Culture Friday: Newsom vetoes bill expanding LGBTQ agenda

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s the 29th day of September 2023.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s Culture Friday.

Joining us now is John Stonestreet, the president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint Podcast. John, good morning.

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning.

EICHER: I’m going to rely on some rusty high-school German here to raise the story of the Romeike family, a homeschooling family from Germany who a decade and a half ago sought religious asylum in the United States for the freedom to homeschool their children.

Now, I can’t imagine essentially being in limbo for a decade and a half and constantly having to check in with immigration authorities and never really being able to feel settled. 

Finally, the other shoe has dropped and after all this time, after doing things the right way, not coming in illegally, not skipping court dates, on and on, now they’ve lost and they’re going to be deported. 

One of our WORLD Opinions writers saying this is the wrong priority for the government seeking the removal of the Romeikes. Daniel Suhr writing, “Asylum seekers like the Romeikes come in the best traditions of American history, seeking hope and freedom in a land that cherishes religious liberty. It would be an easy act of grace and goodwill to stop these deportation proceedings, and an example to Congress and the courts to start rethinking the standards of review for asylum seekers when neutral laws burden the free exercise of faith.”

I know you’ve followed this: what do you say, John?

STONESTREET: Well, I think it is a another data point on a really alarming trend. And it's not, first of all, it just seems bizarre, given how open our southern borders are, and the lack of concern about immigrants coming into America that you would actually target a family that's been in the country for 15 years and have actually established themselves as citizens. But you know, we also have at the same time, this is another data point, along with something that was reported on this past week, from a publication called Higher Ground looking at various Christian groups, reporting that there has been a stark decline in the number of religious refugees that were accepted into the United States. I mean, we're not anywhere close to the ceiling that has been kind of implemented for resettlement. This is something that happened also under President Obama, where the number of illegal immigrants coming in the southern border exploded. And at the same time, those who are actually going through the system are applying for refugee status based specifically on religious grounds. And this is mostly Christians. And we know for example, from the Open Doors U.S. World Watch list, that each year on record is the greatest year for persecution of Christians on record, right, it gets worse each and every year. And so the demand is huge. So we then in the context of that have a 70% decline in Christian refugees arriving in the United States. 

So you kind of go okay, well, what do we do with this? How do we put this also in the context of what we've seen, both in the state of Oregon and in the state of Massachusetts, where state officials actually say, you know, what a child is worse or more at risk in the home of someone who claims to be Christian, than they are being taken to a medical professional, who will actually permanently damage them in mind and body, whether through chemicals or through surgical intervention. 

There is now in this kind of time of critical theory mood, where we group people according to identity categories, and then assign moral superiority or moral blame. Apparently, immigrants have moral superiority unless they're Christian, unless they follow the rules unless they apply for refugee status, unless they're facing persecution. And now to be clear, it's not just Christian refugees. We've also seen a stark decline in the number of Jewish and Muslim refugees. But this should really concern everyone. This is a selection process by all indications that's discriminating specifically against people of faith. And unless there's some other part of this story with the Romeike family, and again, I don't know if we're saying that right. It's a nonsensical thing for the state to do. So what's going on? I think there's a lot more questions than answers right now.

EICHER: You mentioned this, speaking of children at risk, John, I want to turn to California now for a surprise move by the politically adventurous Governor Gavin Newsom, who so clearly putting himself out there as the eager understudy, I guess to Joe Biden, should he be unable to perform his role as presidential candidate in 2024, just an interesting guy, but also completely, up at least to now, never having met an expansion of LGBT rights he couldn't get on board with. I'm talking, of course about Governor Newsom veto of a bill that would have pushed judges during custody battles, to strip custody from parents who oppose gender ideology. He vetoed it, he vetoed the bill. Now, if that isn't a political tack to the center, honestly, though, I wonder, is this a sign that the most extreme elements of the LGBT agenda, specifically the T, specifically, where little kids are concerned, that it's just a bridge too far even for for Gavin Newsom?

STONESTREET: Oh, yeah, I think maybe is overstating it a bit. I don't think this has anything to do with kind of an ideological "too far" for Gavin Newsom. I think what this allowed him to do was claim both sides of the issue at the same time. The reason that he vetoed it is because it was really a showcase bill and judges particularly the judges in California are already considering where parents stand on gender identity questions when deciding custody. This is already in practice, they already have the dominant number of judiciary's kind of populated, so this is an unnecessary bill on the state level. So then when he gets asked about you know how he supports this, even as I do think there are cultural ones turning against the extremism of this movement he can claim Yeah, I agree, I think it was too far. And then he can also turn around and point to the fact that under his watch, this is what actually is happening and dividing homes and putting children at risk. 

But I do think this is something worth noting that it's widely accepted that Governor Newsom would be the top front runner other than the President. And we have not seen, which is saying a lot given who has stood on the stage for the Democratic primary under the last cycle. This is how far and how extreme the Democratic Party has gotten. It's not even close, like the track record this guy has. And despite the efforts of the governor of Colorado, the governor of Michigan, all who have presidential ambitions themselves, they're having a hard time keeping up with it. So that's an important thing to note in this.

BROWN: So John, I want to talk about college students. Here's what I understand happened on the campus of Auburn University, a worship event called Unite Auburn drew a massive crowd, one of the students wanted to be baptized, no baptismal pool in the arena where the event was held. So students began walking to a nearby lake a mile away. And by the end of the evening, more than 200 students got baptized. Here's some edited audio from that night

“Everybody give it up for Sylvester. He’s about to get baptized. Guys this is Mya. Give it up Mya! Cheers!”

In the water, helping baptize students, Hugh Freeze, the Auburn Tigers head football coach.

You can probably guess what happened next. An organization called the Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to the university president saying Auburn is a public university, not a religious one and it is inappropriate and unconstitutional for University employees to use their position to participate, promote or organize a religious worship event. 

And so my question is, would this backlash still happen? Was it because students got baptized or 200 students got baptized or Coach Freeze and others helped students get baptized? What do you think?

STONESTREET: Well, look, the Freedom From Religion Foundation has a long history of not being constitutionally literate. They have a long history of not actually understanding what it is that the First Amendment protects, what it means to be a private citizen, where that line is between church and state and why the founders drew it. You fundamentally begin with the wrong assumption - that the purpose of the state was to protect citizens from the church and that's actually not what the First Amendment was ever about. It was to protect citizens from the state, particularly citizens of faith. Now, there's nothing unconstitutional about what this football coach has done and just wait till they start seeing the press conferences from Deion Sanders. Who knows what's going to happen next? I think way more interesting in this story, two other things. Number one is given the reports of the move of the Holy Spirit on college campuses like Asbury University, and others, to see it at a place like Auburn, what's happening, man, I think, to be open that the Holy Spirit is indeed moving is really, really exciting. Let's pray for that kind of mercy and be grateful when we see it. 

I also think - I've been talking about this for a couple years - something's happening in the world of coaching, when you kind of think back to those hardcore and they still exist, basketball, football coaches, the Bobby Knight kind of, you know, way of seeing players and seeing students and you compare that to the coaches that are deeply committed in their faith, and even changing the way others coach, where I think there's a real shift away from this animosity towards players the the tough love to real love, and encouragement and so on. And I think more journalism, not to give you guys more work, but more journalism needs to be done on the coaching philosophy shift that I think is evident in both college basketball and college football. You know, it hasn't necessarily trickled out everywhere. I'm not saying it's perfect. I'm not saying there are no exceptions. I'm not saying all these, these coaches are flawless examples. But man, I think that's interesting. I mean, obviously, this is maybe an outlier. I don't know of any of the others that are standing in the middle of a field, in the middle of the night, you know, baptizing students. But that's not something Bobby Knight would have done.

BROWN: Well, Nick, sounds like we got an assignment, a new assignment, what do you think?

EICHER: Well, yeah, I think, well, I expect Ray Hacke is probably listening and sports writer, Ray Hacke, this is right up his alley, I think.

BROWN: Alright, John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Thanks John!

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

BROWN:  It’s the 29th day of September 2023.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.