Culture Friday: Judging and prejudging

BUTLER: It’s the 4th day of August 2023.

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

BROWN: And I’m Myrna Brown. 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, GUEST: John, for the first time in 15 years, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has a liberal majority. That’s worth noting because the court is expected to consider a challenge to the state’s pro-life law.

This week the court swore in Judge Janet Protasiewicz for a ten year term.

In her remarks she used the word impartial…impartiality twice. I mention that because the office she holds is technically non-partisan, yet her campaign was financed by Democrats, pro-abortion groups and other liberal figures. That doesn’t have an impartial ring to it. What do you think?

STONESTREET: Well, it doesn't. But I think it's important that we wait and see how exactly this particular judge rules. I mean, that's the only way to really figure out if someone is actually committed to the law or committed to a particular take on the law. You know, I think this is one of the things that we can continue to hear, for example, about the Supreme Court being so quote, unquote, partisan, even though if you actually do the numbers, the United States Supreme Court, actually it was just kind of in the same trend line is courts before it in terms of how many things that how many cases they ruled on unanimously, how many cases were wrote on it with an eight to one majority in other words that weren't divided down party lines. And yet, all we've heard is that the Supreme Court is illegitimate, illegitimate, illegitimate, because they're so political, and they're so partisan, and they're so partial, even though the facts don't point to that. And one of the reasons I think you see the court kind of in line here is because of what a conservative judicial philosophy is that you know, that there's actually a law and that law is something that we are to interpret, we are under that law, we do not make the law, it's not the the judges job is not to, you know, push a nation closer and closer towards some sort of kind of utopian future of the, you know, perfect justice or something like like that. In contrast, a progressive vision of the law was really, I think, basically articulated most clearly, recently, or at least in recent decades by Sonya Sotomayor, in a speech that she gave before she became a Supreme Court justice, the one that came up during her confirmation hearings, and what she said, “To judge is an exercise of power.” Look, there's a world of difference between thinking that judging is an exercise of interpretation and to judge is an exercise of power. There's a world of difference between assuming that the future of a society heading towards justice depends on you, and that you are a lawmaker in the role of judge versus one that says you are to not evaluate what a particular law is, that's, you know, another branch of government's job, but yours is to actually interpret what was done in light of that law. And that's what's so fascinating and all these claims of impartiality. So what I want to do is give this particular justice, you know, the benefit of the doubt and say, How are you actually going to rule. But the idea that somehow we are impartial in our perspective, that's just not true. We come with a lens, we come with a worldview, a vision of reality, and that will tend to play itself out and the decisions we make and for judges that those are decisions that affect everybody else.

BROWN: As we talk about what could be a challenging season for pro-lifers in Wisconsin, I want to turn your attention to another pro-life story that’s being shared and posted on a number of different platforms, yours included. It’s the story of two teenagers, their unwanted pregnancy, the abortion ban in Texas and their twin daughters, now two years old. The headline says, “An abortion ban made them teen parents.”

Is it really that simple?

STONESTREET: I just, you just see these headlines and you think, wow, I don't even know what to say. This is pretty basic biology. What makes people teen parents is when teenagers have sex and unprotected and they end up getting pregnant. This is not bigotry. It's biology. It's not rocket science, either. Laws don't make people pregnant. They just don't. I mean, I'm tempted to just kind of leave it at this complete level of snark. But what was so challenging here is that essentially, the Washington Post who printed this article, follow this young couple who basically are married because of risky sexual behavior. Even in the article, by the way, as I read it, they were like, well, they met at a state skate park and hung out. And three weeks later, she turned up pregnant as if there's not another, you know, detail there that, you know, is actually applicable and maybe matters, it was bizarre, honestly. But it goes on to basically suggest that had abortion been legal, that would have been a better decision. So imagine these two little girls. Now to the young man, the only thing by the way, according to the article that is making this young man resemble an adult in any sort of real way in terms of getting a job and doing something other than just sit around and play video games all day, and by the way, that's the the article itself is the fact that he's a dad, this is actually making him a better person. But the immaturity is so thorough between both of them, and the bad decision that they made, and suddenly, basically the the article just kind of implies that they should have had an abortion. So imagine these two little girls, you know, growing up and reading this article one day, I mean, it's just it's just horrific. It's just awful, awful stuff right now that we have now entered a time I mean, it's just so far beyond the safe, legal, and rare rhetoric of the 90s to abortion is a is a good and when it's restricted, it's a bad, and that includes for the child who would have been killed anyway. It was it was just a stunning article. And it just got horrific once you got past the headline, which was just a patently ridiculous thing to say. I mean, let me just repeat it for everyone, you know, keeping score at home an abortion ban made them teen parents.

BUTLER: John, I’d like to step in here and get your take on a very different story…a First Amendment victory in my home state of Illinois. Maggie DeJong (Dee-Young) was an arts therapy student at Southern Illinois University.

She sued the college last year when three students complained that DeJong’s religious and political viewpoints, often posted on her social media account, constituted harassment and discrimination. And the school went along with it.

With the help of Alliance Defending Freedom, she sued the college and walked away with an $80,000 settlement.

What do you think will be the effect of this decision on First Amendment rights for other Christian college students?

STONESTREET: Look, the religious freedom rights of students have been so thoroughly protected by the courts, including the Supreme Court, that anyone who feels like they've been unfairly discriminated against should immediately come forward. And it will be good for everyone. Look, you will probably will probably win if the track record says anything and and the fact of the matter is they're still bureaucrats who run these various departments at these institutions, including public institutions, that just for some reason, haven't gotten the memo. You know, the way you told the story, Paul, was it was a little bit truncated. In other words, it wasn't just these three students complained, but then the university turned around and systemically harassed her. They actually put out a restraining order so that if Maggie walked into a coffee shop, and these other students were there, she had to leave and that was even off campus. They held a community meeting, and she was the topic of how to actually and I mean, they basically, based on these complaints held her up as someone who was doing grave harm to these other students, they that I actually just recently sat down with Maggie at an event and and heard this story firsthand. And I, my you know, look, it's my job to pay attention to these things. And my job was on the floor, that these folks at Southern Illinois University believed that they could get away with this, and just patently mistreat a student, because that she had viewpoints. And it wasn't like, you know, she was going around, threatening anyone or challenging anyone’s safety or anything like that. And what made this even harder was her vision for using this arts therapy degree to help others was so, so so clear, and was so promising. And thank the Lord, she's actually landed, I think, in a wonderful situation, and her courage now has paid off. And I don't just mean financially with an $80,000 settlement. But I mean, it has clarified her vision and it's clarified her calling. And I guess I just continued to look around and see, you know, three high school girls that stood up on the athletic question out of Connecticut and, and a young master student, graduate level student here, standing up and I just compare that to so many Christians who are just who just don't want to not even stand but stand with those who stand and right now the people that are showing us what courage is, or the Maggie DeJongs of the world, and I'm grateful for them and good for her. It's an amazing story. And you need to go to ADF's website and just read the details of what these folks at Southern Illinois University tried to do to me, you just will be shocked. And you will just be amazed that she could get up and go back. I mean, imagine just going everyday to school where everyone hates you and talks about you out loud in front of I mean, it was just it was like the college administrator version of Mean Girls, it was just insane what they did to her and good for her for standing up. And again, thanks to ADF for being there for her.

BUTLER: John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast … thanks, John!

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

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