Speaker 1: Welcome to the Nonprofits, the show where we examine current
Speaker 1: events and news stories through the lens of atheism and
Speaker 1: secular humanism. In our first segment this week, the new
Speaker 1: regime in Washington is already making moves to give Christianity
Speaker 1: an edge in the US. Helen Green tell us what's happening.
Speaker 2: Well, the most persecuted group in the United States, Christians,
Speaker 2: are getting a super special office created by Presidents Trump
Speaker 2: Faith Office, replacing the White House Faith Based and Neighborhood
Speaker 2: Partner's Office to protect the pearl clutchers from being affected
Speaker 2: by the Establishment Clause DEI and queer rights. We suspect
Speaker 2: are the real reasons for this little stunt by the President.
Speaker 2: I think we can all agree that religion and publics
Speaker 2: really need a divorce from one another. The story is
Speaker 2: from the Telegraph by David Millward on February six, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five.
Speaker 1: All right, Helen, Yeah, you're right. I mean that that
Speaker 1: was a very interesting article to read. But the stated
Speaker 1: purpose of this office is to quote target anti Christian
Speaker 1: bias in the federal government.
Speaker 3: Isn't that a good thing?
Speaker 1: Shouldn't we be in favor of preventing bias what's your
Speaker 1: take on that.
Speaker 2: So obviously I'm a fan of preventing bias, but this
Speaker 2: is where things are doing like a little bit of feveritism,
Speaker 2: which goes against the establiment clause because we're not supposed
Speaker 2: to give any religion sort of superiority in this country.
Speaker 2: But this office is being held by PAULA White, who
Speaker 2: is a terrible human being. I am sorry, not sorry.
Speaker 2: And also with this particular office, as I said in
Speaker 2: the intro, it's really more about not having DEI and
Speaker 2: queer rights recognized in this country. So I'm Christopher gar Galadieri.
Speaker 2: If I pronounce it wrong, I am sorry. He's a
Speaker 2: professor of politics at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire,
Speaker 2: my home state, and I used to live right by
Speaker 2: this college. Told the Telegraph of my setition is that
Speaker 2: the type of bias they are talking about are the
Speaker 2: policies that are friendly to LGBTQ employees. I think it's
Speaker 2: part of the anti DII efforts. More conservative religious folks
Speaker 2: object to recognizing non Christian faith, even like wishing a
Speaker 2: happy to Wali. So it is about Christian It's definitely
Speaker 2: about Christian bias. It's not about, you know, having this
Speaker 2: sort of like every faith should be respected or non faith.
Speaker 2: It is about we're giving Christianity the super special spot.
Speaker 3: That sounds about right, ej.
Speaker 1: I understand that they've also made an interesting choice on
Speaker 1: who should lead this office.
Speaker 3: Can you talk about that for a bit?
Speaker 4: Yes, So pauloy Kine claims to see a vision from
Speaker 4: God and is heading the faith of us No Wela,
Speaker 4: I wouldn't like to speculate a either she's lying about
Speaker 4: seeing God or she's very mistaken, which is not exactly
Speaker 4: something you on and off. However, in twenty twenty, she
Speaker 4: prayed for the miscarriage of all Satanic pregnancies and embraced
Speaker 4: an anti Black Lives matterstance. So as Helen was saying,
Speaker 4: she's a real piece of work, not exactly the best person.
Speaker 4: In fact, all of this during the current regime may
Speaker 4: be her fault if she apparently converted Trump to Christianity and.
Speaker 1: I had to at that. Sorry, please keep going. You
Speaker 1: can tell you can tell just by watching. Yeah, all right, sorry, hes.
Speaker 4: Go on much in the vein at Kenneth Copeland, she
Speaker 4: knew she used nine hundred thousand dollars of tax exempt
Speaker 4: money from her ministry to buy a private jet. What
Speaker 4: is it with mega patterers and always buying private checks.
Speaker 1: It's all about the blame, right, isn't that doesn't that
Speaker 1: doesn't that saying that in the Bible, right, the most
Speaker 1: blame gets you in, right, gets you into the VIP room.
Speaker 2: That it was the demon Scott, it's the demons. You
Speaker 2: can't write with demons, and Paul White obviously worried about demons.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: Speaking of Christian values, you know how they constantly want
Speaker 4: to get rid of queer people because they do not
Speaker 4: suit a biblical narrative. She's also against divorce, which is
Speaker 4: why she's been married three times.
Speaker 1: Hmmm interesting Wait, wait she married three times without divorcing.
Speaker 3: Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 1: Well, well, yeah, checked, Well, Stephen, I want to I
Speaker 1: want to hear something from you here. We know that
Speaker 1: religion in general is on the decline pretty much worldwide. Basically,
Speaker 1: why do you think there's such a strong push here
Speaker 1: to quote, bring back the glory days of religion.
Speaker 5: Well, it's it's like, I don't think it's right to
Speaker 5: place the emphasis on religion per se. It's not like
Speaker 5: people are like, hmm, religion time was so good. But
Speaker 5: like I believe that it's you know, old rich, cis wet,
Speaker 5: cis hat white guys who are like I missed those
Speaker 5: days when I really mattered based on my status. And
Speaker 5: it just so happens that those were in the fifties
Speaker 5: and part of that was when people were able to
Speaker 5: be browbeaten into doing exactly what the authority said, and
Speaker 5: they missed those days. And so, yeah, religion was one
Speaker 5: of those pieces, one of those pieces of controlling people,
Speaker 5: of marginalizing people who make the power people powerful people
Speaker 5: feel uncomfortable. I think that's what is what we're what
Speaker 5: the people that are calling the shots are trying to
Speaker 5: bring back. Yeah, and that religion definitely plays a part
Speaker 5: in it. And I don't, I don't. I wish, I wish,
Speaker 5: I wish, I wish that we were capable of saying,
Speaker 5: you know what, those pieces were in our past, and
Speaker 5: they were. We have moved past them for a reason.
Speaker 5: We have evolved, we have become better. And that's why
Speaker 5: it's in the rear view mirror, not because we have
Speaker 5: been downside, not because we've been degrading as a society,
Speaker 5: as a people, but because we've been improving. We've been
Speaker 5: doing a better job of listening to marginalized voices of
Speaker 5: valuing them, and that's why we are no longer in
Speaker 5: that place. But people like, yeah, it's totally a matter
Speaker 5: of what is it when what? When people of privilege
Speaker 5: lose their privilege, it feels like persecution. It can feel
Speaker 5: like persecution, fine, but you're not being persecuted. It's just
Speaker 5: the leveling of the field, which is what we're seeing here,
Speaker 5: and they don't like it.
Speaker 1: So do you think that religion is being used as
Speaker 1: a tool in this case?
Speaker 3: I mean, because clearly the.
Speaker 1: Office is for it's a faith office, right, and so
Speaker 1: it they are using religion at some forms. So do
Speaker 1: you think that the people in power are using religion?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, as Marx famously put, the opiate
Speaker 1: of the masses, right, I mean are we Is this
Speaker 1: being used as a tool for manipulation or is it
Speaker 1: an end uh an end goal in and of itself?
Speaker 5: Like I think I think it's a rallying point. It's
Speaker 5: a familiar touchstone for a lot of people. Like a
Speaker 5: lot of people, they have it in their past, so
Speaker 5: it makes sense to to you know, default back onto it.
Speaker 5: But yeah, it's totally a way of controlling people. Because
Speaker 5: religion deals with the unknown. We don't have an answer
Speaker 5: for absolutely everything, and and especially for people in power.
Speaker 5: If it enables you to have more power to maintain power,
Speaker 5: then absolutely this is this is a really handy tool
Speaker 5: to have in your toolbox. It doesn't surprise me. And
Speaker 5: it's wrong as hell.
Speaker 1: Right right, all right, I have I have a question
Speaker 1: here for the for the panel here. So, so the
Speaker 1: US Supreme Court is tasked by the Constitution to be
Speaker 1: the quote unquote interpreter of the Constitution itself. There's no
Speaker 1: mandate for the Constitution to remain static. I mean there's
Speaker 1: In fact, there are elements in the Constitution that were
Speaker 1: added and or changed after the original was written, you know,
Speaker 1: most notably the Amendments to the Constitution. So given that,
Speaker 1: is there any grounds for claiming that any decision really
Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court makes could be quote unconstitutional? Let's
Speaker 1: go to Helen first on that. Ken is it even
Speaker 1: possible for the Supreme Court to do something, to make
Speaker 1: some kind of ruling that is unconstitutional?
Speaker 3: Now, of course this isn't.
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court is not the one supporting this. This
Speaker 1: office and so We don't know if it's going to
Speaker 1: come to that or not. But if the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: rules that this office is acceptable, do we have any
Speaker 1: grounds to say otherwise.
Speaker 2: Well, here's the thing that we've had religion and government.
Speaker 2: We have a national Prayer breakfast. Every president pretty much
Speaker 2: has said that, you know, they believe in God, even
Speaker 2: I suspect a good portion then probably did not, you know,
Speaker 2: a percentage, you know. So this is this is just
Speaker 2: another way for them to kind of skim over that,
Speaker 2: you know, freedom of religion. You can have freedom of religion,
Speaker 2: and that you know you can. This is skirting around
Speaker 2: the law. They're not saying that like you can't practice
Speaker 2: your religion, you know, as a private citizen. They're just
Speaker 2: creating an office to create that. So Christians don't have
Speaker 2: bad feelings. This is a way of skirting around the
Speaker 2: law because they're not they're not going in the Constitution
Speaker 2: and making it like an official thing where they're going
Speaker 2: to so far dictate you know, what could be theratic law.
Speaker 2: But it's it's just skimming the surface and until the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court really looks at what this office is going
Speaker 2: to because like other other than ones in the article,
Speaker 2: we really don't know what this office is going to do.
Speaker 2: Down the line, he established this office, but Paula White,
Speaker 2: you know, king in charge of it because you know,
Speaker 2: she a lack of a better term, sex is dick,
Speaker 2: you know, proverbally, and that's why she got that position.
Speaker 2: And because when you're under a certain regime, they like
Speaker 2: their sickle fans. And so down the line, we're really
Speaker 2: going to see if the Supreme Court is going to
Speaker 2: have the step in and is going to have to say, like, no,
Speaker 2: this actually goes against the establishment clause and we're not
Speaker 2: supposed to give any sort of president to any sort
Speaker 2: of religion. So it's a it's a very slippery slope.
Speaker 2: But I don't think we know enough about this particular office,
Speaker 2: and I don't think the Supreme Court is one hundred
Speaker 2: percent paying attention right now because right now we have
Speaker 2: bigger fish to fry.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you think they're they're kind of I mean,
Speaker 1: do you think this is like tomorrow a free is
Speaker 1: a wedge issue?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Do you think this is just a way of getting
Speaker 1: a foot in the door and then maybe they're going
Speaker 1: to expand on that at some later point.
Speaker 2: Yes, Because I think as those of us that have
Speaker 2: looked at Project twenty twenty five knows that it's going
Speaker 2: to be a slow burn. There's and right now it's
Speaker 2: a lot of shocking off. But what this actual office
Speaker 2: is going to do to have sort of that anti
Speaker 2: anti Christian, you know, savior thing whatever, kind of giving
Speaker 2: Christianity that little of push. And again, this is not
Speaker 2: about like, you know, Christians being persecuted. This is more
Speaker 2: about denying rights America, rights to people you know that
Speaker 2: or you have a freedom to discriminate, like hey, I
Speaker 2: can fire someone because they're gay. That's what this is about.
Speaker 2: Break Yeah, I'm not gonna be their okay, exactly, Like
Speaker 2: that's what this is really about. It has really nothing
Speaker 2: to do with the actual religion. I think it's more
Speaker 2: that this gives the freedom for people to be big
Speaker 2: in my opinion. Okay, you know, so we'll see what
Speaker 2: happens with this particular office. I'm not feeling super confident
Speaker 2: about it, but I think it's gonna be gross. It's
Speaker 2: gonna be bad. But that's what we're waiting for. We're
Speaker 2: going to see what Paul White and other people that
Speaker 2: are hard Party twenty five and what the trumb administration
Speaker 2: really wants to do with this particular office. So it's
Speaker 2: only you guys. It's going to suck either way, it's
Speaker 2: going to suck.
Speaker 1: So release yourselves. Crash positions, that's what you're saying, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everybody's going to suck. Everybody, just get getting catch
Speaker 2: your safety belts on. It's gonna be allowed of turbulent.
Speaker 2: Some motherfuckers.
Speaker 1: Boy can't wait for that. Let's drop over to an
Speaker 1: ejector seat for a second here, EJ. I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you. Helen was talking about shock and awe, right,
Speaker 1: and so it's really possible that this new office isn't
Speaker 1: going to have any teeth and that it's just lip
Speaker 1: service on the part of the new regime in Washington,
Speaker 1: possibly even a distractor or something along those lines. So,
Speaker 1: given the religious pasturing we've seen already, do you think
Speaker 1: this office could be all bark and they'll bite?
Speaker 4: So I think it's what I hope is the case,
Speaker 4: because I hope that the next four years go by
Speaker 4: relatively uneventful and people can realize, holy fact, that was
Speaker 4: a mistake. Let's get the country, you know, for lack
Speaker 4: of a better term, great again. However, I don't think
Speaker 4: with the way it's going, it's going to have no teeth.
Speaker 4: I think it is, like Helen was saying, going to
Speaker 4: be a fit in the door. I think, paired with
Speaker 4: some other people from Project twenty twenty five who have
Speaker 4: been put in power, that is, it will be one
Speaker 4: step to helping suppress people who they see as undesirable
Speaker 4: or undeserving of national or federal attention.
Speaker 3: Stephen, what's your thoughts on that.
Speaker 1: Do you think this is going to be Do you
Speaker 1: think this is a distract you know, look over here,
Speaker 1: because if it is, then that means that they're using
Speaker 1: this to distract us from something that's much much worse.
Speaker 5: Like I think that forty five is designed to be
Speaker 5: a distraction because that's all he does. He loves the attention.
Speaker 5: So he's going to do absolutely everything that comes into
Speaker 5: his tiny little pea brain, and he's going to do
Speaker 5: whatever his sickle fan base is going to gobble up.
Speaker 5: And this is exactly the kind of thing they're going
Speaker 5: to gobble up. They already believe that they're the victims,
Speaker 5: they already believe that they're martyrs, that they're called to be,
Speaker 5: that this is all fulfilling what Christ said that people
Speaker 5: will hate you, and look, they do hate us. And
Speaker 5: also our Messiah is saving us because he is legislating
Speaker 5: it so that finally we can have unmake it are
Speaker 5: the shackles can come off, and we can be the
Speaker 5: unmitigated biggots that we always wanted to be. That the
Speaker 5: rule of law is just preventing us from being because
Speaker 5: clearly we have a divine right to be right. So, like,
Speaker 5: is there a game plan? I don't know if there's
Speaker 5: a game plan. I think whatever whatever opportunity happens to up,
Speaker 5: they're going to jump on it. And if nothing comes up,
Speaker 5: if it's just a one big grift, one big con
Speaker 5: just to get even more federal funds into whoever's pocket,
Speaker 5: if it's just to increase the profile of Paula or
Speaker 5: whomever it is, that whoever is going to benefit from
Speaker 5: this office, Like, it's not people, it's certainly it's not
Speaker 5: marginalized people who are going to be benefiting from this bullshit.
Speaker 5: It's obviously going to be people who are already in
Speaker 5: power who just want more power. Right, Who's going to
Speaker 5: benefit from it in whatever way possible?
Speaker 3: All right, well, thank you for that.
Speaker 1: I do want to jump back to the Constitution for
Speaker 1: a second here, specifically something called the Lemon test, the
Speaker 1: Lemon test, that was a ruling that resulted from the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one case Lemon versus Kurtzman, and that's been
Speaker 1: largely abrogated to use the words of Justice Samuel Alito
Speaker 1: since twenty twenty two. Basically, they're setting that Lemon test aside.
Speaker 1: The Lemon test was originally states that a statute must
Speaker 1: satisfy three conditions. It must serve a secular purpose.
Speaker 3: It must, as.
Speaker 1: A principle, as a principal effect, neither advance nor inhibit religion,
Speaker 1: although they did rule that a secondary effects could be
Speaker 1: promoting or inhibiting religion, but it's principal effect can't do that,
Speaker 1: and that it must not result in a quote, excessive
Speaker 1: government entangled with religion. So going to Helen first, if
Speaker 1: the Lemon test were still kind of a thing today,
Speaker 1: how would that reflect on the establishment of this office?
Speaker 1: And I want to point out this this office is
Speaker 1: technically not a law, although it is certainly funded by
Speaker 1: a law. Right, the budget is a law, and so
Speaker 1: we can you know, we can still apply this test.
Speaker 1: So how would the how would this fit? How did
Speaker 1: this fly with the with the Lemon test, I.
Speaker 2: Think God, it gets into that ambiguity thing, which I
Speaker 2: hate because it's not it can't be officially in office
Speaker 2: right because we can't have an establishment of religion according
Speaker 2: to the Constitution, but it's getting cultural funding. So it
Speaker 2: gets into that little sticky sort of ambiguity place that
Speaker 2: I hate because I'm neurodivers and I hate ambiguity, like
Speaker 2: just tell me to me straight man. So based on
Speaker 2: the Lemon tests, I think that we're looking at, as
Speaker 2: I said before, about like this sort of push to
Speaker 2: see how far this the administration can go, and also
Speaker 2: that if this is actually going to take president as
Speaker 2: far as you know, what sort of laws can be
Speaker 2: established based on it, what sort of you know things
Speaker 2: when it's when we're talking about like you know, religious bias,
Speaker 2: non bias, that sort of thing. So I think that
Speaker 2: because we're dealing with this place of ambiguity where the
Speaker 2: Lemon tests actually had like you know, an actual law,
Speaker 2: they were saying like, hey, not cool man. This is
Speaker 2: because it's playing right on the edge of politics and religion.
Speaker 2: It's difficult to see how this is actually going to
Speaker 2: turn out. And I don't think it can be something
Speaker 2: that we can directly say this, this is does this
Speaker 2: past this test, because right now we don't know, and
Speaker 2: that's kind of how I'm feeling about it. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't know if the answers your question, but that's
Speaker 2: my pain.
Speaker 3: It does.
Speaker 2: It does.
Speaker 1: So you're saying that the Lemon test might not even apply.
Speaker 1: It might just be you know, we're kind of in
Speaker 1: a gray area where even even if that were still
Speaker 1: in effect, even though it's been abrogated for now, but
Speaker 1: even if it were still in effect, you think it
Speaker 1: would still be kind of we have to wait and
Speaker 1: see kind of a thing. But you know, if we
Speaker 1: do that, though, if we wait and see what happens
Speaker 1: to so that we can apply our you know, our
Speaker 1: full weight of of Supreme Court precedent, in order for
Speaker 1: us to be able to do that, we kind of
Speaker 1: have to wait and see it. But by then it'll
Speaker 1: kind of be entrenched, right.
Speaker 2: And that's and that's where like you bring up a
Speaker 2: real good point because if this is what's actually happening,
Speaker 2: where we don't want to have to wait, because that
Speaker 2: means that they're going to kind of bulldoze these laws
Speaker 2: and they're going to kind of push through, you know,
Speaker 2: giving more president to one faith over any other faith
Speaker 2: or lack thereof. And that's deeply concerning because as I
Speaker 2: said before, this is a lot of shock and off
Speaker 2: and the whole thing is to have us panic and
Speaker 2: then pick up the pieces later. And that's that's the concern,
Speaker 2: because if they're going to push this office forward and
Speaker 2: it's actually going to affect real laws, which would affect
Speaker 2: maybe gay marriage, you know, people you know of different
Speaker 2: ethnic backgrounds able to propel themselves upwards within you know,
Speaker 2: getting mobility, you know, uh, discrebinatory laws, as far as
Speaker 2: like you know, redlining, you know, and these are actual,
Speaker 2: real concerns, and they can say that like, oh no,
Speaker 2: God wants like Republicans to have this certain district. And
Speaker 2: that's that's a deep, deep concern.
Speaker 3: That's a very specific Sorry, go ahead, Stephen.
Speaker 5: I had a vision one Republicans in the White House
Speaker 5: for the next forty years.
Speaker 3: And who's going to argue with God? Right, who's going
Speaker 3: to argue with.
Speaker 2: Missionary friends? So all right, I.
Speaker 3: Got one last thing I want to I want to
Speaker 3: bring up here.
Speaker 1: And part of what we do here on the nonprofits
Speaker 1: is is we don't just discuss the facts and the
Speaker 1: cultural significance and all this stuff, but we also like
Speaker 1: to talk about public perception and response. So one thing
Speaker 1: I like to do is anytime we have an article
Speaker 1: that has user comments down below. I know it's it's dangerous,
Speaker 1: it's dangerous ground to be treading on, but I like
Speaker 1: to dive into the to the user comments just to
Speaker 1: kind of see what people are saying. And so I
Speaker 1: had a comment here that I selected, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to get just a brief, maybe thirty second response from
Speaker 1: each of you before we wrap things up here.
Speaker 3: So this is by a user.
Speaker 1: By the name of Peter Beninger, and Peter said Christianity
Speaker 1: is the most persecuted religion on the planet. For the
Speaker 1: past several decades, all Western leaders have been protecting, encouraging,
Speaker 1: and coddling the persecutors. Of course, finally a leader who
Speaker 1: cares about the victims. Yes, that will definitely bring a
Speaker 1: course of condemnation from the twisted virtue signalers. I don't know, EJ,
Speaker 1: what do you do? What do you what's your take
Speaker 1: on that comment there?
Speaker 4: I I don't know what lens he has been viewing
Speaker 4: the world through given that he called Christianity the most
Speaker 4: persecuted religion in the world. I don't think he's been well.
Speaker 4: I don't think he's been looking outside his window. It's
Speaker 4: had a global influence for well over a thousand years
Speaker 4: and unfortunately, will for quite a while.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, Steven, what's your take on that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's it's it's rough when you don't get
Speaker 5: to do what you want as much as you want anymore,
Speaker 5: you still get.
Speaker 4: To do it.
Speaker 5: There's still churches everywhere, a crosses everywhere. We can't I can't.
Speaker 5: I can't go to my kids music recital without so
Speaker 5: and so getting up front and praying, because that's just
Speaker 5: what makes her feel comfortable, like persecuted.
Speaker 1: Right, So you're so you're saying that they're not necessarily persecuted.
Speaker 1: But what you're talking about before with privilege, right, it's
Speaker 1: it's when you revoke privilege, it feels to the privileged,
Speaker 1: to them, it feels like you are biased and prejudiced
Speaker 1: and discriminating and you know, persecuting.
Speaker 3: But really it's just you know, leveling. Yeah, Helen will
Speaker 3: give you the last word here.
Speaker 2: So I cackled because it's ridiculous. Who wrote this comment.
Speaker 1: Uh, well, we don't need to throw anybody under the bus.
Speaker 1: It was just a it was just a regular everyday.
Speaker 3: Person there out there, out there in the world.
Speaker 2: Commenter, My sweet smer child. Let me let me sling
Speaker 2: something to you. You are not being persecuted against. Basically,
Speaker 2: if you are in a place of privilege and a
Speaker 2: quality looks like oppression, that's a you problem. So that's
Speaker 2: something that you need to work on. Because you can
Speaker 2: practice your religion, you can love your Jesus, you can
Speaker 2: go to church and love your Bibles, but it does
Speaker 2: not give you the excuse to be a bigot. So
Speaker 2: I think you should do some self reflection, maybe a meditation,
Speaker 2: you know, smoke some weed, something like, find yourself, try
Speaker 2: to find yourself. All right, that's all I gotta say.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much hell and I appreciate that. And
Speaker 3: if you