Rick Green: 0:12
Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. Thanks for joining us today on WallBuilders, where we're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. Much that you can do to join us, go to WallBuilders.com today. That's where you can make the one-time or monthly contribution that allows us to be on the air to do pastors training, student training, teacher training, all of our Constitution Coach training everything that we're doing to influence the culture. We're a nonprofit. We're funded by your help, so fuel in the tank makes a big difference and I'm pretty blunt about it. I'm Rick Green, America's Constitution Coach and a former Texas legislator. And listen, I don't have any problem telling you we do good things with the investment that you make at WallBuilders, and it takes fuel in the tank. You have to give up your life, your fortune and your sacred honor. If you want life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, you've got to give up those things to make sure that it's preserved for future generations. So I don't mind asking you make that contribution today, come alongside us and help us to influence the culture in a positive way. As I said, I'm Rick Green. I'm here with David and Tim Barton. David's, America's Premier Historian and our founder at WallBuilders, Tim Barton's a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. Alright, David and Tim, we've got Jeremy Dys as well with us. A little bit later we're going to be talking about a case out of Dallas, Texas, so our home state and right there in Dallas and the Addison area, dealing with a church, and it actually is about property rights as well, but also the religious liberty of this church to be able to build in a neighborhood that apparently doesn't want them.

David Barton: 1:40
Yeah, it's a strange situation because it's a really historic church. It goes back to the days of slavery in Texas and slavery's ended at the end of the Civil War man. Should we get into the thing? We now have a national holiday based on a Texas holiday that is so historically inaccurate. I mean, biden makes Juneteenth into the national holiday to celebrate the end of slavery. The 13th Amendment into slavery. Juneteenth is simply slaves in Texas finding out they had been freed from the time of the Emancipation Proclamation. It's a terrible PC history.

Tim Barton: 2:11
And more specifically, Juneteenth is when the slaves in Texas found out that a Republican president had done the Emancipation Proclamation and the Republicans in Congress had supported this and they were stopping the evil Democrats from continuing their pro-slavery ways. I feel like those details were left out as well.

David Barton: 2:31
Yeah, I don't think Biden mentioned those. But also right what happened.

Rick Green: 2:35
You guys clearly need to be canceled for misinformation because of disagreeing with the narrative and the lies. So by telling truth today, you're misinformation. I think that's the way it works, right. If you tell truth that contradicts the narrative, then it's misinformation. Truth is.

Tim Barton: 2:49
We have some arguments. In fact, we have some noted individuals who are friends on social media that have been getting strikes for posting things that are factually true, such asand having content actually censored and removed, but such as posting the now known information that there was actually some CIA payments to some of the initial investigators over trying to figure out where the virus came from, and six of the seven individuals were paid to say that the virus did not originate in Wuhan. So that is known information. Now this is not disputed. Now, it's not always liked information, but information that's not liked is different and incorrect information, and so, anyway, some of our friends posted it online. They got in trouble, for I mean just, we definitely live in this Orwellian world where people want to control information. Dad, backing up to June 19th or Juneteenth, as it's known that there was June 19th 1865, the Emancipation Proclamation had been out for a year and a half already. It came out in the beginning of 1863. And so slaves had been being freed under this for a year and a half. But the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to the Confederate states that were actively in rebellion against the Union, because those were the ones that Lincoln was able to enforce executive authority over. There were other states that were part of the Union, that weren't in the rebellion, that had slaves at the time, which is why you still had to have the 13th Amendment to end all slavery in America. And that happened in December of 1865. And I guess we could even make a further argument that technically didn't end all of slavery in America, because there were still several Native tribes that were living on reservations at the time that the US government went to them because they were sovereign nations and the US government went to them and said hey guys, we're really trying to get rid of the slavery thing in America and we ended up paying these Native tribes. Essentially, the US government in essence bought these slaves and freed these slaves. They paid the Native tribes to get the slaves back. All that to say is when the modern narrative is Juneteenth, this is when we celebrate the ending of slavery in America. It is so historically inaccurate to say that. It is pretty laughable how much history you have gotten wrong to come to that conclusion. However, this is what the Biden administration has promoted. It is kind of what the modern narrative is, and certainly it is one of the things at WallBuilders we were trying to tell more of the honest story, which, in the honest story, there's good, there's bad, there's ugly, there were heroes, there were villains. Right, there's a lot of things involved in this, but we would say let's just tell the truth and kind of let the chips fall where they may, as opposed to changing history to promote a narrative, which, unfortunately, definitely seems to be happening these days.

David Barton: 5:27
So at the end of the Civil War, what happens is some of these former slaves they're now no longer in slave they have a church that is built and this is a historic black church that goes back to the end of the Civil War and it's been in a neighborhood over and it's kind of like a suburb of the Dallas area, but it's kind of, in some ways, an elite community as well. And the folks in that community said no, no, no, we don't want church here and we don't want it in a neighborhood and we want you to get it out of here. And so they've literally come in and said we don't care that you on the property you get out of here, because we just don't want you as neighbors and we don't want to church as neighbors. So they're so hostile to property rights, Rick, as you said, as well as religious liberty rights. And guess who gets involved? Of course First Liberty, our friends over at First Liberty. This is the kind of case they love getting, and so Jeremy Dyes with First Liberty will be able to tell us where they are on this and what's going on, and there's some really good background information in this case you're going to love hearing.

Rick Green: 6:23
Jeremy Dyes, our special guest, stay with us folks. You're listening to WallBuilders.

Tim Barton: 6:36
This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American History. America is a special and unique nation. The average length for a constitution in other countries is only 17 years, but we've had ours for over two centuries, and our 4% of the world's population produces 24% of the world's gross domestic product, and every year we produce more inventions and technology than the other 96% of the world combined. In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville of France came to America, traveled the country and, in his famous book Democracy in America, reported. The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. This is the origin of the phrase American Exceptionalism and affirms that America is unique because of the distinctive ideas on which we have been based, including in alienable rights, individualism, limited government and the importance of religion and morality. For more information about American Exceptionalism, go to WallBuilders.com.

Rick Green: 7:31
Have you noticed the vacuum of leadership in America? We're looking around for leaders of principle to step up, and too often no one is there. God is raising up a generation of young leaders with a passion for impacting the world around them. They're crying out for the mentorship and leadership training they need. Patriot Academy was created to meet that need. Patriot Academy graduates now serve in state capitals around America, in the halls of Congress, in business, in the film industry, in the pulpit and every area of the culture. They're leading effectively and impacting the world around them. Patriot Academy is now expanding across the nation and now is your chance to experience this life-changing week that trains champions to change the world. Visit Patriotacademycom for dates and locations. Our core program is still for young leaders 16 to 25 years old, but we also now have a citizen track for adults. So visit the website today to learn more. Help us fill the void of leadership in America. Join us in training champions to change the world at Patriotacademycom. Thanks for staying with us here on WallBuilders, Jeremy Dys with us from First Liberty Institute. They are on the front lines, folks doing all kinds of great work, winning all kinds of victories across the nation. Jeremy, great to have you back, man. Thanks for your time today.

Jeremy Dys: 8:44
Thanks for having me.

Rick Green: 8:45
Hey, this one's out of my home state of Texas here, so very interesting White Rock Chapel in Dallas, Texas. Tell us about this case and what you think is going to happen.

Jeremy Dys: 8:56
Yeah, white Rock Chapel started back in 1884, if I remember correctly, it was a group of free slaves who started meeting for church services on the banks of the White Rock River in Addison, Texas, or what it is now Addison Texas. And what's remarkable about this is that they worked for a number of years to buy that property from their former slave owner, which is pretty rare for the time. Well, that property began to be a problem when the river would overflow the banks and that became an issue. So in the early 1900s that same former slave owner donated a higher ground to that church so they could build a property up there and meet for their services, and then he began to meet with them as well, which is just a remarkable story of reconciliation, if you ask me. Well, that church met with more and more problems. The local community wanted to get rid of it. Years ago there were all kinds of shenanigans that tried to take place for that not to meet there anymore. The building actually burned down in the 1960s. I don't think that was an accident that had occurred during the Civil Rights era. And so fast forward to the day where Don Wesson purchased the property out of receivership to preserve the historic spiritual legacy as well as the story of reconciliation that carries with it to this day. But now that area is surrounded by these rather enormous mansions around the property and the local homeowners really don't want a church in their front yard, and so they caused a bit of a fuss with the property owners, dr Wesson and his wife, and they tried to do everything they could. The Wessons did to meet with the neighbors to concede this, that and the other thing multiple times. They had seven different meetings with the local neighbors there and conceded after more concessions, and then there would still be more demands. Fast forward to the end the Addison City Council voted in by one vote. The Wessons lost their special use permit to have a church in that neighborhood. It's just a tragic affair that that has occurred and that they've had to now resort to a letter from us at First Liberty Institute to the city of Addison saying you have really jeopardized religious liberty of our clients and we need you to reconsider that special use permit. I'm hopeful that when the Wessons reapply that that special use permit will be granted and that this historic church will continue to meet in the spot that it began meeting back in the early 1900s with a bunch of free slaves and their former slave owner in worship.

Rick Green: 11:16
Jeremy. A couple things here, man. First of all, just plain old property rights. Why are they being prevented from being able to do with their property as they wish? They're not harming the neighbors. I mean, is there some claim that it's going to be an eyesore to have a church? Obviously, they're probably going to throw out traffic or whatever. But I mean, this is he's not asking the city to do the building for him, he's not asking the city to give him the. I mean, the property owner should be able to do so, both on a property rights front and a religious liberty front. I'm just, I'm wondering what their objection is.

Jeremy Dys: 11:52
Well, I think it really boils down to NIMBY. Not in my backyard, and the neighbors simply don't want to have a church in their very tawny area. Look, it would surprise you perhaps to learn that this is the only house of worship in the city of Addison, and so if it goes away, the city of Addison doesn't have another church at all inside of its city of weapons, and so it's kind of unique that this would be the case. But look, at the end of the day, the law Texas Referra, the United States Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act they both present a pretty high bar for the city of Addison to get over. They have to present to us a compelling justification for why they have substantially burdened our clients' use of their land for religious purposes. In addition to that compelling justification, they also have to show that their actions were the least restrictive means possible of imposing upon that religious exercise. They're not going to be able to do that, and so I think they're going to be allowed to have no option but to approve this special use permit and allow that congregation to continue meeting there in the spirit of reconciliation, as they have been for 100 plus years.

Rick Green: 12:56
Yeah, yeah, while I got you. I was just having a conversation with somebody the other day about churches, and is there any? I just remember there being a case outside of West Austin. There was a church there trying to get a parking lot done and the city of Austin they fought them for years and years and I was thinking and maybe you know off the top of your head that Riffer does protect and give additional protections to churches to be able to add to buildings, or add buildings or parking lots or whatever, and not be killed by the permitting process that cities often use to just control what people do with their land. In my opinion, and so is that the case Are there additional religious liberty arguments that you're able to make in this case, based on what they're actually doing with the land?

Jeremy Dys: 13:42
Yeah, and so the state law and federal law both offer protection and that's sort of very state by state, but the federal law is across the country. That law is called the religious land use and institutionalized person's act, and so when cities or counties or whomever impose these restrictions through zoning, we've seen it often where they're just simply trying to keep churches out of areas. There was a case down in Houston. We represented the church down there who had revitalized that neighborhood and the city all of a sudden saw dollar signs for tax money and so they tried to move that property out. Well, we stepped in and said you know what? You're not going to be able to do that the constitution and the statute here stands in your way. We represent a synagogue up in Long Island, new York right now, where the city has well, actually they've gone beyond even zoning. They began to just simply try to take the property away from the synagogue through eminent domain and we said you're not going to do that either. And so these attacks are pretty significant and we've moved from sort of run of the mill zoning issues meaning, hey, this is a residential neighborhood, we don't want to have a church or a synagogue or mosque in the neighborhood, so we don't want you to hear your zone out of it. They've now morphed into more striding claims of cities and towns and villages trying to seize the property of these congregations through eminent domain. That's very worrisome to me and I think we need to keep a very close eye on that. Now, look, the good news is that at First Liberty we're winning these cases and so we're able to come to the defense of these churches, because so many people around the country have invested in the work of First Liberty to make sure that these churches get pro bono, and that means for free representation. Anytime they come up against these restrictions, the thing can necessarily be said for, for private businesses, the Constitution does not give the same level of protection for those. Sorry for private businesses. We love you, but thank goodness the Constitution goes out of its way to protect both religious liberty and what that means to religious organizations as a whole as well. Of course. You know it very well, rick. You can learn all about that at FirstLibertyorg.

Rick Green: 15:44
Man, I'm so thankful for you guys. This is a very important battle and it affects not just this church but just the cultural need for religious influence in the community, and there's a reason for these extra protections. It's good for everyone in the community. Everybody benefits when there's a strong religious foundation in the community. Firstlibertyorg is the website. Firstlibertyorg, as Jeremy said. They're able to do this pro bono for people in need, churches in need. Whenever there's a religious liberty fight to be fought, they're there and winning great victories. You name it, man, whether it's Coach Kennedy, all the things that you guys have been doing, and it happens because of individuals all across the country giving, and so folks hit the website today. Make a donation as best you can, maybe it's even monthly. Get to become a good supporter of First Liberty. We love these guys, jeremy. God bless you, man, tell Kelly and the whole team what are you doing? Well, do. Thanks, rick. Stay with us folks.

Tim Barton: 16:41
We'll see you next time. 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 the 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 a 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, wildbuilderscom the American story.

Rick Green: 17:46
We're back here on WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us, thanks to Jeremy, dice and all the folks over at First Liberty Great work that they do for us in securing our not only freedom of religion but many of our other freedoms as well. Back with David and Tim. That's a really interesting case here. So I mean, you know, look, we love teaching the Black History stuff here at WallBuilders. You guys have amazing things in the library, just like we were saying at the top of the hour. That actually tells the truth about these things instead of the lies that we typically hear from the left. But this case, man, I mean I've always got a problem with telling people what they can do with their property. But what you do with your property plus telling you you can't have a church, now you've got a double problem here.

David Barton: 18:24
Well, I mean, this is just so interesting to me from a constitutional standpoint. Can you imagine any founding father who would say let's get a church out of the community? And that would include people like Ethan Allen or Henry Dearborn or Charles Lee, who are probably the most religion hostile founding fathers, or even Thomas Paine? I don't even think Thomas Paine would have said get the church out of the community. I mean, I cannot imagine anyone in that constitutional era that would have thought this was a good idea and now somehow it's a great idea today, because who cares what they believe back then. And then you take. This was shocking to me when Jeremy said this Addison, Texas. So I looked it up real quick while he was talking. Addison has a population of 17,698. And there's not a single church in the town of Addison with nearly 20,000. Look out by the ranch. There's a community of less than 50 and they got a church in that community. It's that way everywhere.

Rick Green: 19:18
basically, you got churches all over Most Texas town. Even if you only have 200 people. There's usually like four churches on downtown. And usually it's first Baptist, second Baptist, third Baptist no, I'm kidding, it's usually a Catholic church right there and a first Baptist and a church of Christ, and usually you've got at least three or four.

David Barton: 19:36
Yeah. So now here's where my fun starts with you guys. Okay, jeremy said this is based on RIFRA and RIFRA is a Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It was passed in 1993 and it was passed because back in 1980, the Supreme Court, in a case called Employment Division versus Smith, said hey, we think there are some religious practices that we just don't want to happen, so we're going to regulate religious practice. So the US Supreme Court, instead of defending religious liberty, came out with that decision and Congress and everybody else said whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't regulate religious liberty. So they came in with what's called RIFRA Religious Freedom Restoration Act which was to restore First Amendment freedoms. So that has been an invaluable tool since 1993. It was used very heavily during the Obama administration when they went anti-religious. Again it's been used very heavily during the Biden administration as they went anti-religious. So it's been a huge tool. Now here's my first question for you guys. It's 1993 law passed by Congress, so fundamental, keeping our religious liberty day. Who were the chief sponsors of that law and passed?

Tim Barton: 20:43
I was hoping you'd ask this this is so easy, Rick. Why don't you tell them?

Rick Green: 20:46
Yeah, yeah, I was. You know Tim's trying to say that I'm old, like you know. He's thinking I would know, but I was actually just getting you know, just in college. No, I was in law school at the time. I should know the answer to this. I'm going to guess, because you're asking, that it turns out it was probably Democrats, even though we would think it'd be Republicans.

David Barton: 21:03
Well, I want you to tell me the name of the chief house sponsor and the chief senate sponsor.

Tim Barton: 21:07
Well, I want to point out, this was in a 93. Not only was I like 11 years old, my father did not teach me this. Oh wow. So I'm going to say this is fun.

David Barton: 21:28
Alright, Rick, you're old enough to remember. Come on, Rick 93.

Rick Green: 21:31
Okay, so I do remember the gingrich, and the Republicans didn't have the majority for the first time in 40 years, until 1994. So chief house sponsor was probably a Democrat and probably in the Senate oh man, I have no idea yeah.

David Barton: 21:50
Okay, no clue. So I think that was US representative Chuck Schumer.

Rick Green: 21:57
No.

David Barton: 21:58
Wow. Come on Wow and the chief house sponsor was US Senator Ted Kennedy.

Rick Green: 22:04
Wow, so Democrats that today are far left 20,. What is that? That's 30 years ago. 30 years ago, 30 years ago. Actually were for protecting religious liberty.

David Barton: 22:17
So let's go a step further. The vote in the House was unanimous, the vote in the Senate, it was 97 to 3. Wow, every Republican, every Democrat was unified on religious protection, religious freedom, religious expression. Now what happened was after 1993, still, the anti-religious people found ways to chip holes in this. And so in 2000 they passed and this is the second law that Jeremy mentioned it's called Rialupa and that's the religious land use institutionalized persons act. So Rialupa, so they come out in 2000 to bolster the holes that have been poked in the 1993 law, to bolster all the holes they poked in the US Constitution. And so this says alright, if you're a prisoner you get religious expression, even if you're a prisoner. Because they're saying oh, you can't let Bibles in prison because prisoners shouldn't have that. And then they were also using zoning and saying well, to A in the city, we've zoned it and we just decided there shouldn't be any churches in this area or any synagogues or whatever. So this is put in to stop that. Now here's the next question, for who are the chief sponsors on that measure To stop the loopholes in 1993, to further secure religious liberty in 2000. And what year is this? 2000. 2000., 2000.

Rick Green: 23:33
Al Gore as soon as he said 2000,. I just thought Al Gore. He was in the Senate at the time.

Tim Barton: 23:37
Well, joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi? Oh, no, no, he went to the Senate, he was vice president and running for president.

Jeremy Dys: 23:42
So yeah he wasn't in the Senate anymore, so let's see Who'd you say?

Rick Green: 23:46
Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi?

Tim Barton: 23:47
Okay, they both were there at that time, yeah.

David Barton: 23:52
So sponsors of the act were Ted Kennedy, Charles Schumer, Joe Lieberman, Tom Dashel. These are all leading liberal Democrats.

Rick Green: 24:03
So not only has the nation lost its mind and gone leftist. These, the same people, like the very people that are today leading the leftist charge, used to be pro-religious liberty.

David Barton: 24:17
Schumer is a great example over in the Senate, what he fights over in the Senate, anything religious. And, by the way, both of these laws were signed into law by Bill Clinton, so Bill Clinton was the president. These were Democrat measures fighting to defend religious liberty, and I don't know what happened in the 21st century, but even my memory was gone on this. I have no recollection that Democrats have ever fought for religious liberty, and here in 1993 and 2000,. They are the chief fighters of two of the best laws we have federally today that reinforce the First Amendment to make sure the government can't take away our free exercise of religion. This is amazing stuff. So we'll see what happens with that lawsuit over in Dallas. I think they'll win this hands down because of all the laws they've got. So if the city doesn't go the right way, I think they still get this. But this is, I would tell you, this program. For me today was a real reeducation of a religious liberty history over the last 25 years. It just shocked me what I found.

Rick Green: 25:20
No, kidding man. What a wake up. It reminds me, as you were talking about that I was thinking okay, so both parties used to defend religious liberty it's kind of like the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist. It's like the differences between them. It's not that either we're pro-federal government being big. They both wanted a limited government. They just disagreed on sometimes where those limitations would be. And then same here. It's like you used to have a two-party system where both parties were healthy in terms of national sovereignty and strong defense and religious liberty and all those things. It's amazing to me that we now have a party that the Democrats have become anti. All of those things that they literally would be arguing with themselves if we put them on camera, the things they said back then, to what they even themselves say today.

David Barton: 26:05
Yeah, if we went back, if we had C-span back, then could find the clips of Dashiell and Kennedy and Schumer and all these guys arguing for this bill that they're introducing. It would be so revealing to compare to where they are today.

Rick Green: 26:19
Well, great guest today, great topic for us to all be studying. Let's all get deeper into the Constitution and to this history. It's so important at this point because people don't know what those basic principles are. That's why you need to listen to WallBuilders. Thanks so much for listening today. You've been listening to WallBuilders.