← Them Before Us
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- [00:02]
Josh Wood
Welcome to Them Before Us on American Family Radio where we strive to put children before adults. Our goal is to educate the public on a child centric perspective of marriage and family and represent the rights of children on policy matters. Now here's the host and founder of Them Before Us, Katie Foust.
- [00:21]
Katie Foust
Welcome to Them Before Us Radio. I'm your host, Katie Foust, founder and president of Them Before Us here with my executive director, Josh Wood. And we're going to kick off this one hour of child Centric Radio content with Bible time like we always do. But this time we want to add a real, recent, fresh, powerful personal experience that we had at the Capitol. So the verse that leaps to my mind when I think about what Josh and I got to experience this week is Isaiah 59, 4 that says justice is turned back and righteousness stands far away, for truth has stumbled in the public square and uprightness cannot enter. So this is God condemning his people for failing to engage not in the church life, not in the family life, not in terms of their own devotion to God, but as it relates to public matters. God is displeased when justice stumbles in the public square. It is very hard to get justice in the public square if God's people are not engaging in the public square sometimes. So what Josh and I were treated to this last week was a tour of the capitol building in D.C. now, I've never even been. Now, I guess I have been in the Capitol building once or twice, but I've never been in the Rotunda. I haven't been in the places where they have all of the statues, all these secret corners like the prayer room. And Josh and I got to do that on a private tour led by Speaker Mike Johnson. So it's pretty surreal. It was pretty incredible. And our friend Frank Turek is going to be releasing some of the footage of that tour and the really amazing insights, spiritual insights that Speaker Johnson had about the building itself and the history of our nation. But Josh, tell me what part of that tour really struck you. What do you think is going to stay with you?
- [02:20]
Josh Wood
Well, I think it's easy from afar to see all of the back and forth in politics. And I don't, I don't know, I guess when we see the sausage being made from which is supposed to be the, I guess the, the behind the scenes look, but it, it's pretty ugly in the not behind the scenes. There's fighting, there's bickering, there's constant, it feels like vitriol. So when we actually went behind the scenes and saw the actual person, someone like Speaker Johnson, talking about his faith. One story that stood out to me, Katie, was him telling how the big, beautiful bill came together and how they were at an impasse and how he went to the chapel to pray. It. It just restored a lot of confidence for me. Like I said, the faraway look at how all of this happens doesn't give me confidence that our elected officials are godly, patient, ever persevering types. But to hear him talk at length and share the moment where he felt like there was spiritual breakthrough even on the bill, how he could approach it, how the hearts could change, and knowing that at the end of the day, I can't control everything. God is our sovereign. We have to place our faith in him. And if we believe we're in his will, then let him get the results. That stuck with me. We obviously have all sorts of battles we're in all the time, Katie, trying to move things that feel immovable. It's a good reminder that even at some of the highest levels of power in dc, the guy who's pulling a lot of the strings goes, yeah, my power is limited. There's only so much I can do. And when I feel at my max, I have to remind myself that prayer is critical to everything we're trying to do. That man that stuck with me.
- [04:13]
Katie Foust
Yeah, it was amazing. We went into the chamber where the House and the Senate and where they vote, and he talked about how in the 60s, they added an in God we trust right above the place where the speaker stands. Why? I mean, that's a pretty late addition. And it was because they were trying to draw a stark contrast between American principles and socialist communist principles, which was the great global rising threat. And of course, now the foxes are actually in the hen house, not just outside of it. What I thought, the moment that really struck me was we went to this room that's now lined with statues. It used to be the original, like, office space where all the different senators had their desks. And he talked about how John Quincy Adams, our sixth president, was one of the very few presidents, the only president that went back to serve in the legislature after he was president. Why? Because he hated slavery. And every day he would stand at his desk and he would drone on and on and on about how we needed to abolish slavery over and over and over and over and over. And he didn't see it in the course of his lifetime, but he said, now look across the room and there's a desk that used to Be seated, you know, at his, like 11 o'.
- [05:32]
Sam
Clock.
- [05:33]
Katie Foust
And who sat at that desk? A freshman congressman by the name of Abraham Lincoln who had to listen to his, what a lot of his colleagues referred to as like a diatribe daily. And so that is what Lincoln imbibed right as he was fresh into governance. And later on he would become our 16th president and he would abolish slavery. So to me, it was a good reinforcement that again, you're responsible for the effort, not the outcome. But the other thing is that we become what we behold. And President Lincoln, you know, then was he a Rep. Or was he a senator? I'm not sure.
- [06:12]
Josh Wood
Representative.
- [06:13]
Katie Foust
He was a representative. And he was exposed to what was eloquent, forceful arguments against slavery from our own founding documents to the point where it, it just drilled into Lincoln. And when he had a chance to do something about it, he did. What a good lesson for all of us that even if we don't see fruits or results in our lifetime, it is still so important for us to never stop speaking the truth, because perhaps that will scatter some seed that will produce 30, 60, or a hundredfold.
- [06:47]
Josh Wood
Well, I think that's. I have to remind myself sometimes that where Jesus walked, there was still people that went hungry that night. There were still blind people that might have been Jesus next door neighbor. We sometimes think like everywhere he went, he solved every single problem he saw and every single person had their needs met. That's not true. And even Lazarus, he still died later in his life. There's a spiritual lesson there that even for Jesus Christ, the goal was obedience. It wasn't outcomes. He's called to serve in the way that God has appointed him, not to solve every single world issue. And in doing so, we play the part God's called us to play. Obviously, Christ's role was way bigger than any of ours. But even he had to say, I have to know the will of my Father. How did he measure decisions, where to go and where not to go? Who does? Even talking to his mother, mom, it's not my time yet. All of that was based on where he felt he was being called and appointed. And it's a good lesson for us when the world feels overwhelming, when there's a million different things to try to take on, it's good for us to remember now, where is God calling me? And even if I can't see the results of it, am I in God's will? Am I doing what God's called me to do? And like Speaker Johnson said, leave the results up to God. He's in the business of results. We're in the business of obedience.
- [08:12]
Katie Foust
Well, there have been a lot of wins in the second Trump administration. Especially we've been able to see especially some Supreme Court victories that have held the line on religious liberty. There have been definitely victories as it relates to knocking down the transgender industrial complex. Not as many wins in terms of, like, chemical abortion pills, and certainly not a lot of wins as it relates to advancing IVF and weakening the GOP platform on matters of marriage. But I wanted to turn our attention to this story where Trump 2.0, you know, in the second term, came out swinging hard against transgender medicine in terms of hospitals. And what they said is they were not going to allow any hospitals to receive Medicare or Medicaid funding, which is a giant chunk of how hospitals bring in revenue if they were providing transgender surgeries or transgender treatments. So, as it goes, you know, the administration will make some kind of announcement, some kind of executive order, and then they will be flooded with comments. And in this case, they got 30,000, you know, enough to apparently delay this decision or maybe scrap it all together. So that piqued our interest, and we wanted to talk about it on the show because we are adamant defenders of children's right to their mother and father. But children also have a right to an intact, unmedicalized body. And as in all child rights, they cannot defend those rights themselves. So we have to do it. We have to do it through good policy. We have to do it through advancing cases in the judiciary, and we have to do it when it comes to fighting the culture war as well. And it looks like this is an area where the Trump administration may have faltered a bit. So, Josh, tell us a bit about what's going on and what you think ordinary people can or should do as it relates to continuing to speak up about the harms of transgender medicine, especially for kids.
- [10:20]
Josh Wood
Well, as I understand it, one of the government's tools is that since they fund so much, they give so much state fund or funding to states, they can occasionally, you see this in education. Sometimes. If you don't play by my rules, I'll take my funding away. It's one of the levers they have. It sounds like the Trump administration is trying to do something like this around this term, gender affirming care. Now, I think that's, like, worth pausing on, because if we're talking about access to drugs and surgeries, are we talking about just that therapists or doctors would be, you know, have to affirm the gender of the kid that comes in or what the parents want you to call him or her, I think those. That seems pretty broad. There's 27 states that have said we're not going to do this. And so I think assuming that we're talking about the provision of, you know, beginning to socially transition a kid, beginning to provide some interventions with drugs and looking towards surgeries, I think, yeah, I think they're on absolutely the right track by banning those things. What I say my nuance in all of this would be, I, I get worried sometimes that is everything we're lumping into this word. It is it all the scary gender transition, is it all the scary surgeries, is it all the scary drugs? Or. I just know that there are some children that are having legitimate issues understanding their bodies, and maybe they've had traumatic experiences. And so I worry in some ways with, like the, like we saw with conversion therapy, I am in no way, shape or form in favor of having doctors being forced to affirm the gender that the kid proposes or, you know, that kind of thing. But I do hope maybe what the Trump administration is trying to wade through is, and why they're calling this potentially legally shaky to implement the rule, and that's why they're delaying it, is how do we at one hand stop these villains from transitioning kids and giving them drugs and stopping them and sterilizing them? That's horrendous. But then also, how do we not hamstring the doctors and trying to counsel kids through. Maybe they have had something terrible that happened to them and they're struggling through their gender. And so I want to empathize. It's incredibly messy and you're talking about the lives of children. What's so unfortunate about this is there were some, like you said, foxes in the hen house that did such horrible things that now the backlash, the pendulum swinging has been like, nope, no one can do anything in this regard. It's all propaganda and brainwashing. And I don't want of those kids who are dealing with legitimate issues to not get care either.
- [13:04]
Katie Foust
They need help. They need help because you're exactly right. You know, the kids that I know personally who have struggled with gender confusion have had some very legitimate traumas in their life. Maybe it was some kind of sexual assault. Maybe it was just sort of a, almost premature puberty where the girl's body developed to look like a grown woman when she was 13 and she started receiving male attention in ways that scared her. Sometimes it's related to other aces, a divorce or the loss of a parent. And a lot of times it is just a social contagion. It is just, this is what I want to do. This is what I need to do to fit in with this community. Because that pull, that need for social connection is a human need. And what do kids need? They need to talk it out. They got to have somebody to process it through with. Because like you said, Josh, there really are some legitimate reasons why a child would reject their body. But the answer is not to force the body to conform to the confused mind. It is to force the mind to accept the reality of the body. Thank God ADF won a case at the Supreme Court just last month defending counselors right to not automatically affirm someone's sexual orientation or gender identity. To say, say, let's pause. Tell me about what, what you're going through. Tell me about the other factors in your life. Tell me about the kind of ways that you've suffered or the things that you're afraid of. Let's get to the bottom of that. And when they do, the vast majority of these gender confused cases resolve on their own. Kids need help, but it is not sterilization and permanent mutilation of their bodies. Stay with us. We'll be right back with more child centric headlines.
- [15:02]
Josh Wood
Welcome back to Them Before Us on American Family Radio.
- [15:06]
Katie Foust
We are back at them before U.S. radio. I'm your host Katie Foust here with executive director of Them Before Us, Josh Wood. And we wanted to turn our attention to this new article from our friends at the Institute for Family Studies. And they surveyed young adults on attitudes about monogamy. Now the reason why this is important is because the acceptance of not just polygamy, which is a little too rigid for the youngins, but polyamory, like group love or relationships with many or open non monogamy or ethical non monogamy. I mean, there's so different, so many different ways that culture and especially elites, especially leftist elites are pushing the idea that you do not need to commit to one person for life and forsake all others. So our friends at the Institute for Family Studies kind of took a look at this and published a new report that shows that actually support for monogamy is very high among young adults ages 22 to 35. Now we can talk about this from an adult's perspective. Obviously we think that monogamy, we know that monogamy is good for adults, but it's especially good for the children of their union. So Josh, jump in here and tell me what you think about this and what you think it means for those of us that are advancing the cause of children.
- [16:31]
Josh Wood
Maybe I'm negative Nancy here, but the headline of one of the headlines of this says just 10% of young adults who expect to marry report being in a polyamorous relationship. 76% agree that once you commit to a partner, intimacy with anyone else is, you know, never. Okay. I don't know. 10%. Seems like a lot that are report being in a polyamorous relationship between 22 and 35. I don't know, Katie. One in ten. I get it. Three out of four say when you're in a relationship, having anyone else involved is a bad thing. Awesome.
- [17:11]
Sam
And.
- [17:11]
Josh Wood
And that does seem like it's counter to the headlines that everyone would tell you that monogamy is dead. I don't know, that seems. It seems like a pretty big group that that report being in a polyamorous relationship and then one in five who expect to marry say they'd like relationships that don't require monogamy. I don't know that. That seems really high to me.
- [17:39]
Katie Foust
I think that the reason why they were encouraged is because, as is often the case, what is trending and what is being pushed, especially by elite leftist publications and institutions actually is not taking hold the way that a lot of people would have liked to have believed. This is such an example of speak left, live right. And so if you look at a lot of the people that are in media, if you look at people that like, work in elite academia, they'll say, well, non monogamy, I mean, that's the rage. I mean, really, you need to free yourself up and, you know, exclusivity, that's a tool of the patriarchy. But very few of them are going to live that way themselves. Most of them have intact marriages. Their children are never going to have to deal with the divorce. Their children are not going to be raised by a single mother. And yet we always worry, we, as in those of us that want to defend the family because we understand it's so critical for children, we worry. I worry that a lot of these messages about free love, free sex, about the how mothers and fathers are interchangeable, I worry that young people are going to hear it and make decisions about their own romantic lives and the lives of their children based on this bad information. And so I think that what was happening here is they were surprised and glad that it looked like that message that monogamy is unimportant wasn't sticking with the majority of those that are in the space of life where they are hopefully going to be married soon. Monogamy is really important. We spend a lot of time talking at them before us about how there's three aspects of marriage that set it apart from all other relationships. Complementarity, monogamy, and permanence.
- [19:30]
Sam
Right.
- [19:30]
Katie Foust
You can even just look at Jesus's definition of marriage in Mark, chapter 10. A man shall leave his father and mother be joined to his wife. The two shall become one flesh. And what God has joined together, let no man separate. So you see complementarity, monogamy and permanence in that definition. Each of those have a very specific child benefit. What is the benefit monogamy has to kids? Well, if you're doing monogamy as God designed, that means the child will always be raised by the two people who made them and their home will not include any unrelated adults. Unrelated adults statistically always increase risk of abuse and neglect. So these 10% that are like, hey, we love those open marriages, you know, the 25% that are like I'm open to it, you know, before I get married, they need an education. They need to know that this is not just bad for them, but it's going to be bad for their future children. That more love is not good for kids. The love of their own mother and father loving each other and nobody else in their home is what's good for kids.
- [20:35]
Josh Wood
Well, it's probably worth stating too that it's not like this is some brand new innovation. It's not like this is the first generation that's thought about non monogamy. I the. I feel like the 70s and 80s are pretty. Or 60s, 70s and 80s are pretty famous for some of these things. So we probably need to put it in context too. But just to reiterate almost, it's, it's almost internal to our species that, that we do, whether we admit it or not, we do take better care of our biological children. There is something about seeing ourselves in our children that is protective. It makes us invest in them. There's been studies we. You can go to our substack them before us.substack.com we write we have tons of studies on there. If you click into family or marriage on how mothers who will buckle the seat belts of their kids, who their biological children more than children that are not related to them, that, that stepfathers abuse children far more than biological fathers, that boyfriends or unrelated males in the home are by far the most dangerous thing for a child. So there is something to it. It's not just some puritan preference that you need to have only one wife or only one husband. This is also central to who we are. It is the most protective for kids. They get invested in more and they tend to flourish when they have that stability and connection with that one parent. So just worth stating that this is affirmed. Not only do we believe it to be true, we see it in the Bible and we live as according to that. But the gospel is also good for us. It's been proven out in society to be the best way to do it as well.
- [22:17]
Katie Foust
The way that we form families matter matters desperately to children. But a huge concern, something we talk a lot about at them before us, is that fewer families are forming at all. And if they do form, it is often later in life. And when they do form, sometimes it is with the explicit desire to not bring children into that union. So we have sort of an anti child understanding of relationships in general, but anti child even when it comes to marriage. That of course is bad for kids, but it's bad for society. So the alarm bells are being rung among people who are studying demographic changes. And the biggest alarm bell is that we're not having enough babies. This is something that they I have heard dozens of podcasts, read articles, followed experts. How is it that you can get your birth rate back up to the bare minimum of 2.1 if you want your society to can maintain, just maintain population? We are at a dismal 1.6. Many European countries are lower than we are. A lot of Asian countries, Korea, Japan, China are hovering about around 1.0 or less. I mean this is something that's affecting most nations, most developed nations around the world. People don't know how to fix it. But this next article that we wanted to talk about kind of brought in a new angle and that is that if you want more babies, then adults need to have more friends. Now I have ideas about exactly why there's a direct connection here, but Josh, I'd love to hear your thoughts on why there is a link between increasing the birth rate and being more socially stable as an adult overall.
- [24:11]
Josh Wood
So the study talks about 5,000 adults and that young people with the least supportive friends wanted 1.7 children. Those who had the most supportive 2.8. Now it's worth probably even, I don't know, the cross tabs on the survey. But when you look at our 1.6 birth rate as a nation, if you break that down into religious and non religious and conservative tracks along those religious lines too, you will find conservative religious families want More children. And so now if I read into this, who has the most supportive community, who is in community in general, who has some of the social institution, who goes to church, who lives close to family, like, who have more intact families? Christian conservatives. And so I see all of this tracking together that those people who are ingrained into their community living, you know, going to church every week, have, have a type of community that does the baby showers and the meal trains them. You know, they watch each other's kids. When you get called into another shift, they. That's, that's a kind of a wraparound care that we talk about all the time. When we have these town halls and politics. It's like we need to care for, you know, the, if we gave women more confidence and we cared for them, they would have the confidence to have the child. Well, you take a, you know, a trip down the road to the small town and that is a natural institution. The wraparound care lives next door. It's the mom in the backyard, it's the, it's the grandparents, it's the church ladies, it's the pantry down the street. Like, so that strikes me is that, oh, what we are trying to manufacture and promote again, according to God's word, when we set up society in that way, it is almost a natural function of how he intended us to live.
- [26:05]
Katie Foust
We look at the dating. Sorry. We look at the fertility crisis. Nations, nations have tried to solve this through money. Nations have tried to solve this through incentives. So far, no nation has been able to do it, maybe temporarily, but not long term. So there has to be some kind of non governmental, non economic solve. And the solve will be human. It's going to be a human solve. It's going to be a human connection solution. And I've noted that we have a fertility crisis because we have a marriage crisis. Fewer marriages are forming and they're forming too late to have as many babies as people will say that they want. We have a marriage crisis because we have a dating crisis. Young people today don't have a script to date. There's so many barriers to them just interacting with the opposite sex in person. And I think we have a dating crisis because we have a friendship crisis. Relationships are a skill and there are fewer opportunities and easier ways to opt out of developing that skill now than there ever has been in human history. In human history, if you wanted to survive, if you know, you needed to hunt in packs, you needed to care for your children together, you know, in a community of other women, if you wanted to have Fellowship, you could not click a link and zoom in. You had to see people in person. And all of that develops skills that allow you to be more confident in those human interactions, which then leads you to be more confident when you're asking somebody on a date, which leads you to a place where you can evaluate somebody as a good spouse sooner rather than later. And then which leads you to the point where you're having babies with that spouse. So this study shows that not only is friendship important for just building those families, but once you're in that family, once you're at the point where you're thinking about having children, those friends are the ones that are going to give you the confidence that, you know what, maybe I can actually have more children than I thought. There's been a huge trend, especially of my non religious friends to, if they have children, to have only one or only two and after that they're done. That is not how it is in my religious communities. But even this sort of scarcity mindset or maybe the climate alarmism has really reached a lot of my non religious friends to the point where even if they can have children, they either won't or they'll have one or two. So it looks like having, you know, a flourishing in person community, which a lot of hopefully Christians that are plugged into a church have, is going to fuel this confidence that maybe I can have not just one, not just two, but maybe four or five or seven.
- [28:48]
Josh Wood
Now let me ask you a question, Katie. You're not far from the season of grandparenting.
- [28:55]
Katie Foust
You love to bring it up, Josh, don't you?
- [28:58]
Josh Wood
No pregnancies to announce. But, but thinking down the road, a big part of this is talking about confidence, it's talking about support. How are you guys thinking through preparing for that season? I. It strikes me that in generations past, it does seem like that was a natural, like role in vocation. This is a season of life where we get to step in, step away from work and, and make sure we are there. I'd say as time has gone on, people live farther away from kids and family. It's just not as much of a thing. And also I think it's popular. I mean, social media gets to every generation. There's a trend of like, no, I won't be, you know, babysitting for my kids, I'm going on cruises, I'm golfing. That's what I want to do. I already did my time raising. They can come over for a day, but don't count on me for a weekend. And I think some of that is really toxic. So I'd be curious just what you're seeing is the algorithm marketing this stuff to you to start picking up, you know, tennis or whatever it might be. And how are you and Ryan processing it?
- [30:01]
Katie Foust
Well, I just want to say I get, like, 12 invitations to start pickleball every week. So, like, I have not yet bought into the pickleball phrase. I'm like, who has time for pickleball? Good heavens. I think that, you know, being an involved grandparent is so important for everybody. I mean, you see those intergenerational connections, they're good for baby, they're good for mom and dad. They are good for grandparents. I will say that a lot of that starts early. It starts when they're just dating and you're encouraging them to be wise, but then also to be adventure, like, to be courageous when it comes to asking people out and prioritizing. I've talked with all of my kids about prioritizing marriage early and being very serious daters so that they can marry well. And now my kids look like they're going to be scattered all across the country. And so I've said, look, in the short term, I'm just going to come live with you. You know, once you have a baby, I'll come a couple weeks whenever you want, and then I'll go back. But long term, we should think about a compound. So every now and then, I'll send them pictures or tell them stories about grandparents that have multiple children on the same street. And I'm like, consider the compound people. And maybe with all four of my kids, you know, one of them can find a spot that all of us like, and we can figure out how to, like, anchor there. Anyway, we're in the brainstorm phase, Josh. In the brainstorm phase.
- [31:21]
Josh Wood
Well, we are blessed to have all of my wife's sisters in the same place and their parents. We have. My mother's not far. Her parents are close. And I will tell you, it does give you a lot of confidence. We travel a lot for work, and the amount of times they've come and done a pickup or helped with a kid, it does give you the confidence. We're so grateful for that.
- [31:42]
Katie Foust
It's at as if God delivered a natural support system for people who are having babies. Let's get back to it. Let's promote it, let's export it to the rest of the world in both culture and in policy. Stay with us. We're going to be back with your Q and A in just A minute
- [32:01]
Josh Wood
if you'd like to comment on the show. Email commentshembeforeus.com Once again, here's Katie Faust.
- [32:09]
Sam
Hi everyone. Welcome to Here for the Comments, a Them Before Us podcast series where we dive into the comments and questions that we get online and then we unpack the children's rights perspective and we use to answer them. I'm your host, Sam, and I'm joined by Jen and we are here for the comments.
- [32:25]
Jen
We have some fun comments, lines of argumentation to talk about today. One of the things that popped off this last week was that a kind of a small account on Instagram, her username was something lesbian. So she was about is advocating for lgb, the LGB side of things. She had some different videos and she made a video about the Greater Than Campaign which is as you guys know, them before us is part of a coalition called the Greater Than Campaign to make kids greater than adults desires. The large mission of the organization is to overturn Obergell. And so this lady made a dramatic video saying this is a message for the Greater Than Campaign. And it was kind of very dramatic with some dramatic music behind it. The larger point was that she's saying basically we have kids, we're here to stay. You want to destroy our families, we're not going to let it happen. And then a few people in the comments popped up to tag another larger account, you know, 1600 people or something, the LGB Alliance. Here's an organization that is coming for your marriages and all this stuff. And as the Greater Than Campaign, I commented thanks greater than campaign.com you know, and then I kind of just went back and forth with people in the comments a little bit. But I wanted to mention to you, Sam, and get your take on there's two main ways, two main arguments that were coming up in the comments, and I use the word argument very loosely. One, and we see this fairly often, is that people will say they will misrepresent Katie Faust's personal story, which she shared publicly. Very often. She describes her upbringing as she was raised by her mom and dad until they got divorced when she was around 10. Her mom and dad both re partnered with women. So she lived kind of with one foot in the lesbian community growing up. And she lived with one foot kind of in community with her dad and her dad's wife. And she shares this with gratefulness that she had both of her mom, both her mom and her dad still in her life. They got along well. They sacrificed in that way to get along well for her. Well Being and she shares very specifically, she loves her mom, she loves her dad. They're irreplaceable. She cared about and cared for and was thankful for the other adult in the relationship with both her mom and her dad. She does not have ill will toward them. They didn't mistreat her. Those sorts of things. Now what's the problem is this breaks the brain of people on the left that you could express love and care for your family member that's making a decision or living in a way that maybe you don't agree with. And the fact that you might, you have to hate them then. And so they'll say, this is her mommy issue. They'll misrepresent it. This is because she hates her mommy, has mommy issues. She hates gay people because of her mom. And on and on and on. When it's like, no, she's explicitly said the opposite of that. And so that's kind of the main point is like, you know, this is
- [35:43]
Josh Wood
only,
- [35:45]
Jen
this movement is only because people hate gay people and because Katie hates gay people.
- [35:53]
Sam
You can't understand the idea of loving somebody that you disagree with. Like, both of those things being true because you can't do that because you don't do that. When you disagree with somebody, there's two things. One, you hate them. And two, you assume and you say they hate you just because they disagree with you. And it's just hard to imagine a different way of living when that's, that's what's going on in your own head. But the truth is like, the genuine truth is like, I have zero hate for gay people. I have like friends who are gay. I have friends who are lesbian. I only want them to be happy in life. But my definition of what would make them happy is probably different than theirs. But that doesn't mean that I hate them. It's crazy to me that the people who are so open minded are actually so close minded because they cannot comprehend a different way of thinking and that people move through the world differently. And so, yeah, we have no hate for them. Katie doesn't hate her mom, she doesn't hate her mom's partner. And all she's saying, and for the longest time, like, she didn't even talk out about these issues. Again, she's talked about this, but the only time that she actually felt moved to start this movement is because the other side was saying, oh, this doesn't hurt kids at all. And it's like, that's just not true. If it's, if you guys would acknowledge Children in the conversation, we wouldn't need to be here. But, like, no one acknowledges what the kids go through, how it affects them, how it hurts them, and that's why we're here. And instead of talking about that in a serious manner, even if you disagree, let's have that conversation instead. You just need her to hate her mom. You need that to be true. And it's not. And we're really sorry, but she's actually a really happy person. She really loves her family. I'm so sorry.
- [37:44]
Jen
Yeah. And that exactly speaks to the problem we're having right now in our culture on the left. I mean, it is a culture of political violence, assassination, when you disagree with people. And the rhetoric is that words are violence and it's okay to punch Nazis. And we've talked about this before that the left, across the world. So even when we're looking at England, you know, England just had this crazy political assassination of a woman, an elderly woman, because she believes basically the things that Democrats believed in the 2000s, and she got beaten to death in her home because someone disagreed with her politics. And because of the way that the left is talking about those they disagree with, because they put it this way, and I mean, maybe there's some validity to this in the sense of there will be a conversation of, if you could go back in time and take out Hitler, would you do it? Save 6 million lives? And we know. I've been. I was reading his book. I read a biography about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Christian pastor who participated in an attempt to assassinate Hitler. And he was very conflicted about this, as a Christian, and I think we should be very conflicted about this notion. But is there a right time for a civil authority to take out an evil threat like that? For sure, because, you know, the civil authority will execute murderers, etc. Is there a time, if you're basically at war, to try and take out someone who's truly evil? I think that's a debate people have. But the problem is we're in a time where we're talking about words, we're talking about public policy. We're talking about basic ideas and beliefs about marriage and family structure. We're not talking about physically harming anyone. Like, that's not what's being debated is should we harm gay people or not? That's not the conversation. But the problem is the. The left has portrayed their opponents, which is us on the right. We are Hitler. And so Charlie. Yeah, Charlie Kirk was tantamount to Hitler. So it's okay if you assassinate Hitler. That's the problem. That is like the level of the heat and the rhetoric that they have over there. I'm not saying this comment section was doing that, but like you're saying they have to say, we are so hateful, we want to hurt people, we want to physically harm them.
- [40:14]
Sam
To justify.
- [40:15]
Jen
Yeah. Therefore it's okay to justify what they're going to do to us if they can't, if they got a chance.
- [40:21]
Sam
I just watched this interview with Brett Cooper and she did like a one on one conversation slash kind of debate with a. It's an activist. I don't know what he, what his name is, but he's like a drag activist. So he's, he's dressed in drag and he is an activist for the environment. Is he really? I don't think so, but that's a different conversation. So anyway, she was trying to find like that common ground. It was supposed to be a nice conversation and she was opening up about this one time. What made her kind of be more open about being conservative. When she was younger, she was in college and she had these friends that she was just always trying to like accept. And like, they had more liberal views, she had more conservative views, but she always wanted to hear their side of things. And she was always nice to them. And she went to this party and they were all talking about her. And I guess when she walked in, they were like, like talking crap about her. And they threw the communist book at her. Literally, physically threw a book at her and hit her with it. And she's like, okay, I'm done. And literally this drag queen had like the audacity to be like, yeah. And I basically had the Bible thrown at me. Like, not physically, but like, that's how it felt growing up. And it's like, you're like, I can't. How do we have the common ground conversations when it's like they really don't know the difference between physical violence and words like, no, your mom and dad taking you to Sunday school isn't them throwing something at you that's so different. It isn't them like put like, literally. They're just grow teaching you their values. And you might not like their values, you might hate their values, but that's not violence. That's not them abusing you. It's them being good parents to you. And the fact that you tried to like say, like, oh, yeah, I experienced the same thing. It's like, but you didn't, like, you
- [42:12]
Jen
didn't at all actually justifying throwing it at someone else, right?
- [42:17]
Katie Foust
Yes, yes, yes.
- [42:19]
Jen
I had a good. Yeah, I had a good. Well, good in the sense of it's good for this content. Back and forth with a guy who started messaging the make kids Greater account based on this reel. His start off, his lead off was, you're confusing the ability to have kids with your statement that gay marriage is harmful for kids. It's not so. Meaning same sex couple cannot physically have kids. And he's like, well, just because they can't physically have kids doesn't mean them procuring kids is harmful for them. Is kind of what he said. Okay. You could make such a difference to the lives of kids in actual danger. We volunteer and support domestic violence shelters, and trust me, your energy is better spent there. You could do a lot of good in the community. First of all, hugely annoyed. I think it's so annoying when people are like, don't you care about free and reduced lunch? Why aren't you adopting every single kid out of foster care? Why aren't you this? Why aren't you that? You know, they'll just put their pet project on there. I'm like, hey, let me know when you start the nonprofit that's doing that because you care about it so much. Where's your nonprofit? A nonprofit can't do everything about everything all at the same time. And a lot of people support a lot of different things. Oh, If I adopt 10 kids now, I'm allowed to say kids deserve a mom and a dad. But of course, they've just moved the goalpost then, too, so it doesn't matter. And I said, wait, you don't think losing your mom or dad is harmful to kids? And he would just keep coming back. Well, you're saying gay marriage is harmful to kids, and it's not. And I'm like, no, no, it's harmful to kids because losing your mother or father is harmful to kids. Which he admitted in a different comment. I even got down to where I said, are you. Would you say that a kid having their dad in prison, can they lead a, like, perfectly fine, happy, normal life if their dad's incarcerated? And he was like, they totally could. So I was like, we can't even get on the same page about stuff not related to lgbt. You know what I mean? It's not even about. It's not about the gay argument. LGB argument. Obergefell, really? They can't even just acknowledge it's bad for you to have your dad incarcerated because they know it connects. They know I'm immediately going to Draw a line. Okay, so it's bad here, but it's okay. As long as two women raise the kid, it doesn't matter. And this is a guy who was, I look, think married to a woman and had kids. It's like, good to know your kids wouldn't care about you at all.
- [44:46]
Sam
Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing I wanted to say about her video, I watched her video and I was scared. I was like, we need to shut down our whole operation. She's terrifying. Like, if. If she means what she says, we're doomed and we're never gonna make it. But she. One of the things that she kept saying over and over again, a common theme of hers is like, basically, we love our children and we can love our children. And, oh, we're the ones reading them night books at night, and we're the ones who are fixing their scraped knees and these sweet things. And it's like, girl, if you would take two seconds to actually talk to us, listen to us, go to our website for 13 seconds, read it. Literally on our FAQs, it says, do you believe gay people are bad parents or don't love their kids? And you know how we answered on our main website? A woman who identifies as a lesbian can be a really loving mother, but she can't be a father. And a gay man can be a really loving father, but he can't be a mother. And children need both. We are not saying you hate your kids. We're not saying that you secretly beat your kids behind the closed doors just because you're gay. We think you could probably be a wonderful mom. Katie had loving parents. Her partner was loving to her and treated her like a daughter. You know, like, we think that you can fix great knees and you can hold them and they can find comfort in you. The problem that we're seeing is that children need both. They need the security and the protection and, like, the fun of their dad. And they need the comfort and the warmth and the love from their mom. Both parents can love them individually, but it doesn't complete things until they have have both. And so it's just so frustrating because, like, the main points of her things are Katie hates her mom. Not true. And gay people can't love their kids. Not true. So, like, you're arguing with a ghost because nobody is saying these arguments that you think we're saying, right?
- [46:39]
Jen
And I think it is so funny when people will comment to the make kids greater one, which has only been up, I think, since June, or maybe we started it early. The account earlier to get it going. But, you know, our campaign launched this year, and, okay, it's got, I don't know, 1500, 1600 followers. So pretty small account, by all accounts. And people are like, your message doesn't matter. Nobody likes you guys. You're not making a difference. We're gonna win. It's like, do you guys have any idea what is happening behind the scenes? They want to go just off of looking at one account. They don't even go to the website. I was just thinking, Katie and Josh just went and hung out with Speaker Johnson, and they're with some of the most influential people there are in the world. And almost every one of those people in the Christian and conservative space is on. Is in this coalition. So it's just. But I'm like, fine with it. I'm like, okay, guys, yeah, there's no. It doesn't matter. We're such a little small group. Yeah, who cares? It's gonna come. The legislation will start hitting them in the face, and they will start waking up to see the beast that has risen up in people to defend children, you know, so. All right, that is all the time we have for today. Thanks, everyone, for joining us. We enjoy hanging out in the comments with you and reacting with that children's rights perspective, and we'll catch you next time.
- [48:01]
Sam
See you.
- [48:12]
Katie Foust
The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast do not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.