Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 13 | Two Gay Men + A Christian Baker Walk into a Courtroom

Episode Date: June 6, 2018

Christian baker Jack Phillips just won his historic Supreme Court case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. What is it, what does it mean, and is it a win for the First Amendment? Also, we'll hear about a high school valedictorian who was censored for talking about God in his graduation speech. I'll quickly cover Bill Clinton and Miss America and then answer two audience questions: "Is birth control moral?" and "Why aren't you Catholic?" Copyright CRTV. All rights reserved.

Hey guys, welcome to episode 13. I think it's, I think it's 13 of CRTV's Relatable with me, Ali Stucky. For those of you who don't know, this is a podcast that discusses relevant cultural, political, and theological issues from a conservative and reformed Christian perspective. Last week, we talked about free speech, what it is, what it isn't, why it's important. And we touched on another part of the First Amendment, which is religious liberty. And that is what we are going to focus on today, at least partly. We are going to discuss the masterpiece, Cake Shop, Supreme Court case, which involves two gay men and a Christian cake baker, as well as a lower level case taken on by First Liberty Institute about Sam Blackledge, the valedictorian at an Illinois high school who was

censored at graduation for planning to include remarks about his faith in his commencement address. And then I will touch on a couple other topics in the news, including Bill Clinton and as America. I will also answer a couple of your questions that you guys sent me. You sent me a ton of really good ones, but I only ever have time for a couple. So I'm going to answer one regarding the morality of birth control that I think I got last week. And then another question involving Catholicism. But first, before I do any of that, I want to point out a mistake that I made on last week's podcast regarding the Religious Liberty Report I cited. I said that Secretary Pompeo released a Religious Liberty Report last week, which he did, but that was not actually the report I read from.

I read from the 2017 United States Commission for International Religious Freedom, which is different. And also not the most up-to-date report, which is their report from 2018. All of the facts that I read to you are correct. But I somehow, and honestly, I don't know how. I am not careless. I don't know how it happened. I cited the wrong report and said inaccurately, who actually released the report. so I apologized for that, but I just wanted to let you guys know.

Okay, moving on. Let's get into the Masterpiece Cake Shop Supreme Court case, the ruling of which came out this week. Those of you who have been following me for a while might remember that I made a GoFundMe page last fall to raise money for Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cake Shop, who lost a lot of business due to the bad PR surrounding this case.

And on that point, just a note, I've gotten a lot of criticism from people saying, oh, well, that's just the market doing its job. Who cares if he's lost money? Why would you start a GoFundMe page? Aren't you a conservative? And, okay, you're right. I am totally fine and for the market responding however it wants to to service that it

deems bad, even if I don't agree that it's bad service. But another part of the free market is that people can give charitably to causes that they care about. And that's what we did with the GoFundMe page. So, yeah, don't try to out-capitalist me, okay? I know what I'm doing. Anyway, the case against Jack Phillips was filed by two gay men, David Mullins and Charlie Craig, who went into the cake shop in 2012 to order a cake for their wedding.

Jack Phillips said, I will bake you a cake, I will make you cookies, I will sell you brownies, I will make you anything in this whole store, but sorry, I do not make wedding cakes for same-sex couples. Phillips is a devout Christian who believes in the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman. He was not rude from what I hear. He did not refuse them service. He just said for this particular occasion, it would go against my sincerely held religious beliefs to use my artistic expression to render you a cake that celebrates something that I consider to be sin.

He didn't think anything of his interaction, apparently, until, of course, Mullins and Craig sued him. The couple filed a charge with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission accusing Phillips of violating the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, the state of Colorado ruled it in favor of Mullins and Crague and said, no, Jack Phillips, you must make gay wedding cakes no matter what your religious convictions are. Well, this case made it to the Supreme Court, who is supposed to determine whether or not Phillips is protected by the First Amendment to choose to not make this cake due to his religious views.

And they did, and they didn't. So this was a 7-2 ruling in Phillips's favor, meaning that, yes, technically this means that Phillips's First Amendment rights prevailed. I tweeted as much when it happened that this is a great day for the First Amendment, and I believe that. However, others on both sides of the aisle would say that it was not a great day for the First Amendment, and I will explain why, because I also partly agree with that. You've probably read headlines calling this a, quote, narrow ruling,

even though it was a large majority who ruled in favor of Phillips. But what they mean by narrow is the scope of ruling, not the number of justices in the majority. So here is why people are saying that it is a narrow ruling. Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion. Justice Kennedy was nominated by Reagan and has written the majority opinion for quite a few major cases, like Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Obergefell v. Hodges,

which was the case that ruled the gay people have a fundamental right to marry. He has been a swing vote in quite a few cases. A lot of conservatives don't like Kennedy. A lot of people say that he's not a good justice. but he wrote the majority. He wrote what people are calling the very narrow majority opinion of the court on this masterpiece cake shop case.

And that's because the opinion Kennedy wrote did very little to actually secure the rights of religious people from being forced to compromise their religious values to appease the gay community or any community. The main reason Kennedy ruled in favor of Phillips, according to his written opinion, was not necessarily because of his First Amendment rights to bake cakes that align with his conscience, but because the Colorado's civil rights commission in the state of Colorado were hostile towards Phillips and his religion in the original case proving themselves to be biased. As Kennedy notes in his opinion, the state of Colorado said that Phillips's faith is despicable,

implied that it was just rhetorical compared his religious belief to justifications for Jim Crow and the Holocaust. And this treatment, Kennedy said, and I think rightly so, proved Colorado and the Civil Rights Commission was not neutral, as there were. supposed to be to Phillips's faith and made moral judgments that they should not have made and certainly should not have affected the ruling. So here's why conservatives in particular, though, are calling that a narrow ruling. Kennedy didn't have much to say about Phillips's right to bake the cake based on his religious views. The contention was with, like I said, how the court

treated Phillips, which doesn't lay very much groundwork for future rulings to protect religious people from being forced by the government to provide a particular service that contradicts their faith. It had more to say about how the court handled the case than the case itself. Some people, particularly conservatives, are going so far as to say that this ruling did and said nothing about religious freedom. And I disagree with that. While I do think he certainly could have gone further to emphasize Phillips's First Amendment rights, I do still think that Kennedy very obviously regarded religion in this opinion, as some of the same. something that should be taken seriously that should be respected as something that should never

act as a deciding factor in a person's honesty or decency when it comes to rulings. He called out the clear anti-Christian bias in the Colorado courts and reproved the state courts for not respecting Phillips's religious freedom. So I don't think that this case did absolutely nothing for the First Amendment. It did highlight the wrongness and the unconstitutionality of a court ruling against a person because they believe someone's faith is either insincere or inherently bigoted. I think that is at least somewhat of a win on the religious freedom front. But the majority opinion by Kennedy didn't cover the important topic of free speech protected by the First Amendment in this case. But Justice Thomas, a conservative justice joined by Gorsick,

wrote a concurrence that while obviously it agreed with the ruling that the court came to, added breadth to it by discussing the issue of free speech. Basically, Thomas emphasized that no law, obviously we know by the First Amendment, no law a state makes can abridge free speech and artistic expression qualifies as free speech. Jack Phillips is an artist and in being forced to make a wedding cake for a gay wedding, he would have been through expressive speech condoning the gay marriage that he religiously opposes. Here's how Thomas worded it.

Forcing Phillips to make custom wedding cakes for same-sex marriages requires him to, at least, at the very least, acknowledge that same-sex weddings are weddings and suggest that they should be celebrated. The precise message he believes his faith forbids. The First Amendment prohibits Colorado from requiring Phillips to bear witness to these facts or to affirm a belief with which he disagrees. He based much of his argument off of a 1995 case, Hurley, the Irish-American, gay, lesbian, a bisexual group of Boston, which ruled that private organizations are permitted to exclude

groups if those groups communicate messages contrary to the one the organizing group wants to convey. So in this particular case, it was a parade that was allowed to exclude this gay group because to force them to include the group would have meant that the state was forcing them to express something that they didn't want to express. They said that a parade, the court said that a parade is a form of expression and in the same way, Thomas is arguing so is a cake. Now, of course, there are opposing views on this. The majority opinion said that Colorado treated Philadelphia differently from other bakers in previous cakes who also refused to bake cakes that offended them. That's why they said, hey, Jack Phillips wasn't treated fairly.

Look at this previous cases. There were these three cases in which bakers were asked to create a Bible-shaped cake that explicitly stated homosexuality is a sin, and those bakers refused. Yet they were not sanctioned by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. So they concluded that this, the court concluded that this was a violation of Phillips' First Amendment religious expression rights. However, the dissenting argument by Ginsburg and Sotomayers said that this case was different because Phillips refused to perform a particular service to the customer are based solely on their identity, not write a particular message that he didn't like.

Huffpo, which I know they are crazy a lot of the times, but they summed up the dissent pretty well. They said there's an important difference between a bakery that refused to make a cake for anyone with anti-LGBQ language on it and a bakery that refused to make a cake for someone in particular, which they would have made for others because that someone was a member of the LGBTQ community. While the former is not discrimination, the latter is. That's what Huffpo says. But in my opinion, it all goes back to whether or not you believe that the making of a cake is religious expression or just any kind of expression, which is exactly why Thomas's conclusions make more sense and hold more water, in my opinion, than Kennedy's do,

who really focused on how the courts disrespected Phillips's religion, not how the case itself affected his religion, religious expression, and free speech. That is why people are saying that this was narrow. Of course, though, the reaction to the ruling by many on the left is absolutely absurd, talking about how this is a step back, how discriminatory this ruling is against gay people who just want to love who they want to love. No, it's actually not. It's really not. Kennedy is the guy who wrote the majority opinion on the case that ruled that same-sex marriage is a fundamental right. He is down with the LGBT community. So this is not about that. Gay people can love who they want to love in this country without fear of punishment, but they, via the state, should not be able to force someone to communicate a message through their artistic expression that the artist does not agree with. No matter what you think about the actual ruling of the case, no matter what you think about Kennedy's argument, The point is this, we should not have to live in a country where the government can not only tell you

that you cannot conduct your business in a way that aligns with your sincerely held religious beliefs, but also that you have to use your talents, your artistry, your expression to convey a concept idea or message that directly contradicts what your faith teaches. I mean, is that what we want? That is censorship? Remember, Jack Phillips did not refuse them service. He said, I'll make you anything but a wedding cake. He's not discriminating against them. He is discriminating, if you will, against the specific act of marriage between two people of the same sex,

which is simply living according to the Bible, which he happens to follow very closely. So for anyone saying that Phillips is a bigot for not condoning same-sex marriage, I say he's no more of a bigot than you are. You don't agree with his lifestyle. He doesn't agree with yours. See, here's the thing.

So many non-religious progressives expect Christians and religious people to fall in line with their set of morals. And if we don't, we are the mean bigots. Like, they don't understand why we take the Bible seriously, why we have a set of biblical principles we adhere to? Because they don't. But what they don't realize is that they are just as much zealots as any Christian. They are just as adamant about the correctness of their own religion as we are. They demand tolerance. they demand inclusion, they demand acceptance, they demand we latch on to their definitions of love and

hate, they are the actual bigots. They are the ones who think that they are better than Christians because of their set of beliefs. I don't think that I'm better than anyone because of my Christian beliefs. I just want to adhere to the Bible. I'm pretty sure them believing that they're better than me because they believe something different than what I believe is the definition of bigotry. Nevertheless, though, Phillips won. He was treated in a hostile manner by the calls. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, his religious views were respected by the Supreme Court. It affirmed that we still respect as a rule people's religious views in the court of law, even though it may have failed to fully ensure religious people's right to express themselves

in a way that aligns with their faith in the public sphere. No doubt we will be seeing more cases like this, I think, in the years to come. I do believe that Christians are under attack. I think that we will continue to be under attack. it will continue to be hard for Christians to speak out about and live out their faith, especially in the face of the sexual revolution that's been happening over the past 10 years. We will incessantly be labeled as bigots for believing in biblical marriage. And we have to stand strong and stay faithful.

And most of all know that our hope isn't in the courts or in government, but in Jesus' return and his ultimate restoration of all things. Now, moving on to our next case that has not yet made it to the Supreme Court, the case of Sam Blackledge, co-valedictorian at his Illinois High School, where his school censored his religious statements before he delivered his long-planned commencement speech. I interviewed one of the lawyers on the case from First Liberty Institute, and here it is. Keisha, thank you so much for joining us. If you could tell us quickly who you are and what you do. I am Keisha Russell. I am the Associate

Council at First Liberty Institute in Texas, and we are the largest legal organization is dedicated exclusively to protecting religious liberty for all Americans. And tell me about this Sam Blackledge case. That's the case that I am fascinated in right now. So Sam was the valedictorian for his May 2018 class at West Prairie High School in Illinois. He was asked to give the valedictorian address. And just minutes before his speech, they told him that he would have to remove all the references to his faith and religion out of that speech if he wanted to give.

Okay, so he couldn't talk about the thing that's probably most important to him, even though he had earned the right to do that by being valedictorian. And they didn't tell him until the very last second. Why didn't they wait so long? Well, Sam gave the speech to the school officials earlier that day, assuming according to the criteria that they asked. And they told him right before he was going to deliver it that he couldn't deliver it in the way he wanted to. Did they tell him why? Is this a rule that he failed to follow? No, it wasn't a rule he fell to follow.

They said they didn't want the graduation to turn into, quote, a religious ceremony because of the references to his faith and his speech. So what did he end up doing? He gave the speech in a redacted form. So there were quite a few paragraphs that he had to eliminate from the speech. And he was very upset about it. But he gave the speech and he wanted to respect their wishes and not be. you know, it's fortunate. Yeah, I think anyone would be upset about that. After all of that hard work,

he obviously was because he reached out to First Liberty Institute. And what have you guys done for him? So we wrote a letter to the school district explaining the Constitution and that Sam was well within his rights to express his religious beliefs and his graduation speech. And we asked them to amend their policies to properly reflect what the Constitution allows, and also for them to apologize to Sam. And have they done any of those things? No, they have not responded yet. Okay.

Do you expect them to respond anytime soon? I mean, I don't really know what the norm is for these kind of things. Well, we've asked them to respond by July, so they have some time to think about it and figure out what they want to do. We hope they'll respond. We can't guarantee that they will. But no matter what they do, we're committed to protecting Sam and students in that position in the future. So we'll do what we have to do in order to make the message clear. And what does that entail? Say they say, no, we're not going to do that or they just don't respond by July. What do you guys do? Well, we escalate the matter. And that can include a few things. I can't say exactly what it would entail just because I'm limited to what I could say about it. But, But, you know, we're willing to take it all the way if we have to. So we're hoping that they will be amenable to our request. And these kind of cases that you guys work with, are schools typically are they typically compliant in these kind of things? Or do you guys get a lot of pushback?

It depends on the school. It definitely varies. You can't put it in one category or another. We're hoping that they'll fall into the category of the school districts that have in the past and, you know, just very apologetic and gracious about it and willing to move forward. Yeah, that's the goal. I mean, you guys probably don't want to have to take it to the Supreme Court, but, you know, you will if you have to. Will you explain what exactly religious liberty, freedom of speech, the First Amendment means?

Because it gets conflated with all these other speech issues that we have going on in the media. Tell us what it actually is and what it is not. So, you know, religious expression, freedom of speech, those things are pretty widely protected. So I'll sort of narrow it into the context of school, public school in particular. So private religious expression by students is fully protected. And what is private religious expression versus public? So, and what I mean, I mean private speech meaning a speech that is attributable to a student. And they're like to express that speech in public. So I'll make that clearer. Gotcha. So yes, there's cases that say that,

students nor teachers shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gates. That means just because a student goes to school, that doesn't mean that you can now squelch their freedom of speech. Okay, there are certain instances where schools are allowed to censor speech if it's lewd or profane or something like that, but religious speech is completely protected. And students are allowed to share their faith with their classmates and in public and school and at graduation ceremonies. There's a Department of Education guide, some guidelines on that on their website that have been there since 2003 that state that as long as students are selected with neutral criteria and the student's speech is they have primary control over the speech. They're allowed to give it in public

and the school should not censure. So can you explain the difference between this happening at a public school, which Sam's school is public versus this happening at a private school. If I went to a Christian school and I was valedictorian and I wanted to go up there and say there's no such thing as God. The private Christian school would be able to tell me, you know, you can't say that because they're private, right? Yes. And the difference is that the Constitution protects us from government action. There's instances where it does apply to private entities, but in this particular situation, the First Amendment protects you against government action. So a private school is not government. A private school is private. Public school, high school, like the one Sam goes to,

their government entities. They're not allowed to squelure free speech. Are you guys seeing an increase in the infringement on religious liberty at public schools? Increase, I would say yes. I think it sort of seems to go with the trends in the public sector. So right now, a lot of religious views are in contention with the views in the public sector, with secular views. And so it just so happens at Christianity, and the tenets of the Christian faiths sort of require you to be more more vocal at times. And that sometimes can, you know, cause a lot of conflict, particularly in schools. And then you have school officials that are trying to reduce that conflict in some ways or in some cases, stay out of the possibility that someone is going to charge them with establishing religion in some way,

just because they allow a student to say something. But allowing a student to say something is not endorsing religion. that is allowing the student to express rights that there are viewpoints that they have that are totally protected under the Constitution. So it's very different. Yeah. I mean, the First Amendment doesn't condone speech. It just allows you to express speech or express your religious views. And I don't know about you, but I just get a little bit worried when I see what's going on on college campuses and even in high schools, how quick we are to censor speech, not just Christian speech, but any kind of dissenting viewpoint. And to me, I mean,

That's what America was founded on. So do you guys worry about this upcoming generation, not knowing how to properly debate and take on an opposing idea without just shutting it down completely? Yeah, that's our hope is that people go to the place. We understand how important it is for us to have this kind of discourse, especially in educational institutions and public and schools at all levels from elementary to the university level.

It's really important that we encourage that kind of conversation so that these students who end up, in some cases running the country, will be able to tackle these issues in a way that is constitutional and is, you know, according to all the premises that we found of the country upon. It's important, I think, that we continue to champion that and continue to advocate for that kind of freedom. Yeah. And I think what people need to realize and you guys do a good job of, I think, emphasizing this is that this is not a conservative or liberal issue. People, a lot times I think they associate the First Amendment with, oh, conservative Christians just trying to protect their viewpoints when that's not true. I think it's the First Amendment was set up to

protect all kinds of opposing ideas and it shouldn't be a right or a left issue. Unfortunately, it's become that, don't you think? I think so. And like I said, I think because the fact that religion oftentimes is in contradiction with a lot of secular viewpoints right now, it becomes difficult. to see that just because someone doesn't agree, just because someone's religion is maybe in contentious with secular viewpoints, that doesn't mean that that needs to be silenced. We need to encourage that kind of conversation and just realize that people are allowed to have those different views. And that's why we live in America. That's why it's so great because we're allowed to express those views without government retribution. Exactly. And that's what you guys are here for.

So what do you guys hope will happen in the realm of religious liberty, particularly as it pertains to public education in the next five years. Well, I think, and going back to what we talked about earlier, Ali, that we would love to see, you know, educational institutions respect the First Amendment completely to allow full conversation and discourse about all of these topics, especially the controversial ones, so that we can get our students prepared to have these dialogues in Congress or to be able to vote in a way that they're informed and they can bring something to the table in the future. It's going to be really difficult to do that and to have a well-informed population if you squelch viewpoints

just because they're not popular. You said well-informed, and I think that's the thing that people are lacking, is just proper information. I know that my followers always ask me, where do you get your information? So tell us about the resources that you guys have so people can just know what their rights are. Yeah, absolutely. So first liberty.org, you spell out first, F-I-R-S-T, and we have some protection kits there. Under resources, you can see the First Amendment rights, the religious liberty rights for students and teachers in public schools. We have a kit that provides all that information and explains what you're able to do and not do and what schools are able to do and not do. We think it's important that people look at these things and they know they're right so that they can identify when they're being infringed upon. Well, thank you. For everything that you guys do, I think it's so important. It's probably increasingly important. And I appreciate you taking the time to inform me and inform my audience about the Blackledge case. And I look forward to continuing to follow that.

Well, I look forward to talking to you again, Ellie. Thank you so much for what you do. Thanks, Gisha. So we will continue to follow the Sam Blackledge case. Like we heard in the interview of public schools in some ways, an extension of the state and cannot under the First Amendment, stifle speech it doesn't agree with. Okay, I was going to talk about Bill Clinton and Miss America, but I would rather get to your question. So I'll just sum it up really quickly. Basically, Bill Clinton won't fully own up to taking advantage of Monica Lewinsky because he's gross. And on Miss America, it's apparently no longer going to be a thing to judge girls based on their appearance. I have mixed feelings about that.

On the one hand, yes, inward beauty is far superior. And I do agree with taking away the swimsuit portion because I personally think it's objectifying. I know people have different views on that. I just don't see a good justification for it. But on the other hand, there's nothing wrong inherently with beauty. And I know pageant contestants who are kind, smart, talented, virtuous, and are beautiful. They're the whole package. And I think that's great.

It is a beauty pageant. I just think that they went too far and saying that the exterior won't matter at all. I feel like now they purposely won't choose pretty women. That's not fair. It just won't be a pageant, period. which is maybe the direction that we're going in, and I'm okay with that. I have friends whom I love that have done pageants, but I personally don't see really what good they contribute to society.

So, in my personal opinion, it's fine if they're no more. Okay, to your questions. One great question that I got, birth control, moral or not. This is a difficult question, I think. It's a little complex. also I don't necessarily recommend listening to this if you're a guy I mean you can maybe but especially if you're like related to me and you're a male and you're not my husband I don't know kind of freaks me out knowing that you're listening but I want to answer this question because I think it's good um on the

one hand I think God is sovereign and you will get pregnant when he wills obviously we're talking about in the context of marriage here maybe the advancement of modern medicine is a gift of common grace to women who are married having sex but are not in school they're in low. paying job or they are in school they're in low paying jobs they're not in a position to care very well for children um i certainly know godly women who use birth control and their relationships with jesus are genuine and i don't think that them using birth control means that they don't trust god it just means where it just means that that's where they are in life i also know people who have been in very difficult circumstances who have been poor who have been in school who have gotten

and pregnant and everything has turned out great for them. It was hard, but it worked well. My parents, case in point, when they were first, when they first got married, my husband and I personally are not and have not ever been. That said, I do think it largely depends on your heart. And this was a lesson that was very hard for me to hear when I first heard it. The Bible says that children are a blessing. And if you view children as an inconvenience to your life as something that you are putting off because you want to accomplish some arbitrary checklist, then that is wrong. Now, I think that there's something to be said for spending time with your husband when you first get married. We've been married for two and a half years and we don't have kids yet.

And I'm very thankful for the time we've spent together. But without getting into a lot of detail, we will see what happens in the near future. But I don't want to, nor do I think it's right to put off kids just for your career. I say that as a career-oriented person, person. Also, a note on birth control, some birth control prevents fertilization, some prevents implantation, which means that a fertilized egg would not be able to survive in the uterus because of the birth control pill. So depending on your view, that could be seen as an abortion, but it depends on the birth control pill. So just make sure that you check into that. You don't want to be accidentally, you know, making a moral decision that you didn't mean to make. Someone asked me this question on

Instagram, which is basically where I get all my questions, which I hope is a joke because it made me laugh, but I'll take it seriously because I've been asked about this a lot. The question is, when will you reject the heresy of Protestantism and join the one holy Catholic and apostolic church? And that would be why I am not Catholic. I'm just kidding. I have friends that are Catholic. I know a lot of very godly Catholic. So please don't say that I'm anti-Catholic. You have your reasons, you Catholics out there, that you're not Protestant. I have. have my reasons that I am not Catholic and I love you regardless of that. So please allow me, without calling this an attack on Catholicism, let me tell you why I personally am not Catholic,

because I do have beef with Catholicism, obviously, or else I would be Catholic myself. And my basic beef with Catholicism is essentially the beef that Martin Luther and Protestants throughout the ages have had with Catholicism. And that is, even though at its core, Catholicism believes that Christ is the only means of salvation, it just puts too many obstacles in the way of the truth that, quite frankly, I don't believe are biblical. The confession, the our fathers, the Hail Mary's. They're not biblical. And they put priests and people, Mary was just a person, by the way, in place of Jesus. Who is our only intercessor? I don't need a priest to forgive my sins. Jesus did that for me. I don't need Mary to intercede on my behalf. Jesus did that for me.

I don't need to pray to the saints. I pray to Jesus. Also, Catholics today and their freedom to read the Bible to interpret scripture, etc. can be owed to Martin Luther and the Protestants who protested because the Catholic Church's hierarchies oppressed laypeople, made them pay indulgences to secure their salvation and prevented them from their own personal relationship with Christ. And while like I said, I know awesome, godly Catholics and some not so awesome, not so godly Protestants, That said, the Catholic friends I had in college had no idea that you could have a relationship with Jesus on Earth. It was like mind-blowing to them when I talked to them about this. They thought that if you were just good, if you did the sacraments, went to Mass, confess your sins, then you're good, you're fine. Catholics have done, by the way, though, a heck of a lot of good. Charities, hospitals, so many organizations dedicated to humanity are run by Catholics. Pro-life organizations run by Catholics. And that should not be overlooked. There are plenty of Protestants, like I said, who are not really Christians, just as there are many Catholics who are not

really Christians. And to me, as long as you believe that it is by grace through faith in that alone that you are saved in Christ, then you are a Christian. We can have our liturgical differences. It's when we have serious theological differences about what saves you that I get, then that I have a more serious conversation. Anyway, that is all for now. I love y'all. Email, me, Allie at the conservative millennial blog.com. Follow me on social media if you would like leave me a nice five-star review if you would like share this with your friends if you would like. Okay, love y'all. Have a great week.