In this week’s episode of Retire in Texas, Darryl Lyons, CEO and co-founder of PAX Financial Group, dives into the significant work of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) in safeguarding religious freedoms across various spheres. Highlighting notable cases and personal stories, Darryl illustrates the challenges and triumphs of defending deeply held convictions in today’s socio-political climate.
Key highlights include:
*The case of Jack Phillips and the legal battles faced by the Masterpiece Cakeshop owner.
*ADF’s role in ensuring medical professionals’ rights are protected against mandates that violate their beliefs.
*The impact of ADF’s work on pregnancy care centers and their fight against censorship and vandalism.
*Real-life examples of parental rights being defended in school settings and the broader implications for families.
*Insights into how ADF supports individuals and organizations facing discrimination based on their religious beliefs.
Tune in to this week’s episode to gain a deeper understanding of the vital role of Alliance Defending Freedom in protecting free speech and religious liberties. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please leave a comment and share the show with a friend!
Transcript
Hey, this is Darryl Lyons, co-founder of PAX Financial Group. Thanks for tuning in to Retire in Texas. Remember, this information is general in nature only. It’s not intended to provide specific investment, tax, or legal advice. Visit PAXFinancialGroup.com for more information.
And I want to encourage you to grab some eBooks on the website. We’ve got plenty of content on there to further educate yourself on the various topics that are important to all of us today. But the one that gets a lot of traction is Biblical Responsible Investing. That’s an eBook that a lot of people are grabbing, so we check the eBooks. I don’t know specifically who’s getting these eBooks, but I do know the ones that are in demand. So, check those out. Biblical Responsible Investing.
So, in that same theme, I want to talk a little bit about an organization today called Alliance Defending Freedom. You may have heard of Jack Phillips. Jack Phillips was the owner of a, of the Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado, and he was asked to bake a cake that would celebrate somebody transitioning from being a male to female.
He could not in good faith, his deeply held convictions would not allow him to build a cake. And so, he declined. He was forced to express a message that also had, I think it was from the same guy, by the way, I think they’re both attorneys. He was asked to also bake a cake that was a custom cake for same sex wedding and also a cake with Satan smoking marijuana and declined all of these.
These cases ended up becoming a lawsuit that went to the Colorado Supreme Court and ultimately the United States Supreme Court. But Jack is a small business owner and an artist, and typically there’s not a lot of margins in those businesses. Well, I say a small business owner, you never know. But an artist, you’re typically not going to make a lot of- there’s not a lot of zeros on cakes.
So, how in the world can a guy afford representation all the way through the state and the federal courts? And not just like in 2024, but this has been going on since 2012. And this does also include plenty of harassments and death threats along his journey. So how the world is a small business owner and a cake artist afford representation, and that’s through Alliance Defending Freedom. They’re one of the few firms in the entire world; frankly, that will stand up for those that have deeply held convictions known as religious freedom.
Now, this is just one example, but I’m going to share more and frame it in such a way that you’ll understand, hopefully by the end, and maybe I offend you along the way and you’re- but stay to the end.
But you’re going to understand why it’s so important that we as a country have an organization like Alliance Defending Freedom. Let’s just go into the medical industry for just a second, where doctors and nurses, in some cases, are being forced to facilitate gender transitions, even though federally it violates the federal conscience protections. And that includes vaccines. It includes really all forms of health care that violate deeply held convictions.
The FDA also plays a role in this, as you would imagine, the three letter agencies have really become almost a quasi-fourth government agency. You think of the judicial, legislative and executive branches, but you don’t think of the three letter agencies also being an extension of the government’s execution of ideas. But they have been.
And the FDA had originally had a requirement that physicians provide oversight and care for somebody who’s taking a chemical abortion. And in November of 2022, Alliance Defending Freedom filed a lawsuit against the FDA because if you look at these chemical abortions, I really didn’t have a good handle on the scope of the consequences in the, and the potential challenges that exist.
And as a man, I can’t really relate, but I did see some testimonies of some women who took these pills. And I’ll put links on our website. It was more than I had expected. I’ll just say that. And to allow these medicines, these, these chemical abortions to be taken and prescribed by the way. The FDA, I don’t know if they still do, but to not be a licensed physician and to be able to distribute these chemical abortion drugs, is really problematic.
So, the Alliance Defending Freedom sued the FDA and said, you have to have a- if somebody’s taking these chemical abortion drugs, you have to have a doctor oversee this experience. And so that’s one of the things that Alliance Defending Freedom has been doing in the medical space. We can drift over since we’re talking about abortions, we can drift over to pregnancy care centers.
I have personally participated with pregnancy care centers, have some good friends that run them and contributed. I am blown away. These people are very close to angels, in my opinion. Pregnancy care centers, what they do for women, and my heart does go out to many of these women being a son of a 16 year old little girl, for lack of a better phrase, because now, as a father of a 16 year old, I can’t imagine.
But some of these women have no hope. And they go to these pregnancy care centers and the care that they receive, from diapers to support to just direction. It’s unbelievable. And what Elizabeth Warren said about these pregnancy care centers just blows my mind. And since the repeal of Roe versus Wade, these pregnancy care centers have been vandalized. They’ve been threatened. They’ve even been firebombed. And many of, in fact, the pro-abortion members have sent letters to Congress to, I guess through Congress. I don’t know if it’s to Congress or through Congress. It would, it must have been through Congress. But they sent a letter to the CEO of Google encouraging that they censor pregnancy care centers.
So, Alliance Defending Freedom, they’ve been fighting for pregnancy care centers across the country. I’ll also put a link in our website that is an important document for you to read, The Truth About Pregnancy Care Centers. There’s a lot of misinformation out there, and we need pregnancy care centers in our community.
This does extend beyond just health care and abortion. Alliance Defending Freedom represented a family in Michigan. Dan and Jennifer Mead. They sent their kids to counseling, or their child to counseling because they’re struggling academically. But what they didn’t know was that the school was encouraging this child of theirs to transition their pronouns. The parents had no clue. The parents were not informed. And this is happening a lot in school districts where counseling has been more of a, in fact, there’s plenty of information out there on this.
But the reality is that the parental rights are being marginalized. And so who in the world is going to stand up for parental rights when schools push a different ideology that’s inconsistent with deeply held convictions? And I’m not talking about just notifications. Here’s a notification. I’m talking about a parent being actually fully engaged in the entire process.
And that’s being taken away in many school districts around the country, and Alliance Defending Freedom has fought for many families, including the Mead family. And if you are in business and you’re a subcontractor and you get a, something called a request for proposal for a government contract, or even if you’re a general contractor for that matter, you’ve seen and experienced the administrative challenges of trying to accommodate the diversity, equity, inclusion and the environmental social governance requirements that really impede business progress.
And so, we’ve got to continue to address this because it’s become overwhelming and very, very subjective. What is good social governance? What is diversity? Does diversity include diversity of thought as well? But this is not just domestically. Alliance Defending Freedom actually was representing, and I believe still represents, I don’t know if this case is still going on, but somebody who is a member of the Finnish Parliament who put in their social media and in some brochures, Romans [1:24]-27. I’ll let you look that up on your own. It’s my way to nudge you to the Bible.
Well a, being on the Parliament, a citizen filed a criminal complaint, and this lady who is a member of Parliament was subject to five years of police investigation. This is the same person who is in charge of the police department. Now is subject to five years of police investigations. And her crime, which could be considered very severe without proper representation, could have potentially, and it didn’t, she got acquitted, to two years in prison. The severity of the accusations. She was acquitted. Fortunately, Alliance Defending Freedom represented her.
And a couple more examples and then, I’ll start to win this down. But the Indigenous Advanced Ministry, a ministry represented by a man who really is just an everyday guy. I saw him speak. Very fine, just humble man. Fell in love with the people of Uganda and started a ministry down there to help an orphanage and try to move money from one bank account to another and found out that his bank account was closed by Bank of America. And they sent him a letter saying that they made a business decision to no longer service their accounts.
He went to the branch manager and said, “What’s going on?” She goes, “This is ridiculous. I can’t believe this. Let me go-.” And she made a phone call, and she was advised, and this is her words to him, we are no longer able to service your account. It’s a business decision. Please refer to the letter. I can no longer speak to this.
So, Bank of America, somebody, whether it was the CEO or whether it was mid-level management, or somebody who just had a rogue authority, decided to close out their bank account because they had a different worldview. Goldman Sachs and Airbnb both have done race-based hiring, which is against the law. There was a lady who wrote the book Irreversible Damage, really a very controversial book for those with a different worldview, but very eye opening. Irreversible Damage.
She’s talking about the transitioning of genders. GoFundMe decided not to, they said, “We’re not going to let you have a GoFundMe account.” I don’t know, she didn’t set up the GoFundMe account somebody else did because she became the author. Became the most hated woman in America. And so, somebody set up a GoFundMe account to help her in some capacity. I don’t know the reason or who. But GoFundMe me said, “Nope, we’re not going to set one up.”
This has become so problematic that one CEO, I don’t know the name of the company, but I heard second hand, not fourth hand or fifth hand, that one CEO of a company said “This is taking over our company. This ideology is taking over our company. Somebody please sue us to wake up our company.” That was her words. “Please sue us.” Alliance Defending Freedom is one of those organizations that will sue to defend the rights of people who have deeply held convictions. They have served 4,300 churches. They have eight offices around the country. They get 6,500 requests for help every single year.
They can’t service all of them. But think about it takes about 3 or 4 million in legal fees just to go to the Supreme Court. The Jack’s Jack Phillips case was 10 million. And, Alliance Defending Freedom has had their technology canceled. Zoom canceled them. Their websites said, “No, we’re not going to service you anymore.” Many people on the internet call them the anti-LGBTQ group.
They’re considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Association. But they’re the only ones, very few, that are standing up to the government, the agencies, and even private companies that have become de facto regulators and censors. And it’s led to unprecedented power against those of maybe unpopular religious or even political beliefs. And it’s become such an ideology that it really puts groups of people into two categories. You’re either the oppressed or the oppressors.
And as a result, people who have deep, deeply held religious beliefs live in fear. 60% of employees said they were concerned that their company would punish them for expressing their religious or political views. Now, Jordan Peterson expressed it really well. He said, for us to even have free speech, you have to run the risk of offending each other. That’s the very essence of free speech. Offending somebody is the natural consequence of free speech. It’s going to occur. That’s why China says you can have you can believe what you want, so long as that doesn’t cause disruption. And if you think free speech isn’t at threat, then the burden of proof is on you. Because if you look globally, China being one example, and historically, it’s been threatened, and quasi government agencies and corporations are playing a role in suppressing those with deeply held religious beliefs.
And the capital markets, and I’m being in it, they work because of free speech and because of these deeply held Judeo-Christian values. Take that away and you create an atmosphere of fear. And I think about it from an analogy of the Golden Gate Bridge. When they made the Golden Gate Bridge, when they’re first building it, I can’t imagine the fear that existed of being able to work on a construction that was up in the air as high as it was.
Well, when they, when they decided to put a safety net underneath it, productivity went up 25%. If somebody fell down onto the safety net, they call them that halfway to Hell club. But it did save lives. But more importantly, it reduced the fear and made everyone much more productive. And so this idea of fear that exists in the marketplace, whether you’re in the school or whether you’re in health care or whether you’re a small business owner, the idea that you’re unable to express your deeply held convictions, and I don’t care necessarily what your ideology is, but the idea that we can’t offend each other is the very essence of suppression of free speech.
And so, I’m very thankful for Alliance Defending Freedom. I will put some more links in the show notes, and I just wanted to make sure you knew that there was an organization out there that is defending those that are having their speech suppressed.
And I will tell you this also, when it gets to the Supreme Court, and oftentimes in states, they are winning. I have a lot of hope in the future. I know this is a challenging time, but I do. Sometimes it is pollyannaish, but most of the time my hope is rooted in truth and reason, and of course, in my faith. And remember, you think different when you think long term. Have a great day.
Resources:
www.viewpointdiversitysocre.org/polling
The Truth About Pregnancy Centers | Alliance Defending Freedom (adflegal.org)
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