The Daily Signal - #482: How the US Is Promoting Religious Liberty Around the World

Episode Date: June 11, 2019

Around the world, religious liberty remains under threat. In China, a million Uighurs Muslims are now in internment camps--and it's not the only nation were there's no true freedom of religion. Sam Brownback, U.S. ambassador at large for international religious freedom, joins us to discuss. We also cover these stories:•President Trump suggests 2,000 troops may be moved from Germany to Poland.•Rep. Ilhan Omar filed joint tax returns with her current husband when she was still legally married to a different man. •Nevada passes law making it illegal to not hire someone because their drug test showed marijuana use. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, June 13th. I'm Kate Trinko. And I'm Daniel Davis. Sam Brownback has been a governor and a U.S. senator. Now he's advancing religious freedom overseas as the U.S. ambassador at large for international religious freedom. Today, he'll join me in studio to discuss major threats to religious liberty, in particular the U.S. in Western China. Plus, dozens of companies have come out against Georgia's pro-life law, but Delta Airlines is taking a very different approach. We'll discuss. By the way, if you're enjoying this podcast, please consider leaving a review or a five-star rating on iTunes, which will help us grow. Now onto our top news. President Trump meant Wednesday with Polish President Andre Duda and suggested the U.S. might take some troops out of

Germany and place them in Poland. Well, they're talking about 2,000 troops, but we'd be taking them out of Germany or would be moving them from another location. It would be no additional troops to Europe. we'd be moving them from another location. As you know, we have 52,000 troops in Germany, and Germany is not living up to what they're supposed to be doing with respect to NATO. And Poland is. I have to congratulate you.

Thank you very much. But Poland is paying the max. The max will be raised. I raised over $100 billion last year from countries that were not paying, and it wasn't fair to the United States. Well, President Trump has invoked executive privilege, a move that allows him to skirt the subpoena of documents from the House Oversight Committee. The committee had demanded the administration handover documents related to plans for the 2020 census. The president's move comes ahead of a planned committee vote to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt of Congress.

The contempt vote also relates to the administration's past refusal to hand over other documents related. to the Russia investigation. Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings criticized the move on Wednesday, saying the administration wasn't acting in good faith, but instead in, quote, blanket defiance of Congress's constitutionally mandated responsibilities, end quote. Though in a previous but related court ruling, a federal court had ruled that the president was within his rights

to withhold the documents being subpoenaed. Illinois Democrat Governor J.B. Pritzker proudly signed into law an extreme abortion bill Wednesday, one that says abortion is a, quote, fundamental right, and that, quote, a fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent rights under the laws of this state. The bill also removes certain restrictions that were in place related to third trimester abortions. The governor spoke about this bill in a press conference. In this state, women will always have the right to reproductive health care. I want to say very clearly, in the 46 years since the Supreme Court decided Roe, there has never been a more important time to stand with women.

Those opposed to women's reproductive rights are emboldened, and they're not just looking to curtail those rights. They are looking to eliminate them altogether, and their hopeful eyes are on the highest court in the land. In the last few weeks, we've seen state legislatures in Georgia, Alabama, Ohio, Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, and Indiana passed near-complete bans on access to abortion. Right now, in Missouri, the last remaining clinic providing reproductive care is fighting a legal battle to keep the state from shutting it down. And as a result, more and more Missouri women are being forced to travel to Illinois and to Kansas to exercise their rights and access care. Make no mistake about it. And listen up. Abortion bans don't ban abortion.

They just endanger women. Well, a clash is continued on the streets of Hong Kong Wednesday, as the legislature there seeks to ram through a Beijing-backed bill that would shrink the city's autonomy. autonomy. Protesters blocked streets early in the morning on Wednesday, forcing legislators to postpone their vote on the bill. Police responded by throwing tear gas and shooting rubber bullets at the protesters. Just days prior, roughly a million people had taken to the streets. The highly unpopular bill under consideration would allow alleged criminals in Hong Kong to be extradited to China. Hong Kong maintains a separate legal system from China under international treaty until the year 2047. of Ilan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, has faced allegations from some conservative journalists who have dug into social media posts and her background that there is reason to believe that she married

her brother in the past, presumably to obtain some kind of college boost and or immigration aid. Omar told the Associated Press last year that the allegations were, quote, disgusting lies. However, the Associated Press is now reporting that, per Minnesota officials, Omar filed joint tax returns for two years with her current husband, who she was not legally married to at the time because she was married to the man that some allege is her brother. The AP adds, quote, filing joint tax returns with someone who is not your legal spouse is against both federal and state law. Amar's campaign told the Associated Press, all of Representative Amar's tax filings are fully compliant with all applicable tax law. Well, Texas has passed legislation dubbed the Save Chick-fil-A bill. The bill, signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott, would prohibit the state government from taking adverse action against a company for making private donations to religious charities. The bill's nickname, of course, stems from Chick-fil-A, which media and some politicians have criticized for donating money to charities that oppose same-sex marriage. For instance, the Salvation Army.

The Chick-fil-A bill is designed to prevent the government of Texas from punishing. those kinds of donations. Just months ago, the San Antonio City Council approved a contract for the local airport on the condition that Chick-fil-A be excluded from it, which is ironic because here in D.C., one of their newest restaurants at the airport is Chick-fil-A. Although, no, technically it's in Virginia. Technically, Virginia, okay. But it is called Washington Reagan National Airport. Yeah, but I just mean the applicable laws are probably from Virginia, which although extreme is a little bit less extreme, or actually a lot less extreme when it comes to.

to D.C. Sorry, Virginian. I have to have some pride in my state being a little less blue. So if you're a pothead who wants to be employed, Nevada may be the right state for you. A new law in the silver state makes it illegal to deny someone employment, with a handful of exceptions for those in emergency services or who are operating vehicles on the job, just because a drug test shows marijuana use. The state's Democrat governor, Steve Sissilak, said, as our legal cannabis industry continues to flourish, it's important to ensure that the door of economic opportunity remains open for all Nevadans. Well, up next, my sit-down interview with Ambassador Sam Brownback. Tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger government, become a part of the Heritage Foundation.

We're fighting the rising tide of homegrown socialism, while developing conservative solutions that make families more free and more prosperous. Find out more at heritage.org. Well, I have the privilege now of being joined in studio by Sam Brownback. He is the U.S. Ambassador at large for international religious freedom. Previously, he served as the governor of Kansas from 2011 to 2018. And before that, he represented Kansas in the United States Senate. Ambassador, really appreciate your time today.

Happy to join you. Happy to join you. Appreciate what Heritage Foundation does. So you guys really have done a great job over many years on ideas and idea generation and then implementation of ideas, which Lofton is the hardest piece, is how you get them implemented. And I appreciate all your work in that area. Well, we appreciate you being here. I wanted to ask you about a couple of particular issues that you've spoken on here at Heritage. But before that, give us an idea of what the ambassador for religious freedom does.

I think a lot of folks may not be familiar with that position. Well, it was a position created by Congress 20 years ago. and it's an at-large position, so it's a global position. It deals with all countries other than the United States, and it pushes our religious freedom values as a country. So we put out a report on that on a global basis. We cite countries that are particularly bad actors, like really what China is doing, which is what I was speaking on today, and the issues in Xinjiang, Western China, of what they're doing to jailing over a million Muslim Uyghurs.

We work with countries to try to encourage changing laws and practices like Uzbekistan now has been opening up to more religious freedom. And we work with them on drafting new laws to make the space more accessible to people so they can practice. They're fundamental, God-given right, to do with their own soul what they see fit. So when you're in these foreign countries meeting with other leaders, what are some of the main obstacles that you find to their protecting religious freedom? You know, it varies a lot, but it kind of comes down. Some of the leaders, they want to control things, and they want to control religion, they want to control faith, which inherently is uncontrollable. It's a kingdom of God, not the kingdom of man, but they want to. Or they want politically to favor a majority faith, and sometimes the majority faith wants the minority faiths persecuted, because we disagree with them. We don't think they should be here. And so it really, it really, really you'll see governments react one way, the other win. The safe space for government here is to protect the right to religious freedom. Don't get in the middle of the fight of trying to pick a winner or loser saying we favor this faith over that faith.

Just protect the right because it's an individual right. It's a right that is inherent in your human dignity. And that's what we push a lot of governments to do. And then we also point out to them, said, look, if you want to grow your economy and you want less terrorism, you also need to do religious freedom. because this is a way forward to growing an economy, providing this basic right that people can experience. And if you want less terrorism, you need to give people religious freedom so that people won't act out of their frustration towards a government that, well, if you're not going to let me educate my children the way I see fit, I'm going to act against that. And so we remind them

often of those pieces of this feature, this right as well. Well, you mentioned the Uighur Muslims in Western China, something that you just spoke on here at Heritage. Tell us what do we know about the situation there and what the government is doing to them? Well, we know there's over a million in internment camps. We know that there's a heavy political indoctrination going on. We know a number of people have died. We know a number of individuals that are missing now. We don't know if they're in the refugee camps.

They're internment camps. or if they're deceased. We know this is an effort by China to mollify the Muslim population, that they've got this incredible Orwellian surveillance system in place with facial recognition cameras and artificial intelligence systems and social credit scores to keep people really from participating in the economy or the society if they're a religious practitioner, if they wear a beard, if they pray,

if they go to the mosque, and that the Chinese are now starting to replicate this system in other parts of the country and other parts of the world. We know those things as well. So how does that factor into how the administration that you are part of is dealing with China at a macro level? Well, it's an area of deep concern for us. It's an area that we raise often with the Chinese. It's an area that we've been raising publicly and globally. The administration recently has gone after Huawei, the big technology company, and pointing out to the world that your information may not be secure if it's handled by Huawei.

And this is a big global technology company. We're going to continue to raise those sorts of concerns with people, around the world to say these systems are being used by China to monitor and oppress people of faith, whether they're Muslims or Christians or Buddhist, Falling Gong. They're being used now in China to suppress people of faith. Well, a lot of folks in decades past, you know, saw China opening up economically and, you know, we're hopeful that that would come with political reforms and more liberty. That doesn't seem to, to be happening at least right now. Do you think China is trying to stave off that liberalization? Are they afraid? Is this a, you know, what do you think is driving their suppression, which is just renewed

in the last year? I don't know. Because they had been really tilting towards more openness. Up until a couple of years ago, they were, the economy was becoming more open. People were enjoying some basic liberties. And then within the last couple of years, it has really tightened down. In the religious freedom space, what we've observed is that when they took the regulation of religion from the government and gave it to the Communist Party, the oppression went more centralized. Instead of it being decentralized and handled in the provinces, it went to Beijing.

It became more uniform. It became more oppressive. And now they're on this campaign to try to do what they call, synosize religions, which is to make Christianity supportive of their view of government, China's view of government. They want the religion to back the government, which I hasten to add, has been tried by numerous governments over the 2,000 years of Christianity and hasn't worked. It just doesn't work. You can force it in for a while, but ultimately, the faith is what it is.

And it's a matter for the kingdom of God, not the things of man. And that will ultimately come out, just like a sapling can come up through a concrete sidewalk. It will ultimately come forth. Well, Ambassador, last question for you here. When you look to some of our strongest allies in Europe and elsewhere, do you see a strong coalition on promoting religious freedom or something else? What do you see? It's building.

You know, it's one of those fundamental rights that I think a lot of people say, well, yeah, sure, sure. Where do you support that? But it's not been on the front burner. And then, I think a combination of things have happened. You've seen a lot more religious oppression happening in places around the world. The world has gotten a lot smaller, so you've seen a lot more interactions of faith. And sometimes that's been deadly. And I think those combination people are coming together that more governments are saying, yes, this is a fundamental right.

and it needs to be protected, and if it isn't, you're going to see more violence and you're going to see more problems come up in the world. So I would say that the coalition is building now, whereas for some period of time it was just one of those things. Well, it was sure it's in the panoply of rights that you have, but we're not going to particularly push it. This administration, particularly, the Trump administration, has pushed this like no other has, and it's going to continue to push it because we see it as that foundational right, and we also see it as one that helps build these other good virtues of a growth-oriented society and a secure society with less terrorism. Well, Ambassador, we really appreciate your time joining us here today.

Happy to do it. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head? If you want to understand what's happening at the court, subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast, breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the the Supreme Court. At a time when more corporations are coming out to support liberal policies, Delta Airlines is taking a different approach. The airline, which is based in Atlanta, is refusing to take sides in Georgia's abortion debate.

The state government there recently passed a heartbeat bill, effectively banning abortions after as early as six weeks of gestation. Delta's CEO, Ed Bastion, speaking at Vox Media's Code Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona on Tuesday, said, quote, 200 million people a year. We have 80,000 employees. We cannot, as a company, take one group and put it over another group when you've got such an emotional, some would say almost religious, view as to what the right answer is. And whichever way you go on the topic, you're going to alienate millions, tens of millions of people. This is an issue that is

uncomfortable, end quote. He continued, this is something that the courts need to settle and resolve, not corporate America. At least for us, I can't win. So, Kate, your thoughts on Delta's approach to this whole issue. Well, I'm really that they didn't go the pro-choice route. At the same time, though, you know, just reading these statements, I was sort of like, you know, imagine a corporation in the 1860s being like, well, you know, our employees are very divided on the issue of slavery, so we can't really take a position.

There's a certain lack of moral courage here, but at a time where we've seen so many corporations, Netflix, a bunch of Hollywood studios, Yelp and H&M, among others speak out against these pro-life laws, it's refreshing to see a company at least recognize that opinions are probably split among both its employees and its customers and not wait in. Also as an airline. It's not a moral conscience.

Yeah, I mean, I guess I agree. I have trouble really faulting them here. I mean, it's almost refreshing just to see a company openly say we're not going to, you know, we're not going to take a position, although I agree that on certain issues you've got to. you know, maybe part of it has to do with the fact that they're based in Georgia, they're headquartered there, and so they don't really have the leverage to say, hey, we're going to pick up and move if you, you know, have this. Like, they're just not going to do that.

Whereas companies like Netflix, which, you know, don't have a headquarters in Georgia, but have a lot of business, they're able to, you know, they're freer to do that. But, I mean, I do think that it is good for corporations to speak out on major issues. I think the problem today is that so many of them are just wrong on the issue. Right, and they're just trying to outwoke each other. They're trying to outwoke each other. But, you know, I don't think that excludes the possibility that they truly think it's an important issue. It's just, I think it just highlights the difference between where corporate elites are and where ordinary Americans are.

And where I suspect many of the employees in these companies are. Yeah. Which, I mean, I would be really upset if I worked for, you know, I mean, obviously, you know, coming to work at Heritage, daily signal, I knew it was a conservative place. But, you know, if you were working for somewhere like Delta and you were a strong pro-lifer and he had done the opposite tack, he'd come out, you know, for abortion. I mean, it would be devastating to feel like you're part of something that does that. The other thing that I was thinking, though, is I don't know the exact context of how the CEO made these remarks if it was in response to a question or what, but of course

Fox Media owns Vox and a bunch of other sites and Vox itself is very liberal. And I think this speaks to you know, where the liberal media becomes problematic in the sense of like, you know, is anyone asking a big corporation in New York, how do you feel about infanticide? Ditto for Virginia, although, of course, they didn't ultimately pass it.

Illinois. You know, I'm not aware of any corporations being asked, you know, and frankly conservative media has a much smaller platform and they're not having conferences where CEOs show up. But, you know, hey, are you uncomfortable the fact that a fully viable baby can be aborted in

your state. I would love to see the tables turned. And I mean, I think for years we've seen in politics that every Republican, every politician on the right is regularly asked, you know, how much do you hate women and all these sort of leading questions by the media. But it's very rare that it flips. And a conservative reporter asked Pelosi or someone, you know, well, how do you feel about denying life to a baby who could survive outside the womb? Yeah. And occasionally you'll see them asked one of those questions and they just dismiss it as, oh, you're a conservative. of pseudo-journalists, you're not real. So I'm not going to even answer your question.

Yeah, and I just think that it's unfortunate that, you know, I think we're just seeing another effect of the liberal media here, that they're really trying to make this an activist issue and they're trying to, you know, I don't think many companies would voluntarily say something about politics, but they feel they have to say something when asked because it's a story if they don't do it too. Yeah.

It's a good place for us to leave it. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud. And please leave us a review or a five-star rating at iTunes

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