Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 384 | Rand Paul Offers Sane Solutions to America's Insane Problems | Guest: Sen. Rand Paul

Episode Date: March 11, 2021

We start by speaking with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul about his recent legislative victory, which prevented Planned Parenthood from receiving Payment Protection Plan money that it really didn’t qualify for. Sen. Paul has also introduced legislation to improve education across America — something you’d think Democrats could get behind. Then, we discuss a rather questionable sermon in which the pastor claims women should look like Melania Trump. We also have an update on Pastor James Coates. In the same city where Pastor Coates is in jail for holding church services at full capacity, yet another sex offender has been released into the community. --- Today's Sponsors: Carly Jean Los Angeles has done the hunting for YOU & provide clothes that are effortless, easy, and flattering on any shape, size, age, or season. Go to CarlyJeanLosAngeles.com & use the promo code 'ALLIE' to save 20% off anything in their online store! Raycon is offering 15% off all their products for 'Relatable' listeners. Go to BuyRaycon.com/Allie & get 15% off your entire Raycon order. --- Past Episodes Mentioned: Ep 335: Understanding the Biblical Telos of Gender https://apple.co/3rDzpdV Ep 297: The Christian Case for Trump | Guest: Dr. Wayne Grudem https://apple.co/3bA9r5o Ep 380: Pastor James Coates Imprisoned: Persecution or Ploy? | Guest: Erin Coates https://apple.co/2OEhyEV Ep 381: Glennon Doyle's Gospel vs. the Real Gospel https://apple.co/3etPgI1 --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Hope everyone has had a wonderful week. We made it to Thursday. Tomorrow is Friday. So congratulations on getting this far. All right. Today I'm super excited because I get to interview Senator Rand Paul. We're going to talk about all kinds of things in the about 10 minutes or so that I have him. We are going to talk about his victory in making sure that. PPP money in the COVID relief bill does not go to Planned Parenthood. We'll talk about some of the concerns that we as pro-lifers still have with the relief bill. I will also talk about that viral exchange that he had with the HHS assistant secretary nominee, Rachel Levine, and why parents, why people of all kinds need to be concerned about that

radical pick and the other radical nominees that Joe Biden, that Joe Biden has selected. And we'll also talk about school choice. After that conversation, I think we'll get into a little bit if we have time, some of what's going on at the border. I know we talked about that with Representative Chip Roy as well, but there are some more details that I think I want to cover. And then there are a couple more things that I also want to talk about. So it's a packed episode and I really want to leave you today with some encouragement. There's a lot of craziness obviously going on in the world, but there's so much to rejoice over and to be thankful about as well. So first, let's talk to Senator Rand Paul. Senator Paul, thank you so much for joining us. There are a few things I want

to talk to you about today. The first thing I want to talk about is something that happened last week. You claimed victory in the fight over PPP money going to Planned Parenthood in the Senate COVID relief bill. Can you talk a little bit more about that, how that was accomplished and what it actually means? You know, the PPP money was intended to go to small businesses. So big enterprises like Planned Parenthood were too big to qualify. But being devious like they are, Planned Parenthood decided to apply for it by breaking themselves down into individual entities by city. And they did actually get like $38 million. We found out about it. And we contested. it and then they were going to fix this. It wasn't legal for them to do it, but they were going to

fix this in this COVID relief bill and make it actually legal for them to do what they had already done. We went to the parliamentarian and said, hey, it does not have a budgetary impact. It doesn't meet what they call the bird rule. And so we had this discussion, a freewheeling discussion with the parliamentarian. The parliamentarian ruled in our favor and the Democrats had to take it out of the bill. So it was a small victory. since we lost almost everything else with the Democrats, but a big victory in the sense that we're hoping it will prevent Planned Parenthood from getting government money. We had other votes on the Hyde Amendment, which should prevent government money from going to

abortion, and the Democrats voted lockstep not to invoke the Hyde Amendment. And then on this, though, we did have a victory that we think will prevent Planned Parenthood from getting tax dollars. Right. And that goes into what I was about to ask. There are still concerns and maybe a little bit of confusion about whether or not, any restrictions for abortion funding actually made it into the bill. So do pro-lifers still have reason for concern with our federal tax dollars supporting abortion through this bill? Yes, because the Hyde protections were not explicitly put in. The Hyde protections were named

after Henry Hyde, who was a congressman from Illinois, who many, many years ago, when it used to not be as controversial, even Democrats would support this, was that no matter what what your opinion on abortion was, people came to an agreement that government and tax dollars shouldn't go to paying for abortion. Now, no Democrat supports that, and we tried to put it into the COVID bill and it failed. I was able to strip out some language, which we think would make it easier for Planned Parenthood. But do we let our guard down? No, I've told my staff, let's watch them like a hawk. I'm on the Small Business Administration Committee, which oversees this PPP program. So we are going to watch them like a hawk and we will be vigilant and we'll let you know if they try to get taxpayer money.

We're also going to be watching them to see if they try to claw back the 38 million that Pan Perrin had already got. Right. A couple weeks ago in your exchange with nominee Rachel Levine, you voiced a lot of concerns that a lot of parents have, probably whether they identify as conservative, liberal or moderate. And that kind of became a viral moment. Obviously, you got pushed back from people on the left side of the aisle. How likely is it that Rachel Levine will be confirmed? Every Democrat will vote for and maybe a few Republicans. So unfortunately, she'll be confirmed. It is now normal in the Democrat Party to believe that a child can choose to take hormones to change their sexual appearance and can even choose to have surgery.

without their parents' consent or even to override their parents' lack of consent. So imagine a 10-year-old wants to take hormone blockers. I don't even know how a 10-year-old even knows what that is, but a 10-year-old wants to do that and the parents say no, these people are so bizarrely radical that they would let the 10-year-old's decision override or trump the parent's decision on whether or not this child should have this. They also lie to us when they say, oh, it's all reversible. The puberty blockers may be reversible and probably are, but at age 14, they start giving

large doses of hormones. They give testosterone to girls or estrogen to boys, and the changes that happen to the body at that point in time are not reversible, and you can give enough testosterone to a 14-year-old girl that she grows a beard. She doesn't go back to looking like a girl or having the appearance of a girl. girl when you stop. What you've done is permanently altered her body, and this should not be done to a 14-year-old with or without parental consent, but absolutely shouldn't be done to override parental lack of consent. And what do you think, if you're able to speculate, is behind trying to

subvert parental consent when it comes to this? We've all been 14 years old. We all know teenagers. We understand the frontal lobe is not even developed. There are a lot of ramifications that we don't even know when it comes to these kinds of processes. Rachel Levine even said that there should be an accelerated process for, I think, what we're called street kids. Why? Why are we trying to, why are we trying to go around what seems to be the only buffer between these kids and procedures that could have lifelong negative consequences? I think it shows you that there's nothing mainstream about the Biden administration. You know, he ran on this concept that he was middle-class Joe. He had middle-class working-class values. Well, I tell you what, you go to a union

worker in Boston that he thinks he represents or a union worker in Kentucky, and you ask them, should your little girl or little boy be given hormones against your wishes? People are going to, would kick you out of their house. They wouldn't talk to you. They won't be associated with you if you believe that. So the Democrats are overreaching here, but Biden's, the people who have Biden's year are the far left. This is an extreme view. There are not very many Democrats in the country, frankly, who think that a child at 10 can make this kind of decision or a child at 14 can make this kind of life-changing decision. So I think the Democrats are making a mistake here, and this is a very, very extreme position. These people also advocate that when a 10-year-old goes in, actually the ages

are even less than that. Ten percent of the kids going to these clinics are between the ages of three and ten. They go in and they say, oh, well, they get psychological counseling. And my question is, who gives them the counseling? Well, other people who have already decided to change their sexual appearance through surgery or hormones, you think they're getting advice from anybody who says, hey, wait a minute, you don't need to be doing this. This is really extreme. No, they're hearing only one side because who works in these gender dysphoria clinics? People who are advocates for this kind of thing. And so, you know, the child gets sort of groomed in a way. The child is, you know, everybody says, oh, you're so brave and everybody loves the child for making

the decision. The child just sees all this attention in once more. And children who are left alone, American College of Pediatrics has looked at this, about 90% of kids who are left alone, not given medical intervention and not given all this affirming, all these people telling them this is a great decision, just leave the kid alone, let them grow up. up, 90% of the kids end up deciding, you know what, that's not what I want. It was just a phase. Well, we've certainly seen not just in this area, but in a lot of areas, especially over the past year, the exchange of actual science for scientism, this kind of ideologically driven pseudoscience to back all far left policies and agenda items that this new form of the Democratic Party

has. The last thing that I want to talk to you about, we talk a lot about education. the public school system, school choice on this podcast. You just introduced the School Act. Can you talk a little bit about that? What this does is there's already federal money that goes to poor kids. It goes to the school district where a poor kid goes to school. What I'd like to say is the money goes to wherever that child or their parents choose to go to school. So we have a lot of failing public schools, particularly in our urban areas, particularly for poor kids.

They've been failing not just last year or the year before for decades. Generations of kids are growing up in the inner city and getting a crummy education and never getting ahead in life. I'd let the parents choose to take the kid out of a failing school, go to another school, and then this money would follow them. What would happen is either the school will get better or they'll go out of business. But the thing is, I've seen the results of this. I've been to boys Latin school in Philadelphia. I've been to a girl school in Chicago where the kids come from poor, broken homes from neighborhoods infested with drugs. And guess what? When you give them a good

education, they thrive, they look you in the eye, shake your hand. These are the kind of kids that at boys Latin school, virtually all of these young men go to college. Whereas at the public school, it's probably a five or ten percent level and probably half of those flunk out. These kids go to college. It works. Education is a great equalizer, but it's not going to work if we just keep saying go to the crummy school that the Democrats are willing to provide for you, and they keep you poor and they keep you unsuccessful. But we have to do something better. And I'm a Republican who believes that everybody should get a choice on where they go to school.

Yes, and amen. We agree with that on this podcast. Thank you so much, Senator Paul, for your time. I really appreciate you talking to us. Thank you. All right. Before I get into what I want to talk about next, I do want to mention something. So you might have noticed that Senator Paul,

did use female pronouns for Rachel Levine. As you may know, since we talked about this a couple weeks ago, Rachel Levine is a man who dresses as a woman. We've also talked about the use of pronouns. And as Christians, we do not believe in bearing false witness. And we also believe in Genesis 1 that God made them male and female, that he made us male and female in a purposeful and a loving and a wonderful, intentional way that we thank him for and that there's not any gray area when it comes to that.

And we believe that loving our neighbor and loving people who identify as transgender is something that we are absolutely called to do. But God defines what love is. The same God who defined what gender and sex are in Genesis 1-1, which is male and female, is also the God that is love, the Bible tells us. So if that God who is love, says something is true, says something is, then agreeing with God and proclaiming what God says is good and what God says is true and what God says is right is also love. So it is not love to simply take on the definitions of what the world says is love when it comes to preferred pronouns and when it comes to so-called gender identity ideology. But rather it is the most loving thing that we can

do to agree with God and to speak the truth in love as gently and as kindly as we can to continue to be hospitable, to continue to be selfless and service-minded to all of our neighbors, no matter who they are or how they dress. We have talked about this. I'll put a link to a past episode in the description of this, the biblical tell-offs of gender, where we talk about all of these very complicated issues from a biblical perspective. So I do encourage you to go back and listen to that if you have any questions. All right. First I want to do this funny story.

I want to talk about this pastor who, who, his sermon kind of went viral because he was telling people that as a woman, that you have to look hot, that you can't look, I think the word that he used was, butch and that you need to be a trophy wife for your husband. And so I think it's really important for you to not just listen to this,

but to get on YouTube, it actually watch this because it just makes it even funnier. I'll play it for you now. Then I want you to know a need that a man has that he won't ever tell you about, but since I'm the preacher man, I'll say it. Your man needs an attractive wife. Now look, I'm not saying every woman can be the epic, the epic trophy wife of all time.

Like Melania Trump? I'm not saying that at all. Most women can't be trophy wise, but you know, like her, maybe you're maybe a participation trophy. I don't know, but all I can say is not everybody looks like that. Amen. No, everybody looks like that. But you don't need to look like a butch either. Hey, here's something you need to know.

You need to know this. men have a need for their women to look like women. All right. Yes, I do see how men have a need for women to look like women. I think comparing our value or placing our value in our looks and comparing people to Malanya Trump and holding Melania Trump up. as like what women should strive to be, but if we fall somewhere under that, like, it's okay. I think that that is so superficial. I do not think that that's any kind of message that the church needs today. Like I just think that there are so many other messages that women need to hear from

the Bible and according to the gospel. And that is absolutely not one of them. Let me read you this passage from 1. Peter 3.3 through 5. Do not let your adorning be external. The braiding of hair and the putting on of gold or jewelry or any clothing that you wear, but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by submitting to their own husband. So it goes on to talk about the godly nature and the godly attributes of a woman and of a wife. Ultimately, this is going to be what attracts a man to you is going to be the godly and the gentle spirit within you. Of course, I don't think gentle means

that you can't have opinions. Obviously, I'm a very opinionated person. I don't think it means that you actually have to be, you actually have to whisper when you speak, that you have to be soft-spoken in that way. But a form of humility and submission to the Lord, a desire to live a godly life is going to be ultimately what attracts the husband, if God has called you to be married, what attracts that man to you? Now, that said, do I think that it's wrong to wear makeup and to get highlights and to brush your hair and to put your hair up and to want to look pretty for your husband? Not at all. I do think that that is a form of love. And of course, we do know that men that they are more visual than women are. And of course, it's wonderful to feel beautiful,

to feel attractive and to feel appealing to the person that you love. That's something that we all desire. And I do think it's important for us for men and women to put in effort when it comes to simply making sure that we are properly maintaining, you know, fitness and hygiene and things like that because we know that our bodies are a temple and we do so to glorify God, not to earn the approval of other people. I do not think that the priority needs to be placed, though, on external beauty. The fact of the matter is, is that we are all going to age, that our weight is going to fluctuate, that our ability to keep up with the trends or even look good in certain trends is going to change.

And what lasts is that abiding love and companionship and covenant commitment that a man and a woman have. That doesn't mean that physical attraction goes away or that it should go away. I don't believe that it should. But women don't need to be focusing on being like Melania Trump or being any kind of trophy wife. And quite frankly, if you watch the video, I think. think that this guy is a little bit hypocritical for trying to call out women for how they look.

Women also care about appearance and fitness when it comes to men to a certain extent, too. But the Bible is clear that what is most important, what lasts the longest, what pleases God the most is not anything external, but what's going on in our hearts, our godliness, our holiness, our submission to the Lord, our love, our gentle spiritedness, our selflessness. Those are the things that God approves of, that God loves, that God delights in, whether or not we meet worldly standards of what it means to be beautiful. And so I just think it's important because I think it's so easy to listen to a sermon like that and to be discouraged because maybe you don't like how you look when you look in the mirror.

Maybe you make a lot of efforts to be attractive and to feel beautiful and you're still insecure and you're still self-conscious. You hear something like that and you wonder, well, am I ever going to be able to attract someone? Like am I ever going to truly be able to be seen as beautiful by anyone? Does God even think that I'm beautiful? And God is so gracious and so loving and so much. merciful and so tendered towards women that he tells us, look, it's not about the external adorning.

It's not about that. I created you as Psalm 139 says so beautifully, so wonderfully, so intentionally. And what I care about is that you are cultivating a spirit of Christ-likeness inside you by the power of the Holy Spirit. That is so encouraging and so much more edifying than this stupid superficial sermon that this pastor gave. So I just wanted to clear that up. If you were a woman who saw that and you were discouraged by that, you felt put down by that. Like God has a different word for you in scripture.

Like he has something different to say. We can look to Jesus. We can look to God, the Father, to see the gentleness and to see the love and intention and care that God shows in particular towards women. And that's why the church has for so long been a refuge for women. That's why the church for so long has been the place where women can find solace and women can find the kind of security they are trying and failing to find in the world.

And it should be that. And so pastors should create churches that way. Ministries should create places that way that make people who are looking for clarity, who are looking for true selfless, godly love, who are looking for actual value that comes from their creator, the people who are looking for those things and they can't find them in the world, the church needs to be a place that offers that. All right, that was one subject. I just wanted to make sure that I covered this week.

And then there's one more that I want to end on. It'll lead us into our final bit of encouragement. And so first, the bad news. You guys know we've talked about James Coates. We've talked about the pastor from Alberta being placed in jail because he refused to limit the capacity of his congregation to 15%. He allowed anyone to come in who wanted to come in and hear the gospel and hear expository preaching in person. And for that, he was arrested. They have tried to get him out of jail. But unfortunately, he's in jail at least until May. I had his wife on the podcast. last week we talked about all the details of this before that as well. So go back and listen to those episodes. We also talked about, I think it was Monday, how there was a child sex predator in the same city that was released from jail without any conditions to speak of. He had been guilty several times of praying upon molesting, sexually assaulting six and 10-year-old kids in this community. He gets put in jail. And because the laws are so loose when he's,

comes to this in the name of criminal and social justice, he's just been released into the community with nothing except a tweet warning from the police department. Well, there's been another sex predator that's been released in the same city without any conditions. And so this is yet another convicted child sex predator that the Edmonton Police Service issued a warning about his name is Russell Sikia. I don't know how to pronounce his last name. He's. named according to this report. He has a history of breaking into homes and sexually assaulting women. He also has a history of voyeurism and breaking into the homes of women, including minors when they are sleeping. So this is a person who has been arrested. He's been put in jail

and now he's been released without conditions because, as we talked about on Monday, the process for getting out of jail has a bunch of different factors that don't actually have to do with protecting the community or protecting potential victims or past victims at all. It is all in the name of compassion and the name of social justice. And we talked about how social justice fails us. It's not God's definition of justice, and we have to be so careful about this. This is also evidence that elections matter. Like, politics matter.

Politics matter because policies matter because people matter. Policies affect people, especially the most vulnerable. And you'll remember something that Aaron Coates said, the pastor of James Coates last Thursday, is that she didn't really know how the political processes worked. Like she wasn't completely aware of all of it. of the charter rights in their area and what they all meant. And so whenever we have the temptation to bury our head in the sand, because we don't want to think about politics and we just, politics is just a losing game and that it doesn't matter. Look, part of loving your neighbor

is making sure that there are policies that are in place, that align with God's justice, that allow them the freedom to provide for themselves, that are working. in the way of their security because these policies affect them. These policies affect them. Policies matter because people matter, which means politics matters. So we can't just bury our head in the sand and pretend like politics don't matter. They do. They do matter. Now, again, for all of the people who have been saying, ah, this is not really persecution, James Coates just needs to limit his congregation to 15%. He just needs to bow down to Caesar and to say, sorry, you guys can hear the gospel in person today. You're not allowed to hear the gospel. Oh, you need

in person counseling. Sorry, we just hit our, we just hit our capacity for 15%. Oh, you're lonely, you're depressed, you're struggling with alcoholism, your husband just left you, you're a single mom, sorry, we've reached our capacity. You can't come in our doors today. That's what the state expected him to do. And there have been Christians in the United States who have said, yeah, that's what he should have done. Amazing to watch. And by amazing, I mean, severely depressing. And they just say, well, he violated these restrictions. He violated these regulations. Are you going to change your two now that we have seen in the exact same city that two sex predators have been released into the community without any conditions?

Are you really going to tell me that he's not being treated differently than anyone else because he's a Christian? If that's not persecution, then what is? Like, what do you consider persecution? Do you have to live in Iran to to be persecuted, do you have to attend an underground church in China to be persecuted? 2 Timothy 312 through 13. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus

will be persecuted while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse deceiving and being deceived. Thankfully, it doesn't matter whether or not people on Twitter and Christians who desperately just want to lick the boots of state officials.

It doesn't matter whether or not they think that this is persecution. I think that our definition of persecution should expand. No one is saying that what's happening in Canada is the exact same as what's happening in the Middle East of Christians or what's happening in China. No one's saying that it's the exact same thing and that it's the exact same danger and the exact same peril and the exact same kind of suffering. No one is saying that. We're just saying there are different forms of persecution.

2 Corinthians 416 through 18 says this. So we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen for the things that are seen are transient. But the things that are unseen are eternal. And I have heard John Piper preach on this, and he says, whether it is, whether it's slander or criticism or whether you are actually becoming some kind of martyr, whether you are tortured or arbitrarily imprisoned for sharing your faith, all of it. All of it counts as something that is building for us in eternal weight of glory that far outweighs

all of the heavy or light afflictions that we are enduring here on earth. Why are we quibbling over whether or not James Coates is enduring our definition of persecution? The fact of the matter is he shouldn't be in jail. He shouldn't be in jail because it's not God's definition of justice. And what we're seeing is corrupt social justice. What we're seeing is people taking God and his definition of justice out of the picture, giving grace and nuance to child sex predators by releasing them without any kinds of conditions, but keeping the pastor in jail because somehow he poses more of a threat.

I think we've seen something like this before. It's almost like the corrupt human heart. does not change. And yet we do have hope. Matthew 510 says, blessed are those who persecuted, are those who are persecuted for righteousness's sake. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness's sake. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. James 1, 2, through 4. Count it all joy. Not just be okay with it, not just tolerate it, but count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds. For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing.

So again, we see that persecution builds for us good things. Like how gracious and good and wonderful is God that he doesn't just say, okay, endure it, figure it out, tolerate it for a little bit. It'll all be over soon and then you won't have to deal with it anymore. He says, no, this is actually productive. It's doing something. It's doing something eternally and not just something, but it's doing something good and glorious beyond your wildest imagination. And you have hope and you have joy knowing that every time you are

persecuted, every time someone slanders you, every time someone mistreats you because of your faith, or mistreats you because you are following the Lord, that it's not for nothing, that it's doing something for you. It's doing something for God's glory. And the Bible tells us that we get to rejoice over that. And so in the midst of all the craziness that's happening right now, as we are seeing Christianity being categorized is something that it's not being condemned as harmful, inviolent, and wrong. Even in the midst of all that, even in the midst of hostility, which the church has always seen, by the way, since its foundation, we can rejoice and we can know with confidence that, as Jesus said,

the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. The word of God is not going to fail, that the gospel is not going to stop. advancing. I mean, there's one thing that I do agree with when it comes to John McArthur's stance on religious liberty is that we can have all of the restrictions on religion in the world. The church ain't going to stop. We're not going to stop. And let us rejoice over the testimony of James Coates that he is willing to persevere in that way. Let us pray for him. I hope that some of you who have been so hard-hearted in this situation are beginning to soften. And at least that you would open your heart to praying for him and praying for his family. But let us rejoice together. Let's rejoice in

what's happening, that God is going to be glorified, that the gospel is going to be shared, that God's kingdom is going to be advanced, that Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, is going to prevail, that one day he will rule in perfect peace, there will be a new heaven, there will be a new earth, there will be no more evil, there will be no more wickedness, there will be no more earthly governments, there will be no more manipulation, no more sickness, no more sorrow, we get to rejoice over that. That's our hope. That's our victory. that we can know absolutely for sure. And we can have complete and total confidence that what we are called to do right now is to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, love our neighbor

as ourself, to pray without ceasing, to wait fervently and patiently for the coming of our Lord. And until then we have joy. All right. That's what I want to end on today. I will be back here on Monday.