Welcome to the world of Oklahoma's education, starring none other than State Superintendent Ryan
Walters. Hold on tight, because this guy's been spending more tales than a
wizard at Hogwarts. Today we're throwing some serious shade on Superintendent Walters, so
hold on to your textbooks. Walters has been lying through his teeth about the
Freedom From Religion Foundation. His claims that they want to snatch away religious freedom
total fiction and that funded by George Sorow's bit not even close to reality.
Join us as we crank up the volume on the call for Walter's resignations,
setting the record straight on FFRF's commitment to constitutional principles, and the call for
Walters to exit stage left. Buckle up, it's about to get real.
This story is from FFRF dot org and it's written by Dan Barker and Annie
Lourigaylor on November twenty ninth, twenty twenty three. So this was actually it
was more of an open letter than it was an article. And so this
letter was written by Dan Barker and any LORII Gaylor, who are co presidents
of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and their letter specifically mentions some recent attacks
on them by Ryan Walters. For example, he said that the FFRF is
quote seeking to take away the religious freedom of Oklahoma students and that they are
quote funded by George sorows. Of course they are right, of course they
are. Their letter also recounts many of their recent squabbles that the FFRF has
had that has brought to Walter's attention, promoting Christianity by calling for the posting
of the Ten Commandments, scapegoating atheism, and recent social media posts made with
public accounts claiming that they are promoting state sponsored atheism, publishing a video via
his office calling for the banning of one hundred and ninety books on the American
Library Association's Rainbow book list, claiming that they contain graphic pornography. I think
we've heard that before, suggesting students should be taught from the Christian Bible,
supporting the establishment of the nation's first religious charter school, and also for threatening
retaliation against the Tulsa Public School Board for stopping a board member from reading a
prayer at the graduation ceremony. That last one, by the way, was
largely directed against the interim Superintendent of Tulsa Public Schools, doctor Ebonie Johnson.
She offered a counter memo to defend herself and her district employees, but it
goes a bit astray from what we're discussing here, so I'll put the full
link to that full TPS memo into the show notes. So the letter ends,
of course then with Dan Barker and any Lorie Gaylor calling for Ryan's resignation.
So, Eli, tell us, what's your take on this letter here?
Yeah, I think this letter was kind of badass. Honestly, I
loved reading this because it was kind of like a fight me challenge written by
like a lawful, neutral paladin of public relations. I love how many different
ways they reiterated, like hey, you know, by the way, this
is a crime and you're not allowed to do that, and you're absolutely not
allowed to do this. And the video was supposed to be Ryan Walters video
was supposed to be his sort of liketuring like grandstand molen Lob kind of you
know, defiant last stand against the ffl F, and they're basically just like,
okay, whatever, like you're still committing crimes, so like we'll see
you in court. And I like how Superintendent Walters also says, you know,
we will not allow atheism to be the state sponsored religion of Oklahoma.
So he doesn't think that Oklahoma shouldn't have a state sponsored religion. He doesn't
understand why you should keep those two things separate. He just thinks that,
well, it can't be atheism, it must be Christianity. It's super duper
not the point. Also, but I just it's really bugs me when people
call it atheism or religion. Like we were just talking about this a little
bit ago, it's just not that, and it's you know, and I
think on one of last week's shows it was mentioned as well, but preach
into the choir here, right, Yeah, no, I know we all
know that, right. Uh So when the ffr F says, you know,
no, you can't broadcast a prayer through school to a captive audience of
miners who don't have the knowledge or legal capacity to consent, people like Ryan
Walters who see, you know, not having a religion as a religion,
they see that as oh, you nasty little Christian kids better not even think
about the cross in my schools. And that's just not what's happening. And
people like Ryan Walters want to present it that way and have this whole you
know, Christian persecution and war on Christmas? Is there there is a similar
uh you know vein that people take this down all the time when it's about
this Christian persecution that just doesn't exist in the United States. Phoebe, what
are you saying? Bored with it all? Absolutely bored to the back teeth
of it all? What do you think the blood people? I mean,
really, you have nothing better to do in your in your job, in
your life. I mean, seriously, mate, get get a hobby.
Stop worrying about things you have no control overs, such as what other people
do in their one square foot of real estate. What are you bothering for?
I understand that you believe in you know, Christo Fashion Project twenty twenty
five subjects We've talked about on this before, but I mean, for crying
out loud, this is prima facia unconstitutional garbage. And for him not to
know that is disingenuous at best, and for him to know it and carry
on doing it is hypocrisy and idiocy. And this is design not to try
to do what he wants to do. Oh no, no, no,
he's pushing the envelope and the Overton window. That little bit further. When
you have something as outrageous as this, the people that are doing it,
generally speaking, know what they're doing. They're not there to try to push
whatever they want to push completely. They want to push the needle slightly further
and keep pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing that needle, moving that overton
window gradually across, so that eventually when you push back and go, what
the are you doing? You absolute maniacal, horsemanured piece of third As you
do here we go for years. It reminds me of a court case.
Slightly off topic here, but there was a court case which was about student
loans and bankruptcy. I mean, in my day job, I read this
case because it was a fascinating case. And the judge turned around and said,
since the nineteen seventy, judges have done something called add their own judicial
gloss to the way that it's done, and judge after judge after judge after
judge after judge after judge had just built upon this thing. So this judge
went all the way back to the beginning and went, well, that's actually
what it says, and this guy was wrong. What they want you to
do is they want you to be the judge at the end who's building off
of the gloss and not realizing that the very first person to do this was
wrong. And that's how they moved the Overton window, by people not realizing
that they've got something in and gone away with something that they shouldn't be And
that's what's dangerous about that. And when I say I'm bored, it's because
I've seen this playbook one hundred and five million times before. Every single time
I hear of some anti twerks, a lot religious idiot stripping someone from student
councils or some other person saying we must have the Ten Commandments in the Supreme
Court grounds of Alabama. We've said it all before, and it's just boring
that we're still fighting these goons. Oftentimes we're fighting the same good This guy,
well, this guy in particular, he's done this this game before we
we we did an episode on him in September about claiming the separation of church
and state were a myth. So he's been hammering away at this for quite
a while. This is it kingdom? Is it Gold's Kingdom? Of course,
because he's wanting his version of God's Kingdom. Because I do believe that
Waters is a true believer. Oh, I think he wants to bring about
a theocracy. Now what that means is going to vary according to who's saying
it, because each theis wants their version of theism. It's the pope,
you know, and the well the Pope right now is just trying to remain
relevant. But this guy here, his problem is I get he has a
truth problem, and it really is, he has a problem telling the truth.
You know. His effort to get the Catholic charter school through the into
the Supreme Court and involve himself with that, it's something that on more than
one occasion, the courts have told him no, even up to the state
Supreme court court level, told him, no, you really don't have anything
to do with this. But he's such a diehard, he's such a true
believer that he's wanted to interject himself into it anyway. Now, whether he's
successful, I agree with you this. This is a matter of pushing that
envelope. You push, you push, you get a little more. That's
exactly what they did with Roe versus Wide for a long time. They're doing
the same thing here. They're trying to get what they can get. The
way you do that is to go extreme, you know, the go big
or go home type of mentality. But for this guy, this is at
least the fourth time we've covered him, and I don't think it's going away,
because as long as we have this group of people who believe that,
you know, atheists are having a major supply chain issue and they're you know,
sourcing new babies in Oklahoma. You know, the Jews are funneling money
through George Soros, and you know, as long as people believe that,
they're going to believe anything, and they hear that behind pullpits time and time
and time again, and these things are reinforced that they need someone to take
dominion. They even called them dominionists. And that's what's going on here.
He wants a theocracy and to him, the Constitution is simply an inconvenience.
He doesn't want it anymore. Now, Scott, what's your take on him?
Really? You mentioned that he we've talked about him before, and yes,
sadly that's the case. This is not a this is not a show
that the subject matter was would be desirable to get on. Right, that
doesn't mean you're doing well in our eyes. I guess, well, no,
that's not always true. That's what we do give some people props sometimes,
but you should get a little hoard from us, you know, motion
right, like a five timers club something like that. All right, No,
but you were talking about how he thought the separation of church and state
was a myth. But if he if that were true, then shouldn't he
doesn't that kind of undermine his argument against the state sponsored atheism thing? I
mean doesn't if he's calling atheism or religion and he's saying religion and church are
not necessarily I don't know. But on the state sponsored atheism thing. Okay,
So we've heard this a thousand times before from from you know, from
people across you know, all nations and whatnot. But there's a difference between
an atheistic state and a secular state. There is a difference. And so
I wanted to ask the panel what their thoughts on So I want to know
the difference between a secular government and a state sponsored atheism, both philosophically and
or in practic this and does it matter? Is the difference important? Eli?
What are you what are your thoughts on that? Yeah? Well,
I mean in practice the difference is really simple, is really easy to distinguish.
State sponsored atheism is churches are not allowed to exist. You can't have
a church, you can't worship a god, don't talk about a god.
That's state sponsored athism. Secular government is we're not touching that. Do what
you want. We're going to leave our hands out of it. And philosophically,
I think that's the best practice because you know, we all have our
individual beliefs. Like you know, I believe that religion potentiates harm that is
not otherwise, you know, potentiated without providing any benefit. But not all
people believe that, so they have the right to you know, believe what
they believe, and that government shouldn't be you know what we the separation of
church and state is that the government cannot prevent anybody from believing what they want
to believe. And in practice, state sponsored atheism would be the exact opposite
of that. That would be the violation of that, you know, First
Amendment. And it's it's so like frustrating to see people like Ryan Walter's where
they're like no, no, no, like not allowing my religion inols or
not allowing me to have my religion as a state sponsored religion is a violation
of my freedom because that's what I want. But they don't see it the
other way. It's just it's so strange to me, and it's kind of
infuriating the old persecution company. Yeah, exactly, the victim mentality, right,
right, Phoebe. What are your thoughts on that? Two countries come
to mind. One is Turkey, as founded by Ata Turk is a secular
nation. The Constitution of Turkey is a secular constitution. The current president of
Turkey maybe doing everything in his power to undo what Ata Turk did, but
Turkey constitutionally is a secular society. France is a secular country as far as
it goes. So those two countries come to mind. Problemly is state sponsored
atheism is usually associated with the following kinds of countries, the USSR, the
People's Republic of China, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. And when
you balance those to out the French Fifth Republic and the out a Turk founded
state of Turkey versus the USSR, the People's Relic of China, and the
Democraticlic of Career, there really isn't that much that they've got in common.
I mean in France, public education does not allow religion. That's not state
atheism, that's secularism. Right. You can hold whatever view you want,
doesn't matter, you just can't take it into the class. In North Korea,
how dare you go to church, have a Bible and believe in a
god? The only leader is the Kim family. So are you saying that
the difference so that the evidence seems to support the idea that a secular government
would be the better choice. A secular government is, in my opinion,
here the freest type of government, being British and coming from an Anglican country
where the law state that you must have Anglican instruction five times a week in
school every morning, versus in France where you just get on with lessons.
I'll tell you a French way any day of the week, thank you very
much. I'm with you there. But it was growing up in Britain it
was Anglican instruction five every morning or half an hour you would have the local
reverend would come round and and that's required unless you're a Roman Catholic school or
a specific different religious school. The school it was Anglican instruction five days a
week were you a believer back then or where you are as an unbeliever.
I'm Jewish, so it was a very weird thing getting Anglican instruction and going
back to a Jewish home. Huh, Infidel, what's your thoughts on that?
I have to say that when it comes down to an atheist atheistic government,
I'm not even sure how you base something around the lack of some to
base of government around the lack of believing in something just seems you know.
I hate to use the overused phrase, but it's we're all going to start
a club of not collecting stamp. It just doesn't make a lot of sense.
It doesn't add up. Now. Secular I agree, and I think
that a secular government may have an advantage and a right to step in more
than And that's where my concern becomes with the idea of okay, we're just
going to stay out of religion. Because we see that desire to not get
involved. We see children who end up dead because their parents pray for them
rather than bring him to the hospital and to be treated of something relatively simple,
even like diabetes. So when it comes down to that separation, obviously
it's not absolute and whatever that is that really is something that a secular society
does have a responsibility to take a look at. Now, how do we
do that is always going to be the problem, but it really does boil
down to a secular society is a way to go. And I don't even
know what an atheist society would look like, so I would just have to
guess and make it up, which could be fun. But I think that's
another story. Okay, Well, I think at the very least we all
agree that the idea that there is state sponsored atheism being promoted in Oklahoma as
well bullshit. I don't mean to sound rudier, but it's fucking Oklahoma.
It's not going to be the bastion of atheism anytime soon. I'm sorry,
but it's just not. US census data from twenty twenty backs me up here.
I mean, for crying out loud, there are a large and high
proportion of religious people in the state of Oklahoma and that ain't changing anytime soon.
Well, that's as good as place as any I think to start for
this segment. Phoebe and