"Respect" for Marriage Act

Ladies and gentlemen, today is Wednesday, November the 30th. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. And you're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can find us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

If you have a question for Dr. Shah, anything you'd like to write in and suggest that we talk about, send us a text at 252-582-5028. You can also email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com. That's right. And you guys can help us keep this conversation and the airwaves by supporting the podcast.

The best way to do that is share it online. Leave us a good review on iTunes and just help us keep the discussion of Jesus Christ alive. That's right. And the verse of the day today, a very important verse of the day, isn't what we're going to be talking about today, comes from Hebrews chapter 13 verse 4.

Marriage is honorable among all and the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers, God will judge. Yeah. Yeah.

And I can tell you this, we need to hear that verse today. We had a entire block of programming scheduled for today. But we wanted to, we felt like with everything that happened last night, with the announcement that came out, we felt that it was appropriate to kind of pull back a little bit, do a more zoned in episode, just a more focused episode on this issue. Ryan, actually, if you want to kind of kick us off and maybe bring Dr. Shah into, because we actually brought Dr. Shah into the studio early today, because we felt like this was something that we need guidance and we need wisdom and we have to discuss this in a very mature, but a very truthful manner.

Yeah, absolutely. So Dr. Shah, welcome to the studio today. We're glad that you're here today. Thank you. Thank you.

And I really appreciate our team because you guys did not just, let's just carry on with our scheduled program. I mean, you stopped and decided to produce a program, which is very applicable, very relevant, and is very urgent in our nation, which is to deal with the bill that was just passed by the Senate called the Respect for Marriage Act, HR 8404. And it's anything but respect for marriage. It's really contrary to respecting marriage between a man and a woman. And it is something that we need to really wake up in America, especially as Christians, but also all people need to be awake and realize that this is very dangerous to the very fabric of our society, our culture. That's right. Absolutely. And it's not coming from a place of hate or intolerance or anything like that.

That's definitely not. But it's coming from a genuine conviction that yes, we are a people of love and mercy and grace and compassion. Yes, this is a nation of freedoms, but to purposely create this bill and to pass it as it passed in a 61 to 36 vote with 12 Republicans joining in on this, which is very shameful. And even in our own state of North Carolina with Senator Tillis and Senator Burr going along with this bill, even though thousands of people told them, hey, listen, you don't represent us when you do that.

And you have been elected to represent us and our views. And they just completely disregarded that. I mean, of course, I respect their position in the sense of being senators and some of the decisions they've made. Okay, great. But here, I think they made a huge blunder.

I agree. The office of senator is not arbiter of justice or morals. I mean, we talked about this in our tyranny episodes, both part one and two. The senators and our elected representatives are there to carry out the will of the king.

And the king in America is the people. That's right. And I can tell you, I was confident that these 12 Republican senators were going to defend our votes. I was very confident. So to hear that news last night was disheartening at one, but also just, it was shocking on one end. But then at the same time, I was like, part of me wonders why I didn't see this coming. You know what I mean?

Yeah. We were talking earlier and just with the word unbelievable was thrown around, but really, I mean, this is just like you said, Dr. Shaw, this is indicative of where we are as a country. This is the culture that we're operating in. And we felt like it was very important for us on today's episode to stop and hear your thoughts on this, Dr. Shaw, and get an idea of where we need to go as believers.

What does our response need to be? Well, to start with biblically, let's just begin with the Bible because we come from the conviction that this nation was founded upon Judeo-Christian values. And if that is the case, then biblically speaking from the book of Genesis, God made man and a woman. And so the marriage is supposed to be between one man and one woman for life. And here what is happening in this bill is that that is being completely disregarded. And what was earlier sort of put out there under the Obergefell versus Hodges bill back in 2015, I believe, is now really being codified. Of course, it's still got to go before the house and before the president, but that bill is now brought back and it's being shoved down our throat. Like, this is it. And you have no other choice. And maybe for the benefit of our listeners and our viewers, maybe you want to kind of talk about that bill, Ryan, and just kind of hit some of the highlights, what was in there.

I'd be happy to. So this is one of the articles that's in the bill. And it says, the title of this section is certain acts, records and proceedings and the effect thereof. So this is talking about, you know, marriage, like marriage is being performed being, you know, recognized as legal. It says in general, no person acting under the color of state law may deny full faith and credit to any public act record or judicial proceeding of any other state pertaining to a marriage between two individuals on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or net national origin of those individuals. Or it goes on to say a right or claim arising from such a marriage on the basis that such marriage would not be recognized under the law of that state on the basis of the sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of those individuals.

So that saying, if there is a dispute based on the legality of this marriage, you can't, whatever state you're operating from, you cannot dispute that if it was performed even in a state that is not your own, right? If that, if regardless of what your state laws are, this is, this act is beyond that. It is beyond state borders. It's beyond state law. It is nationwide.

It's far breaking down just a little bit further if you can. So what this is saying is, um, marriages are going to be recognized between two individuals regardless of their sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin. Um, and it's saying that these marriages will be recognized in every state and you have no right to not recognize marriages that were authorized in a state that is not your own. So even if you are not the one performing the marriage, you have to recognize that this marriage that was performed in Texas or Alaska or Hawaii or wherever it is, you have to recognize that that marriage is a legal by compulsion, by compulsion, by force.

You have to recognize you had, you are required to recognize this as a marriage between two individuals. You know, the, the, the last three of those categories, what are they again? Race, ethnicity, or national origin. Right. I don't think anybody here is questioning that. I was going to say that was not, who, since when has that been in the running?

In fact, what was the, what was the one we were talking about earlier? It was a loving versus Virginia 1967 legal since the sixties. Right. And that's, that's marriage regardless of race. Right. And it's so misleading because one of the media outlets put it as if that this bill protects interracial marriage.

Right. The whole, the whole purpose of it was, so look, and they, they, what they did is they capitalized on this whole Supreme Court Roe versus Wade thing. Listen, guys, if the Supreme Court can just overturn nearly 50 years of legal precedent based on abortion, your, your interracial marriages are not safe. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but is that not the same rhetoric that, that people accuse Christians of using those silly Christians think that if we, uh, you know, if we allow gay marriage, that Western civilization will crumble, but this is the exact same rhetoric.

It's the exact same. If we, if we protect the lives of unborn babies, then your marriage to a person, person of a different skin tone than you is at risk, which is entirely ludicrous. Very different argument.

It's all a cesspool of false virtue. Why are we talking about abortion in this marriage bill? Right.

Why is that even, why is that even a conversation? It's because that was a loss I think that they saw and now we can capitalize on it to promote fear. Even if it doesn't logically work, it's a fallacy, by the way, that using that, you know, I can't just take two separate arguments and bring them together here and say, Oh yeah, it all works because, um, I want it to work. But there, there is a big problem here because as, as Christians, as people with conviction, not just Christians other religions where this is not accepted, um, now is claimed that based on the first amendment and based on the religious freedom restoration act, uh, that, Oh, you're protected. Don't worry about that. That's got nothing to do with you. Really?

Yeah. No, that's not true. It's not true at all.

That is not true at all. And the two senators from North Carolina who are saying that at least one of them is saying that, Oh yes, we put this little proviso in there so that, you know, Christian or, or, or religious communities are protected by this. That's not going to last. That's not going to stand. There may be, there may be legal protection on paper, but this is, this bill is a hundred percent going to make conservative Christians, uh, more vulnerable to legal harassment and even I would say progressive and active harassment. It's going to start happening. And I think people can, people can look here and say that it's not, and this is being blown out of proportion and that this is a basic human right.

But at the end of the day, it may take a year or two to see it. But I think Dr Shaw, I think people are going to start seeing, I think churches and pastors are going to start being harassed. And I would say step further, um, you know, let's leave Christianity church aside because people say, yeah, you bigoted Christians and you, you, you, you are so prejudice against people all the time anyways. And now here's another one you're, you know, indicative of your, your, your bigoted life. Uh, parents, whether you're Christian or not, it doesn't matter. You have that, that you have the right to decide, you know, what your children are taught when it comes to sex and gender and marriage, right?

Not the state. That's exactly right. That's not up to them. And what's going to happen here is, uh, very quickly, which is already happening in some sense, is that the world is going to decide what your children believe.

So you can do all you want to to raise them in the right way, your way, whatever it is, and then it'll be completely dismantled. And it's, it's, it's tragic. Yeah. Yeah. It's tragic.

There's a lot of, um, respected voices in the conservative Christian community that are speaking out about this, that say, listen, even though our Republican senators, they didn't vote the way that we elected them to vote, they didn't do this, but there's still a number of us who are speaking out against this. Um, do you actually, do you mind if I read one? Right? Yeah, please read a couple of those.

Yeah, absolutely. There's, this one is from Franklin Graham. That's the name I'm sure many of you guys recognize it. The president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Samaritan's Purse, but basically he says, this bill strikes a blow at religious freedom for the individuals and ministries and is really the destruction of marriage act. It sponsors remarkably claim it protects religious freedom. It does not. This disastrous bill sends a message to America that if you don't agree with the left's definition of marriage, you are a bigot.

And I mean, how true is that? There was already a definition, the definition has been established. So it's kind of goes back to your point, Dr. Shaw, there aren't pastors going out here and protesting gay marriages. They're not pastors who are going out and seeking people to oppress. It's not happening. What's happening is people are coming to us and saying, you must comply.

That's right. You must recognize this. And for you to stand up and call that sin now becomes hate speech. So it has some very, very far reaching implications for people of faith. And, and I will tell you this, having grown up in a foreign country very quickly, we're headed that way and we need to speak out. We need to educate ourselves.

We can't just sit in our little bubbles and talk about, you know, what the world's like this and worlds like that. No, you need to stand up and you talk about it and you teach your children and, and don't let people call you a bigot. You know, I find that very insulting because my wife is American, right? She was born and raised here, a Caucasian, I guess I can say that, right?

I'm Indian. Yeah. Are you putting me in the same category?

They would. And cause it's not. Yeah. All right. Yeah. So even the civil rights leaders, I mean, they would not agree with putting this in the same basket and saying, Oh, look, just like the racist laws.

So also the same sex laws are race are in the same boat. They're not. Right. Okay. Right.

Having signs that says white only and, you know, color only or whatever those, you know, the, the, the fight that people had to fight for. That's not what's happening here. Right.

Which water fountain are you being restricted from? Right. You can live any way you want to. You can, you can have your relationship, but then to come back and oppress us. Yeah. Yeah. You know, in America people have a right to live together and do whatever you want to. Why is it that you need it sanctioned as marriage?

Why, who, who are we that we're so important that you need our approval on this? Right. This is less a protection and more redef redefining, redefining and, and then it's a punishment for you not to celebrate who we are. Right.

Absolutely. That's what it is. So, so, so if it was simply like, Hey, um, uh, as two men want to have a relationship together or two women do, who's stopping them?

And somebody says, Oh, it's for benefit purposes. They're not hinged on that. They really are not. They really aren't. What is the purpose of redefining marriage?

Ultimately it is to go up against religious communities. Yeah. There's I don't want to cut you off, Ryan, if you were about to say, no, go ahead. I have a quote that I want to read, but go ahead.

Okay. Well, this is something that I wanted to read this one because you just touched on two, I think very important points. Dr. Shaw, you put, you touched on fear of being labeled a bigot and you touched on parents and them setting the authority and them setting. And so this, I feel like this statement by Suzanne Boudy, uh, for those of you don't know, she's a senior writer for the family research council in Washington DC, but basically she said, no one on the left is reframing. I'm sorry, no one on the left is framing the respect for marriage act as an education bill.

And that's by design. Democrats are hoping that if Republicans don't look at the legislation too closely because they're too worried about appearing intolerant to read the fine print, then they won't realize that everything moms and dads have fought for these last few years would be destroyed. Basically it's fear. If you look too closely into what we're doing, you are a bigot. And so Republicans are like, well, I don't want to do that.

I just hope the senators will do the right thing. Yeah. And here on this show, I'm so glad that we're not afraid of that. And we're saying, no, no, no, wait a minute. I'm Indian. Right.

My wife is white. Right. Please don't put this in the same category. Exactly. Exactly. I have friends who are in gay lifestyle and they reach out to me for prayer.

Here's the funny thing. They reach out to me for prayer, knowing the full, the whole time where I stand in my convictions. Cause I love them. I, you know, that's never an issue of hate or intolerance, but they also know that I don't call that marriage and that it's a sin before God and that as a culture, as a society, as a civilization, we have to protect marriage. That's a simple thing. That's a very, very separate thing. And then for people to have the freedom to do what they want to. Yes, you do.

Moment you call that marriage, now you're entering into a religious definition. Right. Right. Absolutely.

Right. So that's where our religious liberties come under fire. And this, this quote from Brent Leatherwood, for those of you who may not know, he's the president of the ethics and religious liberty commission of the Southern Baptist convention. He says he has this to say about religious liberties specifically, though the ERLC is grateful for the marginal improvements to the original version of the bill, the bipartisan amendment does not provide adequate protections for religious liberty. This bill, even as amended, does not provide meaningful, meaningful protection for those that maintain a traditional view of marriage. This amendment invites further confusion and litigation without offering sufficient security for the many faith-based organizations serving their communities outside of solemnizing or celebrating marriages through reiterating the protections that already exist in the law and using unhelpfully vague language, which you talked about, John. Right.

The amendment appears to offer people and institutions of faith more additional protection than it actually does. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's why people don't read it.

Yeah. It's worded. It's, it's misworded on purpose and it's tragic, especially our younger generation. And in our room right now, I'm sitting here as a young generation is great that we have young people, millennials who are waking up and really paying attention to these things because as a whole, I'm sorry, the millennials don't pay attention to this.

The IY generation is not paying attention to this. And what's happening is we're just going by, Hey, two people want to do their thing. I don't agree with it, but that's fine. Let them do their thing. And that's, it's okay. You don't realize the ramification for saying that because it's not just two people want to do their thing. Yes, that's called America. You can, but moment you call it marriage, it begins to infringe on your rights, right?

That's right. And you, you hit the nail on the head because I am a millennium. I was born in 1992. My entire life I grew up hearing live and let live.

Everybody's different. Let people do what they want to do. And so for 30 years I learned that only recently like I got saved at like 15 and even then I really wasn't growing in my faith until I would say I started coming here at like 21. Um, but that was the narrative that I was given live and let live. Now what we're seeing is the federal government explicitly saying the Bible is wrong.

Has that ever happened? Has that ever happened in the history of America where the not, it's not, it's not senators opinions. It's the federal government passing a bill that says the Bible, the word of God is wrong. Right. And then to compare that to racism or the civil rights, to me, it's a slap in the face of men and women who many times laid their lives down for to, to be, to be equal, to not be judged by the color of their skin. A very different issue.

And just to brush it out and said, nah, it's all the same folks. Come on, wake up. That is not the same thing. It's not about, it's not about protection.

It's about national policy and it's about compulsion. Right? Yeah, absolutely. There's another quote here.

If I can read another one from Roger Severino. He's the vice president of domestic policy at the heritage foundation and he says, the bill will be a new arrow in the quiver of those who wish to deny religious organizations liberty to freely exercise their religious duties, strip them of their tax exemptions or exclude them from full participation in the public arena. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. I hadn't even thought about that. That tax exemption thing has been a crook in there.

Not a crook, which call it a thorn in their side for many, many years. Right. And this is, and that's going to be the threat. Yep. Either you stop saying what you're saying or else we'll take away your taxes and status.

That's exactly what it is. Are we going to put you on the watch list? I mean, this is where it's headed. Like you are, you're a dangerous person.

You are harmful to society because you stand for your convictions. You know how tragic that is, how terrible that is. So I believe that this bill, um, as it's headed towards, um, some more things have to happen. Uh, my prayer is that God will intervene and stop this and, and you know, we, we can't, we can't afford for something like this to go on.

That's right. And we, and I think it's, it's also worth noting, especially to our listeners of this show, that this should be something that you care about. I mean, think about, think about how long we sat here around this table or in this room and talked about, please go out there and vote your convictions. And so many people, I think 50 million Americans went to the polls and decided to defend marriage exclusively as the union of one man, one woman. And I feel like this just throws all those votes right out of the window. Because it's not what we elected the senators to represent. Right.

It matters what they believe. Right. Hey, listen, here's, here's how I would say it. Um, financial policies, economy. Wonderful. Okay. We can fuss over that.

We can find the best person to build our economy back. Um, healthcare. Okay. Let's, let's talk about that as well and see if we can find the best person. Immigration. Yeah. Let's, let's, you know, protect our borders. Let's have a strong voice out there.

All that stuff is great. Defense. Yes. We need a strong military. We need a strong, um, uh, you know, armed forces here and abroad. Having said that, ultimately to me, none of those things matter. They're important.

Don't get me wrong. They're important. The number one thing I want to know is does that person stand for right to life? Right. Because if they are willing to stand for the unborn, I know that the rest of those other issues will fall into place. And what I've found is if found is this, when a person, when a, when an elected official or a candidate is wishy washy over the right to life, um, you know, uh, the life of the unborn, more than likely they will also be wishy washy over marriage. Wow.

Being between a man and a woman. Wow. And that's what we're seeing today. I mean this, these, these issues are connected.

Let's put the priority where it needs to be. That's right. And anytime somebody gets up and says, well, why are we so fussing about the, the, the, you know, abortion issues and marriage issue when the problem is here?

I just know I can't listen to that person because they don't get it. Right. This is something that's going to affect us. And, um, I just want to say before we do close out the show, we've got a few minutes left, but I want to say I respect the two of you guys. Um, I respect, you know, even you guys in the back and everybody who's listening to this and who cares about this because you know, there's, there's a lot of Christians who either won't care or they'll just kind of put it, they'll tuck it away in the back of their mind and just hope that I'll feel like somebody else is fighting for it.

Um, but I respect you two guys a great deal. And I think this is something that is good for not only our show, but it's good for everyone who's listening it. I think it's listening to it. I think it's good for the network. I think it's good for the American people. Um, I think this is something that I'm grateful that we did this.

Me too. And thank you John for certainly for suggesting that because that's, that was a suggestion. David, do you have any, any, any things to add from the back as we're thinking about these things? I mean, of course, you know, you were talking about prayer being very important.

Yeah. Um, one thing that I know that I've, I've started to do, especially in, I'm going to start even more, especially in light of the stuff that we've been hearing about and the stuff that we've discussed is praying, like seriously praying for our nation. Not only I think it's important that we pray, um, in the sense of, Hey God, please fix our nation. But also even though I don't condone this, even though we don't condone this repenting for our nation, because that's what the prophets, that's what the priest, that's what they did. They would repent for the sins of the nation, even if they didn't commit them. That's it. So I think that, you know, as Christians, um, especially church leaders, um, we need to be praying for the good of our nation and repenting for the sins of the craziness that's happening. That's right.

That's right. Read the Bible. Read, you know, sometimes people say it's like, Oh, Jesus loved everybody. And of course he did. He had tax collectors, prostitutes.

Those were some of the lowest people in that society culture, uh, around there. But not for a single moment did he say, Oh, that's okay. I overlook sin. Right. Yeah. You know, he said, I didn't come to destroy the law and the prophets.

I came to fulfill it. Read the law and the prophets. Right. And then you say, Oh no, that was just in the time of law. But when it comes to grace, when it comes to, you know, Paul's epistles, well, read Romans chapter one very clearly talks about, uh, how homosexuality is the last step on the way down. Exactly.

And then read other passages in the Bible and revelation. It tells you very clearly where all that stands. Again, I hope our listeners understand we love everybody.

We even defend the rights of everybody in this nation. You have the right to live any way you want to. That's, that's what it means. But to now redefine marriage, what is the, what is the ultimate reason behind it?

Oh no. So everybody can have dignity. Just like, you know, Chuck Schumer was talking about it. It's like, you know, so how did he say it here? I mean, let me, let me quote that if I can. Sorry, I'm quoting Chuck Schumer here. He said, um, on Monday he said, passing this bill is our chance to send a message to Americans everywhere.

No matter who you are, who you love, you deserve dignity and equal treatment under the law. Yeah, you have it. Yeah, well you have it.

And then he says, that's about as American and ideal as it comes. No, you have that. Yeah. To go one step beyond and then to redefine marriage has an ulterior motive. Exactly. I can't see where the identity comes in. Am I who I am because of my wife? My identity is not based on who I'm married to.

Right. Identity number one is found in Christ. But even if I, if it wasn't, even if I wasn't a Christian, I can't imagine that my identity is wrapped up in who I'm attracted to.

This is not an identity issue. Well, and it's all the extra provisos that I'm hearing. Like that's about as an American and as an idea as I, as I, we can get, or, um, you know, this is related to interracial marriage or the abortion issue. It's all those extra things that are thrown in that are these other side emotions.

Exactly. Feel like we are bigots or whatever. We've separated this now from the realm of logic and now it's the realm of emotion. And if I can make you feel that I've got you because all those things fall under the same banner of oppression, right? All those things fall under oppression and in air quotes.

I mean, some of them obviously do, but I'm saying putting this particular issue in with those now says, since this is now oppression, you're fighting to oppress us. It's, it's an underhanded tactic. It's very much so. And I would say, I would even caution don't, um, don't feel that false comfort when you know, people come out and I think even pastors may do this, they'll come out and say, everybody relax.

There's going to be religious exemptions. We're going to be fine. This is not what you think it is. It is.

Yeah. This is why everyone's celebrating. And along with David, I would say, pray for your pastors, their families. They're under constant attack every single day. They're under attack and not just pastor, but also staff in their families. Pray for them. Pray for God's protection on them.

Pray for God's, uh, defense for them from the enemy and, and because it's needed even more now than ever before. Yeah. Yeah. We've got about two minutes. Dr. Shaw, would you close us in prayer? Just to kind of end it. Right.

All right. Let's, let's, let's pray. Father, we thank you for this day. Thank you God for giving us this opportunity to talk about this very important issue that is taking place in real time in our nation. And God, we believe that this nation is truly one nation under God. Even though these kinds of things are happening, God, there's enough of a remnant here that believes that you are the foundation.

You're the source of the blessing of this nation. And without you, God, we cannot function. And so we need you Lord to heal our nation, but it cannot happen unless there is forgiveness. Unless Lord that your people who are called by your name will humble themselves, pray, seek your face, turn from the wicked ways. Then you'll hear from heaven, forgive their sins and heal their land. So we stand and ask for your forgiveness for our nation. And we ask Lord that you would turn us back, raise up a new generation who will right the wrongs and help us Lord to love the center, to love everybody, to be gracious and kind, but at the same time, to stand on the conviction of the word of God. And God, we know that your Holy Spirit is already working to draw people to Jesus Christ. We love you Lord in Christ's name. Amen. Thank you, Dr. Joe. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clear Read Today.