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This is Hemant and Jessica and you're listening

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to the Friendly Atheist Podcast. You could support

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you so much for your support. We really appreciate

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it. Thanks gang. And happy Thanksgiving

0:39

to all of you. Happy Thanksgiving to you as

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well.

0:42

Happy War on Christmas season for

0:44

all who celebrate. I

0:47

have my sword ready to go. I'm

0:49

really right. I've already torn

0:51

down like six baby Jesus's

0:54

from public spaces. It's

0:56

as you must. I can feel

0:58

pleased the universe when

0:59

I do it. Um, so

1:02

I don't know. Maybe we'll go shorter to celebrate

1:04

the season. We'll see. I have a few stories. I definitely

1:06

want to tell you all about here. The

1:09

first one is one of the upsides to being,

1:11

you know, clearly the best podcasters

1:13

is sometimes you get advanced

1:16

copies of stuff. That's going to be public

1:18

very soon. Oh, and

1:20

by virtue of you being a podcaster

1:22

or a journalist, I no longer know

1:24

anymore. But I get fuck

1:27

off. I got

1:29

advanced screeners for a new show that

1:31

is premiering this weekend, Friday

1:34

and Saturday on investigate.

1:38

What's the ID channel? Oh, investigative

1:40

discovery. That's the one discovery. Yep. Investigation

1:43

discovery. And it's a show called

1:46

Let Us Pray. Pray spelled with an

1:48

E. And it's called Let Us Pray

1:50

a Ministry of Scandals.

1:52

Hum phone is really the best thing that's happened

1:54

to title in a long time. Hum a phone. That's

1:57

right. And yeah, so basically this

1:59

is a. four-part docu-series

2:02

that covers basically the predatory

2:04

behavior within the independent fundamental

2:07

Baptist movement. So it's really

2:09

specific. Very specific. It's not

2:11

just about like religion-relarged. No, yeah. It's

2:14

just about the IFB movement,

2:16

which is a very specific kind of sect

2:18

where if you're in it and you've escaped

2:21

it, like you know it, and

2:23

only recently have we, I think

2:25

the broader public who doesn't pay attention

2:28

to the, you know, religion stories in

2:30

general. Only recently have we started

2:32

to see these stories come out in a broad

2:35

way. For a couple of years, there have been some journalists

2:37

who have covered sexual abuse within Protestant

2:40

churches as well as Catholic ones. But

2:43

really this four-part series is

2:46

giving voice to a lot of the survivors

2:49

of sexual abuse, physical abuse,

2:52

who are speaking out about this

2:54

movement, against this movement. And

2:57

it really, most of the thing is just them telling

3:00

their stories as opposed to anything

3:03

else. You don't hear from IFB pastors

3:05

defending any of this. Good luck with that. Yeah,

3:07

I don't want to hear from them anyway. And I'll

3:09

tell you more about the series itself, but just keep

3:12

in mind over the past several months, think

3:14

about what's come out. Shiny Happy People,

3:16

the prime video series about the Duggars

3:19

and the movement they were a part of, which overlaps

3:21

with the IFB movement. We had

3:24

Savior Complex on HBO, which

3:26

was about that Christian missionary who

3:28

went to, was it Uganda? And

3:31

her ignorance and her

3:33

inability to do the work of a

3:35

doctor, but cosplaying is

3:37

one. It led to the deaths

3:40

of several African children. And

3:42

hubris. And hubris. And her

3:44

defenses, they were going to die. She was trying to help them,

3:46

whatever.

3:46

Just cyber. I finished

3:49

that. I kind

3:51

of feel like they didn't go hard enough on her.

3:53

Yeah, I mean, she's cooperating with them.

3:55

So I was like, were they going to go

3:57

hard on her? I don't know. We

4:00

didn't talk about this but this also appeared

4:02

on National Geographic the mission

4:05

which is all about John Alan Chow who

4:07

is the Christian missionary who foolishly

4:09

and fatally tried to go to that

4:12

island off the coast

4:14

off of India's coast and it's an isolated

4:17

tribe and he's like I'm gonna teach them about the Bible

4:19

and they're like We don't allow outsiders

4:22

here and then they shot him I assume

4:24

with bow and scenarios But he's

4:26

dead now Yeah, and when that story happened

4:29

what and for what and for what and when that

4:31

story took place Several years

4:33

ago the commentary was is this

4:36

guy a martyr for the faith or is he just

4:38

an idiot? I'm not listening to rules

4:41

But because of his religious delusions thinking

4:43

these people have never heard about Jesus, I

4:45

must tell them it's my mission

4:47

Well, and not only his religious delusions But how

4:49

many times has he heard this his entire

4:51

life is like your job is he

4:53

spread the word of Christ And

4:55

and these are people who definitively

4:57

have not heard about it when

4:58

you tell people something like that They

5:00

take it really fucking seriously And

5:02

also if an outsider goes to their island

5:04

you are bringing your diseases that

5:07

they do not have natural immunity They

5:10

don't know what it is, right? Yeah

5:14

guys like this. So anyway, the point is

5:16

I Love and

5:18

appreciate the fact that the

5:21

inner workings of various Christian

5:23

denominations And all

5:25

of that stuff that we've been talking about

5:27

forever that I've been writing about forever Like

5:30

I love that it's getting exposed to this mainstream

5:32

audience And hopefully they all realize

5:35

like oh the fact that investigation

5:38

discovery is now doing this series.

5:40

Let us pray It's like that's a true

5:42

crime channel and they're like, you know, we

5:44

should tackle no not like wives

5:47

with knives Let's go to

5:49

church because if you want to talk about true

5:51

crime buddy church should be a

5:54

hotbed of stories for you to tell

5:56

know

6:00

in my heart at some point what's the name

6:02

of the show? Let us pray. So

6:05

they're gonna fucking shoehorn and make

6:07

some poor talking head be like and then

6:10

he said let us pray

6:12

and then we can all be like yeah

6:14

yeah. Every episode has snapped at some point and

6:17

then she just snapped.

6:19

The name of the show they did

6:21

it! So

6:23

this show the narrators the

6:26

victims the survivors they're almost entirely

6:28

women they're sharing their horrifying

6:31

stories as well as their efforts to

6:33

obtain justice or bring this stuff to light

6:35

and sometimes that works sometimes that happens

6:38

they interviewed one of the reporters who's

6:40

done a lot of work on these stories but

6:42

sometimes as you hear it doesn't. Like

6:46

they don't get justice they don't get those

6:48

pastors who abuse them like

6:51

nothing happens to them but that's the

6:53

story in and of itself and so for people who

6:55

are not familiar with the IFB sect

6:58

the stories of purity culture sexual

7:00

grooming by pastors the unearned

7:03

trust that families give to religious

7:05

leaders I mean I I hope that's shocking

7:08

to people who watch it for the first time because this is

7:10

not a fringe movement the IFB

7:13

cult sect whatever you want to call it we're

7:15

talking about over 6,000 churches

7:18

and 8 million members. 8

7:20

million members and how many listeners

7:22

from the podcast we have? 14 million

7:25

yes so like

7:27

it's

7:27

it was amazing to watch the courage

7:30

of these survivors retell their traumatic

7:32

stories who also by the way went

7:34

out of their own way to support fellow victims

7:37

even though they were strangers saying you're going after

7:39

this guy I'll be in court for you

7:42

to make sure I'm watching this um and

7:44

just give you some names because I don't know how many of these

7:47

names are familiar to most

7:49

viewers who are not inundated with this

7:51

stuff regularly these

7:52

are survivors these are no these

7:54

are the predators basically

7:57

Jack Hiles Jack Scott Boyd

7:59

and

7:59

Stephanie householder Bruce Goddard

8:02

like if those names are not familiar to you

8:04

you they come up a lot in this series They

8:07

are that name from that predator like

8:10

they show up a lot But again, if

8:12

you're familiar with the IFB movement, those

8:14

are not unusual names for

8:16

you

8:17

Um, and that's another thing

8:19

like oh, I know these names because I know

8:21

some of the stuff they did But the fact that they're

8:23

getting this broader awareness, that's great

8:26

just to give you some stuff How can you not

8:28

be shocked when one of the women

8:31

in the series describes the way? Predators

8:34

were moved from church to church Catholic

8:36

style. She described it as the pedophile

8:38

shuffle Uh-huh. There

8:41

was the pastor who once gifted

8:43

a 15 year old girl who

8:45

said she had never had a teddy bear growing up He

8:48

gifted her a teddy bear had a camera

8:50

in it and underwear and

8:54

Then later wait. Yeah,

8:56

he gave her a teddy bear and underwear

8:57

in the bag. Yep Don't

9:00

and then later on he asked her are

9:02

you wearing the panties? Well,

9:05

don't pay panties

9:06

to a child. That's the exact quote from

9:08

the then 15 year old who spoke

9:10

in this series There's

9:13

this woman Amanda householder who talks

9:15

about how her parents ran a dangerous

9:18

Christian boarding school and

9:21

she's the one who reported them to authorities

9:23

Wow Good for her.

9:25

That's great. There's also another former

9:28

IFB member who says every IFB

9:30

church is a powder keg ready

9:32

to explode Mm-hmm

9:35

one victim kind of summarizes

9:37

all this This is like a few minutes into episode

9:40

one when women are being told

9:42

they have no power and when men are

9:44

given all The power it is a perfect

9:46

storm for sexual abuse Yeah,

9:50

there was one of the women who spoke

9:53

said of her pastors slash

9:55

abuser I hate that he

9:57

was my first everything

9:59

Oh,

10:00

God. Yeah. I mean, those

10:02

are the stories that these women are retelling,

10:05

which hard to do. And

10:07

also, I hope people understand

10:10

how hard that is to do, and I hope they take it seriously.

10:13

And it's not that every ISP church harbors predators,

10:16

it's that the institution is so broken

10:18

that predators are able to roam freely

10:21

between churches, knowing they'll probably avoid

10:23

accountability. It's that the women in

10:25

these churches are taught to be submissive,

10:27

obedient. They have to suppress their sexuality,

10:30

no matter how purposefully

10:33

they're trying to or not. They

10:35

create a pathway for these predators to

10:38

pounce, and these

10:39

family members and friends of the

10:41

victims are basically led to believe these pastors

10:43

can't do anything wrong.

10:45

And the fact that these shows are

10:47

airing these stories for people who don't

10:49

know what's going on. They think religion is a virtue.

10:52

They'd say, oh, I have to go to church, because that's

10:54

how else will I teach my kids morals. And

10:56

the fact that these are the stories coming out

10:59

like this, good, I'm

11:01

so glad that churches

11:03

are now the

11:05

places where a lot of these stories are coming from

11:08

so that people realize, no, this is not dude

11:10

who lives by himself in a

11:12

random small town doing something

11:15

awful. No, this is the religious leader

11:17

who manages a church across the

11:19

street from you, and it's not

11:21

unusual. And again, I want to

11:23

repeat, it's not that every church leader

11:26

is like this. It's that the institution

11:29

protects people like this over

11:32

the survivors of the abuse.

11:34

So I'm telling you, I got a chance to watch

11:36

all four episodes. They were all just

11:39

like, oh, I need to binge watch

11:41

this, which sounds wrong. But also, I couldn't

11:43

stop listening to their stories. It

11:45

was good.

11:46

And you said it's just

11:47

like interview to camera.

11:49

It's a lot of interviews. Is there any like recreations

11:51

or anything? Or an enactment rather? No,

11:53

there's no reenactments of

11:55

these sordid scenes. What you do

11:58

see are clips of some of these pastors. speaking

12:00

from the pulpit. Jack

12:02

Scott is a famous name. We're going to talk about

12:04

IFB churches in a second for another reason. Jack

12:07

Scott is one of these guys who is both a

12:09

sexual predator and one of the main

12:11

dudes in the IFB movement. So

12:14

is Jack Hiles. But there are some famous

12:16

clips of Jack Scott saying things from the pulpit

12:19

that have since gone viral on YouTube,

12:21

on TikTok, because it's like the way

12:23

you're doing this is very inappropriate

12:26

and wrong.

12:26

After the Bill Cosby stuff came out,

12:28

everyone went back through his stuff and was like, hey gang, he was

12:30

kind of telegraphing this to you for a minute.

12:33

One of the commenters on my site

12:35

basically pointed out how necessary these

12:38

shows are because the general

12:40

public is mostly completely

12:42

unaware of the behavior of churches, and they need

12:44

to know because I'm sure a lot of them

12:47

go to church and just assume their

12:49

church is fine. Therefore, the

12:51

denomination they're in is probably fine.

12:53

And to me it's very,

12:55

very similar to the fact

12:57

that Congress at large has

12:59

a 20% approval rating, but

13:02

Congressmen get reelected over

13:05

and over and over again because people are like, well,

13:07

Congress is broken. My guy's fine.

13:09

He's not the problem. It's all these other

13:11

nerds.

13:12

It's why it's so frustrating

13:14

when, I mean, political reporting, when they're like,

13:16

Congress is broken.

13:18

It's one party

13:20

that's doing all the breaking.

13:21

You should say that and stop pretending

13:24

the whole thing is the problem because

13:26

when it's working, things are actually pretty

13:28

damn nice. And it's the

13:30

same thing. If you say religion is a virtue

13:33

or Catholic Church is an entity

13:36

for good or whatever you want to say, it's

13:39

the same thing. Pick your denomination. We'll

13:41

find problems with it. And

13:43

in some cases, the

13:46

Southern Baptist Convention, the IFB

13:48

churches, they actually had a clip of

13:51

Stephen Anderson, who is one of the

13:53

new IFB preachers who says all sorts

13:55

of horrible anti-LGBTQ stuff. It's

13:57

like, that's not even IFB, but he is Texas.

14:00

technically, indirectly connected, I

14:02

guess. I was like, why'd you include him

14:04

in here? That's a different flowchart of

14:06

all the branches of Christianity in

14:08

the United States. Oh, I bet. They exist

14:11

usually in cartoon form when they're on a blackboard

14:13

and they're like, and this is when we figured out the

14:15

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14:18

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17:27

Let me jump to the United

17:29

Methodist Church because this

17:32

is also interesting because last weekend

17:34

this is the second largest Protestant denomination

17:37

in the United States, the United Methodist Church

17:40

after Southern Baptist. UMC

17:42

has more than 12 million members

17:45

and their whole church is breaking apart right

17:47

now because they can't really

17:50

figure out what to do about gay people

17:52

and trans people. Here's

17:55

the controversy several years ago... Is

17:57

an option let them be?

18:00

It's an option. It's not your fucking business.

18:03

The problem

18:03

is they're trying to have it all ways and no

18:06

one's happy with what they're doing. What

18:08

happened is in 2019, they

18:10

actually had a vote for the whole conference.

18:12

They have like in every couple of years,

18:15

maybe they have a meeting, COVID kind of put

18:17

a stop to the meetings in person. So they haven't

18:19

been able to have one. But in 2019, they had a

18:22

vote on should we ordain

18:25

gay people as ministers? What if they're

18:27

in a relationship? Should we ordain them

18:29

and allow them to be ministers? Should

18:32

we allow any pastors in

18:34

our denomination to perform same sex marriages?

18:37

Catholic Church says no to all of that

18:39

stuff. But the majority

18:42

of UMC churches in the United

18:44

States basically said it's fine.

18:47

All of our churches, it's not necessarily

18:49

the same hierarchy as the Catholic Church.

18:52

Let the churches, individual churches decide

18:54

their own way forward. If they are cool

18:56

with that... We're

18:56

not making a blanket decision on that. If they

18:58

want to do it, let them do it. But

19:00

in 2019, 53% of the delegates said, nope,

19:03

reject

19:08

it all. Do not allow

19:11

gay people in relationships to be ministers,

19:13

no performing same sex marriages. So

19:15

it's a close vote. 53%, though,

19:18

said no. And most of those people,

19:20

because it's the United Methodist Church, most

19:23

of those nos came from outside

19:25

the United States. And this is

19:27

the thing. It's a global

19:30

institution, and it's a lot of African

19:32

churches that said no to the homosexuality

19:35

stuff. And a lot of the UMC churches

19:37

in the US said, no, we're OK with it here.

19:40

But again, the decision is no

19:43

as a full thing. So that

19:45

meant any churches that were pro-inclusion

19:49

had to make a decision. Do you accept these

19:51

new rules? Or leave the church. Yeah, and

19:53

say goodbye to your gay leaders in

19:55

relationships and those who want to perform same sex

19:57

unions. And by the way, you're basically saying no.

20:00

to any young person who might voluntarily

20:02

consider joining your church. Or like

20:04

you said, you make a break and say we're

20:06

leaving the denomination, but if you do

20:08

that, now you have no institutional

20:11

support and a lot of small churches

20:13

cannot get by on their own. They don't have

20:15

the membership, they don't have the money, and

20:18

if you're not like, how do people find your

20:20

church if you're a small church in any community?

20:23

In the case of like UMC churches, it's well

20:25

go to the UMC website and say I

20:27

live here, find me all the churches in

20:29

my area, and if you're not

20:31

on that list,

20:32

how are people supposed to find you? So the franchise

20:35

of vacation of church has finally

20:37

come and bit them in the ass?

20:39

Pretty much, yes.

20:39

Just like I can't go do dinner anywhere

20:42

near here that isn't a chain restaurant?

20:43

That isn't on DoorDash. Yeah, pretty much,

20:45

right? If you can't find it, how are you supposed

20:48

to go? So the thing is, a bunch

20:50

of relatively in

20:52

big caps here, liberal

20:55

churches in the UMC said, you know what,

20:57

we're just not gonna enforce these rules,

21:00

we're just gonna do our own thing here, let them

21:02

come after us, right? And

21:05

again, this is in the middle as COVID

21:07

is happening, as churches are not

21:10

meeting in person in a lot of cases, so

21:12

like they have other problems they got to

21:14

deal with here, but the UMC does

21:17

not really enforce this ban. They

21:19

are not kicking out these churches that are

21:21

more progressive in their fault, and

21:23

that pisses off a lot of the conservative

21:26

churches in the UMC, because they're

21:28

like, if you're not taking these things, these

21:30

rules seriously,

21:31

then we're leaving. So

21:33

this is

21:35

the problem. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Right,

21:38

like is anyone really upset about them leaving?

21:40

Well, if you're actually solving a lot of problems

21:42

for us. If you're the UMC, it's like,

21:45

oh shit, like all these, we have liberal

21:47

churches that want out because we're too

21:49

conservative for them. You know a lot of conservative churches

21:51

leaving because we're not kicking out the liberal churches, and

21:53

now everyone's just leaving,

21:55

and by the way, leaving the UMC,

21:57

as far as I could tell, it comes with a massive

21:59

fight. financial hit because if you want to disaffiliate

22:02

from the UMC, you still have to, I'm

22:05

quoting here from an article, you have to pay two years

22:07

worth of church dues and fund

22:09

any pension obligations for like

22:11

the people who are staffing your church. And

22:14

that's not even considering like the help you might get to

22:16

do missionary work, send people from your

22:18

church to other places. Wait, they

22:19

have pensions? Yeah, some churches

22:21

do, yeah. I don't even get health care benefits.

22:23

I know, you should work at a UMC

22:26

church, apparently. So here's why I bring

22:28

this all up. This weekend, this past weekend

22:30

in Georgia, they have two different

22:32

groups of the UMC. There's like the Northern

22:35

churches and the Southern churches. I think

22:36

they put a masking tape

22:38

lying down the middle. Yeah, they send it

22:40

to line, something like that. But like the Northern

22:43

half of Georgia this week, the North Georgia

22:46

Conference of the UMC, this

22:49

is a coalition of about 700 churches

22:51

and it's just a way to organize. They have like

22:53

all these thousands and thousands of churches. You can't

22:55

just reach everybody. Also geographically,

22:58

they all just have their little umbrella groups.

23:01

The North Georgia Conference, which has about 700 churches, last

23:03

weekend, 261 churches said, we

23:09

want out. Whoa. And basically

23:11

the conference said, fine, this weekend we're

23:13

giving you the green light to leave. Okay.

23:17

And as this shit's happening. Yeah. As

23:19

the Guardian put it, this is quote, interpreted

23:22

as conservative congregations choosing

23:24

to leave rather than debate or accept

23:27

the views of the more moderate factions within

23:29

the church. So again, I

23:31

know let the door hit you on the way out or whatever.

23:33

That's very interesting. And

23:35

CNN put this in more context. This

23:40

is all, we're seeing

23:42

so many splits in mainline Protestant denominations

23:45

over homosexuality or other LGBTQ

23:47

issues. That includes the Episcopal

23:49

church, the evangelical Lutheran church, the

23:51

Presbyterian church. And

23:54

so these requests, I think

23:57

only four churches that wanted to leave,

23:59

they were not. ratified for I don't know what

24:01

the reasons are but like the other

24:03

the other 261 there they

24:06

got the green light to leave when you turn 18 yeah church

24:09

is leaving the conference they can no longer use

24:11

the United Methodist name they can't use the

24:13

denomination's logo they have to fulfill

24:15

those financial obligations they cannot

24:18

pursue any further litigation against the conference

24:20

because people had sued the UMC like let

24:23

us leave we want out and the UMC is like no

24:26

so there were lawsuits over this and the courts are

24:28

like you guys figure it the hell out but whatever

24:31

but this means all these churches are ditching

24:34

the UMC and again I'm just talking

24:36

about half of Georgia that's what this is

24:38

all about this isn't unique

24:40

it's just recent they

24:42

believe that the short-term financial

24:44

losses and the rebranding of their churches

24:47

will not hurt them as much in

24:49

the long term or they think you know what

24:51

we'll pay the price just let us get out of here because

24:53

we don't like the way the UMC is functioning by

24:56

the way the southern half of Georgia

24:58

oh yeah how they doing um

25:01

193 churches in their conference left earlier

25:04

this year out of out of I think

25:06

there's only 274 churches left

25:08

in that conference so like a bunch

25:11

um

25:12

over the weekend another 59

25:14

congregations in the UMC church in

25:16

Iowa were given the green light to leave

25:18

after another 83 left

25:20

earlier

25:20

this year in fact let me give you the

25:22

big numbers here there are roughly 30,000

25:25

UMC churches across the country

25:27

as of 2019 7,286 of them have now walked away probably

25:29

because of this controversy

25:36

and most of them are the conservative ones

25:38

leaving that's not

25:39

I mean again you would have to go through and try to figure

25:42

out everyone's reasoning but it seems like a lot

25:44

of this is conservative churches mad

25:46

that there's no hardline approach

25:49

to kick out the liberal churches

25:52

but also a lot of liberal churches are like

25:54

we don't like the way this is going now the interesting

25:56

thing is with all these conservative churches

25:58

leaving if they took another vote

26:01

on this stuff. Right, that's gonna shift everything.

26:03

It might shift the UMC liberal too and I think the conservative

26:06

churches know that and so a lot of them

26:08

are like we see where you're heading with this,

26:10

you're not taking this seriously, which

26:12

is another reason they're they want out. But

26:15

they can't vote on it in person because they were

26:17

unable to have all these conferences during

26:20

COVID so their next like UMC

26:22

big meetup is not till 2024. So all of this

26:25

is like just

26:27

what happens when they actually take that vote and

26:30

they say we do allow it now like

26:32

gay pastors or dating, same-sex

26:34

marriages. Yeah, like are they having to outnumber

26:38

the you know

26:39

international churches? They probably will

26:41

be but then when that happens you're gonna see

26:43

a lot of international churches want out. So

26:46

like all right let them fight. It's kind of great

26:48

to watch them. Yeah 100%

26:49

let them fight. I am, I

26:52

will never ever ever not be shocked

26:54

that this is the hill

26:56

that the churches are literally gonna die

26:58

on.

26:58

Literally the next thing I was gonna say, yeah,

27:01

it's in 2023 this is the issue that matters

27:03

to them. I genuinely truly

27:06

can't believe it. It's astounding. Even

27:08

going from there how many members of these more

27:11

progressive big quote hands,

27:13

how many members of these quote unquote

27:15

progressive no longer UMC

27:17

churches are just gonna leave

27:19

organized Christianity all together

27:22

after all this because they're gonna realize

27:24

you know what we're better off without religion getting

27:26

in the way. How many conservative no

27:29

longer UMC churches, the disaffiliating

27:31

ones, how many of them are joining

27:34

the newly formed global

27:36

Methodist church which is a real thing

27:39

that formed basically saying we're not in this case.

27:41

Okay, the global socialist

27:46

Methodist church. Oh that one's bad. This

27:48

is a good one now. Sorry I forgot. The

27:51

global Methodist church is just yeah

27:53

we're the UMC but we hate gay people

27:55

and they're forming and they exist

27:58

and again she's...

27:59

These people are just... The

28:02

UMC's failure to bring

28:05

their own people together by

28:07

not figuring out how to handle this issue.

28:09

I mean it says a lot about the institution and

28:12

a lot of its members and Also,

28:15

if you're a progressive church that's in the UMC

28:17

right now, guess what? You now work with an anti-gay

28:19

organization And next

28:21

year a lot of those conservative churches in the UMC

28:24

are gonna be working probably with a liberal

28:26

organization

28:28

And why

28:29

why what are we talking about? We haven't mentioned Jesus

28:31

one

28:34

It's like oh boy,

28:38

like

28:39

Why are they I don't know anymore

28:41

man? What

28:43

let him fight? Yeah

28:44

I mean, I guess that's

28:46

kind of all there is to it is just let him

28:48

fight but like

28:50

and that's the UMC remember Southern Baptists Are

28:52

dealing with fallout from sexual abuse

28:54

and not dealing with that properly the Catholic

28:56

Church is the Catholic Church doing what it

28:59

always does

29:00

Oh, I remember what I was gonna say now is

29:02

if you are

29:04

Somebody somebody who's just going to one of these

29:06

churches, right? Not a Clergy

29:08

member nothing besides

29:10

a lay person going through you every

29:12

I'm a Methodist. I call myself a Methodist

29:14

and I go to church How

29:17

Like what kind of taste is it leaving

29:19

in your mouth when you are like,

29:21

hey I am just trying to worship Jesus

29:24

and be a good Christian and meanwhile,

29:27

they are like

29:29

doing Like copyright

29:31

litigation on the Methodist

29:33

logo like the Methodist Church clearly has

29:36

a copyright lawyer on staff

29:38

To make sure nobody is using their copyright

29:40

But I see your logo

29:42

and you know how popular that UNC

29:44

logo is I

29:45

just it just feels so like

29:49

petty exactly

29:51

and if I am a person who

29:53

is just trying to like You know do

29:55

my Sunday prayers every week and light a candle

29:58

and eat a cookie or whatever they do

29:59

religion. I

30:02

would be pretty fucking disgusted

30:04

by this. If

30:05

you're disaffiliating with the church,

30:07

I don't know that it's gonna be that long before even more people

30:09

leave your church because why am I a part of this

30:11

now? Because I don't even get the benefit of being a franchisee

30:14

anymore. Yeah. Like my mom-and-pop

30:16

church just doesn't cut

30:19

it. It can't

30:19

do this stuff. The fact that mom and pop churches

30:22

can't even exist is

30:24

so exciting of

30:27

the capitalist structure of this stupid

30:29

country that even churches can't escape

30:31

capitalism and franchising. It's

30:34

miserable. We're

30:35

a fucking

30:36

stupid system. I hate

30:38

everything. Glad to know there's nothing wrong

30:41

with the organized atheist world. We would

30:43

never see anything like this.

30:44

Listen, you and I are going

30:47

on almost 10 years of scandal-free.

30:49

Knock on wood, knock on

30:51

wood. No one has ever been problematic. None

30:55

whatsoever. Okay, I'm gonna

30:57

talk about what's going on in Vermont because this

30:59

does involve a lawsuit that was filed this week.

31:02

And we don't get to talk about Vermont that much.

31:05

So I'm gonna give you the backstory here because it

31:07

is important to understand why there's a lawsuit

31:09

being filed over this. Because we did talk about

31:11

this when it happened, but it's long enough that

31:14

everyone's forgotten. Back in February,

31:16

there was the high school girls basketball state

31:18

championship in Vermont, as happens

31:21

in every state pretty much. And

31:24

there's an organization that kind of oversees

31:27

competition for the high schoolers. And

31:29

there was a game between the Mid-Vermont

31:34

Christian School, that name you should know, Mid-Vermont

31:36

Christian School.

31:37

They were a number 12 item.

31:39

You should know it for the sake of this story. That's

31:41

all. And they were number 12 seed slated

31:43

to play against one team. That was number five. Anyway,

31:46

that's the bracket for you. And the thing

31:48

is, Mid-Vermont Christian School said we're

31:51

not gonna play because the other team has a trans

31:53

person on their team. Oh boy.

31:55

And the school's leader, her name is Vicky

31:58

Fogg. Here's what she said at the end of the video. the time.

32:00

Vicky Fogg is an out... Yeah, with 2G by the

32:02

days. 2G. And in cartoon

32:04

character name. She said, yeah, we withdrew from

32:06

the tournament because we believe playing

32:08

against an opponent with a biological

32:11

male jeopardizes the fairness

32:13

of the game and the safety of our

32:16

players. I

32:16

used to really like sports. Did

32:19

you know that? There was a time in my life that

32:21

I was a sports person. I watched

32:24

every fucking Cubs game. I played softball.

32:26

And now?

32:27

And now every

32:30

time somebody brandishes sports

32:32

to punish trans people,

32:35

it makes me want to burn

32:37

my own house down. There you go.

32:39

And the thing is, I would like to know, how does

32:42

the trans person on another team impact

32:44

the safety of your players as opposed

32:47

to a girl, like, whatever,

32:49

biological girl, on the other team who's

32:51

just bigger and stronger than the girls on your

32:53

team? How is that any different? I don't know what you... It's

32:55

that one basketball team. That's assuming the trans

32:58

person on the other team is bigger and stronger. I don't

33:00

know. I don't know who the kid is. Listen,

33:02

if that one team played against a teen

33:04

wolf and didn't complain, they can

33:06

play against a trans person and

33:08

be fucking fine. And again,

33:10

there's... Look. How do they know? Are they checking

33:12

genitals

33:13

again? Probably. You know I hate when they see that.

33:15

As research has shown, there's no consistent

33:18

evidence showing that trans athletes have a competitive

33:21

advantage. And also, you know who they did who give the shit

33:23

sports are

33:23

fucking stupid. And it's high school

33:25

sports. It's not professional. It's meant

33:27

to be fun. It's about the journey, not the outcome.

33:29

Do you think

33:30

these mid Vermont

33:33

girls are WNBA bound?

33:36

No! They're just trying to have fun and play fucking

33:38

basketball. And

33:39

for what it's worth, if they think this... Oh, if

33:41

the other team allows the trans person, they will just

33:43

whoop all the competition. Here's what

33:46

happened in that tournament. The official score

33:48

for that game, that never happened because the Christians

33:50

forfeited. It was one to nothing.

33:52

One to nothing. And then the other

33:54

team played the next game and lost 45

33:57

to 26. Like it was a blowout.

34:00

And the team with the trans player lost

34:02

big. But again, that's how competition works.

34:04

Like, whatever, not a big deal, it doesn't

34:07

matter.

34:07

Yeah, just like Michael Jordan never lost a

34:09

single game

34:09

in his entire career. Because having

34:11

one talented person is all a

34:14

basketball team needs question mark? What

34:16

are we teaching people? And here's the thing, to their

34:18

credit, the Vermont Principles Association,

34:21

which is the group that oversees high school athletic

34:23

competitions in the state, they said, no,

34:25

we're standing by our inclusive policies

34:28

here. We have a no tolerance policy. When it comes to

34:30

discrimination based on a student's actual

34:32

or perceived sex and gender. Nice.

34:35

So good.

34:35

Vermont, yeah. And two weeks later,

34:37

after

34:38

the competition, they basically

34:40

said, fine, mid-vermont Christian school. They

34:42

do what a lot of states do, which is, look, Christian

34:45

private schools, they don't necessarily have a big league.

34:47

And we want kids to be allowed to compete.

34:49

So they do say, hey, you can compete

34:52

within the public school competition. Well, you mean they put

34:55

their petty

34:55

bullshit away so kids can enjoy

34:57

sports? Right. And plenty of states do

34:59

that. And they just

35:00

say, you just have to follow our rules. And sometimes

35:03

the issues are like, well, scheduling. We

35:05

play our basketball games on

35:07

a Saturday. So if your religious private school

35:10

has to obey the Sabbath, too damn

35:12

bad for you. We have a competition to uphold here.

35:14

That's our job. So sometimes you see

35:16

controversies like that. But two

35:19

weeks after this game that the Christian school

35:21

forfeited, the Vermont Principles

35:23

Association said, fine, mid-vermont Christian

35:26

school, if you don't want to abide by our non-discrimination

35:28

policy, then

35:30

you're just not allowed to participate in

35:32

our league. In any VPA-sponsored

35:35

events, that means athletic, but also

35:37

academic stuff. You just can't be part of

35:39

our group. It was a unanimous

35:41

vote of the 15-member committee.

35:44

Wasn't even a hard call, because state law forbids

35:46

discrimination against out-trans athletes.

35:49

But it was the right thing to do. The executive

35:51

director of the group said very bluntly

35:54

at the time, if you don't want to follow VPA

35:56

rules, that's fine. But then you're just not

35:58

a VPA member.

36:00

I mean,

36:01

so well put. Yeah. Right? It's

36:03

so simple. Black and

36:04

white. So the Mid-Vermont Christian

36:06

School responded to all of this by... ...sueing.

36:11

No, not yet. They just complained. They said,

36:14

canceling our membership is not a solution

36:16

and does nothing to deal with the

36:18

very real issue of safety and

36:21

fairness facing women's sports in our beloved

36:23

state. Nothing in the rule

36:25

book says a dog can't play basketball.

36:28

Yep. And so now... Brings

36:30

us to this week. I thought that story was over in February

36:32

or March when all this stuff went down. No, now!

36:35

The Christian School has filed a lawsuit

36:38

against basically every single... ...all three people

36:40

in Vermont. And they're... ...with

36:42

the help of Alliance Defending Freedom, the right-wing legal

36:45

group. And it's a lawsuit on behalf

36:47

of the school and two families claiming

36:49

that the state violated their First Amendment

36:51

rights by preventing

36:52

them from practicing

36:54

their religious beliefs about sexuality

36:56

and gender.

36:58

I don't think that's what the First Amendment says. It's

36:59

whatever they want it to mean. I

37:01

don't think it's everything

37:02

specifically you have...

37:03

This is what they say. Despite 28

37:07

years of prior participation in

37:09

the league, the school cannot compete

37:11

in any VPA athletics, effectively

37:13

blacklisting the school from all state-sponsored

37:16

events in the state. The VPA

37:18

is going so far as to exclude

37:21

Mid-Vermont Christian and its students from participating

37:23

in co-ed athletic academic

37:25

competitions like the Geography Bee, Science

37:28

and Math Fair, and Debate and Forensics League,

37:30

all because the school believes biological

37:33

differences between boys and girls matter.

37:36

Which is like, yeah, that's how it works. You

37:38

didn't want to follow the VPA's rules, so

37:40

you don't get to compete. It doesn't matter that...

37:42

Yeah, it would be alternate, like every single school

37:45

in the entire state changes to suit

37:47

you, Christians? I don't think that's

37:49

how

37:49

it's going to work. Again, if they don't want to follow the

37:51

public entity's rules, they

37:54

don't get the benefits. The VPA

37:56

was doing them a favor by allowing them

37:58

into the club here. And if they don't want

38:01

to follow the rules, that's

38:01

their dis- no one's saying they can't have

38:03

their rules. If they're bigots, the state

38:06

says you can be bigots. That's fine.

38:08

But you don't get access

38:10

to what we offer if you don't want to follow

38:12

our rules. Like the Christian school chose

38:15

this route.

38:16

So is- so is the,

38:18

uh, the athletic association saying that

38:20

by refusing to

38:23

play against a team with the trans

38:25

person, that is all they needed to-

38:26

If you're forfeiting a game and you

38:28

openly say the reason is we will

38:31

not play against a trans student, well

38:33

now you are being openly discriminatory.

38:35

If you just said we forfeit for reasons, I

38:37

don't know, they might have gotten away with it because they

38:39

didn't say. But they're very clear, like

38:42

no, we don't want to compete against trans people in

38:44

sports. Well, then that's fine. You can-

38:47

you can absolutely say that, but you don't get

38:49

access to this. One of the things I found interesting, and

38:51

tell me if you follow this logic here, because again, we're

38:53

not lawyers, but in the 71

38:56

page lawsuit,

38:57

the right-wing legal group says

39:00

they cite Supreme Court decisions

39:02

in their favor, and one of the ones

39:04

they

39:04

cite is the Carson v. Macon

39:06

case that was decided a couple years ago that says

39:09

if a state offers certain benefits

39:11

to public schools, they can't deny

39:13

those benefits to private, usually

39:16

Christian, schools either. They

39:18

weren't. And the case we were talking about with Carson

39:20

v. Macon is like if you're offering tuition assistance

39:23

to like rural kids in Maine to go

39:25

to private schools, you can't say

39:27

religious private schools are excluded

39:29

from the list. That's what the Supreme Court said.

39:32

Well, this group, and that is a bad decision,

39:34

but that was their decision. What this group

39:37

is doing now is saying, see,

39:39

if you're gonna allow these schools

39:41

to participate in your athletic competitions

39:43

or academic competitions, you can't deny

39:46

us from participating in that just because

39:48

we're Christian. But

39:49

again, that's not what even the Supreme

39:51

Court case said because Maine lawmakers,

39:54

after that case

39:55

came down, you know how they nullified

39:57

that ruling from the Supreme Court? Maine lawmakers

39:59

passed a law

39:59

saying fine taxpayer dollars

40:02

can go to private religious

40:04

schools that's what the law says now thanks John

40:06

Roberts court but

40:08

guess what we're passing a law

40:10

that says any school that wants these taxpayer

40:13

dollars has to promise not

40:15

to discriminate against people on the basis

40:17

of sexual orientation or gender identity

40:19

that was not in the rules before we're passing a law saying

40:21

that's in the rules now and guess what happened all

40:24

those including the schools that

40:26

sued over this oh actually

40:28

yeah they're like you know what we don't need your

40:30

tuition dollars anymore so they walked away

40:33

I think literally one Christian

40:36

school now accepts tuition dollars in Maine

40:38

and it's a more it wasn't even one involved in the

40:40

lawsuits but the point is Vermont

40:43

then has this non-discrimination

40:45

policy that applies equally to everybody

40:47

right how can

40:48

you claim that that's discriminatory

40:51

if it's a set rule for everyone

40:53

so yeah so I don't get how they're

40:55

citing that case in their defense because

40:57

that's not what the law says well

40:58

it was a case of we're Christian

41:00

so we get to do whatever the fuck we want to and I think

41:03

that's what they are banking on again not

41:05

a lawyer but I think that's

41:07

the statute

41:07

that they're also in the lawsuit

41:10

the lawsuit also says the Vermont agency

41:13

of education like their state education

41:15

department last year just like

41:17

in Maine passed laws requiring all

41:19

private schools that want taxpayer-funded tuition

41:21

dollars to obey non-discrimination

41:23

laws they passed the same law that

41:25

Maine

41:25

did and mid Vermont Christian school

41:27

said no we don't want to be a part of this so

41:30

the state says fine then you're not a quote

41:33

approved independent school

41:35

and that means you don't get access to public funds

41:38

and they're also suing over that

41:40

basically saying that the entities that

41:43

are basically mad at them for being bigots

41:46

they're saying you can't do that to us and

41:49

they're saying the state has given us an

41:51

impossible Hobson's choice like

41:53

two bad decisions that's

41:57

it to two bad decisions one abandon

41:59

our

41:59

religious beliefs, character, and practices

42:02

and adopt and follow the state's gender identity

42:04

rules or to adhere

42:07

to the religious beliefs, character, and practices, miss

42:10

out on middle school and high school sports,

42:12

lose valuable tuition reimbursements, and

42:15

inevitably lose students necessary

42:17

to keep our doors open. They're

42:20

basically saying, what do you want us to do? Obey

42:22

your heretic ways

42:24

or follow our religious beliefs,

42:26

but if we do, then we don't get access to competition

42:29

and guess what a lot of parents

42:29

are going to do then? Say, well, then we're

42:31

not going to send our kids here because they don't have a lot of great opportunities

42:34

anymore. Yeah. So it's like, yeah,

42:37

dog, that's what you wanted. You chose

42:39

that route. You know, no one's forcing you to be

42:41

a bigot.

42:42

I don't feel bad for you. Although apparently

42:44

Hobson's Choice is a movie from 1954.

42:46

You know, a 1954 movie, a man who

42:48

refuses

42:52

to let his three daughters get married because he doesn't want to pay settlements.

42:56

So that's a really relevant

42:58

and contemporary

42:58

reference he's making. What

43:01

are you, what is it? I feel like they wanted to say

43:03

we were damned. So damned

43:05

if you do damned, if you don't know, I can't say that word

43:07

in a lawsuit.

43:09

I don't know.

43:09

They also, they also misgender the

43:11

Translayer repeatedly in the lawsuit.

43:13

They don't respect anybody who is

43:15

not. I have a question for you. I hope

43:17

this lawsuit gets thrown

43:19

out. It should be thrown out because I don't think they have a valid

43:21

case to even make. I don't know why a judge

43:23

would waste any time on this, but

43:26

I think this is worth paying attention to because if they

43:28

can find a way to win this case, which

43:30

I don't think they will, but if they

43:32

find a way to do it, holy crap, that's bad news for

43:34

everybody. But right now we'll see.

43:36

Can I ask you a

43:39

just quick question about the

43:41

connect, thinking of,

43:43

okay, a trans woman is playing

43:47

on a basketball, a girl's basketball

43:48

team

43:50

and we won't play against them because of

43:52

that versus I know a few years ago

43:54

we covered a Christian school that

43:56

there was a female wrestler and

43:59

they for Because they wouldn't

44:01

do the boys who were from a Christian

44:03

school or I don't remember if it was just a

44:05

Christian boy in A public school said I'm not gonna.

44:07

Yeah, I'm not gonna wrestle a girl and

44:12

Then again, I

44:13

think that I think in that case. I don't

44:16

remember. I don't have the details in front of me I think in that

44:18

case everyone's just like fine Then you have to forfeit

44:20

and the kid forfeited and that was the end

44:23

of it Like and then Christian media

44:25

outlets are like this boy gave up

44:27

his dream Everyone

44:29

is owed like a championship

44:32

medal because you refuse to play

44:34

Shit

44:36

I don't yeah

44:36

the girls worked hard they're on the wrestling

44:39

team you play them

44:40

I just think I don't know why those two

44:42

kind of come to my brain I guess

44:44

it's sort of an intersection of sports

44:47

and like Culture wars that

44:49

we don't get to see very much. I mean

44:51

the case of the wrestlers. They weren't punished in any

44:53

way

44:54

They just said like I don't want to play a girl and everyone said

44:56

then you have to forfeit

44:58

Decision I was in it

45:00

would have impacted the team it was an individual

45:02

thing But it would have impacted the team score, but

45:04

again if you want to forfeit No

45:06

one's forcing you to compete Yeah, but you will

45:08

lose the game or you will lose the match and

45:11

as long as they accept that and don't fight

45:13

it That's fine. Then the schools can keep competing

45:15

the kids can keep competing. You

45:17

think that if

45:18

That situation escalated

45:21

the way this is

45:22

and the boy sued or something

45:24

like that What do you think is the difference

45:26

between I don't know I'm just sort of

45:27

in that if the if the state

45:30

Sanctioned group that oversees like

45:32

wrestling whether if that was in Colorado

45:35

or wherever it was if they said well Then we're

45:37

gonna kick your school out of the whole

45:39

program right then maybe that's

45:41

too much, right? But it's the in that case.

45:44

I think the wrestler just said well, I'm not playing

45:46

a girl I'm not wrestling a girl so I forfeit and

45:48

everyone's like yeah, you lose you're out of the competition

45:50

You have to go to like the next Tear

45:53

down or wherever right and he accepted

45:55

that Losers bracket and that was the

45:57

end of it. So there's He

46:00

didn't complain about it. He accepted it. And he got

46:02

to be a little Christian hero in right wing media

46:04

for a bit.

46:05

If they were,

46:06

if this went to a lawsuit, do you think they

46:08

would use the same argument?

46:10

No, because different situation and

46:12

the state didn't come down on the wrestler or the team or

46:14

anybody.

46:15

But I'm saying if they had escalated

46:17

in the same way, do you think they would use

46:19

like a freedom of religion thing of like,

46:22

my religion teaches me that women

46:24

belong in the kitchen or whatever? That is the

46:26

argument they're making that you're impacting

46:28

our religious freedom by punishing us for just

46:30

practicing our religious beliefs. And it's like,

46:33

no, they don't care about your religious beliefs. This is about discrimination.

46:35

And if you don't want to play about those rules, it doesn't matter

46:38

what your religion is. They're not going after

46:40

you because of that. So I don't think they can

46:42

get away with that. So I don't think the lawsuit

46:44

will be successful. But by the way, there are

46:46

like girls who play

46:48

football, like division one schools. They're

46:51

usually field goal kickers or something. But I've never

46:53

heard of a football team saying, we're not going to play you because

46:55

we might have to tackle her. And so

46:57

we're not going to play, like, let's see that happen.

47:00

I mean, it won't work.

47:00

Do you think he was just afraid of getting a

47:02

boner? Probably. Yeah.

47:05

Yeah. Anyway, let's go to, I found Jessica

47:07

Bate story where I think you're going to get mad

47:09

about this one because, and I'm going

47:11

to be on the other side of it. Okay, here's the

47:13

setup. Not like when we argue. I know. This

47:16

is Foley High School in Alabama, regular

47:18

public high school. A student

47:22

earlier this month, she put

47:24

up, I'll give you the good secular

47:26

version of the story. She wanted to put up like an affirmation

47:29

sign next to the mirror in the girl's

47:31

bathroom. Like leave a note, say

47:34

something nice. Here's markers and

47:36

some post-it notes. Like leave

47:38

a nice message. And when she came back,

47:41

the whole mirror is just full

47:43

of affirmations everywhere. It's

47:46

lovely. If you look at what

47:48

some of the kids wrote on there, there were things like, be

47:51

happy, smile. Life is too short to be

47:53

unhappy. Be the reason someone

47:55

smiles today. Very cute, very

47:57

nice. And it seems like she- A little

47:59

toxic positivity. And

48:02

again, there's a cute picture of the girl looking

48:04

at all of these sticky notes. Yeah. And

48:06

she's just like, Oh, this is like, you could

48:08

tell she's very happy that this worked out. Right.

48:11

It's super cute. Here's why

48:13

this is a problem. The problem

48:15

is the actual sign she put up was not leave

48:18

a positive note. It was prayer

48:20

mirror. And because of that,

48:24

plenty of the notes also said things like respond

48:26

like Jesus, not the world.

48:27

God is always with

48:29

you. If God, all things are possible.

48:32

And the thing is like, whatever, a student

48:34

did it. No one's saying she should get in trouble

48:36

for it. It's fine. It's a

48:38

little student experiment. Sure. Students

48:41

have more leeway to proselytize,

48:43

to talk about their religion. No one's talking

48:45

about the girl. And it's much

48:48

more of an opt-in approach here, as opposed

48:50

to say like a Christian student hijacking the

48:52

intercom during morning announcements to lead a prayer.

48:55

Now, should the prayer mirror

48:58

remain up is a question.

49:01

Because the thing is the school should

49:03

not allow a student to just take

49:06

over this space in a bathroom and

49:08

use it for religious proselytizing, which is

49:10

kind of what's going on. Again, no one's saying

49:13

they should get anyone in trouble. They're

49:15

just saying you can't leave this up

49:18

for good. This

49:19

is a very cute thing to happen. It's not

49:21

going to be a permanent fixture. And the thing is

49:23

the high school actually took a picture,

49:25

the picture I just showed you here, of the girl

49:27

smiling like hands over her mouth. Oh my God.

49:30

Looking at all these affirmations. The

49:32

school posted that on their social

49:34

media page and said, this

49:36

student started a positive affirmation

49:38

campaign in our girl's bathroom. We

49:40

know how powerful words can be. And we

49:43

are proud of this student for taking the initiative

49:45

to do this. And

49:47

also it's like, buddy, we can see the sign

49:50

on the mirror that says prayer mirror. You

49:52

can zoom in on the picture and see the religious things.

49:54

So not now the school is actively promoting

49:56

this thing too, not just it

49:59

happened. All right, fine. Now we'll take

50:01

it down. Whatever. Like now the school's

50:03

promoting it. So the Freedom from Religion

50:06

Foundation sent a letter to the school district

50:08

basically saying, while we can certainly

50:10

understand why the district would want to create

50:12

a forum for students to provide messages

50:14

of positivity and affirmation to boost

50:16

students morale, the district

50:18

cannot do so through a prayer mirror where

50:21

students are encouraged to post prayer requests. Bible

50:23

verses, it says by the Post-its or

50:26

other religious messages. We asked that

50:28

the district investigate this matter, remove

50:30

the religious display and stop encouraging

50:33

students to participate in this prayer

50:35

mirror. And basically what they didn't

50:37

write, but they could write is if you want to

50:39

do this, by all means, let a student

50:41

let the school say like positive affirmation

50:44

mirror or whatever version of that you want to call it and

50:47

leave the Post-it notes and markers and let

50:49

kids do it. But don't say write

50:51

Bible verses, which is what the sign

50:53

says. Or religious messages

50:56

like that's all well and good. It's fine

50:58

if they actually wanted to promote an affirmation

51:00

wall. Even if a kid left a Bible verse

51:03

on the wall, I don't think anyone would care. It would actually

51:05

be fine. But actively promoting a

51:07

prayer mirror. Sure. For the

51:09

public school that crosses a line. So it's

51:11

the right idea. And it's one of those

51:13

like cases where it's like, I know it's

51:16

such an easy headline to attack the atheist

51:18

for going after this seemingly cute, positive

51:21

thing. But I think that would be the

51:23

wrong way of doing this, because no one's stopping the

51:25

school or the student from repeating

51:28

this experiment without injecting

51:30

religion into the mix. That would not be a hard thing

51:32

to do. But I'm waiting for

51:34

it to be spun that way. So it'll

51:36

happen. I just

51:38

I don't know. I think that's

51:39

it. Wait, what do you think I would say? I thought you

51:41

would say let the let it slide. It's

51:43

not a big deal. It's a positive thing.

51:46

All right. Interesting. I mean, I I also

51:48

think this school was like low key covering

51:50

its ass by saying positive

51:52

affirmation. Like, I think they were

51:55

trying to get out ahead of that.

51:56

Yeah, they knew. They knew like

51:58

if they're savvy enough, which maybe I'm.

52:00

is projecting

52:01

my own fabulous, I guess.

52:04

But yeah, I agree

52:06

with everything you said, honestly.

52:08

Interesting. Like I

52:11

think it's kind of fine that the school

52:13

posted it on Facebook, like especially

52:16

since, again, they labeled it as a positive affirmation

52:19

thing. I thought that was gonna be the thing that

52:21

like Christians are gonna be like, no, it's

52:23

prayer.

52:24

I'm sure some of them did in the comments,

52:26

but yeah. Sure.

52:27

But yeah, no, I

52:30

don't have a lot of problems with that. Good

52:32

for us, good job, team. Yay. Hey guys,

52:34

we're adults. Mom and dad are

52:36

fine.

52:37

Let's talk about the

52:39

Satanists. They had a major victory

52:42

this week in a big lawsuit. Congratulations.

52:45

And again, to understand what

52:47

just happened with this lawsuit, I need

52:49

to rehash what happened this year in Pennsylvania,

52:52

because this involves the after school Satan

52:54

club.

52:55

And then back in February,

52:57

because the Saucon

53:00

Valley middle school has a good

53:02

news club, where parents basically promote

53:04

Christianity to indoctrinate little

53:06

kids, the

53:08

Satanic temple said, fine, we're launching an

53:10

after school Satan club in the same middle

53:12

school. It's run the

53:14

same way, we'll fill out the same paperwork. And

53:16

the thing is, unlike the Christian group, the

53:19

ass clubs do not

53:22

promote Satan or Satanism or

53:24

Satanic beliefs, like it's a science club

53:26

with arts and crafts, that's what it is, right?

53:29

They actually, the writing says,

53:31

we focus on free inquiry and rationalism,

53:34

the scientific basis for which we know what

53:36

we know about the world around us. That's

53:39

it, you could look at the poster too, it just, it

53:41

says science projects, community service,

53:43

puzzles and games, nature activities,

53:45

arts and crafts, snacks,

53:47

that's their promotion. Now is this intended as bait

53:49

or is it just intended as like,

53:52

I'll just let you keep telling the story, how about that? No, I mean,

53:55

is it bait? Maybe for headlines, but

53:57

like they have parents willing run

54:00

this thing. If they apparently have

54:02

students eager to join and parents

54:04

allowing them to join, like fine, it

54:06

shouldn't be a problem for anybody, but

54:09

inevitably Christians get mad and it's

54:11

like, what are you mad about? Because if

54:13

you want the Good News Club to exist, the

54:16

door is open for other people too. So the

54:18

thing is, in February, the school

54:20

board here approved the Satanist

54:22

group's use of the space, but

54:25

the day they did that, actually,

54:28

after they approved it, someone, anonymously,

54:31

left the district a voicemail saying,

54:33

if you allow this club to meet,

54:36

I'm going to cause harm at the school. Someone

54:39

left a threatening voicemail saying, this

54:41

was a while ago. We talked about it at the time. Okay. Yeah,

54:43

that sounds familiar. I'll try to keep this short, but like

54:46

district officials, they were understandably

54:48

worried. So that day they canceled

54:51

all after school activities in the district. The

54:53

next day they did the same thing and canceled

54:55

all classes. Like that's how disruptive

54:58

and seriously they took this threat. The

55:00

superintendent contacted police, but

55:02

then things got even weirder because

55:05

the superintendent the next day said the

55:07

district's going to review the Satan

55:09

club's use of our facility. I

55:12

don't think it was called this thing. Which is weird. It is not. She

55:15

was wrong, but whatever. She said, we're going to review

55:17

their use of our facility here, which

55:19

is weird because you're going near

55:21

religious persecution, but okay. What

55:23

does the Satanists have to do with the guy who called

55:26

in a threat? Nothing.

55:27

Was it Satan who called in the threat? It was

55:29

not. They didn't phone in the threat. They

55:31

didn't, the Satanists didn't put kids in danger.

55:33

They only launched the group in response to the Christian

55:35

club. So like, what are you doing? And by

55:38

Friday, guess what? The review was complete. And

55:40

the superintendent said, quote, she had

55:42

rescinded approval for the

55:44

satanic temple to use the facilities due

55:46

to violating district policy.

55:48

Really?

55:51

And here's the quotation from the district.

55:54

Our community has experienced chaos.

55:57

Our students, staff, and teachers have had to

55:59

endure a threat to their safety and welfare.

56:02

The gravity of feelings of instability,

56:04

anxiety, and fear have been profound.

56:07

And so they punished the satanic temple for

56:09

some for what some unknown culprit

56:12

did. That is

56:14

bad leadership. Horrible leadership

56:17

and the district. When lesson are you teaching children?

56:19

Here's the lesson. If you bully somebody enough,

56:22

they'll do what you say. And it's a playbook for

56:24

Christian terrorists anywhere.

56:25

Oh, is there an atheist or

56:27

satanic club meeting at your local school? Just call

56:29

in a threat and mention the non-Christian

56:32

group as your motivation, which is what

56:34

this anonymous caller did and watch

56:36

the chaos unfold. Like that's a horrible process. That's

56:38

what you want. Like this is joker level.

56:41

The school could easily have just said we're working

56:43

with law enforcement to ensure the safety of all students.

56:46

We will provide extra security, but

56:48

we're not going to get rid of this club because they are meeting

56:50

and it's legal and it's proper

56:52

and we have kids who are interested. And it's their first amendment, right?

56:54

Yeah. Do whatever the fuck they want. So

56:56

banning the satanic temple

56:57

gave an unearned victory to

56:59

whoever called in the threat and not to mention

57:01

the Christian group that would benefit from it.

57:03

Heard this voicemail. Have they released it to the public?

57:06

Does it exist? It

57:07

does exist. I'm sure all the way to the top. I'm

57:09

sure you could for your request that thing. It doesn't matter though.

57:11

But like the ACLU sued the

57:13

district in March saying you can't

57:15

do this. You're giving a heckler's veto to those

57:18

who dislike the group's religious viewpoints. Yeah.

57:22

Basically you're letting the terrorists

57:25

win by infringing upon our groups. Right.

57:27

And there were some other smaller

57:30

issues like the school said the Satanists

57:32

didn't include a certain disclaimer

57:35

in their advertisements for the club and

57:37

the Satanists are like, yeah, we did. And the permission

57:40

slip created for parents. You're talking

57:42

about something that a random person posted

57:44

on social media. Like, so

57:46

what are you talking about? As

57:48

for the permission slip that they filled out and

57:50

that was supposed to be sent home with parents. The school said

57:53

it was never even sent home. They didn't allow

57:55

that permission slip to go out. Um,

57:58

she's the superintendent said non-affiliable. affiliated

58:00

school organizations can't just make

58:02

us send something home with parents The problem

58:05

is that the good news club, which is also not

58:07

affiliated. Yeah, they were allowed to

58:09

send permission And the

58:11

superintendent's like yeah, we just made a mistake

58:14

on that one, but it won't happen again It's like you're

58:16

treating them better You're not helping

58:18

out here. I have a

58:19

quick question in here ACLU

58:21

versus freedom from religion foundation

58:24

Who would get their hand on that ball first?

58:26

You're like It is a just first

58:28

come first serve kind of deal Or

58:29

yes, sometimes sometimes the groups coordinate

58:31

and say like listen, this is more up your wheelhouse

58:34

because it's strictly First Amendment issues There's

58:40

they all the legal groups and they all do different

58:42

things sometimes they overlap sometimes they talk to

58:44

each other and decide your group Is better off?

58:46

I mean that that's not even

58:48

untrue. I'm sure they do I

58:51

know I know the atheist and church

58:54

state separation groups They're all in communication

58:56

with each other often But as by

58:58

the way side note the terrorists who made that

59:00

threatening phone call that guy was arrested in

59:03

February

59:03

Some dude

59:05

was he a parent was he I don't

59:07

know who you know, he was some outsider dude, but you

59:09

had no connection so

59:11

like

59:14

He didn't have a student in school, I don't think

59:17

so Interesting. Yeah. So here's the thing.

59:19

They filed this lawsuit and basically

59:23

at some point this summer

59:25

a Judge ruled

59:28

in I'm sorry I know in March pretty quickly

59:30

after all this happened in March a US

59:32

district judge said The district

59:34

has to allow the Satanists to meet they

59:37

did everything right? You can't ban them

59:39

from meeting The district

59:41

does not have to give the group's permission slips

59:43

to parents I will let that part slides like because

59:46

outsider groups can't whatever fine just

59:48

stick to that rule fine But you can't

59:50

ban them from meeting and here's what

59:52

the judge said right up front when confronted

59:54

with a challenge to free speech The government

59:57

or the school districts the government's

59:59

first instinct

59:59

must be too forward expression

1:00:02

rather than quash it, particularly

1:00:04

when the content is controversial

1:00:06

or inconvenient. Like, yeah,

1:00:08

First Amendment, exactly. He

1:00:10

also mentioned, by the way, the judge in

1:00:13

his decision said, you know who

1:00:15

had to do the same thing to fight to get access

1:00:17

to the stuff? The good news

1:00:19

club, specifically. Why are they

1:00:21

in schools? Because they said you can't ban

1:00:23

us for meeting, and they had to take it to

1:00:25

the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court said, yeah,

1:00:28

if you're allowing whatever extracurricular

1:00:30

clubs to meet, you can't say no to a group just because

1:00:32

it's a religious group. So it's like,

1:00:35

yeah, the Satanists can now use that law to

1:00:37

make sure they have access to schools.

1:00:40

So he said, the judge, the

1:00:42

district has no right to ban the Satanists

1:00:45

for meeting. The ACLU called that a victory.

1:00:47

So that all happened in March. We discussed it when it

1:00:49

happened. Here's the update. Now

1:00:52

the district has a choice. Do we appeal that

1:00:55

decision and keep fighting this? Or

1:00:57

what do we do? So they have now chosen to settle

1:01:01

the case and stop fighting it.

1:01:03

And in reality, what that means is they have

1:01:05

to pay the Satanists $1. So the

1:01:08

Satanists weren't looking for money here, but

1:01:10

their insurance provider for the district

1:01:12

has to pay $200,000 in legal fees. Whoa.

1:01:18

The district has to pay that out in

1:01:20

legal fees. You've done fucked up, gang. And

1:01:23

the settlement says, the

1:01:25

settlement says the payment is quote, not

1:01:27

an admission of wrongdoing. Obviously.

1:01:30

Uh huh. But it's a recognition that there was

1:01:32

a constitutional injury from what

1:01:34

you did. You violated the first amendment right. We're not

1:01:36

admitting we did it. We're admitting that your

1:01:39

rights were violated. But we didn't

1:01:40

do it. We're not using the active voice

1:01:43

here. We're using the passive voice. Yeah. One

1:01:46

other thing is, um, okay. So

1:01:48

they settled.

1:01:49

Your rights were violated by

1:01:51

someone. Here's $200,000. It wasn't

1:01:52

me. Yep. The interesting

1:01:55

thing is they actually had school board elections

1:01:58

in Southcon Valley recently.

1:02:00

And this played a role in the elections

1:02:02

because the

1:02:03

public was pissed off Yeah,

1:02:05

dog

1:02:05

That the school board was trying to

1:02:07

ban the Satanist group Not because they have

1:02:10

any love for Satanist But they're saying this

1:02:12

is so obviously a mistake

1:02:14

of what the school board is doing

1:02:17

A

1:02:17

quarter of a million dollar mistake Like we know

1:02:19

we're going to lose this case Jesus

1:02:21

And so four school

1:02:23

board incumbents were voted out

1:02:26

in favor of challenges And

1:02:27

I'm quoting from Election's work sometimes Lucian

1:02:30

Greaves, the Satanic temples co-founder, he told me They

1:02:33

were voted out in favor of challengers

1:02:35

who ran a campaign primarily focused

1:02:38

on the enormous, pointless waste

1:02:40

they incurred by violating our civil

1:02:42

liberties Nice, nice, nice, nice And then he

1:02:44

added Perhaps it's time to

1:02:46

stop wasteful public crusades that

1:02:49

seek to unconstitutionally limit our

1:02:51

civil liberties And to respect the choices

1:02:53

of non-Christian parents too Perhaps

1:02:55

Perhaps indeed Like

1:02:57

you said, the school district fucked around Now it's

1:03:00

found out

1:03:01

Now they're not going to have any clubs because

1:03:03

all of that money is going to be going Where's the legal

1:03:05

fee? So this is the insurance provider

1:03:08

has to pay it It's not coming out of the school's pocket, I understand

1:03:10

But also the insurance premium is going to go up Oh

1:03:16

yeah, that's going to go up Yeah Hey, boy

1:03:19

Let me bring up at least

1:03:22

one more story I want to bring up and we'll wrap this up But this is

1:03:24

timely, I think Last

1:03:27

month, Maryland did something

1:03:29

really important Which is that they

1:03:31

passed a law that

1:03:34

eliminated the statute of limitations

1:03:36

for survivors of child sexual abuse Which

1:03:38

is something that has happened in many

1:03:41

states at this point Yeah, we've

1:03:42

seen a lot Yeah, the law in question It

1:03:44

does cap how much money a survivor

1:03:46

could receive based on who they're

1:03:48

suing Is it an individual, an institution,

1:03:51

a public or private institute But it

1:03:54

allows people who suffered abuse decades

1:03:56

ago to finally try to get justice

1:03:59

And the thing is,

1:04:01

before the law went into effect, we talked

1:04:03

about this a couple of weeks ago, the archdiocese

1:04:05

of Baltimore in Maryland, they declared

1:04:07

bankruptcy because that

1:04:10

move allows certain parts of the church to

1:04:12

continue functioning while limiting the

1:04:14

exposure they would face from all these lawsuits.

1:04:16

Just like Jesus would have. And now

1:04:19

the reason I bring this up, the archdiocese

1:04:21

of Washington, D.C., which

1:04:23

is also affected by this change in law, they

1:04:26

are now suing

1:04:28

over this new law. They're

1:04:30

suing the state saying, that new law

1:04:32

you passed

1:04:33

to give more options

1:04:35

for justice

1:04:35

to survivors, that

1:04:38

violates the state

1:04:39

constitution. Sure, we're

1:04:42

saying- The constitutional right to abuse

1:04:44

children with impunity?

1:04:46

Basically, their basic argument

1:04:48

is that by allowing survivors to sue

1:04:50

their abusers long after the crimes

1:04:53

took place, it violates due

1:04:55

process. And in short,

1:04:57

let me try to explain this as a non-lawyer,

1:04:59

the church claims that the Child Victims

1:05:02

Act, the one that just passed, is unconstitutional

1:05:05

because about seven years

1:05:07

ago, six, seven years ago, another

1:05:09

law passed in favor of victims, and

1:05:12

it gave survivors more pathways to justice.

1:05:14

It said no survivor of

1:05:16

child abuse at the time could sue beyond

1:05:19

the age of 38, which was a lot

1:05:21

higher than it was in the past. So it was an improvement,

1:05:24

but it limited, like after 38, you can't sue anymore.

1:05:26

I'm 38 now,

1:05:28

and I'm finally

1:05:29

coming to grips with a lot of things in my life, so that's

1:05:31

not great. It also said

1:05:32

defendants who didn't commit the crimes,

1:05:34

like the Catholic Church as an institution,

1:05:37

could not be sued over these newly

1:05:39

revived claims. You can go after the dude who did

1:05:41

it, but you can't go over the Catholic Church.

1:05:44

I know, but I agree with that, because the Catholic Church

1:05:46

is definitely a part of it, and it's

1:05:48

a seven-issue. Yup, but now the new

1:05:51

law, which- Maybe we should sue the Catholic Church,

1:05:53

you know, for all their gold throne. The

1:05:56

new law says that cap

1:05:59

of you have to be 30 years. and then you're done, we got

1:06:01

rid of that number. That's what the new law does. And

1:06:03

the new law says, before we said you can't sue

1:06:05

the institution that harbored the criminals, you

1:06:09

can go after the institutions now. And what

1:06:11

the Catholic Church is saying, no, you gave

1:06:13

us immunity years ago from

1:06:15

all this stuff. You can't just undo that now,

1:06:19

because the law says you can't do that sort

1:06:21

of thing. And the thing is,

1:06:23

the state, the Attorney General of

1:06:25

the state, Anthony Brown, when the law was

1:06:28

being debated and considered,

1:06:29

he actually sent a memo saying,

1:06:31

I know this

1:06:32

is gonna come up as an issue, but I'm

1:06:34

telling you, we're doing the

1:06:36

law that is being proposed is actually fine,

1:06:38

and it's not gonna

1:06:40

be a constitutional violation. And he said,

1:06:42

our office, if this gets challenged for

1:06:44

the reasons that it's now being challenged under,

1:06:47

he said, our office will defend it. And

1:06:49

he reiterated that this week. Here's

1:06:51

what Anthony Brown, the Attorney General of Maryland

1:06:53

said this week, as I advise the General

1:06:56

Assembly during the 2023 session, I

1:06:59

can in good faith defend the

1:07:01

constitutionality of the Child Victims

1:07:03

Act. And basically

1:07:05

the law firm that filed a lawsuit,

1:07:09

like there was a class action lawsuit against the Catholic

1:07:11

Church, and they actually said that there are roughly 100 clients

1:07:14

suffered a wide variety of serious physical

1:07:17

emotion and financial injuries

1:07:19

at the hands of clergy members. And one

1:07:21

of the attorneys basically said that by challenging

1:07:24

this law for these, he's basically

1:07:26

saying frivolous reasons, the church is

1:07:28

trying to quote, protect admitted

1:07:30

wrongdoers and sexual abusers. Yeah.

1:07:33

And the thing is, we know why the Catholic Church is

1:07:35

fighting this in any way they can. They

1:07:37

didn't win on the ethical grounds. Like

1:07:40

the lawmakers were like, yeah, we're

1:07:42

not listening to you on this front because we're in the right

1:07:45

here. So they lost on that front, the law

1:07:47

passed. And now they're like, oh, fine, throw

1:07:49

anything against the wall legally and see if

1:07:51

anything sticks.

1:07:52

And the reason- I think you can do when

1:07:54

you have deep pockets because you live

1:07:56

in a house of gold thrones. In case anyone

1:07:58

needs a reminder, the reason all this is- is

1:08:00

because earlier this year, Attorney General

1:08:02

Brown released a 463-page report investigating

1:08:07

sexual abuse into the Archdiocese of

1:08:09

Baltimore. That was a four-year project,

1:08:11

the result of a grand jury investigation, and it

1:08:14

found that over 600 children,

1:08:16

quote, but the number is likely

1:08:18

far higher, were abused by a

1:08:21

hundred fifty-six predators working

1:08:23

with the Catholic Church since the 1940s. Most of

1:08:26

those predators are dead.

1:08:27

Some of them are still

1:08:29

alive and not previously suspected

1:08:31

of any wrongdoing. And

1:08:33

by the way, name of church officials who helped

1:08:35

cover up their alleged crimes, that was

1:08:37

also in the report, but some of those names were redacted.

1:08:40

But the thing is, like, yeah, it's a big

1:08:42

problem. People are coming after the church.

1:08:45

One archdiocese

1:08:47

has declared bankruptcy, and

1:08:49

now this one's trying to file a lawsuit. Just anything

1:08:52

to get out of what they have coming to

1:08:54

them. And again,

1:08:56

I've said this before, I think it bears repeating,

1:08:59

the punishment for the church won't come from a lawsuit

1:09:02

or any of this stuff. The only way the institution

1:09:05

will suffer is if the worshippers

1:09:07

who call themselves Catholic walk away,

1:09:10

stop giving the church their time, their

1:09:12

money, and just break ties all

1:09:14

together. Like, tradition shouldn't

1:09:16

be an excuse to prop up a criminal

1:09:18

enterprise.

1:09:22

Good times, had by all.

1:09:24

I'm gonna pause there.

1:09:26

So where do we find

1:09:28

you?

1:09:29

You can email us at FriendlyAtheistPodcast

1:09:34

at gmail.com. You can also

1:09:36

always leave us a review on iTunes.

1:09:38

We're just pulling that up, but you can

1:09:40

support this show by going to patreon.com

1:09:43

slash Friendly Atheist Podcast. It's

1:09:45

the holidays. Support your local

1:09:47

podcasts and independent journalists.

1:09:52

I was trying to find... Oh, here.

1:09:54

This one is genuinely the meanest one

1:09:56

I've read about me in a minute. Unaware.

1:09:59

from the same here today, Jessica,

1:10:02

colon. That's

1:10:03

me. If you put as much effort

1:10:05

into lifestyle changes as you do

1:10:07

complaining, your life would improve.

1:10:09

Please use the money you make from this podcast

1:10:12

to bankroll your therapy. You have

1:10:14

a lot of potential to improve

1:10:16

with

1:10:16

time. Wait, how many stars is that?

1:10:18

One star. Oh. Yeah, so.

1:10:20

God. That was really

1:10:22

like.

1:10:23

That's a low blow. Is it? Anyway,

1:10:26

Uber must not need money, said great

1:10:28

resource. I had a very extended

1:10:31

drive for work and discovered this podcast right before. Extremely

1:10:33

informative on all the little news nuggets that

1:10:35

seem to get buried. Keep up the great work. Thank

1:10:38

you, Uber must not need money.

1:10:40

Thank you, we appreciate it. And fuck you that

1:10:42

other guy. We will see

1:10:44

you next week. Stick around for the bonus episode.

1:10:47

I have stuff I'll talk about. Oh, good, because I don't. Excellent.

1:10:50

All right, have a good holidays, everyone. See you soon.

1:10:52

Bye.