Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 990 | Taylor Swift’s Blasphemy & Title IX Betrayal | Guest: Kristen Waggoner

Episode Date: April 23, 2024

Last week, the Department of Education released its new Title IX rule, expanding the prohibition against discrimination to include discrimination based on “sex stereotypes, sex-related characteristi...cs (including intersex traits), pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.” We discuss what this means for American girls and women. Plus, Kristen Waggoner, president of the Alliance Defending Freedom, joins the program to discuss these changes and the ADF's efforts in combatting transgender policies. How can parents stand up for their daughters and against these evil ideologies? And Taylor Swift released a new album with some problematic lyrics, particularly in the song "Guilty as Sin." How should Christians respond? --- Timecodes: (04:58) Title IX & Kristen Waggoner (40:08) Men in women’s sports (48:18) Message to parents (1:01:56) Taylor Swift --- Today's Sponsors: Good Ranchers — If you want to secure your best price on meat until 2026, go to GoodRanchers.com and use code ALLIE for 10% off your subscription, free express shipping and a price-lock guarantee until 2026!  Pre-Born — Will you help rescue babies' lives? Donate by calling #250 & say keyword 'BABY' or go to Preborn.com/ALLIE. Jase Medical — get up to a year’s worth of many of your prescription medications delivered in advance. Go to JaseMedical.com today and use promo code “ALLIE". Carly Jean Los Angeles — Visit CarlyJeanLosAngeles.com and use code ALLIE50 for $50 off your order of $100+ for the first 500 people. --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 816 | Reliving the Trauma of Sharing a Locker Room with Lia Thomas | Guest: Riley Gaines https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000615761996 Ep 853 | Ne-Yo Speaks Up Against Transing Kids https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/relatable-with-allie-beth-stuckey/id1359249098?i=1000623959332 --- Links: THE BLAZE: "Parents sound off after transvestite student with 'hit list' allegedly bashed open Pennsylvania girl's head" https://www.theblaze.com/news/parents-sound-off-after-transvestite-student-with-hit-list-allegedly-bashed-open-pennsylvania-girls-head THE BLAZE: "Viral video shows beatdown of middle school girl; many claim attacker is a male who identifies as female. District won't discuss attacker's gender identity." https://www.theblaze.com/news/viral-video-shows-beat-down-of-middle-school-girl-many-claim-attacker-is-a-male-who-identifies-as-female-district-wont-discuss-attackers-gender-identity REDUXX: "BREAKING: OK School Sued By Mother Of Female Student Assaulted By Transgender Male In Women’s Washroom" https://reduxx.info/breaking-ok-school-sued-by-mother-of-female-student-assaulted-by-transgender-male-in-womens-washroom/ THE DAILY WIRE: "Jury Finds Former Loudoun County Superintendent Guilty Of Crime Stemming From Trans Rape Coverup" https://www.dailywire.com/news/jury-finds-former-loudoun-county-superintendent-guilty-of-charges-stemming-from-trans-rape-coverup NY POST: "Team forfeits after girls basketball player allegedly hurt in play with male who identifies as female" https://nypost.com/2024/02/20/sports/team-forfeits-against-kipp-academy-after-play-allegedly-involving-male-who-identifies-as-female/ SPORTSKEEDA: "'The emperor wears no clothes' - Riley Gaines reacts to transgender player impressing in high school girls basketball game" https://www.sportskeeda.com/us/olympics/news-the-emperor-wears-clothes-riley-gaines-reacts-transgender-player-impressing-high-school-girls-basketball-game INDEPENDENT WOMEN'S FORUM: "COMPETITION: Title IX, Male-Bodied Athletes, and the Threat to Women’s Sports" https://www.iwf.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IWLC_CompetitionReport_2ndEdition.pdf --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 The Biden administration has announced changes to Title IX that puts women and girls at risk. It is even worse than we originally thought. Also, Taylor Swift has released a new album and many of her lyrics are especially sacrilegious and problematic. We are getting into all of that on today's episode of Relatable. It's brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use code alley at checkout. That's good ranchers.com code alley.
Starting point is 00:00:28 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Tuesday. I hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. All right, before we get into everything, have a couple of things to say. One, we've got some new merch just in time for Mother's Day. And so Relative Bros, don't worry, your time is coming because Father's Day is coming up in June. And we are going to put some Related Bro merch out. Do not forget to send me some stuff out there, hats, t-shirts and stuff that you like out there in the wild.
Starting point is 00:01:05 because we're still deciding on the Related Bro design. But first, we've got Mother's Day stuff, a cute kind of mini release of merchandise. We've got T-shirts, as you can see, if you're watching on YouTube, in my mom era, it's supposed to be a little smiley face. It's cute. It's cute. And then we've got little trucker hats, which I'm personally really excited about, that say in my mom era.
Starting point is 00:01:30 But my favorite part of this is the matching onesie in my mom. baby era in my baby era so cute I can't wait to get that myself not for me but for my baby and on the sleeve it's got relatable on there so y'all know it's from moab and then so you can go to alleymerge.com alliemerch.com we'll link it in the description of this episode two more things before we get started one I know yesterday's episode was wonky I'm sorry about that I saw that after it came out like an hour later, I was like, what the heck? Why is it cutting off at 52 minutes? I know that it wasn't only 52 minutes long. And so I'm not really sure. We're not totally sure exactly what happened. I don't think that's ever happened to us before. And so I apologize. I got a ton of messages
Starting point is 00:02:19 about it yesterday. And I'm sure that was super annoying to be listening. And then all of a sudden, it cuts off mid sentence. But the good news is we're still, well, we're still figuring it out. But it is up on YouTube, like the full audio visuals all up on YouTube. And so, So if you need to finish watching or listening, you can go to YouTube and you can finish the episode. But I'm sorry about that. We will get that figured out. And hopefully it will never happen.
Starting point is 00:02:45 Again, third thing, please like and subscribe if you are watching on YouTube. So like this video, then subscribe to the channel and then put the notifications on. Make sure that you tap that little bell. Is it a bell? Is it a bell that they tap and then they turn the notifications on? All right, I wouldn't have known that. Make sure you tap the bell. Notifications are on so you always know when we are uploading something
Starting point is 00:03:12 because we don't just upload these episodes every day. We also have shorter segments that we put out, and then we've got our short videos that we put out that really aren't anywhere else except for on YouTube shorts. And so make sure that you have the notifications on. Also, it just really helps our show. It helps our show a lot. It helps us stay alive and continue to provide you with content.
Starting point is 00:03:33 the more people that are subscribed and also are getting those notifications. All right. That's all the introduction that I have. Now we actually got it got to get, we've got to get into, we've got to get into what we are actually talking about today because we have a lot to discuss. Since it was announced that Title IX is being changed by the Biden administration, I have been gunning to talk to you guys about it. as you can imagine, I've got a lot to say. So I'm going to give you a little summary of what's going on, and then we're going to talk to the expert from Alliance to Fending Freedom, Kristen Wagner, how they're pushing back against this. She's going to break it down for us in layman's terms,
Starting point is 00:04:17 what all of these regulations and what the changes actually say and actually mean. And then I am going to give my response and just my reaction to this. And what I have to say, specifically to Christians and influential Christians who just cannot find it within themselves to talk about this subject publicly. And so after that, we will get into the much awaited Taylor Swift lyrics analysis, but we've got to address this first. So before we get to Kristen Wagner, let me just give you a brief summary of what's happened. So this was last week, April 19th, when this was announced. It was Friday. The Department of Education released its long-delayed Title IX rule, rewriting the more than 50-year-old civil rights law that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex to now include so-called gender identity.
Starting point is 00:05:14 As Heritage Foundation's senior legal fellow, Sarah, Partial Perry put it, this change promises to turn Title IX's guarantee of sex equality in education completely upside down. You probably saw on social media people saying on the right and the left, oh, conservatives are just fearmongering. This change doesn't really mean anything. It just protects kids from harassment and just make sure that they are being treated with respect. Of course, that is absolutely what the Biden administration would like you, would like you to believe how they framed it is this.
Starting point is 00:05:56 The final regulations promote their press release reads, Educational Equity, an opportunity for students across the country, as well as accountability and fairness while empowering and supporting students and families. Let us count the euphemisms. I would say that educational is a euphemism in this case, because as we will hear from Kristen, it's not just about education. Equity is a euphemism, which is supposed to mean, fairness, but it doesn't. It means trying to force equal opportunities and denying all differences,
Starting point is 00:06:33 such as biological differences. An opportunity, I would say that's another euphemism there. So already in the first few words, we've got three euphemisms for students across the country, as well as accountability. Here's another euphemism in fairness, another euphemism. We've got five euphemisms so far in their press release just at the very beginning, empowering that six euphemisms supporting, and that is seven. You could even say students and families is coded language to mean boys who identify as girls. And what I mean by these are euphemisms is that these are universally positive words that actually mean something very harmful and scary as we will get into. The Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, said these final
Starting point is 00:07:21 regulations build on the legacy of title nine build on the legacy of title nine what a euphemism i mean that's right on par with reproductive rights or reproductive freedom being a euphemism for abortion build on the legacy of title nine by clarifying so what they're trying to communicate to you is that nothing is really changing that all our nation students can access schools that are safe welcoming and respect their rights so they present it very brilliantly i will say in a way that makes it seem like can't possibly disagree with it without being against safety or against equal rights or against equity or against being welcoming or being respectful. But of course, that is not what these changes to Title IX actually mean. It puts our girls. It puts women in danger. And this is an
Starting point is 00:08:16 absolutely demonic and evil change to Title IX that will end an absolute chaos for females. And Kristen Wagner of Alliance Defending Freedom is going to explain that to us and tell us exactly what it means, but also give us some encouragement and empowerment as we wrap our heads around what we can do to push back against this and also why. what institutions like Alliance Defending Freedom is going to do to make sure that these changes do not stick around forever. So we're going to get into that conversation, which is going to teach you a lot. It did for me. Kristen of Alliance Defending Freedom, thank you so much for taking the time to join us. Well, thanks for having me. Yes. Okay, you tweeted April 19th,
Starting point is 00:09:22 the Biden admin can't redefine quote unquote sex in Title IX, which is, without affecting women's opportunities, including women's sports. Under these rule changes, privacy, safety, parental rights, free speech, and yes, women's sports are at risk. This is an abuse of federal power that is anti-women, anti-science, and anti-logic. See you in court at POTUS. And it was that last sentence that really in the midst of just a lot of discouragement, seeing this rule change. and as a mom of daughters just kind of feeling this moment of fear that I thought, okay,
Starting point is 00:10:02 but we've got people on our side and in our corner that are going to fight this. You are one of those people. Before we get to the fight aspect of this, though, how you guys are going to push back, give us a little bit of an explainer. Like, what is Title IX for those who may not know? And then what does this rule change really mean? Because we've seen some conflicting reports on that. Right.
Starting point is 00:10:30 Well, I mean, it's over 1,500 pages of regulations. So to take us back to Title IX and what it is, Title IX is a law that was put in place in 1972. It was passed by Congress, and it was designed to ensure women have equal opportunities. So it prohibits sex discrimination and ensures that women have equal opportunities in educational institutions that are receiving federal funding.
Starting point is 00:10:55 So obviously that applies to sports, and we know in the 70s women didn't have equal opportunities in terms of scholarships and just the ability to be able to have comparable programs in women's sports like the men did. But it also plays out in other areas of educational institutions, including even being admitted into some of these institutions. And so Title IX has had a significant impact. on ensuring that women have equal access and equal opportunities, and predominantly it has involved women's sports. In addition to that, it carves out essentially that in a number of
Starting point is 00:11:34 different instances, sex-based distinctions are appropriate under the law because the law recognizes the truth that we are all created equal and in God's image, but we are created differently. There are differences between the two sexes. And so the law, prohibits sex discrimination. In terms of what's happened in more recent years, we have seen progressively left administrations to try to twist Title IX to take away those benefits and those opportunities from women and instead say it's no longer about sex-based discrimination, but it's about gender identity. And that completely turns Title IX on its head. And we can talk about all the ways it does that. But it started in the Obama administration actually.
Starting point is 00:12:21 where we started to see guidelines come out. And you may remember bathroom talk and boys being admitted into girls. So that's when it started. And that was through a guideline process. Then the Trump administration essentially short up the rule and interpreted the rule consistent with what Congress intended in the way it had always been interpreted. And now we're in the Biden administration, which has radically redefined sex and gutted those protections once again for women.
Starting point is 00:12:47 How does the both-stock decision play into this from 2020? And if I remember it correctly, it was Gorsuch, who of course was a Trump appointee who went the direction that we conservatives, constitutionalists, would not have liked him to go in saying that sex can be interpreted to also mean so-called gender identity. That's a part of all of this, too, right? It is, and it's so disturbing to see the results of Bostock. Alliance Defending Freedom has had the privilege of representing parties in a number of different. Supreme Court cases in the last 12 years and have had 15 victories. Our one loss was Bostock to be candid and it was a heartbreaking loss and it was unprecedented in terms of how the court
Starting point is 00:13:32 interpreted a statute that said sex discrimination to suddenly include gender identity as well sexual orientation. Now, however, I think when Justice Gorsuch wrote that decision, which was a shock to conservatives that he would take that position, he also, I think, thought that, that potentially the court could limit the impact of that. And in the decision itself, suggest that sex-based distinctions may be appropriate in the law, as well as protecting the rights of First Amendment rights, religious freedom rights in this context.
Starting point is 00:14:06 And so since that decision, we have had to litigate all around the edges of that Bostock decision. And to be clear, Bostock was under Title VII, which is applying to employers. It doesn't apply outside of the employment context. text, and the court's decision said that. It also has slightly different language than Title IX has, and in addition to the slightly different language, a difference between because of sex and on the basis of sex, Title IX, as I referenced, specifically calls out that there are reasons that are
Starting point is 00:14:41 legitimate reasons to make biological distinctions in the context of educational institutions. So there are some very clear differences between Bostock, a Title VII statute, and a Title IX statute that applies to educational institutions. But Bostock is a terrible decision, and we're hoping that the court will reverse it. Right. Okay. And so this is, even though they are two different things, they still correlate in that we are seeing this trend that you said started in the Obama era to redefine sex. And so we are seeing this in a variety of ways. And now this redefinition has come specifically for Title IX. This is something that has been debated and discussed. At least I've seen for the past maybe a couple of years,
Starting point is 00:15:26 you've probably been privy to that conversation a lot longer than I have. And we kind of anticipated that this was about to happen, that they were going to make this announcement that they have now changed Title IX, correct? Correct. Yes, we have been anticipating it. And actually, the first lawsuit that we filed was all the way back in 2019. And we represent, we continue to represent these athletes. Three Connecticut, well, now four Connecticut high school athletes at the time that were running track. And two boys came in and transitioned from competing in the boys category.
Starting point is 00:16:02 And three weeks later, moved into the girls category. And in just a period of a couple seasons, took 15 state championships, took opportunities to advance, 85 opportunities to advance from different girls and four state championships from one of our clients. So that's when we first got involved in this issue, and we have continued to see it escalate. And there are a number of cases that are being filed right now, including another one of our cases called BPJ, which comes out of the Four Circuit. And we can certainly talk about that, but I think you can expect that case to go to the Supreme Court as well. How I have seen this change interpreted by many on the left and in what you would call the mainstream media is that this change really doesn't affect women's privacy rights, their ability to compete against one another, that it's really just protecting what they would call, I don't know, gendered non-conforming transgender students, whatever, from harassment. That's all it's about.
Starting point is 00:17:01 It's limited. I was told even by some conservatives when I originally post. posted about this, that this is fearmongery, that this is blowing things out of proportion, that this change is not a big deal, it's not that controversial. I know it's 1,500 pages of regulations, as you said, but break it down for us. What is this change actually? Well, having practiced in these areas for many years now in the areas of constitutional law, there aren't very many things that really make me angry. This is one of them. Because as a parent, the implications of this rule are staggering on our children. As a woman, it denies us of equal
Starting point is 00:17:43 opportunities and says that a man's feelings can trump our rights as to be equally treated under the law and to have privacy. And it shames women for saying we are different and we are equal and tells us to go and sit down and shut up and stop complaining about this. It is immoral and it is unconstitutional. The way that it plays out in terms of this particular, these particular rules is it tells us that if you have your children in any institution from kindergarten through 12th grade all the way through college and that institution receives any federal aid whatsoever, that these institutions now have to open up their locker rooms to boys who identify as girls. And we've had real cases where this has happened and girls have suffered as a result.
Starting point is 00:18:28 It tells your kids that they have to use the wrong pronouns, that their speech is mandated in different ways. It now means there's no longer a boys' PE class and a girls' PE class, which increases the risk of harm and injury. There are so many different ways that it clearly applies in these instances that the suggestion of fear-mongering is, again, it's just an effort to try to force people to be quiet and to not say the quiet part out loud, just you're defying biological reality, and you are crushing women and girls in the process. So there's no fear-mongering. You're spot on to be calling this out. It also is likely going to impact women's sports.
Starting point is 00:19:07 And this suggestion, you know, I think maybe what you're hearing is, well, the guidelines or the regulations don't explicitly say that they apply to sports right now. Well, who cares? I mean, that's just political pandering because the Biden administration has already said very clearly that this redefinition does apply to sports. That's the BPJ case that I just referenced. Right now, we are litigating a case that is going to be heading up likely to the U.S. Supreme Court soon.
Starting point is 00:19:34 And the Department of Justice has taken the position that a boy who decided that he was going to identify as a girl has now displaced a number of kids in that particular school in the track and field competitions. And the DOJ, the Department of Justice, has said, that's just fine because sex includes gender identity and women no longer have the right to be able to participate in their own sports. They get to be sidelined. Sorry, I just get it. It is stunning to me. We got to have people stand up on this because there are so much implications. One more thing, Allie, that I need to mention that is so concerning about this is the regulations themselves actually embrace secret transition policies. I'm sure you've seen the cases that are going on.
Starting point is 00:20:23 We're litigating a host of cases right now where school districts are adopting these policies and they're secretly transitioning kids and lying to the parents. the Biden administration regulation endorses that in the regulation itself. Oh, my goodness. I just want to give people an example of what you're talking about, the danger of what you're talking about, because again, you hear this rhetoric that says, well, we're just blowing things out of proportion. This is not happening. This is just allowing people to be comfortable, whatever excuse they give.
Starting point is 00:20:57 This is just one recent story of many that I've seen over the years. years. If you don't know the examples of what's happening in women's and girls, private facilities, and on their teams, it's because you don't want to know at this point. It's very easy to find all the examples of what you're talking about. But this was reported by the Blaze, April 22nd, a 13-year-old boy who identified as a girl violently attacked a 12-year-old girl in a Montgomery County Middle School cafeteria sending her to the hospital with head trauma just last Wednesday. And one of the girl's friends, her name is Emily, Brave Girl, she gave a testimony to the local community saying, look, I warned teachers that this was going to happen. Teachers had the ability to stop this from happening, and they didn't.
Starting point is 00:21:48 Let's play SOT 1. And we had to sit in there and watch them clean up her blood off those tables and ground. And we had to watch them take her out with blood dripping down her face. And I will never forget that. And laying in bed last night, I just kept repeating it in my head, and we shouldn't have had to sit there and just watch that, like, watch them clean up her blood with the mom. Watch her repeatedly yelling that I'm going to murder you
Starting point is 00:22:14 and just hitting her with a Stanley. And I don't get how, like, you couldn't have stopped it. It was five hours from when I told you it was going to happen, and when it happened, it was five whole hours. I don't get how you couldn't have stopped that. And how Ms. Fetori said, don't worry, it's not going to happen. We have her undergris. control, but clearly you didn't. Oh, Kristen, I'm trying not to cry because that little girl is so,
Starting point is 00:22:35 she's so brave with her voice shaking. And yet she is so bold in defending her friends. So just to give people a little bit of clarity of what happened, this boy who identified as the opposite sex, of course, was allowed to go into female facilities and had threatened that he was going to beat this other, this young girl with the Stanley Cup. People know what that is. It's, you know, stainless steel big drink vessel. So it obviously would hurt, do a lot of damage. And this young girl that gave that testimony, Emily, she said, I warned teachers about this. I said that it was going to happen. The teachers did nothing. And then this young girl was beat mercilessly by this boy. And I'm sorry to say that this is a pattern that we see over and over again. Am I saying that all
Starting point is 00:23:24 boys who try to identify is the opposite sex are doing this? No. But it's a If it happens once, it's happened one too many times. As you said, there is a biological reason for sex separate places, spaces, and it is for the protection of women and girls because boys and girls are different. So here's an example of exactly what you're talking about and what we will now see more of. Yes, that's very true. And I think that we, in this process, we want to, as those who are people of faith and just people who are kind to others express compassion towards those who are suffering, but expressing compassion
Starting point is 00:24:04 doesn't come at the expense of individuals' rights to also be safe and to have private spaces and to not share our bathrooms and our locker rooms and our sports and not to be compelled to say things that we believe are false. And the Biden administration regulation does all of these things. It's it's moving us to this path where we are having to express a lie and to live a lie. And I, think it's important to point out that it's causing not just great harm to those of us who believe in these biological realities, but it's leading children and others to great harm themselves. We know that this idea that we should transition minors as minors into different sex or identifying as a different sex isn't supported by science. In fact, the data is becoming clear
Starting point is 00:24:52 that biological realities are important to reflect and that 90% of all kids, who receive counseling and or work through these issues of the uncomfortableness with their bodies. They live healthy lives in the end, whereas when a student is pumped with hormones or puberty blockers, there are lifelong ramifications to this. And that's one reason why we see Europe right now retreating from the gender identity movement and the studies that they're publishing say this is wrong to do this. It's experimental and it's going to cause great harm to a generation. So again, I don't think it just affects.
Starting point is 00:25:28 the students that believe in biological reality, but it's affecting a whole host of families that are being deceived. And that deception is going to cause great, not just injustice, but harm to them on a permanent basis. People have asked me since this change was announced, okay, but what do we do? What do we do? It's a very helpless feeling, which is why I appreciated your tweet, see you in court, POTUS. So I know what ADF and how you guys will be fighting against this, although I would love to hear more about that, but also for those of us who aren't lawyers, I mean, what do we do? How can we push back against this? Are we just completely powerless? We are not powerless, and I think it's important
Starting point is 00:26:23 to remember that. In some ways, we think we get a free pass if we're not a lawyer or a politician, but what we have to remember is God has called each of us into different areas, and he expects us to live a faithful witness to him in those areas. So I'd love seeing the podcast that you're putting now as well as even your own tweets about again and again reinforcing biblical truth because in the church there's even a temptation, whether it's how we use pronouns or what we think is loving. We never see in scripture compromising your biblical witness that it's loving to tell the truth. What matters is how you tell it. And so I think, again, as Christians committing to God's word is true, and it promotes human flourishing, and biological realities matter to all of us.
Starting point is 00:27:11 So looking for those spaces to speak out, not complying when we have these manmates to live by lies, that's the only way that we will get ourselves out of this is to insist that we will live the truth. And as that young girl did at that public school board meeting, standing up, and as many other parents did, to say this is wrong and we will not allow this in our communities because these policies aren't just playing out at the federal level, which is a result of who we vote for. But they're also playing out at the local level in our local communities. And it's not going to be resolved just by litigation. It's not going to be resolved just by state legislation.
Starting point is 00:27:51 It's going to be resolved by our witness and what we do in our own local communities. But on the local level, if schools are saying, institutions who take federal funding are saying, look, you're not going to get this federal funding if you don't comply with this, if you don't expand the definition of sex to mean gender identity, what can the members of that community really do? Like, I mean, do they have the ability to push their local public institutions to say, do not comply with this? What, what practically does that look like? I think they do have the ability to stress that the school. That's the school. policies need to be protective of biological sex and particularly protective of women and girls
Starting point is 00:28:37 because it's the women and girls that suffer the most under these policies. And I think if enough public school stand up, the administration will have to back off. And let me give you a case and point right now. We know that the Biden administration takes the position that men should and boys should be able to identify as girls and compete in girls sports because we've seen that in the litigation. But they did not. They tried to obscure. that in the regulations that are just passed. And why did they try to obscure it? Well, one, they're seeking to chill the speech and try to force these public schools into doing it without necessarily explicitly saying it in the rule. But the reason they're trying to do that is because
Starting point is 00:29:15 they know that there will be a backlash by the people. And it's important that they feel that backlash that we continue to stand up, particularly in this moment, and say, our girls are not going to compete against boys. And that's not fair to the women and the girls that have to say, stand up, but you're seeing more and more people say, no, this is not happening. We're also seeing a number of parents who are standing up. We have a client who, one of their daughters, was supposed to sleep in a bed in a hotel room with a boy who identifies as a girl without the school telling the parents. And the parents are standing up and saying, no, this is not acceptable and they're taking action. We have a couple of other parents where their children have been secretly transitioned,
Starting point is 00:29:57 and they are standing up and saying, we want to change. in the school policy, we're going to demand it, and they are filing lawsuits. So I think we have to hold the line on this, and sometimes it's really uncomfortable to do that. But there's too much at stake to not do it. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. I always think about the story of Yalee Martinez, the young woman from California whose mother was an immigrant. She was transitioned, so-called against her will at public school. She was taken out of the home because her mom didn't affirm that, that her daughter could become a boy. And so she went into foster care and she went into group homes. And of course, without any support, without the people who really loved her, she was abused. She ended up committing
Starting point is 00:30:40 suicide. And that's one of many stories of young women who are taken out of the home. They end up being trafficked, exploited. Because of course, they are now around people who don't have a vested interest in their well-being in their long-term health. Their parents did. And so it's just a very evil pipeline. And you're absolutely right. Parents do have to speak up against it. And it's going to take courage. Like, it's going to take sacrifice. But unfortunately, that's where we are. And as you said, this has happened because of who people voted for in 2020. And we have the opportunity to vote again in November. and we remember that these kinds of things happen because of who is in office, happened because of who is in charge. And so this November, obviously, a lot is at stake there. But tell us how the ADF is involved in pushing back against this.
Starting point is 00:31:35 Well, and I would also add that I think another reason that this happened isn't just because of the political process, because we've got to get past the point of one administration using its executive power, friends, Frankly, with the Biden administration, it's an abuse of power because it goes beyond what the statute says. But our laws and policies shouldn't be so affected by who's in office in the moment. And it really comes down to what we're teaching our own children at our kitchen tables, what we're allowing them to be taught in the schools and taking back the educational institutions to ensure that our children understand why biology is important. In terms of what ADF's role has been, we work both on the litigation side and the public. policy and also with churches and ministries and Christians to help educate them and provide
Starting point is 00:32:22 resources to navigate these issues. So you referenced, you know, children that have been put in the foster care system or potentially up for adoption. And I would just mention, I mean, we see this issue as the civil rights issue of our time, of our generation. It has to be one because in our view, Western civilization depends on it. We cannot ignore reality and have that mandated and have any rights, including. parental rights left, but we are also seeing a massive trend in Christians or others who believe
Starting point is 00:32:54 in biology and human sexuality that men are men and women are women being boxed out of being able to provide foster and adoption care. So there are a number of cases right now where we're litigating the fact that you should not be excluded from being able to serve as a foster care parent simply because you are not going to be taking a child to have a puberty blocker injection or take hormones. And yet that is happening again and again. And I just want to reinforce for those who are watching, you know, God has put on her hearts and he's called us to serve those who are in need. And it's wrong for you to step out of that space completely and not challenge what is obviously an obstacle to the Great Commission and to the
Starting point is 00:33:42 cultural commission. So again, we need more people to stand up and say and expose this and bring light into darkness. Yes, and amen. Absolutely. Well, I'm thankful for ADF and how you guys hopefully are going to be taking this all the way and pushing back as successfully and as effectively as you possibly can. And I'm just so thankful for organizations like yours that are in it. I mean, you really are on the front lines. People talk about commentators being on the front lines. And we all have our part to play. But you guys really are. and making a tangible difference, and I'm just so thankful for how God is called you and equipped you and thankful for your courage. So I appreciate that. How can people either follow you,
Starting point is 00:34:28 support you, but also understand everything that ADF is doing and fighting for? Well, they can keep up. We're on Instagrams at Alliance Defending Freedom. I certainly am on Twitter, as is ADF. We have a website, ADFlecal.org. All of our services are provided free of charge and they can pray for us. But I also just want to highlight that it's our clients that are our heroes. And these are just, you know, counselors who are seeking to live faithful to the gospel, women athletes who are seeking to, you know, live out biological truth. These are just ordinary people that God has given them a moment to stand. And again, it might be just a stance that you take in explaining to your daughter why it matters, why her, why she's created fearfully and
Starting point is 00:35:15 wonderfully made and why she might feel awkward in the moment. Or it is a doctor who needs to stand and says, no, I'm not going to perform this surgery because it brings harm to my patient. So nobody gets a free pass in this moment. And I believe, and I have seen again and again, that when we take those moments that we know God has called us and we speak truth and we do it in love, that's when we hear that still small voices. This is why I made you. So it's tremendously fulfilling the cost of disobedience, is much higher than the cost of obedience in this moment. Yes, and amen. Well, thank you so much, Kristen.
Starting point is 00:35:50 I really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So I gave you just one example of the consequences of saying that there are really no differences between the sexes, that if you declare that you are a girl, even though you are a boy, your biology tells you that you are a boy, that you are just as valid. in your femininity, in your femaleness as anyone who is actually biologically a girl.
Starting point is 00:36:34 We can see the danger of that, not just when it comes to their physical safety, because of course that's a huge part of this, whether or not all people who identify, all men who identify is the opposite sex are predators. The fact of the matter is their presence in private facilities is a danger to women. because they are bigger than us, because they are stronger than us. Even a guy who is shorter and skinnier is still stronger than the average female because God made men that way, even if they have been on hormones, even if they're wearing lipstick, even if they have a small stature, they still have bigger bones, they have a greater lung
Starting point is 00:37:18 capacity than we do, they have a greater wingspan than we do. They are on average, much faster and stronger than we are. And so this puts women and girls at risk. And of course, it also stymies competition. It makes it unfair for women. You heard Kristen talk about those young women who are racing in track. And unfortunately, they have had opportunities. They have had titles.
Starting point is 00:37:46 They have had scholarships taken from them because these boys who were okay, they were mediocre runners before when they were competing against other male athletes. Now they have become all stars. They have become champions because of course they are still men. After you go through male puberty, it's done. You've got all of the benefits of testosterone, even if you try to go back on those benefits by injecting your body with estrogen, what has been done to your body, to your muscle mass, to your heart, to your lungs during puberty, it really is irreversible. And girls who do not, cannot go through male puberty, even if they are injected with cross-sex hormones during their pre-teen years, they are just not
Starting point is 00:38:32 receiving those benefits. Men and women are different, really from the point of conception. This is biologically true. I actually have the biggest debate that I have done, the longest debate that I've done on this subject coming out next month, Ellen Fisher's podcast. I flew to California to film this and I am actually debating someone who identifies himself as non-binary and we went back and forth on this for almost three hours. Really interesting and good conversation. Very civil by the way, extremely respectful. But at the end of the day,
Starting point is 00:39:08 biology wins. At the end of the day, I didn't have to be some skilled debater to present my side. It is just so obvious and true that there are male, female differences from the point of conception onward that really cannot be changed. And that is why we have had Title IX. That is why we have sex separate spaces. That is why we have different gender roles, different roles in society. Those gender roles don't prove to be as important when it comes to non-physical roles. But because men and women's bodies are different, we need sex separate spaces. We need sex separate teams. And we are going to see the worst and the most and the most gut-wrenching and disturbing consequences because of this. Let me give you a few more examples
Starting point is 00:40:02 of what this looks like when we decide that boys who want to become girls get to share spaces with girls. This is also reported by The Blaze September 29th of last year. A viral cell phone video shows an Oregon middle school girl getting beaten up by an attacker who everyone at the school is claiming is actually a male who identifies as a female. The school district won't say whether or not this person has that so-called gender identity reducts also reported last year, June 1st, 2023 in Oklahoma School is being sued by a mother of a female student who was assaulted by a trans-identifying male in the women's bathroom. Of course, when your policy is that men can go into these bathrooms, you are going to get men,
Starting point is 00:40:54 whether they identify as the opposite sex or not, exploiting that rule so that they can beat up on women. Like ask yourself, I've seen this question posed before, but ask yourself what kind of boy wants to enter a space in which they know they're going to be naked girls, vulnerable girls, girls who are uncomfortable with a male presence. That's not a sane or stable man. I don't think that's even a man who truly has, or a boy,
Starting point is 00:41:23 who truly has what's called gender dysphoria. These stories that we see in locker rooms, in planet fitness, in spas, in bathrooms, in locker rooms of these basically exhibitionist men, flashing women, flashing girls, getting off on doing that. This is not an example of gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria means you have a consistent, persistent, insistent, discomfort in your own body from a young age, that you feel like you just want to escape your skin.
Starting point is 00:42:00 This almost exclusively happens in boys, by the way, and has throughout history. And it has also historically been a tiny, tiny sampling of boys who just feel like they are in the wrong body. It typically manifests itself in a lot of hiding and a lot of covering up and a lot of insecurity and a lot of just of trying to isolate yourself away from the public. And so these boys that we see going into girls' bathrooms and going into women's facilities
Starting point is 00:42:36 who want to show off their male body parts who are beating up on and sexually assaulting these women, they don't have gender dysphoria. We don't have to have compassion for the idea that they think that they're the opposite sex. don't. Now, they might have some abuse in their past. They might have things that we should feel compassion for. And of course, they're still made in the image of God. And so we think that they have innate worth. But we really need to reckon with the fact that these boys and men infiltrating these spaces and flaunting their bodies to intimidate and humiliate women are actually just porn-addled perverts. Period. When you see it from that perspective,
Starting point is 00:43:21 which I truly believe from the mini interviews that I've done, from the journalist that I've talked to, from the activists that I've talked to, from the detransitioners that I've talked to, all of the reading and all of the research that I have done over the past five or so years, I truly believe that that is what is driving this ideology, is pornography and perversion and sexual immorality and sexual depravity. And when you see it from that perspective, at least when I'm talking about boys and men trying to be the opposite sex. When you see it from that perspective, you can stop being so crippled by this, what I call toxic empathy that preempts you from being bold in the truth.
Starting point is 00:44:10 That prohibits you from seeing and saying things as they actually are. when you see that you don't have to have this like crippling feeling of compassion for these boys and men who are going into women's spaces when you can actually see them as what many of them, I can't say all, but what many of them are, these sexually depraved people that actually get off on making women uncomfortable, then maybe you will find the gumption and find the strength to stand up for your daughters. maybe then you will be able to stand at the pulpit and use the platform that God is given you and say enough enough and what really just makes me so angry and makes me so upset is that so
Starting point is 00:45:02 many of the evangelical leaders that I saw stand up in the summer of 2020 and bravely using scare quotes because I have my problems with this, but they use their voices to speak out against things like so-called white supremacy and systemic and institutionalists and institutional and structural racism and white privilege and speak up on behalf of Black Lives Matter and anti-racism and speak out against white fragility. They were so quick to post the black square to make sure that they had the round tables and the sermons at their church talking about the big problem of systemic racism and social injustice even pushed and perpetuated by the church. And now the reason why I say that with just a tinge of sarcasm is because the connections that were made during that time between slavery and historic races,
Starting point is 00:46:09 to any disparities or injustices today is extremely dubious. Those connections are extremely dubious. They're fraught with a lot of logical inconsistencies and just a historical analysis. Obviously, I am not saying that racism shouldn't be talked about or that injustice against people for any reason shouldn't be discussed. I'm not saying that those conversations shouldn't be had. but those conversations and the activism that I saw from the evangelical church largely pushed on biblical principles when it came to justice and when it came to the relations between white people and black people, white Christians and black Christians, this language that was
Starting point is 00:47:00 employed by them was extremely worldly, extremely divisive, extremely secular, saying things like white privilege, basically putting the onus all on white people, taking the agency away from black people, preaching two different messages, almost two different gospels to white and black people in the name of so-called racial reconciliation. I mean, I had a lot of problems with all of that, but I say all that to say that evangelicals were willing to stand up for a so-called social injustice that they didn't even really have a biblical response to four years ago. but now they won't stand up against this real, true, clear objective injustice that the Bible very clearly speaks to and the first chapter of the first book of the Bible.
Starting point is 00:47:48 Like there's a lot in debate, a lot of debate and discussion around what it looks like to have a biblical and Christian response to a police officer's interaction with a black person, like what justice actually looks like, which we've talked about exhaustively on this podcast. justice according to the Bible and social justice according to secular society are not the same things and yet when it comes to this this issue of the um the denial of the gender binary and the risk that that places especially on women and girls but really on all people and all children in particular we all of a sudden have those same evangelicals unwilling to say what the Bible says is true. It's so clear in scripture. It's in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible. Genesis 1-27, God made them in his image, in his image. He created them male and female.
Starting point is 00:48:49 He created them, boom, right there. Jesus repeats that in Matthew 194 through 5 in responding to a question about divorce. He did not have to bring it all the way back to creation and it's explicit. implicit distinctions and definitions of male and female, but he did because that mattered to him. Have you not read, Jesus said, that in the beginning, God made them male and female? He's talking about marriage, but he is clearly defining marriage and the importance of marriage by the reality of the gender binary, by the biological reality of the gender binary, male and female. We see that definition of male and female, the definition of gender all throughout scripture from the beginning of creation in the first chapter all the way to Revelation 22
Starting point is 00:49:42 and the marriage supper between Christ in the church where Christ is called the groom and the church is called the bride. That is a gender distinction that shows that the gender definitions of marriage on earth actually have an eternal and profound and spiritual meaning, as we read in Ephesians 5. We've got it all right there. It's not confusing. It's not nuanced. It's not gray. It's actually very black and white all throughout scripture that God has made us male and female, that these are distinctions that actually matter that manifest themselves in the world in important ways. And yet, so few pastors, so few Christian teachers, so few Christian influencers who were all about being social justice activists four years ago will speak up about this now. Why? Why? Because many of these people who fancy themselves brave, they're really very cowardly.
Starting point is 00:50:53 because see you got a lot of applause by the secular world and by progressives four years ago if you were willing to just repeat their mantras and maybe put Micah 6-8 in front of it when you were talking about racism and discrimination back in 2020. That was popular. That was mainstream popular. You got written about positively by the New York Times and by the Atlantic. But now if you say, I can't get on board with that and I am going to speak out vehemently against this gender confusion and gender deception, you're not going to get
Starting point is 00:51:32 positive press. All those people that were clapping for you, all those people in the secular world, all those progressives that were on your side back in 2020 when you were posting the black square, they're going to turn their back against you. And if you have not counted the cost, you might not think it's worth it. A lot of that activism back in 2020, much of it might have been sincere and might have been from a true motivation of thinking that you are doing good. A lot of it was selfish, I think. I think. I don't know. I can't say, but when I look at the inconsistencies and what that batch of evangelical Christians is actually willing to stand up for, sometimes they'll give abortion, a mention every now and then
Starting point is 00:52:23 Sometimes they'll talk about, I don't know, maybe some other things that they know the Bible speaks against and traditionally fall into the conservative definitions of what's important. Sometimes they'll do that. But very few of them will talk about the definition of marriage anymore. Very few of them will talk about the reality of gender. Very few of them will be public on their Instagram stories and in their Instagram features. about this because for some reason, for some reason, they're so scared to offend people when it comes to this subject. They weren't scared. They weren't scared of offending white evangelicals when they were talking about white fragility and white privilege. They weren't scared of offending Trump supporters.
Starting point is 00:53:13 They weren't scared of offending Republican voters four years ago. Now that offense was worth it to them. But now they say, well, they are scared to offend. the man who identifies as the opposite sex. They are scared to offend the two men who threw surrogacy by a baby. They're too scared to offend those people. They weren't scared to offend their legitimate brothers and sisters in Christ who were white Trump voting evangelicals four years ago, who many of them categorized and cascaded as racist just because of who they voted for and because of the absence of a
Starting point is 00:53:50 black square. That just goes to show that the act. activism of some of these people is purely selfishly motivated. It's not about care for the marginalized. It's not about care for the vulnerable. You know who's marginalized and vulnerable? These kids who are being put on puberty blockers, these girls who are losing opportunities because men are now competing against them. Women in prison who are forced to be had, they are forced to share spaces, to share prison cells with male rapists who now identify as women. This is happening in this country.
Starting point is 00:54:33 And how many pastors, how many Christians do you know are speaking up about it? This is a civil rights issue. Don't you spout off about Micah 6.8 if all you talk about is the issue that the secular world disagrees with you on, that America is some systemically racist country that needs to be gutted and basically rebuilt in the image of DEI. That's not courage. That's not courage.
Starting point is 00:55:07 You sound just like the world. You're defining justice as they do. If you want to be courageous and if you want to be loving as God defines loving because love rejoices with the truth, as 1 Corinthians 136 tells us. If you want to be loving as God defines loving and God gets to define loving because he is love 1 John 4 8, then you will simply agree with Genesis 1.27. You will represent that to the world because if you believe that God is in charge of all things because he created all things, if you believe that his ways are better, then you will be loud and proud about those things.
Starting point is 00:55:49 That doesn't mean that you have to be purposely offensive. That doesn't mean that you have to be spiteful. That doesn't mean that you have to be sarcastic. That doesn't mean those things. Just understand that truth will offend the world. And it matters, Pastor. It matters. If you're a girl dad and you're not speaking up about this,
Starting point is 00:56:08 shame on you. Shame on you. You don't have to have a public platform. I'm not saying that. You don't have to run for. office. But with whatever sphere of influence God has given you, whether it's five people or 5,000 people, you need to be speaking up about this. This matters. This is an assault on creation. And because of that, it's making vulnerable girls even more vulnerable.
Starting point is 00:56:33 Okay, I promised y'all that we would talk about Taylor Swift. And we really don't have time. So maybe we'll do a little bit of Taylor Swift. And then if we have time and a few episode. We'll break it down. We'll break it down some more. But I promise you guys that we would. Okay. All right. All right, Bree. Um, your girl, Taylor Swift has released an album. She released an album on Friday. This is her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department. Two hours after releasing the album, Swift announced that the album was a surprise double album. dropping 15 additional songs to complete this album, and the four days since it's released, the album has become Spotify's most dreamed album in a single day, exceeding 200 million streams,
Starting point is 00:57:37 while the album's title single, Fortnite, featuring Post Malone, became the streaming platform's most stream song in a single day. Wow. Now some of, now some Christians are pointing to problematic lyrics from Taylor Swift's latest album, The Tortured Poets Department. All right, before we get into some of those lyrics. I want to, I want to like set this up a little bit for those of you who are maybe new here and who don't know. So we've talked about Taylor Swift a few times. Obviously I and Bree too. We disagree with her politically. And I would not call myself a Swifty. But I have enjoyed many of her albums and many of her songs. I've kind of been just like agnostic about her. I do listen to like if she puts a new album out, I like typically listen to a
Starting point is 00:58:21 couple songs. Of course I think they're catchy. Of course, I understand why people like her. I don't like when people are like, I have no idea why people like Taylor Swift. Like, she is not talented. That's obviously not true. I mean, you can not like her and you can even think that she's unimpressive, like her songwriting abilities or whatever, because it's subjective. But I can see why she is impressive. I can see why tens of millions of girls flock to her. I can see why she is appealing. and of course, I've liked some of her music. However, some of the lyrics in this particular album are just extremely blasphemous, extremely sacrilegious, and I do find it.
Starting point is 00:59:03 I do find them disturbing. So I'm going to go through some of those lyrics. We're going to get Bree's take because she does consider herself a Swifty. I laughed at Bree's story. She said that, like, people text, you said that people text you when she puts an album out. like you did it like congratulating you. They're like happy release day. Congratulations. Yeah. Thanks. Like everyone's thinking of you when Taylor Swift puts out puts out an album. So I'll get Bree's take on this because Bree is not, let me just say, Bree is not like an unhinged Swifty.
Starting point is 00:59:36 Okay. I would say some Swifties as well as some of the Beehive and Ariana Grande fans and K-pop fans are truly like detached from reality and they cannot even like ever criticize the person that they are a fan of, that's not Bree. So we're going to get her take in just a second. But let me tell you some of these, I think really disturbing lyrics in some of these songs on this new album. So one of the songs is called Guilty as Sin. And it says, what if I roll the stone away? They're going to crucify me anyway. What if the way you hold me is actually what's holy? If long suffering propriety is what they want from me, they don't know how you've haunted me so stunningly. I choose you and me religiously. The Berean millennial, Katie, she released or she posted
Starting point is 01:00:26 some of these lyrics on X, and she said that almost half of the songs on her newest album, I don't know, I haven't listened to all the songs, either make fun of Christians or blaspheme him. The smallest man who ever lived, one of the lines is, because it wasn't sexy once it wasn't forbidden. I would have died for your sins. Instead, I just died inside. And then there is, but daddy, I love him and we've got a researcher note. The song is not a response to Christians,
Starting point is 01:00:56 despite her using the small town metaphor throughout its response to fans who cried out to cancel her when she was dating Maddie Healey, who has made jokes and said things in the past that people deem offensive. When her album speak now, Taylor's version came out.
Starting point is 01:01:10 She was dating Maddie, a group of fans, created the Speak Up Now campaign requesting that Taylor give more than a simple apology for the bigoted remarks that Maddie Helius made. Okay, I didn't know any of that. So this response is apparently in response to those people. So she says, for example, clutching their pearl sighing, what a mess. I just learned these people try and save you because they hate you. Too high a horse for a simple girl to rise above it, blah, blah, blah. God save the most judgmental
Starting point is 01:01:41 creeps who say they want what's best for me sanctimoniously performing soliloquies. I'll never see yada yada yada i don't really know why we even included that song in this but i don't know i guess it's just people thought that it was a response to christians and it wasn't actually a response to christians but people were kind of understandably upset about that um she also had this song in 2019 from her album lover false god i guess is the song but we might just get away with it religions in your lips even if it's a false god we'd still worship uh we might just get away with it the altar is my hips even if it's a false god, we'd still worship this love. We'd still worship this love. But we can patch it up good, make confessions, and we're begging for forgiveness.
Starting point is 01:02:25 Got the wine for you. Yikes. Okay, Bree. She's got some sacrilegious and some blasphemous stuff up in here. What was your thought? As a Christian who likes Taylor Swift, as you were listening to this, what were you thinking? Yeah, I think there's a little bit more in this album than there has been a lot. in the past, but like I included that from her 2019 album because I remember hearing that song and thinking, okay, this is pretty sacrilegious at that time too. So it's not exactly new for her. And at that time, I couldn't find the exact interview, but I remember her saying something about how she is just fascinated by like religious themes. She was like, I've never been religious, but I'm interested in like the themes. And I was like, I don't know what that means. So she just
Starting point is 01:03:14 So she said that she's never been religious. Yeah, she said that. I think that was maybe in 2018 when she said that, yeah. Because remember in that when she was talking about Marsha Blackburn, and that was she said that she was a Christian. She was like as a Christian. Right. And I think people have kind of assumed that she's like at least a Christian in name.
Starting point is 01:03:33 Yeah. So that's interesting. Yeah. And she apparently is because that documentary was after she said this thing about like, I've never really been religious. So yes, obviously it's like all nominal. But yeah, no, I mean, there are a lot of songs that I don't condemn, or that I don't condone.
Starting point is 01:03:51 Yeah, yeah. From Taylor Swift. And some of these are some of them. I still think the album's really good. I also think there are a lot of themes in it that are actually really good. So I don't know. Yeah. It's kind of like every Taylor Swift album.
Starting point is 01:04:06 Some things I think are really not worth listening to and some are. Yeah. So I go back and forth on this myself as someone who is like not a Swift. but does, you know, like and can appreciate some of her songs. Like some of her songs I just, I can't listen to. And again, I haven't listened to this album. I maybe have listened to one song, but there are some songs like on her last album. She had a song called Karma that I just thought was really sad. And I'm sure that's how she thinks. And I think that's how a lot of women think that karma is something that's real. It's basically like a works based religion. But it's also a very
Starting point is 01:04:39 vindictive way to think. And I think from the songs that she has that she is a very vindictive. She does seem to have a vindictive streak. And to me, she also dons this kind of humility that, not real humility, or maybe it is real humility, but it makes it seem like she is a victim and that she has always, you know, kept her side of the street clean. And she has always kind of been the good girl and people have come after her totally unprovoked. And because of that, I have to get back at them. Maybe you should be afraid of me kind of thing. And that persona is probably charming. I think it speaks, it seems sad to me. It seems sad. It seems a little bit unstable to me. It's not something that is like appealing. When I listen, when I really think about like all of her songs and the kind of persona that
Starting point is 01:05:29 she builds, I'm like, I don't know if this is something that I would ever want to be friends with. And definitely needs Jesus for sure. But I go back and forth between like, okay, do people hold her to too high of a standard? Do we for some reason hold her to a standard that we don't hold any other artist? Like no one has these like all these tweets and all of this like these op-eds about like Ariana Grande and the things that she sings about or some of the other artists that are similar to Taylor Swift.
Starting point is 01:06:02 Like people just don't talk about them as much. But then I also go back and I think, well, I think the reason why people point this out about Taylor Swift, even though she's not religious, so none of this stuff should really be surprising at all, is because so many Christian women listen to her and do kind of give her a pass, like they wouldn't listen to hip hop or they wouldn't listen to like Lil Nas X because he's blasphemous, but they will jam out to Taylor Swift. They will go to her concert. They will take their 13-year-old daughters to their concert while she's, you know, dancing in a little leotard on a chair. And because it's Taylor Swift and she has a wholesome image, they kind of
Starting point is 01:06:48 excuse her blasphemy and sacrilege in a way that maybe they wouldn't for another artist. So I don't know. I go back and forth on that a lot. I don't know what you think. No, I think that's a fair point. I do take issue with people exaggerating some of these things. Like I would disagree. I don't think half the album references things like this, like negative things. like this. But I also don't think that most of her fans are under 15, which a lot of people claim. That's just not true. A lot of her fans are like my age. They've grown with her. Yeah, they've grown with her. So yes, people are taking their daughters to her concerts for sure. I think that's a fair point. But I think that a lot of people get a lot wrong about it as well
Starting point is 01:07:31 when they criticize her. So yeah, I think people need to be a little bit more even-handed with it, in my opinion. I think what's fair is to say that I think we should, if anyone thinks like for some reason that she is like that these are wholesome lyrics and a wholesome example and like someone that you want like as a Christian your daughters to look up to or that this is someone that you can let your daughters listen to without you first assessing the lyrics then you need to just get that out of your head because that's not true like in the same way that it you know my parents were like what what is christina aguilera and um what are brittany Spears, what are they talking about? How did we go from the first album to
Starting point is 01:08:14 slave for you? Like, big difference. Of course, my, at first, it was like, oh, Britney Spears is a Christian. She's from Louisiana. The same thing I think about, I don't know, Mandy Moore and those people. And then you kind of see, okay, as they grow up, the image is different. The lyrics are different. And you have to start paying attention to those things. For some reason, I do think that, I don't know, simultaneously I see on one hand that it seems like Taylor Swift is held to like a Christian standard, even though she is not a Christian and is really not really said that she has. Maybe she's gone back and forth on that. But and then on the other hand, I feel like she just gets like a total free pass from Christians who should know better and to think that she is like some Christian example and she's just not. So I think if you just see her how she is, she's a secular artist who has sexual, well, yeah, secular sexual values and as, secular sexual ethic. And she is going to play into this theme that is really popular right now, which is playing upon religious themes, as Madonna did 40 years ago and like a prayer,
Starting point is 01:09:22 like I think that you can see it clear-eyed. That doesn't mean that you should approve of it. That doesn't mean that your daughter should be listening to it. Maybe you shouldn't even be listening to it. But I also think that when people view her as like, I don't know, some sort of like witch that is putting people in a trance, I'm not so sure I would go that far. I don't think she's necessarily unique in that way. I don't know. Is there anything else you want to add? No, I think you covered it.
Starting point is 01:09:47 Yeah. I'm not offended by people who really, really dislike her for these reasons. I just think there's a little bit of nuance. Yeah. Personally. So, yeah. Yeah. Got it.
Starting point is 01:10:00 Got it. Resident Swifty has weighed in. All right. That's what I think. And you know what? We all have to do to make sure that what we are imbibing is lovely and pure and excellent and praiseworthy. And that is the call of the Christian. I certainly don't get that right all the time. And I still regret watching the Sopranos all the way through
Starting point is 01:10:23 like five years ago. I'm haunted by that. I should have listened to Philippians Ford. And I shouldn't have, I shouldn't have watched that because it wasn't pure, excellent. And I still have those scenes in my head. So I've learned my lesson. I've learned my lesson. All right. That's all we've got time for it for today we will be back here tomorrow with an awesome guest i'm so excited see you guys then

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