Point of View December 17, 2024 – Hour 2 : Repealing the Johnson Amendment

[00:00:04] Across America, live, this is Point of View, and now, Hannah Dexter.

[00:00:20] Welcome back ladies and gentlemen. My guest this segment for a couple of segments is Mike Ferris.

[00:00:26] He joins us often on Point of View on various issues, and I'm grateful I get to be the one interviewing him today.

[00:00:33] For over 40 years, Mike Ferris has practiced constitutional appellate litigation,

[00:00:38] and he specializes in religious freedom and parental rights.

[00:00:42] He's argued before the appellate courts of 13 states, eight federal circuit courts of appeal,

[00:00:49] and the Supreme Court of the United States.

[00:00:52] And most of you know he was president and founder of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association.

[00:00:58] I don't think I would have homeschooled in those early years without that.

[00:01:03] And he also founded Patrick Henry College, and he was president and CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom.

[00:01:12] Now he's in semi-retirement, he says, although I'm not sure I believe it.

[00:01:16] And he serves as general counsel to the National Religious Broadcasters.

[00:01:21] And Mike, thanks for joining me.

[00:01:23] Hi, Penn. It's great to be with you again.

[00:01:25] It's good to have you.

[00:01:27] And, you know, your effort on behalf of repealing the Johnson Amendment and challenging it in courts,

[00:01:34] I think it's been waited for.

[00:01:37] It's been anticipated for a long time.

[00:01:40] People are glad you're doing this.

[00:01:42] I've posted at pointofview.net the press release from NRB, National Religious Broadcasters,

[00:01:48] talking about this challenge.

[00:01:51] And tell us, first of all, what is the Johnson Amendment and why do we want to get rid of it?

[00:01:58] In 1954, Lyndon Johnson, then a U.S. Senator, took aim at a couple of nonprofit organizations that were a critical

[00:02:11] people have him in his service as a U.S. Senator.

[00:02:13] And in fairness, they were trying to defeat him, which was perfectly lawful activity for them at the time.

[00:02:20] And he decided to make it unlawful for nonprofit organizations to support or endorse or oppose candidates.

[00:02:29] And so he got an amendment put into the Internal Revenue Code that put as an additional requirement for nonprofit organizations

[00:02:38] that they could not support or oppose or even speak out on candidates for public office, either for or against.

[00:02:47] And it passed basically without debate, without hearings.

[00:02:51] And then about a week later, Lyndon Johnson got a Protestant pastor in Texas to send out thousands of endorsement letters to

[00:03:01] Protestant churches because his primary opponent was a Catholic and said we need to elect a good, quote unquote, Christian man, Lyndon Johnson.

[00:03:07] And so his campaign violated his own amendment within a week or so of its passage.

[00:03:12] Well, that's continued.

[00:03:14] I think you can get away with it if you're on the left.

[00:03:17] But on the right, you're in trouble if you violate the Johnson Amendment.

[00:03:20] Or if you don't get in trouble, you're afraid you're going to get in trouble.

[00:03:25] Would you agree?

[00:03:26] Indeed, indeed.

[00:03:27] Indeed.

[00:03:28] And the lawsuit that we filed in Tyler, Texas, in federal court there, goes into meticulous detail about two categories of nonprofits

[00:03:41] that on the left-hand side of the aisle regularly endorse candidates.

[00:03:47] In fact, the catalyst for this particular approach was a discovery that I made that a number of newspapers were going out of business in the for-profit world,

[00:03:58] and they were remaking themselves as nonprofits.

[00:04:00] And this included one of the biggest papers in the country, the Philadelphia Inquirer.

[00:04:05] And I just asked myself when I heard this, well, I wonder if they still endorse candidates.

[00:04:09] And I looked it up, and sure enough, in the 13 or so years since the Philadelphia Inquirer had become nonprofit,

[00:04:16] it regularly endorsed Democrats every single election, every year.

[00:04:21] It was either a national or a regional or a local race that they endorsed candidates on the Democratic side of the platform.

[00:04:27] And then looking at hundreds of other nonprofit newspapers, we found many, many examples of these organizations

[00:04:38] that either directly endorsed candidates or went over the line in what's, you know,

[00:04:43] the statutory standard is supporting or opposing candidates.

[00:04:46] And when people say things like in nonprofit newspapers like, you know, Donald Trump is an egomaniac, you know,

[00:04:56] that should never be elected by anybody, words to that effect or worse, that's opposing a candidate.

[00:05:04] And so even if they don't feel like they've unfortunately, you know, formally endorsed a candidate,

[00:05:10] those kind of articles in newspapers for nonprofit are supporting or opposing.

[00:05:14] And we make it very clear in the lawsuit that both these newspapers and Democrat-leading churches that do the same thing

[00:05:23] and, you know, support Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Obama, and so on,

[00:05:29] that we think they have a constitutional right to do so, but it just shouldn't be one-sided,

[00:05:33] that everybody, all nonprofits should have the freedom of speech to say what they want to say about candidates.

[00:05:41] I know there are some churches in our country who do a lot to get people involved in the political arena as believers, as Christians,

[00:05:51] and I applaud that.

[00:05:53] But most churches don't do that.

[00:05:55] In fact, they don't do it either because they don't think it's important or because they're afraid.

[00:06:00] And they can already, even with the Johnson Amendment, go up to a certain line in discussing issues,

[00:06:07] but they often just don't do it because they're afraid of violating it, don't you think?

[00:06:14] Indeed.

[00:06:15] The fear of violating the Johnson Amendment is one of the two big fears and the other sort of related to that,

[00:06:24] and that is fear of antagonizing potential donors and members of their church.

[00:06:30] And so a lot of churches put the gloss on it that, well, if we do this, then we can't, you know, preach the gospel to people.

[00:06:42] Well, my experience is just the opposite.

[00:06:44] I'm a member, in fact, I'm one of the elders at Cornerstone Chapel in Leesburg, Virginia.

[00:06:50] Gary Hamrick's our pastor, who's becoming more well-known in our country.

[00:06:54] And he openly preaches on these issues, talks strongly about candidates, talks about party platforms.

[00:07:03] And every year on Easter and Christmas in particular, hundreds of people accept Christ.

[00:07:11] I mean, one Easter a couple years ago, 1,100 decisions for Christ were made in the series of Easter services.

[00:07:20] We'll have, I think, 10 Christmas Eve services this year.

[00:07:25] And I would anticipate someplace between 500 and 700 people getting saved.

[00:07:31] And the churches that I know where people are getting saved in dramatic numbers also take a real strong stand on the issues.

[00:07:39] And so, in fact, if you don't take a stand against sin, it's hard to get people saved.

[00:07:45] And so, in fact, a lot of the fear of people standing up against abortion or gay marriage or these other kinds of things is they don't like talking about sin.

[00:07:56] And if you don't like talking about sin, you know, I don't know how you preach the gospel.

[00:08:01] We've got some hope in this country.

[00:08:03] And the next segment, I'm going to continue to discuss that hope.

[00:08:07] And perhaps if NRB and Mike Ferris are successful in striking the Johnson Amendment, I mean, it would just be great if that happened.

[00:08:20] I want to know the chances of them being successful.

[00:08:24] And I'm going to ask Mike about that.

[00:08:27] And also, you know, what we Christians then could do differently, how we can encourage our own pastor churches and other nonprofits.

[00:08:35] I mean, even point of view.

[00:08:37] Sometimes we have to obey those strictures of that evil Johnson Amendment.

[00:08:42] We hope we get rid of it.

[00:08:43] We're going to talk more about this right after this message.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:02] You know, it is estimated that Charles Wesley wrote over 6,500 hymns.

[00:09:06] Perhaps his best known hymn is Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

[00:09:09] Over the years, it has been edited slightly, but the meaning and theology remains as he wrote it more than two centuries ago.

[00:09:16] It begins with a proclamation of the birth of Jesus.

[00:09:19] Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Glory to the Newborn King.

[00:09:26] The hymn reminds us why Christ came to earth.

[00:09:30] Jesus came into the world to bring peace, but many who sing this song fail to realize that it was to bring peace between us and God.

[00:09:38] Wesley's hymn reminds us that his birth was so that God and sinners could be reconciled.

[00:09:43] We are the sinners in this hymn, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

[00:09:48] All we like sheep have gone astray.

[00:09:50] We have broken God's commandments and need to be reconciled with God.

[00:09:54] This was done when Christ died for our sins.

[00:09:57] This hymn by Charles Wesley goes on to describe who Jesus Christ is.

[00:10:02] Christ by highest heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord.

[00:10:05] Late in time behold him come, offspring of the virgin's womb.

[00:10:10] Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity.

[00:10:14] Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus are Emmanuel.

[00:10:18] This is the wonder of the incarnation.

[00:10:21] Jesus became the offspring of the virgin's womb.

[00:10:23] God became man and was veiled in flesh, even though he was the incarnate deity.

[00:10:28] This Christmas week, let us all once again reflect upon the incarnation.

[00:10:32] How wonderful yet mysterious that God would become man and dwell among us.

[00:10:36] And that he would be willing to die on a cross for our sins.

[00:10:40] I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:47] Go deeper on topics like you hear on viewpoints by visiting pointofview.net.

[00:10:54] Pointofview.net.

[00:10:57] You're listening to Point of View, your listener supported source for truth.

[00:11:03] Welcome back to Point of View.

[00:11:05] I'm Penna Dexter.

[00:11:06] Mike Ferris is my guest, and I'm so grateful that we are able to talk about the Johnson Amendment.

[00:11:11] I have posted at pointofview.net the press release from National Religious Broadcasters Association,

[00:11:18] or Mike Ferris is general counsel.

[00:11:21] And one quote from it says,

[00:11:23] our intent is to vindicate the right of every church and religious nonprofit to express what their faith teaches on every issue,

[00:11:30] including political matters, as is their right and their duty.

[00:11:33] That sounds very reasonable, but it is prevented by the Johnson Amendment.

[00:11:38] And so NRB is challenging it, along with, I guess, some other churches.

[00:11:42] So, Mike, can you tell us about this challenge?

[00:11:45] Sure.

[00:11:46] We have four plaintiffs in the case.

[00:11:50] NRB, Intercessors for America, which is a prayer-based ministry that also has put out a voting guide for many years.

[00:11:57] And then two churches, both in the greater Tyler area where the lawsuit is being prosecuted.

[00:12:06] And so we did not seek a preliminary injunction in the case, which is what you do oftentimes in free speech-related cases, for two reasons.

[00:12:18] One, we didn't want anybody to think that we were just trying to do a gimmick for the 2024 election.

[00:12:24] And secondly, we want to be able to take discovery from the IRS to get into their files and show their bias in the way that they have interpreted

[00:12:33] and applied the Johnson Amendment over the years.

[00:12:35] So where does this stand?

[00:12:37] Well, we're expecting a motion from the Internal Revenue Service to dismiss.

[00:12:43] The typical thing for the government to do in constitutional challenges is move to dismiss at the beginning.

[00:12:49] And their motion is due December 23rd.

[00:12:53] So we'll get it any day now.

[00:12:55] And then I'll be responding to that.

[00:13:00] Probably about a 60-day window for the response.

[00:13:04] And one thing that will be important for that is that the Biden administration will no longer be in charge of the case once my response has been filed.

[00:13:14] And so the final step of the motion to dismiss will be the government's reply brief.

[00:13:20] And we may see some difference in approach by the Biden administration compared to the from the Trump administration rather than the Biden administration.

[00:13:32] So I expect that we'll be interested to see what the Trump administration wants to do.

[00:13:39] They could come in and concede that the thing is unconstitutional, and that would be great.

[00:13:44] But we're not going to do anything other than a full constitutional victory.

[00:13:49] If there was some settlement that was offered that would be halfway, we're not interested.

[00:13:56] We want the law to be declared unconstitutional once and for all.

[00:13:59] Now, we should point out that there are three things that the 501c3 requires.

[00:14:06] One is you can't lobby more than a little bit.

[00:14:09] In reality, you don't need to lobby more than a little bit for the nonprofit.

[00:14:14] So that part is inconsequential.

[00:14:16] The second part is you can't give money directly to candidates, and we don't want to do that.

[00:14:21] We, regular corporations won free speech rights in the Citizens United case, but they can't give money directly to the candidate,

[00:14:28] and we don't want to do that either.

[00:14:29] And frankly, the candidate's pestering you to death if you could do that.

[00:14:32] The third thing is you can't speak out about candidates.

[00:14:35] You can't say what you want for or against them.

[00:14:38] That's the part that we're challenging.

[00:14:39] So it's just exactly like Citizens United in that sense, only that was done for for-profits and 501c4 organizations.

[00:14:48] Although, one of the reasons that we feel very, very good about our chances of winning is that the Supreme Court gave three examples of nonprofits

[00:14:56] that might want to speak out about political candidates.

[00:14:59] And all three were 501c3 organizations.

[00:15:03] It was the National Rifle Association and Planned Parenthood, and I believe the third was the Sierra Club.

[00:15:10] Now, they have C4 affiliates, but the exact group that they cited in each case was the C3 central organization.

[00:15:19] So we have strong belief that the principles of Citizens United, which say that your corporate structure can't be the basis for you losing your freedom of speech.

[00:15:30] And that's the case.

[00:15:32] And we've also pointed out that other nonprofit tax-exempt organizations that are allowed to, you know,

[00:15:40] their business expenses can be deductible or in some cases their donations can be deductible.

[00:15:45] So they get to speak out on Canada, but just 501c3s, which are dominated by religious organizations, cannot.

[00:15:51] And so the inequality of all this, we believe, is a big basis for, you know, hope that we will prevail in the end.

[00:16:01] When you said that you think that the government might move to dismiss this, what would be the basis of that?

[00:16:08] Well, they're going to dismiss it principally, I'm sure, on the Anti-Injunction Act.

[00:16:13] And that law says you can't sue the IRS over tax liabilities before the tax has been come due and paid.

[00:16:25] And so that's the reason that people have not filed an affirmative case.

[00:16:30] But I found, I believe, basically a workaround that because there are three exceptions.

[00:16:37] One is that if you haven't got a current tax liability and you're suing about an underlying principle, then the act doesn't apply.

[00:16:50] And in this case, what that means is all of my four clients have talked about issues, but they've never endorsed candidates.

[00:16:58] And so if they'd endorsed candidates, that their tax liability would be on the line and the Anti-Injunction Act would apply.

[00:17:06] But since none of them have, they've self-censored.

[00:17:09] And self-censorship is a ground for First Amendment standing so that we can go into court and challenge the case.

[00:17:15] But there's no tax liability owing here.

[00:17:17] And so the IRS can't say that, you know, we're trying to litigate tax liability because that's just not the case.

[00:17:24] The other exception is if the IRS is doing this and interpreting the law in a discriminatory manner, favoring Democrats over Republican-leaning organizations, and we've got strong evidence of that.

[00:17:38] Or if it's in a crazy quilt kind of manner, arbitrary and capricious or irrational manner.

[00:17:45] So we believe that all three of those exceptions apply here, that their discrimination sometimes is purposeful, sometimes is just crazy quilt.

[00:17:53] But there's no rhyme to reason.

[00:17:56] Nobody knows.

[00:17:57] In fact, the IRS's own test for this is facts and circumstances, the totality of facts and circumstances.

[00:18:04] And then we'll tell you if you've gone over the line of the Johnson Amendment.

[00:18:07] Well, that by definition is an arbitrary and capricious standard.

[00:18:12] So that's going to be the principal battle is the Anti-Injunction Act.

[00:18:16] And we think that we've got, you know, really good arguments against it.

[00:18:20] And they may raise the issue of standing, whether the case is, you know, the people have a particular stake in the outcome.

[00:18:28] But I don't think there's going to be an issue in that issue.

[00:18:30] I think we'll prevail on that.

[00:18:32] But that's what we anticipate would be those two grounds.

[00:18:35] And we're ready for it.

[00:18:36] We put things about those issues into the complaint, you know, getting the court a chance to think about that before they hear from the IRS.

[00:18:45] Well, one more question, Mike, before I let you go.

[00:18:48] And thank you so much for joining me.

[00:18:50] What if you're successful?

[00:18:52] What can we do with this development that we actually can be much more bold, either from the pulpit or any nonprofit that's communicating other stance on elections?

[00:19:04] So what can we do going forward?

[00:19:07] Well, the reality is that born again Christians, like many others in society, don't vote with the kind of consistency that would be able to maximize our influence.

[00:19:26] And so the people that just stay home, they don't look about, well, 35 to 40% of professing born again Christians just don't show up at the polls.

[00:19:37] Well, if their pastor was regularly teaching them that God, you know, has something to say about this, you know, starting with Proverbs 3, 6, in all thy ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths.

[00:19:49] And if you have a, you know, if you have a right, you know, for him who knows to do right and do if it not to him, it is sin.

[00:19:54] And so you get a little teaching on this.

[00:19:57] I think it's just simply increasing the number of Christians voting.

[00:20:01] If we got out of the, you know, 35 to 40% absentee rate and we're more like 85, 90% voting, this country would be a different place.

[00:20:12] I think you're right.

[00:20:13] And so that's the big hope for is that people would just simply vote.

[00:20:18] And if they vote according to their convictions and according to their beliefs, then our country is being misrepresented because people who have the right to ask for better representation are improperly silent.

[00:20:33] And they're silent because the pulpits are silent.

[00:20:37] If we get the pulpits out of the silent mode, the people will respond appropriately.

[00:20:42] Mike, thank you.

[00:20:43] And thank you so much for your effort.

[00:20:45] And we will get an update from you.

[00:20:48] And thanks for joining me today.

[00:20:50] Thank you, Panna.

[00:20:51] Ladies and gentlemen, I want to mention here before the end of the segment that we're heading into Christmas and the end of the year.

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[00:22:46] Point of view will continue after this.

[00:22:51] You are listening to Point of View.

[00:23:01] The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station.

[00:23:09] And now, here again is Panna Dexter.

[00:23:13] I'm grateful to my two guests that have joined me on the program today.

[00:23:18] Timothy Gagline and his book Stumbling Toward Utopia and also Mike Ferris.

[00:23:23] And both of them, you know, they both have a lot to say about education.

[00:23:26] We didn't talk so much with that with Mike Ferris today, but he's certainly a pioneer in homeschooling and higher education with his founding of the Patrick Henry College.

[00:23:41] And so I just want to get back to that issue a little bit here in these final couple of segments.

[00:23:47] And that's really important.

[00:23:48] I'm the first one of my favorite things to learn about education in America, because Tim Gagline mentioned in education going back into the early turn of the century in America.

[00:23:56] and we said these words.

[00:23:58] We said if you're going to attack America's foundations, start with the youth

[00:24:02] and it really started at the turn of the century with John Dewey

[00:24:06] who in 1904 wrote about how public education would bring about a new social order.

[00:24:12] That's what he was after.

[00:24:14] And he was very influential for decades in education.

[00:24:19] Spirituality was not part of it.

[00:24:21] Although it was part of education in America before that time

[00:24:24] and up into the turn of the century.

[00:24:28] But in 1933, so he started in 1904 writing about changing the youth

[00:24:34] and changing the society through public education.

[00:24:38] But way up in 1933 he made a speech about de-emphasizing learning

[00:24:44] and replacing it with attitudes, and they are still doing this.

[00:24:49] And I think one of the ways they had to do this, of course,

[00:24:53] was to push parents out of the way because parents are going to object

[00:24:56] to having the attitudes of their children change.

[00:25:00] And there were a couple of Supreme Courts that doubled down on this.

[00:25:05] In 1962, there was a case which said, which basically prohibited teachers

[00:25:12] from being able to open class with prayer, which had been done before.

[00:25:16] And then in 1963, a case that prohibited the Lord's Prayer from being required in schools.

[00:25:24] These had devastating effects, of course, on our public schools and on the culture at large.

[00:25:30] But Dewey's influence was powerful.

[00:25:34] There was a Soviet influence on education, sort of the idea of collectivization,

[00:25:39] lots of new learning theories taught, different ways of teaching things like math and reading.

[00:25:45] I remember that from my early years, my mom just complaining about the way they're teaching reading.

[00:25:51] And it was, you know, not phonetically.

[00:25:54] It was done through trying to memorize words.

[00:25:56] And you have to memorize some words, but to teach phonetically is much simpler.

[00:26:01] And they weren't about academics.

[00:26:05] They were about changing attitudes and values.

[00:26:07] And we're seeing that today.

[00:26:09] We're seeing the teaching of, you know, what a family is back in the 90s and the early 2000s.

[00:26:18] You know, the definition of a family changing to be any group of people living together.

[00:26:23] And then you had the whole push for same-sex marriage, which they attained completely in America

[00:26:29] through the Obergefell decision.

[00:26:30] Although we as believers still in our own churches don't define marriage as between two same-sex,

[00:26:39] two members of the same sex.

[00:26:41] But that's the way now states have to operate with regard to marriage.

[00:26:45] So that's another change in the definition of the family.

[00:26:48] And then now there's this teaching of gender identity and that you can identify yourself,

[00:26:55] whichever sex you want to identify yourself as, and you must be treated that way.

[00:27:02] And that's what we're dealing with now.

[00:27:04] And parents who object to this, you know, sometimes they're talked out of it.

[00:27:10] They're talked into letting their kids have surgeries.

[00:27:12] But other times they are simply not told.

[00:27:16] They are simply or simply child is uprooted from the home by maybe the separated spouse

[00:27:24] and taken somewhere else and allowed to go into, you know, a different gender.

[00:27:28] There's all kinds of things happening like that, this today, undermining the rights of parents.

[00:27:34] And this started back with Dewey and his attempt to undermine the role of spirituality, the family,

[00:27:42] and our traditional values.

[00:27:43] So that's what we're seeing.

[00:27:45] And COVID, as Tim and I said, woke many parents up to this.

[00:27:49] And we're seeing some groups now and parents fighting back.

[00:27:54] And, you know, I'm thinking of groups like Parents Defending Education, Moms for Liberty.

[00:27:59] Some of these groups are having great success.

[00:28:01] They're getting on school boards, and they're getting parents active.

[00:28:04] So it's great.

[00:28:05] But I did see a piece that kind of went right a little.

[00:28:08] It was just another story that you can see just the effects of these trends.

[00:28:17] And it was actually today, Rod Dreher, he posted the story.

[00:28:24] It's out of the Daily Mail.

[00:28:25] He says the Daily Mail is where Americans sometimes have to go to find out what's really happening in our country.

[00:28:34] But this story out of the Daily Mail is something that happened in Florida.

[00:28:40] And it was a Florida mother.

[00:28:42] She says her 13-year-old daughter was placed on a path toward medically transitioning.

[00:28:48] She received encouragement from teachers at her school.

[00:28:52] But none of this was her parents didn't know and did not consent to this.

[00:28:58] The mother is January Little, John.

[00:29:00] She's 47 years old.

[00:29:02] And she says she was both shocked and heartbroken when teachers at her daughter's school allegedly met in private with her teen daughter

[00:29:10] to affirm her belief that she was transgender, again, all without parental consent.

[00:29:18] January Little, John.

[00:29:20] It's quite a name.

[00:29:23] Has now become a vocal critic of policies that she says undermined her family

[00:29:27] in what is a dramatic tale of gender identity and parental rights.

[00:29:31] She actually spoke outside the Supreme Court a couple of weeks ago when the Tennessee case was heard in the Supreme Court

[00:29:45] about gender identity and giving the transition surgeries and gender-affirming care, puberty blockers,

[00:29:56] and hormones to minors.

[00:29:58] On that case, you know, we await the decision probably will come down next summer.

[00:30:04] But January Little, John went to the court and she, a lot of people were speaking outside the court

[00:30:10] and she spoke addressing protesters outside the court.

[00:30:14] Little, John recounted her daughter's experience of gender dysphoria

[00:30:18] and the actions of school officials she claimed pushed her child toward a transgender identity.

[00:30:25] I was outraged, she said, that three adults had sat alone with my child and agreed to this without my consent.

[00:30:34] I mean, can you imagine?

[00:30:35] Can you just imagine how it would be if this happened with your child?

[00:30:40] She claims, she said that it felt like we were in the twilight zone.

[00:30:44] The situation all began in 2019 when Little John's daughter, then 12, began identifying with a new friend group

[00:30:51] that embraced various gender identities.

[00:30:55] She said her daughter was quirky and unique and suffered from low self-esteem,

[00:31:00] so she didn't really worry about this group of friends too much at that point.

[00:31:05] But she grew alarmed as the group's obsession with gender intensified.

[00:31:11] Because, of course, changing your gender tends to be the solution offered now by the left

[00:31:16] and by many psychologists and other medical personnel for the problems that plague young people.

[00:31:24] That's supposed to be the answer, changing your gender.

[00:31:28] And I hope we get over this moment in history where that's the case,

[00:31:31] but that's where we are right now.

[00:31:34] By 13, Mrs. Little John's daughter was discussing medical interventions such as puberty blockers

[00:31:42] and top surgery, which means having her breasts removed, with a casualness that shocked her parents.

[00:31:48] Unbeknownst to them, the school staff had already placed their daughter on a gender support plan,

[00:31:53] which included discussions about which restrooms and locker rooms she would use,

[00:31:57] pronouns, and rooming arrangements on field trips.

[00:32:02] When the next school year began, Mrs. Little John, who is a licensed mental health counselor,

[00:32:07] but not one of those ones that recommends gender transition,

[00:32:12] she knew her child wanted to start using a different name,

[00:32:14] and she warned the school about what they might have to deal with.

[00:32:18] She told the school that the family had made the decision not to use her new name,

[00:32:22] but instead to seek counseling.

[00:32:25] That's what a responsible parent would do in this case.

[00:32:29] Yet the school did not back Little John's wishes.

[00:32:32] So here you go.

[00:32:33] You've got parents that want to do the right thing, but the school is going to fight the parents.

[00:32:37] They didn't back it.

[00:32:38] They set up its own gender plan for the daughter, and they refused to show the details of it.

[00:32:44] This is, to me, this is criminal.

[00:32:46] We had to have lots of lawsuits going on about this, and I hope we do, coming up in the next administration.

[00:32:53] I hope they're successful.

[00:32:54] These parents should sue the school system.

[00:32:59] Sue them into the ground.

[00:33:01] Let there be nothing left but rubble.

[00:33:04] This is Roger.

[00:33:05] This is unspeakably horrific.

[00:33:08] How can anybody trust the institution after something like this?

[00:33:14] And that's very true.

[00:33:15] I don't know how we can trust schools with our children, schools that have, in many cases,

[00:33:22] taken these children, counseled them to transition, and even taken steps toward getting them to do so.

[00:33:29] Ladies and gentlemen, this is just one story of many, but I wanted to tell it because it's kind of the fruit of what began back in the 60s.

[00:33:39] Stay with us.

[00:33:40] We've got more of Point of View.

[00:33:42] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:34:02] Welcome back to Point of View.

[00:34:04] I have posted a couple of articles at pointofview.net, and one of them has to do with, well, it's called, unsurprisingly, Democrats call on Biden to break the law before leaving office.

[00:34:17] It's from the Daily Signal.

[00:34:19] And it has to do with the Equal Rights Amendment.

[00:34:22] The Equal Rights Amendment was actually defeated, but these Democrats and certain supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment want to deem it as part of the U.S. Constitution anyway.

[00:34:38] And the Equal Rights Amendment prohibits, well, it guarantees legal equality between men and women, but it's dangerous because it does so in ways that, number one, promote abortion,

[00:34:54] because if men don't have to have babies, women don't either.

[00:34:57] So in a lot of ways it downgrades the efforts of the pro-life movement.

[00:35:05] It also would put women in combat with men because if men have to fight, women do.

[00:35:12] And there's also – there's so many efforts to do these things anyway that this just kind of plays right along with the left's agenda.

[00:35:18] It's just something that was defeated that states did not ratify back in the 70s.

[00:35:26] I mean, some states did ratify it, but there weren't enough states to ratify it back in the 70s.

[00:35:32] And what happens with these constitutional amendments is you can have two parts to it.

[00:35:39] The first part of a constitutional amendment is a clause that includes rules for how the states must consider ratification.

[00:35:46] So whether they must use their legislature or whether they might use a convention to ratify a constitutional amendment,

[00:35:54] if there's a deadline that Congress chooses to oppose,

[00:35:58] and then the second part of the resolution would be the actual text of the amendment being proposed.

[00:36:03] But Congress takes one vote on the entire resolution, and that's what happened.

[00:36:08] Congress voted on it, and then the states had to ratify it.

[00:36:11] Well, the states ratified 27 of the 33 amendments that Congress has proposed.

[00:36:18] Some of them had ratification deadlines.

[00:36:20] Some did not, but the ERA did.

[00:36:23] It had a deadline.

[00:36:24] And that deadline passed, and it didn't get ratified by enough states to become part of the Constitution.

[00:36:33] But now, this effort has popped up many times since the 70s, and it's popping up again.

[00:36:43] And what happened was there was an effort to extend the deadline.

[00:36:49] They extended it for a while, but they still didn't get the states that they needed to pass the ERA.

[00:36:58] So now they're trying to do that again.

[00:37:02] Thirty states ratified the ERA in 1972 in the first year.

[00:37:07] Then only five more did so by the March 1979 deadline.

[00:37:11] They had seven years to do it.

[00:37:13] And then five of those ratifying states rescinded their approval.

[00:37:17] Congress passed a controversial resolution adding 39 months to the deadline,

[00:37:22] but no additional states got on board.

[00:37:24] So, you know, it's dead.

[00:37:28] The ERA is dead.

[00:37:30] But not according to some people that are out there trying to revive it somehow.

[00:37:39] So, three states decided that they were going to ratify it.

[00:37:43] Nevada decided in 2018, even though it was already dead.

[00:37:48] Illinois in 2019 and Virginia in 2020.

[00:37:52] They passed resolutions purporting to ratify the amendment.

[00:37:56] It's a really non-existent amendment, but they did it anyway.

[00:37:59] They claimed that because they had, they had enough states now to, and this is just, this is crazy.

[00:38:08] But they said that now the ERA was part of the Constitution.

[00:38:11] Well, it isn't.

[00:38:12] A federal judge, back in 1982, while this, during one of these efforts to ratify it,

[00:38:20] a federal judge ruled that it was no longer pending before the states and could not be ratified.

[00:38:25] But people are not accepting that opinion, of course.

[00:38:30] And so the latest opinion in 2020 concluded that because the 1972 ratification of the ERA deadline expired,

[00:38:39] it is no longer pending before the states.

[00:38:41] I mean, how many times do you need to affirm that the ERA is dead?

[00:38:46] But Senate Democrats wrote a letter to Joe Biden.

[00:38:49] They want him to order the archivist to do what his own Justice Department argues the archivist has no obligation to do.

[00:38:57] And their letter notes that Article 5 does not impose a time limit for ratification of a proposed amendment,

[00:39:04] but they never mention these court cases that I just mentioned.

[00:39:08] If this is complicated and you want to read about it, it's at pointofview.net.

[00:39:14] The letter to Biden skips the part where the 27th Amendment was pending indefinitely because it had no ratification deadline.

[00:39:23] So they used that as their example.

[00:39:25] The 27th Amendment was ratified, but they never had a deadline in that one.

[00:39:29] The ERA did have a deadline.

[00:39:31] Its deadline passed with insufficient state support.

[00:39:36] So you might hear news.

[00:39:38] You might see that the ERA is not dead and we could still have an ERA.

[00:39:43] And Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York said she was the ERA's longtime primary house sponsor.

[00:39:52] She insisted back then that the ERA had nothing to do with abortion.

[00:39:59] But now they're talking about the ERA will bring us – it will remove the abortion restrictions that we've got.

[00:40:06] It will bring us back to full-on abortion rights.

[00:40:10] It's the most effective means at our disposal to, you know, make sure that you have the right to abort your child.

[00:40:20] And since abortion is so popular among Democrats, I guess, right now, they're using abortion – instead of denying that the ERA would bring abortion,

[00:40:29] they're now using it as a way to get it out there again and somehow deemed part of the U.S. Constitution.

[00:40:39] So it's bizarre.

[00:40:41] And this is what the Daily Signal article says.

[00:40:45] The Senate Democrats' demand is especially bizarre because even the Biden Justice Department has already rejected it in its brief,

[00:40:53] defending the archivists against the state suing for the very same thing Senate Democrats want.

[00:41:00] The DOJ argued that the states have not identified any relevant legal authority requiring that amendment, the ERA, to be certified.

[00:41:11] Justice Scalia described this whole effort.

[00:41:14] He said it was discredited.

[00:41:16] The Supreme Court president was discredited.

[00:41:19] And he said that the ERA is like some ghoul in a late-night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in its grave and shuffles abroad after being repeatedly killed and buried.

[00:41:33] So that's the effort to get the ERA in some strange way of just deeming it as part of the Constitution.

[00:41:42] If you read about it, you'll know just to please ignore and oppose it.

[00:41:46] But I've also posted Ann Coulter's town hall article, Kill Obamacare, not CEOs.

[00:41:54] And, of course, it has to do with the killing of a UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson.

[00:42:00] And it's really funny and good.

[00:42:02] I can't go over it because we don't have the time.

[00:42:05] But I would commend that to you.

[00:42:08] I also want to commend to you point of view as one of the subjects of your year-end giving.

[00:42:15] We know that we exist because of the generosity of our listeners.

[00:42:20] And we're so grateful for that.

[00:42:22] And we want to encourage you to think at this year-end about including point of view in your year-end giving.

[00:42:30] And to encourage you, we actually have a $125,000 matching grant on the table.

[00:42:36] So if you give, your grant will be matched up to $125,000.

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[00:42:57] So we would be very grateful if you would include us in your year-end giving.

[00:43:03] And, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me today.

[00:43:06] We'll see you tomorrow for more of Point of View.

[00:43:10] If you have ever wondered what kind of impact you have when you give to Point of View, let me introduce you to Bill.

[00:43:19] His story is a perfect illustration.

[00:43:22] Well, I've been a supporter of Point of View since the 70s.

[00:43:27] And I appreciate the fact that truth and love are discussed equally and that God's Word never changes.

[00:43:32] We have four generations in my family who have been taught these things, these truths.

[00:43:38] And the fifth generation we've just been blessed with, who I'm sure will be blessed by this ministry also.

[00:43:44] So I just appreciate the fact that it's solid, it's truthful, it's honest, and there's no changing God's Word.

[00:43:51] And that is the kind of multi-generational impact you have when you support Point of View.

[00:43:58] So give today. Equip the next generation with the clarity of God's unchanging Word.

[00:44:05] You can give online at pointofview.net or call us at 1-800-347-5151.

[00:44:15] That's pointofview.net and 800-347-5151.

[00:44:23] Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.