From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - The Babylon Bee's Guide To Gender

Episode Date: September 21, 2023

Debate continues to swirl across the nation about gender ideology and whether or not to teach it in schools. Editor-In-Chief for the Babylon Bee Kyle Mann and Managing Editor for the Babylon Bee Joel Berry join to discuss their new book The Babylon Bee Guide To Gender and explain how gender ideology was able to permeate into schools and churches.  They also discuss how they found themselves working for the satirical site, and Rachel shares some of her favorite Babylon Bee headlines.  Follow Sean & Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hey, everyone. Welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm Sean Duffy, along with my co-host for the podcast, my partner in life, and my wife, Rachel Campos Duffy.

Sean, it's great to be back at the kitchen table, and we're going to have fun today because we have the guys from the Babylon Bee, Kyle Mann, he's the editor-in-chief, and of course, Joel Berry, who's the managing editor. They're the ones that are writing all the funny stuff that you're passing along, you know, texting out to your family chain, et cetera, et cetera. They have a new book out called The Babylon Bee Guide to Gender. Welcome to the kitchen table, Kyle and Joel. Thanks for having us. Yeah, we are partners, but not partners in life like you guys. Well, that's kind of what your book's about. Yeah, it's true. Thank you for clarifying that point. I appreciate that.

All right. So listen, I have to tell you, the Babylon Bee has brought so much joy to my family. So we are, I'm not joking. We screenshot and send each other, you know, headlines all the time. Will and Pete and I have been on Fox and Prince, have been pitching for a long time. I don't know if I'm even allowed to say that we've been denied doing this,

but we wanted to do a segment and we've pitched it multiple times called the B or not or not the B where we put up like headlines and we ask our viewers to write in and we kind of test each other and decide what's real, what's not. That's sort of what we love about it. But for somebody who is listening to our podcast right now, maybe hasn't had the pleasure of enjoying the bee as much as we have the Babylon Bee. Explain to those who are listening or watching, how would you describe the Babylon Bee and why people should go to that website? tomorrow's news today. So if you want to know what's going to, if you want to know what the Democrats are going to do tomorrow, then you just read the Babylon Bee today and then you don't have to bother reading the news tomorrow. But yeah, we're a, we're a satirical news site. So we write, we write satirical headlines that are making fun of things that are happening in the news, everyday life, church culture, crazy, weird things worship leaders wear you know everything from church humor to uh to gender and worldviews and politics and we make fun of everybody so that's kind of the fun thing about it is that you get to consume the news through humor yeah we're so often on the right

we don't have humorous content on the right it's often been reserved for the left which is very cool to have um a more conservative leaning or a group that'll go after everybody, not just a group of liberals that go after conservatives. But I think it's fascinating, Kyle, you are a former pastor, a speaker. You live in Southern California, shocking, but Southern California, you have three boys. And Joel, you're a former worship leader. And I know you're trying to get to Rachel and I. We have nine kids. You have five. Well done.

But maybe both of us, tell us both, how did you guys get to the beat? Tell us your journey, just a brief history of how you go from point A to now this amazing satirical website that's having a cultural impact. Let's start with Kyle, since he's the pastor. I guess that makes sense. All right. Let's go with Kyle. Yeah, he's higher ranking. pastor trump's the worship leader okay

kyle the pastor trump's the worship leader i like that uh yeah i started at the babylon b the day the babylon b launched which was in uh march of 2016 and um I just started writing in headlines. I just started emailing headlines into Adam Ford, who's the guy who founded the website. And it was just like, it was a great relief valve for me. And it was a great outlet because anybody who's been a part of church culture, you know, whether it's a massive mega church or a smaller, you know, whether it's a massive megachurch or a smaller, you know, small church culture where everybody argues over the color of the carpet or whatever, like knows that there's so much humor there, you know, in those kind of little subcultures. And when Adam Ford announced, like, hey, I'm going to do something that's kind of like The Onion, you know, with these funny

headlines that make a point kind of, but it's also just fun humor. But it's written from a Christian perspective, from a conservative perspective. I was like, yes, this is what we need in the world. And so I started incessantly emailing him headlines and they started getting published. And I became the head writer of the website pretty quickly. And then a couple of years later, I took over as the editor in chief. So that was kind of my journey. It was like a god thing as they say you know uh not not something i ever planned on doing i was in construction sales and as my full-time job and then i was uh i was also pastoring bivocationally at the time and i was like this is what i mean

this is what i want to do with my life you know make fun of uh everything that goes on in our crazy clown world were you married at the time I was and still am to the same woman yeah so I'm just wondering because if Sean had said you know I've decided I'm going to just make funny headlines instead I might be like what my wife my wife was was and is amazing you know she was I told cause you know, I had a job in construction sales and I was like, um, I think I'm, I'm telling her about the Babylon Bee and she doesn't understand it. Like she doesn't know what, like, what are you talking about? I'm like, oh, there's these funny headlines, you know?

And she's like, I, whatever. I don't get it. And I'm like, no, I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to do this full time. And she was like, I support you. So props to her. She's a saint. Poor wife. She's awesome. Okay. So Joel, tell us your journey to the B.

Yeah. So I was also in sales. There are a lot of sales guys here now writing for the B. But it was kind of a dead end job. I didn't like what I was doing. My wife, God bless her, she kind of said, why don't you take a year and figure yourself out and try some stuff and branch out? And so, I started writing. I was a big fan of the bee. I remember when I first discovered the bee in my social media feed and seeing this headline, Holy Spirit Unable to Move Through the Congregation After the Fog Machine Breaks. And I thought, who are these guys? This is amazing.

Like, you know, this is- That was the first headline that- It was one of the early, early headlines. It was the first one I wrote then in, mailed in. Yeah. And I remember discovering it and like, here are these Christians that are writing funny jokes that get me that, you know, I think that one of the unique things about the B early on is that we could make fun of Christians, but it wasn't coming from a place of hate or derision, which is what you usually see in the comedy world.

And so during that year when I was kind of trying to figure things out, I started sending in headlines as well. And that just kind of snowballed until I was kind of doing it full time. And Kyle called me at some point and said, well, we should probably start paying you because you're already working full time. So it's been a dream ever since. It's a wonderful thing to do. And it really is, I think, for me, for the rest of the writers and for people who consume the content as well. It's very healing because our world can be very sad and a lot of terrible things happening in our news feeds every morning. It's good to be able to laugh at some of this stuff. It's really nice. Yeah. I mean, that's exactly it, right? Like there's so many ways to deal with what's happening out there. You can like, you know, you can write about it. You can scream about it. You can cry about it. You can throw your shoe at the TV. You can get depressed. You can feel like just checking out, like I can't handle it. Or you can just laugh about it. And you guys do such a great, great job of that. We actually pulled up some of our favorite ones.

So we're going to go through them. So this first one is actually my all-time favorite headline for the Babylon Beat. Powerful. So what you see is burning houses. For those of you who are listening to us and not watching it, you see burning houses. They spell out love. Like in a neighborhood, a big neighborhood. In a big neighborhood. And it says, this is again, this happened during the 2020 riots, right? Powerful protesters spell out love with burning homes and businesses. And it was just so perfect

to me because they were causing so much destruction. They were ruining people's lives. The media scene is peaceful protesting. And this is exactly what it was, right? Yes. Yeah. It was just so good. Did any of you write this one? I think that was mine.

And I did the Photoshop too, which was fun. I love it. Nicely done. Well done. Well done. All right. Next one. Inspiring.

Justice Sotomayor shows world illiteracy doesn't have to stop you from achieving your dreams of course this was after she i guess got some like pretty common judicial terms mixed up in some affirmative action debate correct and um and it was embarrassing and again what we are all thinking, but you guys just said. All right, next one. Oh, here we go. This is, here we go. Nope. I was thinking, there we go. There we go. There we go. This one is great. This one, you know, you just have to be a Christian to appreciate this one. Anglican Church unveils tuck-friendly vestments. Who wrote that one? I think that might have been mine.

Yeah, I think that might have been yours. I never remember if I wrote that line or not, but I think I pitched that. The Anglicans and the Episcopalians, they're always good for a good joke. Yeah, let's just, I'm just praying the Catholic Church doesn't go this route, but we can all appreciate what's happening.

We could be on the fast track. We're definitely on a fast track to something. All right. Next one. This one is a recent one. Bad luck. Military announces F-35 was carrying the Epstein client. Oh, man.

Sad. Too bad. Yeah. What a coincidence. You guys had a lot of fun with the missing F-35, which is shocking and sad that the U.S. military can lose an F-35. What do you make of that? What do you look of it? Yeah, that's wild. I mean, you could put a you could put an I saw someone on Twitter say you just put an iPhone in there and do this search. Find my iPhone app.

How are we not able to find something like this? I don't know. But that's the beautiful thing about the news is every day we feel like we're out of ideas and we've thought of everything that we can think of with these headlines. And the news gives us something fresh, something that is more absurd than what happened yesterday. And you just never run out of stuff to joke about yeah and the military i think called this a mishap a little more than a mishap i think i think the latest theory is that it might have been hacked um by some foreign power i mean we don't know yet what's going on but um you know i'm sure you guys will have a headline and we'll find out that it's all true a couple days later. Here we go. Here's one. So this one was great.

This one just came out. This is that the tennis star who refused to get vaccinated during the tennis open. And what was it, Australia or New Zealand? I forget. And he says victory, a shot in the arm, heart is exploding with gratitude. It was a great headline, except the actual thing that happened was actually just as funny, which was when he was giving, you know, after he won,

it said that the segment was sponsored by Moderna. Right. Did you see that underneath? Moderna gave him, like, the shot of the day. Yeah. The Moderna shot of the day.

Which is just, it can't be bad. So, these are some of Rachel's favorites favorites mine too uh headlines from the b and this was all in a lead-up to the next b headline that is rachel's all-time favorite and one of all-time favorite topics yeah which is yeah embarrassed man could so there's a picture of zielinski wearing his like millet weird military uniform you know, he's dressed as like Castro or something. Embarrassed man could have sworn invitations and caused a party. So one of the things that I have absolutely loved about the B, the Babylon B, is that you guys have been really courageously going after the lunacy of the Ukraine war.

Why is that such a big topic for you guys? the lunacy of the ukraine war why is that such a big topic for you guys well it's one of those things like whenever i feel like as a humorist you always want to find kind of a subversive angle for things and so whenever you have um you whenever you have this movement that's like you're expected to get on board with it you know you're expected like the same thing with the pandemic and you know everybody has to get vaccinated or everybody wear a mask. And every time there's this big group think going on, you know, you want to be the one to kind of speak the other direction and so whenever there's this kind of mass group think going on the the comedian is trying to poke a hole in that and kind of expose it for what it is and um so you know it's obviously it's like we don't support russia right you know we don't like support that but it's but when but when you have everybody around you that's like yeah you got to

fly the ukraine flag and the rainbow flag and the vaccination flag and you know you want to be the one that's kind of like yeah look at all these idiots you know we're just old men sitting in lawn chairs making fun of everybody that's walking by and then like the pageantry of it all too is making fun of the people who won't fly an american flag but will fly a ukraine flag in front of their house it's so weird yeah yeah like but the the i guess the um like the show business side of this whole ukraine thing with zelensky wearing his war costume and you know showing up asking for for more money there's just something inerrantly funny about that that the the propaganda that they're trying to jump drum up uh and sway public opinion is is pretty transparent and really fun to make fun of.

And anytime that somebody or some group is very self-serious, they're the ones that are a great target for comedy, which is why everybody made fun of conservative Christians for so long. Yes. You know, but now it's kind of like that mainstream like warmonger and the, you know, and the religious left. There's a religious about their progressive beliefs. You know, those are the ones that are really great targets for comedy right now because of how self-serious they are. Or Sean Penn showing up like that was so weird to that meeting with Zelinsky and he handed him his awesome. I mean, this is the problem for you guys, right? Like, you can't make this stuff up, right? He hands his Oscar to Zelinsky? What?

Yeah, yeah. When Hollywood gets involved, we had one where Ben Stiller shows up. Oh, yeah. And he gets kicked back out after Zelinsky sees Zoolander 2. I like Zoolander 2.

I like 1 and 2. So when Rachel's having baby number 5 or 4, I think we actually, she had an epidural, so we were in

labor and we actually watched, I think, Zoolander 1 in the hospital. Yeah, I know who watched Zoolander while I was in labor

with an epidural. Or highbrow. Dumb and dumb highbrow here. So I want to Yeah, I know who watched Zoolander while I was in labor with an epidural. So I want to show you guys something and get your reaction, because this came out and I saw it on Twitter, this video, and I'm going to play it for you guys. I thought it was you guys. I thought this was the Babylon VA doing some joke and prank on us. Watch this. I want to get the reaction on the other side. Russia believed the truth that their obsessive focus on the Ukrainian volunteer is simply allowing the light of the Ukrainian nation's honesty to shine brightly.

Next week, the teeth of the Russian devils will gnash ever harder, and their rabid mouths will foam in uncontrollable frenzy, as the world will see a favorite Kremlin propagandist pay for their crimes. And this puppet of Putin is only the first. Russia's war criminal propagandists will all be hunted down, and justice will be served as we in Ukraine are led on this mission by faith in God, liberty, and complete liberation. led on this mission by faith in God, liberty, and complete liberation.

Does this make you want to hire Zelensky onto the Babylon Bay? Because this is good. This is really good. I love that that's the image that they have of Americans. We want to reach Americans. Let's put a dude in a dress. That'll do it. They'll send us millions and billions. Well, we're going gonna give a dude brass

and then dress him like zelinski like the female version of the zelinski military outfit and yeah it's like are we sure that's not zelinski in a wig i'm not sure but that's the kind of the funny the funny thing is though like that that plays like a saturday night live sketch you know that that we would have seen back in the glory days of Saturday Night Live in the 90s. But, you know, the late night host, Saturday Night Live, they won't go after that kind of stuff anymore. But that is totally what it looks like. It's like Chris Farley in a wig. Totally. You know what? That's so interesting. Is that the next step for the Babylon Bee? I mean, I grew up on Saturday Night Live. I love Saturday Night Live. I grew up in a Catholic

home where I, even though I was a cheerleader, I had to come home right after the game. I had no social life. My mother had me locked down. So I would come home after the games, and I was allowed to stay up late, though. When I watched Saturday Night Live, I grew up watching all that stuff. It's not funny anymore. And I'm thinking, you guys are funny.

Is that the next step, that guys should move from from your site to actually producing sketches yeah we have we have a bunch of sketches on our youtube channel so definitely check those i know but as a show i mean to move it on to a different platform yeah we've looked into all kinds of options for that kind of stuff so you know stay tuned is that are you serious like that's a stay tuned. Is that, are you serious? Like that's a stay tuned? Like this is the next SNL? You know, see what happens. They don't want to kill us. Okay, so just,

you guys may not know this, but I spent nine years in Congress, right? And we get relentlessly mocked as I was a Republican in Congress. We get mocked all over the map by left-wingers, by news outlets, by the comedy shows. And you get a thick skin. You just get used to it. You get the reporters who are really rude and mean to you.

Democrats never get tough questions. We only get the tough questions. And just from a political perspective, and I know you come after conservatives as well. There's some great stuff you've done on Donald Trump. But you do go after liberals and the craziness on the left and the satire and the comedy around it or the humor around it really does bite politically because we're laughing about the stupidity of what they're doing and the consequences. When you laugh at someone, you're able to recognize the ridiculousness of their policies when so often, really before the beat, they were a sacrosanct. You couldn't touch them.

You couldn't laugh at them. You couldn't mock them. But mockery is a really critical form in politics. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's something the left has known for a long time and they've employed very effectively. I think even Saul Alinsky, one of his rules for radicals is that ridicule is one of your most potent weapons. And it is true that leftism as a worldview, progressivism, it doesn't really have much of a foundation to stand on in terms of truth, logic, rationality. And so it requires this entire culture to build a scaffold around it, to protect it. And what you find is with a little joke here and there, it doesn't take much for the

whole thing to come crashing down, which is what makes it such a threat. And I think the other effect of satire is that it gives people courage. I think people are afraid now, people are frustrated when they see the world around them. I want to encourage people to laugh at some of these ridiculous ideas and laugh at some of these ridiculous people because I think that brings courage. I think it's contagious. And it's very powerful. Wait right there. We're going to have more of that conversation next. Help turn off hesitation. Turn off doubt, turn off fears.

With your support, the YMCA of Greater Toronto helps people turn off whatever's holding them back so they can let their potential shine. Help turn on confidence and connections and possibilities. From youth shelters to job training, mental health counseling and beyond, the YMCA offers hundreds of programs that empower people to shine their brightest. See our charity's impact at YMCAGTA.org slash charity. And we speak about the power. I'm going to get to the book in a second because I'm fascinated to hear about the new book that's coming up but before that the power of satire is real in that the left um left-wing media technology they've tried to actually cancel the b right they want to take you out take you off

um the the main channels of distribution so people can't see your stuff tell us about the the attempts to um to uh censor yeah the b well it you know it goes all the way back to the beginning of the b like the first year or two that the b launched we were already getting fact checked by by snopes and and usa today and and uh you know the associated press and all we got hammered by fact checks and you could say on the one hand like okay well maybe grandmas on facebook are confused by the articles and uh you know all of us have been fooled by a babylon b headline here and there but on the other hand the way that they fact-checked us was so harsh you know it was like these people are intentionally

trying to deceive the masses and you know it's right-wing propaganda you know new york times called us like a far-right misinformation site disguised as satire you know, New York Times called us like a far right misinformation site disguised as satire. You know, so bad. Did you ever get the same kind of treatment, by the way, because they call you like the conservative onion? I don't know if you guys like that comparison or not. But do you guys did you guys ever find out if they got the same treatment? Well, the onion is the liberal knockoff of the Babylon Bee. well the onion is the liberal knockoff of the babylon b but um they uh no that's that was the thing is like when snopes would fact check an onion article that would go viral uh you know

for people mistaking it for reality it was like oh you idiots of course it's the onion you know you gotta know what the onion is you know and they were kind of like mocking the audience for not getting it but when we would do it it was like, the Babylon Bee, they're doing this on purpose and they're trying to fool people. And Facebook would cite those fact checks to suppress the reach of our webpage, you know, and they started to downrank us in their news quality ecosystem. And now like Babylon Bee articles that used to get 50,000, 100,000 shares on Facebook are getting five shares, 50 shares. You know, there's this massive suppression that kind of occurred a few years ago. And then, of course, we got locked out of Twitter for eight months for not deleting an article that they wanted us to delete. So it's just been constant from all sides of big tech. It's so crazy, this story. It's just absolutely

insane. But it also shows the power of humor, the power of the Babylon Bee to give people, as you said, that courage to laugh at all the ridiculousness. Sean and I have been in politics for a long time. You know, he was in for almost 10 years. And I have always thought that politics is funny, right? And it's why I was one of the very, very early supporters of Donald Trump, because he's funny. So how has Donald Trump changed politics and humor for you guys? Man, well, he was kind of our big break. I mean, we started in 2016. We were largely, you know, church humor. And then Donald Trump came along and there was this huge kind of rift in the church. I think a lot of evangelicals were arguing amongst themselves. Can we support this guy? Can we not support this guy? What's going on? A lot of comedians

lost their sense of humor. We were talking about Saturday Night Live earlier. They got really angry. All the late night shows got really angry, and it really kind of left the field wide open for us to make fun of Trump in a good-n way. Cause he really, it didn't take much. It was low hanging fruit. He's such an over the top funny guy. Um, and I think, I think Americans were sick of politics, uh, already. I, I, I think of politics as like, you know, and what we do at the B is this image of, you know, a well-dressed man who thinks highly of himself, like slipping on a banana peel and into a pie. Yeah. And there's just something really funny

about people who think highly of themselves kind of having the wind knocked out of them a little bit. And so, yeah, Trump was a huge break for us. And I think the reaction on the left to what we were doing made it even funnier. The anger at our joke, saying that's not funny, it just makes it funnier. So you talk about low-hanging fruit, Donald Trump, but also low-hanging fruit is gender, right? So we have, I don't even know how many genders we have. You guys are probably the

experts on gender now. You can tell me how many there are. And we can't decide it at birth. We have to wait until the person gets older so they can choose and it will modify the birth certificate. But tell us about the book, new book, The Babylon Bee's Guide to Gender. Tell us about the book. What do you guys unpack? What kind of humor and comedy are we going to get in the pages? Well, I'm not comfortable with using the metaphor

low-hanging fruit when you're talking about gender, but the book is uh the book is part of our babylon b guide series we now have three of them babylon b guide to wokeness babylon b guide to democracy and the babylon b guide to gender so uh we start out the book by kind of saying uh introducing you to gender theory that you can pick whatever gender you want. And then we introduce some options for you. You know, so you can pick, if you want to be boring, you can pick, you know, your biological gender or one of the two basic genders, man and woman. And we provide some helpful tests for you to find out if you are a man or a woman.

Pretty simple test, really. Give us an example of a test what's what's in the test you know this is like one of the online tests you can take and answer a whole bunch of questions and at the end you tell us am i a furry or a woman correct man oh yeah okay yes yeah exactly like that so yeah we you know we ask like yes no questions and then you rate yourself and then we put you on a spectrum that you're probably, we can guess if you're probably a biological male or a biological woman. If you tend to run into curbs a lot, probably more on the woman. You know what? I have decided that stereotypes are true. That is a perfect example. I have made no bones about the fact everyone in this house knows I'm the worst driver. I don't pretend. I'm not offended. My husband doesn't let me drive.

She doesn't. I drive to pick him up somewhere like then it's like, get out of the car. Well, that was one of the fun things about this book was we got to play with some of those stereotypes. The way we structured it was we have the first chapter is about men, you know, because men come first, of course. And then the second chapter is about women. And then after those first two chapters, we kind of dive off this diving board into the insanity of gender theory and all the infinite spectrum of genders that exist. into the insanity of gender theory and all the infinite spectrum of genders that exist. But those first two chapters kind of ground you to start. And we play with those classic stereotypes between men and women, which I really enjoy. I love that classic male-female humor. You don't see a lot of it these days because men and women are all mad at each other. But

we love that we were able to put that into the book. You know, it's funny stuff, but can I share with you guys a story that happened? This is where it stops being funny, if you don't mind me bringing something up that's not funny. So a few weeks ago, I found a lump on my breast and it turned out to be nothing. So nobody worry out there. It turned out to be nothing. But when I made the call to get an appointment, to get it checked out, you know, I thought something could be wrong here. And I had to get on a phone call where they made me feel, you know, answer all these questions before I could get my appointment. And they asked me what my gender, you know, what gender do I identify as?

And I said, well, you know, I'm calling about potentially having breast cancer, so I'm a girl. And then they asked again in another way, and I was irritated by that. And then they asked again, they said, what gender were you assigned at birth? And then I lost it on the operator. And I just said, listen, I was not assigned a gender. I was given a gender by God. And this is very, very irritating to me and very frustrating because I'm very concerned that I'm concerned about having potentially having breast cancer. And you're not engendering any trust in your specific, in your hospital, since you don't even acknowledge science and biology. And she was started laughing and she said, I'm sorry, not my fault. I have to ask

these questions. I said, I know. And I don't want to, you know, rip on you. I said, but I want you to go back to your managers and tell them that this is actually stressing women out, that I want to be able to feel competent. It was a very good, by the way, a very good place. But it's so crazy that even a hospital is playing this game. I'm hearing a lot of bigotry coming from you. And I think you need to read the Babylon Beat Guide to Gender. By the way, do you know what Sean just wrote me right now? He wrote, I found the lump.

She told you she found the wrote, I found the lump. She told you, she found the lump. I found the lump. This is, I don't get it. We are accurate at the kitchen table. Well, you know,

we should be a little more enlightened and read your book and how we can expand our horizons of gender. But it's true what you say, that like that to see this ideology taking over uh the medical field um and and we see what it's doing to kids and school and and the horrific you know uh things that they're doing to their

bodies and and that's partially you know i guess that's the serious thing behind what we're doing. You know, obviously we're just making jokes, but bad ideas are, our owner, Seth Dillon often says that bad ideas are allowed to persist because they haven't been sufficiently mocked. And, and so we really want to kind of drive this, this terrible philosophy back into the darkness where it belongs by mocking it because it just doesn't belong can i ask you guys something as past as pastors a music minister how how is it that like and i'm not i want to work we're catholic and so like we're still kind of holding we're still holding the line i think that is that is christian dysphobia yeah just so you guys know we're christian you're catholic got it yeah i, I know. I know. Listen, I sit next to Pete Hegseth and Will,

and I get this every weekend. And I tell them that we have beautiful ancient Gregorian chants, and they have Jesus is my boyfriend music. But here's the deal. In the Catholic Church, we're still holding the line. I mean, God help us with Pope Francis. Not my favorite dude at all. But you guys, how is it that the evangelical church, these conservative Protestant churches, what is happening there? And how is the gender and the LGBTQ++ whatever ideology, how is that permeated? What what's happening is it that they're trying to appeal to youth what happened there how did that happen well i think it goes back to these churches that didn't ground themselves on the word of god you know back when the seeker sensitive movement was gaining steam 40 50 years ago when the what movement was the seeker sensitive movement these churches that uh instead of trying to feed the sheep were instead trying to have you know throw bread and circuses to the masses and you had these

pastors jumping over the stage on dirt bikes and stuff you know to try to try to one-up whatever they did last week um and you have these you have these churches that said no the church isn't for the believers it's so that we can put on a show for the world. And so you had this desperate need for them to be liked by the world, which maybe that was fine in the 80s and 90s when everybody was still kind of Christian-ish or okay with Christianity. But now that the culture has pushed so far beyond that, they're forced to constantly progress along with the culture and they become just like the world and they're lukewarm because they're not founded on the word of God and they really have to bend the knee to the word of God and not the Pope. Exactly. But again, you guys are Christian guys.

Both are family men, three kids. We were talking about your bios beforehand. we were talking about your bios beforehand. And, you know, having three kids in Southern California, Rachel was like, you know what, that is probably just like having nine kids in Wisconsin, Kyle. So you get kudos for that. But then, Joel, you have five. And, you know, here you're taking on a big issue. And again, we see it with our own kids. We're a conservative home. We're a Catholic home. But the permeation of this ideology comes from all over. So is this, this is really about pushing back on this new world philosophy through gender.

Also, I mean, do your kids come into play? Does your family come into play? Is this, because a lot of us will try to go, hey, we want to put food on the table, but I want to make sure my kids can grow up in an America that's kind of like the one I grew up in and the path we're on. This isn't going to be unrecognizable to anybody who grew up in the 70s, 80s, or 90s. Yeah, I think about that a lot with my five kids. My oldest are 10 years old. I think a lot of parents think about the kind of world our kids are going to grow up in. And what I'm focused on is really just raising kids who know the truth and who aren't afraid to stand for the truth.

And none of them are allowed to have phones ever. Zero phones. Internet, phones, you know, TikTok. Like you said, it permeates everywhere. How old are they? How old are your kids? My oldest are 10, and I have twin 10-year-old boys. Have you thought about when you want to let them? Hopefully never.

Maybe a year before they leave the house so I can show them how to use it responsibly. But you can't even watch a youtube video anymore without getting like a mid-roll ad that has some kind of like gender ideology stuff in it you know and so i'm i'm you know i obviously i wouldn't say that my choices are prescribed for every parent but um yeah i think all you all you can do is is do the best you can raising your kids and pray for them a lot you know i pray for my kids every day joel you also are spewing bigotry and i think you need to read our chapter of raising woke babies yes yes we have a track we have a chapter on how to raise your your woke gender fluid children uh it's very how to know if how

to know if your newborn is trans. Okay, give us some of that. Give us some of that. How do we know? Because this is what they're saying. They're saying that babies can tell that they're not the original gender that God gave them. Okay, so tell us. Yeah, so is your newborn trans?

Know the signs. The first sign is crying. If they cry, it's because they're really trying to scream, I'm the wrong gender. Spitting up, pooping. They're soothed by Dylan Mulvaney videos. Scream at Jordan Peterson videos. And also the most important sign is that you really, really want them to be trans. So if those things are the case, then your newborn is probably trans. Well, if you have a little girl who is comforted by their mother's milk, breast milk, that's probably also on the side you could be trans. Maybe you could have added that in. I don't know.

Yes, I don't know where I'm going with that, but it sounds like it could fit in the book somehow. So can I tell you, so I'm just on phones. We have a lot of kids. We've made a lot of mistakes and we talked about this a lot in our podcast we gave them phones too early and it's crack it's so addictive um and they they make promises and the promises are never kept and they're hard to enforce so um we've learned over time just now so what number kid did we so i'm finally at number five. Again, we're slow learners. We're slow learners.

So my number five is 15 years old, and I'm getting big blowback about a phone. So what I did is, this was yesterday, I got a Gab phone, and all it'll do is call and text. It has a calendar on there, and they can take pictures. But there's no internet, there's no other apps, so she can text and she can call, but the danger is the, is the social media is getting online and she can contact us. She can text us, but nothing else, which by the way, it took me a while to find a phone that would just do those limited things. Well, can the phone access the Babylon B that's, that's the important question, but the computer that's in the kitchen. But I can text your screenshots, which is actually how my family group chat works. I hear a lot of that.

Ever since we've kind of been suppressed in social media a lot, it seems like a lot of our content gets shared just in group texts with people among friends and family. That's probably not helpful to the business model. No, it doesn't make us any money, but we're glad people are still getting the content. No, it doesn't make us any money, but we're glad people are still getting the content. So talk to us about, obviously, the books sell well, right? Because the website and also the website does well. And the humor around this wokeness does well. But you have to sell books.

There's an appetite for this, right? There's an appetite for the comedy and the humor. And especially, it's not just on the website. I'm getting funneled a little bit every day i can sit down and sit and sit and read a book with all this humor humor condensed on one topic like ideology yeah we love we love our uh the books that we've put out because it is a fun thing that you can kind of have the babylon b sense of humor and and there's a little bit more breathing room in a book right like we Like we can do these like longer form jokes that take a little bit to build up to versus the very succinct headline. But, you know, the purpose of this book really is to buy it and throw it on your coffee

table for when your liberal relatives come over for Thanksgiving. Or Christmas gifts, right? Christmas gifts. Christmas gifts for your lib relatives. Absolutely. Let's do that. And who wants a book just full of words, boring words? I mean, our book has pictures and stick figure diagrams. And you'll see some very insane. Our art team did a great job on this book. And you will see some things in this book that I guarantee you won't see anywhere else. And you'll never be able to unsee.

Yes. It could be a pornographic book on this topic and your figures and diagrams. This is concerning. I feel like this new Babylon Bee book is going to be read at a school board meeting. Yeah, well, we think that this is actually more appropriate, at least, than the books that are already in the school library. Totally. Absolutely. Totally. Yeah, absolutely. conservative right they have their whole manosphere they've got this whole other culture and women single women are getting more liberal and how do we bring them together

you guys thought about that i think about that a lot i think about bringing men and women together well no it's it's a it is like it's like this growing problem i i feel like i slipped under the door i got i got very lucky i married a wonderful woman. And I feel like soon after we got married, a lot of this huge cultural rift started opening up. And it's not good. And whenever you bring it up online, this happens when I bring it up online, you get a bunch of men in your comments pointing the finger at women. What about women? And you get a bunch of women in your comments pointing the finger at men. What about men? That classic Adam and Eve scenario where they're just pointing the fingers at each other. And the first step, I give the advice that I give to anyone

who's looking for marriage advice is if you want someone else to admit their sin, you have to be willing to admit yours first and your shortcomings first. So I talk to men, I say, men, you got to figure it. You got to figure out where your shortcomings are. You got to figure out where you're sitting. You have to take responsibility as a leader and, uh, you know, and don't be afraid of a, a slightly center left girl necessarily either. You know, my, my wife was kind of center left when we, when we met. And I think a lot of women, uh, if they meet a good man, they kind of take on their husband's politics a little bit. So the political divide isn't necessarily something to be afraid of. If you meet a good person who in our book, How to Attract Other Genders. How to Attract Other Genders. So, you know what?

I'm just going to push back on you, Joel. We've done a lot of episodes on this podcast on love and marriage because we want people to find love in marriage. We believe you should have as much in common as possible, although it is true that women tend to get more conservative after they get married. And I also think it was great what you said about- Because they can rely on their family, not the government. Exactly. They rely on a man and a family and not the government. That's exactly right.

But also it was interesting. We had our daughter on a podcast last week where we did talk about this issue of men and women. And her thing was, yeah, women are definitely getting pulled in this left direction and, and there's, you know, you know, this rift, but also she said a lot of guys are playing video games and not working out and then pissed off or, or frustrated that girls don't like them. Um, so it does, it does go both ways. Um, one of you is from California. The other is from Ohio.

Is it Joel? You're from Ohio. Yes. So we also had a podcast where we talked and we had a big, we had a big on camera on Fox and friends debate about men, Midwestern men. First of all, America is very regional as you know, right? It's got, you know, East coast, West coast, Southern guys, Western guys, Midwest men. First of all, America is very regional, as you know, right? It's got, you know, East Coast, West Coast, Southern guys, Western guys, Midwest men. I have a lot of pissed off

people, men and women around America, because I said that the most underappreciated and slash the most ideal man for marriage are Midwestern men. And especially the Southerners have come out and boy, they are mad as hell that I said something like that. What are your thoughts on, since we're talking gender, what's the ideal man? Where does he come from? What are the traits? You agree with me on the Midwest, obviously. And we'll see if Kyle objects at all. Yeah. Well, do you agree? Midwestern men. Why? I don't know. Yeah, I have no idea. Wow, he's not defending.

This is so Midwestern again. He can't even. He's so humble. He can't even defend his own region. One time I was hanging out with Joel, and he was wearing three flannel shirts. So I don't know if that's attractive maybe it's the flannel yeah well kyle let's let's talk about why men aren't so great in like the west coast unpack that for us well you're never sure if they're really men really men you know that's have you that? There's that meme that's like, do you ever watch Gen Z dating, the Gen Z dating world and and feel like you caught the last chopper out of Nam?

You know, I saw that. That is the that is one of the best memes. It's so true, isn't it? Yeah. Wait right there. We'll have more of this conversation next. Some things require a lot of work to grow, like plants, hair, babies or your savings. We'll have more of this conversation next. interest for the first six months. Before you know it, your savings will grow without you even noticing. Ooh, which reminds me, I need a haircut. Conditions apply. Ends December 15th. Rate is annual, calculated daily, and will vary based on account balance. Visit scotiabank.com slash

right-size savings for full details. But yeah, you know, the California guys are cool. You know, we laid back, eat sushi, go surfing, snowboarding. Soy lattes. So I like that for a while. Not me personally, but. i was living that lifestyle i lived in la and i was doing sushi and dating the surfer guys but they're not marriage material well i'm not this is very general kyle this is not this is a very general broad base you're a pastor you're a different category i think one thing one thing women want to look for in a man is a man with honor a man who respects her her um her boundaries and and doesn't push her you know sexually before you're married and and and all

that i think with with women but after you're married yeah after after you're married it's very game but um anything's on the table after that good california guy when you're looking for an ideal woman, the reason I say don't get too caught up in politics, I think it's important that your values largely match. But I think a lot of women are just kind of by default center left because that's just what our culture is. But I think the more important thing you want to look at

is how she treats her mom and her dad, the relationship she has with her parents and her siblings. A lot of women maybe have center left politics, but have very conservative lifestyles. And they don't really even think about the mismatch between the way they live and that common sense and the politics. And so you have to look beyond some of those superficial political things, I think, especially now with things so divided politically. That's a fair point. And I think you're right. If you have like a socialist that you think is good looking and you want to date, that's probably a red flag. You're going to probably bring her back. But

there are some that have some left. Don't date AOC. Is that your view? Yeah. Don't do this. Michael AOC is attractive, but I'm not going to date her. The socialist chicks are always picking at your fries and, you know, putting them on the airplane. They want stuff for free. But also, I just want to say, like, probably don't take dating advice from humorists at the Babylon Bay. We probably don't know what we're talking about. We can ask the question, should should Republicans or Democrats stay? We always say no. And it's not the politics, Joel. It's because politics reflect values. And so I

think you're right. I think that you're 100 percent right. Look at how they treat their family, their mom, their dad and how they actually live their life. You could say that about Hispanics, too, right? Like Hispanics live a very conservative religious lifestyle. And so many of them vote Democrat. And there's just this disconnect. So that can happen. But a lot of the times, like the Mary Matlin, James Carville thing doesn't always work out. But I do think you can find yourself in a situation where you're not finding a conservative woman. So you might have to take a chance on finding one that's just a little left of center and hopefully bring her over.

Yeah. But I'm married, you know, someone who was to the right of Attila the Hun. She made me more conservative. Yeah. I was to the right of Rush Limbaugh. He had no problem. So you guys, with the book, we have a very special place in our home. You said, put her on a coffee table and offend your liberal guests or family members when they come over. We have a shrine to the Democrat Party and the liberals, and it's our guest bathroom. And so some pictures, some artwork. I hung my picture with Obama. I went to the White House, and you get your picture with Michelle and

Obama for the Christmas party when Sean was in Congress. And so that is hanging over- The guest toilet. And so when a liberal comes over, I always go, oh, you have to go to that thing. I always send him to that bathroom. We have a mock-up of Hunter Biden's artwork as well. Yeah, Pete gave me the Hunter Biden print. So I hung that up. And so now Sean wants to put the Babylon Bee in the bathroom. So the guy did gender. It is a great toilet reader. We recommend it. Yeah. We recommend you get one for every bathroom in your house. In fact, if you have a lot of bathrooms, make sure you get lots of copies.

Exactly. I have to imagine it's a great Christmas gift as well. If you celebrate Christmas, a great gift for Kwanzaa or any of the other holidays that people celebrate. Or any of the other holidays that people celebrate. I absolutely love it. Well, listen, I just want to thank you guys for coming on, but also for just bringing so much joy and humor and levity to these really troubling times that we're in. And again, it's no joke. I would say at least a fifth of the family group chat text chain is Matt Lumpy's.

I'm sorry it's not helping the business model that they're getting screenshotted. We'll try and send links. We are a huge family, so links are better. And just on a personal note, too, I think it's so there's more men need to not run away from their faith, not run away from their families. Good, strong Christian men in culture, I think, matter. They're examples for other young men. And you both are examples of that and having fun and making an impact and being creative, but also, you know, focusing on what's important, which is families and kids and spouses. you know, focusing on what's important, which is families and kids and spouses. So thank you for that part of what you do as well. So important. I think now more than ever in today's culture. And again, it kind of creates some fun connections with, you know, with the book and gender. But again, sending out an example for the world of being Christian, of being a man and being a father is fantastic today. So thank you guys for that as well. And congratulations to your wives who like-

Have to put up with you. Well, they have to put up with you, but they also gave you guys that freedom to kind of pursue something totally off the wall and it has worked out and it's made the country better. You're welcome. Thank you. All right. Thanks, guys. You're going to be in our bathroom, right? All right. Kyle Mann, Joel Berry, thank you for joining us at the Kitchen Table. Again, you can always find them at the Babylon Bee, Great Humor, and maybe the next podcast

we can always unpack some of the great humor that one of them wrote. You can get the book, The Babylon Bee, Guide to Gender, the third in their guides. Pick it up. Great book we are. And we're going to read it and then put it in our bathroom. All right. Thanks, guys.

Thanks for having us. Thanks so much. All right. A great conversation. What fun, good guys they are. Yeah. And one of the questions that I think a lot of, do these guys just sit up and drink bourbon or beer or smoke marijuana and come up with creative topics?

Good family men coming up with great humor. They might be drinking a little bourbon. They've got to be doing something. After the kids are in bed. After the kids are in bed. But, yeah, it is interesting. You bring up such a great point, Sean, about the importance of culture and how we've seeded that so much left and here are two guys and boy they face like you know it's such a threat that like you know the censors came out and said and and the media has attacked them for what for

telling jokes because jokes are effective and jokes poked holes whether it was covid especially during covid so much stupid, funny stuff that was hurting people, but was so ridiculous that needed to be called out. They were awesome during COVID with their jokes and their headlines. And I just think you're right. Culture is powerful. They've jumped into that space. I mean, they could have done great work as a pastor. they've jumped into that space. I mean, they could have, you know, done great work as a pastor. God knows we need more great music ministries and ministers in the world, but this was a space. And it's just a reminder, you know, if you have a husband, a brother, a sibling, a child who's looking at going into, you know, uh, you know, whether it's being a writer or a, an actor or

director, or going into this kind of space that they space that they've gone into comedy, encourage them. It makes a difference, especially if they have your point of view and your values. So the left, their ideas are so stupid. I know. And they're just ridiculous. And they want those ideas to be taken serious by everybody, which is why they work so hard at shutting down any kind of dissent. They go after Fox News. But also, it was the importance of shutting down contravailing voices on social media, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, on TikTok.

They want to silence people because their ideas are so weak that they can't withstand scrutiny. And so when the Babylon Bee comes in and pokes holes and fun at them, it really, it's the emperor has no clothes. These guys are idiots. Their ideas are stupid. And when we laugh at them, all of a sudden, again, we see they're naked. And what they're trying to sell the American people isn't good for the country, isn't good for relationships, isn't good for humanity, isn't good for kids. And so God bless them for doing it. And again, doing it in such a fun, awesome way. Yeah, it's really funny stuff. So if you haven't gone on to check out their website, you should. And apparently they have all these videos. I've seen a few of them, these parody videos on YouTube.

But I really hope they, I mean, I think there's an appetite for a sketch comedy show like SNL. And boy, they would be the perfect people to do that. They said stay tuned. Cal said stay tuned. So we will stay tuned for that because the world needs more of that. Well, yeah. Again, their book is The Babylon Bee Guide to Gender. Can't wait to read that one.

I'm sure it's going to be just as much fun as checking out the headlines on their website. We want to thank you all for joining us at the Kitchen Table. If you like our podcast, you can rate, review, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I always subscribe. We drop Thursday, no, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I almost got that right. And again, if you do that, you get a notice when you subscribe. You get a notice every time we drop,

which we'd appreciate that. And until next time, Rachel, see you later. See you guys later. Bye. See you at the kitchen table. Listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription, an Apple Podcast, and Amazon Prime members can listen to this show

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