Why Parental Rights Matter Now

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. You found us at the Wall Builder Show, taking on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. And every one of those perspectives, there's a lot to say about parental rights. That's going to be our topic today, and uh you definitely want to pay attention. We've got some really important cases working their way through the courts, one headed to the Supreme Court, and Kelly Shackerford will be on with us in just a little while to talk about that. Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. And guys, of course, parental rights, something we've all been involved with with parental rights.org. In fact, we'll have Mike Ferris a little later in the week, uh, who helped found that. Uh but this has been a actually a great topic the last couple of years. President Trump has really latched onto this topic and done several things, both in the whether it's the medical freedom area of vaccines and that sort of thing, or education, he gets parental rights. So it's it seems to be um moving in the right direction, and more people are taking it more seriously and less likely, I hope, to hand their kids over and let other people make the decisions. And and the parents want to make the decisions.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

So one of the things that's been interesting, if you look back over the parental rights movement over the last several years, and when when this thing started, really back in the 80s in some degrees, even uh in the 70s with homeschooling, when that was an issue with homeschooling, it was kind of most people go, no, wait a minute. The the parents definitely have a right to to raise their kids. And so that was why we won a lot of cases even several decades ago, is parental rights. But we've come to the point now where that that's no longer a consensus belief. And it's not the belief of a whole lot of Americans that parents should have the say over their kids because the state knows better in so many areas, and progressives know better, and liberals and other. And so one of the things that's interesting to me right now, looking at the upcoming election, is the state ballot initiatives. I've been looking through the states at their ballot initiatives to see what which ones are out there, what states have what. And it's interesting to me that a number of parental rights amendments are appearing on state ballot initiatives, but they're in blue states. In other words, they're in states that don't protect parental rights, but the citizens in those states got enough citizens together to say, hey, wait a minute, let's vote on this because the legislature is not letting us protect our own kids' rights. Let's see if the people of the state agree with the legislature. And so in Colorado and even in Virginia, places like that, you're getting in in states that are not normally supportive of parental rights over the last several years, but the people are checking to see if they are. So I think there's going to be a big issue in this election to see whether parental rights takes a hit and goes backward or whether it goes forward. But it's just amazing to me to think that we're at the point where we have to get permission from the state to have parental

From Homeschool Fights To Today

SPEAKER_00 2:45

rights. And that's just such a different paradigm from what America had been for over two centuries and even what it was just a few decades ago.

SPEAKER_03 2:53

Well, and Dad, I would think too that this would you definitely can speak more to this. But I know when uh when you started traveling back in the uh mid and late 80s, you took us in a 15-passenger van with us. I I remember there were times as we we didn't call it homeschooling, we call the van schooling because we were in a van. Uh we were at home some, but we were on the road more than we were at home. But I remember there were places we would go and y'all would tell us, like, hey, don't talk about homeschooling, right? Like, don't we, we we can't talk about that here because some of these states had not yet come to the place where homeschooling was even legalized. And in the 1980s, homeschooling wasn't legal in many states of the United States. And I say this because it was one thing when you look back, and in academia, they did a really good job of uh kind of controlling the narrative that hey, parents are not smart enough in a lot of ways that they haven't had the training to teach children the things they need. But the reason I say this is there's a contrast that today there is so much overwhelming data from literally decades where you can take parents who have no formal academic training and they are homeschooling their children, some of them growing to be national merit scholars, some of the most brilliant of the brilliant in academia, and what we've seen, and really like again, the data, the analysis shows this is it wasn't the credentials of a teacher in a classroom that was helping students succeed and achieve in many ways. And I say this because when you look at at parent parental involvement or parents uh directing their kids, what we are seeing now is even though the data is overwhelming, there is a lot of gaslighting happening in a lot of leftist progressive liberal areas, uh, often by Democrat politicians, that would uh contend yet again that parents are not smart enough, Dad, as you mentioned, to care for their kids, to educate their kids, to know the the health and safety, the well-being of their kids. Uh you can go down a very long list, which I know part of the reason we're having Kelly Shackleford on today is because of this huge case that's going before the U.S. Supreme Court uh about whether or not parents can even have a say in some of the the gender and sexuality preferences that are being promoted to their kids at school. And if children choose to follow that and parents don't support it, then the children can be taken away from the parents. And it's a little bit more detailed than that in the case, but I'll let Kelly

Ballot Measures And Voter Turnout

SPEAKER_03 5:25

explain that in a minute. But the reason all this matters, Dad, I think the point you illustrated about ballot initiatives coming up in this election, uh probably every single day we will be talking about upcoming elections because one of the realities we recognize in our nation, the elected leaders of our nation is not always reflective of the majority of the people in the nation. The elected leaders we have is more reflective of the majority of the people that showed up to vote in the last election. And you can look at the nation and recognize, man, there's a lot of 80-20 issues. We've talked about this a lot. Why President Trump has done really well in a lot of areas, his first now nearly two years as in a second term of presidency is because he said, Hey, we know boys and girls are real things, and and boys shouldn't play in girl sports, they shouldn't go in girls' locker rooms. And of course, there are leftists losing their minds. But the majority of Americans, even the Democrats, are like, Yeah, that that's correct. We totally believe that. We think that is true, and that shouldn't be happening. And I say this because the majority of Americans are not as far gone as our, in many cases, elected officials would tend to make us think we are. Uh, when you see some of these leftist policies happening in some of these states, you go, Man, those states are are just crazy. Well, no, the state's not that crazy. The elected leaders of that state are crazy, which then logically you would think, well, then maybe all the voters in that state must be crazy, but no, it's because in so many of those states, the the Christians, the churches were not involved, the Christians didn't show up and vote. In fact, uh, if you look at voter turnout, which we have talked about literally for decades, dad, I've heard you give so many talks on voter turnout. The voter turnout is abysmal in most places. It's it's the worst local. Um, the higher up you go, uh, once you've gone past mayor, when you finally get to a presidential election, then you have the best voter turnout you're gonna have. The majority of people that are gonna vote show up to vote in a presidential election. But backing up to like even these ballot initiatives, the things we have coming up in this midterm election, the the elected officials we have that we're the most frustrated with, generally speaking, they're not always reflective of the majority of people in that state or that community or that district. It's reflective of the majority of people that showed up to vote. And so as we talk about things that should be common sense, 80-20 issues and maybe even 90-10 issues, like parents having a say in their kids' upbringing, whether it be their education or even some of their sexual identities, when you are having schools that say, no, we get a form that and parents have no say, and if parents disagree with us, we're gonna work to remove those kids from the parents, that that's not that divisive of an issue in the nation. But if people don't show up and vote in these elections, it's going to allow the majority of the people that do show up that have a faulty view to sway the direction and the future of the nation. And so this is where the big plug is we have to make sure, regardless of where we live, if you live in the bluest area or the reddest area, you have a stewardship responsibility that you need to show up and vote. And I know some people think, man, I don't want to vote. My vote's not going to make a difference. There's a lot of people that feel that way. And there's actually a significant percentage of people that don't show up, because I think it's not going to matter. But if all of those people actually showed up, then it could actually sway the outcome of some of these states, of some of these elections, and even some of these ballot measures and amendments. So it is really important that people show up in these elections.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

Yeah, nothing honestly, nothing more important we could talk about as we're going to break. Kelly Shackleford will be with us when we come back. But just to reiterate what Tim's saying, man, everybody needs to show up. And it's not enough just to show up yourself. You got to let your friends and family know. So if you can get 10 people and take them, that would make a huge difference. It's going to have a huge impact on where we go as a nation. Cannot sit this one out, folks. All right, quick break. We'll be right back. Kelly Shackleford, our special guest today on the Wall Builder Show.

Jefferson Declaration Draft Resource

SPEAKER_03 9:30

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First Liberty’s Supreme Court Docket

SPEAKER_02 10:33

Welcome back to the Wall Builder Show. Thanks for staying with us. Kelly Shackelford First Liberty. Great friend to wall builders and uh just a great friend to any patriot that wants the Constitution upheld. Kelly, good to see you, brother. Thanks for coming on. Oh, happy to do it, Rick. We all have I actually I wasn't gonna tell you I was gonna ask this. How many cases at a time do y'all have going? Because y'all have so many lines of the water and so many folks you're defending.

SPEAKER_04 10:54

It's a lot. We've had uh I was just looking through it. We're about to have a board meeting. We had over 400 last year. Wow. Um we've uh we've had two wins of the Supreme Court, and now we just got another case uh that we'll be arguing in December. So hopefully that'll be another win of the Supreme Court. So we there's a lot of them. Uh you know, unfortunately we had to turn a lot away. We just don't have we we do as many as we can capacity wise, but I think last year we had four hundred and like seventy cases, and we turn we we had to turn down fifteen hundred and something of them.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

Man. Well, you guys, uh, you know, the Lord's favor is on you. There's no question about it. And uh both with with getting the the right cases, but also just the the skills to win. And um so yeah, this would be amazing. An another Supreme Court case. What tell us about the case and and I guess that's yeah, December, man. We're only a few weeks out before you'll be up there arguing it.

SPEAKER_04 11:46

It's it's it's coming quick. Um it's a really important case. I think it's one that every uh every person should care about, even if they're not a person of faith. I mean, every parent, every citizen. Um this is a case that's uh it's really uh off of a a law in Washington

The Washington Runaway Shelter Law

SPEAKER_04 12:05

State that says that if your child, your minor child, runs away and goes to like a state shelter, uh, there is a requirement that they notify you within like 72 hours. Of course, the parents are you know don't even know if their child is alive. Um but there's one exception. The exception is if your child is seeking gender modification and the and the parent disagrees, then then they're not gonna notify you. Wow. Uh so this is the government saying your child is ours, not yours. You're not the authority, this is a minor child. This is this this is these are minors. Yeah. And uh and so it's just an outrageous. I mean, think of the schools where they were doing this kind of stuff, where they were kind of trying to transition people's children and keep it in from them. Yeah I mean, those people could pick up and go to another school. We you can't just pick up and go anywhere here. If your child runs away, so it literally, I mean, we've got clients who've had their children run away and are terrified of this. We we have clients who um their children are s suffering from gender dysphoria, and so it's literally changing what they say in their own home right now because you know it could trigger this, and then uh but ultimately what happened here, and we just got this this below, they lost. At every step below, they've lost. And the argument uh that the court gave the Ninth Circuit was they said, Look, you you don't nobody's been hurt yet. So uh sorry, you'll have to wait until one of your children is maimed, essentially. So they've said there's no standing. The parents have no standing with a law that says if your child takes off, we don't have to tell you at all. Uh and and it's based upon your belief.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

This could be a kid in Washington running away to somewhere else in Washington, but could also be a kid coming from another state, right? That comes into that state. I remember Newsom talking about doing this in California years ago. And I didn't like Washington had yeah, okay, okay, sorry to interrupt you. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 14:21

So this this affects every every person. And of course, behind all this, which you teach a lot about the Constitution, is a really, really important principle. This whole idea of children not being children of the state. I mean, yeah, the uh the the lar, you know, if you ever look at Marxism or communism, or one of their first things is to get rid of the nuclear family. That's right. And and the child is directly, it's it's a child of the state. Intermediary institutions like the parents, like the church, those exist in free societies. They do not in communist or socialist or Marxist societies. This is a direct attack, a frontal attack upon a freedom country, and it's an attack upon every parent as well. So it's a it's gonna be a really important precedent that the Supreme Court hands down. Again, we're arguing it j uh December 7th. I would encourage people to put that on your prayer list. And if people want to follow, they can go to firstliberty.org and get on that insider alert, it's free, and every Friday we'll send an update and we'll keep people updated on this, but this I can't think of a more important issue.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

And I and and sometimes, you know, what you were just describing, people might think, oh, nobody nobody thinks the the kids belong to the state. But these these left leftists, even even liberal politicians in America, they give it away sometimes when they say, you know, they're all our kids. We heard Biden and others say that kind of thing. The the kids belong to all of us. That that's their way of saying they belong to the state. And if the parent is doing something that the state disagrees with, the state should take over. And here we have it in actual policy. Um, Kelly, December 7th. So that so so you will you be arguing the case? Or are you gonna be arguing the case?

SPEAKER_04 16:05

Our lead counsel is Gene Sher. Gene's uh been a friend for a long time,

Standing And Why Courts Said Wait

SPEAKER_04 16:10

has his own law firm, uh Sheer Jaffe, who has done a lot of big cases. Uh so we're excited to work with him and get him ready. And and uh he uh clerk for Justice Scalia, so he's he's been around the court a long time. But it's a it's one to put on your prayer list for sure.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Yeah, and and Kelly, this is not just Washington State, right? I mean, this is something everybody, as you said, across the country that could, you know, have a kid that that runs into that state, but also other states that have have done similar kind of things. So if you win this, Lord willing, let's just say, Lord willing, you win this, it'll affect uh families uh across the entire nation.

SPEAKER_04 16:44

It will. And and and even if if the law didn't, which it does, you know, because your child can run away from anywhere and they're not gonna tell you, um, it it will in the precedent it sets, it's gonna set the precedent for who is the authority over children. Yeah. What are the rights of parents? Can you do this kind of thing? Uh so you know, if if God forbid we were to lose, you know, if you're not in a conservative state, pretty much expect this to come to your state. Yeah. So uh this is gonna be huge, and and the precedent lays down for the authority of parents over their children in in the United States.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Aaron Powell You've had other cases that were kind of like this in terms of, say, for instance, uh a school um required to notify parents over certain things being taught or certain things if a kid asks for you know some sort of medical procedure or whatever it might be. So it's the same philosophy here is that basically the parents at least write to know and and and not be have an end run and things be done with their children without them ever even knowing about which we know is happening, right? The grooming that happens with in some of these schools, and the um, you know, they they have them for eight hours a day, and and a lot of times parents end up shocked. I mean, honestly, it was one of the things that turned Elon Musk into a conservative was they did this to one of his kids. Yes. Um so this is this is not a first uh it's not your first rodeo on this philosophy and having to fight this back.

SPEAKER_04 18:04

We just finished, we just finished the case, Rick, uh, out of California with uh uh families

A California School Gender Ideology Case

SPEAKER_04 18:10

who that the school ordered all of the fifth graders to read a book called My Shadow is Pink to their kindergarten buddy. They were forcing you know, 11-year-olds to push gender ideology on little kindergartners. And some of them said, I I don't feel good about doing that to my kindergarten buddy to make them confused about who they are. And so the parents went to the school and said, Why aren't you notifying us? You know, you should be telling us if you're gonna go into something like and number two, our child needs a religious exemption. The school's response was you have no right to be notified, and we're not giving religious exemptions. In other words, you parents don't know what's right and wrong. We know what's right and wrong. Yeah, we know that's a good idea. We had to go into federal court. We got a Democrat judge, appointed judge, federal court, and even that judge said, This violates parental rights. This violates the Constitution. You you they do have a right to a religious exemption, and so uh they've just settled the case after we won in court and they're changing the policy so that this never happens again. The parents will be notified, and uh people will get religious exemptions, but it shows you the kind of thing that's going on all over the country.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Yeah, and and and parents, you know, and we encourage you to be aware of what's happening at your school, get involved, show up at the school board meetings, ask questions. Um, man, there's so much you can do. Uh Kelly will definitely be praying. I would encourage people to get go to firstliberty.org, get on a monthly donation to these guys. They do these cases. I I didn't even realize it was that many, man. I thought you were gonna say, you know, 30 or 40 cases is still a lot. That's a huge caseload. 400 and something cases. Uh folks, help them do what they're doing. It's incredible the victories that they've had. It affects every single one of us. They're fighting for us and our kids. Kelly Shackerford, your champ, man. Appreciate you, brother. Thanks for coming on Wild Builders today. Always great being with you, Rick. Firstliberty.org is the website. Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barker. Hey friends, Rick Green from the Wild Builder Show. Encouraging you to share the program with friends and family and listen to it on the podcasts that are out there. There's so many options out there for you to listen to in the car or from home or while you're working in them. You've got Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Cast Box. I mean, there's so many options. And we just want to make sure you know we've worked hard to get it out there and make it available for you on all those different apps. Everybody's got their favorite app, so choose your particular app. And if it's not on there yet, email us, radio at wallbuilders.com, and let us know about your favorite podcast app. And we'll make sure Wallbler's Radio is listed there. But you can listen and most importantly,

How To Support And Track The Case

SPEAKER_02 20:45

share it with your friends and family. That's how the program grows. That's how we get more truth in the hands of as many people as possible. And then, of course, wallbuilders.show, super easy place uh to find all of those podcast apps and to just download right there from that website as well as be able to share it with your friends and family. So check it out today, wobblers.show, or just go directly to your favorite podcast app, listen to the Wabbuilder Show, and share it with as many people as you possibly can. Welcome back to the Wabbuilder Show. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks to Kelly Shackford. Firstliberty.org is their website, great website to follow. I mean, there's so many cases we didn't even talk about. David, Tim, I mean, they they do incredible work. Not even just the cases, I mean, just educating pastors on on how to navigate the IRS, educating uh people on how to make a difference. I mean, First Liberty just huge impact on the country, and and thankful for Kelly's time today.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Well, you know, going to that point, Rick, I mean, as Kelly pointed out, they took over 400 cases, what 470 cases they took last year, and they turned down 1,500. So you're looking at close to 2,000 times that individuals said my rights have been violated, and First Liberty can help me, and they took 25% of that, but that's just one of dozens of law firms across. The nation. That is just amazing, astounding

Share The Show And Find The Podcast

SPEAKER_00 22:03

to me that at this point we're having to fight that much for religious liberty. And this is another reason elections are huge. If we lose the Senate, there go the judges that we've been getting from President Trump that have been helping turn the nation around in the last few years. We've talked about, you know, the Ten Commandments and things that are back up, things we haven't been able to do in decades because of that. And that's another reason to go vote. You get out and vote and make sure you get people on the Senate and make sure you get people in the House who will support the Senate, getting those kind of judges in in place. So I mean the fact that he's doing that, but it's amazing to me also, Kelly pointed out, look, Washington State's already passed some parental rights measures. But here they are saying, well, we believe in parental rights unless it's something we disagree with and then we trump the parents. So even though they have some parental rights measures in Washington, that doesn't matter if your disagreement with us over gender and LGBTQIA plus kind of stuff is different. We're going to do what the state says, not what the parents say. So it is so weird that we're

Judges Elections And A Practical Plan

SPEAKER_00 23:06

picking, or states like that are picking and choosing, and hopefully this, if we can win this case and getting the right kind of judges matters, this will be a real big case changing so much of this LGBTQIA plus mentality that going through education right now, that'll turn things back in a really good direction or at least help turn them back.

SPEAKER_03 23:26

Well, and as Kelly pointed out too, that they have won so many cases. Uh, you know, you mentioned two uh that this year, but they have won so many cases. I I think, I think, uh, and Rick and Dad, you might can correct me. I I think they're 11-0 in like the last seven, eight years, something like that. Um, they have a couple more cases that are coming up now. So that number likely will continue to rise. And with that being said, I mean, Rick, I know today you're in Washington, D.C. I'm actually in Washington State today, my buddy uh Pastor Josh McPherson. Uh that there's some uh pastors events he's doing up here. Dad, you're about to go on the road again this week.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Yeah, we could we now we're on the same page, but we're further couldn't be further apart physically and be in the U.S. or pretty pretty much.

SPEAKER_03 24:09

Well, yes. And and dad, you know, you're about to jump on the road again this week with Chad Connolly, doing more Faith Wins events, pastors' conferences, and and the reason I say this is because for everybody listening, the things that we've encouraged, like, you know, Rick, where you were uh saying early in the program that when you go vote, take 10 people with you. I just want to kind of clarify for people, this is not something that we are asking other people to do while we sit behind a microphone or behind a computer. No, we are literally active all over the stinking road. We are going all over America trying to activate churches, trying to engage pastors in in the midst of what's going on because we ultimately know looking back in early America, the foundation of America that made us the most stable, prosperous, benevolent nation in the history of the world. We were the most free nation for so long. Well, all of that has begun to erode. And the reason it's erode is we lost a foundation. What was a foundation? It was a Christian biblical foundation. It doesn't mean that everybody who was an early America was a Christian. Well, of course not. But every single founding father, even the least religious, and even the ones that we would maybe probably agree and and argue, were not necessarily Christians. They certainly weren't Orthodox, maybe not Christian at all. But even they advocated for biblical principles, knowing that was a foundation that allowed freedom to function. We are all over the road trying to engage and activate Christians to once again re-engage this process. And so, as we are calling out to you, wherever you are listening to us today, and we are asking you, be part of this solution. Show up, go to the polls, bring friends with you. Obviously, big picture. Lots of things that are needed. We need to pray for this nation. We need to pray for our leaders, we need to help do some discipleship, do some Bible studies in your home, do some small groups. There's a lot of things we need to do to restore a biblical foundation. But as we are all over the road this week, we will continue to do our radio program from wherever we might be. But this is something that we are actively working to make a difference in this upcoming election. So we are asking you, please make sure that you engage and help do your part as well.

SPEAKER_02 26:26

I like the way you put that, Tim. It's it's uh, you know, everybody gets to do a part. It's not you don't have to, it's you get to, you get to be part of the solution. So make sure you're voting. Let your friends and family know. Get those voter guides, Christian Voterguide.com. Send that link to everybody that you know. Thanks for listening today, folks. You've been listening to the Well Water Show.