Point of View May 9, 2025 – Hour 2 : Weekend Edition

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View. Second hour today we're going to spend some time talking about this Department of Health and Human Services study that was actually required by an executive order that came from President Donald Trump

[00:00:31] and that was called Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation. Now the document, 409 pages, is actually called Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria, Review of Evidence and Best Practices. We do have some links if you'd like to read it. I wouldn't recommend that you print it out. It would take an entire ream of paper and it's certainly very detailed.

[00:00:58] But Penna, I thought we might talk about it because again, we earlier in the week talked about how some of the medical associations are calling this and even the LGBTQ organizations calling it transphobic. And then we of course even yesterday talked about how even the editors of the Wall Street Journal said, hey, the United States is finally catching up on gender medicine. But this article from the Free Press is one that Dr. Murrow Matthews recommended

[00:01:24] and that has to do with whether or not gender transitions and so-called affirmative care and gender-affirmative treatment and care, whether that's a good idea. And they come to the conclusion the evidence for that is pretty low. It's pretty low. Madeline Kearns wrote on this in the Free Press and it was a very good article. I mean, I do think, I recommend reading that article. You don't need to read the report unless you really want to. But it's been dismissed as partisan too, as a partisan issue.

[00:01:53] Since when is watching out for the health of children, declining to sterilize and mutilate them, remove their sexual organs and all of the other, since when is that partisan? But it's become that way. It really, truly has. And I feel sad and so sorry for the Democrats because I think this is one of the issues that defeated them. I really, truly do.

[00:02:17] But what the report says is that there is uncertainty, deep uncertainty is the word they used, about the purported benefits of medical interventions in this gender dysphoria. And many of the studies that they've done on it, what is used by the medical associations to support their position are flawed. They're finding out that many of those studies are flawed.

[00:02:42] And then the medical associations create an appearance of consensus when there is none. You know, you get the idea sometimes when I would read about discussions that were going on, you get the idea that the persecution of the, you know, one person that stands up for sanity was, you know, because so many people really believe in this. It's not. It's because they're louder. They're just louder about it.

[00:03:09] And then the, the incidents of suicide, which I've heard Chloe Cole speak about this. She's a D trans or she's really spoken out and she's, you know, her parents were told that you're better. And a lot of parents are told this, that you're better off having a, of trans, you know, a boy, a trans boy, than a dead daughter. So just go with it, pay for it or go with it or allow your child to have it. And that's not true.

[00:03:38] The incidents of suicide are actually worse from people who have transitioned, not the people that haven't transitioned. And it talks about the importance of getting psychological and mental health. And, you know, it, the stories that I've, I read the book D trans by Mary Margaret Olihan. Right. And we were supposed to have her on, but something happened. I don't know what happened to her. She's not out there.

[00:04:03] Maybe she's working on something else, but, but anyway, she, she talked to so many of these kids. And doctors that have detransitioned or in the process of doing it. And they just get so much pushback. It's, it's very hard. It's just so hard. There's so much damage done to their bodies. And so it's not a thing and doctors won't help you very much to do it.

[00:04:28] In fact, Chloe Cole said it's hard for her to go, you know, go to the doctor for anything related to that. So it's really, you know, it's turning around though, because of the Trump administration. And now Pam Bondi, the attorney general has said, she's going to impose civil and potentially criminal investigations regarding pediatric gender transition. So it's going to become a crime eventually. They'll be able to say that.

[00:04:56] And she said, she told justice department employees to enforce rigorous protections and hold accountable those who prey on vulnerable children and their parents. So, you know, there's going to be somebody watching this now. And we certainly have to get Congress involved, I think, because it's still, it's still an agenda to erase the differences between men and women.

[00:05:22] There is a deep seated agenda there, but they just got so much clout during this time. And the Democrats, I think they just glommed onto it. And now I think it's hurting them. You know, what this paper does is an analysis of other studies. So this happens every now and then you have what we call a meta-analysis where you go and let's just take all the information out there, the literature that's in there and see what it's. And you sometimes find out, well, we didn't know all this.

[00:05:48] I mean, there's something of a consensus now that's moving against transgenderism. The CAST report out of England took this position. I think Norway and Sweden have both began to move against this. We're seeing other countries step up and say there's just not any good information to say this helps kids. And there's a lot of information that says this hurts kids and that there are better ways to address their particular problems, especially with mental health help.

[00:06:16] So it's a very timely report. It needed to come out. It was able to come out quickly because it's something of a meta-analysis. And I appreciate Pam Bondi wanting to look this. And, you know, we've talked about it here on the show because we've had the law firm that's leading a charge in suing doctors out there who led this. That's right.

[00:06:36] And I think once if Pam Bondi gets involved in this and you get more juries awarding significant damage awards to young kids who went through transgender, the change, and ended up coming up later finding out all the health medical problems they had afterwards, I think that will put the stop to it. We'll take a break, but we'll come back and get in some more details because on the second page they give you some of the findings. I thought it would be helpful for you to hear that.

[00:07:06] But as we're going to a break, let me just mention a few things. One of the things that we have made available to you in the past is one of the booklets I'm holding up right now for those of you watching online, A Biblical Point of View on Transgender. And first of all, it begins with Paul McHugh. And, Pena, you and I know who he is because here is an individual that was the head at one time of the psychiatric apartment, the professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University.

[00:07:34] And he and Lawrence Mayer actually looked at 200 of these studies, concluded this idea that there's a girl trapped in a boy's body or a boy trapped in a girl's body is not true, and also talks about the higher rates of mental problems, anxiety, depression, suicide, as well as behavior problems, suicide abuse, intimate partner violence, then the general population. So a lot of that's there. And then I also go in to talk about some of the work that's done by Abigail Schreier,

[00:08:02] who's been on the program, and here's her book, which again, as you've written in one of your commentaries, she didn't set out to be controversial, but it was so controversial that you couldn't even get the book at Target and Amazon for a while when all she was doing is citing a lot of the work of Lisa Littman, who was the professor at Brown University, who's not a Christian, who's not a conservative, as a matter of fact, just the office. She was just counting. She was just seeing the problems. Counting the number of girls presenting themselves. Yeah. And I was at a men's retreat a while back, and I met a professor at Brown,

[00:08:31] and he said, you can't believe what they did to her. And she was the one at the time who said, would you stop calling me a conservative? I am a liberal. I've never voted for a Republican. I am a liberal. I'm a feminist. But as soon as you stray from the, you know, the plantation, that's the kind of labeling takes place. We'll come back with more right after this.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Last week, I talked about a John Stossel video that takes on climate myths. He dispelled three myths. The Arctic will be ice free. Polar bears are going extinct. And climate change has created a food shortage. Today, I want to address a few of the other myths in his latest video. Myth number one is climate change is making droughts worse.

[00:09:23] Even the recent news from the EPA acknowledges that the last 50 years have generally been wetter than average. There are years when you have individual droughts, but we don't see a trend downward. Myth number two is climate change is making wildfires worse. I've talked about this in previous commentaries. U.S. Forest Service data shows fires burned much more in the 1930s. One degree warmer doesn't dry out all the brush and trees. Myth number three is sea level rise will soon cause catastrophic damage.

[00:09:54] Back in 2004, the Guardian wrote, A secret report warns that major European cities will be sunk under rising seas by 2020. Well, it's 2025 and European cities are still above water. It is true that more than 100 million people live below high tide sea level thanks to dikes like those in the Netherlands. We can adapt and adjust to many environmental changes. And myth number four is coral reefs are disappearing.

[00:10:20] John Stossel cites one report that proclaims the Great Barrier Reef is dying, then counters with a report that in 2024 saw record coverage of the Great Barrier Reef. We do have environmental challenges, but it isn't helpful for so many scientists and journalists to engage in environmental hyperbole. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:46] For a free booklet on a biblical view of intelligent design, go to viewpoints.info slash intelligent design. Viewpoints.info slash intelligent design. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, Penn Dexter, as well as Dr. Merrill Matthews in studio. Talk about this particular piece, and we'll get to in just a minute some of the things that the Department of Health and Human Services uncovered.

[00:11:15] But Penn has said something in passing that's worth mentioning. And I'll hold this up. This was from First Things, and it's written by Dr. Mark Regnerus. And I've always thought we should have him on, so Penn and I were saying off air we ought to get him on. He's a professor of sociology at the University of Texas. But in this First Things article, tells us about the first time one of his articles was going to come out, one of his research studies in social science research.

[00:11:41] Within minutes after it was posted, you had this very detailed criticism which suggests that it was leaked. And then goes through and tells us all the criticism that came of him, the accusations of any kind of lack of integrity, even kind of research. The University of Texas seemed to have suspended him.

[00:12:06] Of course, he was referred to as a homophobe, a bigot, a conservative hack, a horrible human being. I mean, to go through this long list of all. And the bottom line is he says it wasn't because of the data, because he even released the data. And a lot of people might even agree with it, but it was simply that he was saying, because the data shows very clearly that children do best with a father and a mother. They don't do as well with parents of the same sex.

[00:12:34] And, of course, that was certainly controversial. And then when you get to a Borgerfeld, well, then that became even more controversial, because if it hadn't been for him, it would have been even easier to have brought about same-sex marriage. And it just illustrates, as he points out, that there isn't even a desire on the part, because of so much social pressure, to really look at the data objectively. And so when people hear, well, there's a consensus on this issue of transgender,

[00:13:03] well, it's only because, in some respects, people are fearful of their academic reputations, fearful of what that might happen to them if they are identified as a pediatrician, not agreeing with some of these ideas. And, Pena, that's something we still need to address. Well, in this article that we posted from the free press at pointofview.net, on the third page, I was shocked by this piece of news.

[00:13:28] The report that just came out from HHS had nine authors, including medical doctors, medical ethicists, and a methodologist, and a wide range of political viewpoints. But guess what? They were all anonymous. Their names are not on it. And, you know, I'm like, I'm not shocked, because they stand to be tremendously persecuted over this. So it's anonymous. Yes, and they found, for example, many of the studies that were done to support this.

[00:13:58] In support of transitioning minors suffer from serious methodological flaws. Well, I plan to try to look at a few of those, but I remember a couple years ago when there was a published piece, and you might remember, Pena, where it was front-page news, that lesbian mothers are actually better mothers than mothers where there's a husband involved. So-called lesbian mothers are better than traditional mothers. And I thought, that doesn't even pass the straight-face test. That doesn't make sense.

[00:14:28] So I actually took the time to look at it, and I'm reading through, and all of a sudden, how did they evaluate that these mothers were better? Well, they asked them. And they were to read themselves, were they better mothers? You're laughing. Nobody that put that paper out, nobody in the peer review questioned that. And it was front-page news for a while. And I just have to say that we've had Marion Grossman on this program.

[00:14:56] We've had Abigail Schreier on this program. And they point out that some of these studies are really poorly done. One of them was done in the Netherlands, where there were all sorts of reasons why we shouldn't have accepted this. So I'm not surprised that when they look at these 17 international reviews of medical evidence, which are promoting the idea of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, surgery, and the rest, that some of them suffer from what we might call methodological errors.

[00:15:25] The kind that you would get an F if you were to doing that in your junior high school science project. And just so our listeners know, this kind of thing goes on all the time. Sadly. And you do it as a way to try to get media attention, and you can't walk back the media attention once it's out there. So I'll just give you an example. In 1992, all the way back to 1992, I heard a report that they compared the Clinton health care plan to George Herbert Walker Bush's health care plan,

[00:15:55] and Clinton health care plan was going to save X number of billions of dollars over the year. And I thought, really? I don't understand that because George Herbert Walker Bush did not have a health care plan at the time. So how do you compare them? So I went and got the study, and what they did was they conceded he didn't have a health care plan, so they just took the status quo since he was president, and they multiplied that by eight years and said this is how much we'd be spending. And then they took Clinton of not what he actually was going to do, but what he said he would do in lowering prices.

[00:16:25] And you compared those two. It was totally bogus. It was completely bogus. What Clinton said would happen versus what would happen if he didn't do anything, and you called it the Bush plan. But these kinds of things go on all the time. So when you see reports, you have to be very, very careful and look at what we call the methodology of what they did to come up with those results. So when you look at these and you see the harm being done to children,

[00:16:52] as far as especially the hormones and the surgical interventions and things like that, that's really horrible. It's horrible. But also it's the lack of care that they're getting psychologically. They've come to a professional often. Sometimes they come because they want to switch, you know, that social contagion thing. But a lot of times they come in and they've got some kind of a problem, and maybe they've got autism.

[00:17:18] Many, many, a huge percentage of these kids that end up with the surgeries have autism. So they come in with this, and they never get that care because it's been so trendy. It's become sort of the protocol to start asking the questions about gender if you're in the psychologist's office. And so these kids have not gotten the correct care, and that's the other tragedy of all this. And I think one of the things Jordan Campbell, who's leading the lawsuits against some of these,

[00:17:48] points out that the girls, the number of girls who wanted transgender is significantly higher than the number of boys. And so you have to ask the question, well, there's not something genetically necessarily doing that. And 10 years ago we didn't have all that. So why would that be the case? And he says social contagion, girls talking to other girls, and they get to thinking maybe that's what they want to do too. And so, again, that was one of the things that Lisa Littman, who was, again, the professor at Baylor, first started looking at this

[00:18:17] because you saw what seemed to be just kind of a spike. And going back to that, in 2016 she noticed that really the issue of gender dysphoria among women is very, very rare. But all of a sudden in 2016, bam, all the things are starting to show up. Since she's at Brown University, she found that there was a small town in Rhode Island

[00:18:41] where several of the girls, all adolescents, all said that they were transgender. They were all part of the same social group. And so she began to recognize this spike began when, now we're going back to Jonathan Haidt and some of those which we'll get into in just a minute, what happened in social media. And so most of those individuals did not, as she found, have any indicators of childhood gender dysphoria,

[00:19:08] which is quite rare among women, young girls, a little more over that. Almost a third of them did not even seem to be gender dysphoric, but nearly 70% of the teenagers belonged to a peer group in which at least one friend had come out as transgender. So then when she interviewed the parents, she said, well, the parents agreed that the child's social status increased when that child, that young girl, came out as transgender.

[00:19:36] Because they got attention online. That's the other part of it. We have this online social life, so you get your attention for being outrageous. That sounds like social contagion to me. Dr. Matthews, what do you think? It does to me, too. And that's that you wouldn't have this apart from the ability to be able to reach out to people through social media so easily. It just wouldn't spread. Yes. So, again, I just thought you would want to know about this.

[00:20:01] Over the next couple of weeks, you're either going to have this completely slammed as a transphobic report, or given the fact that I think the very significant survey and study with 409 pages, but again, as Pena reminded you, from individuals, nine authors that all had to remain anonymous. This shows you what it's like in that regard. And the Mark Regnerus piece, I think, illustrates that.

[00:20:28] So you may not hear about it because they just want to get rid of it, or they may call it transphobic. But at least you hear on point of view the fact that there are some facts and figures and pieces of information that you might want. By the way, again, if you are interested in this issue of transgenderism, we'll make available that booklet. We've put it out. Actually, it's been out for the last two years. I need to update it again. But we put it out in 2023 after we, of course, had pulled together some of the material from Paul McHugh

[00:20:54] and, of course, had had Abigail Schreier on the program because, if nothing else, you need to know that. And one last time, I think we also might mention that sometimes we're told we need to be more like Europe. Remember Barack Obama saying that? Yeah. Good idea. It turns out that in the U.K., Hillary Cass, the so-called Cass Review, said this is a bad idea. And you know what? Sweden and Finland, which are pretty progressive countries, have gone along as well. Yeah. So maybe... And the government has passed laws to go along with that. I think maybe we should be more like Europe in that regard.

[00:21:23] And that's exactly what's going to happen because of the Trump administration. We'll bring more right after this. The Bible tells us not to worry. And yet there is a lot of worrying stuff in our world today. Thankfully, the Bible doesn't stop at telling us not to worry. God gives us a next step. He says we need to pray. But sometimes even knowing what to pray can be difficult.

[00:21:53] And that is why Point of View has relaunched our Pray for America movement, a series of weekly emails to guide you in prayer for our nation. Each week, you'll receive a brief update about a current issue affecting Americans, along with a written prayer that you can easily share with others. We'll also include a short free resource for you in each email so you can learn more about the issue at hand.

[00:22:21] Will you commit to pray for America? Go to pointofview.net. Click on the Pray for America banner at the top of the page to subscribe. Again, that's pointofview.net. Click on the Pray for America banner. Let's pray together for God to make a difference in America. Point of View will continue after this.

[00:22:57] 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. In studio with me today, Merrill Matthews and Penna Dexter. And we talked about Columbia. Let's now get back to Harvard. We had Ryan Silverstein with us just briefly in which he suggested that it's at least possible that Harvard could lose its tax-exempt status.

[00:23:28] And yet, at the same time, I wanted to have Dr. Merrill Matthews to give another perspective because there is a sense in which you talk about preventing federal funds from coming to Harvard University because you don't like what they're doing, revoking its tax-exempt status because you think that in one way or another they aren't obeying the 1964 Civil Rights Act. And at the same time, you have to wonder whether or not that is going to also affect religious colleges and seminaries.

[00:23:57] And that's exactly your piece that you've written about today. Right, yes. I don't want to defend Harvard on many of the things it does. We understand that. I don't want to be in that camp. But when I looked at the letter that the Trump administration sent to Harvard, it raised some red flags to me. And so I'm going to read just a few statements from because I'm looking at the letter. It says, It says,

[00:24:59] And so I'm looking at this and saying, well, this is Harvard. Harvard's a school. It's the oldest school, oldest university. It does have wide viewpoints, maybe too much to the liberal, but I came from a seminary. And I'm wondering if this could be applied to U.S. seminaries, U.S. religious colleges, Jewish universities or seminaries, even Islamic, even Catholic.

[00:25:24] And so when they applied to Harvard Divinity School, it raises a red flag to me because at a lot of seminaries, they don't want viewpoint diversity in that sense. You have to sign a statement of faith. That's right. They're looking for viewpoint conformity on some areas. And so do you really want that? And if someone might say, well, I don't think the Trump administration would do that to, say, standard Christian seminaries and universities in the U.S., and I think that might be right.

[00:25:53] But there will be another presidential election in 2028 or 2032. Will a new person coming in as perhaps a Democrat come in and say, well, I see this and I want to be able to go because we think some of these seminaries are discriminating against transgender people or against homosexual people or against others. So that was my concern. Well, it's already happened. There was an association of Christian colleges.

[00:26:21] I can't remember the name of that association. And they were under pressure, and they were beginning to get very, very wishy-washy and soft on the issue of protecting kids at the Christian college from having to have a transgender roommate. So you have, you know, you're a girl, and you've got a trans girl. Right. And, you know, she's a boy. She's your roommate. The Department of Education was involved in all that. Or even in the same dorm because a lot of Christian colleges have boys and girls dorms still. Such an, you know, outdated concept.

[00:26:50] But the colleges have already been under such pressure, and there was a big fight about it. And I think that that collegiate organization ended up moving back and having the right position, but it was under a lot of pressure. So, and this was schools in California. They were talking about doing this. So it's already happened. It's going to happen. You're right. You're absolutely right that we should not require, you know, one viewpoint.

[00:27:19] We shouldn't. But it's also, I don't know, it's almost like it's the DEI, I think, is something you can legislate. The other part of it, I think, has to be done more with just pressure. Just the market. I mean, starting to, for, you know, it to be publicized for the fact that, you know, you want your best and brightest students going in there and being, you know, totally ruined. And their morals.

[00:27:49] So, you know, I don't know if you really want the White House and the administration coming in and telling Harvard all these things. I would love to know who wrote that letter because it is over the top. Yes, it is. And the test is real simple. Imagine if that letter were sent to Wheaton College or Biola University by Joe Biden, and we would be up in arms. So there are times when the Trump administration goes too far, and I think that's a good example of that. And removing the tax status. Yes.

[00:28:17] I mean, that's been threatened to a lot of Christian colleges. Because a lot of Christian colleges may not take funds. Right. I highlight one, a Catholic university that says we're one of two Catholic universities that do not take any federal funds at all. And so you couldn't step in. And I mentioned that when I was in seminary many, many years ago, the faculty stepped in and said the federal government has said they're coming to look at our hiring practices and our staff and so forth to make sure we're not discriminating against anybody.

[00:28:46] And they threatened our federal funds if they find it. And then the university said, you can have all the federal funds because we've never taken any federal funds at this seminary. And that's a good point. But they do take a tax-exempt status. Right. They're tax-exempt. So if you threaten that and then you take all the property that some of these schools have, if you had to start paying property taxes on that. Oh, boy.

[00:29:06] And if donations to the seminaries or the Christian colleges were no longer going to be exempt but you had to pay taxes on that, you couldn't get a write-off on that, it could be very damaging. Yes. So Hillsdale's not a Christian college, but even they don't take federal funds. Right. Hillsdale, Grove City College. And there are some Catholic colleges also. But, again, that's just a good point. You know, again, it's one of those issues. He who makes the gold makes the rules.

[00:29:33] And that is if, indeed, you're going to receive $2.2 billion from the federal government, at the very least, I think the federal government can say you should obey the Supreme Court decision having to do with Harvard and North Carolina. But I think you go far beyond that when all of a sudden you start saying, well, we want to make sure you've got viewpoint diversity at Harvard Divinity School. Well. I suspect Harvard Divinity School has viewpoint diversity. It probably has. But Dallas Theological Seminary. Yes.

[00:30:01] But the viewpoint diversity is a thin line. I mean, you know, it's not very diverse. Yes, it's not very diverse. So, anyway, this is an article that I thought was just a very good piece. And for those of you that think that the Trump administration can do no wrong, well, there's a good example of where I think they've gone too far. Yeah. Let's see if we can get to food stamps because that is a big issue.

[00:30:51] And there's two issues. There's one thing we talked about as well. And that is the SNAP program, which is, again, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. And Star Parker talks about the N is for nutrition. So, should we always be funding those sugary drinks and things of that nature? Pena? We had a good discussion last Friday on Point of View on this because I had written a commentary on it. Right.

[00:31:12] And I'm glad Star Parker's getting that information out there, too, because the numbers are really bad as far as people on food stamps and how much junk they buy. The sodas is the biggest product. And then sugary foods. Yeah. And, of course, so let's just look at how their weight issues are.

[00:31:37] And the obesity problem is worse in this cohort, even than people that, if you compare people that are on food stamps and people in the same income level that are not on food stamps, the food stamp people are more obese. And they're eating more of these sugary foods because they can buy them. Because it's amazing when you go to the grocery store the cost of these sugary snacks. I mean, it's not like a cheap food. It's expensive. So we should not be funding that.

[00:32:05] We just absolutely should not be. If they want to buy it, it should be on their own dime. Several years ago when I was a Ph.D. student and my wife said, when you get off work, because I was working full time to pay for this, didn't know Biden was going to forgive my college loans. So but I didn't have any money. So we went and robbed our little piggy bank. So I had a couple of dollars to be able to buy milk when I came home and got off work. I was standing in line at a convenience store behind a lady. She had cookies.

[00:32:33] She had liter Cokes and she had ice cream and she paid for it all with food stamps. Yeah. And I started thinking I had to rob my piggy bank to get enough money for milk for the family. And she's paying for all this with taxpayer funded food stamps. So it is. It's been a long time problem. Yes. And I might just mention the May 2nd commentary by Pentatextra is called subsidizing junk food. By the way, Karen put up a great picture of all the junk food in a cart. Just looking at it right now, I think I gained a pound. So I don't know.

[00:33:02] Well, we do need to talk about, though, the people that aren't working that are on food stamps. That should be, could be working. When they try to pass laws to do this, the states and various entities initially come in and they try to soften any kind of legislation that is meant to strengthen these kinds of things. Well, let's take a break. And, of course, we've talked about the nutrition piece. And that is, first of all, Pentatextra's commentary, May 2nd. You can go to the website right now and find that.

[00:33:27] By the way, we've been promoting the possibility that you might want to actually subscribe to the various commentaries. And Her Viewpoints commentaries last Friday came out, of course, on Saturday. And the Star Parker one. Let's come back and talk about the work requirement. That's a big one. We'll talk about that right after this.

[00:33:54] The Institute for Family Studies recently released its latest American Family Survey, which revealed that liberal women are unhappier and lonelier than their conservative counterparts. Only 12% of them said they are completely satisfied with their lives, compared with 37% of conservative women. Psychology professor Lucian Hanks explains in an essay in The American Spectator that two factors accounted for roughly half the gap between liberal and conservative women in this study, church attendance and marriage.

[00:34:24] The study's authors explain that the gap seems to flow from the fact that liberal young women are less likely to be integrated into core American institutions, specifically marriage and religion, that lend meaning, direction, and a sense of solidarity to women's lives. They suggest that the fact that liberal women are less likely to marry or go to church may also have a hand in their elevated reports of loneliness. These findings are backed up by other research.

[00:34:50] Dr. Hanks points to a recent study that reveals rising rates of depression in liberal adolescent females. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt says this phenomenon began back in 2012, when teens began to have smartphones and teen girls flocked to Instagram. Another prominent psychologist and author, Jean Twenge, has shown that liberal girls use social media more than any other group. They are conducting their social lives more online than in person. Dr. Twenge found that beginning in the 70s,

[00:35:19] liberal girls spent more time with friends than conservative girls. There was a drastic reversal beginning in 2010. Dr. Haidt adds that this is roughly the time when young women began to be inundated online with ideas about their own fragility. Liberal females are more likely to buy into woke lies about words and ideas being forms of violence toward them, against which they are powerless. Conservatives instead emphasize personal agency and resiliency. No wonder conservative women are happier.

[00:35:49] For Point of View, I'm Penna Dexter. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again, let me just mention that next week we have Hunter Williams on, talking about how to teach kids theology. Armstrong, Aaron Armstrong, going to be talking about theology simple and faith simple. And so just a number of things theologically. We're going to certainly look at a lot of issues in the news.

[00:36:17] But let's get back to, of course, the opportunity to talk about food stamps. And the work requirement, Dr. Matthews, is important because the original idea is that if you have able-bodied adults who do not have dependents or are not taking care of an elderly parent, then they should at least be working part-time, if not full-time, because the idea of food stamps was supposed to be a hand-up, not a hand-out.

[00:36:46] Right. And just so for the memory of our listeners, Tommy Thompson, as governor of Wisconsin, started this back in the 1980s. And by the mid-1990s, he was getting so much attention because he was having so much success with his welfare reform efforts that other states said, he's getting all this news coverage. I want to do welfare reform. We did it here in Texas as well. They eventually signed welfare reform in 1996. Bill Clinton vetoed two bills before he finally signed one.

[00:37:15] And then he had some of his people resign in disgust from his administration because he didn't think he should be doing that. But we got a hold of welfare for a little while. Because of a work requirement. Because of a work requirement. Yes. But what I wanted to point out was that as soon as you get this passed, then the various powers that be, entrenched powers, said, how can we soften this? Well, listen, you've got a work requirement. Well, let's not do work. Let's say if you go and get education, if you're going to night school, that's okay. You don't have to work.

[00:37:43] Or if you're getting job training, you're okay. You don't have to work. They look for various kinds of ways. Let's make it a little softer. Or if a lady's pregnant, she doesn't have to work. They do various things to try to soften this. And eventually, over time, you get those work requirements and other restrictions that are meant to try to help people get out of the cycle of poverty. You get those softened down so much, you're right back to where you were in the beginning. 41 million Americans, Pena, get food stamps.

[00:38:12] And I was unaware that the number was that large until this article. It ballooned under the Obama administration, from what I understand. It did. It just took some sort of a paradigm shift on food stamps and work requirements. And nearly half of the births in America are paid for by Medicaid. Yes. And in some states, like New Mexico, it's more like 70%, 75% of the births in the richest country in the world are paid for by a welfare program.

[00:38:40] And again, like I've said, on many occasions, we certainly want to give people a hand up. And people find themselves in difficult circumstances all the time. But when I look around and we are talking about so many jobs that just are going unfilled, and you get Mike Rowe talking about the fact that we have, in round numbers, about 11 to 12 million men that are of work age who are not working and not looking for work.

[00:39:09] That seems to me that something needs to be turned around. If you're trying to help people, helping them move into the workforce is the best thing you can do. Back when that welfare reform stuff was going on and I was involved in it to some extent, I would get letters. We'd see letters from people who said, I was a single mother. I hadn't been able to work for two or three years. I thought I'd lost my skills. I'd lost my self-respect. My kids had lost their respect for me. But this particular welfare program forced me back into the workforce.

[00:39:39] And I found out I could do a job. And I was promoted. And now I've got an income and we're moving into a house. And we're doing so much better. I've regained my self-respect. My kids. That's the kind of thing you want. It is not. You are not helping people by helping them get out of the workforce and then just get subsidies from the federal government. You're helping them by getting them in the workforce. And sometimes that takes a bit of a push. Well, Penn, I want to get to your commentary. First of all, this week we've been encouraging people to sign up

[00:40:08] to get their Viewpoints commentary. Mine arrives in your inbox Monday through Friday. Yours comes on Saturday. But the one we have posted right now is a reference back to an article in American Spectator. Why are liberal women so unhappy? And, of course, you quote from a professor. Also, quote from an individual who's been on this program before, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. But that is certainly one of those interesting, if you will,

[00:40:35] gaps that you see between conservative women and liberal women. What did you find out? Yes. Lucian Hanks, who's Lucian Hanks is how you pronounce it. He's with American Spectator and he's a professor. And he says that two factors accounted for roughly half the gap between liberal and conservative women in the study that he's referencing. Those two factors are church attendance and marriage. And you can see why. Because there are social factors.

[00:41:02] You can go to church and you can find like-minded people. You can learn about the Lord and you're happier. Same with marriage. I mean, you've got a wife, husband, spouse, and family. And it's just more of a recipe for happiness. So that's one reason why I think when you have a study of women, you'll find more liberals are more unhappy. And another part is young women. And young women are described by Jonathan Haidt,

[00:41:30] who's written The Anxious Generation and talked about what happened online in about 2012 when Apple made the front-facing camera and the cell phone. And they started, everybody went to Instagram. And they were either just comparing themselves to all these beautiful pictures online and getting depressed or, you know, they were spending too much time online. And all of those things were causing problems with our young women and a lot of distress.

[00:42:00] And so they're unhappier. The stats are showing that. So we've got these two kind of generations of women. And I've always thought that liberal women were unhappier also because they don't really have the mechanisms to deal with adversity. And so, you know, a lot of times they are encouraged to be fragile. They're encouraged to be victims as liberal women. And so they are. And they're unhappier because of it.

[00:42:27] Well, again, you have conservatives instead emphasize personal agency and resiliency and those kinds of things. But Dr. Merrill Matthews of nothing else, he gets back to this issue of social media. And, again, Penna quotes Jonathan Haidt, Gene Twinge, people we quote all the time. Not one of them could probably sign the doctrinal statement of any of our churches. But, nevertheless, they're just saying this social media has not been a positive. And it has been a major negative, especially to the women. Right, because you get these photos.

[00:42:56] And oftentimes they're Photoshopped photos of people who look very good in many cases. And one of the things that has come from this is an effort to try to sort of accept people. If you're overweight, that's okay. You're fine. But there are problems with all of this as well. So it is – I don't know that we know how to deal with all the social problems we've had coming up from the social media yet. Yes, and I would contend another one is the population problem. Yes.

[00:43:25] Because their social life is online. They're not dating. They're not getting together. They're not marrying. And even a lot of people have criticized the online dating companies because it just becomes a little bit too sterile. And also people just get way too demanding about qualities. They just don't fall in love and have chemistry anymore. And so, you know, some of the old ways are not so bad. Another benefit of the church is it gets you out meeting people and around other real people.

[00:43:55] Yes. And gives – for people to pray for you because you're talking about conservative women, especially Christian women, you know, are going to have some kind of resiliency because they might have some peers. They might have some Sunday school classes, something that would provide some of that because we all go through some very difficult times. But if you're just a single woman doing it all on your own, that's kind of the feminist ideal but didn't turn out so well, did it? No, not all of us are strong. In fact, no one is strong all the time. Yes.

[00:44:21] So, again, if you would like to get Penna Dexter's commentary, of course, you can go right now to pointofview.net and download that. If you'd like to hear it, of course, we give you that opportunity as well. But one last time, just because this week we've talked about subscribing to the Viewpoints commentary. We still have the banner up there. And if you haven't done so, we would encourage you to do that as well. Dr. Murrow Matthews, always great to see you. Good to be here. And, Hannah, thank you for the column. Thank you for joining us yesterday. Thank you for helping us promote this. But I'm just about out of time.

[00:44:50] I hope you all have a great weekend. Most of all, I want to thank Megan for help engineering the program. Let's be honest.

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