PureTalk 2017 03 01 Ep4

Hey there, I'm Raj Nair. Welcome to Pure Talk, the new innovative talk show brought to you by Pureflix and Faithwire, where we talk about everything from news, culture, entertainment, but all of that through the lens of faith. And we're coming to you live from Orlando, Florida, and the topic of today's discussion, religious liberty and freedom, and we have a very qualified panel to do so. So let me get right to it. Mr. Greg Gudorf, the CEO of Pureflix.com, Mr. Billy Holowell, the senior editor of Faithwire, Ruth Maholtra, who does does everything. It's also her birthday, but for lack of discussion, we'll just say PR. And Lauren Green McAfee, corporate advisor to Hobby Lobby. So Billy, let's take it away.

All right, so we're talking about religious liberty, and we're gonna get into your stories because you both have very specific stories in this arena. But what has been crazy to me is sort of watching this battle between the First Amendment and the 14th Amendment, right, the Equal Protection Clause, unfold. And you've got bakeries, and you've got videographers, and you've got florists now. My gosh, we have that— Stutzman, that florist who has basically been essentially sued. And if they're not sued, the state comes in and fines them for not providing the service for the wedding. So I'm just gonna kind of like throw it out there, where are we on this? I'll start with you. Where are we on this issue?

Well, it's kind of crazy because when you know you're offering a service and it's of value and you've gotten into that business because you're passionate about it, to then have to rethink, wait a minute, I have to think about it totally different. I have to I have to follow a rule book that doesn't make sense to me. As a small business person, you're really in a quandary for a reason that just doesn't make sense.

Yeah, and I think, you know, what's interesting about this issue is it sort of forces people into a position of using their creative abilities to convey a message that they're not comfortable with. And I keep coming back to this argument of, would I feel the same way about a lesbian printer And by the way, there is a lesbian-owned print shop in New Jersey who has come out in favor of some of these Christians. When I say you have to make anti-gay t-shirts, personally, I'm not comfortable making them do that either. So you really end up opening a bigger Pandora's box because then that's not just religious liberty, that's a broader issue of association and all these other First Amendment rights.

Right. And you mentioned Barronelle, and in her case, she was not discriminating against anyone. She was happy to serve him. He was a loyal customer, and she had had a long-term relationship with this particular customer that ended up pursuing her. It was only when it came to— she was being asked to put her greater creative juices into doing a ceremony that was something that was very much against her faith and her belief in what marriage is, and that was where she just said, had to say, you know, I have to draw the line. She told him that she cared about him and gave him referrals of other places that would be happy to do his ceremony. So this is not about someone not having the ability to find someone to do their services, but it's a matter of someone— can we put our faith in our business whenever we're being asked to put so much of ourselves and create and have the religious liberty to do that.

Yeah, and I think one of the other misconceptions is that people like Barronelle and others we hear about, you know, the florist, the baker, the photographer, that they don't want to serve people they disagree with. Like Lauren said, these people have a track record of serving that's part and parcel to their industry, but the government cannot compel anyone to endorse or condone or celebrate activities that go against their convictions and their conscience. And so I think it's a very troubling trend anytime a government, whether it's, you know, local, state, or federal, steps in and says, "No, you absolutely have to use your abilities, your creativity, your speech to promote or advance something that goes completely contrary to your values and beliefs." I mean, where's that gonna end?

It does it with the enforcement of the state, the full power of the state behind it too. It's not a suggestion or an education.

No, it's telling you under force of law.

You must.

Right?

And finances.

And fines.

And excessive fines.

Well, I think you guys are uniquely qualified, especially coming from the Hobby Lobby family. Like, why do you think there's such, for lack of a better word, just vitriol about this subject? I mean, it seems like you can talk about a lot of political things, but you bring up this issue and you're about to go on a crazy Facebook war. It separates friends and families. It feels like this is the issue. Why do you think this thing just creates so much animosity?

Yeah, it's a good question. You know, with my family going all the way to the Supreme Court for our religious liberty with the Hobby Lobby case, We were being told that we had to provide and pay for something that went against our deeply held religious convictions. And we had to say, "We have to put our faith first." We were going to have fines, unsustainable fines if we didn't. And so, you know, it was a difficult situation, but we knew our faith had to go first. And it was our first freedom. And to see the misunderstanding that came around the case was really difficult. And I think that's what brought some of the really intense feeling against us was, and really anger and hatred that just came out against our family was that a lot of people just didn't understand the case. We weren't saying that we were against anyone. We just don't want to personally be paying for something that goes against our deeply held religious conviction. We weren't even taking anything away from someone that they couldn't gain somewhere else. We just don't want to be brought into that that's going against our religious beliefs.

And it was birth control. I mean, this is birth control we're talking about.

It wasn't even all birth control. So there were 20 FDA-approved drugs and devices that were birth control. We offer 16 of them and we were fine with that. But it was only 4 that we consider abortifacients that have the potential to take life that we had a problem with and we did not want to pay for those. So, you know, it was always misconstrued in the media saying we were against all birth control. That wasn't the case. It was these 4 that the government had other ways of providing to any employee that wanted to gain access to those that didn't have to bring us into the middle of it.

So when you lived in New York for a while, didn't you have discussions about this with random people? Were they able to kind of see the light and you were saying it's about a misconception, really.

Yeah, yeah.

And you explain it to them and they're like, "Oh." Or are they just against it?

No, a lot of times people really did, if I began to just explain the facts, the real facts of the case, they would begin to understand and see my side. But I think that's one of the difficulties is that what's portrayed in the media is not accurate to a lot of the real-life situation and what's actually happening. So bias plays into that, and so people just don't know really what's going on.

Gotcha.

And then, you know, you've got the case of Aaron and Melissa Klein, you know, Sweet Cakes by Melissa out in the state of Oregon, where they don't make the cake for one couple. They're fined, and they're not calling it a fine, but the government essentially comes in. It's like going to the DMV. It's horrifying. This other created, basically, the DMV of civil rights comes in and says, "You owe $135,000 because you wouldn't make a cake," which to me just seems insane that one cake costs that much. And you literally have this family going out of business. And yes, people raised money for them. They were able to raise all that money, and that's great. But that doesn't solve the problem for people coming behind them. And so they're challenging their case as well. So it's a really terrifying time. In your case, your family was successful.

Right.

So it kind of makes you wonder why some of these cases have been successful, others— Yeah, they're not gotten there yet.

There's been a lot of differing positions. So our case was successful at the Supreme Court. But I have friends that have had other cases that have either gone to Supreme Court or in the lower courts have not had success. So, it's a very important topic in our culture today because it's very much relevant and is still something that we're having to battle to keep our religious liberties alive and available to us today.

A lot of discussions I think are happening around this when it comes from the other side, it says, "Well, you want to discriminate against so-and-so ethnicity." What's the difference in your mind to someone who would have that argument, I guess you could say?

Well, I think, you know, as certainly as Christians, we believe that everyone was made in the image of God, and I think ethnicity is a big part of that, you know, how they're created, and we believe in respecting everyone, certainly not discriminating, and I think this is about, again, not discriminating against a person because of some inherent, you know, quality or trait. It's about saying we don't want to celebrate an action or an occasion, you know, a certain worldview or behavior with our creative abilities. We don't want to, in this case, in any way promote something that would potentially end a life, like with the abortifacients. That is a fundamentally different situation. So anyone who tries to say, "Oh, these are just like, you know, religious freedom laws," or just like Jim Crow laws, you know, for gays and lesbians, that was a big talking point a few years ago. And that's what the left tries to do. Even today they try to say, "Oh, well, you know, this compares to segregationists and people who, you know, you want separate water fountains." and all of that. And I think that is fundamentally intellectually dishonest, and we have to really confront that with clarity and say, no, there is a huge difference. We will not let the court of public opinion fall for that. You know, this is about— the left gets very concerned anytime their thought monopoly is threatened. I think they're so intent on pushing a particular worldview, whether it's abortion on demand, you know, at any time, or whether it's redefining marriage or shutting down speech. They don't agree with a lot of what we're seeing on campuses today with, you know, the safe spaces and trigger warnings. I mean, anytime their monopoly is threatened, they want to step in and shut down opposition. And I think they use faulty arguments like that, which sadly, if we don't speak out and counter, people will fall for that. Well, they resonate.

Right.

They resonate with people because they're not, like you're saying, we're not breaking it down, we're not explaining it. And that's incredibly problematic. But also, I mean, marriage has thousands of years of precedent. This is not like somebody woke up one day and said, "We're not gonna serve gay couples, you know, their cake." No, there's a deep history here, and you're right, that has to be explained, I think.

You're redefining institut— I mean, they're wanting to redefine institutions, like you said, historically. You can't compare that to discriminating against someone because of their, you know, ethnicity or race.

So with such hard lines drawn on both sides of the issue, How do we, as Christians, how do we get a conversation going and flowing that actually does something rather than just the immediate typical tweet or Facebook and then, "Oh, you're one of those," and the attack begins? How do we foster this? I mean, we have to take the legal actions that you all have each worked through and fought.

Yeah.

How do we foster communication?

I think that it's really important for us to have good information, to know where to find the places that have accurate facts about what's actually going on and how— and are communicating well about it. So there are a lot of different organizations out there that are representing these cases who are able to share the story well. So with Berenice Stutzman's case, Alliance Defending Freedom is representing her, and they've created a great video about her story, and I think it's really helpful helpful to draw in their stories so that you can relate to these people on a human level. Because I think it breaks down a lot of barriers whenever we're having these conversations with people that may disagree with us, and seriously disagree.

And I think also we have to be seen as the people who are intellectually honest and fighting to expand the rights of everyone. This is not about a group of conservatives or Christians trying to impose their worldview on everyone else. This is about saying we want to expand the marketplace of ideas. Obviously we believe that truth will win out in the end, but We want greater rights to free speech, freedom of conscience, you know, for every belief system, every worldview. And I think anytime we have an opportunity to stick up for the rights of those who maybe don't share our beliefs, I think that goes a long way in gaining the respect of our opponents to say, hey, we're going to stand up because this again is about America's first freedom. And the way to conquer speech you don't like is with more speech, not less. And I think we have to model that first and foremost.

Well, and we saw that with the lesbian couple I mentioned who owned the print shop in Jersey, who actually came out in support of Blaine Adamson, a printer who went through a similar thing when he wouldn't print— I think it was t-shirts for a gay pride parade. And they came out and said, we don't agree with you, obviously, on gay marriage— we're a gay couple— but we absolutely agree with you not being forced to convey a message that you don't believe is true and that you feel violates your conscience. So I think going back to that example, though, it does open up the floodgates of we need to have a broader conversation. Maybe it's not just a religious liberty exemption. Maybe it's a broader exemption, but that gets tricky.

And here's the transition: we need to have a broader conversation, but we need to wrap up this segment. We could talk for a long time, obviously, about this very hot issue. But thank you guys, and if you want to catch more information or news, go to faithwire.com or pureflix.com, and we'll see you on the next episode of Pure Talk.