Best of Family Policy Matters 2021

Welcome to Family Policy Matters, an engaging and informative weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Hi, this is John Rustin, president of NC Family, and we're grateful to have you with us for this week's program. It's our prayer that you will be informed, encouraged and inspired by what you hear on Family Policy Matters, and that you will feel better equipped to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state and nation. Today, we are excited to bring you a special year-end show featuring excerpts from some of the most popular episodes of Family Policy Matters that aired throughout 2021. Our first excerpt comes from a show that aired in October with Noel Mehring, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and author of Awake, Not Woke, a Christian response to the cult of progressive ideology.

We hope you enjoy. I'm sure we have some young people who are listening, and I'm often surprised when I talk about Marxism or socialism that they don't necessarily see what the problem is with that. So can you talk just very briefly about why you think that's a danger if we're going in that direction? I agree with you.

I see that problem too. And truly, other people have said this before, communism should be understood to be as much of a pejorative as Nazism, that there's no reason to think that communism is any better. In fact, the body count is higher. So I think it's dangerous because we see every time it's been implemented the same pattern. Because it's an ideology that's based on a totalizing one filter, the way we see each other, and in this case, the lens of power, that we're supposed to see all human relationships, all human dynamics through the lens of power. It creates this opportunity for this endless power struggle where people are suspicious of each other, where they are gaining virtue and being hurt by someone else. And so it prompts you to look for ways in which you're harmed and to find virtue and moral stature in that. It creates a culture of accusation.

And every time it's been implemented, it's the same thing. Because it is built on so many fundamental lies, it has to maintain power by coercion, silencing, propaganda, because it's not fundamentally oriented towards the truth. And the truth is the thing that frees us to pursue. We're free to pursue the truth if we have truth as our goal.

If we have power as our goal, then it becomes far more coercive far more quickly. Our next excerpt comes from a show that aired in September with Luke Nifirotus, executive vice president of the national nonprofit Smart Approaches to Marijuana. You know, you touched on a really important point that I think a lot of people don't really understand is big tobacco or big corporations that are that are behind this push. And that's not the way they they promote this, is it?

No, not at all. And you just look at the history of tobacco. Five thousand years ago, people were smoking tobacco, but they weren't developing all kinds of cancer from it.

We weren't seeing millions of people across the world dying from it. But about 100 years ago, we had the invention of the cigarette, the first ever big tobacco industry, the global supply chain. And they adulterated the tobacco plant. They added ammonia and nicotine and other things into the cigarettes. And they got people addicted, hooked and all kinds of cancers, other harms happened.

And, you know, next thing we know, millions of people across the world are dying from tobacco related cancer and other forms of disease. So what we are seeing with marijuana is very similar to that, where we have a plant that, you know, has been around for thousands of years, not really used by a lot of people, but it's been around. But now it's being taken by a massive multibillion dollar industry that has taken over two billion dollars from the tobacco industry alone that has taken marijuana, adulterated it, bred it to be much more potent than it's ever been. It's now 99 percent potency THC. That's the ingredient that gets you high compared to just two to three percent potency, which was natural to the plant two decades ago. So it's totally different, much more potent, much more addictive. And so now we're starting to see these harms come out, mental health issues, schizophrenia, issues with pregnant mothers and children in the womb, all kinds of problems that we never really saw with this drug before that we're now seeing because of legalization, because of this commercialized model that's happening. And it's called addiction for profit.

I mean, that's what this is. And, you know, from a company perspective, you want to deliver returns to your shareholders. So when you have the big tobacco coming in and putting in two billion dollars in this industry, they need to give a return on that investment that the marijuana industry does. And the only way that they can do that is by selling a ton more weed and making it very addictive.

And, you know, it's really interesting. You look at Colorado, just four percent of the marijuana users in Colorado make up 70 percent of the marijuana sales in our state. That's from the latest numbers. So four percent make up 70 percent of the sales for this drug. They are heavily addicted, heavily using this drug. And that is what the industry wants. They unfortunately, because of that profit incentive, derive their money from addiction. And that's why we need to keep the industry out of North Carolina and not allow this drug to become commercialized. Our next excerpt comes from a show that aired in May of this year with North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson on his FACTS task force.

We hope you enjoy. Now, the FACTS task force and FACTS is an acronym that stands for fairness and accountability in the classroom for teachers and students. So the FACTS task force that you have created has a very specific purpose.

Talk about that a little bit. What prompted you to create this task force? Well, you know, for years I've known that this indoctrination existed in the classroom. I knew when my children were in school, I saw examples of it then, but I didn't realize how widespread it was until I became a candidate for lieutenant governor. Once I became a candidate, everywhere we went, we found while we were traveling the state, we heard about these things.

As lieutenant governor, we continued, of course, to hear about them. And then I began to see some of it up close and personal. When I attended my first school board meeting, they got an inside look at some of the things and agendas that are being pushed at the state level. And so it is a very dismay into me that these things are going on.

And again, we hear about it all the time and everybody talks about it all the time. The problem is it didn't seem that anyone was really making a move to do anything about it. And that is why we started this task force. We started this task force to give parents, teachers and students a place where they could bring their complaints and not just have them heard, but actually figure out a way to do something about this. This is a problem, not just in North Carolina.

It is a problem all across the country. And it's not just about indoctrination in the classroom. It's also about bias in the classroom and about bias at our schools where conservative voices, Christian voices are being pushed out of the conversation, are not being allowed to be part of the conversation. And we have got to change that. We have got to make sure that everybody in the classroom has a voice and that everybody in the classroom is being treated fairly. I know in this country, we've always tried to do that and we need to do it in education as well.

So that's the purpose of the task force. Our fourth excerpt comes from a show that aired in September with attorney Chris Derek, a gambling expert and author of the article, Teetering on the Edge, Gambling in North Carolina, which was featured in the Fall 2021 edition of NC Family's flagship publication, Family North Carolina Magazine. Talk a little bit about the different elements or levels of gambling.

Are some worse than others or some more addictive than others? The thing you have to keep in mind with respect to gambling and that can kind of distinguish about the harms gambling can create is what kind of gambling is it. And the things that affect that are really the proximity of the form of gambling and then the speed with which the form of a gambling allows you to play or to gamble.

So if you say so, you have a casino or a video sweepstakes parlor within an easy drive of your house. That's concerning from a problem gambling standpoint. That's because casino style games such as slots or video poker move fast and they provide a quick outcome.

And you can then immediately play again. And that and that feeds the gambling high, meaning that these type type of games are more addictive in nature. And for the same reasons, though, the legalization of statewide sports betting is a huge concern. That's because sports betting is no longer simply placing a bet on the outcome of your favorite team's game this weekend. It's a literally a nonstop daily form of gambling. And bets can be placed on anything from college sports to pro sports to even electronic sports.

So this form of gambling now is something that can be constant and repeated quickly. And the sports betting bill passes in North Carolina to say that it would be readily available would really be an understatement. There'll be no need to travel off to Cherokee or to Vegas to sports gamble.

You'll be able to legally bet from the convenience of your own home. And at the end of the day, the bill would make every home in North Carolina a potential sports bet casino. That's why it's interesting that the National Council on Problem Gambling came out with a recent survey on gambling in the United States. And they say that we're really on the threshold of starting the biggest expansion of gambling, legalized gambling in the nation's history. And the reason they say that is the legalization of sports betting that's going on across the country.

And it's fueling the unprecedented explosion in gambling and problem gambling that we're going to see in the United States coming up. Our final excerpt for this week comes from a show that aired in March with Christy, a North Carolina mother of a transgender identifying daughter. Christy, as we conclude our conversation, I want to give you an opportunity to just share any advice that you would provide to other parents who are experiencing something similar to what you and your family have gone through.

Well, I would say go with your gut instincts. If you know that this is not right, then stand firm and don't play into your child's fantasy that they can change their sex because their sex is immutable. They cannot change that. They can dress up and try to pretend to be someone else. But we know deep down who our children are and you have to be their reality check. I would be cautious with any therapist that you want to take your child to and any medical professional because they are very quick to start medicalization.

And that's very dangerous. I would recommend that they do find a local support network that is critical of this movement and do your research because there are a lot of really good websites out there. I didn't mention before, but GenderHQ.org is another one and just stay connected with your child. Continue to love your child no matter what because as parents, we just want what's best for our child. Focus on their health and well-being and pray.

I recommend just continue praying that your child will open up their heart to God and talk about it. That's another important thing. You have to be willing to talk about it. Do not suffer in silence. You have to have a support network and you may find that there are some people that do not agree with you if you are taking a critical stance. But there are plenty of people out there who will support you.

I know that I've had some wonderful friends that every day send me inspirational messages, text occasionally to check in to see how I'm doing and things like that are really uplifting when you're going through this. But just remember that biological sex and gender are not the same thing. The biological sex is your reality.

Gender is your perception of how your body is being presented and that's something that can change from one day to the next. You've been listening to Family Policy Matters. We hope you enjoyed the program and plan to tune in again next week. To listen to this show online and to learn more about NC Family's work to inform, encourage and inspire families across North Carolina, go to our website at ncfamily.org. Thanks again for listening and may God bless you and your family. you