Speaker 1: As we predicted right here on the nonprofits. A federal
Speaker 1: judge has put a hold on Louise's Louisiana's recently passed
Speaker 1: law HB seventy one, which makes it mandatory to display
Speaker 1: the Ten Commandments in all classrooms, ruling that the laws
Speaker 1: opponents actually have shown sufficient reason for why it may
Speaker 1: be unconstitutional. Alana Odoms, the executive director of the ACLU
Speaker 1: of Louisiana, responded to the ruling by saying, with so
Speaker 1: many aspects of democracy I think in peril, it feels
Speaker 1: really reassuring and affirming that the federal court really articulated
Speaker 1: a very clear and strong First Amendment right that shall
Speaker 1: not be violated. However, Louisiana's Attorney General has appealed to
Speaker 1: stay order and added that he strongly disagrees with the
Speaker 1: court's decision and will immediately repeal, saying this is far
Speaker 1: from over now. One of the major concerns about the
Speaker 1: laws are the dangers of overturning the establis establishment clause
Speaker 1: and the dangers of overturning the establishment clause of the
Speaker 1: Constitution and opening the possibility of people being discriminated against
Speaker 1: because of their religion by the very government that was
Speaker 1: supposed to protect them.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: This story is from CNN by Lauren mass Courinus and
Speaker 1: Isabelle Rosaliz. I'm hoping I got the first woman's name correctly.
Speaker 1: It was published November twelfth, twenty twenty four and I
Speaker 1: want to hand it off to Cindy. Are you worried
Speaker 1: that American judges will ignore the Constitution in lieu of
Speaker 1: religious doctrine?
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm not feeling very optimistic about this one, to
Speaker 2: be honest. It looks designed to go to the Supreme Court,
Speaker 2: and it probably will. And when it's there, I suspect
Speaker 2: the very radicalized judges will find a way to undermine
Speaker 2: the current president for as far as they think they
Speaker 2: can get away with. In twenty fourteen, I said that
Speaker 2: the US would be theocracy in the next three years,
Speaker 2: and I got loved at at that time. Now I'm
Speaker 2: afraid it won't take even half that time. There is
Speaker 2: a concerted effort from some states to do the same
Speaker 2: thing Louisiana is trying to do, like Oklahoma, for example.
Speaker 2: I recently watched the superintendent in that Oklahoma state express
Speaker 2: extremely similar views in an interview, and what I find
Speaker 2: interesting is that in the last ten years where I
Speaker 2: started looking into the US from the outside, I noticed
Speaker 2: that despite its image of one united country, there is
Speaker 2: a constant struggle like some kind of try to find
Speaker 2: a balance between federal and state power. And I'm afraid
Speaker 2: that the current balance is going to shift significantly in
Speaker 2: the next four years. Because you have a Supreme Court
Speaker 2: that cannot be trusted and losing pretty much all legitimacy.
Speaker 2: You have a president pushing an authoritarian agenda, which means
Speaker 2: very very much centralized power, which means very small federal government,
Speaker 2: which means that the states will have to compensate. You
Speaker 2: have an extreme polarization from state to state on fundamental issues.
Speaker 2: You have a large difference between what the Republican Party
Speaker 2: is trying to implement and what the population actually wants,
Speaker 2: even the people who identify as Republicans. And you have states,
Speaker 2: especially governors, who are trying to organize themselves already right
Speaker 2: now today. So because of all this, it feels like
Speaker 2: this balance is about cheap in very different way than
Speaker 2: it does today. So I think it's something to watch
Speaker 2: in the next next week's, next month, because yeah, I
Speaker 2: think it's going to change.
Speaker 1: And jen since we're talking about the courts and religious rulings.
Speaker 1: Do you think that they've overlooked obvious religious violations of
Speaker 1: the constitutions, And if so, why do you think that is?
Speaker 3: I know for sure that they have been violating the
Speaker 3: Constitution and federal laws and regulations on a regular basis.
Speaker 3: A lot of these lawsuits are obviously unconstitutional. I'm glad
Speaker 3: that the judge saw the obvious in this particular case.
Speaker 3: It's not at all a sure thing anymore, depending on
Speaker 3: whether you're in the Eleventh Circuit or you're in the
Speaker 3: Fifth Circuit. It just depends on who you're judge shopping
Speaker 3: for to get these up before a and obviously corrupt
Speaker 3: Supreme Court. So you know, I'm kind of heartsick that
Speaker 3: this judge was true to his oath. But the Conservatives
Speaker 3: are not true to their oaths and have destroyed the
Speaker 3: credibility of the court system on top of it, mainly
Speaker 3: due to the machinations of the federalist society. So I'm
Speaker 3: just really, really heartsick that our constitutional republic, is our
Speaker 3: constitutional democracy, i should say, is failing to uphold its
Speaker 3: own rules. This used to be a country governed by laws.
Speaker 3: I'm not so sure that's true anymore. If this is overturned,
Speaker 3: I will be more than heartbroken. That will destroy the
Speaker 3: last shread of integrity the Supreme Court has, which it
Speaker 3: doesn't have much left, and I will lose any trust
Speaker 3: I have in the fairness of our courts and the
Speaker 3: rule of law as it stands in this country. So,
Speaker 3: and that's saying a lot for me, because I'm a patriot.
Speaker 3: I've always been a patriot. I served my country and
Speaker 3: I love country. That's why it's tearing me up to
Speaker 3: see this kind of bullshit actually be propagated as the
Speaker 3: right stuff to do. It's not. But this decision is
Speaker 3: the right decision. I am not excited that he did
Speaker 3: what it was obvious. In other words, I'm not patting
Speaker 3: him on the back for doing his duty. I would
Speaker 3: be excited and angry if he had not. I celebrate
Speaker 3: the ACLU and the FFRF and their constant visual to
Speaker 3: challenge these kinds of un American activities. I'll give them
Speaker 3: a bravo Zulu well done. But I can't express any
Speaker 3: more disgust for the people trying to destroy this country
Speaker 3: and turn it into what they want it to be
Speaker 3: rather than what it's been for two hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 1: AJ, there's been another battle in courts over government vouchers
Speaker 1: being used to pay tuitions at religious schools. Now, how
Speaker 1: do you think this Ten Commandments law relates to that?
Speaker 4: It's all about advancing religion, not just any religion, but
Speaker 4: Christian nationalism specifically. And Louisiana's Republican governor, Jeff Landry, he's
Speaker 4: a Roman Catholic, but he seems to want his state
Speaker 4: to be at the forefront of this Christian nationalist movement.
Speaker 4: That was his goal when he signed the Ten Commandments Law,
Speaker 4: recording all public schools and all state funded university classrooms
Speaker 4: to display this, you know, poster sized state version of
Speaker 4: the Ten Commandments in very large and easily readable fonts,
Speaker 4: because obviously it has to be out there frontal center. Right.
Speaker 4: It seems that they can't get the voucher programs to
Speaker 4: funnel all these children into religious educational facilities, so they're
Speaker 4: trying to bring religion into the public schools. Now, and
Speaker 4: I'm class to see that these non secular families are
Speaker 4: fighting for the separation of church and state in public exchools,
Speaker 4: especially in other public spaces.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Catholics and the Landry was a Catholic, and
Speaker 1: I just wanted to point out that six of the
Speaker 1: judges on the Supreme Court are Catholic as well. Six,
Speaker 1: So I mean.
Speaker 3: It's five five conservatives and one liberal. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Cindy as a non American, thankfully for you in
Speaker 1: this in this instance, What are your impressions of the
Speaker 1: battles between Oh, well, you actually just gave that to
Speaker 1: you know, where you're from, you don't get that. Uh,
Speaker 1: you have departments, not states, as I recall, And do
Speaker 1: they have any kind of power at all or are
Speaker 1: they completely reliant on the federal government there.
Speaker 2: Now, the religion is completely completely separated from from from
Speaker 2: the state. Uh, there there is, so they have uh,
Speaker 2: some funding, but it's uh, it's it's the same for
Speaker 2: all religions, but it's very limited influence. In any case.
Speaker 2: The seventeenth and eighteenth century in France have been very
Speaker 2: hard for Christianity in general because you know, all those
Speaker 2: philosophers they were not very very friends with Christianity. So
Speaker 2: religion in France is very much limited to the private circle.
Speaker 2: It's still alive, but it's it's really really limited in there. Also,
Speaker 2: it doesn't have much strength in terms of political force.
Speaker 2: And it's the same in Belgium, where I currently live.
Speaker 2: I discovered recently that some of my soccer players in
Speaker 2: my team, they are Christians, but uh, their belief that
Speaker 2: doesn't uh enforce anything into their life there. They're not
Speaker 2: entire abortion they not, they're not. It's it's unlike anything
Speaker 2: you can see in the US. It's mostly cultural theists.
Speaker 2: Uh some of them believe in God and go to church,
Speaker 2: but it's it's very limited and it's more about the community.
Speaker 2: The beliefs themselves. They are very much in the background,
Speaker 2: and so they don't have any impact. The beliefs, I mean,
Speaker 2: they don't have any impact on the society, and nothing
Speaker 2: is decided on whether or not it agrees with religion
Speaker 2: or not. It's just not in in the discussions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, John, Do you feel let's go back to
Speaker 1: what I kind of what I actually before. Do you
Speaker 1: feel the courts have been or will betray your trust
Speaker 1: in the future, And how do you think the America
Speaker 1: can public as a whole sees that problem.
Speaker 3: I can't speak for the American public, but I can
Speaker 3: take a guess. As far as me, I think that
Speaker 3: the courts will of course break my trust because they're
Speaker 3: supposed to enforce the first ten Amendments, all the Amendments
Speaker 3: as well as the Constitution, and it looks like they're
Speaker 3: prepared to overstep that that bounds again in order to
Speaker 3: save themselves from whatever scrutiny on the conservative side that
Speaker 3: they might get for doing something that would support the
Speaker 3: actual United States. So I don't have a lot of
Speaker 3: faith that I'm not going to have a problem with
Speaker 3: just about anything they've decide. They have surprised me on
Speaker 3: occasion they've actually done the right thing. What really got
Speaker 3: my goat was residential immunity. There's an actual passage in
Speaker 3: the Constitution that says exactly the opposite. So you know,
Speaker 3: that kind of tells me that they really don't care
Speaker 3: what they're looking at. They're just going to make up
Speaker 3: their minds and think of some obtuse reason why they
Speaker 3: should think that way. It's actually almost criminal, given that
Speaker 3: they're all you know, at least two of them we
Speaker 3: know are on the take for a millionaire billionaires. You know,
Speaker 3: it's like, I have no more faith in the court system.
Speaker 3: I see all the time people being railroaded, police not
Speaker 3: being held accountable for violations of the constitutional rights of citizens.
Speaker 3: I just see that a lot. And I'm just I
Speaker 3: worked in a sheriff's department, you know, and none of
Speaker 3: the people I worked with thirty years ago would even
Speaker 3: dream of doing the kinds of things I'm hearing about now.
Speaker 3: They were. They were all legitimately good people and legitimately
Speaker 3: good cops, you know, and some great deputies they you know,
Speaker 3: and some really difficult call and they always seem to
Speaker 3: be able to figure them out. Sometimes I couldn't figure
Speaker 3: them out. And I'm not I'm not, I'm not dull,
Speaker 3: but you know, these guys were, they were really knew
Speaker 3: their their stuff. I am not so sure that we
Speaker 3: have too many, especially the higher ranking police officers, the
Speaker 3: sheriffs themselves and the police chiefs, who are really thinking
Speaker 3: through what is going on with their particular things, and
Speaker 3: that the justice system itself, the courts, are not reliable
Speaker 3: as a stop to political mayhem. So we are in
Speaker 3: for a rough ride. And you know, I'm sorry to
Speaker 3: be so Debbie Downer on this stuff, but I really feel,
Speaker 3: deep in my heart facsimile, that there is a serious
Speaker 3: problem that needs to be fixed, and the Conservatives are
Speaker 3: not going to fix it. They're making it worse.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to get back to the actual story
Speaker 1: that we're talking about for a moment. About the law
Speaker 1: that we're talking about. The similar Ten Commandments law was
Speaker 1: passed and or was struck down in Kentucky back in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three other states currently have proposed a similar law.
Speaker 1: None have been implemented, possibly because it's a playtant violation
Speaker 1: of the Constitution. But those three states are Texas of course,
Speaker 1: Utah of course, and Oklahoma of course. So I am
Speaker 1: always worried when we're pushing something like this in a classroom,
Speaker 1: what are the Jewish kids going to say? What are
Speaker 1: the Muslim kids in the school going to say? Why
Speaker 1: aren't we putting up the five Pillars of Islam on
Speaker 1: the law for those students? Why isn't there a law
Speaker 1: for that? And from what I really see is this
Speaker 1: is not an attempt to do anything but push a
Speaker 1: religious agenda and a religious morality on young minds that
Speaker 1: are open to suggestion. So this to me is really heinous.
Speaker 1: It's really heinous. And I want to ask aj. In
Speaker 1: the past, you've expressed for you think religion should be taught.
Speaker 1: Can you share those thoughts with us.
Speaker 4: Now, for me, there is a place for religious education
Speaker 4: and it's definitely not school, and there is a place
Speaker 4: for secular education, and you know, we don't bring that
Speaker 4: to church.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So, in this specific case, the families of several students
Speaker 4: of different faiths, some of them were families that had
Speaker 4: more than one faith within the same family, right, multi
Speaker 4: failed families, and these families reached out to ACLU to
Speaker 4: help them with the fight because they felt that it
Speaker 4: was a direct infringement of religious freedom and a violation
Speaker 4: of the First Amendment, which, as we've mentioned, is very
Speaker 4: clear as far as violations. This should protect all US
Speaker 4: citizens' freedom of religion, and to me, more important then
Speaker 4: freedom of religion is freedom from religion, okay, because we
Speaker 4: want these places to stay secular. One of the family
Speaker 4: members from one of the students said, as an interfaith family,
Speaker 4: we expect our children to receive their secular education in
Speaker 4: public school and their religious education at home and within
Speaker 4: our faith communities, not from the government officials. And I
Speaker 4: absolutely love this sentiment. I would be happy to stop
Speaker 4: talking about the harms of religion if people follow this
Speaker 4: type of thought process. You know, religious education belongs at home.
Speaker 4: You know what we can even do without the church teachings,
Speaker 4: keep it at home behind closed doors. Obviously, there are
Speaker 4: instances where this can become a problem, like if we
Speaker 4: have religious homeschoolers, But if we're talking about a publicly
Speaker 4: schooled child who is being taught the basics of religion
Speaker 4: at home, then it's generally a lot less harmful than
Speaker 4: school and church indoctrination happening at once. Because these kids
Speaker 4: are in public school, they're being the religion at home.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I think that we absolutely need to separate
Speaker 4: the religious education the secular education. Just keep the religion
Speaker 4: out our schools. Please.
Speaker 1: It always seems like it's members of the Republican Party
Speaker 1: trying to pass these laws, and I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: the majority of their voters would agree with many of these,
Speaker 1: Nor do I think those voters have fully caught on
Speaker 1: to what a lot of these politicians want to change
Speaker 1: this country into a right wing Christian theocracy. I know
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people that go along with it,
Speaker 1: but I think a lot of the people who are
Speaker 1: voting for the GOP are not really okay with this
Speaker 1: type of policy. So I want to ask everybody and
Speaker 1: I'm going to I'm going to ask everybody real quick answer.
Speaker 1: Do you think that the GOP voters are eventually to
Speaker 1: catch on to what their leaders are, their politicians are
Speaker 1: doing here? At least some of their politicians are doing here.
Speaker 1: And I'll start with because she's farthest from me, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I let the other respond because there's something I
Speaker 2: want to say on a different topic. So I let
Speaker 2: the the other ones respond to your question. K.
Speaker 4: You're next further away.
Speaker 3: So could you re say the question please?
Speaker 1: I wanted to. Do you need me to?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I was talking about how I don't think a lot
Speaker 1: of the GOP voters are okay with this Christian agenda,
Speaker 1: and I whatever, if you thought that you were going
Speaker 1: to wake up to this idea, or or if some
Speaker 1: of the voters because some of them are for it,
Speaker 1: let's face it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, yeah, a lot of the evangelical churches are
Speaker 3: the ones that are shouting this the loudest. However, I
Speaker 3: think a lot of Republicans, and I know a few
Speaker 3: of them actually, who are going to or have already
Speaker 3: decided that this isn't the direction they want to go in.
Speaker 3: And I'm afraid they're they're going to be there will
Speaker 3: be more of them as things progress, but you know,
Speaker 3: let's just hope it's not too late, you know, And
Speaker 3: there's always hope, I mean, you know, there's always hope
Speaker 3: that one day they'll wake up. But you see, there's
Speaker 3: an awful lot of the base that has that's turned
Speaker 3: into the base that wasn't there fifteen years ago or
Speaker 3: sixteen years ago, that was brought into the party since then,
Speaker 3: that are poorly educated, easily swayed by conspiracy theories in
Speaker 3: other way. And that group, that base is not going
Speaker 3: to change, you know, until they have been totally destroyed politically,
Speaker 3: then they'll change. But as far as the actual Republicans,
Speaker 3: there's lots of Republican groups that are now in opposition.
Speaker 3: So it's like, you know, let's wait and see where
Speaker 3: that goes.
Speaker 1: You know, it's supposed to be a quick answer, John Aj.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 4: Gonna get quick. I think there's going to be a
Speaker 4: mixed bag. I think there's going to be people that
Speaker 4: were all for it and are going to be very
Speaker 4: happy that all of these things are being enacted. But
Speaker 4: I think there's also going to be a lot of
Speaker 4: people who are going to be very disappointed in the
Speaker 4: more strict Christian nationalist ideals that are going to be
Speaker 4: put in place, and yeah, they're not going to be
Speaker 4: happy with that when when their liberties are taken away
Speaker 4: that they don't agree with.
Speaker 1: All right, thanks, and I think Cindy had some she
Speaker 1: wanted to say on a different topic, so I'm going
Speaker 1: to give her the last word.
Speaker 2: Yes, we've talked about several people who who were trying
Speaker 2: to impose their religion and we one of them was Catholic,
Speaker 2: and some of the are Evangelical. So let's get back
Speaker 2: in history a little bit. There was one religion pretty
Speaker 2: much the press was invented, and that was the Catholic religion.
Speaker 2: And when people started to read the Bible, they started
Speaker 2: to realize that, yeah, they didn't like what the Catholics
Speaker 2: were trying to teach because it was too different from
Speaker 2: the Bible. And that's when the keys in between Catholic
Speaker 2: and Protestants started to appear. So when people were able
Speaker 2: to read themselves the Bible, they started to disagree. And
Speaker 2: then in the early nineteen tens, there was this movement
Speaker 2: in the US called the Fundamentals, where about fifty intellectuals
Speaker 2: decided that they thought the the evangelical movement, the Protestants
Speaker 2: weren't strict enough, so they went to the fundamentals. And
Speaker 2: that's where the word fundamentalism comes from and applies to
Speaker 2: religion oppressions. So what happens when Catholics decide that Catholicism
Speaker 2: is the state religion in the US. What happens to evangelicals?
Speaker 2: I don't say nothing that happens in that happened through history.
Speaker 2: There's no reason why it doesn't happen again, exactly. And
Speaker 2: so it's so frustrating that the education system, the public
Speaker 2: education system in the US, has been destroyed because that's
Speaker 2: information that would be very, very relevant to teach today.
Speaker 1: I've been kind of saying that all along because because,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, the Supreme Court has six Catholics on it,
Speaker 1: and I think you're going to get a lot of
Speaker 1: products and evangelicals that go to scot Is thinking they're
Speaker 1: going to get rulings in their favor, and of course
Speaker 1: they will get some, but I don't think they're going
Speaker 1: to get everything that they want because of the Catholicism
Speaker 1: ruling the courts. Yeah, I thought this was a really
Speaker 1: good segment