Speaker 1: We are heading out to Oklahoma to talk about Superintendent
Speaker 1: Ryan Walters and what he did this week that was weird, heinous,
Speaker 1: and cruel and just downright obnoxious. Kelly has the story.
Speaker 2: Kelly my top favorite elected religious bigot. Oklahoma school superintendent
Speaker 2: Ryan Walters has tried to break the US Constitution once again,
Speaker 2: this time claiming that people pointing out that he is
Speaker 2: breaking the law are, in his eyes, breaking the law.
Speaker 2: Walters is claiming that the Freedom from Religion Foundation, whom
Speaker 2: he calls radical atheists, are attacking individuals, teachers, and students,
Speaker 2: a claim that, of course the ffi UP denies and
Speaker 2: there is absolutely no evidence. So last month, the FFI
Speaker 2: UP did successfully sue Walters and kept him from spending
Speaker 2: three million dollars on Trump Bibles to put in every
Speaker 2: classroom within the state of Oklahoma. This lawsuit filed recently
Speaker 2: by Walters against the atheist organization really looks more like
Speaker 2: retribution for that success over the superintendent's religious policies. Then
Speaker 2: it does look like something that is, you know, constitutionally legal. However,
Speaker 2: Walters has already shown he is more than willing to
Speaker 2: put the Bible before the Constitution in Oklahoma's public schools. Now,
Speaker 2: you don't need to be a lawyer. You don't even
Speaker 2: need to have ever watched the show on TV about
Speaker 2: lawyers to know that this lawsuit is a joke and
Speaker 2: cannot gain any traction in the US Federal court. This
Speaker 2: story is from The Friendly Atheist by Hem and Metta
Speaker 2: from April Tecod twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Kelly, and I'm going to stick
Speaker 1: with you because I think that you alluded to this
Speaker 1: when your introduction. But you know, why do some political leaders,
Speaker 1: especially with mister Walter, frame church state or as I
Speaker 1: was recently told, religion and government separation as an attack.
Speaker 2: Why why do they see it that way?
Speaker 1: You know what?
Speaker 2: I I don't know why they see it that way.
Speaker 2: I understand that the them seeing that way is what
Speaker 2: is becoming a large problem for us in many places
Speaker 2: like Oklahoma. We're having problems with in Texas with the
Speaker 2: schools there, in Louisiana with the schools there where they
Speaker 2: now have to post the Ten Commandments in all the classrooms.
Speaker 2: And I think these people see this as a win
Speaker 2: over secular society. Like you know, they took prayer out
Speaker 2: of school back in the nineteen fifties, and we're gonna
Speaker 2: damn make sure it gets back in there, even if
Speaker 2: we have to, even if we have to do it
Speaker 2: little by little by little. I mean, they chipped away
Speaker 2: to abortion rights for fifty years until they got what
Speaker 2: they almost have it completely what they wanted, and they're
Speaker 2: still working on that. But it's the same type of
Speaker 2: strategy or just gonna chip away at it, chip chip chip,
Speaker 2: chip chip. Nobody notices the chip. Everybody notices when you're
Speaker 2: knocking arm office that you little chip off the bottom
Speaker 2: of it. Nobody notices until it's too late.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And they're doing it little by little, like you said.
Speaker 3: Here in Texas, they're doing the same thing. You know,
Speaker 3: the thing commandments, the bluebonnet curberculum that has a lot
Speaker 3: of like biblical stories on it. It passed, it pass
Speaker 3: is actually unless so, I mean, religion just does not
Speaker 3: belong in public spaces, especially in tax funded places like
Speaker 3: you know, schools. And I think Ryan Walters is confusing
Speaker 3: what freedom of religion means. Like it doesn't mean you're
Speaker 3: free to bring your religion into all of these places, right,
Speaker 3: freedom of religion means that you can practice whatever religion
Speaker 3: you want as long as you're not showing it in
Speaker 3: other people's faces. Like, freedom from religion is just as
Speaker 3: important as freedom of religion.
Speaker 1: So I think that when we're looking at some polical
Speaker 1: leaders like Ryan Walters, and I think that this is
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why we cover him a lot,
Speaker 1: is because I don't really believe that they understand that
Speaker 1: the freedom from religion is also a protectant for the religion,
Speaker 1: because what ends up happening is that you do not
Speaker 1: have government, the state, the nation coming into your institution
Speaker 1: tell you how you're supposed to practice your said religion
Speaker 1: or put stipulations on you on how your religion is
Speaker 1: supposed to go. So it's protecting the religious as well
Speaker 1: as us who happen to want to live our lives secular.
Speaker 1: We don't necessarily have to be concerned with religious edicts,
Speaker 1: institutions and the like dictating our life. But unfortunately, people
Speaker 1: like Ryan Walters and other Christian nationalists who have been
Speaker 1: elected into office are blurring those lines, and other institutions
Speaker 1: that prop them up are blurring those lines so that
Speaker 1: they can now dictate no matter what your belief is,
Speaker 1: or even if you are not necessarily a Christian or
Speaker 1: a believer in Christ or anything like that, how you're
Speaker 1: supposed to live your life. This is the problem, and
Speaker 1: it's even creeping into our curriculum. You notice, like I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure that you because we covered this before in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four is the most
Speaker 1: that you will see like different institutions actually spending money
Speaker 1: on school board election, like record amounts of money being
Speaker 1: spent on school board election because they want to put
Speaker 1: people into and when I say they, I mean Christian
Speaker 1: nationalist institutions want to put people into those seats that
Speaker 1: are of their ideology in order for them to influence curriculum,
Speaker 1: to be able to indoctrinate kids, get them while they're young.
Speaker 1: This is why Ryan Walters is pushing Bibles in school
Speaker 1: specific Bibles with the Constitution or the pream or whatever
Speaker 1: the hell was in front. There's a leather bound and
Speaker 1: all this other craziness. I was like, can you imagine
Speaker 1: like a kindergartener like walking around with this big go
Speaker 1: leave the bound Bible school. I'm learning to read, mama,
Speaker 1: Like you know, it's just absolutely ridiculous. And and now
Speaker 1: that this is going to be the thing that's going
Speaker 1: to be influencing like what they're being taught. It's insane.
Speaker 1: But I know that Rob, you mentioned that you don't
Speaker 1: necessarily believe that this is real. Can you just like
Speaker 1: expand like what your thoughts are when it comes to this.
Speaker 4: Whole Yeah, Ultimately, I Ryan Walter confuses me because I don't.
Speaker 4: I'm genuinely curious. This isn't a bit like if he
Speaker 4: understands what the protections of freedom of religion are and
Speaker 4: things like that like that generally people are not that stupid,
Speaker 4: especially if you become superintendent, even though it's possible to
Speaker 4: have that happen. So what I don't, what I absolutely
Speaker 4: don't want to do is just like make fun of
Speaker 4: a dude or tell him he's dumb. But like, as
Speaker 4: he keeps coming up, I actually don't know if he's
Speaker 4: villain and monstrous or if he's just this abjectly stupid,
Speaker 4: Like it can only be one of the other. So
Speaker 4: what was happening is specifically that came up is at
Speaker 4: least one teacher was specifically doing a Bible reading a
Speaker 4: prayer before every class that was not relevant to the material.
Speaker 4: And since they're a school which receives government funding, they
Speaker 4: are not allowed to push any particular religion. And since
Speaker 4: you can totally study religions in school, you should. You
Speaker 4: cannot give one more of a mouthpiece as if it
Speaker 4: has any more credibility or realness to it. So this
Speaker 4: wasn't like, oh, some of the students wanted to hold
Speaker 4: a prayer sometimes and the Freedom from Religious said no, No.
Speaker 4: The school staff was literally putting on prayer with the students.
Speaker 4: This cannot occur. This is a strictly obviously, there is
Speaker 4: no two ways of about it. Illegal act. Cool. Okay,
Speaker 4: so we're there. This is wrong. Now this guy comes
Speaker 4: in and says they can't tell us to stop, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, my dude, yes they can because it is
Speaker 4: clearly illegal. There's no wiggle room here. So at some
Speaker 4: point I have to stop believing that he's this stupid,
Speaker 4: because he can't be. He must be monstrous. I have
Speaker 4: found this to be evil with the amount of times
Speaker 4: he brings it up and refuses to change his behavior.
Speaker 3: This is Robbie. You just say that what they were
Speaker 3: doing was illegal, and you should just a little bit
Speaker 3: of what you know, what the story was that. Let
Speaker 3: me should just just a little bit more detailed. But
Speaker 3: from what I read in an auticle, and at least
Speaker 3: one instance a student actually read Bible versus to the
Speaker 3: whole class, like in front of the class, for the
Speaker 3: whole class. So and then the district, also, the whole district,
Speaker 3: not just one school, was beginning the school day with
Speaker 3: mandatory student let prayer over the loudspeaker. After but this
Speaker 3: was after the first period would start. Therefore, like everybody
Speaker 3: was forced to partake in that. Like you couldn't just
Speaker 3: get out of it because it was already class had
Speaker 3: already started, so you would get in trouble if you
Speaker 3: wanted to get out. You know that if it was
Speaker 3: something like a moment of silence, that would be legal.
Speaker 3: So what they tried to do to get away with
Speaker 3: it was like they would instruct students to who were
Speaker 3: making out this announcements to call it that, to call
Speaker 3: it a moment of silence or prayer. But it wasn't
Speaker 3: done quietly. It was followed by the student making the
Speaker 3: announcement praying over the intercome for the entire fucking school.
Speaker 3: So like it was definitely not secular and it was
Speaker 3: definitely illegal.
Speaker 1: I think that we're what we're dealing with is that
Speaker 1: the right is using. And I think that you guys
Speaker 1: probably remember this case with Joe Kennedy from who was
Speaker 1: a teacher. He was a football coach in Alabama who
Speaker 1: was marching or telling his he was leading prayers rather
Speaker 1: on the fifty yard line after every game, even though
Speaker 1: his team was not a winning team. I repeat, the
Speaker 1: team sucked like never won a championship. That all the
Speaker 1: praying in the world did not help their playing. The
Speaker 1: praying did not help the playing but soever and this,
Speaker 1: and the school ended up discontinuing his contract when his
Speaker 1: contract was up. They did not want to renew it,
Speaker 1: even though they told him multiple times like hey, mister Kennedy,
Speaker 1: tell you what pray, but can't you do it like
Speaker 1: in the locker room and not on the fifty yard
Speaker 1: line when you're done, Because he was not just he
Speaker 1: was telling the students and inviting others even from like
Speaker 1: the other team and other people who happened to be
Speaker 1: around and other students to come out and with them
Speaker 1: taking knee do all this other bullshit. Right, So it
Speaker 1: was a case that the appellate court said, no, the
Speaker 1: school was in the right in order for them not
Speaker 1: to renew the contract. There's no rights that was violated here.
Speaker 1: If anything, you messed up because you were at a
Speaker 1: public school and you blurred the lines of the establishment.
Speaker 1: Cause that's what you did, mister Kennedy. And so they
Speaker 1: were in their right because they tried to work with
Speaker 1: you within your means and you decided to do your
Speaker 1: own thing. Goes all the way up to the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: all the way up to the Supreme Court felt it
Speaker 1: was so interesting that the concurrent address from none other
Speaker 1: than Brent Kavanaugh was his religious freedom practices were violated,
Speaker 1: so the school was made to put him back into
Speaker 1: his position, even though he moved all the way from
Speaker 1: Alabama to Florida, or almost over one hundred miles away.
Speaker 2: And what did he do after he got rehired was
Speaker 2: that he quit? He quit, he quit, he quit quit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he quit. I think it wasn't even after one game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was one game he played.
Speaker 1: Yeah, after one game he quit. So I mean, like so,
Speaker 1: it was a waste of time, It was a waste
Speaker 1: of backspayer money to even have this case. It shouldn't
Speaker 1: even have been taken up in the first place. But
Speaker 1: even though he did all of that, it was more
Speaker 1: so a thing of Hey, now the Supreme Court has said,
Speaker 1: chat right, yeah, we're chipping. We're chipping. Now, We're chipping.
Speaker 1: We're chipping. Now. Now the Supreme Court has said that, hey,
Speaker 1: he was able to do this because his religious freedom
Speaker 1: practices were violated by the school. Then now all the
Speaker 1: people who are paid attention to this particular case, who
Speaker 1: are in a Christian nationalist sphere is saying, okay, let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and push this. Even Justice Soto Mayor said,
Speaker 1: the Lemon Test. Look it up, guys, the Lemon Test
Speaker 1: is dead. But I want to hear more from Kelly
Speaker 1: because I want to know about the oppositions to Walters
Speaker 1: and how it actually may be affected in the better
Speaker 1: or affected in the worse.
Speaker 2: There has been some quite a bit of opposition of
Speaker 2: Walter's policies throughout the state, especially in Tulsa, where last
Speaker 2: year three candidates who were elected to the city school
Speaker 2: Board were openly defiant of Walter's policies in public. There's
Speaker 2: also been a lot of criticism from the indigenous peoples
Speaker 2: who are trying to keep their traditional beliefs with their
Speaker 2: children because they're getting bombarded with Christian messages at public schools,
Speaker 2: which is really the very place where something like this
Speaker 2: shouldn't be happening. So there are some bright spots in
Speaker 2: opposition to them, people who probably deserve more support. Here's
Speaker 2: something that sounds bad, but it might really be good
Speaker 2: in the long term. In the long run. His term
Speaker 2: in office is up next year, and so is the
Speaker 2: guy owner's term. Now there's been rumors about him running
Speaker 2: for the governor's office and instead of re running for
Speaker 2: a superintendent, and quite frankly, I'm not sure he can
Speaker 2: win that post. With his radical, far right religious views,
Speaker 2: they do tend to not carry over to higher state offices.
Speaker 2: Oklahoma might be a little bit different, but I don't
Speaker 2: think I still don't think he'd be able to win
Speaker 2: the governor's On the governor's election, he is in his
Speaker 2: first elected office altogether, so people don't know what they
Speaker 2: were getting for the most part when they elected him
Speaker 2: the first time. They But now that his views and
Speaker 2: his ideas are out there for all to see, he's
Speaker 2: been criticized all across the country. I'm pretty sure he
Speaker 2: just won't be elected as governor, let alone school superintendent again.
Speaker 2: So hopefully, you know, we'll see him maybe try to
Speaker 2: run for that office, and in the process of running
Speaker 2: for that office not being a school superintendent.
Speaker 4: Also, you hope, you hope. But the issue is that
Speaker 4: when people like Trump can run and win, that what's
Speaker 4: happening is all of this that he's doing is meant
Speaker 4: to galvanize and virtue signal.
Speaker 2: I guess man, you know, well, I.
Speaker 1: Just have to reiterate that we here at the atheist
Speaker 1: community as Austin does not actually endorse nor doing a
Speaker 1: great any type of candidates who happen to run or
Speaker 1: actually are an office at this particular time. I think
Speaker 1: that when it even comes with this particular case, like
Speaker 1: we are looking specifically at the policies that this particular
Speaker 1: vers is doing now, whether if they are going to
Speaker 1: go for a different office or not, we don't know
Speaker 1: what that what would happen as far as like them
Speaker 1: actually occupy in that office. But you know, if they win,
Speaker 1: if they lose, or even if they run it all
Speaker 1: it will be up to the people to decide if
Speaker 1: they're going to be in office, and we will not
Speaker 1: endorse them or dedorse them I don't even know if
Speaker 1: that's a word. Or oppose them, I like dedoors, but
Speaker 1: you know, all words are made up regardless, yes, indoors
Speaker 1: or oppose them, whether they're going to be an office
Speaker 1: or not. But I did want to ask a question
Speaker 1: to the panel in of itself, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: start with you, aj THN, Kelly, and then Rob because
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, one of the things
Speaker 1: that we have to look at when it comes to
Speaker 1: the possible indoctrination or the not indoctrination of children in
Speaker 1: schools is those who happen to be in the classrooms,
Speaker 1: that's you know, teaching. So how can educators uphold constitutional
Speaker 1: law without being caught in the crossfire a political theater?
Speaker 1: Aj please start, then Kelly and then Rob.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean when any way you look at it,
Speaker 3: there are classes in the Constitution regarding religion, and one
Speaker 3: of them is, like you mentioned, that are really the establishments,
Speaker 3: and it says that the government cannot promote or indorse
Speaker 3: any particular religion. And this includes public schools because there
Speaker 3: are you know, government spaces, so public schools just cannot
Speaker 3: lead or require students to participate in prayer or display
Speaker 3: religious symbols and any of that stuff. And this also
Speaker 3: includes teachers. So if teachers want to follow the law.
Speaker 3: They kind of they can say, you know what, I
Speaker 3: am not going to teach this curriculum that you're giving
Speaker 3: me that has biblical you know, connotations. I'm not going
Speaker 3: to display these tink Commandments on the wall because it's
Speaker 3: against the law, even though you know, they want to
Speaker 3: make it the law that schools needs to display the
Speaker 3: Ten Commandments whatever it is against the establishment class So yeah,
Speaker 3: they can. They can definitely cite the Constitution to defend
Speaker 3: their decisions to oppose those type of things.
Speaker 2: I don't think they cannot get caught in the middle
Speaker 2: of it. That's the problem. I don't. I don't think
Speaker 2: it's possible for him. And in fact, in Louisiana I
Speaker 2: mentioned that the Ten Commandments law that they passed have
Speaker 2: to be posted in all the classrooms. There is a
Speaker 2: lawsuit against that law and it was brought by a
Speaker 2: teacher who was actually the teacher of the Year in Louisiana. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, teachers are on the front lines here and
Speaker 2: they probably deserve more support than they're getting. And I
Speaker 2: always said that about teachers. Teachers definitely need more support
Speaker 2: than they get.
Speaker 4: So Rob, you're right, Ultimately, how can educators uphold constitutional
Speaker 4: law by doing their jobs without being caught in the
Speaker 4: crossfire by political theater. They cannot. The problem is executing
Speaker 4: the Constitution as it is written, or executing the spirit
Speaker 4: and the understanding of how the freedom of religion is
Speaker 4: supposed to be executed within the country. When that very
Speaker 4: execution is itself the thing being targeted, then when the
Speaker 4: teachers follow the law, they are in fact putting themselves
Speaker 4: into the politicalness, the political theater of it all. It
Speaker 4: cannot be avoided. Therefore, don't try and stand strong, do more,
Speaker 4: be loud. You can't avoid it, so win.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we understood that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I've traveled around the country quite a bit over the
Speaker 2: last couple of years, and everywhere I go people are
Speaker 2: always complaining about stuff.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I hear them talking about LGBTQ rights, about inflation, about DEI,
Speaker 2: the wage gap, affirmative action, all kinds of stuff I
Speaker 2: hear people complaining about all the time, you name it.
Speaker 2: And I think it's time for Americans to shut the
Speaker 2: fuck up. Shut the fuck up, get off your asses,
Speaker 2: put that game controller down, and go out there and
Speaker 2: start changing the things that you think need to be changed.
Speaker 1: Well, I will say this people. Change does not happen
Speaker 1: from the top down. It happens from the bottom up.