The Daily Signal - In New Book, Ken Starr Warns Religious Liberty Is ‘in Crisis,’ Advises What You Can Do About It

Episode Date: May 14, 2021

"Religious Liberty in Crisis: Exercising Your Faith in an Age of Uncertainty" is the provocative title of a new book by former U.S. Solicitor General Ken Starr. Starr joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to explain why he thinks religious liberty is in crisis and what the biggest threats posed to religious liberty are. He also explains why it’s important for every American to know his or her First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion and how the faithful can resist the encroachment of secularism. We also cover these stories: President Joe Biden says Americans should not buy gasoline in a panic, as the Colonial Pipeline returns to service after it was hacked by a criminal organization called DarkSide. At a press conference Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., criticizes Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., for comments he made minimizing the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.  Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to Biden, says people who have had COVID-19 vaccinations don’t need to wear a mask outside.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At Desjardin, we speak business. We speak equipment modernization. We're fluent in data digitization and expansion into foreign markets. And we can talk all day about streamlining manufacturing processes. Because at Desjardin business, we speak the same language you do. Business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us. And contact Desjardin today.

We'd love to talk, business. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, May 14th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Rachel Dahl Judis. Ken Starr, the 39th Solicitor General of the United States, recently wrote a new book called Religious Liberty in Crisis, exercising your faith in an age of uncertainty. He joins me today on the Daily Signal podcast to discuss his new book,

as well as the current threats in this country to religious liberty. Don't forget. If you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. President Joe Biden is saying Americans should not panic by gasoline as the colonial pipeline returns to service after it said last Friday it was hacked by a criminal organization called Darkside. In a speech at the White House, Biden said via CNBC, don't panic.

I know seeing lines at the pumps or gas stations with no gas can be extremely stressful, but this is a temporary situation. Do not get more gas than you need for the next few days, the president said. Gasoline supply is coming back online and panic buying will only slow the process. Biden also said the hackers were based in Russia via the Hill. We do not believe the Russian government was involved in this attack, but we do have strong reason to believe that the criminals who did the attack are living in Russia. That's where it came from.

Biden said citing findings from the FBI via the Hill. During a press conference Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi harshly criticized Republican Representative Andrew Clyde of Georgia for comments he made about the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. During a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing Wednesday, Representative Clyde said, watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through statutory hall showed people in an orderly fashion, staying between the stanchions and, and ropes, taking videos and pictures. And he added that, if you didn't know the TV footage was a video from January 6th,

you'd think it was a normal tourist visit. Pelosi criticized Clyde harshly for his comments, per Bloomberg quick take. You would not believe that a Republican member on the committee said that what happened that day was just the normal orderly visit of people to the Capitol. Really? Really? Well, I don't know on a normal day around here when people are threatening to hang the vice president of the United States or shoot the speaker in the fire or disrupt and injure so many police officers. I don't consider that normal.

Multiple people were killed. Over 140 police officers issued a gallows was put up and the attackers channing the vice president. Normal? House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was asked about Representative Clyde's comments on Thursday morning. McCarthy responded, when I look at the writers that came in, those people should be held accountable to the rule of law. And that's exactly what's happening. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Chief Medical Advisor to Biden, said Thursday that people who have had the COVID-19 vaccinations don't need to wear a mask outside. If you are vaccinated, you don't need to wear a mask outside.

Fauci said in an interview with CBS's Gayle King. We have a very unusual situation, Fauci said. If you were going into a completely crowded situation where people are essentially falling all over each other, then you wear a mask. But any other time, if you're vaccinated and you're outside, put aside your mask. You don't have to wear it. A black mother in Loudoun County, Virginia, spoke out against critical race theory during a school board meeting Tuesday night, calling it similar to tactics used by Nazis and the Klu Klux Klan. Chantel Cooper told the school board that critical race theory is not an honest dialogue.

It is a tactic that was used by Hitler and the Klu Klux Klan on slavery very many years ago to dumb down my ancestors so we could not think for ourselves. Critical race theory is racist. It is abusive. It discriminates against one's color. Loudoun County is located just outside. side of Washington, D.C. In March, Forbes magazine reported Loudoun County to be the wealthiest county in America. Now stay tuned for my conversation with former Solicitor General Ken Starr on Religious Liberty.

Conservative women. Conservative feminists. It's true. We do exist. I'm Virginia Allen, and every Thursday morning on problematic women, Lauren Evans and I sort through the news to bring you stories and interviews that are a particular interest to conservative of leaning or problematic women. That is women whose views and opinions are often excluded or mocked by those on the so-called feminist left. We talk about everything from pop culture to policy and politics. Search for problematic women wherever you get your podcast. We're joined today on the

Daily Signal podcast by Ken Starr, the 39th Solicitor General of the United States. Solicitor General Star, it's great to have you with us on the Daily Signal podcast. Thank you, Rachel. So good to be with you. Well, it's great to have you with us. So you're releasing a new book. It's called Religious Liberty and Crisis, exercising your faith in an agent of uncertainty. Can you just start off by telling us about the book? Yes, the book was inspired by the pandemic when we were seeing governors and mayors issuing unprecedented orders. And obviously, we had an unprecedented crisis, or at least unprecedented for the last century during the lifetime of all of us. here. And so I was moved to say, we need to recapture first principles of our constitutional order, including our very first freedom, religious liberty. And so in the book, in 170, simple,

easy to read pages, identify six great principles of religious liberty that should bind all people of goodwill together and saying, why don't we just adhere to these six great principles that are embedded in our constitutional jurisprudence. Here they are easy to understand. I use examples, and I hope that individuals, especially when freedom is threatened, will say, wait a second, you know, that is completely inconsistent with the great principle of non-coversion or of freedom of conscience. Those are two of the six principles that I identify as really fundamental to our constitutional life together in this great republic. of ours. Well, you talk about the situation regarding COVID and all the different, you know,

regulations that were handed down. When you look at the situation as a whole in regards to attacks on religious liberty in America, what do you see as some of the biggest threats? I see the threat to freedom of conscience and church autonomy as being two of the very biggest threats, especially when one of the threats to freedom of conscience comes. in the form of the proposed Equality Act, which has passed the House of Representatives and is pending before the United States Senate. And if it's enacted, and that's a very big if, but it did pass the House, if it's enacted and signed into law by President Biden, then there will be a complete wiping out for purposes of that act religious freedom of conscience. Individuals who cannot, for example,

engage in a particular medical procedure or participate in a particular kind of ceremony to celebrate a particular kind of ceremony. Those freedoms have long been, in fact historically, have been protected in the United States. The Equality Act would wipe it out. Well, and a lot of people, you know, talk about, oh, it's about, you know, rights for people to be on the sports teams they want to be on. But I think, and as you highlight what a lot of people don't realize is, you know, for example, it would allow, you know, biological males on women's or, you know, boys or males on women's or girls' sports teams and in their locker rooms. And so there's so much more here as you highlight than, I think, why is getting reported about the legislation? Well, that's exactly right.

And we don't know the full ramifications for what we can look ahead to. It doesn't take a crystal ball to see that what really is a threat is the idea of freedom of association and freedom of conscience, Our ability to decide within limits, obviously one can't say, I'm not going to serve you at all in my bakery because I don't approve of the way you look, et cetera. And we're way beyond that as a society. But what we are talking about are specific kinds of acts saying, oh, I don't just want to be able to be served in your shop. Okay, you do do that. I now want you to celebrate this particular occasion, right? for example, a change of gender.

I want you to celebrate that. Well, I can't do that, says the comes the response in conscience. Well, guess what? You're now in violation of the terms of the Equality Act. So this is going to play out in a number of ways, including on the playing fields and restrooms and so forth. And these are realistic concerns

that need to be addressed in a slower process, not the rush that we saw through the House of Representatives, but through a very slow, deliberate process, so we at least understand the ramifications because they are huge and, frankly, they are unprecedented. Well, something you talk about in the book is why it's important for every American to know their rights. And can you talk to us about that very, very theme? Why is it important for Americans to know their rights? And people should know their rights because increasingly they're under assault. The Supreme Court just decided a case favorably

eight to one in favor of a young man and evangelical Christian of Nigerian, African and descent, and he was sharing his faith on this public college campus in Georgia, and the authority said, you can't do that. You're violating our speech code. Well, he then repairs, as he should have, to a wonderful law firm called Alliance of Inning Freedom. They file a lawsuit, and guess what happened? the college almost immediately changed its anti-speech, anti-religious freedom policies. And the case went on to involve a somewhat technical but nonetheless important issue. But here's the point. If we want to have freedom in this country, we're now going to have to stand up for it.

We can't just assume that our freedoms will now be protected by local and state officials or even by Congress. To the contrary, now those state and local officials all, too often are actually threatening our religious liberties. We're going to get back to the book. I wanted to talk a little bit about your experience and any reflections you have on that in terms of religious liberty as a former solicitor general. Was there anything in particular you learned in this role about the importance of religious freedom and the threats to it?

Yes, I had one case that involved this very issue of equality, but the equality of treatment. of religious groups. I argued alongside Jay Sekulow in favor of the constitutionality, what was called the Equal Access Act of 1984, signed up to law by President Reagan. And what that did was to assure religious clubs, say a Jewish club, a Christian club, and so forth, that those clubs could meet on a public school campus, I'm talking about high schools, on the same basis, same footing as the chess club or the French club. But guess what? The local school board outside Omaha, Nebraska said,

oh, no, the religious club can't meet because you're religious, and that would be a violation of the establishment clause. A profound but common misunderstanding of what the establishment clause requires. And in so doing, the school inadvertently was violating the free exercise. size clause. And it was in the process showing hostility to religious groups saying, chess club, we love you, religious group, we don't love you. And the Supreme Court upholding Congress's action here in the action of President Reagan said, school, please, you can't discriminate against religious activity going on in the schools. But the school district took it

all the way up to the Supreme Court because of its, frankly, boneheaded interpretation. of the establishment clause. Those misunderstandings are all too common, even to this day. Well, how would you say Americans can work to protect their faith and their religious liberty despite the challenges that come against it? First, inform ourselves. We need to educate ourselves. Think of Miranda warnings, right?

That's one of the things that the Supreme Court said in the 1960s. Individuals have to know their rights. If they're confronted by the police, they're taken into custody, they need to. to be informed of their rights. Well, we need to inform ourselves of our fundamental rights under the First Amendment. So self-education, just the way Abraham Lincoln did it and countless other Americans have done it over time.

We educate ourselves. And that's one of the things I hope this book will be a tool of self-education. And then you'll be prepared to say, aha, I see what's going on here. There's a violation of the great principle of church autonomy or the autonomy that religious school. They can't do that. And that was a principle that was articulated by the

Supreme Court of the United States telling the Obama EEOC and the Obama Justice Department, you are writing roughshot over the religious freedom of this church school in coming in and trying to say, you cannot fire this particular teacher. Go away EEOC. Now, it may sound harsh, but that is one of the great principles of religious liberty that has been protected. And that was a nine to nothing decision of the Supreme Court in favor of religious liberty, that opinion being joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, now deceased, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Well, this is a bit of a hypothetical, but I think it's something that is really merit is to discuss. What do you foresee as happening, you know, potential threats to religious liberty

if government officials continue to do overreach and these acts of overreach really aren't met. What do you see as potential outcomes of that? I see a potential outcome as an overriding of freedom of conscience, of the ability of, for example, health care providers, whatever one's view is on abortion, we came to a consensus in this country. Not everybody agreed with it, but it was a very piece of. consensus, and that is, taxpayers should not have to fund elective abortions, the so-called Hyde Amendment from now several decades ago. That is about to be written off the books. No, you must provide abortions in this Catholic hospital or another religiously affiliated hospital. Another

example that's pending before the Supreme Court of the United States right now is Catholic Social services of Philadelphia could not in conscience place foster children in non-traditional families, including LGBTQ families, and just non-traditional families more generally. The city of Philadelphia said you're no longer going to be a service provider for our very needy children here in Philadelphia, even though you have been providing these services for over one century. We're yanking your license, you're out of this business. And why? Because they were not able under Catholic social teaching to place children in non-traditional homes. Can't we, and I think this is the ultimate question, can't we in a pluralistic society agree to disagree, especially when we're talking

about a freedom of conscience based upon religious belief that is sincere and well-settled and well-understood through millennia of the three great Abrahamic faiths. Let's live together peacefully and respect one another and just agree to disagree, but we don't have to be so punitive, which is what I think the laws are increasingly punitively directed at individuals and institutions of conscience. Well, Solicitor General Starr, thank you for joining us on the Daily Signal podcast, and if you all want to look up the book,

once again, it's called Religious Liberty in Crisis, your faith in an age of uncertainty. So, Sister General Starr, thanks for being with us. Oh, thank you. So good to be with you. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and IHeartRadio.

Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with you all on Monday. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Rachel Del Judas, sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.