Rick Green: 0:11

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders, we're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective, Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. We appreciate you listening and encourage you to visit our website today WallBuilders.com . And that's the place you can make that one time or monthly contribution. Thanks for coming alongside us there. Every time you make a donation, you're investing in liberty, you're giving us a chance to train more pastors, more teachers, more young people, legislators, all the different things that we're doing. When you donate to WallBuilders, you're helping us to save our Constitutional Republic. And we appreciate your efforts. Alright, David, and Tim, we got Kelly Shackelford for joining us a little later, of course from First Liberty and one of our friends in Texas that is also arguing cases quite often before the Supreme Court, actually more often than anyone I know. But he's got cases all over the country, good stuff, and lots of victories headed our way.

Tim Barton: 0:59

Yeah, lots of good stuff. And, you know, in looking at where we are legally on this thing, we've been fighting a religion hostile court for at least 60 years. And you got to go back to the 1947-'48 era to really see them start talking hostile. And it was not until 1962-'63, they really got hostile in their decisions. And so we've been living for 60 something years under a court that just will not let us do what the Constitution says we can. It's over that period of time with all the different litigation firms that are out there, whether it's first liberty, whether it's Alliance Defending Freedom, or Liberty Counsel, Pacific Justice Institute, or you name it, they will win a religious liberty case every five to eight years, but they're probably trying two a year, but they just don't win them. That has turned around in the last four years. Last four years, there have been at least a dozen wins at the court. And it has completely shifted the landscape of what we can do. Now, most people don't know the landscape has shifted, because the media really has not talked about this stuff or what we can now do that the Court has said we can now do. And if you try to do what the court said, we can now do, you're going to get pushback from all these secular folks who don't know, the courts made the decision. And they're going to say, oh, you can't do that. Well, there's a lot you can do now. And so Kelly Shackleford, with First Liberty is the guy who has been at the Supreme Court in the last year or so more than really any, as you said, Rick, more than anybody we really know at that level. And just in the last week of the court's term, which is the last week of June when they finish things. And Kelly got... Kelly, I'm going to say Kelly, but First Liberty had two Supreme Court victories on really major religious liberty cases. And they're really significant in what they do for the rest of us, so I thought it'd be really good to have Kelly on to talk about that and just kind of look at what the landscape is now with these two new wins that we picked up just the last couple of weeks.

Rick Green: 2:51

Well, let's get Kelly on the line and find out what these cases are about and what it might mean for us at home, in our churches at our schools and even in our workplace. Stay with us Folks, you're listening to WallBuilders.

Tim Barton: 3:12

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. Many today assert that religion is something private, that it has no place in the public square and that it is incompatible with government. But the Founding Fathers believed exactly the opposite. They held that religion was absolutely necessary in order to maintain our free system of government. For example, John Adams declared “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.” And signer of the Declaration, Benjamin Rush, similarly affirmed “Without religion, there can be no virtue and without virtue, there can be no liberty. And liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.” The Founding Fathers understood that limited government required public morality from the people, and that public morality was produced by the Christian religion. For more information about the Founding Fathers views on religion and public life, go to WallBuilders.com .

Rick Green: 4:10

Welcome back to WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Kelly Shackelford with us from First Liberty and these guys. I mean, they just keep winning and winning. And they're big cases that have a big impact on our lives. Two more at the Supreme Court. Kelly, I feel like, you know, you're the Donald Trump that actually delivers on you're gonna get tired of winning, but I'm still not tired. You just... want a summer for you, brother! These are big cases.

Kelly Shackelford: 4:30

It's, I mean, it's beyond anything I ever even dreamed of. I mean, only God could do this. I mean, to have essentially four wins at the Supreme Court within a 12 month period is just, it's just insane. I mean, there's about 8000 requests a year and they take about 60 cases. And the idea that we get four wins in that 12 month period. But that tells you that there's a movement going on. I mean, we've got a court that's following the Constitution. And God is just Opening up religious freedom. So there's a lot of bad news out there. But there is... God's at work. And so people need to not be discouraged because every American alive right now has more religious freedom than they've ever had in their lifetime. And we're just at the beginning of this process,

Rick Green: 5:16

You know, Kelly, you spoke at the legislators conference last fall. And it was such an optimistic encouraging message of hey, guys, we may be losing in some areas, and there may be a lot of stuff that's just crazy in the culture, but I'm telling you, the wins are going to keep coming at the court level because of what's been sown in over the last few decades. And it... and you were so right and it encouraged me. I was sitting at the back, just listening going, man, that's so critical. And like you said, you had a great summer last summer. I called last summer, the summer of love, if you love the Constitution. But this summer, get you know, even more of them. But I just got to point this out, because people may not know this about you. But I mean, you are a super humble guy, and just you love the Lord, your family loves the Lord, y'all just walk in His commands. And any attorney in the United States, the dream would be one case to ever get to have a case before the United States Supreme Court. So to be able to do what you guys have done over the... and your team as well. I mean, Barry, and all those guys, same thing, humble love the Lord. It's just as obvious. So I just want to brag on you for a second, despite your humility. And say, for such a time as this, there's no doubt about it, God has raised you and your team up for this. And we as the American people are benefiting from your faithfulness and from all the people that have supported and helped you. But I just want people to understand four cases, in 12 months at the Supreme Court and to win them. That may be unprecedented. I don't know of any organization, law firm, certainly no individual that can say that. So let alone what they actually are about. These aren't just little technical wins, man, these are massive and completely changing the landscape, like you said, for religious liberty. So I'm sorry to filibuster. But I just want you to know, we appreciate you. And we appreciate your humility. And while you're having the most stellar legal career of anybody that I know. So now let's get to the cases now that a bragged on you for... you got to just, you know, not not let it get to you. I know you won't, because you never have. But one of these cases... the one everybody's heard of, I think is is the Creative case. So let's save that one. Let's start with the postal case. And they may have heard of there was a postal case. David actually talked about it on good news Friday, last week. But what was this about in terms of Sunday, and and this particular carrier? You guys have been at this one for, I guess this one started about four years ago, right?

Kelly Shackelford: 7:29

Yeah, this is one of those sleeper cases that people don't know, it's probably one of the biggest cases you've never heard of, or you don't understand what it really means. And, first, this case, it's a guy who was a postal worker who came off the mission field went to work for the Postal Service, because he didn't want to have to work on the Sabbath, because he had very strict beliefs about not working on the Sabbath. And that was great. Until all of a sudden the postal service started having Amazon and delivering on Sunday. And all of a sudden, they were asking him to violate his faith. And he said, look, I'm asking for an accommodation, there's federal law that protects you in the workplace. And they could have easily accommodated him. I mean, there's 600,000, postal workers. Just a matter of switching schedules and all that, but instead, they persecuted the guy and pushed him out. And so this was, you would think about a... just a guy and working on the Sabbath. But it's actually not, because the only reason he ran into the trouble he ran into in the case, was because 46 years ago, the US Supreme Court at a time when the belief back then if you'll remember was, well, separation of church and state, we can't have... government can't ever do anything that's, you know, looks like it's kind of, you know, favorable to religion. And so what they did is they looked at the statute that protects religious freedom in the workplace, and they essentially just completely wrote out the protection that was there. They redefined words in a way that was illogical. And they just eviscerated the protection that was there for every American. And so here we are 46 years later, we're now at a court who doesn't have that jaundiced view of, you know, religious freedom, and they look and they go, that's not what that word means in the statute. That's ridiculous. Well, nine to zero. They knew that's not what it says. And so what just happened is Gerald Groff, you know, won this new standard, but this is a new standard for everybody. Everybody just had their religious freedom restored to them in the workplace. Now, Rick, think about what that means for all the people that are at these woke corporations, who now want you to use pronouns who now want you to go to the pride rally, or you're fired, who now want... Now, you say, wait a second, I have religious freedom protection, that... and it's not, you know, insignificant. In fact, it is significant now, after this decision. This is going to change everything about religious freedom in the workplace and provide protection to people. I mean, people who are working now our kids, our grandkids, this is about whether you can work and be a person of faith. And the answer now is absolutely, yes, you're protected.

Rick Green: 10:19

Wow, huge, huge, huge. And like you said, 46 years. I mean, folks come on five decades of the left, winning at the court and building up the strongholds that changed our culture in so many ways. And those strongholds were being torn down piece by piece. And this is just another one of those, a big one. And details on this case, folks can see it at first liberty.org. And then you can go into any one of these. And we'll have links to this specifically when it's first liberty.org/groff. And we'll have links there at our website today at WallBuilders. Let's talk 303 Creative. This is another one similar to the Jack Phillips case, the flower shop case, I mean, all of these examples where people are forced to take their gift, their art, their their craft, and use it for something that they believe is absolutely violates their convictions. And so this one was a website. Is that what? She designed websites?

Kelly Shackelford: 11:09

Yes, this is somebody who did websites, and she wanted to do a website for weddings, but she couldn't do one to advocate for gay weddings because of her faith. And so she realized if you started the business and did that, that I mean, Colorado had made clear they're coming after you, right? I mean, look at poor Jack Phillips. And so before that ever happened, she filed a lawsuit to say, hey, I got to know if I'm going to do my business, that I'm not going to get fined out of existence here. So I need an opinion making clear that I'm protected to do my website, even though I can't do these gay wedding websites. And so the interesting thing about this one Rick is, it went up to the Supreme Court. But below there were sort of two arguments. And we have a case very similar to this at first liberty, it's the Aaron and Melissa Klein, you know, Sweet Cakes. I know you guys have talked about that a lot. And it's still going to, but we had the same thing. We had two sets of claims. Number one, this violates free speech, because it is saying if you don't say what I want you to say, by I, I mean the government. If you don't say what the government wants you to say, then the government can punish you. Well, that's a free speech violation, right? But number two, it's also a religious freedom, a free exercise violation. These are people exercising their religion, and you can't come in as the government to say, well, you know, I don't like your religion, you know, those beliefs aren't allowed. You have to celebrate things that violate your faith. So there were two sets of claims. The Supreme Court took the case up, but only took the Free Speech claims. So that's what was decided and what they said, what's surprising to me, I mean, I'm not really surprised, but it's kind of disappointing to me is that this wasn't nine to zero. I mean, the idea that the government can tell you that if you don't say what we want you to say, we can fine you and put you out of business. It's just unbelievable. It's scary, that there's three justices that don't have a problem with that kind of government power. And I mean, it turns both ways, right? I mean, if they can put Lorie out of business, 303 Creative, because she won't be pro gay wedding. I mean, what that means is they could, you know, they can have a gay business, you know, that's doing something, they could say you got to be anti gay. And you have to put that message up, or to me, the most example people understand is, does anybody really think the government should be able to fine a black baker because he won't make a cake for the Klan rally? I mean, he has a right not to make the cake. And so that's for everybody, no matter what your beliefs. And by the way, I mean, like every one of these cases, 303 Creative served everybody. They would sell you whatever, it's just a matter of what you're asking them to express, you know, whether it's they're making a cake with words, or whether... in this case, they're doing a website. You can't make people participate in things they don't want to participate in. But they'll sell you their cakes and all that. You could use it for what you want. So Supreme Court said, hey, free speech violation. Now Rick, one of the arguments, one of the main arguments by Colorado was, well this is different because this is commercial speech. I mean, they're actually making money. Which... What a scary argument. So that means, oh so somebody who's a book author, you know, and sells their books. Now the government has a right to tell them what they can and can't say? Or somebody who's selling art? Or I mean, this goes on and on and on. What a creepy argument by Colorado, but again, rejected by the Supreme Court. Free Speech means you have a right to free speech. The government can't punish you because you either say the wrong thing, or won't say what they want to force you to say,

Rick Green: 15:06

Yeah, what a crazy swerve over into even a free Well, I tell you, the one that was really, we were a little enterprise area and pursuit of happiness and all of those things. I mean, it's kind of like the, what the, you know, preventing people from having any kind of counseling that they call conversion therapy. And our friend Gus Booth, who's a pastor up in Minnesota was saying, you know, they're saying that he can't charge... he can't have a counseling session that's paid and in anyway, help someone get rid of desires that they don't want. And so he said, normally, as a pastor, I don't charge but now I require them to pay me $1. So that I can say to the government, you shouldn't be passing laws like that. So it's kind of a weird mix now of, well, if you accept money for it ore you're getting paid for it somehow that changes things. I'm sure there's some, you know, technical legal argument on that. But what else? What else have you guys got going that we should know about, cases to be watching for coming up? shocked by and disappointed by is just recently the Fifth Circuit, which is a conservative circuit. We had a three judge panel, they ended up sort of taking a pass on the SEALs appeal. Oh, I saw an email on that. Yeah.

Kelly Shackelford: 16:14

We had an injunction. You know, we had the first case in the country against the vaccine mandate for those serving in our military. It was 35 Navy SEALs. These are... these guys are heroes. They did everything right. They asked for their exemption. These are... these 35 each had religious objection to the vaccine out of their faith. And they asked for an accommodation, which is under federal law is supposed to be provided. And there's a process you go through. Well, instead of following the law, the military just decided that they would just not follow the law. And they would just start punishing guys for asking for what is there right under the law. And we get... as soon as we got into court. I mean, by the way, one of the guys, you know, PTSD, me he's got PTSD because of his service. On his way to the doctor, they literally called the doctor and said don't see him. This is the kind of stuff they were doing to these guys. And as soon as we got into court, there was an immediate injunction. This was a clear violation of federal law. The federal judge said, we won, we won this case, every step of the way. But then what happened is Congress came in eventually, they said, you need to stop this. You know. I mean, the the COVID thing is over, you need to stop the mandate. And they pass the law on that. And so the Secretary of Defense said, well, we disagree with this, we'd keep punishing these guys. But, you know, we got to follow what the Congress just told us to do. And so they then tried to use that with the federal court of appeals to say, hey hey, look, you know, we're doing everything right now. So no reason to issue an opinion or set precedent. And believe it or not, we had two of the three judges say, yeah, yeah, you know, it's moot, so we're not going to issue an opinion. So after all these SEALs have done, after all they've gone through, they wouldn't even give it an opinion to say this was wrong, because the military has yet to say it was wrong,

Rick Green: 18:01

Right, which means it's it number one, they don't get justice. But number two, it makes it easier to happen again in the future.

Kelly Shackelford: 18:06

Exactly. And so now God bless Judge Jim Ho, who wrote the dissent which was really powerful, really was because he said, no, no, no, no, no, this is wrong. They should have a decision. His last line in his dissent I you know is really well done. He says cowards never start, the weak never finish. Winners never quit. And I thought if that's not for our Navy SEALs, I don't know what else is. So we're not done yet. There's still... we're still going back to the district court. The court made clear we could still have a final victory on the case even though we won it all the way. But this is kind of sad, because they, you know, they really left... the SEALs deserve better than that. They left them hanging and I... you know, we're going to get a final victory with a strong decision and we're not going to quit because these navy SEALs wouldn't quit. But that case isn't over yet. That's probably one that people should definitely keep an eye on and they can follow that at firstliberty.org

Rick Green: 19:07

There's so many cases you guys are involved in. FirstLiberty.org folks you can go there and make a donation. That's how they're able to come alongside all these folks. There's a lot of interesting things now they're... I saw where you're helping or at least demanded an investigation into what the American Library Association is doing, trying to ban Kirk Cameron our mutual friend, from reading kids books about character traits, it's you know, invite in the drag queens but don't allow you know, sweet little Mike Seaver with his smile. I give Kirk a hard time about that. To come in and read his kids book on... it's just crazy. But anyways, so yeah, glad y'all are helping on that one as well. Kelly, you guys do amazing work. We appreciate you so much, encouraging our listeners to pray for you donate to you, and spread the word. Appreciate you, man.

Kelly Shackelford: 19:48

Hey, thank you, Rick.

Rick Green: 19:49

Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

Tim Barton: 20:00

Hey, guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders called The American Story. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that’s just not known or not told today. And we would say very providentially in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America, whether it be from things like the 1619 project that say America is evil and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not out of statement, Black Lives Matter, but the organization that says we’re against everything that America was built on, and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There’s so many things attacking America. Well, is America worth defending? What is the true story of America? We actually have written and told that story. Starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln, we tell the story of America, not as the story of a perfect nation or a perfect people, but the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It’s a story you want to check out WallBuilders.com , The American Story.

Rick Green: 20:59

We're back here on WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. And thanks to Kelly Shackelford, for joining us today. And for his good work there at First Liberty, guys, big victories here. You know, David, you mentioned this on good news, Friday, I think was last week or week before last, and just how this could be a real game changer, the postal case for the postal worker. But I mean, all of these huge, and like you said, at the top of the hour, we've had such a hostile court for so long. This feels really good two summers in a row of good decisions.

Tim Barton: 21:31

You know, there were some really good phrases, Kelly said I just wrote them down. And one of them was, he said, this tells you there's a movement going on. This is now a court that follows the Constitution. Now, it's not a novel idea that we actually say we have a Supreme Court who follows the Constitution, but that's where we're getting these victories. Then he also said every American alive right now has more religious freedom than they've had in their entire lifetime. You know, and that's another really bold statement. And then, as you mentioned, Rick, the postal case, he said, That's a sleeper case. He said, it's probably one of the biggest cases you'd never heard of. And I talked to him a day or two ago about this. I said, you know, explain to me why this is such a big case. He said, Well, even though it's with the post office, it affects every single company that has 15 employees or more. So that is the Amazon Primes that's every company, Ben and Jerry's, everything that's got 15 or more employees, Disney, you're not going to be able to not accommodate religious beliefs in those larger businesses. So that is why it's such a land shifting kind of case is it goes to so many companies, not just the post office. Well and guys, I think that even as he's highlighting this is, you know, one of the biggest ones we've never heard about, I really harken back to Coach Kennedy. And recognize that is when we saw the tide turning and I know we've talked on the program, before even you can go back to the 2019 case of Bladensburg cross decision where the US Supreme Court said that you cannot aggressively go against something that has a religious appearance just because it's religious. And this is where they kind of took the first, maybe the first leg of the table away from the Lemon decision. And you've seen some precedents that were coming. And the reason I point this out, Bladensburg and the Coach Kennedy decision, is what we are now seeing is you're seeing the momentum from the snowball rolling down the hill. And we're looking at these victories, going man this is incredible. The reason we're having these victories, of course, people point to the fact that President Trump got these justices on the Supreme Court. And that is absolutely true, which we also point out that Kelly Shackleford is one of the guys and one of the law firms involved in making some of these recommendations, kind of highlighting some of these individuals. And by making recommendations, all of these judges, these justices had been judges and attorneys. And so they have a track record, you can see where they stood on the issues. And Kelly and his team, they were very intentional about saying, let's just go back and look and see who these judges are, or maybe who they aren't, right? Well, there might be perception about them. Let's see where they actually stand on the issues. And Kelly's team was able to assemble a really good resume on all of these potential justices to say this is who you're looking at, well Trump was able to choose some that by in large, had some very good resumes, and you begin to see the tide shifting. And so when we look at things like the 303 Creative case, when you look at what's happening now, you know God bless Jack Phillips and all the attacks have come against him as he's still battling things in Colorado, Aaron and Melissa Klein in Oregon, the way they're still battling it. And even now, as Kelly mentioned, the Navy SEALs where their case is not yet done. You still are seeing that there is positive momentum and there's the right trajectory for these things to be upheld in a constitutional fashion. That where the Founding Fathers go back when today we hear the phrase separation of church and state for anybody listening to WallBuilders very long we know that that's not... the way the phrase is used today is not the original intent of that phrase. The idea was to keep the government from controlling religion. You're going to keep the state out of the church's business but it was never to secularize the government and this move to secularize the government, or secularize the public arena, whether it be education or the military, whatever it is, I think we are finally beginning to see the tide turn. And we, this summer was, again, another reflection of that positive momentum coming, Rick, as you have alluded to, many times, we've heard you say this, the kind of last summer was a summer of love. And now there's, in the sense of if you love the Constitution, and now there's more love for the Constitution. I think this is something that we might as well have had a good news Friday program on this. This could be what it is today, because this is, this is the direction I think we're going to see from this court is we're going to see more and more of these victories. Now, I definitely think that with Justice Roberts and some of maybe the squishiness, in some places, that we're not going to see the victories as quickly as we could, or as we would want to see them. Nonetheless, I think this is really incredible work. And man, kudos to Kelly, Rick, you mentioned that if people want to donate they can, I don't think there's much better organizations you can donate to than those like First Liberty, who are literally on the frontlines changing the fabric of America for the better and for the Constitution.

Rick Green: 26:07

And it impacts us man, I mean, that's an investment that pays off big time. Our religious liberty gets expanded, our freedom of conscience, I mean, all these different areas, they do such good work and we're just really blessed to have Kelly as a good friend and, and somebody that we'd like locking shields with. So everybody, we appreciate you listening, but we also want you to take action, so be sure to check out their website today at FirstLiberty.org . Make that donation and get on their email list so you can stay up to date on all these cases. Thanks so much for listening today. You've been listening to WallBuilders.