Ten Commandments in Schools = religious freedom? In this economy?
Brad and Dan discuss Tucker Carlson's ouster at Fox News - and what it means in the short and long terms.
Dan takes us through the situation in Montana, where Rep. Zooey Zephyr, the only trans legislator in the state, has been locked out of the legislative session for no reason.
The battle to repeal no-fault divorce - and how it relates to trans rights, reproductive rights, same-sex marriage, and so many other issues around the country.
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Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi, faculty, University of San Francisco, here today with my co-host.
Dan Miller, Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College.
Nice to see you, Brad, and you're not like all bundled up this time, so it looks like maybe, you know, you're warm.
We're recording a little later too.
I often see Brad in the morning kind of bleary-eyed and like wearing like a puffer jacket as if it's 30 degrees.
You look more comfortable.
It usually is 30 degrees because I record in a storage closet and there is no heating and no insulation.
I want to say thank you to you and Annika for holding down the fort last week with a great episode.
I was at the Summit for Religious Freedom in D.C.
and I want to announce something at the top here.
I'm going to be releasing a special series of interviews I did at the Summit on Separation of church and state and religious freedom for all.
So I interviewed 12 people who talked about what the separation of church and state and religious freedom means for them.
And these are everybody from student activists, secular organizers, people who are fighting for responsible home education in the wake of like Christian homeschooling and the atrocities of that.
Religious leaders, leaders of the Unitarian Church, and rabbis.
So it's a really amazing series because one of the things we talked about at the summit, Dan, is that religious freedom and the separation of church and state is really one of the things that, like, you get, like, the things we care about, reproductive rights, you know, gender and sexual identities, racial justice,
Separation of church and state is the foundation for those because if you don't have separation of church and state then one religion is allowed to dictate and that's what basically we talk about almost every week on this show is one white Christian nationalist vision for the society dictating our policies and how things work.
We're going to talk about that today.
This series is really amazing.
I mean, the people I got to talk to were really blowing me away.
And so I'm going to be releasing that in the next week.
And I'm really excited.
So look, look for that.
It'll be on the Americans United website because they were the ones who hosted the summit.
It'll be on a feed linked with our show.
So anyway, just want to put that at the top and say, be on the lookout for this brand new series because it's going to be really good.
And just to jump on that point, as you say, this is exactly why all the Christian nationals out there say that separation of church and state is a myth, right?
That it never existed, that the founders didn't want it, all of which is false.
The people you interview will be able to tell that story better than I can.
But yeah, which they know it and we know it and everybody recognizes it, which is why the theocrats want to deny that it was ever a reality.
So I'm excited for the series.
Well, I'll just, I'm just going to extend this 30 seconds, Dan.
Why not?
Cause I woke up mad as usual.
I usually wake up mad.
That's, you know, it's just the, the, the reality.
Uh, here's a little, I don't know, press release or actually it's his newsletter from Dan Patrick today, uh, Lieutenant Governor of Texas.
And among other things, he says the Texas Senate is bringing the 10 commandments and prayer back to our schools.
I will never stop fighting for religious liberty in Texas.
Allowing the Ten Commandments and prayer back into our public schools is one step we can make sure that all Texans have the right to freely express their sincerely held religious beliefs.
So he talks about how, and I've been talking about this with people, that Senate Bill 1396 in Texas would basically bring the Ten Commandments and prayer back to Texas public schools.
So, Dan, I don't know how you have religious liberty if one religion is prioritized and privileged in our public schools that are paid for by taxpayers who are Jewish, secular, Muslim, Hindu, agnostic, freethink.
How is that religious freedom?
So, I mean, we could spend all day on Dan Patrick's just BS of a statement today.
We won't.
But we could.
All right.
We're going to talk about a bunch of things today.
One is Tucker Carlson is out of Fox News.
We're going to talk about what's happening in Montana and basically the silencing of Montana's only trans person in the state legislature.
And then we're going to talk about no-fault divorce.
And I know you're like, what?
But no-fault divorce, I've been thinking about a lot this week, and it really leads back to issues Related to the overturning of Dobbs, to same-sex marriage, and the attempt that is coming to make that illegal once again.
And so just trust me, hang around, because I think no-fault divorce will be a kind of prism for understanding where we're at for now.
Dan, let's start with Tucker Carlson.
Not going to spend all day on it, but you have some initial thoughts on Tucker being very quickly and very suddenly ousted at Fox News.
Yeah, so my first thought was Like, what the hell?
Like, I was surprised, excited.
I'm not a Tucker Carlson fan.
I'm sure that'll surprise everybody who listens, right?
That we're not typically Tucker Carlson fans.
Carlson has been, has become sort of the cash cow for Fox, like one of the big draws.
Everything that draws MAGA Nation to Fox kind of flows through Tucker Carlson at this point.
So at first, my first initial response was like, wow, that's really surprising.
And I was looking at it like a lot of other people were.
He apparently was not told about this, didn't know about it.
He signed off on a Friday episode and was like, see you next week.
Monday, I think it was, or maybe over the weekend, I forget which, he's informed that he's done.
Doesn't do a Monday show, there's no farewell, none of that kind of stuff.
And I think a lot of people at first were surprised, and the question that comes up is, you know, why?
And we don't know for sure, nothing has come out about like specifics, but my guess would be, and I'm not alone in this, other people have said this, lots of people have noted this came on the heels of the Dominion Settlement, right?
So the big sort of last minute court settlement It was like $787 million or something for Fox with Dominion.
And number one, Tucker Carlson was a huge part of the liability for Fox in that lawsuit, right?
His texts where it came out that, you know, he knew that these claims were false, that he personally hated Trump, but wasn't going to say things that would alienate people and so forth.
And I think also just a question of whether, for them, he's become too much of a sort of expensive liability moving forward, right?
If that's true, and that's an if, I think it's a hell of a calculation for a network that is afraid of losing MAGA Nation.
This is another piece that came out with all of the background on Dominion, is that they were terrified of losing viewers.
The viewers were driving them.
They were driving their coverage.
So I think the why question is big, and I think the sort of what next, what now.
There were lots of right-wing people, you know, supporting Tucker Carlson and saying he's free to do whatever he wants now and so forth.
That's sort of true, but people like, you know, Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly or other people that have left have not.
They have not been able to build the same viewership and following outside of that, so we don't know what comes with that.
Yeah, a lot of those kind of initial responses.
That's kind of all we have right now are initial responses because we don't know.
It'll be interesting to see going forward what he does, where he lands, what, if any, kind of effect this actually has on Fox in terms of programming and things like that.
Yeah, we don't know for sure.
I think that there's a couple reactions from my view.
One is, I think Carlson really saw himself as bulletproof, that he was such a driver of audience and advertising for Fox that he was like, what are they going to do, fire me?
And, you know, I think he was pretty defiant with the Murdochs.
I think you're right that the defamation lawsuit probably was a kind of Wake up call to like, we can't control this guy.
He's not going to listen.
I mean, you know, Tucker Carlson's a trust fund kid anyway.
I don't know, not to make gross generalizations, but usually people who grew up with the trust fund and then have big high power jobs aren't the ones who are like, oh yeah, I'll just listen and take advice from anyone who gives it and just totally be used to that.
That's just a mode of life I'm used to is people telling me what to do and me saying, sure, why not?
I'll listen.
I've heard people describe Murdoch as capricious.
This is pretty in line with his history.
He's willing to just get rid of people and he really sees nobody as essential and I think you make the point about O'Reilly and Beck that It kind of is true that nobody at Fox is absolutely essential.
You can replace people.
Megyn Kelly left and went to NBC and that was terrible.
And she's still hanging around, but she's just no one compared to what she used to be.
All of that to say, I think that you can look at this as like Murdoch got mad one Friday and just fired his star.
On the other hand, It is going to be May 2023.
In a year, right, we will be in the full thick of presidential politics and elections and the 2024 showdown.
This provides Murdoch and Fox a chance to get someone in who will take that spot, get momentum by say end of summer, right?
And then by the time it's the season to ramp up election coverage starting next spring, that person will be fully installed and ready to go.
So I don't see this as lacking strategy.
If you're going to do it, do it now and then you have kind of 12, 13, 14 months before you have to kick into overdrive with the election stuff.
I want to talk about what Carlson meant though because I think in the short term this is good news because he does leave a hole for the next three or four months.
You know I just want to go back to do some history as I always do and I increasingly feel Like an old man, Dan.
I'm always just like, at this point, someone says something and I'm always like, oh yeah, 20 years ago.
And I have like a cardigan on all of a sudden, somehow a cardigan appears on my shoulders and I take raisins out of my pocket.
I'm like, oh yeah, I'm going to have a snack.
I just eat raisins in between sentences.
I don't know.
You have your cardigans.
I have my cargo shorts.
We all have our thing.
No, Dan standing in cargo shorts and he says something and I'm like, oh yeah, 20 years ago and I'm wearing a cardigan and I have Birkenstocks, I don't know, eating raisins.
So Carlson was once the kind of like conservative foil on CNN, right?
He was once that sort of middle-of-the-road conservative that was on CNN and he wore a bow tie and he played the preppy kind of like, oh, I'm a conservative and DC guy.
And he got on there with Jon Stewart.
And if you all don't know this clip, and if you're too young to know it or you don't know it, you just YouTube it later.
Jon Stewart, Tucker Carlson crossfire.
It was classic.
And this is basically what got Carlson fired from CNN because- It's also, sorry, it's also when he quit wearing bow ties.
Yeah.
People need to watch it.
It's the dumbest thing.
Jon Stewart makes fun of his bow ties and Carlson stops wearing bow ties, which sort of tells me everything I feel like I need to know about Carlson as a person.
Listen- His level of conviction.
I used to wear a bowtie once or twice.
When I lived in the South, I used to wear the bowtie once or twice.
You know?
And if you're gonna wear it, you gotta own it.
You gotta own the bowtie.
You gotta rock it.
Now I'm giving fashion advice.
Again, it's all going downhill.
Alright.
So you're exactly right, Dan.
So on that show, Carlson approaches Jon Stewart, and he basically chides him.
He's like, you sat down, and I believe it's Barack Obama.
He's like, you sat down, is it Barack Obama or Bill Clinton?
You sat down with the most powerful man on earth, and you asked him softball questions.
What's wrong with you?
And Jon Stewart gives this masterclass in genre.
He's like, you realize I'm a comedian, right?
Like my job as a comedian is to make light of things.
Now I do that by way of political satire.
But when I meet a politician, you know that It's not my job to grill him because I'm a comedian, right?
And Carlson sort of laughs and he clearly isn't, it doesn't register.
He looks at Stewart like, I don't get it.
And so he responds, but like, yeah, but you blew it, buddy.
You're not a good journalist.
And he's like, I, and there's this whole back and forth that is so hard to watch because it is, it is not often you watch somebody get that destroyed on television.
That clearly?
Carlson reappears on Fox News, right?
And he takes over the mantle of Bill O'Reilly.
And Dan, he's kind of an emblem for the white man after the Obama years.
He's angrier.
He's more vengeful.
Right?
All of the white backlash after the Obama years that led to the Trump presidency is embodied in Carlson's vitriol, his resentment, his willingness to engage the worst conspiracy theories, his willingness to engage in hate against anyone he deems other.
He had that whole documentary About men and masculinity and how you should like suntan your testicles.
Uh, that's a great legacy to have.
So there was just this embodiment of Carlson and maybe in the least likely persona, right?
This, this trust fund baby who used to wear bow ties and has a kind of floppy preppy haircut.
Nonetheless, that's what he means to the 4 million people who watched him every night.
So at the moment there is a kind of vacuum.
There's a hole for them.
And I think it, it, it shows and I'll just, I'll be quiet after this, but There's a direct line.
Like, Carlson would basically pick up on stuff that was floating around in, like, far right chat spaces, in conspiracy theory chat rooms.
That stuff would make its way to, like, Alex Jones.
And then Tucker Carlson would be like, oh yeah, let's do that on Tuesday, right?
There's great material on this in Jeff Charlotte's new book where he kind of just picks up and shows you how this goes from far right chat rooms and social media to Alex Jones and then Tucker Carlson.
So it's not like this isn't significant.
It is.
Especially in the short term.
However, if history tells us anything else, it's that Rupert Murdoch is really good at picking people that will carry on the legacy.
We had Glenn Beck.
We had Bill O'Reilly.
We then had Tucker Carlson.
We will have someone else.
I don't know who it will be yet, but that's not going to change going forward.
So anyway, final thoughts on Tucker and, you know, Tucker the testicle tanner.
That was good.
I practiced that last night.
Thank you for laughing at it.
Dan is laughing.
That was really good.
Yeah.
Just to say that Saying all that about, you know, Fox isn't going to change and all that.
I'm delighted to see Tucker Carlson leave.
Just because, yeah, he really is.
He's the classic example of, like, does he mean it or not?
Looks like not.
Knew everything he was saying was BS.
Knew it sold to his audience.
Got schooled by a comedian publicly.
Was so embarrassed about it that he had to go and, like, reinvent himself and so forth.
But it doesn't matter whether he believes it or not, because millions of other people do.
So overall, I would just say good riddance, and I was delighted when that piece of news came out this week.
Yeah.
All right, let's take a break.
We'll come back and get into something that's really important, and I'm really glad we're going to be covering today because it's necessary.
We're going to go to Montana, but let's take a break.
We'll see you in a minute.
All right, Dan, break it down for us.
What happened in Montana this week?
Yeah, so this is one of those things that I think lots of people saw.
Some news media gave it a lot of attention, some didn't.
But in Montana, right, this is one of many GOP-controlled states preparing to pass legislation, ostensibly debating or discussing legislation, but it's really preparing to pass legislation.
Banning gender-affirming care for minors.
Everybody's aware that this is a big sort of thing at this point in time.
So last year, Zoe Zephyr, who you referenced earlier, became the first openly trans woman elected to the Montana State Legislature.
They are from the college town of Missoula, so a relatively proverbial blue dot in a more red state.
And in opposition to this legislation, they said from the floor that legislators who voted for the ban would have, quote, blood on their hands.
And this created outrage among the conservative leaders of the State House.
The GOP legislative leaders were incensed.
They demanded an apology.
Zephyr refused.
In subsequent floor debate, when Zephyr would try to speak, they muted the mic and would not let Zephyr speak.
And all on the grounds that she had breached a quorum, this sort of blows up.
Hundreds of activists show up at the Montana State House and chant, let her speak, temporarily forcing the House to adjourn.
Police in riot gear are called in.
I think seven people were arrested for trespassing, right?
I do want to note it was trespassing, not like sort of violence charges or something like that, because one piece of this is the spin where every time somebody does something in protest now, the right says, oh, it's an insurrection.
It's, you know, it's J6 all over again aimed at us.
It was just trespass.
And on Wednesday, Zephyr was barred from speaking from the floor for the rest of the session, so it's effectively been silenced within the legislature.
A few things, like the takeaways that I have, the first is just people might remember, I'm old enough like you, like the last 20 years and the cardigans and all of that, that I'm like, remember back when Remember when the GOP, their rhetoric was, we're the party of ideas, and they would always castigate Democrats and say it was all about identity politics, they don't have real ideas, and so forth?
That feels like a million years ago, from a GOP now that isn't even trying to pretend that they have ideas or rationale, and is literally silencing anybody who would say anything opposed to this.
Is Zephyr going to stop this legislation in a GOP-controlled Montana House?
No, of course not.
The state's too conservative.
There are too many Republicans, but they're still afraid to let this person speak.
I mean, that's just one thing for people to sort of hold out.
Here's the other thing, and this is where I get just sort of really, really worked up and absolutely incensed by this.
She's right.
When she said, you're going to have blood on your hands, She is right.
And this is the part about this that we've talked about, others have talked about, and I think this is the real reason for the silencing.
People might be familiar with this sort of account.
They might not.
But if people read accounts of, say, conservative Christian parents or conservative Christians who have family members or often children who come out as queer, There's a certain way that this narrative often goes, right?
And to understand this, and I'm going to land this airplane in a minute here, right?
To understand this, people have to understand that for many conservative Christian parents, having a child who is queer is like the worst thing that could happen.
It's I would argue that for some of these people, it would be less sort of traumatizing for them if their child said that they weren't a Christian anymore than if they come out as queer.
It's that scary.
It's that big and so forth.
And so if you read accounts of parents who have come to to accept LGBTQ plus inclusion out of these conservative religious backgrounds, often it is because somebody very close to them in their family, often a sibling, but often a child comes out And they will tell the story of having to recognize that they're either going to have to accept a queer child or they're going to have a dead child because the risk of suicide, mental health is so significant.
And this is what often brings people to that point is the reality of mental health and these kinds of things.
That's a real thing.
And so when Zephyr stands up and says, you're going to have blood on your hands if you do this, it is true.
The effect of this is going to be kids who die.
Or suffer other really, really adverse mental and physical health issues because of this.
And what incenses me about it is the GOP knows this.
That's not supposition.
It's not something we don't know.
It's not something that hasn't been studied.
There are longitudinal studies about this.
There are mountains of data and evidence about the negative mental health effects of not affirming somebody in a gender identity, of not having family members who affirm your gender identity, and not having access to gender-affirming care, which is why every major medical and mental health organization in the United States affirms these forms of care So just to state it as baldly as I can, these are Christians who believe that the world would be better with dead queer kids than with living queer kids.
And that just Yeah, you can hear it.
It gets me fired up.
It makes me angry, but that's the reality.
And I think when they silence Zephyr and people like her, that is why, right?
It's because they don't want to face up with or have to hear or have to give any pretense of having a rationale for this.
You are opposed to the American Medical Association and the American Association of Pediatrics and just on and on and on with this.
Next time Uncle Ron—I'll throw this out as we're sort of moving our way toward Memorial Day here—next time Uncle Ron trots out the culture of life or protecting the kids or whatever, no, not all kids.
Just the right kind of kids, right?
Just the kids who love the right people or don't wear dresses or whatever else.
Yeah, so those are my sort of impacts.
To me, this was such an impactful A story and just hats off to Zephyr for the bravery of being the only trans person in that context and fighting to have a voice and to stand up and represent millions of kids in this country.
There aren't millions of kids dealing with this in Montana, but Zephyr has become a voice I think for millions in this country.
Yeah, first, thanks for just sharing all that, Dan, and I know it's really something that hits home for you as personal and is also just something you care a lot about.
I appreciate just all your thoughts, and I want to zoom out a little bit and talk about how This happened, we know that there's been dozens and dozens and dozens of anti-trans bills proposed over the last year, 18 months.
In the last month we had Anheuser-Busch basically do a marketing campaign with a trans social media star and that led to the likes of Kid Rock and other kind of right-wing Media types, entertainers, doing things.
Now, it wasn't just that they said, we're not going to drink this beer anymore.
What the trend now is, is you take Bud Light out to the backyard, and it is Bud Light.
I should check on that.
Is that Bud Light?
Yeah.
Anyway, you take that out to the backyard and you shoot at it.
That's what Kid Rock did.
I've seen numerous videos of people doing that, celebrities, run-of-the-mill folks, whatever.
Okay.
We've become so accustomed to seeing guns in our politics and our elected officials and election campaigns.
Here's my Christmas card.
I'm Lauren Boebert.
I'm running for re-election.
Here's my commercial.
I'm shooting at stuff.
I totally understand if you saw these and you kind of rolled your eyes and are like, these people are so stupid and you kept scrolling.
Okay.
But think about Zephyr.
Zephyr was speaking.
I mean, a month ago, Dan, it was the Tennessee Three, and it was like, they're out of order, decorum, right?
They were speaking.
We made it so clear when we talked about the Tennessee Three, no arrests for assault, no one trying to overthrow, no one attacked a police officer, no one attacked anyone else, no one broke a window, simply Americans protesting.
Okay, disruptive, yes.
But you compare that to insurrection?
No.
And then Justin Jones and Justin Pearson are expelled for speaking.
And the charge was speaking out of turn.
Okay.
I said it then.
Yeah, maybe they were.
All right.
You can, you know, you can You can regard that with some kind of punishment, but expulsion makes no sense and it silences the people that voted for them.
Zephyr is just trying to speak, like period, and is being silenced and then is put out of the chamber.
So if I come back to the like people shooting at Bud Light cans, it tells me what they want and it goes exactly what you just said.
It's not just that they are okay having dead queer kids, it's they're telling you that if you're queer and you try to speak, you try to represent, you try to make your voice heard, you try to be somebody who participates in American democracy, then we might need to do this.
Have said it a million times on the show, Flag and the Cross, Gorski and Perry, they have a nice triumvirate to help us understand these things.
White Christian nationalism is about order, violence, and freedom.
White Christian people deserve freedom.
How do they get it?
They put the social order in proper alignment.
And if it's not in proper alignment, they have the only authority, only them, to use violence to put it back into alignment so they can experience freedom.
When they're shooting at beer cans, they're telling you what they want to do.
That is overwhelmingly terrifying.
I got more, but I'll throw it back to you.
What else you got on this?
Just two points to pick up on what you're saying.
Just to reemphasize, right?
Zephyr is trying to speak as an elective representative, right?
It's not even just somebody trying to be heard or trying to get a hearing or something.
This is their job, right, is to speak in this context.
Well, it's their job because people voted for them.
It's democracy.
That's why, just, you know, Civics 101, that's why they're called a representative.
They are supposed to represent the people who voted for them.
And not just people who voted for them, people in their district, but they are supposed to give voice to those people.
But to your point about the guns, I think this is so, so right about this.
They're so ubiquitous that I had a conversation with students who were talking about this this week, and I talked about the violence of that, and there were students who don't even see it as violent.
They're like, oh, that's just like target.
I'm like, it's guns.
It is an inherently violent thing, and we are so numb to it at this point or so consistent with it that Shooting guns and destroying the bud cans, which I think, like you, I see the bud cans as representative, right?
I see this as a kind of implicit threat of, you know, hey, corporation, guess what we would do to you if we could?
Hey, spokesperson, guess what we would do to you if we could?
Hey, everybody who thinks that this is okay or that inclusive advertising or the queer people or whatever are okay, Here's this implicit threat, but it's often not even perceived as a threat at this point.
They're not just like pouring bud light down the drain or like flushing it down their toilets or something or like shaking up cans and throwing them against the wall.
So they exploit lots of ways that you can demonstrably denounce bud light without these acts of violence, which occur in a country full of mass shootings every day.
Why why is there so many temper tantrums?
Can't you just send emails out on all your email newsletters and chains and YouTube channels and just say, hey, we're not going to drink Bud Light anymore.
We're going to boycott.
Like, why does it have to be a temper tantrum all the time?
Oh, yeah, because they think they're the victims of everything in the country.
No one else has the right to victimhood like them.
So, yeah, we need it's not just that we're going to stop drinking that.
It's just that I need to make a temper tantrum over the top, like theatrical And again, I know I'm on Uncle Ron at the barbecue kick today, but if you're on Uncle Ron, you want to talk about cancel culture, right?
The buzzword that people on the right love so much.
This is a key example and was much more effective than lots of others because they pulled the ads and sort of pulled the campaign and kind of caved to this pressure.
So, the next time Uncle Ron talks about the left and cancel culture, here's a great example of it.
Well, you know who got canceled?
Zephyr!
Like, a representative, not allowed to speak, simply because of... Anyway, that's cancel culture.
Let me throw something else in the mix down on this topic.
Have a great listener who's on the ground in Montana and is always sending me stuff.
I'm not going to say their name, but...
You know who you are.
I just want to thank you for that.
They're an activist in Montana.
They're somebody who is keeping an eye on all these things, is participating in political gatherings and debriefs from the Democratic Party and all kinds of stuff.
So, they sent me, in addition to much information about this this week, they sent me an article to Montana Free Press about David G. and Fort Or Forte, who is the son of the governor of Montana and who has had anti-trans bills landing on his desk, one that would ban gender affirming care.
David, his son, is 32.
He identifies as non-binary, goes by he, they pronouns.
This is his own son.
And he sat down in the governor's office on March 27 with a prepared statement about legislation affecting transgender Montanans and the LGBTQ plus community generally.
So, he wanted to talk about Senate Bill 99, a ban on gender-affirming healthcare, Senate Bill 458, a bill to define sex as strictly binary in Montana code, and House Bill 359, a ban on drag performances in many public spaces.
Here's what he said.
said, hey, dad, thanks for setting aside a time to meet with me.
It means a lot.
There are a lot of important issues passing through the legislator right now.
For my own sake, I've chosen to focus primarily on transgender rights as that would significantly directly affect a number of my friends.
I would like to make the argument that these bills are immoral, unjust, and frankly, a violation of human rights.
Now, his dad, Greg, who I shall say once body slammed a reporter when he was being asked questions, so just to go back to the violence theme, did not respond publicly and said that private conversations with him and his kids are going to be kept did not respond publicly and said that private conversations with him and Okay.
Dan, this goes to your point.
This is his own kid, right?
This is his own kid saying, I'm non-binary.
If you sign a law and it comes across your desk that says you can't identify that way legally, You're going to erase me, your kid, in terms of my identity.
And it really puts to test everything you just said.
Would you rather have legislation that bans the identities of these people for some political reason, or would you rather listen to your own kid?
And what they're telling you about who they are and their embodiment in the world.
And everything you started out by saying on this issue comes right back to this.
I will say that if you're paying attention, the Tennessee 2, the 2 Justins have stood in solidarity with Zephyr.
And so you can see across the nation a sense of solidarity between them.
And the attempts to silence their voices and the people that they represent.
And I think that's something that we all welcome and all appreciate.
So any final thoughts, Dan, before we move on to some other stuff this morning?
Just the, you know, we talk about those things where lots of parents are confronted with, you know, having to face these issues when somebody in their life or their child comes out.
And there are plenty of those instances where they choose the child.
And unfortunately, there are instances where they don't, right, where their religious ideology, political ideology, whatever it is, or just the interest of staying in power of, you know, if you're the governor of Montana, of caving to political pressure, wins out, and just that there's a human cost to that.
All right, let's take a break and we're going to come back and, and talk about some issues that are directly related to this.
We're going to tie some strings together and, and, and really link up a lot of what we're talking about this morning.
Be right back.
Okay, Dan.
So there is a popular YouTuber named Steven Crowder, Louder With Crowders.
Some of you are going to be familiar with him.
He's, he's in the kind of line of Matt Walsh and Tim Pool, people like that.
And they, they're kind of feeding into the ecosystem.
that flows upward to the Tucker Carlson's of the world.
And they're part of the ecosystem that flows downward to like all of the right wing Instagram and TikTok people and just the folks that listen to them on a daily basis.
I mean, these people have millions and millions and millions of followers, okay?
Well, recently, Steven Crowder talked on his show about his divorce from his wife and how that has taken place.
One of the things that he lamented is that the law allows for divorce without a cause, without a fault, meaning without one of the people cheating or being violent or committing a crime.
So let me play the clip for you right now so you can listen to what Crowder said.
I have been living with a proverbial boot on my neck for going on years now.
So, Since 2021, I've been living through what has increasingly been a horrendous divorce.
Now let me say on the outset to be clear, there is no infidelity, any kind of physical abuse at all on either side.
And no, this was not my choice.
My then wife decided that she didn't want to be married anymore.
And in the state of Texas, that is completely permitted.
It's been the most heartbreaking experience of my life, what I consider to be my deepest personal failure.
And just so you know, my opinions on parenting and families have not changed.
I've always believed that children need a mom and a dad, that divorce is horrible.
And I still believe that children need a mom and a dad and that divorce is horrible.
But in today's legal system, my beliefs don't matter.
In Texas, divorce is permitted when one party wants it.
Period.
So Crowder laments no-fault divorce there.
Now this morning, just this very morning that we're recording, there's been some video released that's showing Crowder basically verbally and emotionally abusing his wife when she was eight months pregnant.
So I'll just leave that there.
You can watch that if you want to.
I want to bring this up again because it really goes to the heart of this idea of no-fault divorce.
And I know some of you are like, what is that?
Why are you bringing up this archaic thing?
No-fault divorce is first legalized in this country going back in California to 1969, 1970.
No-fault divorce Was somewhat revolutionary because it basically allowed for two people to get divorced again without any reason.
So before this, you had to have a legal reason you wanted a divorce.
Was there adultery involved?
Was there crime involved?
Was there abuse involved?
So you're saying you just want a different life.
You want to choose a different partner.
You have gone different ways.
Yes.
Okay.
Well, after 1970, at least in California, you can get divorced for those reasons.
As you can imagine, This was a major step forward for women who for centuries, right, had been not only kind of funneled into marriages that were unequal and an economic system that did not allow them to enter the workforce in equal ways, but also like in essence to not protect them from marriages that but also like in essence to not protect them from marriages that might have been emotionally abusive or Right?
And yes, you can work through it.
And don't get me wrong.
nonetheless, not physically abusive.
There's so many reasons that a person should just be able to say to another person, I don't think we should be married anymore.
And yes, you can work through it.
And don't get me wrong.
I'm not saying that that's fun and joyful.
But in terms of just autonomy, in terms of human rights, in terms of choice, if that is what someone decides and they ultimately want to do it, it seems pretty clear that like what you're going to tell me the government's going to make us stay married.
Now, I just want to just let me say those words again.
Government make you stay married.
Does that sound like freedom?
Does that sound like small government?
Does that sound like government, get out of my backyard, get out of my life?
That sounds like big government.
That sounds like government determining my family.
That sounds like government determining everything about my relationship and my life.
I can't change my life because the government says so.
Okay, interesting.
No fault of Orstan has become kind of the next target for a lot of right-wing talking heads after the overturning of Roe.
So there's a piece going back to last year at Jezebel by Kylie Chung that's been passed around a little bit this week just in light of Crowder's kind of comments.
When J.D.
Vance was running for Senate, he talked about how no-fault divorce is a problem.
Here's what J.D.
Vance said.
This is one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace, which is the idea that like, well, OK, these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy.
And so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that's going to make people happier in the long term.
If we broke down the rhetoric, Dan, we'd say, look, you know, you're using hyperbole to make a point.
Nobody gets divorced like they change their underwear.
It makes me wonder how often JD Vance changes his underwear.
And now you're thinking about that and then you'll probably never listen to the show again.
So I apologize to everyone.
And Dan and I will be seeking out a new project soon since this one has probably just ended and no one will ever turn it on ever, ever again.
OK.
Kylie Chung says, in June, Vance's arguments were echoed by popular conservative influencer Tim Pool.
He says, and this is what the thing was titled, no-fault divorce has destroyed men's confidence in marriage.
Men don't want to get married anymore.
According to Pool, we have no-fault divorce laws to blame for the rise of prenuptial agreements, which place men at risk of being robbed by gold-digging, thieving Jezebels, Sorry, I'm just caught up on that.
Crowder back then, and this is going back a year ago, talked about how no-fault divorce, which means that in many of these states, if a woman cheats on you, she leaves, she takes half, so it's not no-fault, it's the fault of the man.
There needs to be changes to marital laws, and I'm not even talking about same-sex marriage, I'm talking about divorce laws.
All of these men are expressing, Dan, this sense that they can't control women in their marriages.
If women want a divorce, they get divorced.
And that if they get divorced, there's going to be financial fallout from that because that's how divorce works.
So there's this sense that, hey, I can't control.
This woman in my life.
She can just tell me at any point she wants a divorce.
So, Steven Crowder, when he announced his divorce in the clip I just played, if you listen a little bit further, he says, this is completely my fault.
And you're like, oh wow, he's going to take responsibility for whatever happened in this marriage, or he's going to sort of do some introspection.
And you know what he says then?
And I'm not kidding.
He says, I'm completely at fault for picking the wrong person.
Like that's the bad choice I made.
Nothing in my marriage, nothing in my actions, nothing in my behavior.
This is important, Dan, because it leads back to the overturning of Dobbs.
It leads back to the ideas of control we've been talking about all day today.
Okay, so let me give you one more thing and then I'll throw it to you.
Chung reports this in the Jezebel article and I know a lot of people are already aware of these things.
Justice Clarence Thomas' concurring opinion in the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe opened the door for further rights around marriage to be reversed.
We have a duty to correct the error established in those precedents, Clarence Thomas wrote.
Which precedent, Stan?
Griswold v. Connecticut, that's a birth control case.
Lawrence v. Texas, same-sex intimacy.
Oberfell, Hodges, we all know that is same-sex marriage.
So, Thomas points to correcting the error in those precedents around birth control, same-sex intimacy, and same-sex marriage.
We've been talking all morning about silencing trans representatives.
We're talking right now about the government making you stay married If you don't have some overwhelming legal reason that you want a marriage, simply that you want to exercise your free will as a human being and no longer be married.
It's about control.
It's about order.
It's about making sure that men, white Christian men, white Christian nationalist men, whatever, have the control over everyone else.
And I'll just be quiet right here, Dan, but it goes to something you say all the time.
Yes, you can fix things with laws.
That's what they think.
Yes, you can fix things with legislation.
Otherwise, they wouldn't start, they wouldn't stop talking about legislating all of these things surrounding marriage, surrounding intimacy, surrounding gender.
They want to legislate the hell out of your life.
They want a government that is in every part of who you are and that one that keeps you in line.
That is not small government in any sense of the word.
Yeah, I mean, like you, so many thoughts about this that are kind of all over.
One is this big government point that you just made.
I mean, if you imagine and assume, as I do, that things that are going on in Texas, things that are going on in Florida, things that are going on in Idaho and Montana, places that we talk about, Are they the dream of many in the GOP?
If they could make this national policy, I believe that they would.
So let's think about the government that would be, right?
This is a government that can force you to carry a pregnancy to term, that can make you legally required to stay pregnant, that can require you to observe the Ten Commandments, right?
You mentioned the Texas law.
That can determine that you have to use state-approved personal pronouns.
That you can only read books that have been approved by the state.
Number one, that's as big a government as you can get.
Number two, Annika and I talked about this last week, I find it significant that Annika is a German looking at American nationalism.
Why?
Because this is the F word.
This is fascism.
This is the model of an authoritarian state that can determine everything about individual and personal life.
So next time that somebody starts touting freedom, Ring all of this up, because this is what is targeted.
Again, if you take this kind of patchwork of state policies and imagine the quilt, as it were, that it would make in a national policy, this is what it looks like.
You throw into the mix that you have SCOTUS justices like Thomas, who firmly believe these things, and it is.
It's a sobering sort of vision.
I think your point about male control, the control of men over women, is absolutely vital here as well.
I mean, I think most of us who are married, number one, if men are afraid to get married, nobody's making them get married.
That's just kind of nonsense, right?
Whatever.
Number two, you want to complain about having to need pre-nups, that's fine, but if you want to protect yourself, you can have a pre-nup, right?
You can write up whatever legal thing you want.
Number three, if somebody really is a terrible person in a relationship, there are still also allowances for false divorce.
In other words, the point is that whole notion, this person could do whatever they want and take all my money.
No, they can't, but whatever.
I'm not a divorce attorney and it's different state to state, whatever.
But I think the bigger thing is that most people, I think, who are married, I think most of us would like to be married to somebody who wants to be married to us.
Uh, like, you know.
And so when you get these people who are like, how dare my partner be able to leave me if I haven't beat them?
Or something like that.
That's about control, right?
Like that's the line.
And again, it sounds absurd, but that's the argument that's being made, which means it tells you that for these people, marriage isn't about love or commitment.
It's certainly not about reciprocity or a partnered relationship.
It's about control.
It's about hierarchy.
It's about patriarchy and so forth.
And a last point, you know, we mentioned this article that's been going around that we're quoting from and everything.
It also notes, and this is really key, that we can listen to this, we can say, well, that's just crazy.
Except that often policymakers take their cues from right-wing media.
As these things grow in right-wing media, that's where they begin to get their cues.
And this is the concern that people have, is what happens when this gets picked up?
I've got to think, hope, cross my fingers, whatever, that for some in the GOP this would be a cautionary tale because we've seen the fallout of banning abortion and overturning that and the GOP is now sort of having to try to tread lightly or walk back comments or things like that.
I think were they to support just true like doing away with no-fault divorce, the fallout would be even worse.
Even broader, because I think there may be people who oppose abortion, but who don't think that you should have to show that somebody was physically abusive to get a divorce or whatever.
Sort of on and on and on, but I think for me the big things are big government and male control.
That's what it's about, which is, by the way, the vision of Christian nationalism.
Well, so there's the old adage that politics is downriver of culture, and meaning that when culture really picks up on something, that's when politically it starts to get in momentum in terms of laws and policies.
That's what you're talking about, right?
If you can get this going in the culture, then you can then start to talk to the state reps, and you can start talking to the governors, then you can start talking to the Senate, the U.S.
Senate, and so on.
Just to just, you know, hey, let's just stay on the thing.
We're going to we're going to go to Regents for Hope in one minute.
But we should note that this week, Senate Republicans, I don't know, what did they do?
Blocked a measure that would have allowed the Equal Rights Amendment to be added to the Constitution.
So enough states have signed on for this to be added to the Constitution.
There was a an expiration date for the original ERA.
And so this would have basically said that that expiration date can be moved such that the ERA can now be passed.
And senators voted 51 to 47 in the vote on the Equal Rights Amendment.
The only ones to vote for it, Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins were the lone Republicans to vote with every Democrat.
So, the day we're talking about all this, that comes across the ticker, just so everybody knows.
Okay, I'm going to do this.
Tell me what I miss here, Dan, okay?
So, you said it so perfectly, I'm going to leave everybody with this today.
So, you have a government that will make you have state-approved pronouns that will not allow you to get divorced when you want to.
Go down your list again.
What else did I miss?
Make you read the books, right?
Determine what books you can read.
Yeah.
Determine, I think, not just the pronouns, but how you can live out your gender.
Yeah, just on and on, right?
Every aspect of existence.
Okay, so pronouns, your gendered existence in the world, whether or not you have to have a baby, you're going to have 10 commandments in your schools, you're going to have prayer in your schools, and you're not allowed to get divorced when you want, right?
You know the only thing that that government won't do?
is protect your kids from guns, because that's the thing that's terrorizing American kids.
That's the thing American kids die of most frequently.
So the only thing that that government that you just talked about, Dan, won't do, won't try to legislate, won't try to reach into your house, your bedroom, your uterus, your body, your mind is to legislate handheld killing machines.
And I just want to get this out.
Somebody left us a review and I don't usually comment about reviews because I don't, you know, everybody has a right to their opinion.
And usually negative reviews aren't like worth talking about because people just write all kinds of terrible slurs and I just don't even pay attention to those.
But somebody wrote, Dan, that when we talked about guns on this show, specifically me, that I was so reactionary because I was comparing, you know, responsible gun owners to lunatics like those that that commit heinous crimes.
And and that I should I should really think about taking a moment before I, you know, just denigrate the responsible gun owner in the land before and before speaking on the mic.
And here's my thing, responsible gun owner.
I'm talking to you right now, okay?
If when kids die, your first thought is, well, I hope nobody says anything bad about me and my gun.
And if they do, I'm going to be upset.
I might write a letter.
You have a fucking weird relationship with guns.
Okay?
So I'll just say that.
I don't, I'm not out here saying you shouldn't be able to have a gun.
Didn't say it.
Not out here saying, I want to take it away from you.
I'm saying, That when kids die in a classroom and somebody's like, Hey, we should do something about guns.
And your first thought is, well, just be careful, buddy.
How far you go?
You're talking to a gun owner here.
You're the one with the problem.
So I'm just going to say it.
There we go.
Dan, we're both got worked up today.
You know, it was a good morning because We were both pretty veiny in the forehead and tears in the eyes, so we did it today.
I'm proud of us.
Let's go to Reasons for Hope.
What do you got?
Yeah, so mine comes from Nashville.
Again, I feel like we spent a lot of time in Tennessee.
There was a story that I saw that was really inspiring.
A student named B. Hayes, right?
18-year-old, uses they, he pronouns as a part of the Nashville Christian School and was turned away from their prom because they wore a suit.
And the school spokesperson said you can agree with the dress code or not.
Parents and students know it and so forth, and they have to abide by it.
The reason I took hope in this is Hayes posted about this on Instagram, got like 23,000 likes, 2,000 comments, more by now.
This was like, you know, a couple days ago.
But the response to this, right?
Owners of an event venue in Nashville offered to have like a private prom for Hayes and like up to 25 guests.
There's a GoFundMe page with like $29,000 to like help do this.
RCA artist Tone Stitt has agreed to perform.
And so I don't know, it was just this really sort of moving response to this student who Doesn't fit the gender norms.
It was banned from this Christian school and just, I don't know, the pushback.
We spend a lot of time talking about the so-called red states.
We know that not everybody in those states agrees with everything going on in those states.
And I think this was a great sign of hope for a lot of things, including what was going on in Montana, to see something sort of at the grassroots level for a teen going through this kind of experience.
I have something similar.
Two bills severely restricting abortion in South Carolina and Nebraska were both unsuccessful.
They did not pass this week, and so I think that's really good news.
And I think it speaks to a point you just said, Dan, and I saw this firsthand at the summit last weekend.
There are so many people organizing in the places that you think are the deepest into the mire.
And, you know, I talked to folks from Tennessee.
I talked to folks from Missouri.
I talked to folks from Oklahoma.
And they are organizing.
They are doing their best.
They're putting their time and energy and money and all on the line.
And so it's inspiring.
And so I appreciate you pointing us to that instance and really happy to point to the instance in Nebraska and South Carolina.
That's a really good segue to say, listen to the new series we have coming out on the separation of church and state and religious freedom for all.
That includes freedom from religion.
I interviewed some amazing people and you're going to love these interviews.
And so we'll be posting those very soon.
Other than that, our seminar starts this weekend.
You have, if you're listening to this, like on Friday or Saturday, you have like one day to email me and say, can I sign up at the last moment?
We have like one or two spots left.
We'll be back later next week with the weekly roundup, but Make sure to hit subscribe, make sure to find us on PayPal, Venmo, and Twitter and Instagram.
And one more thing, subscribe to our substack.
We send out our research links every week with the help of Mark Kurth, our intern.
So if you sign up for that substack, you'll get a lot of the articles we discuss every week in your inbox and you can go through them on your own.
All right.
Other than that, Dan, I'll just say thanks for being here.
