Rick Green: 0:12

You found your way to the intersection of faith and the culture. It's WallBuilders. We're taking on those hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. That means we're looking at whatever everybody's talking about. We're looking at that, from as best we can, from a biblical perspective, what's the word of God say about it, I promise you, if you want to save America, most important thing you can do is be in God's word every day. If you hadn't read through the Founders Bible, get you a copy of the Founders Bible and make 2023 the year that you read straight through the Bible and the articles in that founders Bible, as you're reading God's word, then you read the articles that are applying God's word to what's happening in the culture and sharing stories of times throughout American history where someone applied that particular scripture that you just read, there's just no substitute for it. I love it. I'm going back to the Founders Bible myself, again this year, sharing that on social media, if you want to follow on social media, I post every day or you know, once a week on what the reading is going to be for that week. And for each individual day, and it'll get you through the entire Founders Bible. It's really, really a great way to dive in. So biblical perspective, and then historical and constitutional perspective, what can we learn from history about that hot topic of the day? What does the Constitution say? In other words, how do you approach that issue under our particular form of government. So that's what we do at WallBuilders, biblical, historical and constitutional perspective, as we are rebuilding the walls, rebuilding the foundations of this nation, greatest nation in the history of the world, folks, most powerful, most free, the wealthiest, most benevolent nation, the world has ever known. And there's a reason for that. There's a formula, there's a secret sauce that produced that result. We've moved away from that secret sauce for years, now. It's time to get back to it. And that's what WallBuilders does. My name is Rick Green. I'm a former Texas legislator and America's constitution coach. And I am thrilled and honored to be serving here with David and Tim Barton. David is America's premier historian. He's our founder at WallBuilders. Tim's a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. And all three of us are excited to be able to serve you through this program and through the other things that WallBuilders does to reach out and impact the culture with pastors and teachers and, you know, all kinds of folks, young people, you name it, legislators, but it's just an honor to be here and be a part of this. And we appreciate you joining us here on WallBuilders. Alright guys, we got Michael King joining us later in the program for, get this, a really a good news Friday program. It's not Friday, I know. But it's like a good news Friday program from Massachusetts. This... my notes must be wrong. This can't be right. We've got good stuff coming out of... and not good stuff from like, you know, 1775 shot heard around the world. Not that kind of... No, this is good news, recently, like in recent weeks and months out of Massachusetts. This is going to be fun, and I hope and inspiration to parents all over the country.

Tim Barton: 2:45

Yeah, Rick, you know, one of the things that certainly we talked about at times in Texas is we are a little... there's not many things we look at other states, and we're jealous of, although conservative policies have become a little less in Texas, and more in some of our states of our red friends. However, with all that being said, obviously, the history of Massachusetts is one of the more unique in the nation. When you look at Massachusetts or Pennsylvania, Virginia, there's so many cool things from them. But in more recent years, they've not been so special when it comes to whether it'd be a constitutional or conservative perspective, a biblical worldview perspective, they have not been leaders in a lot of regards. And yet, we, as you were mentioning, kind of in this tease, we were able to be part of a conversation and be connected with someone who was telling us some of the good news happening [in] Massachusetts. And it's definitely not where we thought a state would be a leader in such positive ways when it comes to protecting children and parental rights involved in children and the fact that these are things that they're able to do because of maybe earlier provisions in their constitution, just so many cool aspects to this story. And something certainly worth diving into and having a conversation about.

David Barton: 4:03

You know, one of the interesting things about Massachusetts Family Alliance and Michael King and these guys is that when you come from a really blue state, whether it's a California or an Oregon or a Washington State or an Illinois or New York, it is so easy to lose so many battles that you just get beat down, and you're just not aggressive. You're not offensive. These guys, as crazy as that state is in so many areas, they're really on the offensive and they're very aggressive and they're very logical. Sometimes you get kind of frenetic if you get offensive and you've lost so many. These guys have done some really wonderful things. And it's going to be a good model for I think, everybody in the country to hear what's happening up there. And really, they come up with some policies that they've been able to do there that's a good copy even for the red states, and what they're being able to do with some parental rights, it'd be good for all of us to learn from.

Rick Green: 4:52

Yeah, and it's one of those things where, you know, obviously ideal situation, get your kids into a school that's supporting the values that you teach and all Good things, but some parents that's not an option for them or other reasons. This is a way to do the best you can with what you got where you are. And in this case, the schools that are still teaching this stuff to kids and being able to, you know, step in and work the system and use the laws that are there on the books for you, as a parent to use, that's what you're going to learn how to do today. It's going to be really, really powerful. You're going to enjoy it. Stay with us, Michael King, our special guest when we return on WallBuilders.

Tim Barton: 5:37

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders, with another moment from American history. The year after the American War for Independence ended, we began addressing the issue of Muslim terrorists in North Africa, who were attacking American ships and killing and enslaving American seamen. Congress dispatched John Adams and Thomas Jefferson to negotiate peace. And when they asked the Muslim Ambassador the reason for the unprovoked attacks, he told them that it was written in their Koran, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them whenever they could be found. 16 years of negotiations failed, and in 1801, America sent its military to crush the terrorists. When that war ended in 1805, the first American edition of the Koran was published, urging Americans to read the Koran to see for themselves that his teachings were incompatible with the safety and peace of non Muslims. To see the first American Koran, and to get more information about America's first war on Islamic terror, go to WallBuilders.com .

Rick Green: 6:34

Welcome back, thanks for staying with us here on WallBuilders. From the Massachusetts Family Institute, Michael King with us. Michael, thanks for coming on, man.

Michael King: 6:41

Yeah, my pleasure.

Rick Green: 6:42

Hey, so Massachusetts, on the frontlines of the culture war, for sure. Been on the frontlines since America began. So man, I miss coming up to Boston and Lexington and doing some of that American history stuff. You're blessed to have all of that around you. But the same time, boy, you guys are fighting it up there. And of course, all the sex ed and crazy stuff that's been going on. Talk to us a little bit about where we are in that fight as the Family Alliance, you guys are monitoring everything that's going on up there. But you've got an opportunity for parents to be able to opt out of this stuff. I'm shocked at parents taking their kids to drag queen shows and a lot of the things going on. So what do you see as the pulse on this?

Michael King: 7:22

Yeah, so I think I'll just start with the main headline. So if this were a newspaper article, the main headline would be, you know, 4,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade have opted out of pornographic sex ed in the city of Worcester, Massachusetts this year, and last year, it's on the heels of last year 3850 Students opted out of pornographic sex ed. So we've been fighting this, you know, in many different towns and cities across Massachusetts, but Worcester, for sure is the epicenter of the opt out, what we're calling the opt out of sex ed, movement. We got involved on this about three years ago, just to put this in perspective. Three years ago, five kids opted out in kindergarten through 12th grade. And now we have about 4,000 Kids in K through 12 have opted out. So you know, I think a lot of people listening to this and saying, Wow, this is happening where? Massachusetts of all places? So it's a great story to tell.

Rick Green: 8:25

And the numbers man, the numbers are staggering. So this is, I mean, this should be good news Friday for us. Because, you know, again, I mean, people see these parents taking kids to these drag queens shows and they're like, what is going on with the culture? How can we be so blind? We're living in Romans one. But then we get to see the good news, get to see this side over here, where you got thousands of families that are saying no, not my kid, not my family, you're not going to poison us with this nonsense. And it's not just a handful. Back up, if you would, Michael, and tell us what empowers the parent to do this? Is this old legislation? I can't believe this would even pass in Massachusetts. But maybe it was recent? Was this... how did this come about? And then how do you let parents know about it?

Michael King: 9:07

Yeah, so it's been law in Massachusetts for quite some time. This is nothing new. Parents have the option to opt their kids out of sex ed. But really, the question is really, how did we do it? And you know, many different ways, but I'd say number one on the list was, you know, we showed up to school committee meetings and we made our voice heard. People can go on our YouTube page. Our most watched video there is myself speaking at the 2019 School Committee and reading directly from one of these lessons out of these curricula called redefining abstinence, was... and it was not you know, to abstain was not anywhere in the definition of it. You know, you had things like kissing behind the knees was some form of abstinence,

Rick Green: 9:53

Wow, oh the Orwellian, I mean, just the change is literally, it's I feel like I'm on Animal Farm sometimes, you know, they're literally changing the meanings of words. Okay, I'm sorry, go ahead.

Michael King: 10:05

Well, so there were about 35 different terms. And we just, you know, shed light on what was there and the superintendent of schools was there, the mayor was there. And, you know, that night we defeated what they wanted to pass. It was planned parenthood wanted to pass a curriculum called Making Proud Choices. And so you know, we defeated them, kept the momentum going. And then we had a lady named Shanel Soucy. She's an African American single mom, was homeless at the age of 14, had a child at 14, had a child at 15, but reared those two young men to not be statistics, but to be successful young men. And she became an electrician eventually after owning her own barber shop. And then she ran for school committee, and she made this central to her run. Now she got about maybe 6,500 votes, needed about 9,000 to win. But she had accomplished what she set out to do, which was to raise awareness to the sex ed in Worcester, and really, I've got to say, her run for school committee is really what was the main catalyst to get us to these really historic numbers. And I'm not aware of anywhere else in the nation, where you have almost 20% of a school system, opting out of sex ed. And just to put this in perspective, Worcester, is the second largest city in all of

Rick Green: 11:25

Wow, wow, I... So many things I want to respond to New England. you right now, I... first of all, just, I got to point out to all of our listeners, this is so important to understand, this is the whole thing where we're constantly saying, the John Quincy Adams thing about duty is ours, results are God's. You don't know what God's going to do with your efforts, or where you plant seeds and somebody else waters and just that example of somebody running for office, they don't win, but they bring awareness throughout that campaign. That is a tool we need to be using more and more all across the country and people that run for office need to keep that in mind. I've won and lost multiple times on both sides of that equation. And I'm telling you, I learn more from the losses and probably did more good in those losing runs than even the winning run. So it's just so good. I love that. And then back to the numbers, 20%. So what does the school do? Like how do they respond to this? What do they do with the kids? Whenever they're doing...

Michael King: 12:13

Well, first of all, it's exactly how you would expect them to respond where they say well, MFI, you know, Massachusetts Family Institute is just spreading misinformation/disinformation. So we fully expected that response. And we didn't expect...

Rick Green: 12:25

Wait, you mean they didn't call you bigots? Come on, they left that part out? I mean, don't they usually do that too?

Michael King: 12:29

Yeah, I mean, it's just unbelievable. I'm sure at some point, we've been called that. But really, it was just, you know, they you know, and we'd say, well, look at the curriculum, you know, we're footnoting it here for you. And you can go look it up yourself. Actually, what they ended up passing was Advocates for youth, rights, respect, responsibility, known as the three R's. You know, not the three R's we would want, which is reading, writing, arithmetic, but rights, respect, responsibility, that folks... that sexualizes kids, you know that, these are kindergarten through 12th grade kids. This is a kindergarten through 12th grade sex ed curriculum for Advocates for Youth called rights, respect, responsibility. And you know, just to give you some stories... So in one of the third grade classes, there's 42 different schools in Worcester, right? And in one third grade class, half of the class opted out. Now the law says, you can... you have to have a separate alternative lesson in an alternative space for that student that opted out. So imagine just the power and the influence of half that third grade class at sex ed, getting out of their seats, and going to the library or, you know, wherever that alternative space was, that's pretty powerful.

Rick Green: 13:42

Yeah, I love that. I mean, that, I feel you're giving me hope, brother, I just got to tell you, because it's so weird, because I'm watching, you know, I'm a country music fan, and to watch country music do what it just did with CMT. They did this disgusting stuff that they did in my, right here in Austin, Texas, where I am and then I'm looking out there to you guys in New England that I you know, too many people on our side, want to write you off and say Massachusetts is done, forget it. And then you have these kind of victories. I mean, this just tells you the principles work if we work them.

Michael King: 14:15

Yeah, and don't write us off. I mean, we just had, you know, four dads win four available seats on the school committee in the city of Leominster, and what one of the first things they did was to not teach sex ed in the city of Leominster. They decided that as a school committee, and again, that's something you can do under Mass state law is you are not required to teach sex ed, so if you want to opt out altogether as a school, you can definitely do that. So it was just great to see four dads turn that school board conservative and now they're just, you know, they ran on the messaging of let's get back to reading, writing, arithmetic.

Rick Green: 14:53

That is so encouraging. Michael, I want to back up a little bit to the role that you guys have played and why it's so important to have the family policy councils across the country and how Massachusetts Family Institute laid groundwork for this over years and years and years. I mean, you guys have a network of pastors, you're constantly sowing in, you're constantly helping Christians learn how to apply biblical principles to what's going on. I know, that's what... not what our show was about today. But I just feel like that's important for people to know that these organizations are out there, that there are teams of people that are in this fight, in the trenches, and they need to be supported. And we need to be coming alongside you guys. So not only for our listeners in Massachusetts, right now, but our listeners across the country. So if you would just, I'm just opening the door for a commercial about why the Family Institute is so important. Because I just think we need to know that we're not alone, and that there are teams like this across the country.

Michael King: 15:45

Yeah, well, you sound like you're giving my speech here. Because that's what I always say is you're not alone. And you're not crazy for having a biblical understanding of the world. Look, I mean, over the past seven years, especially, we've been in Massachusetts for 32 years, but over the past seven years, we have really been intentional about growing that relationship with the local church. And so I've been pounding the pavement driving my car, all over Massachusetts, speaking at churches, this might surprise a lot of your listeners. I will speak for 45 minutes from behind the pulpit on a Sunday morning, and not give your typical, you know, sermon. I'll get up there and I'll more give a State of the Union. Where are we at regarding the family? Where are we at regarding religious liberty? Where are we at regarding parental rights, sex ed, all these different things going on in our culture? I'll show probably 80 to 90 slides. And part of those slides will be, you know, the genderbread person, and excerpts from these sex ed courses that maybe these parents were never exposed to. But when you have that audience on a Sunday morning, you know, you need to take advantage of that time to educate because so many parents, as you know are, number one, still in these government schools and have no idea what's going on, what's being taught to their kids. They have no idea that their kid comes home and says, Mom and Dad, you're out of touch regarding your Biblical understanding of human sexuality, like, well, where's this happened? How did this happen? Right? Well, they're in the school for 40 hours a week, and you expect one hour on Sunday to compete with that. And so it's been so effective. I mean, let me give you one example, I spoke at a Russian Pentecostal church in Western Massachusetts, about 800 people attend the church, we had 295 emails, and cell phones that morning, added to our list. And now this Russian Pentecostal church has now started a school. And have just been so involved in the work that we're doing. And you know, now we have this text campaign that goes out to about 8,000 Cell phones every time we send out a text. And these are advocates, you know, mostly through our advocates that have signed up on a Sunday morning to get our information. So I cannot say enough about the importance of the relationship with the local church, but then that the local church needs to value having this kind of presentation on a Sunday morning. Because we... too many people are in the dark.

Rick Green: 18:20

Oh, yeah. So good, man. So good. I feel like I want

Michael King: 18:21

Yeah, no, Rick big fan. Thanks for the time. to have a rally right now in Lexington on the green and just you know, right? And go over to the Jonas Clarke house, remind everybody that the real first shot and the shot heard around the world was Jonas Clarke writing those sermons for years and preaching the gospel and application of biblical principle and oh, man, I could go on and on. Michael, God bless you guys. Keep up the great work. Tell Beckwith howdy for us. And from the whole team here, and we just look forward to teaming up with you more, but keep up the great work. And I hope people across the country will be encouraged by what y'all have done and what these parents are doing with those local schools and the candidates that have been running for office. Just a great encouraging word for our folks. Appreciate your man.

Rick Green: 19:04

That's Michael King, folks. We'll be right back. By the way, you can visit their website at MAFamily.org. That's Massachusetts Family Institute, MAFamily.org . Right back with David and Tim Barton. Stay with us, you're listening to

Tim Barton: 19:14

Hi, Friends, this is Tim Barton of WallBuilders. This WallBuilders. is a time when most Americans don't know much about American history or even heroes of the faith. And I know oftentimes for parents, we're trying to find good content for our kids to read. And if you remember back to the Bible to the book of Hebrews. It has the faith hall of fame where they outline the leaders of faith that had gone before them. Well, this is something that as Americans, we really want to go back and outline some of these heroes not just of American history, but heroes of Christianity in our faith as well. I want to let you know about some biographical sketches we have available on our website. One is called the courageous leaders collection. And this collection includes people like Abigail Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Francis Scott Key, George Washington Carver, Susanna Wesley, even the The Wright brothers, and there's a second collection called Heroes of history. In this collection, you'll read about people like Benjamin Franklin or Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Harriet Tubman, friends the list goes on and on. This is a great collection for your young person to have and read and it's a providential view of American and Christian history. This is available at WallBuilders.com . That's www.WallBuilders.com .

Rick Green: 20:21

We're back on WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. And thanks to Michael King for joining us, also to Andrew Beckwith, and all the folks there in Massachusetts that are fighting hard on the front lines in a state that has gone major left, and yet they are still having victories. So pretty cool, guys, I love seeing that from a blue state. You know, because it's easy in a red state. In fact, frankly, I think folks in red states, it's easier for them to get lazy and not be as motivated to fight. These folks in blue states, they're up against it.

David Barton: 20:54

Rick, I mean, just consider the fact that they beat Planned Parenthood in Massachusetts. Okay, they beat... in Massachusetts, and here in Texas, Fort Worth, Texas has Planned Parenthood sex ed curriculum in Fort Worth. And so now, granted, Fort Worth had a revolution last year, and they get new school board members whatnot. But for them to have that, that is absolutely phenomenal progress, and then they have 20% of the kids opt out of sex ed. I mean, 20%! That ought to be done in every red state. And by the way, let me just ask the question, we have comprehensive sex ed, that goes from K through 12. Does it really take 13 years to teach sex ed? I mean, you can teach that in a few hours. So what are you teaching for the rest of the 13 years? You're teaching a lot of propaganda, because you're... you don't need 13 years to teach sex ed. So just consider what we're doing now. We have kids immersed in comprehensive sex ed, for their entire career in education. And it's not for teaching sex ed. It'sfor teaching philosophy, it's for teaching all sorts of other things. And if you can get your kids opted out of that, even in a red state. I don't care if it's Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, anywhere else. There's no reason to have 13 years of sex education for any kid in any school.

Tim Barton: 22:15

We know Dad as you're even saying that it's interesting. Just even how we define sex ed, because as you pointed out, right? What are you doing with all this time. It doesn't... to understand basic anatomy, basic biology, it doesn't take that long to go through a sex ed course, to give some level of understanding comprehension, right? I mean, you can just take kids to the farm on the weekend. And boom, we understand some basic anatomy, biology, sex ed. Let's see how this process works. With that being said, it's interesting that even as you're saying this, I would... I was thinking that... well, that's not really what sex ed is anymore, though. And this is where, to the point you're making, they've so redefined what sex ed is that I was watching a social media video where we're dealing with a teacher from public school, who did a writing project, and this was for middle school students. And their writing project was to have students write essays on somebody in class or in the school that they desired to have sexual experiences with and to describe the sexual experience. Now, that is appalling for lots and lots of levels. But now you're talking about having children writing sexual explicit essays, that they're then turning to the teacher. What kind of pervert is that teacher, right? Like the... for most of these sex ed curriculums this... these are people that in my mind are on the borderline, if not way across the line of the pedophilia, danger should not be around kids. But this goes back to the point that sex ed has not become sex ed. And one of the things as we're listening to the interview, we sent an email off to our state legislator, executive director, asking her, hey, go look and see how many states in their constitution have allowances and provisions for this. And we know that there are some blue states that are now putting into law in their states that they're requiring schools to teach sex ed. But if there are still states, where parents have opt out, and parents don't even know about this, and by the way, parents probably don't even know what's being taught in sex ed. And certainly, students probably aren't coming home and talking to their parents about that. That's probably super weird and uncomfortable. And now we know that a lot of teachers are telling students, hey, don't tell your parents about this. This is just for school discussion. Make sure you leave your textbooks and your homework at school and don't bring these essays home. They are keeping it from the parents, if parents knew what was going on, there would be much larger protests, but also, if parents knew there was options to have their kid excluded from such sexual graphic content. I think more parents would follow through on that. And certainly, as we find out more information, we will definitely share it with the listeners.

David Barton: 24:49

And even as we look at the states, one of the things that I've seen in the last year that's getting really interesting is now they're starting to take... some states are introducing legislation to make sex ed an opt in course, rather than opt out course, in other words, we're going to not teach sex ed, unless your parents want you to have that course, which is a whole different default position, now puts a parent's back in charge, it puts them as the authority on the information going to their kids on morals. And that's a great position to be. And I loved what Michael said too, about the fact that they are winning school board races and Massachusetts, on going back to reading, writing, arithmetic. They've gone so far off on all the other things that you're not even getting the basics anymore, and they're winning school board races in Massachusetts, by wanting to teach reading, writing arithmetic? That's, really, really, really healthy position to be in. So I'm more encouraged about Massachusetts than I've been in a really long time. And man, there's some things we can all learn from Massachusetts and take to our own states and apply whether they're red or blue.

Rick Green: 25:50

And it should encourage us not only about Massachusetts, but the whole country, folks, if they can win there, we can win everywhere else in the country. You know, this is again, one of those lessons that we have guests like Michael on so that you'll be inspired at home to do the same thing in your community, in your state. So don't just listen to that and go okay, that's great. Glad that's happening in Massachusetts. Listen to that show today and say wow, okay, how can I make this happen in my state? What can I do at my local school district? How can I find out about these things? So many things that each and every one of us can take action on. [I] encourage you to do that in your community. And you know, send the good news to us. We will have you on the program, or we'll read your story on good news Friday. So go make some good news, and then share it with us here on WallBuilders. Thanks so much for listening today, folks. You've been listening to WallBuilders