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Dr. Dobson Speaks Out on Religious Liberty

Welcome to this Tuesday edition

of Dr James Dobson’s family talk I’m Luann crane here with Brian Dobson and

our host as always is psychologist and author Dr James Dobson and Iran here

we are exactly one week away from Election Day and as such we have

the perfect program planned for this occasion we do who are going to be

focusing on religious liberty today and lo and I know that this is a topic close

to most of our listeners hearts and most definitely important to my dad and

all of us here a family talk in fact just two weeks ago my dad appeared on a form on

religious liberty here in Colorado Springs along with some other religious

leaders in constitutional experts and we’re going to let our listeners hear

a portion of that event today yeah it was a powerhouse panel Ryan they were

all hosted by Bishop Michael Sheridan at the holy Apostles Catholic Church here

in town also part of the panel was Mr Martin Nussbaum a partner in

the law firm Roth Berger Johnson and Lyons his primary practice

is serving churches and other religious organizations and

schools including us here at family talk that’s right Also there were

Dr Tim Fuller who teaches political theory at Colorado College and

Bishop Philip Porter the founder of all nations Pentecostal

Church of God in Christ in Aurora Colorado all of these men gathered discuss the

current threats to religious liberty and just why this freedom is central to all of

our other privileges as American citizens it is hard to think of a topic more

appropriate as we all study our ballots this week and prepare to make some

incredibly important decisions now we don’t have time to hear from

everyone on the panel today but we will be hearing from our hosts Dr James

Dobson and Attorney Martha Nussbaum So let’s dive right in as moderator Eric Hall

gets a started on this family talk broadcast we’ll start with

the first question to you and this question comes from what you said on

your radio program you said there are very clearly that you believe the battle

to preserve religious liberty. It is a life and

death struggle for the heart and soul of this nation please explain. I am delighted to be with you all and

especially on this subject which is I think is important is anything

going on in the culture at this time and our founding fathers felt that way and

to validate what I said in that statement I don’t remember

being set exactly like that but that’s what I believe they were

in a life and death struggle for the soul of the nation and

it really does come down to that and I wanted Mitt to you all that I spent a

good part of the week in and this morning. Revealing the history of this struggle for religious liberty and especially what

our founding fathers had to say and I have some of that in writing and I think

I’ve ever given a speech in my life where I have read essentially read to

the public I just don’t do that but I have to tonight because

I have quotes that I have not committed to memory but

I am very familiar with them so let me let me tell you what I

came across this weekend and like I say I’ve known some of it for some

time but I think we need to review a need to go back to the times

of our founding fathers in the seventeen hundred

seventeen eighty seven eighty one where they were dealing with this very

issue and I don’t think it can understand where we are today without knowing what

they intended for us so let me share some quotes with you the second president

of the United States John Adams said this. This we have no government armed

with the power capable of contending with human passion

unbridled by morality and religion in other words

it is the human nature is such that there is nothing in

government that that can corral it. Other than morality and religion our

Constitution was made not only for a moral and religious people it is wholly

inadequate to the government of any other. My father put it in different words and

you may think this is an overstatement but he said Democracy is

the worst form of government if the people want evil because

there’s no stopping them and that’s why religious liberty for the people is so essential to

the continuation of the democracy. James Madison reported to Thomas Jefferson

in seventy nine hundred six that the Virginia legislature had

finally passed the great statute for religious liberty they struggle

a lot debated a lot and they passed it Madison was exalted that the historical law would not

establish a single church or did nomination but religious

freedom itself that’s the basis for what we have inherited it was

the first time in human history the very first time in any

government in any society that such a law was passed

that people were free to believe and think what they wished and

it became that found they. In far all civil liberty and

that’s where we are today religious liberty is directly related to

the continuation of our way of life and our government because it is so

critical to all the other forms of liberty that we have been given by the Founding Fathers Madison

also said that people are right to take alarm at the first

advance on their liberties in other words you better defend them

because they will erode if you don’t and you’ve got to stand up and and

support them because it is so unusual for a people to have such freedom and then all the other rights

that are in the Bill of Rights and throughout our governmental here so

that’s the way he saw it Thomas Jefferson our third president

then one of the principle framers of the Constitution wrote the words that now

appear on his memorial in Washington D.C. Now you don’t write things on the wall

of a memorial in the nation’s capital unless it’s very very important and

you know Thomas Jefferson has primarily known by being

a frame of the Constitution but also because he wrote a letter having

to do with the separation of church and state but that does not really

describe what he believes this is what’s on that wall

can the Liberty Seven Nation be thought secure this is a same idea now when we have removed their only firm basis what’s the only firm basis for

our liberty it’s a conviction in. In the minds of people that those

liberties are the gift of God That’s seventeen eighty one That’s what he said

what you enjoy in the way of freedom today it is a direct product of

the freedom to believe or not believe we’re not forced

to believe anything but we have the freedom to believe exactly

what we want and then of course he wrote the words that are despised by

people coming from the far left where in doubt by their Creator with certain

unalienable rights among them life. Yeah life liberty. And the pursuit of happiness

These are all linked together to form the religious liberty that’s

the foundation of all our freedoms and yet two hundred thirty one years later we’re losing those religious

liberties day by day. The Pew Research Center in two

thousand and nine said that there is a almost an epidemic

a rising tide they called it of restrictions on religion and

that is spreading across the U.S. and around the world that that was two

thousand and nine two thousand and ten it’s much more so today and

you all are reading about them every day if a government can control

the religious convictions and the beliefs of its people they can

control everything else it’s a search for power that’s what is going on

there is within government and within schools and within state

governments and the effort to to. Take these liberties away and

redefine them away we have known it as freedom of religion

they’re now starting to call it freedom you got it freedom of what

worship that’s what they’re calling now freedom of worship just

with the nuance of language they change it from the freedom

to be influential in the in the society at large and

to speak in the public square and to use your vote in the way

you want it’s now being called freedom of worship which means you

can come into this church and you can. Worship how you want that’s

the limit that they put on it but it’s a whole lot more than

that it is freedom of religion the things that you believe in the way

you use your influence in the culture. Who would have thought that

the United States would unilaterally impose requirements

that all of us would have to. Pay as part of the privilege of working. A tax if you will at least that’s what

the Supreme Court as they called it. On. On the contraceptives free contraceptives

and even a board of facial and switch kill babies in some instances and

that that would be imposed on us I mean that’s a file ation of

the deeply held conviction for me and most of you or

you wouldn’t be here and yet the government has also decreed and

you didn’t mention is that and through our insurance we have

to help pay for abortions. I cannot abide that and I wrote in a recent letter

to my constituency. The Creator will not hold

us if we turn a deaf ear to the cries of innocent babies so come and get me if you must I will not

back to your regulations and. This man is my attorney and

it’s his problem to figure out how void. Dr Dobson if I may I’d like to actually

ask Mr Nussbaum to expound just a little bit more for

everyone here the actual legal cases that are going on the legal principles involved

in the that H.H.S. mandate because I I think probably most of us had maybe

heard of this but possibly not enough of us know the details about about what

exactly all that litigation is about so if you would pick that up and

send us money thank you so the H.H.S. mandated that every employer in the United

States including religious employers like Colorado Christian University and

Catholic Charities of color Springs and others must provide

preventive care services for their employees preventive so-called

preventive services include as bishop and Dr Dobson have pointed out

contraceptives the word the language is even being redefined pregnancy has been

redefined so the word contraceptive includes abortifacients when the bishops

and some other Protestant leaders notably Dr Dobson Richard Land from the Southern

Baptists commission Ethics Commission and others said this is not right you

can’t do this He then issued his accommodation which was a religious

exemption Now what this exemption do. Good it’s a religious exemption is it

was the teeny tiny asst exemption in the history of federal religious

exemptions from religious exemptions from federal law it was so tiny that Jesus and

his twelve or Mother Theresa and her sisters of her religious order would

not qualify for it I mean it’s that tiny It might qualify a church who all the

employees were members of the church and the only people the Church served were

members of the church would qualify for the exemption but if it’s a Christian

church you’re called to reach out and serve people who aren’t members right so

almost no one qualifies for this and clearly was intending to

exclude Catholic hospitals Catholic colleges Catholic Charities

those type of organizations were clearly intended to be treated as goats under

this exemption and as a result of this there have been fifty different religious

institutions file approximately twenty five lawsuits more being filed every

day and they include the first one one of the first ones filed was right here

in Colorado not by the Catholic Church but by President Bill Armstrong former senator

Bill Armstrong but he’s now the president Colorado Christian university filed

a lawsuit why did he file a lawsuit even Jellicoe Protestants by and large

are not opposed to contraceptives but they are opposed to the administration

order to them to give contraceptives to their to their college students who aren’t

married it was infringement upon his religious liberty interest and there been

lawsuits filed by huge Catholic hospitals by Wheaton University which is

the Harvard of the evangelical university system by

the University of Notre Dame by Steubenville how often to

the University of Notre Dame and and Franciscan University in Steubenville

stand shoulder to shoulder in opposition to these type of thing so

this is precedent. Right. It’s unprecedented in American history

to have this many lawsuits filed one of the status of these lawsuits

in the the lawsuits the first one. It was decided was decided

involving a Catholic own business it right here in Colorado called Hercules

industries they said we’re operating our business according to our Catholic

values and we’re not going to provide these benefits to our employees they

get all sorts of other benefits and that lawsuit has gone to hearing

on a preliminary injunction and Judge Cain a Democrat appointee found for

Hercules industries in the in the first decision most of

the lawsuits Yes isn’t that great. Most of the lawsuits involve religious

institutions this by the way is a huge principle because there’s no

difference in mandating that you pay for your employees abortifacient drugs

as mandating that you pay for their surgical abortions or their post

term terminations of human life and partial birth abortions there’s no

difference legally in that mandate and it’s also a huge issue because the fines

are ruinous I believe there are one hundred dollars per day per employee

No business can survive that type of fines that it will be crushing

when those fines start coming in place. A rather chilling discussion on this

family talk broadcast as we examine some of the threats against our religious

liberty we hope you’re paying attention as we’re just a week away from Election Day

Now we’ve heard a lot about they Health and Human Services regulations and

how they’ll affect the church but let’s listen in together now as Martin

Nussbaum describes some other recent cases where liberties have been attacked here

he is now on this family talk broadcast in Colorado a month senior Buellton

was asked to start a new parish in Fox the town of Fox Field and

that town early on declared war on that church in part

because he bought a bunch of pro-life crosses up on his property on

the anniversary of Roe v Wade in the. Passed what was a parking ordinance

that would prohibit them from having their early meetings in the rectory

before they had a church building built if two neighbors would

complain about them and I’m happy to report to you that

my colleague Gary call and my colleague Chuck Goldberg filed

resisted that and eventually the town of Fox Field paid our legal fees first

stablish in their right to go forward. The. But it was simply an attack because

they thought the traffic impediments and maybe they thought also thought but didn’t say the cultural impediments

of having a Catholic church in their community would disrupt the culture that

they had there in the town of Boulder. There was a very successful

even jello coal. Cademy there called the Rocky Mountain

Christian Church is the church and a school and they were doing very well and

they wanted to expand well to expand you’ve got to go before the local

planning board and really and get your plans approved and the City of

Boulder fought them at every front one of their administrators says Don’t you think

you’d do better over in Bloomfield they suggested they leave the town they

eventually there was a lawsuit filed just because they wanted to grow which is

what I think Jesus called them to do or something about the great commission in

the scriptures that school spent two and a half million dollars in legal fees

regrettably with another law firm and and but we were able to help in a number

of ways they eventually collected their legal fees from the city of

Boulder simply so they could expand but they had to go through two and a half

million dollars of just legal **** to do them let me go beyond Colorado

nationally one of the primary techniques that are being used now is the licensing

because there’s a lot of things we can’t do in society unless we have

a permission from the governor. To do it I can’t practice law how many

people in the room tonight have to be licensed to do your work by

the government in some way or another Ok I’ll give you a couple of

examples Julie award African-American twenty two year old student at

Eastern Michigan University was studying to get a master’s in counseling because

she wanted to counsel in high school and she had to get a license she had

traditional beliefs regarding marriage she was subject to the professional

ethical code of the counseling profession the school made her subject to that but

even before she was licensed and she saw on her the list of people she was

to see in her clinical rotation a young man complaining of depression secondary to

the breakup a bit samey sex union what to do her ethical code says she can’t take

her religious values into question and counseling him she goes to her supervisor

and said What do I do she says just switch your three o’clock with Tom Tom didn’t

have the religious scruples that you do and he can counsel the person find she

went forward you see she’s working in two systems the rules of modern society and

her religious rules they switched the university learned about and hearings

eventually to make a long story short she was expelled from the university

deemed unfit by the university to be licensed as a professional eventually

that case went to court and was reversed other examples

of licensing though in Boston in San Francisco in the Washington D.C.

and in the entire state of Illinois

they have passed laws at Van saying prohibiting discrimination against

homosexuality and they have decided that those organizations are unfit to place

children in families because they insist that they be placed in families with

a mama and papa in the household and they’re no longer licensed as

child placement agencies and these were organizations that went out and

made claims upon people of faith. Just like frankly we see here in

our community Pastor Brady Boyd at New Life Church is leading a movement

to get children adopted from foster homes in this state by making religious claims

upon the faithful to adopt them so that’s licensing another example

of licensing is the Boy Scouts the Boy Scouts want permits

to go to the park and certain cities they’re being deemed unfit

to use parks or to rent public buildings because of their particular beliefs

regarding not having active homosexual scout leaders who are out and

promoting that they’re deemed unfit. And that wraps up our special emphasis on

religious liberty here on this family talk broadcast as we have just one week to

go before the presidential election next week it is breathtaking to hear

some of the threats that have been made against religious liberty in our country

ten or twenty years ago I don’t think we would be discussing some of these items

and maybe we should have it’s amazing how quickly it all seems to happen

precious our freedoms are and how easily we can lose them but

I think I speak for a lot of our listeners when I say Not on Our Watch I can’t wait

to head to the polls on Election Day and we would encourage all of you to

get informed on the issues and bring your values with you into the voting

booth even share a link to this broadcast on your own Facebook page as a way of

urging your friends and family members to make their voices heard you can find

that link on line at Dr James Dobson. Time for another edition of Dr James Dobson.

Teaching Biblical Values to a New Generation

Hi I’m make maker and I’m going to be talking with you

this hour about parenting and I’m a pediatrician I love encouraging

parents many years ago I was working with an older gentleman pediatrician and

he said you know Meg if you do one thing well for kids if you really want

to encourage kids get to their parents and I learned that to quickly be true that

if I could encourage parents and I could help tweak their behavior get them on the

right track that I really didn’t have to worry much about the kids so I’m really

excited to talk about parents because I sort of feel that I’m a professional

listener of parents I’ve listened to so many of them over the years I have

seen over the past twenty years a real shift in not just

the parenting paradigm but our approach to parenting

our thanks about parenting. To the point where I almost

feel a bit sorry for young people who are parenting their

kids now because there’s so much more that they have to contend with not just

electronics but decisions and there’s so much information out there on what they

should do and what they shouldn’t do and so much of that information is fear based

that I really like to come along and say well just let’s just calm down a

little bit because I believe that parents really are wired to do a great

job with their kids and that of course all comes from God but

I’d like to talk today about parenting in general and

where I see one of the first mistakes that parents make comes from and it begins

really at the beginning of parenting. If I would talk to. And. Talk to them about what they’ve been

reading a lot of parents would say well I read a book on how to discipline my

child and I read a book on how to. You know teach my kids virtues or

do something with my kid and that’s all well and good but I think

that we need to start help parents start with the right perspective

because their perspective their view of parenting is going to

make an enormous impact on how they raise their children and

where they take their kids and the problem with most parents

is that they start off parenting with the wrong perspective they start

off at the wrong place I think parents get worried about doing a lot for their

kids rather than who they need to be for their kids and I think that this

is really a Biblical issue. What does the Bible say about where we

should start our parenting Proverbs nine verse ten says fear of the Lord is

the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding the fear

of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And knowledge of the Holy One brings understanding Now think about that for

a minute God says that if we want wisdom in our parenting knowledge

in our parenting understanding in our parenting whether it’s understanding

how we parent or understanding our kids that none of that comes in to Will

we have a healthy fear of the Lord. And that means that our fear of God. Must trump everything that we do as

parents fear of God must be first and foremost in our minds it’s

the starting place for parenting and it should trump our desire to

do things for our kids and I believe that one of the huge shifts

that’s come in the past twenty or twenty five years even amongst

Christian parents is this that we have moved from one

place where we fear God. To where we fear our children now in

many homes we could even say that our worship of God has become

our worship of our children and we have made small idols of our children

and this is a very very dangerous place to be now maybe some parents haven’t

gotten that far where they’re completely excluding God and they’re really doing

their children as little idols but certainly it’s where popular

child the behavioral and popular parenting has has brought

a lot of parents to this place where we are about serving our children and fearing our children in a very

loose sense if you will and when we do that and we give up our fear of

the Lord and we put it on the back burner parenting can’t go well so no matter

what else you will say to parents or what else you will do as a parent or

how else you will counsel your. Parents if fundamentally parents

don’t start off at that place. Anything else that you try to bring

to them or encourage them and or teach them is going to be very difficult because they’re going to come out it

from a very different perspective. Fearing our children more than we

fear God Is that an exaggeration it sounds like an exaggeration but

I really don’t think it is if you ask any garden variety wonderful

parent out there what they perceive their job is with their kids and say

What are your priorities as a parent for you with their kids they will very quickly

rattle off a list my job as a parent is to make sure that my child is successful

when he grows up my job as a good parent is to provide ample opportunities for

my child to discover their gifts and to use those gifts and

then to go serve God with those gifts. My other job as a parent is to

build up my child’s self-esteem and I like this one because parents sort

of approach this one from a very much more of a pragmatic than an emotional

way and they’ll say well in order to build up my child’s self-esteem what I need to

do is figure out what they’re good at and then pay for them to get better at it so

I got to find a coach or I’ve got to find the right school or get

them on the right team then they’ll get better at that and their self-esteem

will go up well maybe maybe not. Because word is a child’s self-esteem

really come from anyway well a child’s self-esteem comes from their beliefs

about what their parents believe about them it’s not necessarily

in being more and doing more and performing better their self-esteem

really comes from what their mom and dad think about them and how valued and

love they feel by God and other peace. Well there very close to them but it’s

interesting parents don’t always say that so they’ll say My job is to build my

child’s self-esteem provide opportunities make sure they’re successful when

they get older and finally and this is really true for mothers and that is my job as a good

mom is to make sure that my kids are happy all the time now this

one really intrigues me because I don’t remember my mother when she was raising

me in the sixty’s in the seventy’s ever. Feeling like her job was to make me happy

I mean she wasn’t running a circus and yet many modern mothers feel that they need to

make their kids happy happy all the time and they do so in order to do that they

avoid conflict with their kids they have difficulty saying no to their kids don’t

do boundaries very well with their kids and they just

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