Point of View June 19, 2026 : Weekend Edition

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Thank you for joining me, it is the Friday Weekend Edition, and first of all I want to thank both Dr. Merrill Matthews and Liberty McArtor for covering while I was out in Florida actually speaking, which was this last week.

[00:00:31] Back in the saddle here today, and we are certainly going to cover a lot of different topics. Of course, we have supposedly an end to the war, the Iran War, and a Memorandum of Understanding, we will get to that in due course. We are going to be talking about a lot of religious liberty issues, so you might kind of take some notes here. We have posted a couple of articles related to that. Dr. Merrill Matthews has a very good piece on America's don't trust America government, don't really, really trust the government.

[00:00:59] And a couple of other issues including the fact we have Father's Day coming up. Very good piece for our good friend, Professor Brad Wilcox, about the different kinds of fathers and even fatherless America. So we will be talking about that along the way. Might also mention we have some pieces about America at 250 years, and we will get to those in due course. Merrill Matthews, of course, co-host and an individual that is a public policy expert.

[00:01:24] And we are bringing to the microphone today, the Director of Development at First Liberty Institute. Also the leader of the F3 initiative, Nathan Shackelford. So Nathan, great to have you here as well. Yeah, thanks for having me. Let's say we can get to your first article. Targeted for holding Jewish prayer meeting in a home. We have had many of those examples in which there seems to be a bias against Jewish people, a bias against even having a home synagogue.

[00:01:53] And yet the arguments that, well, we can't allow them to do that because of parking. Well, people on the Sabbath walk, they don't park, and a variety of others. So, again, we have one of these cases that you have been dealing with right now in which just holding a Jewish prayer meeting in a home was enough to get the city to come down upon them. Yeah, not even that. But, I mean, it's coming after them for holding a prayer meeting but also just for having a meal.

[00:02:20] So imagine you invite some friends over for a dinner and the police show up and say you're operating as an entity and not as a home. I mean, that's essentially the argument that they're making here is that since you have a group of people that are meeting in your home, it means that you're a religious entity and you're no longer residential. I mean, that's just absolutely insane. One of the things we have is a press release there that you can read a little bit about that.

[00:02:44] And, Dr. Matthews, I was just thinking about the fact that how many times over the last couple of months, whether it's in Texas or New York or California, Florida, a variety of other places, where any vigils that are Jewish wanting to meet and there are problems with the city officials over something which we would see would be a minor technicality. And those city officials give a lot of pushback.

[00:03:08] I've got to tell you, in the days of the World Cup now, we have a lot of people who are having meetings in our neighborhood because sometimes the streets line with cars and they must be at somebody watching the game. But it's not – they may be having a meeting, but they're not having a prohibited meeting. And this just happens in neighborhoods all the time. Yes. But, again, there just seems to be something about being Jewish.

[00:03:35] I mean, we occasionally have talked on this program, Nathan, about occasionally somebody holding a Bible study and there's a flap. But you can go to certain places in upstate New York, and you know where I'm talking about, where there is a deliberate anti-Jewish bias that has always existed. And it now seems to have accelerated a little bit ever since the course of October 2023 and Hamas invading Israel, people marching in the streets supporting Hamas and have kind of an anti-Jewish mindset.

[00:04:04] So you seem to be doing more and more of these cases related to Jewish couples and things, aren't you? Yeah, we're seeing definitely a rise in those. I mean, we just had a case that we won, I think, about a month ago out of Florida where people will say, oh, well, that stuff just happens in New York and California. Well, you're in Florida, and you have a Jewish community where they don't want them to build a synagogue just because they say we don't want those kind here. Yes. And it's just out in the open. And we even had to go to court.

[00:04:33] We had to even file a lawsuit to get them to back down, and eventually they settled for and quite paid for a lot of that church as a result or for the synagogue. But the fact that we had to do that in the first place is just crazy. Yes. Well, I posted that article. Some of the ones I didn't post, but I thought we might talk about it since right now we're thinking of the World Cup. And I've been watching the referees and the umpires and everything like that, and many of us watched, of course, the NBA finals.

[00:05:00] But you're dealing with a case in which an NBA ref was actually removed because, interestingly enough, he wouldn't take the vaccine, which the players were not supposed to take or were allowed not to take. And it does seem to me that there's a good example right there in the sports world of which you had one set of rules for one group and one set of rules for a different group. Is that fair? Yeah, absolutely.

[00:05:27] I mean, this ref had been a ref for over 30 years. COVID vaccine mandate came down. He asked for religious accommodation, strong Catholic, and they doubted the sincerity of his faith and denied the religious accommodation. But then, as you said, the players don't have to have it. So it's vital that the refs have it for safety, health and safety, but the players don't need to have it for health and safety. So you see these things all the time where it just doesn't make sense.

[00:05:53] And it does seem odd here because if you had a business in which people were constantly in front of other people, say, for instance, a grocery store where you've got a lot of personal individual contact, you might see the idea behind an employer saying you need to have the vaccine in soccer or these other games. People are standing there. They're all over the place. I mean, you've got half a dozen people within 100 yards of each other.

[00:06:20] They're keeping their six feet distance just by nature of the game. Yeah, for sure. One other sports one I thought I'd mention, a lot of people made a big deal about that. And that is, of course, you have the players for the San Francisco Giants in which they had, of course, a pride night. And I might just mention that just down the road here from us, the Texas Rangers did not have a pride night. We'll get into that in just a minute.

[00:06:42] But riding something on their cap was enough for them to get in trouble at a time when players have been riding things on their cap, wearing things, taking a knee, and all of the rest. And now you have a minor league team, which is called the York Revolution, which finally just said if we have to wear these gay pride jerseys, we will just forfeit the game. So I know this is not a First Liberty case, although I get this feeling it might end up being one. We've been trying.

[00:07:11] Yeah, because these are very significant issues. And even if you take it out of the issue of homosexuality, at the time they had BLM. We've had times in which in order to support breast cancer, you wore pink. I mean, there's just a point where I think most of us want to say, let's just play baseball. Let's just play soccer. Let's just play basketball and not get so political.

[00:07:36] And yet this seems to be another good example of the religious rights of individuals to express themselves or to maybe disagree with what they're forced to wear as something that, as one person said, I think Trump's Religious Liberty Commission is going to have something else to work on. Yeah. I mean, here it's just you can't force someone to wear something that violates their faith. As an employee, it doesn't matter the situation. If you're asking them to wear something, you have to give them some way not to do it.

[00:08:04] And so these players said, well, if you're not going to give us a way to do it, we'll just do this in our own way. So it's just, again, if players want to do their own individuality and express their own things in their cleats or whatever, that's fine. But mandating it from the team or the district level, I mean, you can't do that. Well, we're coming into a break. I want to get into that a little bit more. But we also have another case here that you have been really dealing with. And that is one that is actually written by Paige Rogers. So I wanted to give you that opportunity to talk about that as well.

[00:08:34] And then we're going to get into some of these other very important issues, not the least of which is, of course, we have a memorandum of understanding the end of an Iran war. Who benefits? I think you already have some ideas on that. We'll talk about that right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:06] On the last day of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked what form of government was being proposed for the United States. His famous reply was, a republic, madam, if you can keep it. Princeton professor Robert George has some ideas on how to keep our republic. He acknowledges that many presidents have pushed the limits of their power while in office.

[00:09:27] But he reminds us that as we commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we also celebrate a quarter millennium without an American Caesar or Napoleon. Instead, he focuses on the American people. George Washington observed that the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finely staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people. John Adams is known for declaring,

[00:09:55] Our Constitution is made for a moral and religious people and is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Robert George explains that is true because people lacking in virtue could be counted on to trade liberty for protection, for financial or personal security for comfort, or for having their problems solved quickly. Keeping our republic depends on a virtuous citizenship.

[00:10:18] This is a challenge because he laments that many Americans do not even know what a family is anymore, let alone how to be part of one or how to properly start a new one. Church attendance is at record lows. If we're experiencing an American decline, it is not because the constitutional order is flawed or the political system is broken. It is because we need a moral and spiritual revival in this country. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my Point of View.

[00:10:49] Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net. That's pointofview.net. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, spending just a few more minutes on religious liberty. In one of those cases, Nathan is a piece by Paige Rogers.

[00:11:14] I was going to go to your particular press release, but I thought this young lady, who was at the time a sophomore at Boyce College, which is in Louisville, Kentucky, a Christian university, just let her tell the story. And the story is one that we've heard so many times, but because you've been able to get involved with her, maybe we can bring about a remedy. But you know the story, and that is she's a Christian.

[00:11:37] She's with some of these non-Christian individuals in this particular coffee shop, and the other baristas start asking some questions. I think some of them were setups. We've seen this before, whether they're asking about whether or not you'd photograph a same-sex wedding, whether you provide a cake, or in this case, what do you feel about those issues. And she thinks we've had a nice conversation, shares her faith about what she believes,

[00:12:03] and then receives a note that says, after careful review and investigation, we have determined that your behavior has violated the policies respecting workplace conduct and anti-discrimination. And so just by expressing Christian beliefs that they ask her about, she gets fired.

[00:12:23] You have a case I know out of Alaska Airlines where the airlines were asking flight attendants their particular perspective, and by just giving their answer, they were fired as well. So we have a lot of those workplace kind of stories, don't we? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as you were talking, the Alaska Airlines one came to my mind. It's just the idea that an employer can say, your speech is welcome as long as it agrees with what we want you to believe.

[00:12:51] It's just censorship. And what you said on the memo is, on the note, it wasn't even a note, it was a text message. They didn't even give her a formal notice, not even an ability to confront it. They just said in a text message, here's all the things you've done. I find this just so amazing because when you're working with people at close range, and you are, if you go, this wasn't Starbucks, but it's a coffee shop. And there are people running around there.

[00:13:21] And sometimes you ask people about what they believe or what they're doing or why they're doing something. Sometimes it's, are you going to do something Sunday? No, I'm going to church. Oh, really? You go to church? Where do you go? And tell me, why do you go to church there? Those kinds of conversations happen all the time. And at least from the story that Paige provides, people ask her about her faith. She's telling them about what she believes.

[00:13:45] There's not any indication that I got from the story that she was saying, well, I won't serve somebody because I think they're gay or something of that nature. She seems to be a fine employee there that's not having any trouble. And then you have this pushback. And I just, I find this amazing because there was a time, Kirby, going back to the 60s and 70s when people wanted to, I wanted to find out what you believed and why you believed it. Whatever it was, it could have been, you could have been a Presbyterian. You could have been a Muslim. You could have been a Hindu.

[00:14:13] I just want to know what you're thinking and why you're thinking it. And I've never used that to attack you or get you fired. I want to know what you believe. And again, you can actually find the press release. I thought it might be more interesting for people to read the actual story because you can get the sense that she's just very sweet, quite willing to share if you ask, but otherwise just a very competent employee. But you can go to the press release and see some of the things you've dug out.

[00:14:40] But here again is the need, as we have illustrated so many times, not only in this program, but I mentioned just a minute ago, the Religious Liberty Commission, which was instituted by President Trump, in which your father and many other notables have actually been serving there, whether it's Ben Carson or the Lieutenant Governor of the State of Texas or all sorts of other individuals that are part of that.

[00:15:03] We are just seeing more and more cases where there is really no place for even religious freedom in a small portion of a business if you don't agree with the philosophy of the owners. Yeah, and that commission is really good. All those hearings are online. You can listen to them, and it's just stories upon stories of all these things that have happened to people.

[00:15:27] And I think what's cool about it is it will bring things out to light and allow people to really talk about what are some proactive things that we can do other than an executive order. What are some things we can do to actually bring about change? So that commission is the first of its kind and can really bring some good change. Well, another one I thought I'd just mention, you've just posted this one. We sometimes on radio spend time talking about the problem, never talk about the resolution. And that's why after you win a Supreme Court case, I want to talk about as much as before the case.

[00:15:54] Here's something that's at the lower level, but we talked about this many years ago in which Judge Diane Hensley was an individual. Here's a classic case, Dr. Matthews. We've talked about these before in which as our individual that actually serves as a judge says, I really don't feel right about actually can actually officiating probably the best word over a same sex wedding.

[00:16:19] So what I will do is provide a referral list of local wedding officiants who would perform same sex ceremonies. We know of all sorts of attempts that people have tried to prevent being forced to actually officiate at a same sex wedding. And by providing an alternative, you would think that would be enough. And you would be wrong. And you'd be wrong. And as you pointed out with some of the coffee shops, sometimes these are targeted questions.

[00:16:46] We're doing this to you as a way of making you an example and trying to push the law to get the law on our side. And so it's really such a shame that this is happening. You know, we were talking about just people talking. During my Ph.D. days, I worked on a freight dock. And sometimes you've got a couple people loading the trucks together. And we're talking about all kinds of things. And it never would have crossed my mind because sometimes it's faith. Sometimes it's football. Sometimes it's other things.

[00:17:14] It never would have crossed my mind to say, I can't say this because this person might go to the manager and say, he said such and such about his belief and then get fired. I just it's amazing to me. Yeah. And again, I'm trying to bring some of that perspective, which gets us to F3 in just a minute, because I think the younger you are to think it's always been this way and it has not. But the reason I bring this one up, Nathan, is you have some good news,

[00:17:37] because even though there was an attempt to discipline her by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, you won that case. Yeah, it's been dragging on for a long time. I think the craziest thing, the craziest fact is what you said, which is she she provided an alternative. Yes, it wasn't even I'm not even going to do it. She provided an alternative, but that wasn't enough. And so, yeah, she almost she could have lost her job.

[00:18:02] And, you know, now we're just trying to finally close that chapter and let her go on to doing what God's called her to do, which is to be a good judge. You can go to FirstLiberty.org and you can see the press release, which is pretty significant. Some great comments from Hiram Sasser and a number of others. And this, I think, will ensure that still residents in that county will have access to low-cost wedding ceremonies,

[00:18:26] but they don't have to necessarily force an individual against her religious convictions to perform that wedding. I think that's a good idea. And since I mentioned F3, just before I take a break, that's something you've been working on for some time, because we recognize the younger generation really needs to take ownership over many of these religious liberty ideas. And you've been on the program many times to talk about that. Yeah. I mean, the thing I always like to start with is religious freedom.

[00:18:54] Your attacks on religious freedom don't happen when you're retired on the golf course. It's happening when you're raising a family, you're in the workplace, and that's when the attacks come against you. And if you don't know what your rights are, it'd be easy for a page to say, oh, well, I guess they have the right to do that. I'll just be quiet. You do that, you're giving up rights. So we have to have young people, 20s to 40s, who are in these environments and say, no, you need to take a stand. You need to step up for this. And so that's what we're doing all across the country, mobilizing that demographic.

[00:19:22] Well, again, I think one of the things I might encourage people to do is go and check that out because if you're one of the younger individuals, you've been really holding some of these meetings around the country. If you click on the right buttons, you will see that there are chapters. So it may be possible that since we broadcast all over the country, there's a chapter that you can join. Or you may be one of those motivated people saying, well, there's no one in my community here,

[00:19:48] and we need to get one started in Alaska or Alabama or Mississippi or someplace in California that isn't where that one is located, and you could start another chapter. So that's kind of the idea, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. We want to be all across the country mobilizing young professionals, young people. We've seen it really grow over the last couple of years just because there's no other group that's really trying to mobilize young professionals to be actively engaged. It's a one-time lunch and learn.

[00:20:17] It's a one-time conference, but it's not ongoing community building, relationship building, education building. We're going to take a break, and when we come back, we do have a memorandum of understanding. The president signed it right in front of everybody right there at Versailles. Dr. Merrill Matthews had the printout there. It's a pretty easy read. It's about a page and a half, and we'll go into a few aspects of that.

[00:20:39] And if you have some comments, I suspect some of you are expressing some concerns about what has or has not been put in that memorandum, we will certainly give you that opportunity. That number is 1-800-351-1212. Getting ready to give that other number next week because as we get closer to our fiscal year end, encouraging you to support this ministry as well.

[00:21:07] And if you'd like to know a little bit more about some of the things we've talked about, go to pointofview.net. You will notice our new website, which actually gives you a chance to not only see a little bit about the guests, but also all of the articles that we've posted. And we encourage you to go to pointofview.net, especially if you want to support this ministry. We'll be back right after this. Who can you trust?

[00:21:36] Years ago, many of us could probably have provided a fairly long list. But today, well, today it seems we almost can't trust anyone. Educators don't even know what a woman is anymore. Many so-called public servants have shown all they care about is themselves. The FBI has been accused of bias, law-breaking, betrayal, and journalism.

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[00:23:00] You are listening to Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Back once again, Juneteenth, in case you have not been looking at the calendar here, which is one of the reasons why you've probably gone to the bank and it was closed. You've gone to the post office. It's closed. It's a national holiday.

[00:23:26] For many years, I actually tried to explain to our national audience what Juneteenth is. I think they figured it out by now. It was something we knew in Texas, but it became a national holiday. Merrill Matthews, Nathan Shackelford in studio. And if you'd like to join the conversation, 1-800-351-1212. Talked about religious liberty. Talked about pride. We're going to come back to that later. We're Pennexter's commentaries about downplaying pride, which is true, but also some of it is still around, as we have talked about.

[00:23:55] But, Dr. Matthews, you have in front of you the memorandum of understanding. And this is the attempt to say we're going to stop the war. We won the war. And that's a big question right there. And whether or not there are benefits that come to Iran, whether they act effectively and responsibly or not,

[00:24:18] we've been told that if Iran does not join the nation of, really, the world of nations and act responsibly, they won't get some benefits. But I'm looking there. It seems like they're getting quite a few benefits. They are getting quite a few benefits. And it would be – to be generous, there was a lot of disappointment when people saw the memorandum of understanding. And you have a number of Republicans who have gone on the record as expressing their concerns about it,

[00:24:43] including Senator Wicker, who is the chairman of the Joint Senate Committee over – the Joint Powers Committee. Anyway, Foreign Powers Committee. Yeah. I'm mixing that up. But anyway, you've got a lot of disappointment out there. You've got the president trying to say this is a good deal and that we've won with this. Almost nobody really believes that. And you have J.D. Vance, the vice president, who's going around whose tasks we're trying to sell this.

[00:25:14] And he's making some statements that I know the Wall Street Journal said just simply are not correct, which they're wanting to say all of this is sort of contingent. If Iran doesn't do certain things, certain things won't happen. They don't get benefits. Yeah. But it doesn't do that. I mean, it initially starts out by saying immediately the Strait of Hormuz is going to be open. Iran will not charge any tolls for 60 days. Yeah.

[00:25:38] And we're going to immediately release the hold we have on their frozen assets. There's some discussion about how much the frozen assets are. I've seen ranges from 25 billion to 100 billion dollars. They are apparently not just all in the United States, but other countries as well. They want to release the hold on that so Iran can have immediate access to that. We're stopping all war activities and we're beginning to move our troops out.

[00:26:05] And some of the things that have just been pointed out is that there's no element in here which says Iran will quit funding Hezbollah, Hamas, or the Houthis. In fact, there have been reports today that the Hezbollah says Iran is going to start funding them again fairly quickly. That's a problem. Wicker said we don't even have anything in here that says Iran won't go around saying death to Israel and death to the United States of America anymore.

[00:26:35] And then, of course, there is the 300 billion dollars, which is supposed to be a sort of development fund that President Trump has said. I believe he has. Well, he didn't say countries. He said when pressed on this, he said we've already got half the money. Count me skeptical as saying that that's the case. And then they said South America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and I think another. But these aren't countries. These aren't businesses. These are continents or regions.

[00:27:04] South America hasn't pledged any money for this. There may have been some countries, but I'm even skeptical about that right now because Iran is a mess. And if you're a business, do you want to – and they're highlighting the notion that businesses are going to go and start manufacturing, rebuilding, and other things. But if you're a business, do you want to go into a country that is this corrupt, where the money that goes in there is often controlled either by the Ayatollahs or the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps?

[00:27:35] Is that where you want to put your money? I could believe that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other might be willing to work on that, but they've been attacked by Iran in this. So it is – it's a strange deal that they have put together. They're going for 60 days. Count me as skeptical. The 60 days will be achieved, I suspect. Iran is very, very good at dragging out negotiations. Yes, sir.

[00:28:01] And so I just – people have walked away from this saying it just looks like the president wanted to get out of the war. Back when the war – the shooting stopped, I think, a month ago or so, I said at the time, I think the war is over. There may be some dust-ups. But the president really would like to get out of this and move on to other things. And I think that's what the memorandum of understanding is showing, that that's exactly what he wants.

[00:28:24] And interestingly, he sort of tipped his hand here recently when he said, I don't want to be another Herbert Hoover, a person who caused depression. He's looking at the economic impact of the Strait of Hormuz on a lot of countries, including the U.S., and he wants to get past that. Well, and again, we haven't even talked about the new head of the Federal Reserve and his concern about the possibility of a recession and all the rest,

[00:28:50] which I think is part of the reason he wants to move past this, one, for the midterms, but second of all, not to have a recession or a depression. And unless you want to think of people that we've had on this program, whether it's Mark Levin, Mike Huckabee, or a variety of others, they've all been very critical of this. So whether you're talking about the current U.S. ambassador to Israel, one of the talk show hosts that we've interviewed, or a variety of others, there are some people that are certainly skeptical.

[00:29:17] But I think part of the problem is back to what we've talked about in the past with Afghanistan and with even Iran and Iraq, and that is it is difficult to get something that looks like a democracy to grow on Muslim soil. It's even more difficult in Iran because you have what you call the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Even if you could remove all of them, you still have this Shiite mindset there in Iran.

[00:29:48] Many of them are still looking for the return of the 12th among known as the Mahdi and all the rest. So there are just too many individuals there that are convinced that they are supposed to implement this worldwide caliphate that put everybody under Sharia law. And it's really difficult to get anything that looks like a democracy there or even one that isn't belligerent to its next-door neighbors. Right. And Iran has – I mean, one of the things they're saying is Iran is agreeing not to develop a nuclear weapon.

[00:30:17] But Iran has always said they are not developing a nuclear weapon. We didn't believe them. Yes. That's why they attacked and bombed some of the sites, enrichment sites back in – was it June of last year? And why they thought they needed to go in again this year. So it's just – it's hard to see how this was a win for the United States.

[00:30:39] And from the people who – when President Trump decided to go into this, some of his supporters really stepped up and said, we have to do this. We've got to get rid of this regime. You can't trust them and so forth. Now you've come up and you're leaving the regime in place. You're promising a lot of money going to them. You're taking off all sanctions on oil economics and other things. And it looks like – I mean, you can make the case – and Foreign Affairs magazine has a lead article saying Iran has won the war.

[00:31:09] Now will they lose the peace? But you can have – you can make a case that Iran actually came out better from this than they had before. Yeah. There's an old line of – one of the individuals that was in the Nixon administration said, we bombed North Vietnam so that they would accept our concessions. And that's sort of what this has turned out to be. Now, why is that? Well, we mentioned the new incoming and now existing chairman of the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh. And he gets in front of there and says, first of all, we're not going to change the rates.

[00:31:39] Number two, I'm not going to predict what we're going to do in the future, which is very different. And then sort of hints at, you know, if we don't turn this around pretty quickly because of the oil shock, we have a recession. Right. And I think the threat of recession, the threat of the fact that the inflation rate seems to be going up every time we turn around, there are some other domestic factors that led to this, don't you think? Yes. And when the inflation numbers came out here recently, the core inflation, which excludes food and energy, was much lower.

[00:32:09] That's a positive sign. And so we're seeing oil prices already beginning to drop some. I don't think they're going to drop like a rock, as President says, but it wouldn't surprise me if they don't start dropping just because of sort of the futures and how people are seeing things going. So we may see some oil prices go down, not to where we were before, at least not for a while. If this affects food and that gets some of that inflation down, that could be helpful.

[00:32:35] So I – Kevin Warsh, they implied that they might do a rate increase here sometime before the end of the year. Quite possibly. I think it's possible. I think it's also possible they leave rates the same, which is all interesting because Kevin Warsh gets the job as chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, in large part with the notion that he's going to follow on Trump's desire to lower interest rates. But we're just not there right now. We certainly aren't. Well, if nothing else, just wanted to cover that.

[00:33:03] When we come back, I do want to talk about some other issues, and that is one where I want to involve Nathan as well, because the younger you are, the more likely you are to think, well, Americans never trusted the government. Dr. Murray Matthews is going to come back, and a very good piece, which we've posted here in case you don't get Newsmax magazines, you can read in its entirety, you can actually download it, print it, get a PDF, and it gives you kind of the history of the fact that there was a time not so long ago,

[00:33:30] at least for those of us around the table with gray hair, in which we actually tended to trust the government. Hard to imagine that today. And how did that unfold? Well, we'll talk about that with Dr. Merle Matthews and his article right after this.

[00:33:59] Although it's Pride Month, June hasn't seen much LGBT hoopla here in Texas. The Washington Stand reports that throughout the country, such celebrating has been dialed back to a stunning degree. The news publication Suzanne Bowdy writes that in Tennessee, Arkansas, Indiana, and Oklahoma, leaders are replacing Pride Month with declarations of Nuclear Family Month. Pride celebrations are part of what theologian Carl Truman describes as the liturgical calendar of this present age.

[00:34:25] Gay pride is destructive because it elevates LGBT desires over the needs of children. Eleven years ago, during Pride Month, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, extending same-sex marriage to every state. In the five years following the decision, public support for gay marriage rose from 60 to 70 percent. Then it plateaued. Democrats still back gay marriage at 87 percent. But Gallup polling shows that among Republicans, approval of same-sex marriage stands at 37 percent,

[00:34:54] down from 55 percent four years ago. The opinion in Obergefell, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, emphasized the good of marriage to a society, describing it as a keystone of our social order and essential to our most profound hopes and aspirations. Advocates argue that allowing same-sex marriage would strengthen marriage. But the hoped-for revival of marriage has not materialized. The pre-Obergefell decline in marriage continues. In redefining marriage to meet the needs of homosexuals,

[00:35:20] societies seem to ignore that children really need to be in homes with their biological moms and dads. More Americans are connecting those dots. But wokeness persists, especially in blue states. In New York, state legislators are considering new child custody and parental laws, in which the term mother is replaced with gestating parent and father with non-gestating parent. Suzanne Bowdy points out that in at least 11 states, legislators have introduced bills to roll back same-sex marriage. Marriage was God's creation for human flourishing.

[00:35:50] To redefine it is prideful. For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. One of the articles we posted actually is from the June issue of Newsmax magazine. You don't have to subscribe to it because we actually have a very good PDF, so you can read it in its entirety. Written by Dr. Merrill Matthews.

[00:36:18] And Nathan, if nothing else, I wanted to have this piece because it's helpful for our younger listeners, and you certainly have been addressing them through your F3 outreach, to help them understand there was a time in which we really did trust the government. There was a time in which we had a lot more religious freedom, and we need to get back to some of that, don't we? Yeah, yeah. I mean, we grew up, I've never remembered a time where I've looked back and had a lot of trust,

[00:36:44] and I think any trust that my generation had left after COVID pretty much. I think we're about as skeptical as you can get right now. Well, give us a history lesson here, Merrill Matthews. Well, before people start trusting the government, you have to have a government you can trust. Well, that's true. And we can solve that in the next election or two, too. Right. And I think it was Gallup that did the poll, and we have that graph in the piece, so if people download it, they can see the graph.

[00:37:12] But in 1964, 77% of the public trusted the government. As of, I guess, last year it was, 26% of Republicans and 9% of Democrats trusted the government. But what's interesting about the graph, if people go and look at it, you'll see it's not, it's a general trend down, but there are places where it moves up during Ronald Reagan's time. Yes.

[00:37:37] The graph moves up to maybe 10 percentage points or so. It drops back down in the early 1990s. Then it begins moving up. Once Clinton loses the election in 94 and the House becomes Republican and the Senate becomes Republican, you start seeing this, you've got a divided government, and it starts moving up significantly. Then after that, it starts going back down. Under the first Trump administration, you actually have a slight uptick.

[00:38:04] And then with Biden coming in, it goes down and it's continued to go down. So it's only capturing a little bit of the Trump administration, the second Trump administration. But it's an interesting look to see how people have just moved away from trusting the government over these years. Again, the title is Americans really, really don't trust their government. But again, just to go back for just a few minutes, one of those high points was when 1964, you had two things contradicting each other, sort of.

[00:38:32] First of all, you had the 1964 Civil Rights Act. You had Lyndon Johnson. They had just, of course, had Camelot. And, of course, John F. Kennedy, of course, was assassinated. But you had a number of things that were sort of positive in the 60s. At the same time, the development of the Vietnam War, which by the time of the late 1960s, Lyndon Johnson didn't even decide to run for re-election because of that. So in some respects, you do see some high points. You did mention Ronald Reagan.

[00:39:02] And the other one I thought was kind of interesting is in the 1990s, a lot of people say, well, people really had a lot of trust for government because Bill Clinton was in office. No, they really weren't trusting him. What they were trusting is the divided government. You had Newt Gingrich, who was the Speaker of the House. You had, of course, Bill Clinton. But you also had the closest time we've had in recent history of a balanced budget. And so in some respects, people began to trust government.

[00:39:30] And back to your point, if you want to trust government, first of all, we've got to live within our means. We haven't balanced a budget in a long, long time. Number two, we have to get the right individuals that have some level of integrity and a great deal of transparency in government, right? Yeah, things were going well. Back in the late 1990s, I had friends who ran businesses that couldn't find – they couldn't hire people because the unemployment rate was so low. Yes. And so many people had jobs.

[00:39:59] You had a booming tech section right then. We ended up having the dot-com bust, but you had a booming tech section right then. And because you had that divided government, Bill Clinton would come out and say, the era of big government is over. Remember that? I do. And when he did that, he started working with Republicans. They passed welfare reform. They passed a number of things, the HIPAA legislation and other things. So they were able to get a number of things done for better or worse.

[00:40:28] And people seemed like – it looked like the government was working again. Yes. Well, Nathan, let me come back to you because I think one of the times where you see that drop is COVID. We just talked about the NBA referee, and we can talk about the SEAL cases and many others. There is a sense in which we saw so many times government officials actually tell us things which at the time we now know they knew were not true but said them anyway.

[00:40:57] And if you want to erode trust, certainly just keep doing what we did a couple years ago. Yeah, I think early on in COVID, we saw the response – the sentiment was just trust us. Yeah. So at that point, I feel like there were some people that did. They were scared, and so they said, all right, we'll do that. And then you start seeing the inconsistencies of it's an essential business to have a strip club open or a liquor store open but not the church open.

[00:41:21] And at that point, it's really clear that, okay, there's some inconsistencies here, and people are using this as a power grab to really grab power. And you'd see these district judges suddenly claiming authority that no one ever gave them and saying all kinds of things. And that's how we kind of ended up in a mess and led to a lot of attacks on religious freedom throughout that.

[00:41:46] And generally speaking, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people trusted what the CDC said. Sure. Yeah. Remember, Dr. Koop was Surgeon General for a while, and people trusted what he said. There was a certain amount of trust in various aspects of the government. You might have still had some concerns about whether it was spending too much money or something. But when the government said something, especially from a major agency, you tended to sort of accept that as the truth.

[00:42:12] And now we just don't – it may or may not be the truth, but we're very skeptical of it, even if it is the truth. One other one I thought I'd mention is the health and mental acuity of Joe Biden. And Jill Biden is actually on the speaker tour right now with her book, trying to try to tell us once again he really was at the top of his game and there really was no problem. And actually, I thought he was having a stroke during the debate.

[00:42:39] And if any person listening right now believes that, I want to sell them some things because that is just, again, a great illustration of how you can lose the trust of the American people. And too many people have come out from the Biden administration having written books saying, yeah, we all knew that was the case. We could see it. We knew it. But, again, these are the concerns that we have. And, again, I don't know, Nathan, how we recapture the younger generation. You know, we have a booklet we have on the next generation.

[00:43:08] We do, of course, our next generation roundtable. Did that earlier in this week. There are a whole generation growing up with those experiences, with the inability to balance a budget, inability for government to even, back in the old days, even produce a website that was a functional. Remember that one? As well as some of these other things.

[00:43:27] And then being told the phrase gaslighting is a relatively new term, but it's one that was developed pretty much during the COVID times in which people were just saying people are telling us things which they know are lies and hoping that if they say it enough times, we'll actually believe them. Yeah, I think a lot of that falls into what we're seeing right now on social media and with AI. Yes. There's so much that you don't know if it's real. I think there's a genuine hunger and desire right now for younger people to have something that they know is genuine and authentic.

[00:43:57] I think if there was some candidate that came out and was just genuinely real on who they are, they always followed through whatever they said. Even if it was something that a person does not agree with, they might be more likely to get votes from younger people because we just want someone that we can believe and that's going to tell us how it is even if we disagree with it. And, you know, one of the problems is we don't trust the government because the government simply has gotten involved in too many things that it can't do well. Yes. The Affordable Care Act, Obamacare.

[00:44:25] If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance. And then you find out there's all these problems with this. And I don't think we'll ever get back to a government that we can trust unless the government decides to downside significantly and work on the things that it is good at and leave everything else to the market and individuals. Well said. Government trying to do too much for too many people and doing so much of it inefficiently is certainly some other ways to erode trust.

[00:44:53] Well, I think you'd love to read this article. And, again, that's in the very excellent news magazine, Newsmax magazine. And if you would like to find out more, go to the website, pointofview.net. We'll come back and talk about some other very important issues on Juneteenth right after this. America's founders called this nation an experiment.

[00:45:20] 250 years later, the question for us is, did the experiment work? Well, let's look at the history. Though not perfect, America has continued moving toward the promise of the declaration that all men are created equal. Our nation has enjoyed amazing success and providential survival. So has the experiment succeeded? Well, yes.

[00:45:48] But will it succeed going forward? That depends on you. At Point of View, we know the American experiment owes its success to the biblical values upon which it was founded. Join Point of View this month as we work to restore a biblical worldview in American culture. Your gift will be doubled when you give by June 30th.

[00:46:14] Call or click today at pointofview.net and 1-800-347-5151. That's pointofview.net and 800-347-5151. Point of View will continue after this.

[00:46:45] Across America, live. This is Point of View. Kirby Anderson. Second hour today, we're going to spend some time talking about seeing America and seeing America's presidential libraries and a number of things like that. I might just hold this up.

[00:47:10] This is the July issue of the outlook, which has to do with understanding America's Christian heritage. A number of people, Nathan, that you work with are actually authors in here, quoting, of course, Liberty and myself and others. Jerry Newcomb as well. And certainly a number of people that have been helping us understand that. We have William Federer in there and Mark David Hall and a variety of other people that I can mention just very quickly.

[00:47:37] Because each one of these articles gets into some very important issues. Tim Gagline, I might mention his as well. And so I just thought that since it is Juneteenth and we have the opening today of Barack Obama's presidential library. And then I thought we'd also mention a piece that has written by one of the writers there for National Review about seeing America. We just might talk about that for a few minutes.

[00:48:03] First of all, if you've seen the library for Barack Obama, it is unusual looking. I think it looks like something out of Star Wars, but I'll leave it at that. It is something where he spends a fair amount of time criticizing the president. And that is so unusual because I have been around over the years when there was George W. Bush opening his library.

[00:48:27] It's just all sorts of very nice things being said about previous presidents, bringing even previous presidents there to open the library. This was, I think, very, very different. You had something which I think is completely unusual. Valerie Jarrett, who had worked as his closest advisor, delivered what's called a land acknowledgement. That is that this is on stolen land from tribes nobody had ever heard of.

[00:48:53] But, okay, there you go with that particular woke idea. And, of course, then there have been some very significant complaints of some of the minority-owned businesses around the Obama Center that have done contracting work and have not been paid yet.

[00:49:09] So, right off the bat, that isn't the kind of way I think you'd want to open a presidential library, but that's how it opened yesterday and today on this particular opportunity to commemorate the Obama presidency. And I heard news reports out there. The four past presidents were there. Donald Trump was not invited. They made it very clear he was not invited. Yes, yes. But you had Bruce – my understanding, it was more like a party.

[00:49:38] You had Bruce Springsteen there singing and doing other things. And, of course, Michelle Obama gave a speech. Barack Obama gave a speech. But it is an odd-looking building in the area. And they did not include the papers. His papers are staying in Maryland. So you can see digital copies, but you can't actually get copies of the paper. And my understanding is that's so that they could control them a little more because once it moved to the library, they lose a certain amount of control.

[00:50:06] I don't know why that would be the – I don't know why they would want to have that control. But at any rate, their papers are there, and you can see them digitally. But it's – and we've got President Trump is now looking at building his library. So it's going to be in Miami. I believe he said he wants it to be the tallest building in Miami. And so we'll have competing Obama versus Trump libraries to look at. While we're talking about presidential libraries, I don't know if you guys have been in any, but I've been to most of them.

[00:50:35] And you go to California, you've got the Nixon Library, probably the best, the Reagan Library on the Simi Valley. And so those are very good. A while ago off-air, we were talking about George – Gerald Ford. And, of course, that one's up in Grand Rapids. I've been to that one, of course, right here in the Dallas area. You have George W. Bush a little bit further down. You have Lyndon Johnson even further down. You have George Herbert Walker Bush. Those are just a few off the top of my head.

[00:51:00] And, of course, then you have – if you move east, I have been to the Bill Clinton Library as well, which is another odd-looking structure. But nevertheless, it is interesting to go into a place like Richard Nixon, who almost was impeached, or Bill Clinton, who was impeached, to see how they handle some of those kinds of issues. Yes, and most of the presidential libraries are – I'm going to say – I'm going to use the term unpretentious-looking. They're kind of stately-looking, but they're not over-the-top.

[00:51:29] Barack Obama's big, tall building looks – it does not look like a normal presidential library structure. And, of course, Ronald Reagan's is very nice as well. But it does have the 727 in there. They have the plane in there that you can go in and tour. But that's just part of a larger sort of a hangar where people can meet and have conferences and so forth. But, again, I think these are very good ways to learn a little bit about our history.

[00:51:55] I'm a fan of going to the Museum of the Bible, Smithsonian Institution, whatever, which brings me to this piece here, Seeing America 250, because I'm one of those people around the table, Nathan, who I think I've been – I know I've been to all 50 states, but I run into lots of people, including this author, who said, I've only been to 23 of the 50 states, and I think it's time for us to go see America. What do you think?

[00:52:23] Yeah, it's a good time as we're hitting 250 to see more of the country. It's so different from – I mean, I travel for my job, and just every – even city can be so different, have such a different feel and culture. And just to see the diversity of how different places in the country are and how everything's so different and, yeah, if I counted, I'd guess I would be probably around the 23 as well. There's a lot I haven't been to. Well, again, it's been fun to see some of these people that came here from Europe,

[00:52:50] because the other day, actually, when I was in Florida, I had a chance to watch England versus Croatia, and I watched some of these others. And these individuals that have come here from Europe or from Croatia or from the Netherlands or wherever they happen to be – South Korea. And, of course, we had – Jeff Mateer said he was going to go with his fellow Scots up to Boston, and they had so many Scots in Boston, they ran out of beer, which says something – I'm going to have to find out from Nathan – how many beers Jeff actually drank.

[00:53:19] And a lot of them were in kilts. Yeah, but again, the bottom line is they are over here, and they're going crazy over Buc-ee's. They're going crazy over Target. They're going crazy over the HEB grocery stores. Sometimes they're just going crazy over something they see in a gas station, and it's just amazing. They see some of the things – and, of course, they had – they were in the – what they're calling, I guess, Dallas Stadium now, which is where the Cowboys play. Yeah.

[00:53:45] It was filled last night with people who were watching on the big jumbotron. Yes. It just – it is really kind of – I don't know how to explain this, but there's a lot of unity and people just getting together, having a good time and enjoying a sport and not bringing politics and other things in there. It's just very encouraging to me. Well, and again, in light of what we just talked about a few minutes ago, Nathan,

[00:54:10] it used to be that we all would go to sports, and even if one was a Republican, one was a Democrat, even if somebody was a communist, somebody was a fascist, they're all rooting for the Dallas Cowboys. They're rooting for the Texas Longhorns, rooting for the Boston Red Sox, whatever, and all those political issues subside. And I think that's the general trend that we're moving towards, but we have some examples that we've talked about even today where that still is a problem, isn't it?

[00:54:37] Yeah, and I think if you've heard stories from some of these people that are coming from out of the country, you're hearing that they were warned by people, oh, these people are not nice people, or there's guns everywhere, you know, there's even stories of people in the northern states warning people, oh, you're going to Dallas, well, those people, blah, blah, blah. A lot of it tied to conservative politics and that kind of thing, and you see a lot of stories on Instagram right now of people saying, I was so pleasantly surprised these people were so nice, everyone was so welcoming.

[00:55:06] Everybody had a great time. Yeah, for sure. This piece that we've posted here also has a great quote from our good friend, former Senator Ben Sasse, about that the center of America is not Washington, D.C., it's the neighborhoods where 330 million people are raising their kids, and just a good reminder of that. Father's Day coming up, so let's talk about fathers and fatherlessness. All that coming up right after this.

[00:55:41] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. On the last day of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked what form of government was being proposed for the United States. His famous reply was, a republic, madam, if you can keep it. Princeton professor Robert George has some ideas on how to keep our republic. He acknowledges that many presidents have pushed the limits of their power while in office,

[00:56:07] but he reminds us that as we commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we also celebrate a quarter millennium without an American Caesar or Napoleon. Instead, he focuses on the American people. George Washington observed that the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finely staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people. John Adams is known for declaring,

[00:56:36] our Constitution is made for a moral and religious people and is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Robert George explains that is true, because people lacking in virtue could be counted on to trade liberty for protection, for financial or personal security, for comfort, or for having their problems solved quickly. Keeping our republic depends on a virtuous citizenship. This is a challenge because he laments that many Americans do not even know what a family is anymore,

[00:57:04] let alone how to be part of one or how to properly start a new one. Church attendance is at record lows. If we're experiencing an American decline, it is not because the constitutional order is flawed or the political system is broken. It is because we need a moral and spiritual revival in this country. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my Point of View. Go deeper on topics like you just heard

[00:57:33] by visiting pointofview.net. That's pointofview.net. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. One of the articles we've posted here is by Dr. or Professor Brad Wilcox. He's professor of sociology at University of Virginia and part of the National Fatherhood Institute. We've talked about the issue of fatherless America, and that is a real concern.

[00:58:01] But again, he gives you the positives. American dads have never been more devoted to their children, but increasing number of men are choosing never to endure family life at all. One of the things that comes from their studies is married fathers are the happiest people we can identify. Married, childless, next, unmarried fathers, unmarried, childless, much further down the list. And so in some respects, being a father is important. All three of us are fathers.

[00:58:30] You're a relatively recent father, aren't you? Yes. And two of us are grandfathers. But it does, again, change things. And since you have experience going from not having a child to a child, talk about that for just a minute, because it changes a lot of things almost simultaneously when you have a child, doesn't it? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it changes a lot of perspectives, the way you view things, the way you think about things. We have both a three-year-old son and a new daughter, and so having one of both two shows

[00:59:00] just the ways that you view boys and girls differently. Oh, boy. Yeah. I mean, it changes a lot of your perspective, forces you to mature, grow up a little bit. And, yeah, there's a joy in watching them develop and how they, you know, my son is speaking a lot more now and just watching him have a conversation. Yeah. There's a lot of joy in that. Well, and we were just the reverse. We had the girl first and then the boy,

[00:59:28] and that's when you think everything was nice and simple and easy, and then you bring this bobcat into this world, and all of a sudden the whole thing has changed right before your very eyes, and that is part of fatherhood. But also, Dr. Merrill Matthews, I think about now with being grandparents, you and I are both grandparents, you not only think about your children, but your grandchildren, there's a sense of legacy that's very important. And so Brad Wilcox and all sorts of other people,

[00:59:58] Blankenhorn and others that have written about fatherless America, point out that families are good. We need more of them at a time when we have declining fertility. We need to encourage people to meet the right person, get married, then have children, and have a sense of continuity with our community. And those are individuals that make the best citizens, I found. They absolutely are. Generally speaking, in the welfare world,

[01:00:26] if you want to stop poverty and welfare, people need to get married, have kids, and stay in a stable relationship, and that those people are, a very small percentage of those people are actually on welfare because they've managed to get one or two incomes, they've got a stable household, and they're able to make progress and move forward with things. And once you had the welfare state come up,

[01:00:52] you sort of really undermine the notion of fatherhood, at least stable families because in so many cases, and part of this was meant to be well-intentioned, but they said, we don't want to be funding low-income families. We just want to fund low-income mothers with children. And so you would sometimes have men who would move in. If they got married, they lose the welfare, they lose the government money. And so they oftentimes didn't get married,

[01:01:21] and that meant the father could leave fairly easily if he wanted to without any kind of restraints. So we've imposed a lot of policies that discourage good fatherhood. But one of the other things we're seeing is that men are taking bigger shares, bigger roles in taking care of the family. They're doing more. And I see this among grandparents, including myself, who are taking a bigger role in just being the joy of being a grandparent. When I used to go to my grandparents' house, oh, you're here? You can go out and play if you want to.

[01:01:51] Now my grandkids come over. We take them. We play with them. We go out and do things. We've become good grandparents in just parenting as well. You know, it's almost like the best of times and the worst of times, if I can paraphrase, of course, a very famous book, because you are seeing the very definite emphasis on men being more devoted to their children, men being more interested in church. Where would you have ever predicted that under Gen Z,

[01:02:18] more Gen Z men are interested in going to church than Gen Z women? More Gen Z men are interested in getting married than Gen Z women. That has never existed until fairly recently. And, Nathan, those are some changing statistics that illustrate the best of times in some places. But then again, we just have a lot of fatherless America that we have to address. Yeah, absolutely. And I think a lot of that comes down to a culture of individuality. Whatever is best for you, whatever is most convenient.

[01:02:46] So this hookup culture, this no strings attached, that's going to tie me down. It's a commitment. I think you saw some of that in that piece of that type of a mentality. And I think part of it also is part of some of the responsibility that I think is as well as on the church, of not talking about the importance of being married before you live together, for example. That's a topic that growing up I never heard in church of saying,

[01:03:16] well, this is God's intention for this. And we saw even here locally in the Dallas area where a local church did a big sermon on get married. This is what God says about marriage, and people got married. No one had told them before. I didn't know I was supposed to. Yeah, and I have a little booklet here on cohabitation, and I developed from years ago when, as Dr. Matthews knows, I was sometimes teaching at Dallas Seminary, and we would teach a doctoral ministry class,

[01:03:43] which are made up of people who have been pastors for many years and come in getting their doctorate. And what they were saying when we got to that topic is, I'm having many of the people in my congregation saying, okay, I know the Bible says we're supposed to get married, but are there any other reasons to do so? Why can't we live together before marriage? After all, you wouldn't buy a pair of shoes without trying them on. You wouldn't buy a car without a test drive. And I said, well, that's because all sorts of people, whether it's at Rutgers University,

[01:04:11] University of Virginia, I'm quoting now Brad Wilcox and others, have all shown that if you live together before getting married, you increase your likelihood of getting divorced by an additional 50%. There are some real problems that come from that. And so whether you look at the biblical arguments or just the secular arguments, that's the case. And Dr. Matthews, you mentioned just in passing a lot of what has caused fatherlessness was well-intentioned. But I think back in the 1960s, a man by the name of Daniel Patrick Moynihan,

[01:04:41] even before he became a U.S. senator, was telling Lyndon Johnson that what you're trying to do in terms of fighting this war on poverty might end up driving more men away because you're actually funding single mothers and they receive the benefits. And if there's a man hanging around who's married, well, then they lose those benefits. And that's created part of our problem, hasn't it? It absolutely has created part of the problem. And, of course, the birth control pill has added to that.

[01:05:11] So there's several aspects to it. And ironically now, I mean, you mentioned the Gen Z men who are more interested in being devoted fathers. At the same time, we're seeing Gen Z women who are more interested in getting careers, getting college educations, getting professional degrees, moving into the STEM sciences, moving into medicine and other things, which takes an awful lot of time and a bigger commitment.

[01:05:36] And it is harder for them to be able to be the devoted mothers that they would maybe wanted to be or would like to have been just because of their new job opportunities that they have. One other thing that relates to politics for just a minute, if you look at one of the charts here, and again, I encourage people to print this out, married fatherhood by political views. If you're a conservative, you're more likely to be married, more likely to be in a family, more likely to have children. If you're a liberal, less likely to get married.

[01:06:05] Even if you are married, less likely to have children. And that has created a very significant fertility gap. That is, conservative families have more conservative kids, because if you grow up in a conservative family, you're more likely to be conservative, than the liberals. And that fertility gap has played its way out over time. Now, the one thing that works against that is when you send them off to university, that's a liberal-making phenomenon.

[01:06:32] But nevertheless, this is a substantial fertility gap between conservatives and liberals, because some of our listeners, when we talk about the fact that we have a declining fertility rate, they say, not in our church, we don't. We have it busting at the seams in terms of all the young couples that have children. But that is not typical nationwide. And if you have more and more conservative families, having more and more kids growing up in a conservative family,

[01:07:00] that has an impact later on, don't you think? Yes, it does. And if you live in a big city, that tends to be a little more liberal, typically big cities. If you're living in an apartment in a big city, that tends to be more liberal. And so they both, for several reasons, may not have as many children, but they also say we're in a small apartment. We can't have kids or we can only have one kid. So there's several factors that are influencing this. And I don't know where it's going to go,

[01:07:29] but it's an interesting reversal with men who are increasingly interested in being good fathers and playing a significant role not only with their kids, but also in the house and chores and things of that nature. Well, again, that gets back to the need for the house. And we've talked about that many times, that it is maybe more and more difficult for Nathan's generation and the generation beneath him to actually buy a house. And when you have a house with a yard, it's a lot easier to raise kids than it is when you're in an apartment. So let's take a break.

[01:07:58] We'll come back with some other comments because we have some other articles to cover. But if nothing else, just a recognition that fathers are important, and I hope you'll honor those fathers this weekend. We'll be right back. At Point of View, we believe there is power in prayer. And that is why we have relaunched our Pray for America campaign,

[01:08:22] a series of weekly emails to unite Americans in prayer for our nation. Imagine if hundreds of thousands of Americans started praying intentionally together on a weekly basis. You can help make that a reality by subscribing to our Pray for America emails. Just go to pointofview.net and click on the Pray for America banner that's right there on the homepage.

[01:08:52] Each week you'll receive a brief news update, a specific prayer guide, and a free resource to equip you in further action. We encourage you to not only pray with us each week, but to share these prayers and the resources with others in your life. Join the movement today. Visit pointofview.net and click on the banner Pray for America right there at the top.

[01:09:20] That's pointofview.net. Let's pray together for God to make a difference in our land. Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View.

[01:09:45] The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Back once again in studio, Merrill Matthews, Nathan Shackelford. And while we're talking about dads for just another couple minutes, I thought it would be good to mention that we did have a conversation about the so-called male crisis. And I've got a commentary coming out next week because there are some writers,

[01:10:13] and this was a writer in USA Today, pointing out that we have pretty much created this mindset in this woke culture that men are optional. And I've seen some people with microphones going up saying, well, do you need men now? And the women say, I don't need men at all. And one of the things that I thought was interesting is Nicole Russell quoted a feminist, and I've never seen this quote before, if civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts. Which I thought was a great line because, after all, men are not optional.

[01:10:43] Dads are not optional. And yet, interestingly enough, she observed that a culture that repeatedly devalues men should not be surprised when so many struggle to find purpose, confidence, and direction. And that's kind of this male crisis. For those of us that love C.S. Lewis, remember his famous quote, we make men without chests and expect them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. And this came from a piece that was in the New York Times, a podcast,

[01:11:13] where they were lamenting the fact that the left really doesn't encourage men at all. So what's happening, interestingly enough, is the men are kind of gravitational, almost gravitating towards the right, towards conservative ideas, even sort of towards Christian ideas. And if you've been referring to men and masculinity as toxic. Yes. We had Nancy Piercy on this program a while back when she talked about the toxic war on masculinity.

[01:11:42] Yes, we do have some toxic men out there, but one of the things she found, very similar to what Brad Wilcox found, the men that were in a relationship with their wife or attended church were just the very opposite of those negative stereotypes. So if you are concerned about toxic men, get them into church. What do you think? Yeah, I think that we saw really one of the, when you were talking earlier about men going more to church,

[01:12:10] that happened as a response, a lot of it was to Charlie's assassination. Yes, that's very true. It was a huge. The Charlie Kirk effect. There's a lot of times where men see something like that and go, it's all right, it's time for us to step up. And I think that's why you saw some of that trend. I had friends in my life that weren't really believers texted me and said, you'll be happy to know I'm going to church. And I think it's that thing in men to want to stand up and when they see that to respond. So I think that's where we've seen some of that from. You know, on Tuesday I had Seth Trout on,

[01:12:40] he's an author about his book, Authentic Masculinity. And he goes through both the virtues of males and the roles that males play. It was a very interesting discussion because talking about authentic masculinity, where the biblical role, humility, discernment, other things, those play an important role in the life of a man. And we've been hearing so much about toxic masculinity,

[01:13:07] it was nice to hear something about what an authentic man should be. Right. And again, I just think this is something that pastors, if they're even listening right now, might want to think about mentioning their sermon because so often if we have Mother's Day, we just talk about how we love our mothers and everything. And then when it's Father's Day, we usually let them have it. And I think that is the case. Let's take some phone calls along the way. And we'll go to Alaska, KJMP and Elmer. I think you want to talk about families and homes. Go ahead.

[01:13:39] Yeah. I've heard about the private equity buying houses and things like that. And I've heard a lot about housing affordability for family formation. And, you know, the interest rates are a disincentive right now. And also, but the prices are. And because the availability is so low. So and so I'm sure there's lots of reasons why the availability is so low.

[01:14:05] But it's a real disincentive for family formation from what I hear. I certainly agree. I've seen a number of people talk about the fact that it is difficult to raise a family in an apartment complex or even in a condominium. And the image that we have of making housing available for everyone, that didn't turn out so well in the 20 hundreds to 2020s, in particular 2008 and that kind of stuff. But nevertheless, I think there needs to be some things.

[01:14:35] And the administration has been figuring out if they can do some things to lower the price of houses. Part of the problem is, is the value of the dollar goes down and assets prices go up. And so we know reason that is. But if you want to raise a family, it is much easier on a farm or in the suburbs. And it's much more difficult in the urban environment. And as he points out, the interest rates have been a problem. We'd like to see those go down. They're probably not going to go down much soon. But they may go down eventually.

[01:15:03] But the other thing is, of course, especially with the Iran conflict and other supply chains problems that we had going back to the pandemic, getting materials to the builders to be able to build things has been a problem. And their prices have gone up. And so they've carried those prices on, price increases on to individuals. Yes. Zoning is another one. I mean, there's a lot of reasons that the house prices aren't where they should be.

[01:15:29] And if you're younger, you are hoping that you can get a house because that's sort of the American dream. And that is really essential to family formation. And in some places, regulations. Pacific Palisades burned. And they have done very little to sort of rebuild that, even though a lot of these people would have money. But regulations and other things are prohibiting the ability to be able to get back to construction. Well, again, just some very important issues that we wanted to raise.

[01:15:58] And, again, if you want to learn a little bit more about fathers and fatherlessness. And, again, if you want to make sure that you can train your children and grandchildren, follow what's called the success sequence. We just talked about that. Graduate. Graduate. Get married. Then have children. If you follow those simple procedures, your likelihood of getting on the welfare rolls is less than 10%, I think.

[01:16:27] If you violate any of those, it's sometimes more than 50%. So it is the so-called success sequence. We've talked about it so many times here on Point of View. Pentadextra has written about it. I have as well. But just before we take a break, I thought we'd just mention that we had a Texas Republican convention. And, Dr. Matthews, you raised this issue. We are concerned, as we've been concerned, about Muslim people.

[01:16:50] But just because a person is Muslim doesn't mean that they shouldn't be allowed on the Republican platform or even part of the Republican convention. After all, a number of Muslims have served in the military on our patriotic. But there seemed to be a little bit, and we posted this article, an overreaction to having a Muslim Texan show up at the Republican convention. Yes, this was an article in the Texas Tribune. And it's a long article.

[01:17:17] But there were a handful of Muslims who showed up at the Texas Republican convention. And there were speeches being given about how you cannot trust Muslims. And once they were identified, some people would go and either criticize them, ask them to leave, say you cannot be part of this. Some arguing that they need to leave the country. I think there was one woman there with hijab on.

[01:17:40] And it's just, if you come, and this is just generally speaking, if you come as a patriotic American who loves freedom, free markets, and other things, and you want to be part of the Republican Party, I think you ought to have the role of being part of the Republican Party. I know there were Muslims in the Bush administration, some of them I worked with, and others that I've known that are just good, loyal Americans.

[01:18:07] And if you ask the question, well, how can they do that with Sharia law? I don't know how they can do that, but they are not lying to us or trying to kill us. And so we need to be able to allow people of different religions to be able to join and participate in our political parties if they are loyal, patriotic Americans. Yeah. And just thought I would mention that one because we don't want an overreaction.

[01:18:34] There was a real concern that after 9-11 there'd be an overreaction to the Muslim world. And I think in some respects we've been over backwards. But the difference is very significant because I know Muslims in our neighborhood. And if you are kind of Muslim in terms of culture and character, that's very different than believing that, well, I have to implement Sharia 9-5 or other passages to go out there and kill the infidel.

[01:18:59] And so how you relate to the Koran, how you relate to the Constitution are really important. And I've actually noticed in my neighborhood, my wife and I walk twice a day, I went down this one street. The only people on that street that had a flag, one was actually a woman we've known for some time from Venezuela, very thrilled about the fact that she can live in this country, has a flag out there and also a Trump bumper sticker as well.

[01:19:25] And the other one is a Muslim from Turkey who left because, in large part, he's a lawyer and was not going to do well under Erdogan. So sometimes these people that have come here legally are some of the most patriotic people because they understand what freedom is all about. I've got two Muslim families in our neighborhood and several Indian families who at least have a Hindu background there. And they are loyal Americans and they're great friends. Well, so again, we're going to take a break.

[01:19:53] We've got a pen of Dexter's commentary down playing pride. I also have one on America 250. We'll talk about that and keeping the Republic. So just to kind of ending on a positive note. But if you find yourself saying, I'd like to read some of these articles, they're all available at the website pointofview.net. As you go there, you'll see all the material that is available to you. There's a place where you can donate. And as we get closer to our fiscal year end, June 30th, hope you'll consider what you might do to support this ministry.

[01:20:21] So we can keep these kinds of programs on the air. We'll be back right after this. Although it's Pride Month, June hasn't seen much LGBT hoopla here in Texas. The Washington Stand reports that throughout the country, such celebrating has been dialed back to a stunning degree.

[01:20:51] The news publication Suzanne Bowdy writes that in Tennessee, Arkansas, Indiana, and Oklahoma, leaders are replacing Pride Month with declarations of Nuclear Family Month. Pride celebrations are part of what theologian Carl Truman describes as the liturgical calendar of this present age. Gay Pride is destructive because it elevates LGBT desires over the needs of children. Eleven years ago, during Pride Month, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, extending same-sex marriage to every state.

[01:21:19] In the five years following the decision, public support for gay marriage rose from 60 to 70 percent. Then it plateaued. Democrats still back gay marriage at 87 percent. But Gallup polling shows that among Republicans, approval of same-sex marriage stands at 37 percent, down from 55 percent four years ago. The opinion in Obergefell, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, emphasized the good of marriage to a society, describing it as a keystone of our social order and essential to our most profound hopes and aspirations.

[01:21:48] Advocates argue that allowing same-sex marriage would strengthen marriage. But the hope for revival of marriage has not materialized. The pre-Obergefell decline in marriage continues. In redefining marriage to meet the needs of homosexuals, societies seem to ignore that children really need to be in homes with their biological moms and dads. More Americans are connecting those dots. But wokeness persists, especially in blue states. In New York, state legislators are considering new child custody and parental laws,

[01:22:16] in which the term mother is replaced with gestating parent and father with non-gestating parent. Suzanne Bowdy points out that in at least 11 states, legislators have introduced bills to roll back same-sex marriage. Marriage was God's creation for human flourishing. To redefine it is prideful. For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[01:22:46] Back for a few more minutes. Hope you have a wonderful weekend. And just before we wind down, I thought we would mention Penna Dexter's commentary, which is entitled Downplaying Pride. Mine is Keeping Our Republic. We'll get to that in just a minute. But also, I might recommend that as we've been talking about these issues, especially as we started the program with some of these religious liberty issues, you might want to contact your friends at firstliberty.org because you will find that there are some very important issues.

[01:23:15] And hearing the story about Paige Rogers, you might say, I know of a student that had the same problem and didn't even know that we could stand up for our religious rights. Or I'm aware of the fact that we are certainly dealing with some very significant regulations that are violating my religious faith. So you might want to contact them and find out a little bit more.

[01:23:37] But since we started by talking a little bit about the whole issue of Pride Month, even though it's Pride Month, June hasn't really had as much, as Penna Dexter says, the LGBTQ hoopla as we've seen in the past. We've seen some Pride celebrations and the rest. But some of that seems to have faded. And, Dr. Matthews, I'd love to get your thoughts because we remember the heyday when everything was seen through the lens of LGBTQ.

[01:24:07] It doesn't seem necessarily to be happening now. I've seen very little reference to it except occasionally on the local news where they talk about a Pride parade or a group going someplace. So not nearly what we saw four or five years ago when the Biden administration and others were pushing those kinds of things and trying to make it a major issue. And, again, let me come to you, Nathan, because we mentioned these two flight attendants in Alaska Airlines because what this was all about was LGBTQ, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:24:36] I mean, it was just speaking up against a proposed piece of legislation. It wasn't even an actual piece of legislation. It was the Equality Act, which is the past. So it was just them saying this goes against my beliefs. But I think to your point of what you were just saying, I think we've seen the market kind of react to that overreaction to where Target goes and does that and people boycott it. And now you've seen that I haven't seen that really being pushed in Target now. Yeah.

[01:25:03] And I know this is not a Bud Light audience, but nevertheless, Bud Light is another example and a few others. So you can kind of sense that maybe corporations have changed in terms of their marketing. But here you have at least two individuals that lost their job for expressing their point of view.

[01:25:22] So it does seem to me that one of the advantages of having you and other people of First Liberty on this program is to educate our listeners that if you lose your religious rights, there are opportunities for you to recover those. And a lot of that now is favorable in this administration because when have we ever had a national religious liberty commission except during the Trump administration? So many of the remedies that didn't exist before now exist, don't they?

[01:25:52] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, not just because of the administration, but also because of the Supreme Court and the precedent that we've had over the last few years of just really being able to advance religious freedom, go back to the constitutionality of things, which is essentially the greatest religious freedom anywhere in the world. And so if we can protect that and allow people to live that out without people like Paige having to suddenly go fund an attorney, if we can do that for her, that allows people to stand up and be bold.

[01:26:19] And one of the things we've learned from Kelly Shackelford and from Jeff Mateer is even though the Supreme Court has made these rulings, a number of businesses and state and local governments never seem to get the message. And so you have to go back and say, this is what the Supreme Court said. And I'm just amazed that some of them do that, even though the Supreme Court has ruled in some of these cases. Let's, if we can, mention RFIA.org.

[01:26:45] That stands for Restoring Faith in America, Bringing Back Expressions of Faith in the Public Square, because this was something that you've implemented, recognizing we have the rights, but if we don't exercise those rights, put up a Ten Commandments, which you've done in a couple of locales, or encourage people to post maybe a religious message or to get a creche that's posted at Christmas time,

[01:27:10] or allow a student to actually talk about Jesus Christ in the valedictorian address, we're only going to recapture those religious rights if we individually in each community get involved. Yeah, absolutely. What good are rights if you can't exercise them? And so it's that RFIA initiative is our forward-looking, aggressive, let's go exercise our rights.

[01:27:35] And we've seen this even in places here like Rockwall, where groups like Freedom from Religion come out and say, you can't do that. And I loved our reply letter back that ends with, come and take it. I actually watched a little clip that you posted there of the city council where they said, we agree with First Liberty, in which they said, come and take it. That reminds me of the Battle of Gonzales, wasn't it, where the Mexicans said,

[01:28:04] we want you to give us back the cannon, wasn't it? Yeah. And they said, come and take it. Come and take it. So that's where that comes from. Real quickly, as we wind down, my commentary today is about keeping our republic, and that comes from our good friend, a Princeton professor, Robert George. And, of course, the idea of keep our republic, you might remember when the Constitutional Convention was convening, Benjamin Franklin was asked, what form of government have you given us? He said, of course, a republic, madam, if you can keep it.

[01:28:30] And he argues that, if nothing else, we certainly, certainly, if we're going to make a significance, are recognizing how important the people are to that. He points out, for example, George Washington talked about the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty. Matter of fact, I'm going to be doing an interview on that book, The Sacred Fire of Liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finely staked on the experiment, what?

[01:29:00] Entrusted in the hands of the American people. John Adams, of course, very famously said, our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. And Robert George says, you know, because a people lacking in virtue could be counted on to trade liberty for protection, for financial or for personal security, for comfort, or having their problems solved quickly, that's why we need a virtuous citizenship.

[01:29:29] And it's the challenge, which brings us back to something we just talked about, is Americans do not even know what a family is anymore, let alone how to be part of one or how to properly start a new one. And so if nothing else, we need to bring about a moral and spiritual revival in America. There's only so much you can do in the courts, only so much we can do in government, but there's a whole lot more we can do by preaching about it every Sunday from the pulpits

[01:29:55] and encouraging people to develop integrity and accountability. Not only do we not know what a family is, we've got a Supreme Court Justice who doesn't know what a woman is. Well, we made one mistake. We're not going to make any more, hopefully, in that regard. But it's just a good illustration of the fact that if we want to keep the republic, it is up to us. And that brings us back to restoring faith in America. If we are complaining about our loss of religious liberty, I think, Nathan, you're going to be asking people, well, what are you doing to change it in your own community?

[01:30:24] And if this can be changed in every individual community, it's going to change the country. Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of people don't know where to start. They feel overwhelmed, and so one of the things that we do at RFIA is monthly challenges of, here's how you can practically apply this. So they do calls. They do challenges, things that are very practical for any regular everyday person to say, this is something I can do to retake this in my community. Let me again thank both of you for being here today.

[01:30:51] Dr. Matthews, again, if you want to learn a little bit more about trust in government and a couple of the other issues, if you'd like to learn more about fatherhood and, of course, all these religious liberty cases, thank you for those. And a lot of religious liberty cases. I don't think you're going out of business anytime soon. Every time you come in here, we've got another case. And we didn't even talk about the church that was told they couldn't have religious functions in the church or another one that was told that we're not even going to help you hook up your emergency line.

[01:31:20] So if nothing else, I think you're going to be around for some time. It's called job security, so thank you for what you do. First of all, I want to thank Megan for help engineering the program behind the scenes. Steve, thank you for producing the program. He will not be with us next week because his son is getting married. We'll certainly struggle on without him. Enjoy the weekend. We'll look forward to seeing you back here on Monday right here on Point of View.

[01:31:56] America's founders called this nation an experiment. 250 years later, the question for us is, did the experiment work? Well, let's look at the history. Though not perfect, America has continued moving toward the promise of the Declaration that all men are created equal. Our nation has enjoyed amazing success and providential survival.

[01:32:24] So has the experiment succeeded? Well, yes, but will it succeed going forward? That depends on you. At Point of View, we know the American experiment owes its success to the biblical values upon which it was founded. Join Point of View this month as we work to restore a biblical worldview in American culture. Your gift will be doubled when you give by June 30th.

[01:32:54] Call or click today at pointofview.net and 1-800-347-5151. That's pointofview.net and 800-347-5151. Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.