Point of View September 3, 2026 – Hour 2 : Update on Latest ADF Cases

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Second hour today, Latham Watts in the studio and a good friend of this ministry, of course, Vice President of Public Affairs for Alliance Defending Freedom.

[00:00:27] And as I jokingly said last hour, this will be the Latham Watts Hour for sure because we have four very good articles by Latham Watts. He has a fifth one coming out over the weekend, but we'll postpone that to next week. And so we have four of his and then a fifth one that he didn't write, although he could have written it because it has to do with some of the things we've talked about with him. So as always, Latham, it's great to have you in studio. But let's get into this first one. And I might point people to the website.

[00:00:53] Just a minute ago, I was pointing people to the newly revamped website and our apps. And you'll see the picture here of these three young men. And then we'll talk about one of the women there as well has to do with a religious test for college students. Now, I've said before that those of you in religious liberty have always wanted to get rid of a few cases. Lemon is right at the top of the list. OK, it's out. Hardison, I guess, you know, that's kind of the T.D.O. And that was sort of out. Smith sort of out.

[00:01:20] The other one you want to get from is Locke versus Davy. And that one comes out of the state of Washington, which in its inscrutable wisdom said that if indeed you are providing benefits to like a student, that's OK, unless it's religious. And unfortunately, that sticky decision from 2004 is still up there. And that's why you're going back to the Supreme Court. Can you explain?

[00:01:45] Yeah, so we are working with other council, but we're representing these three students, ironically, at Liberty University. I know this is even more amazing. So the Commonwealth of Virginia has a grant program for students going to college, both undergrad and graduate school. Two of these are undergrads and one is pursuing a grad degree at Liberty.

[00:02:16] And the Commonwealth seems to have this test that I have not been able to discern what the criteria is other than that looks too religious. Yeah. So because they have funded, they have grant funded. Pursuing your article goes into that. So it's not a ban on religious degrees for this program. It's if your degree field is just too religious. Yeah. And that's what they've told all three of these students. Isn't that amazing?

[00:02:43] Now, the grad student is also in the National Guard. And is a chaplain. Wants to become a chaplain. That's right. Yeah. And one of the requirements for him to become a chaplain is to have this graduate degree. But the Commonwealth thinks that degree is too religious. So he's ineligible for these grant funds that everybody else pursuing secular degrees are eligible for.

[00:03:08] So as you mentioned, Lock v. Davey is sort of the outlier here that came out of the state of Washington. State of Washington. Yeah. But, you know, the Supreme Court upheld the decision. And that's been sort of problematic, obviously. But since then, in the 20 plus years since then, the Supreme Court seems to have taken multiple steps trying to back away from that, it seems.

[00:03:36] If you look at Trinity Lutheran, you know, an ADF case where they said if you have a publicly available benefit, you cannot exclude an organization because it's religious. And then you have Espinosa v. Montana, which extended that to the students. So not just an organization applying for something, but a student who is a school choice program. And then you have Carson v. Macon. That's in Maine. Yeah, exactly.

[00:04:02] A very similar fact pattern where they said you can't exclude them because the funds might be used for religious purposes. So I think it's I think most people I don't think it's really controversial. Most court watchers would say the Roberts Court tends to move incrementally. They don't typically take, you know, big swings with, you know, Dobbs overturning Roe v. Wade being the exception that rules the rule. But that was 40 years of cases going up and down and all that.

[00:04:33] It seems to me like there's no more incremental steps to take away from Locke. You just are going to have to say, yeah, Locke is bad. We're not doing that anymore. It's a bad decision. Yeah. And that's one of the questions presented in this case is should the court overturn Locke? Let me talk about these kids for just a minute, because, first of all, if you go to our website, you'll see they these are three very qualified young men. And then I might just mention a fourth, which we'll get to a little bit later, because that was one that we did talk about with our friends from First Liberty.

[00:05:02] But Cameron Johnson, high school graduate, majors in pastoral ministries at Liberty University. You know, Luke Thomas plans on majoring in music and worship. And I guess that word worship is the one that caused the problem. It's OK to do Christian music, but not worship. Yep. And then, of course, the one you are alluding to, which, again, you can see him in the military uniform, Trace Stevens.

[00:05:25] He's already a graduate of Liberty University, a second lieutenant in the Virginia Army National Guard, and is an individual that wants to be a chaplain, makes all the sense in the world, but challenging the Virginia Department of Military Affairs because of that same idea. And all of these come from a decision that came out of the state of Washington, which at that time said, well, when you were actually receiving a secular degree, you get to receive the benefits.

[00:05:54] But the moment you wanted to get a theological degree, well, that would be an unconstitutional establishment of religion. And I think this case is ready to go on the chopping block, don't you think? I hope so. You know, and I make the point in the piece that people can debate whether or not states should, you know, fund college grant programs at all. I mean, that's a that's a policy debate to be had by the policymaking branches.

[00:06:22] But what the court has been very clear on is if you decide to have a program, you can't exclude religious people or religious organizations. And the court should be very, very clear on that. And a lot of Davey seems to be the outlier. And so hopefully this case is going to get rid of like me. Davey, if this sounds familiar, we did a while back talk about Bethany Hall. Now, she is an undergraduate student at Liberty University, and she was in music and music education. No problem.

[00:06:49] As soon as she says, you know, I kind of like to do youth ministry. And so that would involve worship. Well, then you get thrown out. And it just it did. It makes no sense because, as you point out in the piece, there are other religious majors at Liberty University in Christian studies, Christian counseling, theological studies that do receive it. So this is crazy. And you have a quote from at least one judge.

[00:07:15] And I love this because he's in the U.S. Court of Appeals in the Fourth Circuit, who says, basically, I think this is a bad decision. But unfortunately, this decision of Lock v. Davies is the one that is, if you will, the one that needs to be controlling and one in which the lower court judges need to apply. So you've got a number of cases. And so the prayer target here really is just to ask the Supreme Court to take the case. And I think you'll win it. Right.

[00:07:45] So, yeah, I think the biggest goal is that people want to be praying about that the court will finally abandon Lock v. Davies, because it is the thing that is the roadblock for all of this. And then, like I said, if states want to decide that they don't want to do these kind of programs at all, that's up to the policymakers and the voters. But once you decide to do them, you can't discriminate on the basis of religion.

[00:08:12] You know, for those of you ever thinking about going to law school, and I know some young people are thinking about that, you're going to see a very different law text because of some of the things that ADF, First Liberty and others have done. And here's another example of one that I think is going to be on the chopping block, so we will see. Well, when we come back, I was waiting for somebody to talk about Sophie Cunningham, WNBA. I did do that the other day, but you have a very good piece that was in the Washington Examiner.

[00:08:40] Sophie Cunningham is a role model and not just for women. And so that's another piece by Lathan Watts. We'll talk about that right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:06] Dr. Guy Millet is a professor at the University of Paris who has written a summary that has the appropriate title, Europe in Freefall. He begins by warning that Europe's erasure as civilization is underway. He says Europe economically is in ghastly shape. Economic growth within the European Union has lagged that of the U.S. One reason has been that those countries have established welfare states that have expanded and stifle economic growth.

[00:09:30] The other has been the sad reality that the European Union has enacted so many regulations that place heavy encumbrances on businesses. He adds international investment is turning away from Europe. Nine of the world's top tech companies are Americans. The 10th is Taiwanese. Energy and the environment are another stifling issue. Although Europe has faced heat waves, the European resistance to air conditioning continues.

[00:09:54] It is often just viewed as an expensive luxury that consumes electricity, even though tens of thousands have died. Europeans are also pessimistic about the future because of the regular narratives about energy use and global warming. Culture is another major issue. He documents that most new immigrants in Europe come from the Muslim world and appear to have no interest whatsoever in assimilating or becoming more westernized. Many are discouraged from doing so. This also has an impact on politics.

[00:10:24] Populist parties want to defend western civilization and values while also opposing the Islamization of Europe and civilization erasure. But the legacy parties led by European elites reject those ideas and their candidates. His conclusion is warranted. Europe is in freefall. 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. Bates in Watson's studio, and let's talk about the WNBA for a while. Of course, we have had some conversations about Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham and the Indianapolis fever, Indiana fever I guess it's called, and some of that.

[00:11:19] And of course, we talked about how Sophie Cunningham was clotheslined the other day and how some of that then led to argument that this was white supremacy and all the kinds of comments. But Latham Watts took on a different issue, and that is you start out by reminding us, and this is an old famous commercial, which I remember as well, so I'm glad you quoted it, where Charles Barkley in a Nike commercial said, I'm not a role model.

[00:11:43] Well, it turns out that Sophie Cunningham has become one, whether she likes it or not, and I think she's certainly enjoyed the opportunity. Of course, you have a shooting guard, Caitlin Clark, as well as Sophie Cunningham, and they're really incredible shooters and all of the rest. But Sophie Cunningham got herself, if you will, in trouble for saying the obvious, and let's talk about that for a few minutes.

[00:12:04] Yeah, this started with an interview, I think that she did with ESPN, and she almost casually dropped into the conversation that, you know, I'm open to everybody and I love everybody. I think that loving people means telling the truth, and the truth is that men are not women, and women's sports need to be reserved for women. Well, couldn't be any less controversial except in this world.

[00:12:33] Right, yeah, I've just about given myself a neck injury, just shaking my head watching the news, because of all places, the WNBA just lost their minds about it. And I'm like, you're a women's professional sports league. What does the W stand for? Shouldn't you want your league to remain a women's professional league?

[00:13:03] Now, you know, since that piece came out, the league then had a couple of guys, former NBA players. Enos Cantor Freedom. Exactly. Who, I think, I honestly think, I mean, you know, you can't get into anybody's head and understand what their motivations are, but just, you know, from the things that they've said, I sort of think they were trying to demonstrate absurdity by being absurd. Right.

[00:13:30] And both of them said that they were going to enter the WNBA draft. These are clearly men. Yeah. But if the WNBA refuses to define what a woman is or sticks to. Why not? You know, the sort of left of center definition that, well, if you identify as a woman, you are one. Then you really can't say these guys can't play. Yeah. And so since then, they came out and said, no, these guys are not eligible for the WNBA draft. But they never really explained why.

[00:14:00] And that would require a definition. I think so. Which they convened a committee. Yeah. And this is your other article coming out. It is. Yeah. And talk about ambiguity for a minute because that was a good line that you used in that piece. It's not out yet. But ambiguity, both in sports and in the law, is a threat to equality. So because ambiguity as to what a woman is actually threatens the equality of women's sports.

[00:14:27] Because, well, you know, LeBron James decides to retire from the WNBA and say his name is LeBron-ya. And I'm coming to the WNBA. He's probably going to average 60 to 70 points a game. I mean, there's – It just makes your mind real with the possibilities. Yes. Right. So, you know, the WNBA convened a committee to come up with either a definition or some guidance on this thing. And they returned with no results.

[00:14:57] And I think the whole committee was women, weren't they? All women. All women. Couldn't define a woman. Yeah. I mean, which maybe that qualifies them to be on the United States Supreme Court these days. I don't know. I knew where you were going with that one. This is just insane. It really is. You know, I think there's an old phrase – I forget who said it first. It's like you've become so open-minded your brain has fallen out.

[00:15:21] You know, and the WNBA, unfortunately, I think has really painted themselves into a corner by being very vocal on a lot of social issues, including transgender ideology. And now they're having to deal with it, you know, in a very real way. And, you know, they seem to be trying to figure out a way to, you know, navigate this minefield.

[00:15:44] And it's very tough to do if you're not willing to define terms and call things what they are. Yeah. This is a women's sports league. It should be reserved for women basketball players. W stands for something. Right. One of the things you do talk about is Celeste Keaton. And if you are not familiar with that name, and there's no reason most people would, she is the co-owner of the franchise up there in Seattle, the Shadow Storm.

[00:16:10] Now, we now have mentioned, but I have never shown, but I'm sure anybody can find it, her berating these young girls who show up wearing shirts supporting basically what Sophie Cunningham had said.

[00:16:24] And this is, I think, once again, an illustration that when you are going to begin to attack common sense, and then young girls who have as their idol, could be all sorts of people. It could be Caitlin Clark. It could be Sylvie Cunningham. It could be maybe one of the players for the Seattle Storm or whatever it might be. And then you berate them for saying the obvious.

[00:16:51] This is the reality of what used to be called Woke 1.0. I guess AOC now says we're in Woke 2.0, but whatever Woke is, this is nuts. And when you have the co-owner of the franchise chewing out young girls, something is seriously wrong. It's a bad, bad look. That's your core audience. Yes. That is your current customers, even if they're young girls. There's probably parents that bought the tickets.

[00:17:20] But it's for sure your future customers. I would say so. And at the risk of being accused of mansplaining to the WNBA, if you want a hint on how to define women, take a look at the T-shirts those girls were wearing. The brand name of the apparel company is called XXXY Athletics. There you go. There you go.

[00:17:45] Well, let's put this in some context because you're a lawyer and you're well aware of the fact that we had a Supreme Court case that really dealt with the issue of Title IX. And it does seem to me that you have, through ADF, addressed the issue of Idaho and West Virginia, which makes it possible for 27 states to have a fair playing field. But what about girls in the other 23 states? You need to explain that if you could. Yeah, exactly.

[00:18:11] So our legislative team worked with legislators in now 27 states to pass laws that define eligibility in sports based on biology, on reality. It is a way to protect women's sports. You know, there are still 23 other states who have not passed a law like that.

[00:18:32] But when we – Idaho and West Virginia were two of the first to get it done and get it signed, and they were sued immediately by the ACLU on behalf of a trans athlete. And we assisted their state AGs in defending those laws all the way through the courts, all the way up to the Supreme Court, and won. And so the Supreme Court made it very, very clear that the states doing this obviously have not violated Title IX.

[00:18:59] Title IX kind of exists to protect women's sports. That's why it was written. Yeah. So it's clear that states can do this. So now it's just a matter of will. And 27 states have. We would be happy to work with the other 23 to get some version of these bills passed. I think there will likely be some future litigation if a state refuses to do this.

[00:19:25] In fact, there is a case out of Minnesota because Minnesota refuses to protect women's sports. And that may present the Supreme Court with another opportunity. As I said before, they tend to kind of move incrementally. So this case says, yes, of course, states can do this. The next case is likely going to be, well, what if they refuse to? Aren't they required to protect women's sports? Isn't that what Title IX is all about?

[00:19:51] And so if they decide to take that case and take the next step, then defining women's sports as women's sports could help the girls in the other 23 states. Well, let me just mention that these two articles and two others that we're going to get to in just a minute are written by Lathan Watts. They're on our website. And you can see the picture of Sophie Cunningham, which will give you an idea of where that is.

[00:20:15] If you find yourself saying, well, I would like to know more about the legal cases and those kinds of things, that is certainly there as well. Or you can go to adflegal.org. We have that website up there as well. And, Lathan, I've kind of looked through that list. We're about half and half in terms of we broadcast both in states that have protected girls in women's sports.

[00:20:39] And we also broadcast, as you would imagine, in a number of states, California, New York, Illinois, and places like that, that do not. So there's an opportunity, even taking this, to see what you might do in your own community and see what you could do in your own legislature. So let's take a break. When we come back, I have another Lathan Watts piece, free markets and free speech, but also tie that into some of the things happening in Europe that we've talked about.

[00:21:03] So if you're really concerned about religious liberty, you should be not just looking to the United States, but you need to look at what's happening in Europe. European Union certainly is making some very concerning statements and actions and passing certain kinds of laws and regulations. So we'll talk about that right after this.

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[00:23:01] 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, Lathan Watson in the studio. Again, he is the Vice President of Public Affairs for Alliance Defending Freedom.

[00:23:22] If you go to adflegal.org, you'll see that they deal with sanctity of life, religious liberty, marriage and family parental rights, and free speech. And they've also dealt with free speech in the business world. So, again, I would encourage you to support ADF. I do. I have actually talked about this organization since it began because you might remember that Marlon Maddox and Jim Dobson and Larry Burkett and D. James Kennedy, and I could make a long, long list of individuals helped get it started.

[00:23:52] And we've always loved this organization. And one of those things, Lathan, that you have been doing lately, which I have such great respect for, is to watch what's going on in the business world. We fight in the courts. We fight in the public arenas. But we need to fight in the boardroom. And this is something that I wanted people to see. Free markets and free speech make dollars and cents.

[00:24:15] I have never understood why some of these woke corporations take stands that alienate half of their customer base. But then again, I'm not them. So you said for more than two centuries, the First Amendment has provided Americans with protection from government censorship of speech. But the problem is that sometimes that happens inside the corporation. So you have now released what's now your fifth annual Viewpoint Diversity Score Business Index.

[00:24:44] And when you look at these businesses, they will certainly take some stands that alienate their customers. But they also take stands that violate the religious speech and the free speech of the people within their corporation. It makes no sense. To your first point, yes, it makes zero dollars and cents with a C. It also makes no sense with an S.

[00:25:11] That companies out there in the public marketplace with customers, with employees, with vendors, who have come at social issues from different ends of the ideological spectrum, if you take a stand at all on one of these things, you're going to alienate somebody. And while we talk about the right of free speech, the Constitution protects you from the government,

[00:25:37] ADF exists to advance the God-given right to live and speak the truth. So a big part of winning in the culture, you know, we saw that you have a handful of companies in, say, the finance sector and in the big tech sector that really do have an inordinate amount of sort of gatekeeping ability

[00:26:04] to both the public market, you know, the free market itself. You kind of need a bank account, you know, to do that. And sort of the marketplace of ideas, our public square today is basically digital. It's online. And so while they're not government, so you can't, you know, wave the Constitution at them. I understand that. But you've got debanking and deplatforming. Exactly. There's two examples.

[00:26:29] We should want all parts of our culture to revere and respect differences of opinion and freedom of the freedom to express those differences of opinion and work things out, you know, through civil discourse. And so if somebody if you lose your access to your bank account because somebody doesn't like something you posted online, that's a problem.

[00:26:50] A lot of these companies had very sort of vague terms of service in their contracts, vaguely worded policies that would use terms like hate speech or something that's offensive. Well, who defines what that is?

[00:27:12] And if you go a little bit deeper in some of these companies, well, they were relying on the SPLC's hate math definition of what is hate and what is offensive. So the viewpoint diversity score is really sort of our version of what a lot of other activist organizations on the left used to do. There's human rights score. Exactly. They would score them on their policies on these issues.

[00:27:37] It's not as if ADF is going into corporate boardroom saying you should be a conservative company. No, no. What we're saying is you should honor the differences in opinion within your employees, your customers, your vendors, everybody. And so we score them on that. You know, how do you treat viewpoint diversity? I think it's great.

[00:27:59] It's a tool because a lot of shareholders in these corporations, they see sort of the cautionary tales of companies like Target, Bud Light, Cracker Barrel, who have taken a public stance on something and then their stock price goes down. Well, if you're a shareholder, that impacts you. And a publicly traded company, their primary fiduciary duty is to the shareholder.

[00:28:25] So a lot of shareholders using the viewpoint diversity score see these companies that they own stock in not scoring very well and go to file a resolution for the next shareholder meeting to say, we would like an answer about this. You know, we'd like you to look into this. And just the threat sometimes is enough for them to all of a sudden get religion, if you will. Sometimes, yeah. I'm amazed. Sometimes they will reach out to us and say, how do we address this? We do not want to bring this up in a shareholders meeting.

[00:28:55] Yeah, we are more than happy to help. Yeah. And that's one of the points of that piece is it actually points to policy changes that have been made in some of the biggest companies in America. Let's give credit where credit is due. Bank of America, Dell Technology, JPMorgan Chase, surprise me, Meta, Microsoft, and a few others. And I've been to at least one major shareholder meeting, which they held in the symphony hall because they had to get so many people in the same room. That was ExxonMobil.

[00:29:24] And sitting in front of me is the Human Rights Coalition. And they had a human rights index. And I think it's about time you have a viewpoint diversity index. Right. Fair is fair. Fair is fair. And for people that think, well, you're trying to force people. No, we're just trying to actually get an equal seat at the table. And in some respects, all of a sudden, the shareholder meeting is something they don't want to be very controversial. And they start saying, maybe we need to change some of our policies.

[00:29:52] And you're quite willing to help. Right. And, you know, we're not just standing outside, you know, shaking our fists at them. We're actually proposing and helping them find solutions. So as an example, a lot of major, you know, like big corporations that employ thousands and thousands of people, they – a lot of them have what they call like employee resource groups. And that's just a term for like employees form these little clubs within so they can meet other people that have similar interests to them.

[00:30:22] It might be gardening. It might be golf. It might be this. Well, some companies had a policy that you could basically form one of these groups about pretty much anything unless it was religion. Yeah. You know, and that's what we mean by viewpoint diversity. Like how are you respecting the diversity of viewpoints within your company, within your customer base, within your investors? So it's not just a way for us to, you know, wag our fingers.

[00:30:49] We're actually helping them solve these issues. And your example of Exxon is a perfect example of, you know, why would Exxon say anything about issues related to gay marriage or abortion or whatever? They're like, you're an oil company. If I'm a shareholder, you know what I want you to be really, really good at? Drilling. Getting oil out of the ground. Not much else. And turning it into gasoline.

[00:31:18] I really don't care what you think about who can get married in this country. You know, as a consumer, as a shareholder, get the oil out of the ground, get it refined into gasoline and sell it to me. Preferably cheaper than you're selling it to me right now. That's a good line. Just before we take a break, I just thought I'd mention, and this one is not yours, and we may come back to it later. But the reason I bring it up is the right to censor, why the U.S. needs to get a handle on foreign censorship of protected speech.

[00:31:44] Because I've pointed out that we've gone from a time in which, interestingly enough, Germany could determine what could actually be on various Internet. And that was the Digital Service Act. Back then it was called the Network Enforcement Act. Now you have the Digital Service Act by the EU. And as you pointed out before, some of these individuals in the EU, when they look at 1984, they don't see that as a dystopian novel. They see it as what? An instruction manual.

[00:32:14] And that's exactly what's going on right now. And so we have to pay attention to that as well, don't we? Yeah, absolutely. You know, if you're a student of history at all, you don't have to be a historian. If you know anything about the 20th century in general, bad ideas that start in Europe don't stay there. Yes. And they have a tendency to impact the entire world. Yes.

[00:32:36] The DSA is basically the EU's attempt at outsourcing their censorship across the globe. Yeah, yeah. Basically, it regulates any major platform like Meta, X, any of those. It would apply there, any EU member country, so Germany, France. 27. Any of them.

[00:33:02] If anybody in their government sees something posted on one of these platforms that they find offensive or misinformation or hate speech, and you can imagine how they define those terms. Oh, boy. The DSA allows them to go to that company and demand that that post be taken down. And if they refuse, fine them. In some instances, up to 6% of their global revenue. That's incredible. So we, over here in America, post something that Belgium doesn't like.

[00:33:32] And an EU member, Belgium, their standard is now applied to us. Yep. We'll come back and talk about it more, but I just think it's one of those things we pay attention to. And one more reason to think about supporting ADF. If for no other reason, they certainly have international offices and are looking at this issue as well. Talk about that right after this.

[00:33:59] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. For more minutes, and we're going to spend some time, if we can, getting into a couple of other issues. But one of those has to do with, of course, this issue of free speech in Europe. And what I thought was so interesting is J.D. Vance, who, of course, is our vice president, went to the Munich Security Conference.

[00:34:22] I even watched the video, Lathan, which is pretty interesting, in which he said that really you should be concerned because it isn't Russia or China or Iran that are the greatest threat to the future of your continent. It's you, and you are certainly enacting some things that are of great concern. We talked about the Digital Services Act, which has now been implemented.

[00:34:45] And then it says, as you pointed out just a minute ago, any one of the member states, and over the break I was reading off a list of the 27. It just takes too long to read them all. But from Austria, with the A, all the way down to Spain and Sweden, to the S's, and all the countries in between, including Finland and Sweden and the Netherlands, a lot of places where anything that you would say, even if you were to quote Romans 1, would be enough to be considered to be hate speech.

[00:35:11] And now you can not only get rid of those things which are illegal, if it's seen as misinformation, disinformation, or harmful, that's enough for then to threaten some of these major social media companies with a fine that would be just devastating. It would be. And we're actually partnering with legal teams from a guy named Elon Musk to challenge this very law.

[00:35:41] And try to get rid of it. It's going to be, I'm sure, a steep and uphill climb in the EU. But it is a fight that needs to be fought. And that's why we exist. These rights that we talk about here and the cases we do here in America, we have unique protections of these rights in America, but the rights are not unique to Americans. These are rights as human beings, as Jefferson said in the Declaration. We're endowed by our creator with these things.

[00:36:11] And as I said earlier, our mission is to advance these God-given rights. It's not enough to simply protect what we have here and keep from losing it. I think how you use what God gave you is very, very important. I think the parable of the talents makes that very clear. And so to advance these rights, it's to advance them on a global scale.

[00:36:34] But there's also an interest in protecting America this way, the rights and the freedoms that we enjoy here. Because, as I said, this is the EU trying to censor the world via social media. And to our previous segment about big tech companies and big finance, that sort of is the new public square. It's digital. It's online. It's through these major media platforms.

[00:37:02] And so the EU wants to have a say in what gets published on these things. And thankfully, once Elon Musk bought Twitter, now X, that has really been a very robust free speech platform. You can pretty much say what you want on there the way everybody kind of thought that's what this was going to be. We seem to learn differently through the pandemic and all of the things that came out about the Biden administration working with social media companies.

[00:37:31] Well, we got the Twitter files and found out a lot of things. Government was working through their intermediaries to bring about some of the kind of censorship they wanted. So this is the EU doing that from Brussels, but doing it for the whole world. And, you know, like I said, bad ideas that start in Europe don't stay there. This is a way that what's going on there could impact Americans because the law doesn't specify.

[00:37:59] Well, if an American puts something on Twitter, I mean, the Americans, they've got that First Amendment over there. So Twitter, I guess you're OK. And it doesn't. If they go to Elon and say take this down. In fact, they already have. And he said no. Yes. And now he's facing, you know, very hefty fines, which is what we're challenging. Yes. So it is important that we keep our eyes on, you know, what's going on in Europe when it comes to free speech and religious liberty there.

[00:38:29] Because sometimes some of these things can directly or indirectly impact us. Didn't the idea of free speech come from Europe in the first place? You have heard of John Locke, haven't you? And if you have. Yeah, I think I've read a couple of things that guy wrote. Yeah. And yet here where that is, which is a perfect setup for. Let me hold up my little booklet on a biblical view on the declaration.

[00:38:51] But what I think is so wonderful, and maybe we need to do a whole program on this, the off overlooked theology of the declaration. And everybody likes to make a point about the fact that Thomas Jefferson probably couldn't sign the doctrinal statement of your church. But when you get to the declaration of independence, there's just a fairly significant amount of theology from Locke and from Lex Rex and from Blackstone and others.

[00:39:17] And you give us a very good summary of some of the ways in which the biblical ideas make their way into the declaration. Yeah. And to the point about Jefferson and his own personal theology, you know, which is still sort of puzzled over to this day. Yeah. Yeah. But in a letter to Henry Lee describing what he tried to do with the declaration, he was not putting his beliefs into the declaration. Right.

[00:39:41] He said his goal was to accurately reflect the American mind. Right. That what he was putting in the declaration was the sort of commonly held views of the American colonists. And so as to the theology of that, I think it's very sound. And I think it's – I think it is too. And you can go through – like you said, we could probably do an entire show on this.

[00:40:11] But just the first sentence, when in the course of human events, it becomes necessary. And I never thought about that one until you said that. Yeah. Humans with a free will balanced and aided by divine providence can influence and even shape the world around them. Exactly. Whoa. It presupposes the fact that there are such things as human events. Yeah. That would have been very, very foreign to the Romans or the Greeks. Yes. You know, the Romans sort of view was we're just toys, you know, in a game being played by the gods. Yeah. We have no control over it whatsoever.

[00:40:41] The Greeks were, you know, very big on, you know, the inevitability of your fate and your destiny. And so just by simply saying there are such things as human events, we can have a say over, you know, what happens in this world. As I said, you know, balanced and aided by providence. That's a uniquely biblical idea. It is a uniquely Judeo-Christian worldview that gives Americans something the Greeks and the Romans never had, which is hope.

[00:41:09] We hope that anything is possible here because nothing is impossible for our God. And that's very, very different. And Oz Guinness has done a great job of pointing out the idea that we hold these truths to be self-evident. And he said, well, they wouldn't have been self-evident to Plato or Aristotle or anybody in Eastern religions.

[00:41:30] They were self-evident to the Americans because that culture was so bathed in the Bible and the concepts in the Declaration, some in the Constitution, all of the things that make America unique in world history. Some people refer to them as principles of the Enlightenment era, you know, of the Enlightenment era philosophers. But and the Enlightenment era philosophers certainly wrote about them. But those ideas are enlightened because they're biblical. Yes. There is a biblical foundation for all of those things.

[00:42:00] Well, again, when we talk about the three branches of government, you talk about the Declaration of Independence as legislature, laws of nature, nature's God, the executive, divine providence, and then judicial, the supreme judge of the world. And again, you see God mentioned either explicitly or implicitly numerous times in the Declaration. And, of course, this idea of the laws of nature, nature's God. Well, that sounds like both creation and revelation. And that's biblical as well.

[00:42:29] Well, Latham Watts, like I said, we could write and talk about these for quite some time. But, again, I want to make sure that this was the Latham Watts Hour. And, again, four good articles, another one coming out. So we'll get you back to talk about that as well. And if you would like to know more, adflegal.org is the link. And, of course, we have a picture of each one of these four articles plus the fifth one that we also alluded to. And I would encourage you to print those out and pass them on to others.

[00:42:58] As always, I want to thank Megan for help engineering the program. Derek, thank you for, again, producing the program. And we'll see you back here tomorrow on our Friday weekend edition right here on Point of View. It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in positions of authority. They say men can be women and women men.

[00:43:24] People are prosecuted differently or not at all depending on their politics. Criminals are more valued and rewarded than law-abiding citizens. It's so overwhelming, so demoralizing. You feel like giving up. But we can't. We shouldn't. We must not. As Winston Churchill said to Britain in the darkest days of World War II, Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never. Never yield to force.

[00:43:53] Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. And that's what we say to you today. This is not a time to give in, but to step up and join Point of View in providing clarity in the chaos. We can't do it alone, but together, with God's help, we will overcome the darkness. Invest in biblical clarity today at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151.

[00:44:23] Pointofview.net and 800-347-5151. Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.