Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for joining us today. We're taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. The website is wallbuilders.com for all of our, well, most of our information, most all of our materials and things you can use to get educated and teach the folks in your family and in your church. You can do that at wallbuilders.com and then at wallbuilders.show you can catch up on any of the radio programs that you might have missed. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton later in the program, one of our friends from First Liberty. Law firm that just does amazing work wins case after case at the Supreme Court gets may have actually had more cases before the Supreme Court than anybody else that we work with and know incredible but anyway Jeremy Dys will be with us to talk about a very interesting case that's both a first and second amendment case I don't even remember this thing happening two or three years ago maybe we did a show about it and I'm just blanking on it but I love the idea of being able to talk about both the first and Second Amendment at the same time 

Tim Barton [00:01:04] If we I didn't do a show on this specific one, we've definitely talked about this concept before about pastors and really people in a church being able to be armed. The idea that the shepherds need to be able to protect the sheep from a wolf that might come in. That's part of the role of what the shepherd is. In John 10, when Jesus explains that he is the good shepherd, the sheep hear his voice, they won't turn aside to another. He contrasts the shepherd in the hireling. And the hireling is someone who sees the wolf coming and they turn and tuck tail and run, they go for cover. And of course, there's a lot more spiritual thought to this, but there's lot of pastors that have a very strong conviction, I agree and support that conviction, that they want to be able to have a firearm with them, their Second Amendment right, to be be able defend themselves, and even their congregants, if somebody crazy comes in, and we've talked about that they're, been at times, whether it was a governor or some kind of judge, whoever might have intervened in a situation and tell pastors that no, you really can't have guns inside your church. And Rick, I think, I think probably part of the context when we talked about it last time, and as I'm saying this, the case was a couple of years ago, and so it could have been that case or another one. But I remember we encouraged everybody come down a constitutional defense, right? Come get some really good training. Understand how to use a firearm feel comfortable with it become proficient with it because that the founding father's perspective. They didn't just want people to have guns and not be trained and know how to us them. No just like for so many of the things the founding fathers wanted the biblical thoughts that they confirmed and supported is you need to be a good steward of it. And so for the idea that for every right there's a responsibility that we have the right or the freedom. The inalienable right of speech, free speech, but we have responsibility to speak truthfully. Well, similarly, we have a right of self-defense and maybe even to carry a firearm, but then there's a responsibility to make sure that we are well-trained, that we proficient with that firearm so that if, God forbid, the time ever comes we need it, that we can use it as effectively as possible to stop whatever the threat is in front of us and protect people. And we wouldn't want there to be innocents injured along the way because we were negligent, we weren't well trained, whatever the case might be. And all of that again, kind of full circle on this, is going back again to this idea being well trained and then having the right or the ability to carry it. It's interesting going back even to the founding era, when the founding fathers talked about things like the second amendment, they didn't call it the right of self-defense, we call it today, they called it the rite of self preservation, something that put in nature that God put in people. And At times, having a firearm is the best way for self-preservation and the idea that there would be a judge or a governor or some legislator who would come in and say, you know what, we don't think you have the rights, the God-given right of self- preservation. We're going to tell you, no, we're going take that away. I think it was John Adams who, when he was talking about inalienable rights, he said that these are things that even if laws pass saying that we couldn't do these, and I'm not sure we can give these up, even if the laws demanded we give them up, because it was just something that God put in us. God put it in nature, and because they recognize it was an inalienable right, they said, this is something we want to enshrine and protect in the Bill of Rights to make sure the governor can never tell us we can't do this. So the fact that there even had to be a legal case about whether a pastor in his own church can carry a gun or the elders or leaders from the church can't carry their own guns and their own church to protect their flock from crazy people. It seems ridiculous that case even had to go to trial, but certainly we are very supportive of pastors and especially given the era we live in today, of just everyday individual citizens of having and carrying firearms, but certainly you need good training. Go to Constitutional Defense out of Patriot Academy, get really, really good training at some of the best training you will ever go to and you will become much more proficient and much more confident with your firearm, and then because you're much more proficient and competent, you're more likely to carry it and be ready to use it if, God forbid, you ever need to. 

Rick Green [00:05:26] Yeah, bring that safety team down for sure. I, I can't help but have a discussion about this topic and not think of the first time I heard David, you tell that story of, I think it was Caldwell. Was it, was it pastor Caldwell that put the, the pistols up on the, on the pulpit on either side of his pulpit? Every time we talk about this, I picture that in my mind. That's, that's the image to me of that black road regiment that would be mixing the first amendment and the second amendment and, Jeremy Dys will be telling us about a pastor that's very much like that in New York of all places, Jeremy Dys from first Liberty when we return, you're listening to The WallBuilder Show. 

Rick Green [00:07:04] Welcome back to the WallBuilder Show. Thanks for staying with us. Jeremy Dys back with us from First Liberty. And I'm going to love this show today, Jeremy, because it's a combo of religious liberty and the Second Amendment. We don't get to have that much fun very often, do we? 

Jeremy Dys [00:07:16] No, no.t's great when those things come together they go in order remember you got to defend one to preserve the other 

Rick Green [00:07:20] That's right. That's right. No doubt about it. Oh man. So, and, and in New York, that's the other thing. So this is good news coming out of New York  just a quick brief is a, this is a case you guys had, um, in New York dealing with a church and the, and the state trying to, you know, basically prevent them from, exercising their second member rights. And, and, the court has ordered a significant amount of attorney's fees, which is also great because it's a deterrent to government step in on these rights and, First Liberty has been at the forefront of even getting it to the point where we could get that done. So anyway, let's let's catch up. Tell us about the case and what do you think is going to happen next year? 

Jeremy Dys [00:07:57] Yeah to get a running start in this, you got to go back a couple of years when the Supreme Court of the United States handed down the, the New York rifle and gun or pistol and gun, I can never remember, let's call it the Bruen case. That was the defendant in that case, the Bruen case, Paul Clement and Aaron Murphy worked on that case at the Supreme court and won, you'll remember that that was the case that Paul Clement was fired from his firm for,  representing that group, on behalf of the second amendment. 

Rick Green [00:08:22] I did not remember that. Wow. 

Jeremy Dys [00:08:24] Yeah. He'd won three out of four cases of the Supreme Court that year, including that one. And that was the tipping point for the firm. They kicked him out of the firm over that case. But as it went on, about eight days after that opinion comes down from the Supreme Court, the New York Assembly passes a new piece of gun control legislation. They're very proud of it. And in that legislation, they say that local businesses, they can choose whether or not people carry concealed on their property or not. It's up to the business owners is whether or not they allow that to be the case. You can make some arguments around the edges of that, but that's sort of responsive to the Supreme Court's opinion in Bruen, but they do not afford that same freedom to houses of worship. And so there is a group of plaintiffs to get together. We got a call out of the blue. I hadn't actually really thought about this, but I get a call from a pastor that we had represented previously in Elmira, New York, up in the, the, the Finger Lakes region of New York. He says, hey, look, I've got a concealed carry permit. And I want to make sure that people on our campus are free to be able to do the same things and protect our flock. He says, I view my role as the shepherd of this church very seriously, and I must protect the flock of this Church. And that includes protecting them physically. And so I want make arrangements for people to be able to carry on our campuses. But the law doesn't allow us to do that. And so he said, we're in, we filed a lawsuit. In fact, the judge up there held arguments on our preliminary injunction motion before Christmas, like two days before the blizzard hits Buffalo. He has this argument up there in, in New York. And then we win that preliminary injunction, the state appeals that case to the second circuit in New York City, and we win the case as well. And so we have prevailed now totally. Now, really important in this matter, by the way, is that we filed yes under the second amendment rights following the Bruen decision, but we also said that the first amendment entitles him to be able to freely exercise his faith, determine who can do what on his campus, but also prevents the government. Now, this is the establishment side of the first Amendment and prevents the government from telling them what their religion actually is and how it is to be practiced on their own church property. And so we've prevailed on both of those notions. In fact, we're the only case that won because we cited the First Amendment. Everybody else lost on Second Amendment grounds. We won on the First amendment and prevented the state from continuing its draconian law. We go back down. They get rid of that policy. They allow us to enter a permanent injunction to allow that policy to be changed. The churches are now free to be able to allow people to do the same thing business owners can do. All that remained then was attorney's fees. Well, the state didn't want to pay us. And so we had to litigate that case as well. And in the course of that litigation, the state is basically saying, First Liberty, Paul Clement, Aaron Murphy, they're all entitled to about 16% of what they actually submitted in terms of their fee bill here. So we're just entitled not to all of the money that we've represented this client for. We're only entitled to 16%. And the court responds back and says, no way, these are high quality attorneys, Paul Clement, Aaron Murphy. They're some of the best litigators in the country. First Liberty Institute, not a bad outfit either. They're pretty good. And so they're all entitled and their local council up there as well. We're entitled to every bit of the money that we spend litigating this case. And so, they awarded us 100%, the court did, of our attorney fee bill, which comes out to somewhere over $800,000, which frankly was a steal. The state of New York. It was actually a fairly short litigation mercifully for them, I suppose, but still $817,000 that we received in attorney's fees, just under a million dollars, to remind the government that they cannot trample over the civil rights of our clients, including churches, when they exercise both the First Amendment and their Second Amendment rights. 

Rick Green [00:11:57] I had to laugh at you, man, for your, for your humility, in saying First Librerty decent outfit. What are you guys like four for fourth spring quarter, something crazy? Uh, I think it's a little higher than that even, but yes, we're like nine for nine or eight for nine. I don't know. Anyway, y'all, uh y'aller got to be one of the top, certainly one of the top public interest firms in the, in the country, no doubt about it. Y'all do incredible work. But my first question, to you about the case is has nothing to do with the first or second amendment. You said Elmira New York. So not Elvira like Oak Ridge boys for the older people as old as me that might get that. Um, but Elmira, New York. 

Jeremy Dys [00:12:31] I get that reference, and I don't know what that says about me now, but I get that reference. 

Rick Green [00:12:36] Up there right in the bottom of the finger legs. And the pastor was the one to say, hey, I got a duty here to defend my flock. Kind of like the old, you know, black robe regiment pastors in the founding era that did the same thing. You know, that's just encouraging to me. Very, very, very cool. But I think if I understood you right, you said it's not that the case was trying to say that the church is. You know, you couldn't say you can't carry. So in other words, if the church, like a business said, this is our private property and we don't want you carrying and we've got our own security team or whatever, they could do that, but they weren't allowed to say you CAN carry. Am I understanding that right? 

Jeremy Dys [00:13:15] Yeah, it's kind of both and really. The church was not given the same freedom that the local businesses were given at the end of the day, right? So they could have like police officers or whatever. They could hire security to be able to do these things. But the businesses were allowed to choose whether or not people could exercise their second amendment rights by carrying a, uh, a concealed weapon on their property lawfully license and all the things that came with that, but the church has not given that same fundamental freedom. And so that's where we really pitched the case on to say. There, there's a lot of problems here under the second amendment. Obviously that that's part of it all, but you know, if the new test as it is for both the first amendment and the second amendment is the history and tradition of our country, when it comes to the free exercise of religion, the establishment thereof, as well as the second amendment, we've got all kinds of cases that can support that. And we went into great detail to explain that, but let me just give you the one that I think is the most obvious. Sure. You'll remember this painting of the pilgrims walking in Plymouth from their houses to morning worship. And there's the priest is sort of in the center of the picture and there's some pilgrims that with their hats and buckled shoes and all that. And then at either end, there's these guys carrying blunderbusses. You know, this picture they're walking through the snow. 

Rick Green [00:14:21] In the snow. Oh, yeah. 

Jeremy Dys [00:14:22] We put that right in the complaint to say, look, this is going all the way back to before we were actually a country where this was a common duty. There were laws in the early colonial period that required people to carry a weapon to church for various reasons. There are constitutional amendments and various state constitutions that provide for this very thing. And so the point is that our history is replete with examples of not only first amendment activity, but also the laws of this country and the traditions of the people within it, being very friendly towards the second amendment and especially in regards to houses of worship. 

Rick Green [00:14:59] That's so good. Yeah, I had forgotten about that that painting. You're exactly what you just described. Oh, so good, man. Well, listen great victory before I let you go any other anything coming up that you want to just let our listeners knows about know but I know you guys have so many cases you're working on at one time, but I didn't give you a heads up I was gonna ask you that but is there anything you want let folks know about while we got you? 

Jeremy Dys [00:15:19] Yeah, that's all right. Look, we've got, whenever I'm asked that question, I'm like, oh, where do I start? Right? Right. Here's one that people could just be in prayer for right now. Right. Frankly, we, we'd been litigating the case for 10 years now. This is a case out of Florida where a Cambridge Christian school, who's our client, they won the right to play in the state championship football game against another Christian school from the other side of the state, they are taking this game at the what's now camping world state. It used to be the citrus bowl. When it was originally opened as the, I think it was the orange bowl of the tangerine bowl, Billy Graham came there and christened the stadium with one of his crusades and he came back two or three more times after that same stadium that they were playing this game in. Well, both teams have a tradition of praying over the loudspeaker prior to kickoff. This is the way that players and fans can unite together. And the only way they can do that in a big stadium like the camping world stadium, uh, and they, they can only do it over the loudspeakers that way. But the Florida high school athletic association, the FHSAA They said that that would be a violation of separation of church and state. Now they didn't say we own the microphone, you can't do that. They said, this is a public property. And if you were to use the public microphone to engage in prayer, that would violate the separation of church in state. We can't allow you to do that and they cited a specific case called Santa Fe versus Doe as the reasons for why they had to say no. We've been litigating that case, like I told you since 2015 when that case started. 2016 is when we filed the lawsuit. That is now pending as a petition before the Supreme Court of the United States. In the next, about a month or so, the Supreme Court is going to have that fully in front of them and the justices are going to go back in their own chambers, back in the conference room together and consider that petition out of a stack of a thousand other ones, determine whether or not they need to take that case. So if you're, if you are interested or inclined, number one, go to firstliberty.org and you can learn all about that case, but boy, it would really be helpful since there's only like 1% of the cases that are petitioned to the Supreme court actually are heard, your prayers would be very much welcome because this is a really critical case for religious freedom across the country. Imagine a future in which you were told that, as a student, that prayer in public is wrong. If you do that on public piece of property, that's to be condemned and silenced and censored rather than welcomed as a part of the rest of the history of our country. 

Rick Green [00:17:23] And, and being, you know, the thing we need more in the public square and, and certainly, for our whole culture. So yeah, that's, that' a good one. Okay. First Liberty.org we can get on the email list, keep up with all the different cases, including that one great place folks for you to make a contribution today as well, Jeremy and, and, uh Kelly and that whole team and they are, they are out there making a huge difference, uh dealing with a lot of different cases and it takes fuel on the tank to do those things, uh so please go to first liberty.org today, make the contribution, get on e-mail list. And as Jeremy said, make sure you're praying. For that specific case as it will be in the stack with the Supreme Court deciding which cases are going to take on this next one. Jeremy, God bless you, man. Appreciate you so much. Appreciate everything y'all are doing. We'll see you soon. Thank you, sir. All right. Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barnes. 

Rick Green [00:19:12] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Jeremy Dice, First Liberty, all the good work they do there. Once again, the website, firstliberty.org. That's firstliberty.org back with David and Tim, you know, David, you put that book out, when did you do that? Second amendment primer. That's been what? 20 years, 25 years. 

David Barton [00:19:28] I think it was when we got done the Constitutional Convention, I think it was 1789, maybe 1789. 

Rick Green [00:19:34] It was the first time I had seen anybody put together all of the quotes, all of the stories, all the history that had, I mean, judges, pastors, signers, governors. I mean all of these different people in there. And it's just quote after quote, after quote that just makes it so clear. And, uh, anyway, still available at wallbuilders.com. Uh, we, of course, that's part of what we love to teach is, is what we learned from you in that book. 

David Barton [00:19:59] You know, one of the mystifying things about things like this, they're inalienable rights, right? But who really knows what that means today? And certainly, progressives don't seem to know or care one way or the other. But how is it that everybody else in the state on their own businesses can have guns and carry but you can't own a church? And so it's your own private property, church doesn't belong to the government any more than private businesses do, but they're letting the other people have guns, just not pastors? I mean, this crazy stuff on so many levels. But then even going beyond that, I love the fact that, that as Jeremy was talking about that they pulled a picture of the pilgrims in and said, Hey, history and tradition test. Hey, look at the pilgrim, go to church. Well, while we're at it, let's go back through all the early battles, the American revolution, talk about all the pastors that had their guns, who led their congregations out to defend the riots. And you know, you mentioned James Caldwell and the reason he brought his pistols out publicly, he already had them with him in church, but one night the British tried to assassinate him and ended up hitting his wife instead. And so they murdered his wife instead of Damn. And it's like, Oh, you're going to do that. You're going come after me in my own home and you're going to shoot like a sniper through a window as a coward and the slow moving ball and the gun being what it was musket ball, it hit the wind and deflected and killed her instead of him. That wasn't the intent, but nonetheless, so he starts bringing his pistols and laying them on top of his Bibles. He preaches a church. It's like it's not concealed carry anymore. It's open carry. And the fact that they go after that is so much history and tradition to go with. But the other case he was talking about, the one that's headed, hopefully the Supreme court pick up this one was one that mystified me. And this was years ago, several years ago where that in Florida, it was the end of the football season and two Christian teams had made it in the finals of their conference and they were both big schools. And so they, they really, they leased the stadium and to use the stadium. And so you got two Christian schools playing each other and they're told that they can't open with prayer in the stadium where it's a Christian school playoff with Christian teams playing in the playoff. And they said, no, it's secular equipment. The stadium is not a religious item. That's like saying, wait a minute, you can't go to a print shop and make a copy of the Bible on a copy machine because we have a secular copy machine and we don't allow it to be used for religious items. I mean, think of all the things that you would eliminate if you said, hey, if it's religious, I can't do something like that. You can't put gasoline in a church van because the gasoline I sell. At a quick stop or somewhere else is for secular purposes. I mean, where do you stop with this? So the whole mentality and nonsense that just because they're religious, they have to be confined and isolated and put away and separated and treated differently. It's absolutely crazy. So I do hope the court picks up that case. That's a really, really big case. 

Tim Barton [00:22:43] Well, and I think even the framing of that, it's not just that if you're religious, you have to put it aside. It's saying that if this is a taxpayer funded, this is the government location, then it has to be secular. So it's not just saying Christians put it beside, but it's saying we are mandating that there can be no mention of God if you are here, which of course, as we've talked about many times, Jeremy even pointed out what the history and tradition test We have chaplains in the House and Senate, in the U.S. Capitol building, that every session of Congress begins with a prayer led by the chaplain and sometimes there's even guest pastors that go in and they will lead the prayer and we can go down the list of why it's super silly to have this presumption in modern America that if you are a Christian, you are required to become secular if you're on a government facility or something taxpayer related, funded, et cetera. It's utterly ridiculous, which also we can back up and even, I think we talked about it some earlier in the week, but I'm seeing it and hearing it more and more from people that are looking at the Charlie Kirk Memorial. And they're saying because we had these political leaders that at this memorial were talking about faith and God and Jesus and quoting Bible verses, there was a lot of talk of things like a separation of church and state. The establishment clause, even Christian nationalism, as if the expectation is, if you are even an elected official, you're not supposed to talk about God. You're not suppose to believe in Jesus. You're supposed to have religious convictions, at least not Christian religious convictions the way the left would promote this. And again, this just shows the inconsistency and really the lack of basic historical understanding. When you go back through the history and tradition of this nation, We have talked about it for decades, our nation was founded by people of faith who were committed to their faith, and the majority of the ideas that were laid as the foundation for the nation came from the Bible, from faith. The reason America has been the most stable, prosperous, successful nation in the history of the world is been because of that biblical foundation, that faith foundation. And so dad backing up to these two Christian schools that were playing in this kind of public school arena, the idea that you're now supposed to leave your Christianity outside because this is a government facility is utterly ridiculous. 

David Barton [00:25:11] Yeah, and we've talked before, but I think that the climate is really changing. We've seen several Supreme Court decisions going our way. We think this is going to be one that's won. But it's like when an animal is in its dying, gasping breath, it gets more vicious. And it seems like that's what the left is doing. They're losing more and more. Seems like they're becoming more vicious and just getting more radical. But it is, you know, one of the things we used to tell legislators back 15, 20 years ago and is still hostile, is all right, so they won't let you pray. Just get up and say, hey, I want to take this moment to share something said by James Madison and just read the prayer that the president put in the prayer proclamation that he issued. Go back and see what he prayed and just that proclamation because that is an official document. That's not a church document. And so it was crazy how far we had to go to even be able to get a mention of God and at that point in time, but the culture is shifting. The climate is changing. And Lord willing, they will pick this case up the Supreme Court and put this thing to rest in this generation for the next several decades. 

Rick Green [00:26:12] Yeah, and if people are curious about those prayer proclamations, wallbuilders.com. Tons of them right there that you can see on the website. I saw a perfect example of what you're talking about David yesterday at commissioner's court in Kendall County, the lady that came and prayed actually prayed a Peter Marshall prayer from when he was, uh, the Senate chaplain back in the, in the forties. So it was very much like what you were talking about wasn't a prayer proclamation, but literally just repeated his prayer. It was really kind of cool. Alright, everybody have a great evening tomorrow of course Foundations of Freedom Thursday and then Friday is Good News Friday. Have a great, uh, evening and thanks for listening to The WallBuilders Show.