Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 379 | Texas Is Open, Cuomo Is a Creep, and Rand Paul Is Based

Episode Date: March 3, 2021

Yesterday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that Texas will no longer have a statewide mask mandate and that the government will no longer require businesses to operate at reduced capacity. Then, we discuss New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and the #MeToo moment he's having right now. Three women have accused him of harassment, and unlike Cuomo's nursing home COVID scandal, the media actually seems to care about this one. And, it's time we addressed the much-talked-about exchange between Senator Rand Paul and Rachel Levine during Dr. Levine's confirmation hearing.  --- Today's sponsors: Built Bar: Stay healthy in the new year! Go to https://www.BuiltBar.com and use promo code RELATABLE to get 20% off your order! StartMail: Start securing your email privacy with StartMail! Sign up today and you’ll get 50% off your first year! Go to https://www.StartMail.com/ALLIE --- Today's sources: TheBlaze: Texas drops coronavirus restrictions, opens all businesses 100%, ends statewide mask mandate: https://bit.ly/386k0Lp NYT: Cuomo Must Admit to His ‘Predatory Behavior,’ Accuser Says: https://nyti.ms/2OfXQPE Lindsey Boylan on Medium: My story of working with Governor Cuomo: https://bit.ly/3ecLYch Video: Rand Paul questions Rachel Levine on gender-affirming care for minors: hhttps://bit.ly/30bxvVK Video: Rep. Greg Steube of Florida speaking out against the Equality Act: https://bit.ly/30gtXRP --- Previous episodes: Ep 373: Uncovering Andrew Cuomo's COVID Corruption | Guest: Janice Dea‪n‬ Ep 335: Understanding the Biblical Telos of Gende‪r‬ Ep 376: How the Equality Act Opposes Science & Faith | Guest: Lila Ros‪e‬

Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Today we're going to talk about a few stories. We're going to talk about Texas opening up completely after the announcement of Governor Greg Abbott. We're also going to talk about these Andrew Cuomo allegations. And we're going to talk a little bit about Rand Paul and his exchange with a person who is called Rachel Levine. And the theme that we are going to tap into, is the idea of the government being under the authority and under the moral standard of God himself and why it is so important to view government as an institution that is in submission to the God of the universe, to the ruler of the universe, as we've said on this podcast before. Actually, I think it was a guest who said this on the podcast that Jesus' king is very much a political statement. So we're going to talk a little bit about what that means. First, let's talk about Texas opening up. So Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, he's a Republican. He announced on Tuesday of this week yesterday that, quote, effective next Wednesday. So I think that's March 10th.

All businesses of any type are allowed to open 100%. The governor said this. This is according to the Blaze at a news conference announcing an end to restrictions imposed to slow the spread. of COVID-19, Abbott said declining hospitalization rates across the state and increased distribution of virus vaccines were reasons to end the coronavirus restrictions. So this is a very good thing. Now, obviously, most conservatives are very excited about this. I would say there are probably some people who are moderate and even liberal who are secretly excited about this. But because COVID and COVID restrictions have become so unnecessarily partisan, there were some. negative reactions. I would say a lot of negative reactions, in particular on Twitter and of course,

CNN, the regular suspects coming out with fearmongering headlines saying that this is so irresponsible. Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, tweeting to Greg Abbott that this is completely reckless. This is totally irresponsible. Now, mind you, Gavin Newsome is the same governor of California who was caught maskless several months ago at this very elitist restaurant, the French laundry in California. And so he has been hypocritical. I think a few times he's been caught doing something similar to that while he has locked down, shut down his state in a way that doesn't actually correspond to any kind of science or data. Gavin Newsom does not have any kind of moral standing, any kind of authority whatsoever to be criticizing any leader of any other

state, particularly the state that Californians are moving to to try to flee his tyranny. So as I said on Twitter, when Texans start moving and droves from Texas to California, then maybe Gavin Newsome would have a place to be able to criticize Governor Abbott. Now, the reason why some conservatives aren't exactly jumping up and down and saying, you so much, Governor Abbott, is because of the belief that this should have always been a choice. Like the mask mandate, for example, or closing down your business, a lot of conservatives assert should have always been a choice or it should have at least been made on the local level. wearing a mask should have been made according to a lot of people by businesses themselves,

by local authorities, or even just by individuals. A lot of people have argued that there really is no constitutional power for the governor or for state authorities to be able to kind of enforce something like this. And so there are a lot of people, a lot of conservatives who have been disappointed in Governor Abbott. And of course, we know that he has been in a very difficult position because, of course, liberals are never going to be okay with what a Republican governor dies. And they are saying that, of course, he's killing people that, like Gavin Newsom said, this is. completely reckless and irresponsible. And I'm just going to let you know, like, I don't really understand that mentality. After all of the data that has come out about how economically this is harming people and consequently how this is harming people mentally and emotionally, how this is

putting a strain on children, being locked down in some places, how people can't celebrate this at the same time that hospitalizations are going down and the vaccine rollout has been going very smoothly in places like Texas and Florida and West Virginia, other red states. Why isn't this something that is applauded? Did you think that we were just going to lock down indefinitely? Like at what point did liberals think that we were going to open back up when the virus just went away completely? Because from what I've seen, from scientists, from doctors, from the data is that we don't actually know if coronavirus is ever going to go away completely. It might be something like the flu, which is really unfortunate, but that means that we are going to have to figure out how to live life pretty regularly

and pretty normally at some point. And now seems as good a time as ever to do that. And so I think it's, you know, it's good for Governor Abbott to make this decision. And look, if you still want to wear a mask, if you still want to wear your cloth mask plus your surgical mask, plus your face shield, plus your gloves and your hand sanitizer on top of the gloves and your scrubs inside your house, along with the hazmat suit. If you go out and check your mail, no one is stopping you from doing that. You are totally free to continue wearing a mask. And of course, I understand that not everyone fits that hyperbolic description. But if you are someone who is hyperweary about this or maybe you live with a vulnerable person,

you can wear a mask or you can keep ordering your groceries or you don't have to, go out in public or go out in crowds or anything like that, you can make your own decisions. And I guarantee you that most big businesses, most corporations are probably going to keep some kind of mask mandate or at least strong suggestion in place. I have a hard time believing Target or Kroger or any of these, you know, these big stores are going to allow the people inside their stores to not wear masks, probably host. probably hospitals are going to keep asking their patients to wear masks. I'm guessing that this is going to be in place for a while according to what the businesses

want to do, stores want to do, even communities want to do and districts want to do. Something that I don't understand about the liberal mentality is the idea that anything that is possibly good needs to be enforced from the top down. I don't understand the absolute resistance to any kind of localization or any kind of choice. Even if you think wearing a mask is, you know, a sign of virtue and a sign of loving and caring for your neighbor, why can't you allow that to be a choice among individuals or a choice among families, communities, and businesses? Why do you believe that it has to come from the governor, even more than that?

Why do you believe that it has to come from the president? like why does all power and why do all decisions, according to so many liberals, have to be centralized and come from the top down? Why can't people and areas be free to make the choices that are best for them based on the information that they have? That's always kind of what I've said, not that the virus shouldn't be taken seriously, but that people, for the most part, should be trusted to make the decisions that are best for them and best for their family. going back to what I said about conservatives, not exactly being, you know, jumping up and down and clapping about this because they actually felt like Governor Abbott went too far in the restrictions in the first place. The conservative mentality about all of this is kind of what I just described, the freedom of choice, not that the virus doesn't matter, but individual

freedom, the freedom of businesses to do what they want to. And that is because we believe that rights come from God, not from the government. And therefore, they can't be arbitrarily taken away by the government either. And we believe the ability to provide for yourself and to provide for your family by keeping your business open and continuing to serve people and make money so you can put food on the table is a God-given right. And we see the infringements on that right as something that is and has been disastrous for the past year. And so, of course, from the conservative perspective, we are very disappointed in how unfortunately so many people's lives have been ruined by the government because we don't think that that's the government's place. The government can only do so much to

keep you safe. I'm not against all government restrictions. I'm not against the government's place in everything. I think the government has a very important role. And I think it's debatable what the role of the government is in all kinds of things, including in pandemic response. But I'm not going to be on the side of compromising our constitutional rights, especially or even, or especially when it comes to times of crisis. I just don't want to see people's lives and livelihoods devastated by this kind of thing again. So good job, Texas. I'm sorry, I guess, to the Texans who were disappointed in this. Move to New York. They seem to be doing great under the leadership of Andrew Cuomo, which we're going to get to in just one second. All right, let's talk about Governor Cuomo.

I'm kind of tired of talking about Governor Cuomo. I've been talking about him for the past year a lot because of how center stage he has been in the media coverage of the virus. And I'll put a link in the description to this podcast from last to last Monday's episode where I interviewed Fox chief meteorologist Janice Dean and her her fight to try to raise awareness about the corruption of Andrew Cuomo as the governor of New York and how his nursing home scandal led to the unnecessary deaths of thousands and thousands of elderly New Yorkers. But it's not just that scandal that we are now talking about. we're now talking about him embroiled in a Me Too scandal.

So there have been several former female staffers who have come out and said that they were sexually harassed in some way by Governor Andrew Cuomo. The New York Times is reporting on this. The title of the article is Cuomo must admit to his predatory behavior accuser says. The Times says this. In a series of interviews with the Times, Ms. Bennett, 25, said that Mr. Cuomo had asked her question. about her sex life, such as whether she was monogamous in her relationships and if she had ever had sex with older men. Ew.

Miss Bennett, who had served as an executive assistant and health policy advisor before leaving state government last fall, said that the governor had also inquired if she believed that age made a difference in romantic relationships, and had said that he was open to relationships with women in their 20s, comments that she interpreted as clear overtures to a sexual relationship. I am just like holding back my gag. I feel so bad for this girl. There was a, this picture going around and, um, we can put it up on, uh, on the screen if you're watching on YouTube of his interaction of Andrew Cuomo, uh, Andrew Cuomo's interaction with one of these accusers. He's got his hands like kind of behind her head and he's looking at her and smiling and she just

looked so uncomfortable. And of course, we don't know the full context of of the picture. We don't know exactly what was going on there. But that in coordination with some of these accusations that have been made now by multiple women, you just kind of get a sense of what kind of person Andrew Cuomo is. This, in addition to former staffers and state legislators who have said that he's a bully. Like he just bosses people around. The mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, hates Andrew Cuomo and loves to talk bad about Andrew. Cuomo and is very excited about this whole scandal. He has probably helped fan the flames of all of this because they don't have a good relationship. Yes, they're both Democrats and they're both totally

incompetent, by the way. So they have a lot in common. And yet maybe because of that, there's just too much incompetence for one state. They just don't get along very well. So Bill de Blasio, I think, is probably loving this. This New York Times article goes on to say that Bennett's lawyer said he was not acting as a mentor to her and his remarks were not misunderstood by Ms. Bennett, said Ms. Katz, a Washington-based specialist in harassment and employment discrimination. He was abusing his power over her for sex. This is textbook sexual harassment. I understood that the governor wanted to sleep with me and felt horribly uncomfortable

and scared Ms. Bennett said and was wondering how I was going to get out of it and assumed it was the end of my job. after reporting her interactions. The New York Times says with Mr. Cuomo in early June to his chief of staff, Ms. Bennett was quickly transferred to another job in an office. On the opposite side of the capital from the governor, no disciplinary action was taken against Mr. Cuomo, who has ruled New York for more than a decade. And so I agree with the lawyer's assessment. I'm not a lawyer, but this does seem to be textbook sexual harassment if her account is true. And of course, like all accounts and like all accusations, we don't know for sure what happened. We don't necessarily have any reason to disbelieve this person.

But just like I would say to anyone who is accusing and anyone who is being accused, we have to look at the testimony. We have to look at any witness testimony, any corroborating testimony, any kind of other factors, any kind of consistency among other accusers. and I think that there is a lot of consistency among other accusers, which means these allegations are probably very credible. They're probably very true. So I do think that we have to kind of sift through all the details to ensure that we're not just latching on to some kind of witch hunter, some kind of gossip. But just like we would do for any Republican politician, just like we would do for any other scandal, we listen to the testimony.

we kind of, we look at the details, we listen to the witnesses, we listen to what the lawyers have to say, and then we make the best decision that we can. Now, Andrew Cuomo has already come out with a statement saying that, oh, you know, I'm just kind of like a personal guy. I thought that I was just having friendly interactions with these people, but now I see it went too far. And of course, Governor Cuomo has champion or says that he's a champion of women's rights. He says that he is, you know, four women within the Me Too movement and all of that. And it's so interesting how male feminists or men who describe themselves as feminist so often end up being these kinds of creepos. And I think it goes back to what we talk about a lot that people use liberal

activism or their support of liberal policies, liberal issues to try to insulate themselves from future criticism or condemnation of things that they are guilty of. And so they kind of think that they can shield themselves by being a faithful Democrat or being a loyal leftist. And really, it ends up never being enough. like you can't be, you can't be woke enough when it comes to this kind of stuff. It's going to end up finding you out, finding you out. There was another accuser, Lindsay Boylan. She worked for the state economic development agency from 2015 to 2018.

She published an essay on Medium.com talking about many of her uncomfortable interactions with Governor Cuomo, that he would go out of his way to touch her on her lower back, her arms, her legs, that he gave her an unsolicited kiss after a one-on-one meeting in his Manhattan office, which is really crazy and disgusting. There is Anna Ruch. I don't know if that's how you pronounce her last name. She said that she encountered Mr. Cuomo at a wedding. They attended in September 2019. They began talking about a toast the governor had given, but Mr. Cuomo put his hand on her bare lower back. She said that he seemed aggressive. and that she was just made uncomfortable in the midst of all of this.

And like I said, Cuomo said, you know, I never intended these interactions to be anything more than anything more than friendly. But you can certainly see how these women would be made uncomfortable by a man in this kind of position of power, treating them in this way, and then thinking that they can't say anything about it. And I know the question is always why now? Why do these women wait so long to come forward? Well, the first lady that we talked about, as she actually did report this, remember to the chief of staff and she was transferred somewhere else. I think that's also a detail that is in her favor as far as credibility goes. I also think that people are just scared.

Like we can't discount the fear that people have in coming forward and reporting allegations. I really don't like when people dismiss accusations and allegations of just because a certain period of time has transpired. A lot of people, depending on their jobs, depending on what position they're in, depending on the scenario that occurred, depending on what power the accused still has in their life, depending on just a lot of personal factors, may be too fearful to come forward. The same thing is true of the Ravi Zacharias stuff. People were asking, well, why didn't the women at the spa ever come forward?

if this is if this is really true why wait until after he's dead because they were probably scared like i think that the accusers are probably very often worried that something is going to happen to them maybe something's going to happen to their family something's going to happen to their employment and so they might not feel like they actually have the cover to be able to come forward until the person that they're accusing is embroiled in some kind of other scandal and they know that they'll probably be protected in some way if they do come forward. And when one person comes forward, I think it also gives protection and empowerment to other people to come forward as well. So that could very well be what is happening here. Now, there are also some cynical theories out there

about why the media is just now choosing to come out and criticize Governor Cuomo after, for the past year flattering him saying that, oh, I think it was Molly Jong fast of the Daily Beast saying that people are crushing on Cuomo. There was a CNN article saying that Cuomo should run for president. There were all kinds of complimentary articles about Governor Cuomo. And it's because, like we talked about last Monday, he served as a foil to President Trump. A foil, as you guys probably know as a literary device to compare and contrast to another character. And so the media liked to be able to hoist him up as the competent and the confident alternative to the buffoon of Donald Trump. That's why they saw him as useful. But now he's not useful anymore because President Trump is in an office.

So they can put up this facade of objectivity. They can put up this facade of impartiality. And they can report on him as if they're valiant and as if they're brave and as if they are on the front lines of truth telling when in reality, I guarantee you a lot of this stuff was known by people around Governor Cuomo and was known by the media for a very long time. I guarantee you that people sat on it until President Trump was out of office. I have a very hard time believing that if President Trump was still in office that all of this would be coming out. Now, that's just my opinion. That's just a theory. But conservatives have been talking about this nursing home scandal for a very long time, and we were told that we were just conspiracy theorists about it. We had an episode

on all of this last April when he was still denying it, and the media was still in denial, too. Conservatives have been talking about the nursing home scandal and his incompetence and his corruption for months now, and the media just ignored it. And they continued to flatter him. And they continued to point to him as the example that all governors and even the president himself should follow. And so I think it's perfectly justified for some of us to question the motives of the media. Now, here's another theory that I talked about last week that I, again, I do not know if it's true. This is just my opinion. This is a theory. I heard a political insider talk about this. And that is the idea that the Democratic establishment, along with the media, are actually trying to take Cuomo down because they do not want him to be a

hopeful for 2024. And apparently some of the same people, again, this is a theory, are behind the recall Gavin Newsom movement that's happening in California. And apparently the purpose of trying to get Cuomo out of the running, try to get Gavin Newsom out of the running, is to ensure that Kamala Harris is the presidential pick for 2024, because she is going to be the vessel for every single policy that the obamas and their ilk want to want to push. And so apparently she is what the Democratic establishment want. And so they're trying to elbow out Andrew Cuomo. They're trying to elbow out Gavin Newsom, anyone else who might consider running on the Democratic

ticket in 2024 to make the way for Kamala Harris. I don't know if that's true or not. I think it's an interesting theory. Also, the AG of New York, she probably has her eyes. on being governor after Cuomo is out. And so there's probably some selfish motivation there because she is conducting an investigation into all of this. That is the New York Attorney General Lettisha James reports the Washington Post. She will name outside investigators to head the probe of Cuomo's alleged misdeeds involving two women who worked in his administration. The letters

signed by Beth Garvey, special counsel and senior advisor to the governor was disseminated in a news release later in the day. And that was reported, that was reported on Monday. And so there's some politics going on here. Like within the Democratic Party, there is something going on here. There is a reason behind why they're suddenly being honest. Is it just because Trump's out? Is it because they don't like Andrew Cuomo? Is it some secret reason? We don't know. But I'm not believing that this is just a matter of integrity. I'm just not. This would have happened a lot earlier if it was a matter of integrity. This is a reason this whole, this whole scandal is such a good reminder to us of why we do not put our hope in the government, like why we do not idolize

politicians, whether they're on the right or the left, because they are going to fail us. They are going to be a disappointment to us at some point. And this is also what happens, I think, when power gets to your head, when media flattery gets to your head. And, you think that you are insulated from these kinds of accusations. It's kind of amazing how many men in particular have thought for so long that they were going to get through this whole, quote, Me Too movement completely unscathed and just moved forward in their predatory behavior. I guess ego and pride and power just does that to people. It blinds them to reality. It prevents them from being able to humble themselves and to resist hypocrisy.

Unfortunately for Andrew Cuomo, his pride has gotten the best of him and all of this. The kind of swagger that a lot of people were attracted to a year ago is now turning out to just be plain old arrogance and it's ugly. Now, I wish that we were a society who could remove partisanship from these kinds of accusations and that we could just look at the standard of objective morality that got his place before us. and that we could have been having this conversation several months ago when some of this stuff was known about. Nevertheless, I am always glad when it's on the right or the left when the truth comes out and when justice is served. I pray in this situation that justice is served. Remember, as Christians, we believe that justice is impartial. It's truthful. It's direct and it's proportional. That's what the Bible tells us that God's justice is. And so I pray for all of those

characteristics to describe the kind of justice that is executed in this case. But this is what happens when we are tossed on the waves of partisanship, when we have to wait for cultural moments like me too to do the right thing and to hold certain leaders accountable. What happens is really sketchy timing. What happens is journalists sitting on a story until it's politically expedient to them. what happens is people denying that their guy is guilty of things that they say they abhor. So as Christians, what we have to do is we have to stand in the gap of all of that. And we have to say, no matter if this is a Republican or a Democrat politician, I want the truth and I want justice, that is our responsibility in all of this.

And unfortunately, we're just not in a day and age in America where we can expect most of our elected officials to operate under that kind of godly impartiality. but that doesn't stop us Christians from doing so. We believe, as Romans 13 tells us, that the government is instituted by God. That chapter also says that we are to submit to the government. Christians understand that in light of all of scripture to mean insofar as the government does not cause us to sin or does not tempt us to sin. So we are supposed to submit to the government, but in that context and in that chapter, the government is also to submit itself to God.

And we see what happens when an elected official, when a governor, which this has happened a lot, especially over the past year when their power gets to their head. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. And I think that's what we're seeing with Andrew Cuomo. All right. I want to get to this next story, which we didn't get to talk about last week when we were talking about the Equality Act. is going to tie into all of this.

And that is the exchange between Rand Paul and the HHS assistant secretary pick, Rachel Levine. All right. So last week, we didn't get to cover this exchange between Rand Paul and Biden's HHS assistant secretary pick. We talked about Xavier Bacera last week with Lila Rose. We'll put the link to that podcast episode in this description, who is. the HHS head pick by Joe Biden and is very frightening how rabidly pro-abortion and anti-pro-life

he has been when he was AG of California, for example, we talked all about that. You really need to know who Xavier Bacera is. So go back and listen to that episode from last week. But another nominee that has been tapped by the Biden administration is a person who goes by the name of Rachel Levin. and Rachel Levin, I think that's how you spell her last name or maybe it's Levine, is transgender. So the phrase that is used is trans woman. This is a biological man who dresses as a woman, Rachel Levine, and I don't know what the

original name is, so I'm just going to go. I'm just going to say Rachel Levine. Rachel Levine is Biden's pick to be assistant health secretary. Senator Ram Paul brought up the issue of giving puberty blockers. to minors. So I'm going to play you a little bit of that exchange. American culture is now normalizing the idea that minors can be given hormones to prevent their biological development of their secondary sexual characteristics. Dr. Levine, you have supported both allowing minors to be given hormone blockers to prevent

them from going through puberty, as well as surgical destruction of a minor's genitalia. Dr. Levine, do you believe that minors are capable of making such a life-changing decision as changing one sex. Well, Senator, thank you for your interest in this question. Transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field with robust research and standards of care that have been developed. The specific was about minors. Let's be a little more specific since you have aided the question. Do you support the government intervening to override the parent's consent to give a child puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and or amputation surgery of breast and genitalia. You have said that you're willing to accelerate the protocols for street kids.

I'm alarmed that poor kids with no parents who are homeless and distraught, you would just go through this and allow that to happen to a minor. What I'm alarmed at is that you're not willing to say absolutely minors shouldn't be making decisions to amputate their breast or to amputate their genitalia. For most of our history, we believe that minors don't have full rights and the parents need to be involved. So I'm alarmed that you won't say with certainty that minors should not have the ability to make the decision to take hormones that will affect them for the rest of their life.

Will you make a more firm decision on whether or not minors should be involved in these decisions? Senator, transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field. if confirmed to the position of Assistant Secretary of Health, I would certainly be pleased to come to your office and talk with you and your staff about the standards of care and the complexity of this field. Let it go into the record that the witness refused to answer the question. So Dr. Levine did not want to answer that question, which is really troubling. Rand Paul asked a very easy question, a question that should have an obvious answer. when he asked, hey, do you think that doctors should be able to bypass parental consent to give puberty blockers to kids?

And when you're talking about puberty blockers, you're talking about kids that are 8 to 11 years old. So you're talking about kids that don't even know what they want for lunch and they can't even make any kind of decision outside of what is right in front of them. Now, kids are very smart. And obviously, they are valuable and they have their own inherent rights. and everyone believes in that. Of course, we believe in that, but we believe in protecting them. And conservatives believe that the family is the best place for that child to be protected and that parents are the only people who really have the best interest of that child at heart.

Their teacher might really like them. There might be friends, parents that like them. But I guarantee you, soulless bureaucracy, random doctors do. not care about the best interest of a child. There's a really, really troubling movement coming from the far left that I guarantee you will become more mainstream to try to strip parents of any kind of parental rights and to say that children, quote, belong to themselves, that they should be free, even at this young of an age, to be able to consent to life-altering hormone treatment that could end in sterilization, that could end in depression, that could end in unnecessary.

anxiety and is not backed by science, by the way, as we've talked about on this podcast, most kids who are actually gender confused, who actually feel uncomfortable in their bodies, grow out of that discomfort by puberty. And so going ahead and trying to stop their puberty is only going to cause irreparable harm to their bodies and also to their mental health. And there are also so many contradictions to this. nowadays, apparently, a little boy who wants to play with his sister's Barbies or who wants to dress up and his sister's, you know, princess dress and crown, apparently we're supposed to tell

that boy that he's a girl and that he was born in the wrong body. When I was little, I never wanted to wear dresses. I didn't want to wear a bow in my hair. I wanted to wear jeans. I wanted to wear a white t-shirt. I wanted to rent books out of the library about six. I wanted to play with worms and bugs. And I am so glad. I'm so glad that I wasn't raised in this day and age where I would have maybe been questioned by a teacher, questioned by a pediatrician or a

child psychologist, whether or not I really was a girl. Of course. Of course. I've always loved being a girl. At the same time that I was doing all of those things, I thought that I had met the man that I was, the boy that I was going to marry when I was in preschool. I had a boyfriend from the time that I was two years old. And so we have to allow kids to be kids. And the fact that we may have a person in authority in health and human services who believes that parental consent should be bypassed to give kids cross-sex hormones before they go through puberty is terrified. It's terrifying that we've gotten here. I mean, this is a person who thinks that they're the opposite sex anyway.

So, of course, we should be troubled by all of this. Why is it, as I say so often, that children are the subjects of these progressive social experiments? Actually, I know why. It's because they're vulnerable. It's because they can't consent. Because they are convenient lab rats for these progressives who want to be able to prove their theory about something like gender identity. this goes back to where gender identity came from, which we've also talked about on this podcast,

which I will include a link to the biblical tell us of gender in the description of this podcast episode. John Money, the doctor in the 1960s, who performed sexual experiments on two twin boys to try to prove his gender identity theory, gender being something opposite or being something separate from sex. and those twin boys ended up committing suicide. Like, his theory has been debunked, this idea that gender and sex are these two separate entities and that we should be able to change and mutilate our bodies according to what we feel and think on the inside.

Like, there has never been any data, never been any science whatsoever to prove that that's actually what human nature tells us. And yet we're pushing it on vulnerable children who cannot consent. They cannot consent. And I'm very troubled by this nomination of Levine. I'm very troubled by the nomination of Becerra.

I applaud Rand Paul for infusing sanity into this situation. So often Republicans don't want to have these conversations. Like they're willing to talk about religious liberty and protecting institutions. They might even talk about protecting the privacy of young girls or the competition of girls who run track in high school and college. But they're unwilling to say they're unwilling to actually talk about the merits of the issue. Like so many are just unwilling to say, sorry, a boy can't become a girl or a girl can't become a boy. And so we shouldn't be even having a conversation about changing the hormones of a child. I mean, we can have a conversation about adults making a decision to be able to address the way that they want to or to even have the surgeries that they want to have.

Of course, morally, I'm going to disagree with that choice. But legally, that's not necessarily something that affects me. but when we're talking about children and when Christians especially believe that it is the responsibility of other Christians to protect the least of these that we have actually been charged with that responsibility, we can't just stand by and say, yes, it's totally fine for the state to bypass parental consent or for parents to consent to a child irreparably harming their body a decade or more before their frontal lobe is even developed. I mean, it's insanity. that we're even having this conversation. It's insanity that this is a pick by Joe Biden.

Once again, all the evangelicals for Biden that thought that he was going to be a moderate pick, that he was somehow going to be morally neutral, as if moral neutrality even exists. I just wonder what you're thinking. Or are you even paying attention? Are you even paying attention to any of this? Do you even, have you considered what this means for your child? Have you considered what this means for parental rights? What this means for your school, for your church, for your pastor? this Equality Act and these nominations, these picks by Joe Biden's administration. It's really troubling. It's really troubling.

And good for Rand Paul. Good for Rand Paul for infusing reality into this conversation, for not being afraid to speak up about this. Of course, the media was very angry about all of this saying that it is so transphobic that he even asked these questions. apparently he compared it to genital mutilation, and people were very angry about that. But I don't know what else do you call it when you chemically castrate a boy before he goes through puberty or when you have a minor who is 15, 16 years old, who decides that she wants to have a double mastectomy because she now identifies as a boy and she can sometimes do that without parental consent.

That is genital mutilation. Like it's not just genital mutilation when Muslim countries do it. It's genital mutilation, even when it is approved of by the state and by the Democratic Party. It's still genital mutilation. So people were very angry about that, but that's because they're angry at reality. They're angry at biology. They're angry at human nature. They're angry by the truth.

Of course, the more that you insist that 2 plus 2 equals 4, the people who insist that 2 plus 2 can sometimes equal 5 are going to be very mad at you. They're going to be very frustrated. They're going to gaslight you. They're going to tell you that you're the crazy one for believing what humans of all cultures have believed for thousands and thousands of years. And by the way, this is like a very Western American problem that we're having. It's so interesting how the people who say that they're on the side of, you know,

they're anti-Western, anti-white, anti-privilege, anti-rich. Well, this is a very Western, white, academic, elitist. rich issue that we're having. You don't see this going on in other countries. And to the extent that you do see this going on in non-Western countries, it is because of the influence of Western countries coming into those countries and saying, hey, by the way, did you know a boy could be a girl and a girl could be a boy? So talk about colonization and imperialism by spreading these kinds of insane ideas to countries that want nothing to do with them. It is absolutely disastrous. Parents have to push back on this.

More people than Rand Paul in the Republican Party have to push back on this and argue it on its merits. Do not cede any ground. I saw some representatives that were mad at Marjorie Taylor Green who, look, I have my own issues with Marjorie Taylor Green, but she put up a sign outside of her, outside of her office saying there are only two genders, men and women. I even saw Republicans saying that that was bigoted, that that was wrong, that was evil. are you telling me that it is the official Republican line that there are more than two genders?

Tell me, conservatives, what do you think that you're conserving if it's not that? I mean, this is very, very disappointing. I am thankful for the people who are willing to speak out about this very basic reality. I am even more thankful for the people who are speaking out in protection of our children who, like I have said, are always the unconsenting subjects of all of these crazy, dangerous experiments on them. There was a representative from Florida, Representative Greg Stuby. He spoke out against the Equality Act, and he did exactly what we have talked about, arguing this on its merits.

He says, it's not clothing or personal style that offends God, but rather the use of one's appearance to act out or take on a sexual identity, different from the one, biologically assigned by God at birth. In his wisdom, God intentionally made each individual uniquely either male or female true. When men or women claimed to be able to choose their own sexual identity, they are making a statement that God did not know what he was doing when he created them, which is absolutely right. Good job for him for invoking the name of God. And this goes to the theme of this episode that the government is an institution that was instituted by God. God is the transcendent supreme moral lawgiver. He says what is right and what is wrong, what's good and what's

bad, what's true, and what's false, what's male and what's female. He is the one who dictates reality to us. He is the one who defines all of these things. And so it is not feocratic. It is not Christian nationalist for people to acknowledge what God has defined as good and right and true. The founders knew that politicians for the past few centuries have known that, remember, secularism is not a neutral ideology. To say that we shouldn't invoke the name of God because Jerry Nadler, rep Jerry Nadler said in response to Stuby's speech, you know, God's will has nothing to do with what we're talking about here. God's will has everything to do with what we're talking about here. Of course it does. And for people who roll their eyes and say, oh, that's just

theocratic nonsense. That's Christian nationalism. No, no, no. You believe that your religion of atheism, agnosticism, progressivism, whatever it is, you believe that your secular ideology, your so-called religion, should be dominant. And so you are just as much of some kind of religious zealot as you are accusing me of being. The fact of the matter is, everyone has a worldview. Every law speaks to a set of moral principles. People say you can't legislate morality. Every single law has to do with morality. The question is who says what is morality? Who says what is right and wrong? My argument is that God, the transcendent moral lawgiver, is the best person to tell us what is good and what is bad. It's going to come from somewhere. Our ideas of right and wrong or

ideas of who is in charge and who is not, where our rights come from, all of those ideas are going to come from somewhere. The people who tell you that it's dangerous to say that those things come from God, they don't realize that they also have their own ideology, their own religion, their own faith, their own value system competing against yours that is not neutral. I mean, as we've seen throughout this episode, secularism is it neutral? Sacularism, according to the person who is called Rachel Levine, means that parents don't have any authority over their child before their child decides to take cross-sex hormones at the age of 10 years old. That is a secular idea and a secular ideology. That's not neutral. That has tangible consequences on people's lives.

And so good for Greg Stuby, good for Rand Paul, good for the people who are recognizing that there is an authority higher than them. That is important in all of our individual lives, but that's so important for the government. If the government is not tethered to something that is bigger than them, to a value system that is bigger and better than them, then their own pride in their own authority, in their own elitism, in their own self-righteousness, it ends to the kind of corruption and tyranny, the kind of infringing upon the rights that we have seen so prevalently over the past, over the past year. And so we continue to pray for our leaders. Let's pray for wisdom for the Biden administration and that they,

would be making better decisions than their HHS picks and nominees. Let's pray for governors as they start to hopefully recognize the constitutional rights of their citizens again. Let's pray for governors and leaders that are caught in the same kinds of perverse temptations that we have seen Governor Cuomo fall into. And let us pray that these. these leaders would start submitting to God in his authority and his moral definitions, his scientific definitions when it comes to things like gender, rather than inflating their own egos and falling into a kind of corrupt leadership that unfortunately has negative repercussions for all of us. All right, we will be back here tomorrow.