Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to Intersection of Faith and Culture. This is the WallBuilders Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. That means hot topics in entertainment and politics, in business and ministry, whatever's going on. And right now, there's a lot going on because state legislatures are meeting all over the nation. And of course, our home state of Texas, where David and Tim and I are, has a really great session going on and some good subjects happening. So Phil King will be with us a little later. I'm Rick Green here with Tim and David Barton. And guys, of course, Phil is actually your state representative and he'll be here to talk to us about the Ten Commandments and a few other bills that are going through the session. This time last week we talked about it, I think, on either foundations or good news. Tim, you going down to Louisiana, getting that Ten Commandments bill passed there. I think you told me 15 states are right now pursuing this? You spoke to a bunch of our coaches this weekend about it. This is a hot topic and it's really taken, you know, catching fire across the country. 

Tim Barton [00:01:01] It is. It's one of the really great things that we are seeing legislatures try to push back against some of the ground we've lost over the last many decades. You know, one of the things that Democrats and progressives have shown themselves to be very adept at is their perseverance, their tenacity that they just keep going and keep going and keep going. And I feel like what we've seen a lot on some of the conservative Christian movement is we've kind of let them, you know, quote unquote, put us in our place, that we've just kind of accepted things and like, well, this is the way it is now. So we're going to play by new rules. Like we're we've redefined what the separation of church and state means. But if if we look back and like more grand scheme of things, it was the 1960s when the U.S. Supreme Court said no more prayer in Bible in schools. It was the 1970s when you have the limited government decision that gave us the lemon test. And it wasn't until the 1980s and the 1990s that you had things like the Ten Commandments and other basic religious activities being removed from schools we're talking about. That's only been a couple of decades ago that all of this progressive left, anti-God things happened. And so the idea that now people would just become so accustomed to it and we would normalize, it seems crazy. Now. That's one of the things, unfortunately, that we have seen in some of the states that have already to this point taken up things like the Ten Commandments bill in North Dakota and South Dakota and Montana, the Ten Commandments bill passed out of every single committee. And then when it got to the House in all three of those states, it lost in the House. And what's interesting is if you look at things like Montana and North and South Dakota, you would look and go, they have Republican majorities like this. This should be a no brainer. In South Dakota, they have 64 Republicans and six Democrats in their state house. This should not have been complicated at all to go, guys, that the constitutional understanding has now shifted back to a more proper constitutional perspective. Instead of creating and fabricating these invisible boundaries that don't exist constitutionally, saying you're not allowed to have any religion in school, that is not what the First Amendment says. It says Congress shall make no law. Well, that has nothing to do with a student being able to see the Ten Commandments in a classroom. And yet that's that's exactly where some of these Republicans went in places like South Dakota, North Dakota and Montana. And so to this point, in very conservative states, or at least mostly conservative states, that this bill is not passed. And so we're definitely hoping that it's something different in Texas. We have a governor advocating for it. You have a lieutenant governor advocating for it. You have a very strong Senate. The real question is going to be what happens in the House? Dad, you and I and our good buddy, Matt Crouse, who is an attorney with First Liberty. First Liberty being right. This this major powerhouse law firm in defending religious freedom that actually had the Koch Kennedy decision of 2022 that overturned Limon. A Matt Kraus came and testified with us last time in Texas. We think we're probably getting the three amigos back together to go down to testify on this again so that we can speak to some of the history, tradition and the legal perspective of this. So we have we have no doubt it will make it out of committee again from the Senate in the House. But last time Dade Phelan in the House decided he didn't want this bill to come to the floor. And so it didn't. So we're really hopeful that that might be different this time with a different speaker in the Texas House. 

David Barton [00:04:22] So for those who don't know, Dade Phelan was our Republican speaker of the House. And just like Tim was saying, and all these Republican legislators are not getting the stuff done, he is the one who decided not to do this. And it was Senator Phil King who introduced it two years ago that started everything in the nation with this, including Louisiana Pass and all these other states introduced it. And Texas has really been out front. So many thanks. I mean, they got a jurisdictional porn and porn sites are shutting down because they don't want to serve Texas because we require an age verification. We've been real aggressive doing immigration thanks to the state. We now have four federal court decisions that are said, you know what, states have to uphold immigration laws as well. And so Texas has now been able to do things the federal government refused to do for a year and a half under Biden. So Texas have been very aggressive, but we don't always have the right leadership. And that's what we're seeing in other states. But we do have a new House speaker this time. We think it's going to make it through this time. We'll see. But it's all about elections and the leadership of the right kind of philosophy. It's not just our day after your name. It's getting ours after their name, who actually know what their platform says, know what their values are, and reflect the values of those who elected them. Because there is no doubt in our mind that in North Dakota and Montana and South Dakota, the people of state support posting the Ten Commandments. No question is just we're not getting that done. But Phill King is going to be able to update us on what's going on Texas and we've started the new session here. This is usually a bellwether for much in the nation. What comes out of Texas? 

David Barton [00:05:46] Phil King, our special guest, will be right back in just a moment. And while you're thinking about the three amigos there that Tim said are getting back together, you can, you know, just picture them in the sombreros. It's I think David's probably Steve Martin. He's got the, you know, the white hair. Tim. Sorry, you're taller than Martin Short. But you're going to be. Martin Short because I think Chevy Chase definitely is Matt Krouse

Tim Barton [00:06:04] He's that's the bottom. That's Matt Crouse for sure. 

Rick Green [00:06:06] For sure. Yeah. There you go. There you go. All right. Well, by the way, Phil King is is actually, you know, U.S. senator now, but he was a rep years ago when we came in together as freshmen. He's actually served as president of Alec, which the big legislative organization has been come at our pro-family legislators conference from the beginning, is a great guy, great leader in the Senate. And you're going enjoy this interview. We'll be right back with Senator Phil. 

Rick Green [00:07:37] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Phil King, our good friend from the state Senate in Texas is with us. Senator King, thanks so much for joining us. 

Senator Phil King [00:07:45] Thanks. Glad to be here. 

Rick Green [00:07:46] Hey, man, thank you for everything for for your service to the state, to the country, all that you've done. I was I was also telling folks about Alec and just just all the different, you know, pro-family legislators and all the different areas where you help not only to represent your constituents, but to get other legislators involved is such a big part of it. And before we went on the air, I was asking about what's behind you there. So what's the what are the guns and then what's the painting behind you? 

Senator Phil King [00:08:10] So the Texas Rangers had their 200th anniversary a couple of years ago, and I got a call from one of the Rangers and he said, we're going to have these limited edition rifle and handguns made. So it's a 1911 .45 it which most of the Rangers carry a nine millimeter today. But but historically, I guess 45 was more so. But the the rifle is a 45 long colt. And in in the old days they would carry a 45 long Colt revolver and a 45 long colt lever action. So they had interchangeable. 

Rick Green [00:08:47] No kidding. 

Senator Phil King [00:08:48] And and so anyway, I was able to get those. They took a couple of years to come in and we just displayed them prominently at the Capitol with a sign that says, In case of emergency break glass. 

Rick Green [00:09:01] I love it. I love it. Man. We need to put one of those at the Capitol. Okay. What about the painting? What's the what's the painting behind you? 

Senator Phil King [00:09:07] That is Dallas Baptist University, one of the few true remaining Christian universities. Yeah, in Texas and actually in America. And they do a great job. And I had a long history there. My family had a long history there. 

Rick Green [00:09:19] So you've taught there, too. Right. Don't you do some things there? 

Senator Phil King [00:09:21] You had to talk business, law and criminal law for a while and yeah, trying to kind of make ends meet. 

Rick Green [00:09:26] Well, to be honest, mostly on your recommendation. It's one of I think I'm down to maybe even eight colleges that are less than ten that I recommend and DBU  definitely still on there. So definitely one of the good ones when I know you're busy all in the middle of the legislative session. Several items I wanted to catch up with you just got to I mean first just general attitude. I mean it's seems like there's an appetite for big changes and and positive things. I mean, obviously DC and Trump, but locally and at the state level, what's your sense of of sort of where we are in this, you know, these big changes, restoring freedom and getting back to the basic principles? 

Senator Phil King [00:10:03] Well, the Texas Senate looks good because we're basically the same membership, couple of new additions, but they were really good additions. I actually picked up one Republican. So we have 20 Republicans, 11 Democrats now. But it looks about the same way I did in philosophy and strength at our last session. And we passed out a ton of great stuff, which unfortunately we were not able to get the House to pass. And most of that now they've had a lot of new members come in the House. We have a new speaker and I think we're probably if he's he could let out his committee assignments Thursday, which is the first indication of how conservative and aggressive in session it'll be. But I think he's going to do a great job. And I think this could be a really wonderful session for for Texas. 

Rick Green [00:10:46] And Phil, when you say, you know, Republicans in the Senate, you know, a lot of people right now are like, are they RINOs? They get Republicans, really? I mean, these are guys like you and and Brian Hughes and I mean people that I mean, even Lieutenant Governor Patrick. These are real Repub. These are real Republicans conservatives. Yeah. 

Senator Phil King [00:11:02] And on top of that, a lot of people that really have a strong Christian worldview, you know, I looked at the Bible as the as as authoritative and errant and and try to, you know, wrap our lives around that as well as the decisions we make. 

Rick Green [00:11:15] Yeah, yeah. Let some I know you have a ton of bills and a lot of things you could talk about today. The two that I definitely want to hit before we run out of time, the Ten Commandments Bill. And then this whole thing about the sex trafficking and now the abuse, you know, in the in the kid on kid abuse that's happening out there is part of the reason you all did the age verification on pornography in Texas, a landmark bill apparently that's now going to. Is that going to the Supreme Court or is that already been heard of the Supreme Court? 

Senator Phil King [00:11:42] So it's out of the Fifth Circuit. So there was a challenge to it. It was enjoined as violating the Constitution. And it all goes there's an old case that goes back to early 2000's called Ashcroft when he was attorney general. And I forget the other part of the name of the case, but basically it said that you could not restrict an adult free speech rights to view pornography and or really any kind of communication. And that case was used for what we did in the bill. The extent whatever anyone thinks, the extent of child pornography, sexual crimes, rape of children, how, however broad you think that may be when you get engaged in in human trafficking and ultimately in the pornography industry? However broad you think it is. Trust me, it is much, much more broad. However offensive it is, do you think, to watch it? It is much, much more offensive. It is. 

Rick Green [00:12:46] And we're not just talking about in Colombia or India or some of the places we're talking about here. 

Senator Phil King [00:12:51] The things that happened in Texas, but also around and around the world that are funneled into here online. Yeah. So we simply said, all right, we can't stop adults from watching it, but we can stop kids. We don't want kids drink till they're 21. There's other restrictions on them till they're 18 or 21. We said, Let's make it where you cannot access an app without age verification to show that you're at least 18 years of age. 

Rick Green [00:13:14] And Phil, just to just a quick point on that, We know from the studies how much it rewires the brain. If you put that on a kid, you know, at a young age and the impact that it has on them. So, I mean, I have I can't find anybody that would defend the other side. Right. It just makes sense to say we're going to keep this away from kids. 

Senator Phil King [00:13:31] Well, apparently they're there because as soon as we passed the the bill, there was a federal lawsuit. The district court ruled that, yes, it's unconstitutional. We don't really understand why based it on Ashcroft. So then the Fifth Circuit, which is in New Orleans, that handles this multi-state area, that that our cases get appealed to and the Fifth Circuit said, now, this is not unconstitutional. It was rational basis test. If you're a if you're a lawyer that they said that's what you should use. And and basically they said we should be allowed to do this. And so now it's on appeal to the Supreme Court. But I and I haven't got the whole story, but I heard on the news that I believe it was Judge Pittman in Austin, federal court issued additional injunctions on two more points about that. So apparently there's that litigation. There's kind of propping up from the bottom again, because I suspect they realize that the Supreme Court's probably going to undo what happened before. 

Rick Green [00:14:27] So and I haven't read that. I haven't read the Fifth Circuit, but I'm assuming they're saying you're you're only restricting the kids. You're not you're not restricting the adults. They just have to show verification of age. Yeah, they don't store that data. You're not have to give any. 

Senator Phil King [00:14:40] Yeah, it's not identity verification. Yeah. Age verification alone. And and all we said is, look, we don't let you drink when you're eight. When you're under eight. We don't drink when you under 21. Well, if you go into a strip joint when you're under 18, we don't want to do all these other things smoke. So we're going to put this requirement in that you you can't you can't even get a tattoo. Right. But we're going to put this restriction in that says you can't go to Pornhub or some of these other apps and view violent abusive pornography, which, as you said, not only rewrites your brain, but without question leads to it. It changes the way you think and makes those things become normalized to you. And then you end up participating not just in deviant acts, but in criminal acts and in violence yourself. I talked to two men, and they're out of this now, but they both told me that they got caught up in pornography as adults. And they both told me I thought it was really interesting. They used the same words. They said it puts you in such a dark place. Not just toward toward toward women and toward sexual involvement, all that, but toward really everything in your life, your emotions, how you treat your family, just everything. And and particularly, they said you cannot bear to seek out God on anything because you know how evil this is that you're doing. And the only way you can do it is to completely turn away from God and it just put you in such a dark place. Fortunately, God rescued him from that pretty quickly. But there are there are millions of people in our country that are caught up in this, and it is destroying families, is destroying lives. And it's it's leading to too horrible human trafficking of children. 

Rick Green [00:16:18] But two things before we go to Ten Commandments, you know, for all of our viewers out there, there is freedom and there is a way to get out of this. I want to encourage you to go check out the Conquer series or something. We have all young men that we work with, go through that. We take guys our rage through for everyone out there that that may be, you know, fighting this conquer series. Go look it up. It's a you know, you can do a I think it's a six week and a 12 week and. 

Senator Phil King [00:16:42] It's a plague. Hey, man, if you don't think it if you don't think there's people in your church that are caught up in it. 

Rick Green [00:16:47] It's like 70%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Senator Phil King [00:16:49] You don't think there's kids in your in your child's school that are caught up in it? Trust me. Yeah, it is everywhere. 

Rick Green [00:16:56] The second thing I want to ask you about because because I think immediately when you guys pass this, some of the big ones shut down operating in Texas. So it works. I mean, the legislation that y'all propose worked. 

Senator Phil King [00:17:06] Yeah, They said, yeah, well, we're not going to go to the trouble of putting in an age verification unit, even though those things are all over the Internet in different apps. We're not we're not going to do that. And so they just I think they thought they were like hurting us, saying, we're going to turn it off in Texas. We'll show you. Well, great. That's wonderful. We do like to done that. Anyway, if we could have figured away. 

Rick Green [00:17:25] That's right. Stop trying to convince me, you had me at hello. All right. So. So Ten Comandments. You're carrying a bill to get the Ten Commandments back in schools, something that is the basis of our our legal system. Hey, I want to live in a neighborhood where people actually think murder is wrong and stealing is wrong. And and they treat each other the way they want to be treated. And, you know, you raise kids to honor their father and mother. So seems like a good idea. What does that look like in I think Louisiana passed one maybe last year and some other states are looking at it. Catch us up on kind of the constitutionality of this and what it looks like for the Texas legislature. 

Senator Phil King [00:17:57] Well, first, a little history. I mean, there is no document in really in human history that has had a greater impact on civilization, particularly Western civilization, than the Ten Commandments. And our founders. You know, you're an expert in in early American history. And you know that that recognition of the Ten Commandments was a was was integral in the lives of our founding fathers. What they talked about, what they wrote about when they designed the Constitution, wrote the Declaration of Independence. I mean, the morals and the values within that were they will tell you were a part of that. So it has incredible historic it has great history and not just in the United States, but also really specifically here in Texas as well. And for 200 years because of that, it was in classrooms and buildings posted all across our country until 1980. And there was a case out of Kentucky, Stone v Graham that used what was called the Lemon test, which was a 1971 bad decision by the Supreme Court that has been terrible for religious liberty in America. And based on that limited test, they said, hey, you can't have Ten Commandments in our classrooms. We had to take them all down. And so we stopped in 1990. We took the Ten Commandments out of the classroom. Well, the Kennedy case, which you have covered at great length, that overturned in 2022, the Supreme Court, the new Supreme Court, the Trump Supreme Court struck the Lemon test, struck Lemon v Kurtzman. And that also now, in effect, strikes the Ten Commandments, goes out of Kentucky. 

Rick Green [00:19:34] Yeah, yeah. But seismic change. 

Senator Phil King [00:19:36] Seismic 15 But you've still got this ghost of lemon floating about. 

Rick Green [00:19:40] It's a ghost of Lemon. That's right. That's a good way to put it. 

Senator Phil King [00:19:42] Lemon Yeah, the ghost of lemon. And and so you've got all these still impediments to religious liberty exercise in our country based on all these bad cases that came out of them and the Ten Commandments being one of them. So we're doing this bill one, because our kids in those schools are crying out for moral clarity. They are crying out to see something that says this is what's right and this is what's wrong. But also you can't really understand what it means to be a Texan, what it means to be American. You can't really understand our heritage, who we are unless you understand religious liberty. And you can't understand that if you're taking things like Ten Commandments and saying they can't be in a classroom, you should be talking about, Yeah. So we're requiring every public school classroom in the state of Texas to have the Ten Commandments displayed with large enough print that you can it from anywhere in the classroom. With normal vision. 

Rick Green [00:20:37] You've got to be that specific. 

Senator Phil King [00:20:38] You've got to be really specific on this. Yeah. And, and, and, and we're going to require those go up to things will happen when kids are going to look at it every day K through 12 and go wow it's wrong to kill, it's wrong to steal, it's wrong to this and that and and that will help them to see right from wrong. The other thing it will do is it will be immediately sued by the ACLU and every other organization that far to the left. And it'll work its way to the Supreme Court. And when it gets there, the Supreme Court will overturn Kentucky Stone v Graham That's right. And throw that out and that that bad law that's there now will be gone from Texas, from United States jurisprudence. 

Rick Green [00:21:21] Wow, man. I love it. I love it. I love it. Just it's common sense, right? It just makes sense to to do this now the way you're doing it. I remember at one point and I can't remember if it was the In God We Trust motto, it was something like that where bills got passed around the country, but then we had to raise the money locally to provide that. Is that going to be a piece of this? Do we need to be thinking about that or can the school spend money on on, you know, getting some form of the Ten Commandments up in that room? 

Senator Phil King [00:21:46] So we we put it in there that the school has to pay for it. Okay. And I know they're all going to moan and groan and say we don't have the money for it. I mean, how expensive can it be? But anyway, right. So then it also requires them if they don't have the funding, it requires them to accept donated versions of the Ten Commandments. 

Rick Green [00:22:09] Okay, cool. So we could actually start some local campaigns if we wanted to. 

Senator Phil King [00:22:13] You and I, you could start a little cloud based fundraiser. Go fund video. I guarantee you'd raise enough money in two weeks to do every school in Texas. Yeah. Yeah. And think about how many kids it impacts, how many schools, how many kids are really going to learn American history. And when you've got when you got 6 million school aged children in Texas. Yeah. Yeah. 

Rick Green [00:22:32] And that's part of that. You know, we talk about all the time the God. Consciousness, even even, even just a recognition that there is a God, that there's a right and wrong, that there's a standard. I mean, all of those things, it really does make a difference. Huge brother, man, I wish we had more time. Is there any other is there one you want to hit for a couple of minutes? Another another bill, another issue. Hot take that that's coming up that you think that we need to be ready for. 

Senator Phil King [00:22:55] Well, I mean, boy, you're going to see a lot of stuff fly out of the Senate and hopefully out of the House this time. And I think you're going to be really proud of the great thing is Texas, the so large eighth largest economy in the world, will be seventh before too long, fastest growing state. Everything else you can say good, you can say good about Texas. And and so what we do here, other states follow and in some cases, it actually impacts the world. And so one of the things another little Bill, I think your folks will be interested in, we we did a lot to to try to fight the anti Semitic growth that we're seeing in our colleges and universities, even in our public schools. Yeah, across Texas and across the United States last year. And we've got some more shoring up to do on that the left and and the Jew haters of the world are, if nothing else, very creative and very well funded. And so we'll be doing some more actions on that. And again, that gets back to religious liberty. It gets back to freedom of speech, all the things that our First Amendment was intended to protect. 

Rick Green [00:23:53] Yeah, my man Phil, God bless you, man. Have a fantastic session. Let's get you back soon. Talk more about it. I love you, man. God bless you. Keep up the great work. 

Senator Phil King [00:24:01] Thanks. 

Rick Green [00:24:02] That was Senator Phil King back with David and Tim Barton. And you know, Tim, you were talking about that all the way back to the 60s with prayer out of schools and Bibles and then the Ten Commandments case in the 80s and and the the lemon tests and all those things. You know, David, you did a whole book initially called America to Pray or Not to Pray, talking about the negative effects of removing all these things. Is that one of the things when you guys go testify on this, you talk about is just that God consciousness and why a right and wrong on the wall is a good thing for these kids to learn? Or is it more of a historical thing that that you kind of emphasize with the legislators? 

Tim Barton [00:24:37] It is a little bit of all of them. That crowd usually starts off and it's not always Matt, depending on what state we go to, but we love having Matt anytime we can and he'll give the legal perspective to understand that what's happened with the U.S. Supreme Court decisions, everything from the Koch Kennedy decision to that the city of Boston, the Shurtleff decision to even the Bladensburg cross the things that have happened, the impact of going leading to the overturning of limit. And so why now? Restoring this is constitutional is legal, it can be upheld. And then my dad, usually I don't speak for you dad, but usually you have some historic background to show the history and tradition of the Ten Commandments. And then I will often give some of the moral aspect in addition to a little bit of the history aspect. And one of the obvious questions that it should not be controversial complicated is I kind of pose why? Why would we think it's okay to arrest students that break the Ten Commandments but not okay to show them the Ten Commandments, to teach them it's wrong, Right? We would arrest him for murdering. We'd arrest him for stealing. But you're going to say it's inappropriate. So the kids think of me as it would teach them it's wrong to murder and steal. And so just pointing out some of the hypocrisy, the irony, and there's a lot of moral components we can give, but we're almost out of time. But that's certainly something that is valuable in that conversation. 

Rick Green [00:25:51] And, you know, one thing I'd point out, we mentioned earlier, this is coming, it looks like, to about 14 or 15 states this year. And what we did find out as some of these conservative states and negative calls, they came in almost 10 to 1 against the positive calls. So the states for. But we're not letting our legislators know. So if you live in one of those states, let them know. Support the Ten Commandments. 

Tim Barton [00:26:11] And those calls, by the way, were usually that the inspiration or motivation for my teachers unions from lobbyists, from the ACLU, who are telling the people, hey, contact them, tell them not to do this. And this is where we have to make sure that we are allowed voices and advocates along the way as well. 

Rick Green [00:26:28] Phil King, our special guest today. We appreciate having him and all of you across the country, though, start letting your state legislators know that you want to see the Ten Commandments in schools across your state as well. And let's help this thing catch on fire in every single state. Thanks so much for listening today. You've been listening to The WallBuilders Show.