happened?

6:53

Did you have some late

6:55

night epiphany? Did you find

6:57

God? Like what horrible argument

6:59

are you going to use to justify this? There

7:02

was nothing. There was no actual defense of

7:04

Christianity anywhere. No,

7:06

I was no, she wasn't like

7:09

convinced of her wrongness in the middle of a theological

7:11

debate. She basically rationalized

7:14

her Christianity and I was looking, what

7:16

did she cite in defense of changing it? Her

7:18

reasons Islamism. Okay.

7:22

Woke ideology. Yes. Which

7:25

is basically to say she has more in common

7:28

with the politics of conservative Christians.

7:30

Yeah, but that doesn't make you a Christian. That

7:32

just makes you right wing.

7:34

Ah, now you get to where all the online

7:36

commenters have gone with this. You are

7:38

right. Like that wasn't an original Jessica.

7:41

Like that's pretty much it. It's like if, if

7:43

I handed this to a Christian apologist and

7:46

as, and said, okay, so is this a

7:48

good convincing argument that you would use

7:50

to try to get people to become Christian?

7:52

They'd be like, no, there's nothing in here. There's

7:55

nothing from,

7:56

I did not cite.

7:58

Keep talking. The word Jesus. does

8:00

not appear in the piece one. I think

8:02

she used Christ but like it was in a passive

8:05

sort of way. So here's a passage from

8:07

her essay. Why do I call myself a Christian

8:09

now? Part of the answer is global.

8:12

Western civilization is under

8:14

threat from

8:17

three

8:19

different but related forces. Shut up. Western

8:22

civilization

8:25

is under

8:26

threat.

8:27

I want to just take a bath in that sentence.

8:31

What does that

8:34

civilization as in like

8:36

culture because I would agree like some of our

8:38

popular culture has taken a nose-dye

8:40

but I would blame that on capitalism more than

8:42

I would blame that on like civilization

8:45

writ large.

8:46

Let me finish this

8:48

paragraph and then feel free. She has

8:50

three reasons western civilization is

8:52

under attack. One

8:54

is the resurgence of great power

8:57

authoritarianism. That's on

8:59

the right. She just says authoritarianism

9:02

and expansionism in the forms of

9:05

the Chinese Communist Party in Vladimir

9:07

Putin's Russia. So that's number one.

9:09

Too much authoritarianism. That

9:12

was one of the three threats against western

9:14

civilization. Is China? China

9:16

and Putin Russia. Sure.

9:19

Okay. Okay problems. New

9:21

villains in the United

9:22

States. We certainly never blamed on

9:24

China and Russia before.

9:27

Number two.

9:28

The rise of global Islamism

9:31

which threatens to mobilize a vast population

9:33

against the worst. So

9:35

radical Islam is what she's saying is

9:37

turning. She

9:40

certainly seems to equate all

9:42

Muslims or whatever version

9:44

of Islam she thinks is true, real,

9:46

capital letters, whatever.

9:48

Can we have a quick discussion about

9:50

why

9:51

dumb people, I don't know I was going to say conservatives

9:53

but I think just all stupid people just

9:55

add ism on the end of like.

9:57

Wokeism. Islamism

9:58

like. We already

10:00

have an adjective.

10:02

Like, what are we?

10:04

She doesn't define it. Global Islamism.

10:06

It's a code word that she just assumes her people

10:09

will understand the meaning of.

10:10

She thinks people are being mobilized.

10:12

So this sounds like terrorism, right? Like,

10:15

could you read it again?

10:16

The rise of global Islamism, which

10:19

threatens to mobilize a vast population

10:21

against the West.

10:23

Threatens to? I mean, yeah, that's

10:25

OK. So she thinks terrorism. Number

10:27

three. So China, Russia, terrorism.

10:30

This

10:30

is really feeling like mid-aughts. Maybe

10:33

she kind of wrote that book and

10:35

stopped learning after that because she has no

10:37

new

10:37

argument. Number three. The reason Western civilization

10:40

is under threat. The viral spread

10:42

of woke ideology, which is

10:44

eating into the moral fiber of

10:46

the next generation.

10:48

Does she have specific incidences? No,

10:50

of course not.

10:52

Just woke. She

10:55

goes on to say, we can't fight off these

10:57

formidable forces unless we answer

10:59

the question, what is it that

11:01

unites us? I don't know

11:03

why I get so mad when people

11:05

use alliteration when they're trying to make a serious

11:07

point. It's like, ma'am, you can think you're

11:09

clever or you can be taken seriously,

11:11

not both.

11:12

So she says all of those are problems. I obviously

11:14

want to be clever. If all of those are the problems, we have

11:16

to unite against it. So what is it that

11:19

brings us all together? She writes, the response

11:21

that God is dead seems insufficient.

11:24

So too. Yeah,

11:25

we're not Nietzsche. Like

11:28

the whole God is dead thing. Have you ever

11:30

heard a human being outside

11:32

of a philosophy class

11:34

in a movie where anybody has ever

11:37

said God is dead without any like?

11:38

It is in every God is dead script.

11:42

Well listen, Kevin Sorbo, he changes all

11:44

those classes. He has no shit. Yeah.

11:47

She says, yeah, God is dead isn't

11:49

enough. So too does the attempt to find solace

11:51

in the rules-based liberal international

11:54

order. That's not good enough either, whatever that

11:56

means. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. We're just

11:58

capitalized, the rules-based international.

11:59

In quotation marks, she put the quotation

12:02

marks in. Wait, let's break that down. No. Please.

12:04

People trying to support democracy

12:07

around the world. Oh, I hate that. The

12:09

only credible answer to what

12:12

unites us, the only credible answer, I believe,

12:14

lies in our desire to

12:17

uphold the legacy of the Judeo-Christian

12:20

tradition. That's what unites

12:22

us. We all love

12:25

whatever she thinks the Judeo-Christian. Wait, that was the answer?

12:28

That was her answer. Read that again? Yeah,

12:30

the only credible answer to what unites

12:32

us, I believe, lies in our desire

12:34

to uphold the legacy of the Judeo-Christian

12:37

tradition.

12:37

But that doesn't unite us because

12:40

we are not united under that idea.

12:42

And also, what does that mean? What is your

12:44

Judeo-Christian tradition? Because I'm

12:46

sure there are aspects of it. I don't know.

12:48

Honor the legacy? Uphold.

12:50

Uphold the

12:51

legacy. Yeah, we all want to go back to the good

12:53

old days of, I don't know what. Again,

12:56

if you're trying to make sense of this. It's worth salad. Good

12:58

luck because no one seems to have

13:01

any clue what the hell she is talking about.

13:03

If you look at any responses, longer

13:05

responses online, you have right wing

13:07

atheists, the Shermers and

13:10

those Dawkins. My nemesis, Michael Shermer,

13:12

don't mention his name in my house. Dawkins, all of them who are

13:14

like, I don't personally care

13:17

if she changed her views or whatever,

13:19

like you said. I don't either. Don't

13:21

care about that. But if I'm trying to make sense

13:23

of what she said, I got nothing for

13:25

you because I don't know what the hell she's talking about.

13:27

I pride

13:27

myself in.

13:29

I do. These are all anti woke. Sure.

13:31

But like truly, I really

13:33

try to, when I hear these things,

13:36

I think I try to give my best effort

13:38

to understand at least what they think they're saying.

13:41

You know what I mean? Like that's why I'm not breaking down. Sure.

13:43

Listen, I

13:44

will. What's the steel man version of what she's saying?

13:46

I have no idea. I don't know. Also,

13:48

is steel man a new expression? Because

13:51

I've heard like three times in the last week and

13:53

I've never heard it before.

13:55

If you fall down some right wing rabbit holes,

13:57

you hear it all the time. She also

13:59

attributes her. Christianity to the fact

14:01

that atheism failed to give

14:03

her an answer to a quote simple

14:05

question What is the meaning

14:08

and purpose of life? Atheism

14:11

didn't give her a good answer Therefore

14:13

Jesus, I guess

14:15

what is going on with

14:18

for what it's

14:18

worth Atheism doesn't try to give you

14:20

an answer to that question like

14:22

she's treating atheism as if it's

14:24

a religion She's leaving which yeah isn't

14:26

I want to be clear

14:27

You think of all people she

14:29

might know something about well,

14:31

I also the thing of oh, what's the

14:33

meaning of life is so Reductive

14:36

isn't the right

14:36

word, but you know what the answer

14:38

to the you know what the meaning of life is now that

14:40

she's a Christian

14:42

Who knows she doesn't gather answering

14:44

the question like

14:46

oh my god You're

14:47

right like she doesn't say now

14:49

I have an answer and it's blank. Nope

14:51

doesn't do it So again after this

14:54

rambly squishy Rant

14:56

against wokeness and the lack of direction

14:59

in her life provided by atheism she magically

15:01

concludes Christianity

15:03

has it all that's an actual

15:06

phrase she wrote Four

15:09

words with a period at the end

15:14

Something it's not Billy Zane. No

15:16

idea But

15:19

yeah Christianity has it all she also

15:21

says people who don't believe in God are

15:23

quote capable of believing in anything

15:27

How

15:32

do you believe how do

15:32

you live in the United States as long as you

15:35

have and think it's the people who?

15:37

Don't believe in God who are extremely

15:39

gullible

15:40

Now that I read

15:42

her books in the first place, which is not something I should admit.

15:44

I'm very well read. Um

15:47

Do you now I'm wondering like she Kind

15:50

of been full of shit this whole time. There have been

15:53

accusations of that Yeah, I mean

15:55

the

15:55

fact that she was allied allied

15:57

with a right-wing pink tank for a while

15:59

and she

15:59

She always found a way to say like, yeah, but I'm not like

16:02

the crazies in so many

16:04

words. Honestly, like,

16:07

were we just so delighted to

16:09

have a woman of color who could speak

16:11

to like Islam that we weren't going

16:13

to question?

16:15

I mean, yes. Yeah.

16:17

Yeah. Of all the other problems when I, I'm

16:20

only half joking about the fact that how do you live in the United

16:22

States as long as you have during the past decade

16:24

or so and not realize the problem with

16:26

Christian nationalism and all that. Here's another

16:28

line. Literally, she actually wrote,

16:31

no, of course not. Here's what she actually wrote. Unlike

16:34

Islam comma Christianity

16:37

outgrew its dogmatic stage.

16:40

Are you sure? She, ma'am, ma'am,

16:42

are you sure? Christianity outgrew its dogmatic

16:45

stage, which is a wild thing to say in

16:47

the year of our Lord 2023.

16:48

A wild thing to say.

16:50

Are you out of your mind? Like

16:51

just because the conservative Christians in the US

16:54

are not like doing suicide

16:56

bombings does not mean they are not dogmatic

16:59

or extreme. Well, I mean, they're

17:02

doing domestic terrorism in

17:04

other ways.

17:05

Yeah. So yeah, no, they're not suicide bombing, but

17:07

they're suicide shooting.

17:08

Right. They love their guns. They're

17:11

forcing women to give birth.

17:13

That's a Christian conservative Christian thing.

17:16

Like they're not embracing martyrdom, but their

17:18

actions have led to plenty of suffering.

17:21

So that's what are you,

17:23

what is she talking about? I don't know. Think

17:25

about Covid. What did conservative Christians

17:27

do during Covid? They allowed the

17:29

virus to spread because their selfishness

17:32

was worth the sacrifice of other people's

17:35

lives and maybe their lives. They didn't care. Like

17:37

what is that? If not a form of faith

17:40

based martyrdom, like we are not better

17:42

off because the kind of Christianity practiced

17:44

by zealots with a lot of powers. We're

17:46

not better off because they're the ones in power

17:49

in the US. Here's

17:51

the thing. Just as it would be unfair

17:53

to ascribe the beliefs of Islamic

17:56

extremists to the 1.9 billion

17:59

Muslims in the world.

18:00

We also need to distinguish between Christians

18:03

who take the moral teachings of Jesus

18:05

seriously, because those people exist, there's a lot

18:07

of them, and the ones who just use the

18:09

idea of Jesus for political

18:12

gain, cultural gain, which I

18:14

would argue that's what she's doing here,

18:17

and she's always been criticized for painting Islam

18:19

with a broad brush, but now she seems to be doing

18:21

the exact same thing in the other direction for

18:23

Christianity, saying the religion is good,

18:26

we're better off with that, I don't really

18:28

know why that makes it true,

18:30

which is a thing that used to matter to people

18:32

who argued about religion. Um,

18:35

fuck

18:36

man, what so she does she

18:39

discuss how she found Christianity

18:41

in any way? Like she said she doesn't discuss

18:43

Jesus period. Does she say I go

18:46

to church? I pray like that we

18:47

do not know where she goes to church.

18:49

We do not know what prayer looks

18:51

like for her. We don't know. She doesn't

18:54

talk about it

18:54

in general. Again, not my business. But if you're going to

18:56

write an article about how Christianity is so

18:59

much better than atheism and so much better than Islam,

19:01

maybe give me specifics.

19:03

By the way, the painting

19:05

religion with a broad brush thing, she did that

19:07

in her most recent book, which none

19:10

of the atheists read. It was called Pray

19:12

with an E and want to review

19:14

of that PR, PR,

19:17

like predator and pray. She claimed

19:20

one critic said she finds stories

19:22

of individual Muslim immigrants who

19:24

commit heinous crimes. And by suggesting

19:27

those stories are broadly representative

19:29

uses them to justify curtailing the

19:31

opportunities afforded to the whole group, which

19:35

yeah, it's just it's super callous. It's irresponsible.

19:37

And now she's just expecting,

19:40

I guess everyone to just nod our heads

19:42

in agreement as she explains her new religion. I

19:44

don't know why has she earned the benefit of the doubt

19:46

at this point?

19:47

Not really. Is she a

19:50

profession? Like what

19:52

does she do for a living?

19:54

I believe her current occupation

19:56

issue works for the Hoover Institution, which is another

19:59

right wing think tank. it's different from the American

20:01

Enterprise Institute, which is the one she used

20:03

to work with that everyone's like, that's a

20:05

weird place for anyone to be working

20:08

if they have actual thoughts. Now she's

20:10

just with another right wing outlet and now she

20:12

writes for this website unheard.

20:15

She also made a video by the way, I didn't,

20:17

I forgot about this. I'm sure it popped up at

20:20

some point years ago and I just brushed

20:22

it off, but she made a video for PragerU,

20:25

that right wing outlet,

20:27

equating radical Islam

20:29

with wokeness. And I want to read

20:31

part of this to you. Oh, I forgot how bad this

20:33

was. What do radical Islam and the woke

20:40

have in common? This video

20:43

is from I need to look this up because it wasn't

20:46

from like forever ago. Because

20:48

woke is relatively new. Yeah,

20:50

two years ago. Two years ago.

20:53

Here's what she said. The

20:55

two ideologies have distinctive rituals.

20:59

Islamist shout Allah, Allah

21:01

Akbar and death to America. The

21:04

woke shout black lives matter

21:06

and I can't breathe.

21:10

Are you

21:13

out of your mind? Islam is

21:15

pray not just read that out loud in

21:17

your voice. This is people

21:19

are going to clip that.

21:20

I know. Islamist pray

21:22

to Mecca, the woke take

21:24

the knee. Both

21:27

like burning the American flag. You can't

21:29

just put two things next to each other

21:31

and pretend they're a comparison.

21:32

That's the whole video. Both

21:34

like burning the American flag. Well,

21:37

both take offense at every opportunity

21:40

and demand not just apologies but

21:42

concessions. Islam ism

21:45

invades against blasphemy woke

21:47

ism wants to outlaw quote hate

21:50

speech.

21:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do. It's

21:53

like scare quotes around it doesn't make it

21:55

less.

21:56

There's so many scare quotes. Islamist use

21:58

the word Islamophobia to. critics.

22:01

The woke do the same with quote racism.

22:05

Oh

22:07

honey. Like I said they're not gonna pick you

22:10

honey like they're not gonna pick you.

22:12

The problem you see is all the pesky

22:14

civil rights activists definitely

22:17

not PragerU which is actually getting

22:19

into public schools in red states Oklahoma

22:22

Florida. Like it's

22:24

disappointing but it's been disappointing for

22:26

a long time like she has correctly

22:29

and valiantly fought against female genital

22:32

mutilation regardless of cultural norms

22:34

regardless of religious rituals. She's right

22:36

about that and if you disregard the irresponsible

22:39

generalizations I

22:41

appreciate that she criticized religion

22:43

despite threats to her own life

22:47

but she has long surpassed

22:49

the time when she was a voice of courage. Now

22:51

she's just like a red-billed right-wing

22:53

outrage machine cog acting

22:56

like the people fighting against oppression

22:58

are no different from the extremists who perpetuated.

23:01

She has used her platforms to say

23:03

trans women are not women. She

23:06

told Tucker Carlson that

23:11

some women in certain parts of the world are

23:13

truly oppressed therefore black

23:15

gay trans people in the US should shut

23:18

the hell up basically and celebrate how good

23:20

they have it. Yeah very

23:22

Richard Dawkins dear Muslima like

23:25

she's also now I guess

23:27

with as a new Christian she's now

23:29

a card-carrying member of another group of conservative

23:32

people who despise Muslims as

23:34

much as she does. Yeah

23:36

I mean they're not gonna push back on any

23:38

of her criticisms of Islam. That is the one thing

23:40

right-wing atheists and conservative Christians

23:42

have in common which is they really don't

23:45

like Islam and they're willing to use

23:47

stereotypes generalizations to say

23:49

oh we want to cut immigration from those countries

23:52

we want to stop those people from having power

23:54

sure why not let's hold hands. Interesting

23:58

very interesting. tweet that

24:00

I really liked summarized this

24:02

whole thing. She's basically

24:04

saying, I am unable to justify

24:07

my right-wing positions without

24:09

also affirming a religion and this

24:11

one is far nicer than my old one. That's

24:14

one way of putting it. That's pretty funny. Yeah.

24:17

By the way, she made many of these same points in

24:19

a discussion two weeks before her essay came

24:21

out during a panel discussion that included Jordan

24:24

Peterson. Again, these are

24:26

her new allies. To

24:28

which I can just say like Christians can have

24:31

her.

24:31

Truly. Oh yeah. I'm not fighting.

24:34

Yeah. I'm not trying to win her back

24:36

to

24:36

quote unquote our side. She contrarian

24:39

so hard she made it all the way back to the

24:41

other side. Truly.

24:42

I mean, if I had

24:44

to wait for her I guess I would bet that

24:47

one of the main reasons that she

24:49

left the atheism movement,

24:53

you know, as it is,

24:55

is maybe because we're people aren't

24:57

as into like the blatant Islamophobia

25:00

anymore. People are a

25:01

little more. You can criticize religion without

25:04

being a certain way about it. Without

25:06

a broad brush. Stereotyping. Honestly,

25:07

this is just

25:09

me thinking out loud so take it and relieve it. But

25:12

also people are a lot more like 15

25:14

years ago, right? It was like Islamophobia,

25:17

terrorism, yada yada yada. Now it's white nationalist

25:19

terrorism that we're all actually worried about

25:22

and that does not slot into the patriotic

25:24

narrative as easily and so I

25:27

bet she was still trying to bang that Islamophobic

25:29

drum while the people around her were like,

25:31

okay, yeah, we got it. You hate Islam, but we see

25:33

who she surrounds herself with. You

25:35

know, bigger fish at this point. Yeah. You see

25:37

who she surrounds herself with. It's not surprising

25:40

either. I would also argue that she's written like what

25:42

four memoirs now, essentially,

25:44

given that her well of personal

25:47

anecdotes has probably dried up by now.

25:49

If you want to stay relevant, then

25:51

the way to do it is give yourself a new

25:55

path in life so you can talk about

25:57

that. The irony

25:59

is... even Christian websites

26:01

are like, ha ha, she

26:04

has changed to our side, but it's not

26:06

like they're celebrating the defense

26:08

of it because I don't think they understand why she's

26:10

a Christian either. Yeah,

26:11

she...

26:12

They're just saying, ha ha, she's no longer

26:14

an atheist.

26:15

She failed the assignment if the

26:17

assignment was explaining the world

26:19

why I'm Christian. She failed the assignment. What

26:22

was the headline?

26:23

Why I am now a Christian.

26:25

Why I am now a Christian.

26:26

I don't know.

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29:35

right. Should we move on to a lighter story?

29:37

I guess. All right. If

29:40

you're on a plane, what's the most annoying

29:42

thing that could happen? A man talking

29:44

to me. That is true. A gospel

29:46

singer named Bobby. Absolutely

29:50

not. Bobby with an I Storm. Bobby

29:52

Storm. She posted a video

29:55

online. Bobby Storm is an outstanding

29:57

name. 12 out of 10. posted

30:00

a video online where she

30:02

starts singing on the plane doing

30:05

what the Lord wants her to do Thank

30:07

you, please. And the video is not just her

30:09

singing, it's her trying

30:11

to sing and then you see a flight attendant. The flight

30:13

has not taken off yet and the flight attendant

30:16

is basically... I just went through some time to get this bitch off this

30:18

plane. The flight attendant is saying,

30:20

I need you to stop because

30:22

you're basically causing a disturbance and

30:24

we're trying to take off right now. Can you

30:26

describe what she's wearing?

30:28

Normal clothes. No sparkles,

30:30

no... Yeah. Okay. And

30:32

then she defends herself by saying, I

30:34

just got nominated for two Grammys.

30:37

Which is true by the way.

30:40

So,

30:41

to her point I would also

30:43

say that to anybody who passed my path the

30:45

fucking second.

30:46

But she says that as if

30:48

that justifies disobeying the flight attendant

30:50

and just singing about Jesus for everybody

30:53

and about the Grammys. It's not solo. You

30:56

haven't heard her name because it's irrelevant.

30:58

There are things with a group called Maverick City

31:00

Music. They were nominated for Best Gospel

31:03

Album, something they have been nominated for in the past.

31:06

And some other category that no one pays attention to,

31:08

they also got nominated for that. All of

31:10

that is irrelevant because you're on the plane.

31:13

The flight attendants have a job to do. She's

31:16

getting in their way because

31:18

they need to take off.

31:20

And this guy

31:20

is stern

31:22

but polite saying like, can

31:24

you follow our instructions? She's

31:28

dancing? She was standing. Finally

31:30

she sits. But at one point she

31:33

like turns around. I don't know who's taking the video

31:35

by the way. It's the person in the seat next

31:37

to her. But I don't know if that's her friend. If

31:40

she handed a stranger a camera and said, I need you to get video

31:42

of this. But at some point she turns around.

31:45

Do all of you want to listen to me sing?

31:47

As if this is up for popular vote. Nooooooo.

31:51

Do you have

31:51

a picture of her pulled up?

31:53

I just need to lay my feet down. You

31:56

can look at this picture but it's a side view of her

31:58

yelling at me. this flight

32:00

attendant, that's her sitting down,

32:03

but she's like she literally titled

32:05

her video, so this just happened. She's

32:08

very proud of the fact that she stood up

32:10

to the flight attendant trying to do his job.

32:12

I can only see half her face but she has lovely skin.

32:14

She also in one, this

32:16

is from the New York Times, in one of the social media

32:18

videos, Miss Storm said she had sung

32:21

on many flights before and God had

32:23

called her to sing on this recent one. She

32:25

said that the flight had boarded, started to taxi,

32:28

then returned to the gate because of a maintenance

32:30

issue. After the plane returned to the

32:32

gate she said quote, it was time

32:34

for me to follow through with my mission.

32:37

And she started to sing. So she

32:38

had already sang and then

32:41

the taxi. I think the plane was about to take

32:43

off, it said we need to go back, sorry, delay.

32:45

It was a mechanical issue. And now that

32:47

it's back at the gate waiting to get fixed,

32:49

she's like now's my chance.

32:51

So she did not sing until after

32:54

it returned to the gate.

32:55

And they're trying to finish

32:57

up and try to leave and the flight, it's in the same. Everybody's

32:59

in the shitty mood because their flight

33:01

is late.

33:01

Imagine you are in the middle seat

33:05

and there is a delay and

33:07

this lady wants to be the flight main character.

33:09

And if I had my Kindle only has like 12

33:11

percent battery, so I'm just like completely

33:13

panicked.

33:13

Yeah, she, this this grown-ass

33:16

woman thinks the one thing everyone needs to

33:18

listen to on the plane at this point is

33:21

her voice singing a song most of them wouldn't

33:23

pay for tickets for when they're off

33:25

the plane. I mean. Like she showed up to

33:27

someone else's place of work demanded

33:29

he bow down to her wishes because

33:32

she might get an award that none

33:34

of these people care about, but it sounds

33:36

nice. Oh, yay, like

33:39

I get why they're like, oh, you got

33:40

hell of a drug. And

33:42

by the way, when she turned around on her

33:44

video, she turns around like, do you all want to hear me

33:46

sing something like that? Well,

33:48

every day. It's silent. Of

33:49

course. I'm sure some not ma'am.

33:51

Yeah, the answer is I'm not I'm not here to

33:53

create a scene. I do not want to be in this video. I

33:56

don't want to be the main character. Right. This week. I

33:59

understand why they chose.

33:59

silence rather than yell out no

34:02

but you have to think some of them wanted to take

34:04

a nap do some work just enjoy

34:07

the brief rest

34:07

I would have locked eye contact with her and

34:09

put my earpods in and

34:13

here's the follow-up we

34:14

all have music in our pockets like we

34:16

don't need you ma'am

34:17

as far as I can tell she was not punished

34:20

for any of this they didn't kick her off the plane

34:22

she said they're trying to punish a Christian

34:24

woman yeah whatever there's no indication

34:27

she was kicked off she then said

34:29

Delta reached out to me to apologize

34:32

which was a lie I think

34:35

it's a lie she showed like here's my phone there's

34:37

Delta calling me and it

34:40

says like whatever they call it for a minute fake

34:42

it but also I don't know why they called her there's

34:44

no reason to think they called her to apologize

34:46

because they had nothing to apologize for

34:48

and there was no

34:50

incident of any kind she also

34:52

said in her follow-up video yeah

34:54

and that same follow-up video where she's holding up her phone

34:57

to show like Delta called me to apologize she

34:59

also says I don't want this man speaking

35:02

of the flight attendant to be reprimanded

35:04

yeah we know yeah

35:07

cuz he did not do anything wrong

35:09

and also what do you think Delta's calling

35:11

you to say we have punished

35:12

Bobby it's me John Delta what

35:15

do you think like a week unpaid

35:17

two weeks paid do you want to take a

35:20

popular vote on this one

35:22

just stand up in the plane go how do you

35:25

all think he should be punished

35:26

the funniest the

35:28

funniest thing about this is

35:31

on her Instagram on her TikTok where

35:33

she posted these videos by herself all

35:36

the comments are all

35:39

sharing our opinion comments

35:43

include comments include this is

35:45

one of the most egotistical things I've

35:48

ever seen you think because your Grammy nominated

35:50

that rules don't apply to you and the plane

35:52

is your stage work on that

35:55

ego sis

35:56

you know I also had a

36:00

Fantasy of singing to a flight of

36:02

passengers, but that was when I was 13 years

36:04

old

36:04

Imagine being on a plane where

36:06

the crying baby Another

36:12

another comment imagine the entitlement

36:14

of thinking you're the only one with something that

36:16

can bless folks and it happens to

36:18

be in An airplane where they have no choice but

36:20

to hear you because they can't go anywhere This

36:23

is wildly out of pocket say

36:25

you held these people hostage and

36:27

used God's name in a manipulative manner

36:30

That man was just doing his job and you were being

36:32

disruptive period The plan is

36:34

not your stage or billboard to the

36:36

plane is not your stage to or

36:39

billboard to market your work Another

36:42

person oh my god with a lot

36:44

of jeez you are not the main character Sit

36:47

down and be quiet on a plane. It is basic

36:49

courtesy to everyone around you I don't care how

36:51

beautiful your voice is other passengers

36:54

didn't pay for a concert. They paid for

36:56

a peaceful flight respect their space

37:00

back Sure,

37:03

I just go back to thinking man. This is Christian

37:05

privilege in action Cuz if a Muslim gets

37:08

up and says I am Muslim everybody

37:10

I would like to hear Marshall a clock Like

37:13

they would not have been able to get through two notes much

37:15

less four minutes of that video

37:18

of smug belligerents Everything

37:20

she's not the first Christian to pull this sort of stuff

37:22

We talked about this last year. Oh my god my worst nightmare

37:27

Who held the plane hostage with their awful message

37:29

forcing passengers to listen to them whether

37:32

or not they wanted it and passengers? Silence

37:34

is not consent. I would

37:36

have gotten thrown off of flight It's this thing

37:38

like if some other fucker gets up and

37:40

starts playing his guitar. I

37:42

am going ham on him I will have

37:45

to be held but don't put me in the cargo

37:47

shoulder To keep me away

37:49

from a dude playing guitar at me on

37:51

a plane

37:52

It is not surprising that these people

37:54

equate silence with consent because that is

37:56

a hallmark of conservative Christian

37:58

culture

37:59

It is also

38:03

telling that these Christians think

38:05

a captive audience is the best way

38:07

to spread their message. Like they're freely admitting

38:09

no one would want to listen to us otherwise,

38:12

but right now they have no choice.

38:15

Therefore, it's my time. Like

38:17

if she had any self-awareness, she

38:19

might realize a plane is not a personal platform,

38:21

but common courtesy doesn't matter

38:24

to people like her.

38:26

I just can't understand.

38:28

It's just, I, listen,

38:31

you know I love attention. You

38:34

know I am like a big dorky

38:36

showman. However, there

38:38

was one time I was in a movie theater and the sound

38:40

went out, and I was the one who yelled sound

38:43

and I still think about it like, did I step out of line?

38:45

Did I do too much? And

38:48

I just cannot imagine seeking

38:50

that kind of attention. I mean, there

38:52

are people who are just so desperate for attention

38:54

that it doesn't matter if it's positive or negative. So

38:57

maybe she sees it all as like,

38:58

maybe she got her name in the news. I

39:01

mean, she did her quote unquote, so did I

39:03

on. We're talking about it. Yeah, right. I

39:07

hope she loses. I

39:09

don't care about how good her group

39:10

is. Well, we broke out of our white male

39:12

story late.

39:13

Here,

39:15

I got another non-white male for you. There's

39:18

a woman named Katie Ray. She

39:20

has been outspoken about in

39:22

vitro fertilization. She has three

39:24

kids. She's broke. She's had

39:27

three kids and she said like,

39:29

I had trouble getting pregnant and IVF

39:32

was my husband, my husband's and

39:34

my way of having kids and they're a blessing

39:36

and like she's documented this

39:39

for many years. Now she's

39:41

also one of those people

39:43

like in any community she kind

39:45

of takes over and I mean that in a good

39:47

way. She's like she runs

39:50

a lot of self-help

39:52

type of seminars like I want to be your life coach.

39:55

That sort of person. So and

39:57

she uses the IVF journey as part of her motivational

39:59

speech. Like I've had troubles with

40:01

things I've gotten past it and

40:04

it took a lot of it was tough. I I'm

40:07

not I'm not I'm not getting children. I'm not

40:09

I'm not bad about any of this whatever. She

40:12

does her thing So

40:14

last year she hosted an event called

40:16

celebrate you like another motivational

40:19

like come here get inspired Go

40:21

off and do your thing sort of event. She

40:24

hosted it. I think

40:26

at Some gymnasium

40:28

that is owned by a Catholic Church. She

40:30

did that last year. Whatever. No one knew about

40:33

it It wasn't an issue this year. She did the

40:35

same thing. She called Our Lady of Lords Catholic

40:38

Church in Florida said I want

40:40

to host my event there again. They said yes,

40:42

she signed the contract None of this is a problem

40:45

But this time around the church

40:48

must have decided to look her up online Do

40:51

some background check or something and they

40:53

found all of her posts talking about

40:55

IVF

40:56

Now if there is one

40:58

thing that I think is going to fuck the Catholic

41:01

Church, it is anti IVF I

41:04

do not know how they think they're going

41:06

to keep that shit up. That is a

41:09

Like listen,

41:11

I'm not saying that condom like

41:13

condom use and like homophobia

41:15

and and the subjugation of women All of that

41:17

is bad. There's a lot of bad things about Catholicism.

41:19

However

41:21

anti IVF is a Why

41:24

y'all side to take because I

41:26

cannot I have to imagine that crosses

41:28

I mean, I guess economical not

41:31

so much because it's

41:32

expensive but certainly classes

41:35

and

41:36

you know Conservatives versus liberals all

41:39

want children and we'll do what they have to do

41:41

to get in case anyone's wondering the Catholic

41:43

Church says in Vitro fertilization

41:46

is not allowed because when it comes to

41:48

their rules unlike fertility and stuff

41:50

They oppose quote any technique

41:53

used to achieve conception by the

41:55

use of gametes coming from at least

41:57

one donor other than the spouses That's their problem

41:59

within fertility. We're

42:00

gametes in the Bible and I missed it.

42:02

So if you're using like a sperm

42:05

donation or surrogates or anything

42:07

like that, like that's not man-woman-missionary

42:11

style, no assistance, and all

42:13

that. That's the only type they're okay with

42:16

in the context of marriage. So sperm donation,

42:18

no good. Surrogate mothers, no

42:20

good. In vitro fertilization, which could

42:23

maybe involve the destruction of embryos,

42:26

no good. The church says these things

42:28

are quote, contrary to the covenant of

42:30

marriage, the unity of the spouses,

42:33

and the dignity proper to parents

42:35

and the child. So that's what the church has

42:37

a problem with when it comes to IVF. So

42:39

this lady... Although

42:40

I just want to say

42:42

those quote-unquote problems are nonsense

42:45

and nothing. They're absolutely

42:46

bullshit. Oh yeah, we can talk about why the Catholic Church's

42:49

positions are problematic,

42:51

but we've known that this is the church's

42:53

stance for a while. I want to walk up to a

42:55

person who was born through IVF and be

42:57

like, you forgot your soul.

42:59

Go back. Yeah, I know. And

43:01

the thing is, so this lady, Katie

43:03

Ray, she signs the paperwork for the gymnasium,

43:06

gives the church the down payment

43:08

on the rental, and shortly after, I

43:10

don't know, days later, a week later, the

43:12

church calls her and says, we cannot accommodate

43:14

your request, and they give her back the money. And

43:17

the reason is she supports IVF.

43:20

And the thing is, there's not going

43:22

to be a lawsuit here. She knows

43:24

that because the church, as a private

43:26

entity, private religious entity, they have every

43:28

right to say, we have rules about who can rent our

43:31

space. And we have a right to

43:33

talk about how much the Catholic suck.

43:35

Yep. And that is what she is

43:38

doing, because she's basically... She

43:41

seems to have no knowledge.

43:43

Again, I'm not mocking her. She seems to be unaware

43:46

of the Catholic Church's position on IVF. She herself

43:48

is not Catholic. This was just a space that

43:50

she

43:51

was going to rent. Is that my understanding?

43:52

Yeah, she rented it because it was a nice open space,

43:55

not because it was connected to the church.

43:57

And these things happen all of the time.

43:59

And what she...

43:59

is that she if she's nothing if not

44:02

a savvy self-promoter because that's her business

44:04

and so when she spoke to the local news about

44:06

this she said I was taken aback

44:09

because my children were a beautiful collaboration

44:11

between God science and the

44:14

universe and every day I look at them

44:16

I'm so grateful they are with me this specific

44:18

annual event was created with the passion

44:20

I have for everyone to embrace who they are

44:23

and not compare or judge each other

44:25

on their journeys I was shocked that I

44:27

could be kicked out of somewhere for deciding I wanted

44:30

to fight to have children and utilize

44:32

resources around me Wow

44:34

yeah one interesting

44:36

thing one interesting

44:37

thing the local

44:39

ABC action news that covered this story first

44:42

they got a shot a video shot

44:45

of just the sign outside the church's

44:47

doors and it says you know Our Lady

44:49

of Lords Catholic Church School Convention

44:52

Center whatever

44:54

it does say all are welcome

44:57

in all caps mind you no asterisk

44:59

yep

45:00

totally right giant sign that says all are welcome

45:02

but here's the

45:03

thing

45:08

and this is what I think is worth pointing out because

45:10

the cat asterisk yeah

45:12

what the church did again it's

45:14

legal so we're not arguing that but

45:17

the hypocrisy here is incredible

45:20

because I want to know if someone else signs

45:22

up to rent the space are they gonna

45:24

look up if that person has been divorced

45:26

are they gonna look up if that person has had

45:29

an abortion paid for an abortion

45:31

cuz there are people who

45:33

you know have sinned according

45:36

to the Catholic Church that they fully

45:38

allow in like to come to mass

45:40

oh yeah they give communion to my

45:43

crap like friends about there I honestly

45:45

I'm like so yeah you're a you know how many

45:48

tablets

45:48

in the US support same-sex

45:51

marriage except like

45:53

actually literally accept the existence

45:55

of trans people both of which violate the Catholic

45:57

Church yeah I do in the US

45:59

Yes, 61% of Catholics, practicing

46:02

Catholics, support marriage equality.

46:03

I'd say 60. Yep, 76%

46:06

say society should be accepting

46:07

of homosexuality.

46:09

But again, 61% support same-sex marriage.

46:12

Right. That violates Catholic doctrine. And

46:14

a big chunk of them who don't necessarily support quote-unquote

46:17

marriage are not homophobes. Right. They're

46:19

just

46:19

religious dumb-dumbs. Sure. 37% of

46:21

U.S. Catholics acknowledge that trans

46:23

people exist. The Catholic Church

46:26

says they do not. So again, there

46:28

are those people who call themselves Catholic,

46:31

and the Church is not kicking them out

46:33

of the Church. If they wanted to rent

46:36

space from this place, do you think the Church

46:38

is going to kick them out? Probably not. Right. But

46:41

because this lady had the temerity to say, I think

46:43

my journey might be able to help other people going through

46:45

the same struggles, they're like, oh,

46:48

no, we can't have this.

46:52

Wow, this is...

46:54

Wow. So has there been

46:56

any backlash?

46:58

She found a new space to rent. I

47:00

think another organization said, hey, we have

47:02

good space if you need to rent it. And is she

47:04

herself...

47:05

Is she

47:07

religious? I mean, I don't really care if she's religious.

47:10

It's part of her, like, gem. Like, is herself

47:12

help thing based in religion

47:13

at all? No, it's not, if I can tell. It's a pretty secular

47:15

thing. She said elsewhere, she

47:18

has a gay dad, or

47:20

had a gay dad. I'm not sure if he's still living. But

47:22

she also said she no longer goes to any

47:24

church, not because she's an atheist.

47:27

I don't know if she is, but largely because

47:29

so many of them discriminate instead

47:31

of judging people for who they are.

47:33

Katie, is she from Florida?

47:35

She is from Florida. Not too bad. Yep,

47:38

she's not your friend. Listen, if

47:40

you ever make it out to the Midwest, there's

47:43

no alligators up here. I will say, like,

47:45

part of me kind of rolled my eyes at first. I'm

47:47

like, did you not know the Catholic Church doesn't like

47:49

IVF? That is entirely true. So

47:52

I'm not, again, I am not criticizing

47:54

her for not knowing that in advance. And

47:56

I love and respect the fact that

47:58

now that she does know. So she's

48:01

like, all right, fine. I'm going to raise a big

48:03

stink about it and make sure everyone

48:05

knows you're against that.

48:06

I feel very strongly that we

48:08

should be. I went through a phase where I tried to be more

48:11

vocal about it, but it's a miserable thing to

48:13

do and be about the

48:15

fact that

48:15

the Catholic church is anti- Operating.

48:19

I mean, like, listen, everyone knows you

48:20

for something. I remember noticing. And if someone

48:23

like her is speaking out against it, that

48:25

carries more weight than people like us speaking

48:27

about it because we already have our like, yeah,

48:29

we're all pretty mad

48:30

anyway. I

48:33

do think this is something more people should

48:35

be aware of. And I wonder, I wonder

48:37

how I'm very curious how many people are aware

48:39

of that. That would be my.

48:40

So she got the local news involved.

48:43

She got a lot of stories written about it. Her.

48:46

More power to her.

48:48

Very nice. Here's an interesting

48:50

story that I didn't know. I don't

48:52

know if this is still blowing up story

48:55

wise, but the way I heard

48:57

about it was a roundabout way and there was no media coverage

48:59

a few days ago. Now there's been a lot more.

49:02

Let me set you up here. Yeah. The

49:04

story here. Earlier this month,

49:07

November, beginning of the month, a

49:09

guy named Brad Briscoe gets

49:11

up in front of a congregation

49:14

at a place called Ballard Baptist Church in Kentucky.

49:17

Basically the pastor at this church says, you

49:19

guys in this congregation, I want

49:21

Brad to tell you this story personally, so I'm

49:24

going to give him the space to speak. Where in Kentucky are

49:26

we? I don't know. But he's

49:29

this guy gets up in front of the congregation and there is

49:31

video of him speaking to

49:33

this small ish

49:36

church. Okay. But it's on

49:38

video. And basically he tells a story about how

49:40

his daughter's public high school guidance

49:42

counselor has been really trying

49:44

to separate him and his wife from his

49:47

daughter. And he wants everyone to be aware

49:49

that there's some shit going down in the public schools

49:51

and they all need to be aware of it. I will give

49:54

you his version of the story because he

49:56

spoke for like 20 minutes here. Here's

49:58

his version of the story. last

50:00

September, 2022, his daughter who is 16 years

50:02

old, she

50:05

asked her parents, hey, my 17 year

50:07

old female friend, she's having

50:09

some difficulties at home. Can she stay

50:11

with us for a while? And

50:14

he said, this is the sort of thing we've done before.

50:16

Like these kids, our kids friends

50:19

often stay at our place. It's not weird.

50:21

So the fact that she said, sure. And

50:23

she said, oh, my friend's going through some stuff. Can

50:26

she stay over? They said fine.

50:27

Sorry, tell me the age again.

50:28

I'm sorry. So she's under 16, her friend was 17. They're

50:31

in high school. Okay, fine. Six months later,

50:34

this dad finds out, I

50:36

forgot how it doesn't matter. He finds out those

50:38

two girls were not just friends.

50:40

They had a relationship. He called

50:43

it a quote, romantic involvement.

50:45

Their daughter denied it at first. She's like, I'm

50:48

not gay, unquote. But then she admitted

50:50

there was a relationship and the family

50:52

obviously not happy. Not interested

50:54

in that. They claimed they were unhappy

50:57

that she lied to them about it, but

50:59

also he wants to make sure everyone

51:01

knows he's not cool with this either.

51:04

Had she been honest from the beginning, he would not

51:06

have been okay with it, obviously. So what

51:09

he says is they said, we

51:11

love you no matter what, but a same

51:13

sex relationship is not allowed,

51:16

his words, not allowed in our home, not

51:18

while you're under our roof. They

51:20

punished her for lying to them. And

51:22

then they forbid her from seeing her girlfriend.

51:25

Like you can't drive the car for a couple of weeks. There's

51:27

a lot of movies about high schoolers and that always

51:29

works. Good job, Ken.

51:30

So here's where it gets...

51:32

To me, that's a domestic family

51:35

problem and they got to work through that. A

51:37

lot of people who come out have been through

51:39

something. It is a sad story that is not uncommon, unfortunately.

51:42

So he goes on with this story. That was all

51:44

in September when the friend-girlfriend

51:47

started staying at their house. In February,

51:49

he learns that a counselor at the Daughters

51:52

High School in Anderson County, that's

51:54

where we're at, that a counselor there,

51:57

quote, knew absolutely everything

51:59

about our...

51:59

entire situation and basically

52:02

told his daughter, the counselor said, she

52:04

can't believe her parents are punishing her for

52:06

being gay and

52:08

according to the dad she even suggested

52:10

that my daughter get emancipated from

52:13

us.

52:15

And when the two of them, the daughter

52:17

and the counselor realized you can't just

52:19

get emancipated on a whim, counselor's

52:21

next plan was to quote develop a

52:24

false child protective service

52:26

order, like call the welfare

52:28

officials saying my parents are abusing

52:30

me so I can get separated

52:32

from them and the counselor's like goading

52:35

their child into making

52:37

that happen. And the dad

52:39

goes on to say the counselor wanted my wife

52:41

to lose her teaching job, she

52:44

suggested our daughter could move into

52:46

her basement, the counselor's basement,

52:49

he alleged that the counselor urged their

52:51

daughter to bait the parents into

52:53

getting angry and yelling at her

52:56

and saying really damning things

52:58

which the daughter could then record and use as evidence

53:01

that she needed to be safe. By the way as

53:03

a brown child this is totally

53:06

stuff that like oh yeah

53:08

I'm gonna I'm gonna call CPS

53:10

or child protective anything on you and there

53:13

is a joke I've seen stand-up comedians do

53:15

this like oh yeah call

53:17

CPS I'm sure they'll come right away

53:19

says the parents like that's a brown

53:22

family thing it's an immigrant family

53:24

thing for sure like where

53:26

your parents are mean to you and you're like well

53:28

I'm gonna call the cops on you and

53:31

they're like uh-huh

53:32

I want to say before we go even if every

53:34

other word of this is true it isn't

53:37

the idea of

53:39

she goaded us into yelling

53:41

at her and what saying some something

53:43

bad saying something an exploit like offensive

53:46

thing like um I

53:48

have a pretty quick temper you could not go

53:51

me into screaming at my

53:54

child I will tell you that right fucking

53:56

now you can't go to me into screaming up my students

53:58

because I'm an adult and I I don't scream

54:01

when I'm angry. I'm children.

54:02

Go ahead. Let's

54:04

hear the G-bag.

54:06

He goes on to say he found over 200 text

54:08

messages between

54:11

the counselor and his daughter. He said she was

54:13

regularly pulled out of class to meet

54:16

with the counselor and the forbidden girlfriend.

54:19

Her grades started dropping. She got moody,

54:22

which is something that never happens to teenagers.

54:23

I have never had a mood in my entire life.

54:26

And then he says that one day

54:29

a child protective service official

54:31

came to their home to tell the parents

54:34

they were going to be charged with emotional abuse.

54:37

And it was only then. That's when they found out about

54:39

all these text messages. Basically,

54:42

their argument is our daughter is getting close

54:44

to the counselor to the point where the

54:46

counselor.

54:48

He thinks she's interfering in his life. Correct.

54:50

Because she's overstepping her counseling duties.

54:52

Correct. And at one point, one of the texts,

54:54

and this is probably the most damning thing, is

54:57

when the girl says, hey, my

54:59

parents are on to the fact

55:02

that I've been talking to you about

55:04

this stuff. And I don't want you to be blindsided

55:06

by the fact that they know. Here's

55:08

what the counselor texted back to

55:11

the daughter. And we have screenshots.

55:15

Your parents, she said, they can

55:17

take their pick from me,

55:19

who is the cheerleader of the gays, Ashley,

55:23

I guess another counselor or someone, who is the trashy

55:25

lesbian, or Melissa, who is the assistant

55:27

superintendent's wife who will make her lose

55:30

her job. Which is a dumb

55:33

thing for a counselor, she's saying. Not

55:35

great.

55:36

But I understand

55:39

what she's.

55:39

She's basically saying, if your parents don't want

55:42

you to talk to me, guess what? The

55:44

other counselors are pretty much on the same page is

55:46

how I interpret that.

55:47

Yeah. And it

55:49

felt to me a little like, oh, they want

55:51

you. They can go through me. There

55:53

was an

55:54

argument to be made. Not great

55:56

compared to forbidding your

55:59

child. child to express their

56:01

personal sexuality? That feels worse

56:03

to me. But what do I know?

56:05

I don't have children. Right. Now,

56:07

according to the dad, it was after

56:10

all this happened where the counselor, I

56:12

would think jokingly, says there's

56:14

another counselor you could talk to who will make your mom

56:16

lose her job if she tries to come after us.

56:18

Which is?

56:19

But. I got not okay, but.

56:21

After that happened, according to the dad, our

56:23

daughter came to her senses and realized,

56:26

I'm using the word here, like she was being groomed.

56:30

According to the dad, she realized that the

56:32

counselor cared way more

56:34

about her cause and about destroying

56:37

you.

56:38

Dad. You?

56:39

Dad, than she ever did about helping me. That's

56:42

what their daughter said to them, apparently. Sure, that sounds like

56:44

a thing a daughter would say.

56:45

I know a lot of teenage girls and they all talk exactly

56:47

like that, which is wild. So

56:49

anyway, the parents go to the superintendent

56:52

about all this. There is an investigation.

56:55

And according to the dad, when the results

56:57

came in from the investigation, the findings

57:00

revealed in the dad's words that

57:02

everything the counselor did was in

57:04

good faith. And so. Sounds

57:07

right to me. He didn't say that there was gonna be any punishment

57:09

or not, but that like you're

57:12

reading too much into this basically. We're not

57:14

gonna do anything. You're assigning a narrative that doesn't exist.

57:16

So his conclusion, according to the dad, speaking

57:19

to this congregation, you better not

57:21

be a Christian in Anderson County.

57:24

Because people in power. That's his

57:26

conclusion? Because people in powerful positions

57:28

who disagree with you will do whatever it takes

57:30

to get you fired or imprisoned.

57:33

Is he fired or in prison? No. Okay.

57:36

Nope.

57:36

So I feel like his story on his face

57:39

is false.

57:39

So here's where we're at. That happened at the beginning

57:41

of the month. Okay, I need to hear. That's why we have not

57:43

seen a lot of coverage of this because he's watching that live

57:45

stream of the church sermon. So boring. So

57:48

ever since that monologue, the family did lawyer

57:50

up. They got a lawyer to send a letter

57:52

to the school board. Not,

57:54

there hasn't been a lawsuit yet. They wrote

57:57

a letter to the school board detailing

57:59

this whole- story with screenshots

58:01

and whatever actual names, facts they

58:03

could get their hands on. They

58:06

argue that the superintendent violated

58:09

her professional code of ethics because

58:12

the investigation didn't really take this seriously.

58:14

They argue that the counselor, obviously,

58:17

they say violated her professional code of ethics

58:20

by like basically ingratiating herself

58:22

into the daughter's life in a way that goes

58:24

beyond what was appropriate.

58:27

And what they write is in retrospect, it

58:29

seems clear that the counselor was

58:32

trying to thwart the family's

58:34

parental decisions in order

58:36

to facilitate the daughter and the classmate's

58:38

romantic relationship.

58:41

I mean, yeah,

58:42

but yeah,

58:46

yeah, she did that, but that's not

58:48

a bad thing.

58:49

I guess it's my thing. They also allege

58:51

that the counselor warned the daughter that

58:53

if the parents took her to a therapist, which

58:55

is one thing they talked about, like your daughter's

58:57

going through some tough times, you take her to therapy.

59:00

The counselor allegedly said to the daughter,

59:02

well, if your parents decide who your therapist

59:04

is going to be some Christian counselor who subjects

59:07

you to conversion therapy, and the

59:09

letter says that's the direct assault on

59:12

our family. They

59:15

said the counselor, quote, tried to steer

59:17

their daughter to a more affirming therapist,

59:20

but the family opted for a more, quote,

59:22

objective option. Whatever

59:25

the hell that is. They

59:29

said the superintendent did not meaningfully evaluate

59:32

the counselors with, oh, they're mad

59:34

because the counselor never told them she was

59:36

talking to their daughter about any of this stuff.

59:38

Yeah, they said the

59:41

superintendent did not meaningfully evaluate

59:44

the counselor's withholding of information

59:46

from the parents.

59:47

What do you know? Okay. Maybe you'll

59:50

talk about what is an obligation for

59:52

it. So I know the laws about, I

59:54

will get into that. You will. Okay. Yeah. Okay. The

59:56

letter ultimately lays out all the ways the counselor

59:58

overstepped her boundaries. neglected her duties,

1:00:01

how the superintendent failed to hold her accountable.

1:00:04

And okay, I will grant that

1:00:06

I think the text messaging

1:00:08

inappropriate should not have happened. Some of those

1:00:10

text messages, absolutely inappropriate.

1:00:13

And you know what, that person should be reprimanded

1:00:15

for some of those things. No doubt I'm not

1:00:17

arguing on any of that. Now, to your

1:00:19

point, I think if a

1:00:21

counselor has reason to believe a student

1:00:24

is in danger at home, however

1:00:26

you want to define that, because of her sexual

1:00:29

orientation or gender identity, among

1:00:31

other reasons, she has a legal obligation

1:00:33

to keep the students safe. And that could

1:00:35

very well mean not disclosing that information

1:00:37

to her parents. That's why we've seen some

1:00:39

laws in red states or school board, red conservative

1:00:42

school board, where it's like if a kid comes out as

1:00:44

trans, you have to tell the parents

1:00:47

and counselors and responsible

1:00:49

people, of course, are like, that's a horrible

1:00:51

idea, because the reason the student is telling

1:00:54

me about this and not their parents

1:00:56

is because they think they're in danger at home.

1:00:58

I do find that informing

1:01:00

parents about everything. No,

1:01:02

like parents that are mad that their kids are

1:01:04

keeping secrets. It's like, to some extent,

1:01:06

kids just keep secrets because they're dirty

1:01:09

liars. But

1:01:11

you have clearly proved

1:01:13

that you are not a person who can

1:01:15

be trusted with a secret and kids

1:01:18

pick up on that shit really fast.

1:01:20

Because if you tell your parents something in confidence

1:01:22

and then you hear them laughing about it with

1:01:25

your aunt and uncle or whatever, that

1:01:27

is something that's saved with you, not that I'm pulling

1:01:29

from my own life.

1:01:30

One thing we don't know

1:01:32

is, did the counselor

1:01:35

believe this girl was in danger

1:01:37

at home? Because I think that is relevant

1:01:39

to this conversation,

1:01:41

but that's also not

1:01:42

something the public has a right to know

1:01:44

about because that's a confidential thing.

1:01:46

I mean, if CPS

1:01:48

got involved, I have to think there

1:01:50

were

1:01:51

some kind of paper

1:01:54

trail, right?

1:01:55

Maybe. Now here's the only thing the superintendent

1:01:57

has said publicly. This is a statements

1:02:00

that she put out a week ago, I have

1:02:03

become aware of the video posted on the church's

1:02:05

Facebook page alleging many accusations.

1:02:08

I have been asked to provide a statement regarding

1:02:10

this video and the content of it. Basically,

1:02:14

the law, the rights of students

1:02:17

and privacy rights of staff, do not

1:02:19

allow me as superintendent to discuss

1:02:22

preliminary details, confirm or deny

1:02:24

publicly made accusations, content,

1:02:26

or the outcome of the investigation unless

1:02:29

the parents of the student sign a release

1:02:31

for me to openly discuss this matter publicly.

1:02:34

Whoa, that's a twist. What

1:02:37

do you mean the parents haven't signed a release?

1:02:38

As we are recording

1:02:41

this,

1:02:41

the superintendent, I'm not taking it seriously,

1:02:43

but refused to give her the opportunity

1:02:45

to explain her side.

1:02:47

I don't know what the parents have done. Maybe they're waiting

1:02:49

to find out if they can do this, if they should do this.

1:02:51

She wrote at the end of the statement, if the parents

1:02:53

sign a release for me to respond publicly,

1:02:56

I will provide an updated release

1:02:58

with additional information.

1:02:59

And they did and she did. And none of that has

1:03:01

happened yet. I have to believe

1:03:04

that actually we

1:03:05

get I have to believe the parents

1:03:07

have not signed off on her talking publicly

1:03:09

about what's actually going on on their side. Because right

1:03:11

now, all we have is the dad's

1:03:13

version of the story and his lawyer's version

1:03:15

of the family stories. Truly, we do

1:03:17

not have the school side of anything.

1:03:19

Even if you take every single word

1:03:22

that he says at face

1:03:24

value, I am sorry,

1:03:27

is it bad that I don't see like, yeah, the texting

1:03:29

was inappropriate, but not like, capital

1:03:32

I inappropriate. I'm just like, hey, don't talk

1:03:34

to kids like you talk to other adults, that kind of thing.

1:03:37

Right. But like,

1:03:38

so

1:03:40

the dead side of the story is my

1:03:43

daughter was lying to

1:03:45

me because she was

1:03:48

queer, sort of

1:03:50

some stripe, didn't feel comfortable

1:03:53

saying it to me, I fell in

1:03:55

love with this other girl. And

1:03:58

as I am starting to feel

1:03:59

more feelings, I am realizing that this is

1:04:02

not a safe place for me to be because of how my

1:04:04

parents have spoken about gay people in the past.

1:04:07

So I'm going to talk to a safe person,

1:04:09

my counselor, which is what they're there for.

1:04:11

They are not going to relay this to my parents because

1:04:14

again, that's not their job. Their job

1:04:16

is not to say like, Hey, you're being mean.

1:04:18

It is to give these kids the

1:04:20

courage and the resources to

1:04:23

live their life as honestly as they know

1:04:25

how. And

1:04:26

keep in mind that not affirming LGBTQ

1:04:29

students has disastrous

1:04:31

consequences. I'm going

1:04:34

to show you one other picture in a second here. So Monday

1:04:36

night of this week, there was a school board meeting

1:04:39

planned. There was a school board meeting

1:04:41

and the conservative Christian

1:04:43

community basically said, we got to jam pack

1:04:46

this school board meeting and voice

1:04:48

our concerns. And the board, like

1:04:50

if you watch this entire meeting, it went for like an

1:04:52

hour, hour and a half. It opens

1:04:55

up with one of the board representatives or someone

1:04:57

basically saying, listen, I want you

1:04:59

all to know we are here to listen to

1:05:01

you. We will, you will have time to

1:05:03

speak if you signed up to speak and whatever,

1:05:06

however their process was, they wanted

1:05:08

everyone to know we as a board

1:05:10

do not have the authority to

1:05:13

fire anybody on a whim, but

1:05:15

we are listening to you and we want to

1:05:18

listen to you. So just, you're going to tell

1:05:20

us like, get rid of the counselor or whatever. We

1:05:22

legally cannot do that. So don't expect

1:05:24

us to do that. We're not taking a vote on this.

1:05:26

We are here to listen. And then it was an hour

1:05:29

of conservative Christians basically accusing

1:05:31

them and preparing everything this

1:05:33

guy said. You could see a picture actually. One

1:05:35

of the guys who spoke at that meeting was Brad

1:05:38

Briscoe on Monday and you could

1:05:40

see his daughter standing in the middle of the parents.

1:05:43

I can't tell, like I do not

1:05:45

care to comment on the daughter at all. I

1:05:47

don't know if she genuinely had a change on the counselor.

1:05:50

Like she really did flip back to her parents

1:05:52

or what

1:05:52

she's really happy to be there and her

1:05:55

convictions. Yeah. I'm sure she changed

1:05:57

her mind. No idea. And as straight as an arrow now.

1:05:59

Like, come on, they fucking

1:06:02

bullied her into this.

1:06:03

One of the speakers who spoke at that school

1:06:05

board meeting said the counselor's actions

1:06:07

may have been millstone

1:06:10

offenses, which is a reference

1:06:12

to a Bible verse that says if you cause

1:06:14

someone else to sin, we'd be better

1:06:16

off if you put a millstone around your neck and you were

1:06:18

drowned. Who? What? Oh

1:06:21

yeah, it's... How is that not a threat?

1:06:23

It very much is, but it's done

1:06:26

in Christianese. Others treated

1:06:28

it as a religious revival. They were just

1:06:30

viewing Bible verses. So,

1:06:33

this is where we're at. Like, what comes next?

1:06:35

Jesus said about school counselors

1:06:37

that they should always honor

1:06:39

the mother of their student. Like, fuck you guys,

1:06:42

you're just

1:06:42

spinning your wheels.

1:06:43

You're mad that they aren't

1:06:46

afraid of you anymore. Will the district

1:06:48

release the superintendent's findings on

1:06:50

the counselors so the public can kind of see what

1:06:52

did you find when you investigated the matter? Will

1:06:55

they cave to this Christian mob that's

1:06:57

out for blood and like fire the counselor

1:06:59

and superintendent? What mistakes

1:07:01

would district officials say were made? What...

1:07:04

and I'm very curious, what does this

1:07:06

Christian mob wish that

1:07:08

the counselor had done? Because I

1:07:11

feel like whatever their response is, you should

1:07:13

have told the parents right away. Like, that

1:07:15

does not protect students and that

1:07:17

would be a bad idea. But

1:07:18

these aren't people who are interested in protecting

1:07:20

students. These are interested in people protecting

1:07:23

parents who treat their kids like extensions

1:07:25

of themselves.

1:07:26

That statement I read to you from the superintendent

1:07:28

that was made over a week and a half ago. On

1:07:31

Tuesday of this week, the Lexington

1:07:33

Herald leader reported on the school board

1:07:35

meeting that took place Monday night. They reached

1:07:37

out to the superintendent who said, again,

1:07:40

I'm not able to comment on anything stated by the parents

1:07:43

because I

1:07:44

don't have a release from them yet. So, she's

1:07:47

still gagged by the law. And

1:07:49

again, so

1:07:50

that's it. Stop yelling at me. Yell at them.

1:07:53

You know, like they're the ones... these

1:07:56

fucking people.

1:07:57

Yeah, these people I think want any

1:07:59

counselor. who acts on behalf of an LGBTQ

1:08:02

student to be treated like an enemy who opposes

1:08:04

parental rights and religious freedom. And

1:08:07

there's no way for the school board to appease

1:08:09

a mob that is doing that. So punishing the counselor

1:08:12

is not going to make them happy because at that

1:08:14

point they will start going after every other teacher

1:08:17

and administrator and support staff that supports

1:08:19

LGBTQ students. I

1:08:22

think the board just has to say, we

1:08:24

looked at the superintendent's report

1:08:26

and they can decide was it a fair

1:08:28

professionally conducted report and

1:08:31

if it was then

1:08:32

you leave it at that and if people don't

1:08:34

like it they don't like it. And they can decide

1:08:36

if the superintendent gets to decide was

1:08:38

the counselor's actions within

1:08:41

her professional duties. If they are

1:08:43

then say that. If they cross the line

1:08:45

then be clear about what lines were crossed

1:08:47

and discipline accordingly

1:08:50

and that's it. I guess I don't understand

1:08:52

what line, I

1:08:54

mean the text, I guess the text message. I

1:08:57

think this

1:09:00

thing about you can stay in my basement

1:09:02

if you need to or whatever, is not one of the

1:09:04

accusations from the dad is that

1:09:07

if you need to you can stay with me

1:09:08

or no? I don't know, I feel

1:09:10

like that's something I would say to one of my writing students of

1:09:13

if you feel like you can't go somewhere else I can

1:09:15

put a roof over your head. And

1:09:16

I don't know what the rules are for public school counselors

1:09:19

but there are probably lines

1:09:21

about here's what you're allowed to say or do

1:09:23

or what you can't. And that's all I care

1:09:26

about in terms of what should happen to the counselor.

1:09:28

Right. It's alright well did she cross the

1:09:30

ethical lines? If so fine then she'll

1:09:32

be disciplined accordingly. It's whatever.

1:09:34

It's just really frustrating to hear about parents

1:09:37

who think they're being left out of their kid's

1:09:39

life without doing eight ounces

1:09:41

soul searching as to why that is. Apparently

1:09:44

there's like Facebook groups of parents

1:09:47

whose children are estranged like parents

1:09:49

whose children cut them out of their life and all they do is

1:09:51

just talk about how terrible their kids are and how much they hate them

1:09:53

and how they owe them a relationship.

1:09:54

And how the public schools destroy

1:09:56

them. I go back to if your kids

1:09:59

are telling your kids. teachers to use

1:10:01

a pronoun or they're telling a

1:10:03

counselor something like what this child said

1:10:05

if they're not telling you as their

1:10:07

parents that should be your

1:10:09

concern that they don't trust you enough

1:10:12

with this and they felt more

1:10:14

safe at school around those

1:10:16

other adults whatever by the way interesting

1:10:19

side note last year that same district

1:10:21

passed a policy change requiring teachers

1:10:24

to use students preferred pronouns

1:10:26

and the counselor in question was

1:10:28

in the news at that time supporting

1:10:31

that policy because she sounds pretty dope and

1:10:34

in one of the articles I read she described herself

1:10:36

as a born-again Christian

1:10:38

well

1:10:40

doesn't change anything square you're like

1:10:42

where's your argument now but doesn't change

1:10:44

anything but it's a reminder that even Christians disagree

1:10:47

on how to handle these issues let me there's

1:10:52

a couple other things that these are just happier

1:10:55

nice nice change stories

1:10:58

this is an interesting one

1:11:00

in April American

1:11:01

atheist filed a lawsuit on behalf

1:11:04

of an inmate in a West Virginia prison

1:11:06

and there's an update to this story here's

1:11:08

here's the backstory a guy named Andrew Miller

1:11:11

he had entered prison in 2021 he was

1:11:13

convicted of breaking and entering he was

1:11:16

given a sentence of one to ten years his

1:11:19

projected release date is April of 2025 okay

1:11:23

but if you're a good quote-unquote if you're a good

1:11:25

inmate you can get out earlier on

1:11:27

good behavior so that's kind of where he was at

1:11:30

we're not debating the justice

1:11:32

of that whether he did it not like he was

1:11:34

convicted he was in jail all right fine

1:11:37

yep he did his time um he

1:11:39

also had a substance abuse problem

1:11:41

and if you were an inmate who has that

1:11:44

you have to go through a substance abuse treatment

1:11:46

program right exactly so that's the idea he was

1:11:48

not arguing this he

1:11:53

was fine with going through a treatment program but

1:11:55

the West Virginia prison they made

1:11:57

him go through a specific type of treatment

1:12:00

program that required you to, it's

1:12:02

not just nebulous

1:12:05

higher power stuff. This program

1:12:08

included the Lord's Prayer, the Serenity

1:12:10

Prayer, the 12 Steps which reference a

1:12:12

higher power. There were like, it's

1:12:15

very religious. One part of the handbook

1:12:17

told participants, for our group

1:12:19

purpose there is but one ultimate authority,

1:12:22

a loving God, as he may express himself

1:12:24

in our group conscience. Our leaders

1:12:26

are but trusted servants. They do not govern.

1:12:30

How does that make people feel better? I don't know. Of

1:12:32

like these people don't know what the fuck they're talking about, but

1:12:35

God's sticking through that.

1:12:36

Another piece of homework that the inmates

1:12:38

would have to do in this course, they had to

1:12:41

write a little essay or paragraph saying

1:12:43

what God means to me, what prayer means

1:12:45

to me.

1:12:45

So basically Miller says, No,

1:12:48

is this a Christian daycare center?

1:12:50

Right, that's called prison. Yeah, he basically

1:12:52

says, I don't want to do I'm not

1:12:55

religious. I'm an atheist. Yeah, I shouldn't

1:12:57

have to do that. I am fine going through

1:12:59

a substance abuse treatment program. And there are

1:13:01

alternatives and he offered some and

1:13:03

they said, No, you got to go through it. And

1:13:07

his request was denied. He challenged

1:13:09

it. The challenges were denied. And

1:13:11

what happened is that when he went in

1:13:14

front of the parole board to get

1:13:16

his freedom, because

1:13:18

he didn't complete the substance abuse

1:13:20

treatment program, he was

1:13:22

denied parole three separate times.

1:13:25

That's when American Atheists took up this case

1:13:27

earlier this year. And it

1:13:30

wasn't again, we already discussed

1:13:32

why it was a ridiculous he could he suggested

1:13:34

alternatives. They said no, he

1:13:37

tried fixing it on his own. It got nowhere.

1:13:39

The lawsuit was like the last resort.

1:13:42

And the thing is, earlier impressed by the

1:13:44

courage of his convictions, because I would have folded

1:13:46

like a no kidding. If that was

1:13:48

what I was offered, I'd be like, Great, can't

1:13:51

wait. Love you, God.

1:13:52

In July, a US district

1:13:55

judge basically issued a preliminary

1:13:57

injunction saying remove the are

1:14:00

the religious program to the prison.

1:14:02

He said you got to get rid of the program from this

1:14:05

guy's re-entry plan and

1:14:08

see to it that this is not a factor

1:14:10

in his eligibility for parole. He

1:14:12

said that preliminarily. It's

1:14:15

a great ruling. I think we discussed it when

1:14:18

that happens. The judge also pointed

1:14:20

out other states have similar programs and

1:14:22

they have faced lawsuits and courts have unanimously

1:14:25

agreed that the religious content

1:14:27

of those programs violated the constitution. So

1:14:30

you have to give this guy an alternative. You have two options.

1:14:33

Give him an alternative that he can complete in

1:14:36

a fair amount of time or just

1:14:39

don't hold this against him if

1:14:41

he doesn't do it.

1:14:42

I bet he's clean sober in prison. I

1:14:44

mean it's not that easy. Everybody shut up.

1:14:47

So throughout the ruling

1:14:49

the judge at the time, this is back in July, repeatedly

1:14:52

use words like they're coercing him into

1:14:54

religious exercise. They've substantially

1:14:57

burdened. They

1:14:59

have substantially burdened his protected

1:15:02

religious exercise. I think he's likely

1:15:04

to succeed on his merit claim.

1:15:06

So that was back in July. Okay.

1:15:08

But

1:15:10

at that time he's still in prison.

1:15:13

The update that we got this week from American

1:15:15

Atheists. Oh by the way, I do want to point this

1:15:18

out. In the ruling,

1:15:21

one of the things the judge pointed out, I'm going to read

1:15:23

this from his ruling in July, had

1:15:25

Mr. Miller simply submitted to

1:15:27

defendants coercion and completed

1:15:30

the treatment program, he likely would

1:15:32

no longer be incarcerated. Mr.

1:15:34

Miller should not be further punished for

1:15:37

bringing this troubling policy to light.

1:15:39

Yeah. But again, when

1:15:41

that was

1:15:41

issued, he's still

1:15:43

there. The update that we got this week,

1:15:46

a couple of things.

1:15:47

One is there's basically a settlement. They're

1:15:49

not going to go through anything else here. But

1:15:51

the end result is he is

1:15:53

now a free man. Congratulations.

1:15:56

The substance abuse program was not

1:15:59

used. It's... for his eligibility for

1:16:01

parole. So in the parole board, oh, by

1:16:03

the way, one of the things that happened is they said, even if he went

1:16:05

through a secular version of the program, well,

1:16:07

guess what? By October of this year, this

1:16:10

was in July, they said in October, he has another

1:16:12

meeting in front of the parole board. He wouldn't

1:16:14

be done with the secular alternative. So

1:16:17

like, even if you decided now to do the

1:16:19

right thing, it's still not gonna

1:16:21

be fast enough. So they ultimately said,

1:16:23

fine, we're just not gonna say he has to complete

1:16:26

it for the sake of the parole board. And guess what?

1:16:28

He was in front of the parole board in October,

1:16:30

and he didn't have that weighing him down. They

1:16:32

decided, yeah, you can go free. So

1:16:35

he is a free man now. That policy

1:16:37

is no longer being used to keep him incarcerated.

1:16:40

And the West Virginia Department,

1:16:42

what is it? The West Virginia Department

1:16:45

Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation,

1:16:48

they have said, we are changing our

1:16:50

policies so that no one else has

1:16:52

to go through this either.

1:16:53

I would see it for financial compensation.

1:16:56

We'll see what happens. But they've changed their policy.

1:16:58

And that includes using a secular

1:17:01

program called Smart Recovery as an acceptable

1:17:03

substitute. The

1:17:06

settlement document was not publicly

1:17:08

available. So I'm going off of what American Atheists

1:17:10

said. The prison has also

1:17:12

agreed to pay $80,000 in legal fees to

1:17:15

American Atheists and a group they worked with

1:17:18

on this called Mountain State Justice. And

1:17:21

again, this guy didn't cave.

1:17:22

Had he just lied and said,

1:17:25

all right, what you suggested, like

1:17:27

if he just lied and said, I love Jesus, just

1:17:29

so we could get out, he would have to be lying in

1:17:32

order to convince the parole board, he's a good guy

1:17:34

who can be trusted. There's some irony for

1:17:36

you. But because he actually told the truth, they

1:17:39

held it against him. He

1:17:41

did reach out in an email statement to

1:17:43

me and he said, I'm so happy

1:17:45

that the judge ruled in our favor, but

1:17:47

no one should have to compromise their beliefs

1:17:50

just to be given a fair chance at release. I

1:17:52

want people to understand their rights and for

1:17:54

government officials to understand that they can't

1:17:56

force religious beliefs on people no

1:17:58

matter what their situation.

1:18:00

which good for him I think

1:18:02

there's also from my understanding a lot of issues

1:18:04

with the transparency of the parole

1:18:06

process that it's entirely

1:18:08

like subjective so I think

1:18:11

in arbitrary so I hope this

1:18:14

all shines a light on that as well

1:18:15

I hope so good for him and by the way there

1:18:17

was a second story this week also about

1:18:20

a prisoner who didn't want to go through Christian

1:18:22

services this one's even more disturbing and I don't know

1:18:24

if or when we talked about this last because

1:18:27

it's been several years I remember it's a

1:18:29

we he

1:18:38

was in prison basically

1:18:40

in 2015 he was released from prison

1:18:43

paroled whatever his parole officer

1:18:46

at the time whose last name is Gamez

1:18:49

basically said to Jani if you want to remain

1:18:51

out of prison and it's this guy's responsibility

1:18:54

to say yeah the prisoners the

1:18:56

ex-prisoner is on the right track he can

1:18:59

remain free he's not a threat to anybody it's all

1:19:01

good this guy said if you want to remain

1:19:03

out of prison you have to have a residence

1:19:06

of record you have to have a place to stay

1:19:08

oh and for whatever reason I don't know what options

1:19:10

this guy had but I don't know that he had

1:19:13

any real options

1:19:14

I mean just kicking people out of prison with nothing

1:19:16

but the clothes on the back is not a good idea I think

1:19:18

he actually

1:19:18

said he had family he could live with but they didn't

1:19:21

use they'd said no you can't do that option I

1:19:23

don't know what the reason was but the parole officer says

1:19:26

you can live at the Denver rescue mission

1:19:28

which is a Christian homeless shelter and

1:19:31

this guy says I don't mind doing

1:19:33

that but he basically says I'm

1:19:35

not Christian and this particular

1:19:38

place like they required you to go

1:19:40

through Bible study like real Christian

1:19:43

yeah yeah yeah um they made him

1:19:45

go through all that if he wanted

1:19:47

to stay at this worship services

1:19:50

Bible study faith-based counseling

1:19:52

you would have to do all that if you wanted to stay there he

1:19:54

said I don't want to do any of that stuff

1:19:57

and then they kicked him out of the

1:19:59

shelter

1:19:59

They said you can't live here because they're

1:20:02

Christian

1:20:03

and because he didn't have a residence The

1:20:05

parole officer said well, then you got to go back

1:20:07

to prison

1:20:08

Jesus fucking Christ these

1:20:10

fucking

1:20:10

people And when

1:20:13

the parole board When

1:20:15

Jesus all the time when the parole board

1:20:17

saw him a few weeks later They agreed

1:20:20

that he violated his parole by not having

1:20:22

a place to stay So they sent him back to prison

1:20:24

and this led to five additional months

1:20:27

behind bars.

1:20:28

America is cool I have no notes

1:20:30

on America.

1:20:30

So in short he was incarcerated unnecessarily

1:20:34

After he served his time all because

1:20:36

he refused to participate in a Christian ministry

1:20:39

now just I'm gonna fast forward a little bit

1:20:41

here He sued he didn't have any lawyers.

1:20:43

He tried to do it himself. It didn't work boy

1:20:46

They tossed out his case But in June

1:20:48

of 2020 the ACLU

1:20:50

gets involved Americans united for separation of church

1:20:53

and state gets involved basically saying Yeah, you

1:20:55

tossed out his case cuz like he didn't know what he was

1:20:57

doing. Yeah We're appealing on his

1:20:59

behalf and What

1:21:01

happened is in 2021? The

1:21:05

an appellate court overturned the

1:21:07

dismissal so he has not won

1:21:09

anything yet. They basically said yeah Fine

1:21:11

here it though. We will allow you

1:21:13

to maybe hear it. But when they

1:21:15

tossed it out We're saying they shouldn't have done that

1:21:18

try again So that's where

1:21:20

we were at a while ago. So he tried again

1:21:22

and here's the update to that

1:21:24

story this week on Tuesday a different Well

1:21:27

a US district judge said you can

1:21:30

Move forward on your claim

1:21:33

to recover financial damages for

1:21:35

the alleged violations of your religious freedom Okay,

1:21:38

the other side the jail the

1:21:40

parole officer tried to say like

1:21:42

no, I have immunity I work for the government

1:21:45

and they're like, no you don't that doesn't

1:21:47

get you out of this

1:21:48

You

1:21:50

would think that

1:21:51

Basically here's how

1:21:53

the ACLU summarized this week's ruling Mark

1:21:56

Janney is eligible to recover

1:21:58

punitive damages compensatory

1:22:00

damages for the loss of liberty and economic

1:22:03

damages for the loss of wages For

1:22:05

part of that period and nominal damages.

1:22:08

So basically he hasn't won anything Just

1:22:11

the lawsuit against the parole officer

1:22:13

can move forward and kind that

1:22:16

case is scheduled to go to trial next July

1:22:19

It's I know it takes a while But it's

1:22:21

a huge victory and as Rachel laser

1:22:24

of a you put it our government

1:22:26

must never force anyone to practice a faith

1:22:29

That is not their own and of course must

1:22:31

never jail anyone for refusing to submit

1:22:33

to religious

1:22:36

I'm glad it's moving forward. It's a long time

1:22:39

since we've had an update in that case So I'm glad

1:22:41

to see he can hopefully

1:22:43

seek financial damages and we'll see

1:22:45

now It's at least gonna be ruled judged

1:22:48

on the merits and not yeah, you know,

1:22:50

did you do it, right?

1:22:51

Yeah, yeah an arbitrary rules

1:22:53

of knowing law.

1:22:54

So yay. I got one last thing for you because

1:22:56

it made me laugh. Oh boy there's

1:22:59

a Twitter alternative called blue sky and

1:23:02

on blue sky one of the Topics

1:23:04

of conversation has been a rhetorical

1:23:06

question that is so dumb

1:23:09

That everyone has to weigh in on it because of how stupid

1:23:12

it is. It was asked on

1:23:14

Quora, which is that weird site?

1:23:17

Fight a hundred horse sides ducks

1:23:19

or one duck side

1:23:20

horse like that's a good question on

1:23:22

reddit and gets a lot of conversation Now

1:23:25

here's the question that the screenshot

1:23:27

was posted and then everyone's like

1:23:29

wait,

1:23:30

wait, I have to wait what? Okay Here's

1:23:32

the question Let me read the whole

1:23:34

thing and then feel free to weigh in I will

1:23:37

huh atheist Imagine

1:23:39

you're going skydiving with

1:23:42

a Christian baby Suddenly

1:23:44

the baby tells you he won't open

1:23:46

his parachute Until

1:23:49

you renounce atheism and accept Jesus

1:23:51

as your Lord and Savior.

1:23:52

What would you do?

1:23:59

A big

1:23:59

Baby is skydiving with

1:24:01

me. The one you kidnapped. The

1:24:03

one I kidnapped and threw out of a plane. And

1:24:05

threw out of a plane. Who has his own parachute, by the

1:24:08

way.

1:24:08

And has his own parachute. And the training to

1:24:10

deploy that parachute.

1:24:10

Correct. And the ability

1:24:12

to talk. And the ability to string together

1:24:15

a pretty complicated

1:24:16

es-es-pitological

1:24:19

conundrum, huh? Uh-huh. Es-t-bo-m-l-l-

1:24:21

You say it.

1:24:21

No. Es-es- Nope. Gonna

1:24:23

let you dig your own grave on this

1:24:25

one. Got it. Mm-hmm. Epistemological.

1:24:27

Got it. Nicely done. Woo! Good job.

1:24:30

Baby,

1:24:30

yep, tossed out that hypothetical.

1:24:32

I mean, I would say,

1:24:34

yeah, I would say

1:24:37

I renounce my atheism. And I

1:24:39

believe in Jesus Christ as a method to

1:24:41

save that baby. And I don't

1:24:42

want to get on the ground. Because your pro-life is

1:24:44

what you are saying.

1:24:46

No. No.

1:24:48

No. I am anti-babies

1:24:50

falling out of planes.

1:24:51

Mm. Which I know is a really brave thing. Well, then you

1:24:53

should have thought of that. Should have thought of that before

1:24:55

you kidnapped the baby and threw it out of a plane.

1:24:58

Yeah, I would say, yeah, I'm totally in horny

1:25:00

form right now. Pull

1:25:03

your shoot, baby. And then I would

1:25:05

pick up that baby and find their parents

1:25:06

and be like, he needs to be locked

1:25:08

away. This

1:25:11

child is not OK.

1:25:12

You might have a Damien.

1:25:14

Damien? Yeah. Situates in

1:25:16

on your hands. You hold the baby. You throw it up in the

1:25:18

air.

1:25:18

Uh-huh. Get it away from you. Yeah.

1:25:21

Maybe the parachute's still on the baby. So you throw

1:25:23

it up in the air and hope it catches

1:25:24

the baby. Yeah. Yeah. It's still on

1:25:26

the baby. So you throw it up in the air and hope it catches the wind

1:25:28

and just looks away. Is it attached to the onesie? I

1:25:31

mean, I would think it's like an all-in-one situation,

1:25:33

right? Mm. Well, just like their little bodies

1:25:36

are so small. That's

1:25:39

a lot of weight. A parachute's heavy. But

1:25:41

I guess it's a smaller parachute because it's smaller. Why

1:25:43

does it have a different?

1:25:44

Imagine you're wearing like the baby bjorn

1:25:46

carrying your thing, locking that baby

1:25:48

on your body. But no, this is

1:25:50

a separate parachute. A separate parachute.

1:25:52

There's no instructor, which I think is

1:25:54

interesting. Yeah, just two people jumping out

1:25:56

of a plane. Who's flying the plane? One adult

1:25:58

and one baby. So who's flying the plane?

1:26:01

We don't know. Nobody. Maybe they just jumped

1:26:03

out. Kelly Sullenberger,

1:26:05

for sure.

1:26:08

No, that

1:26:10

is

1:26:11

what... What did the person try

1:26:13

to prove?

1:26:13

Oh, there's no answer. We're

1:26:16

just all staring at the question.

1:26:18

And what is the general universe saying? What's Boyz Guy saying? One answer

1:26:21

is, given the very specific circumstances,

1:26:24

I would either check to see if I'm on drugs

1:26:26

or if the baby is on drugs, and if

1:26:29

it's the latter, find out where I could get some

1:26:31

because clearly those are some good

1:26:33

drugs. Also, I would... I take

1:26:35

my back, I would just grab

1:26:37

the baby.

1:26:38

You could get two parachutes and just have more safety.

1:26:41

No, I mean, I would just grab the baby and deploy

1:26:43

my parachute and just hold the baby until we

1:26:45

get to the ground.

1:26:46

You're very invested in keeping this baby

1:26:48

around. Well, I just don't see

1:26:49

why this baby needs to die for its dumb religious

1:26:52

ideas. Its brain isn't fully developed. It doesn't really

1:26:54

know what it's saying. Someone

1:26:55

ask Iyan Hersey Ali this question. Oh,

1:26:57

that's a good question for her. Let's read

1:27:00

an essay from her answering

1:27:03

the baby parachute Christian question

1:27:05

because somehow

1:27:07

I think it will make more sense

1:27:10

than the essay she currently published. Is

1:27:12

this supposed to be a gotcha thing? Of like,

1:27:14

so you would say it. Like,

1:27:18

what...

1:27:18

You're asking me what the questioner is

1:27:21

thinking and I don't even know what they're going for. Doesn't

1:27:23

it feel like a gotcha question? But you're

1:27:25

like,

1:27:26

um... If you go to Quora,

1:27:28

I was surprised to learn this. Someone pointed this out.

1:27:31

If you go to Quora and type

1:27:33

in Christian baby, there's a whole

1:27:35

universe of Christian baby

1:27:38

rhetorical hypothetical questions

1:27:42

that involve a Christian baby and an atheist.

1:27:44

And this is just a whole genre

1:27:46

of questions.

1:27:48

When I was in high school, dead baby jokes were

1:27:50

very popular. Do you think this is along the same line?

1:27:52

Well, this will be a dead baby joke in like two minutes.

1:27:55

That was pretty funny, actually.

1:27:57

Damn. What a stupid waste

1:27:59

of our time that was.

1:27:59

And with

1:28:02

that, where do we find you for

1:28:04

more enlightened discussions like this? Yeah,

1:28:07

we're going to be on the bonus episode. I

1:28:09

feel like I have some... Oh, I'm going to tell a real cute story about

1:28:11

a horse. Um, and I'm

1:28:13

going to... Gang,

1:28:16

I never thought it would happen to me. My

1:28:18

riding student needed help with her Shakespeare

1:28:20

homework. So I got

1:28:23

to teach a teacher that Shakespeare

1:28:25

is

1:28:27

just rough from the neck.

1:28:29

I don't know what you just said, but I heard

1:28:31

Shakespeare.

1:28:32

Oh, just read Macbeth with her

1:28:34

and got to

1:28:35

reignite my love of Shakespeare.

1:28:38

Maybe I'll read you more hypotheticals in the bonus. Honestly,

1:28:40

can we do a whole bonus episode about that? I'll

1:28:43

put them together. You can find

1:28:45

us, if you like the show, go to patreon.com

1:28:49

slash friendly atheist podcast.

1:28:52

There's also the Discord, there's also

1:28:54

bonus episodes. On Discord,

1:28:56

they made like little reaction emojis

1:28:58

that were like...

1:28:59

Your face.

1:29:00

Well, I knew the face one, but they're like patented,

1:29:03

like to us. Like there's one that says oop-a-doop-a,

1:29:06

which is funny to me. The

1:29:07

Discord people are very good to us.

1:29:09

Yeah, I'm not kidding. Like

1:29:11

somebody was like, oh my God, Joseph's here. I was like, tag me, I'll

1:29:13

be here. I just don't know how

1:29:15

to use it. You can also leave

1:29:18

us a review. This one

1:29:20

is called, this is on iTunes. This

1:29:23

is the best, five stars from Faith Schwenk.

1:29:27

Literally my favorite podcast. I listen to it while I fall

1:29:29

asleep every night. I'm so sorry

1:29:30

for all the screaming. This is a loud episode.

1:29:34

Thanks for letting us put you to bed. We

1:29:36

bore the hell out of you.

1:29:39

While I get ready to work in the morning, on

1:29:41

my way to work, all day at work, and

1:29:43

whenever I get a chance, basically. I love

1:29:45

both the hosts, nothing keeps my interest like this show, and

1:29:48

I love hearing them discuss things and just getting super mad about everything.

1:29:51

I'm going to rant so much, 10 out of 10. Would

1:29:53

always recommend Suze, my non-existent soul. Thanks

1:29:55

Faith, that was nice of you. That's sweet.

1:29:59

Cool.

1:29:59

Well, have a good Thanksgiving, everybody.

1:30:02

Do your crosswords.

1:30:03

Bye.