Trump Bibles in Oklahoma and Voting Like Jesus

Welcome to the Lawful Assembly podcast. My name is Cecil. joined by my friend lawyer, Craig Moose. And Craig, today we're going to have a bunch of different stories that we talk about that we found in various news sites. But I wanted to start to show out today by telling you that I had gotten my political sign, my national political sign, and I put it in my lawn a couple of weeks ago. And it was one of the few on the block because I come from a pretty

an area that is different politically from me. you know, there's a bunch of other political signs for the other national candidate all up and down the road, but I decided to put mine out. Couple more on the road that I live on that are the same affiliation as mine, but very few in comparison. And I came home yesterday and my sign was gone. Somebody swiped my sign, Craig.

We live in a time, a weird time, Craig, where someone's gonna walk up and snatch someone else's sign, but I decided today I wasn't gonna be defeated. went out and I got, I didn't have these out before, but I went to the local Democratic party and I said, hey, someone stole my national campaign sign. I'd like one of those, but I'll take literally anything else you have. And so they gave me every other candidate that could possibly be running for my address and I,

tacked them all into my lawn today because I was not gonna be defeated. Well, good for you. And that gets actually to the theme of our lawful assembly podcast today. Let's have the political debate. Why are in the midst of this most important election, why are so many forces trying to stifle debate, limit debate and steal the debate in your case? Now, I assume it wasn't a deer or an animal in your neighborhood.

That deer was very thorough because they took that little metal piece out too. yeah, that deer was very trapped in their foot or something. No raccoon was putting it in someone else's yard as a prank. don't know. But we, democracy thrives on debate. Yeah. We need that and we need to encourage people to voice opinions. The problem we're getting into is exactly, is this a metaphor? Steal the sign?

Yeah. And not let you express your opinion of who you would support. And that's been so troubling this week and the last few weeks of how many different ways we've seen both campaigns, but others, governors trying to limit or threaten people who want to express an opinion. You know, what is somewhat hypocritical is that, you know, it's a democratic sign that's in my lawn, but the

the Republican side for ever, as long as I can remember, has been always pro free speech and pro pop property rights. It feels like in one fell swoop, they they sort of violated both of those principles by coming on my property and taking my sign and stifling my free speech. I also think, too, that it's not true about free speech, because if you look at which side would prefer more people to vote.

it's always been the Democrats who are trying to make sure that there's more voting open than less. It's almost always the Republicans who are trying to stop or stifle or slow down the voting process and make it so fewer and fewer people have the chance to vote too when you talk about closing down polling stations, especially in low income areas. So there is one side that I think has been trying very hard to make sure that

every person can vote and another side that has been doing its best to make sure that those people don't get that opportunity and that only a select few can vote. And in the process, undermine the whole process. If we really believe in a democracy rather than an authoritarian government where your government tells you what to vote, how to vote, when to vote, we need to keep building those resources that encourage voting, encouraging young people. We've talked before,

I came of age as we lowered the voting age to get more young people who were being drafted and brought into the Vietnam War and didn't have a voice. then the United States realized those folks should have a voice if we're asking them to go and face the enemy overseas. And to me, that's just been such an important part of my life of encouraging people to have that voice. Therefore, we have to find ways to say, regardless of the candidate or the state, You're right. Let's encourage people to vote, but also let's encourage the opportunity to vote. Well, Craig, let's get started with voting. This article is from the Friendly Atheist blog. Mega Church pastor tells congregation to vote like Jesus by supporting Trump. And I just want to read a short quote. This is his words. The pastor here.

is Pastor Josh Howerton from Lake Point Church, a mega church in Rockwell, Texas. Now you can read this whole article if you go to our show notes, and I'm just gonna quote a tiny bit of it here. The pastor says, Jesus is not on the ballot guys, get over it. Jesus is not on the ballot, get over it, okay? We all want King Josiah, but sometimes God uses a flawed leader for good purposes and you don't have the option for voting for Josiah. Your choice is between Ahab,

and Jezebel and Jehu. That choice is very obvious because a flawed leader used to do some things is better than suffering under wicked leaders. And so they are clearly, we've heard this before, they're calling Kamala Harris, Vice President Kamala Harris, a Jezebel. But when you hear that as a Christian, what's the first thing that goes to your mind here, Craig? Let's have the debate. But there's two points, one's secular and one's religious.

we do have a law that encourages freedom of religion, but we also have laws that if you get your tax status as a religious institution, you have to promise not to take positions on political candidates or positions from the pulpit. I recognize we have just started talking about expanding the debate, but we also realize that responsibility comes with that debate. on one hand, I'm

really upset that this individual seems to have crossed that line. I assume they're a tax exempt organization and they're violating the law. The article goes on to say that the freedom from religion foundation is suing them or asking the IRS to investigate them for violating that law. So that secular side I'm concerned about. I preach in my church. I'm well aware of that law. How do you navigate that? Very carefully. Certainly I understand my faith calls me to many of

the positions I take in terms of welcoming the immigrant or seeking justice or opposing the death penalty. But I go back into it and say, here's how my faith impacts me as an individual. It's not how my congregation or my church takes a position on an issue. But I spend more time saying, am I accurate? Am I understandings of the Bible? Am I being called accurately? I recognize that we will have disagreements.

That's the second part of that as a Christian. I disagree with his interpretation of the Bible, for example, and how that plays out. I really work very hard, especially when I walk into that pulpit and I'll be preaching before the election and trying to find that right balance that I'm really there speaking the word of God as best as I understand it in all my ability and lack of ability.

but I'm not gonna walk up there with the sign that's sitting on your front lawn. That's for sure. What about the other kings that they're mentioning there too? I'm not familiar with those other kings. what is the underlying statement that he's trying to make from like a biblical standpoint? So let me answer that two ways. For me, we have to think about how one...

even uses the Bible in political debate today. First, the Bible tells me how to live my life as an individual responding to God's covenant. Certain people read the Bible literally. I come out of a tradition that reads the Bible as I am an invited partner that God has invited me as a part of the covenant to be in dialogue with God about what God wants me to do in my life. That's a little different than to say,

The every word in the Bible is history or fact, and there were good Kings and bad Kings. But I go a step before that. Part of the dialogue that in ancient Israel was even to have a monarchy in the first place. Walter Brueggemann has written a book called the land, and I find his analysis so helpful. Walter Brueggemann is a biblical scholar. And let me quote him because in some ways we do something similar in this country, at least Christians do.

that we see the United States as a gift from God and that we have it and as we're somehow exceptional or a people of God. And sometimes that happened in the ancient Israel as well. This is Brueggemann quote, the very land that promised to create space for human joy and freedom became the very source of dehumanizing exploitation and oppression. Land was indeed a problem in Israel. Time after time, Israel saw the land of promise become the land of problem.

The very land that contained the sources of life drove Kings to become agents of death. Society became the frantic effort of the landed to hold onto the turf no matter what the cost." Unquote. For Brueggemann, when you get a gift from God, you have a choice. It's not just give me this and I have it. You have responsibility to live a life of justice. God gave us the land as part of a covenantal responsibility.

to take care of creation. In addition, we had a duty to take care of the vulnerable, such as the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. The point I'm getting across is for this gentleman to use the kings, for us to think about in a democracy today, when we tried to get rid of monarchy, now we have someone who's an authoritarian running for office, and we're using the kings to defend that, this is what religion can be.

a great source of life and can also be something that divides us. And I know many of our listeners have been hurt by religion in certain ways. Besides the IRS law, we have to be very careful of how we are given that awesome responsibility if we are purporting to speak the word of God from the pulpit. This story comes from the Oklahoman Trump Bible. One of the few that meets

Walters criteria for Oklahoma classrooms. Now this is superintendent Ryan Walters. He plans to push to supply 55,000 King James Bibles to state classrooms with specific criteria favoring a Bible endorsed and created by Donald Trump. The God bless the United States of America Bible. The initiative costing taxpayers $3.3 million.

has raised concerns over potential violations of state law regarding competitive bidding and separation of church and state. Critics argue that the specifications exclude most vendors, essentially favoring the Trump endorsed Bibles. Waters has publicly tied the initiative to preserving Christian values and education and framed it as a response to perceived left-wing efforts to remove religious influence.

I said this on another podcast I do. When you hear what's in that Bible, which is the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, that should send a shiver down your spine if you're someone who thinks there should be a separation between church and state in this country, because we shouldn't allow something like that to be part of the curriculum for students, because it is essentially endorsing

a very specific version of the Bible, which is used by a group of people in this country, not used by all Christians. See, so you should be happy. Wasn't it? I believe Alexander Hamilton was asked why wasn't the word God in the Constitution? And he said, we forgot. So they're adding a document there with no word of God in it. But seriously, first, isn't it?

the right wing that was afraid of the deep state administrative officials implementing their rights and imposing certain views on our classrooms. And isn't this what they're accusing others of doing? A state administrative officer. And as I read the article, sounds like the request for people to bid on this, there's only one source in the entire world.

that could respond to this $3 million government contract. And it may be that the alleged Trump Bibles aren't selling very well and he's trying to find a way to show favor to a particular candidate running for office, trying to perhaps buy his way into a position if that candidate gets elected and wants to pick some people in for the new administration. Certainly,

The left-wing influences that you asked me about comes from a century of litigation on the role of the Bible in public schools. And there's no doubt I went up through, believe, sixth grade where we read the Bible every day, a Psalm or something, in my elementary classrooms. I was too young to realize that when I went to school in seventh grade, it wasn't read that the Supreme Court had said.

reading the Bible in school as a religious activity violates the first amendment. Again, you can almost say law and order. We had an establishment clause that the government should not favor one religion or disfavor others and to pick one particular Bible to read in part as almost a religious service. I believe if my memory serves me, we'd sing them

My country, tis of thee, we'd say the Lord's Prayer. Can my memory be that far off? But we'd also read a Psalm almost every day up through sixth grade. Therefore, this action should invite a lawsuit to say, one, is it establishing a religion in our schools? And we've talked before, the purpose of the First Amendment is to have more freedom for all of us. And if...

The schools of Oklahoma pick one particular Bible and then have it there for these purposes of reestablishing, look at what he's asking, right? He's reestablishing a religion in the schools. That should violate the First Amendment. I'm all for Bibles in the library, or perhaps put them in literature class or history class, good or bad, they're fundamental to much of Western history in terms of literature, in terms of history.

they become part of political debate we've just seen. But to put it there to reestablish lost Christian values, to me violates the first amendment. It would be less offensive to me as a secular person if they were to ask the student, what is your religion? And then we will provide a Bible that is based on your religion. So a student comes in and says, well, I happen to be Muslim and they give them, you know, whatever. Where's the Quran?

with the Declaration of Independence in it, I guarantee that would not go over very well. But let's just presume they did that. And then they would do it maybe with the King James Bible. But then also there's other Bibles too, right? Like, so it's not like the King James is the only version of the Bible. There's other Bibles out there. And so they might ask that. And then they may just come to a secular kid and give them a Bertram Russell book, I guess, with the thing or something. I don't know what you'd give them. Carl Sagan maybe with the...

you give them a cosmos and then in the front as the two, the declaration of independence and the constitution. But you know, it would be less offensive then, but still utterly useless. I'll also quibble again with you. They won't, don't ask the question, what Bible do you want? Or what, what text do you want? That will be important to you to go forward in school. Don't ask the Exactly. Yeah, I guess that's true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, but, but you know, even still it's, it's useless in a lesson plan sort of way because

there's no way to really have a great lesson plan that could include all students if you're not giving them all the same material to read. you're, you it's just a, you might be able to pull something off. I'm not saying that that is impossible, but it's, it's, seems like it would be very difficult, especially for like school-aged children to be able to pull something like this off. So it just doesn't feel like it's co, it's, it's useful for any kind of education. It feels, it feels like a grandstand. It feels performative.

It doesn't feel like anything useful to students. And it costs the people in that state a lot of money. Like this isn't a tiny amount of money. This is $3 million plus that you're throwing away. And you're essentially, you know, one of the underlying pieces of this is that this Trump Bible allows Trump to get money by selling a book to a state. And that's something that I think we need to pay attention to too, is that this is also, it's essentially like a political money laundering scheme.

I believe the book costs around $60 and you're able to find not-for-profits that offer free Bibles or very low cost Bibles. And it all points to exactly what you just called it. For me, call me idealistic, but the freedom of religion should encourage me as a Christian to want to teach my children and the people in my community

my understanding of this beautiful faith that I have and that's blessed me in my life. other parents should have that ability to teach their children and their community. It puts it back where it belongs with the individual. When we try to get the state to come in, to give one particular version, it doesn't even, as we talked about in the very first news article, we have...

significant debates within Christianity over what the Christian message is. use this pretext as a way to reestablish Christianity in schools falls on its face by its very definition. This next article is from the Washington Post's FBI Kavanaugh probe, tightly controlled by Trump, White House congressional report fines.

This was the FBI investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh when he was being, when he was going through his confirmation hearings and before during his 2018 confirmation, there was a tightly controlled by the white house, despite public claims of a thorough and independent inquiry. The report by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse shows that the FBI requested guidance from the white house after Trump's comments about a

a free rein investigation, but was instead directed to conduct a very limited probe. The FBI forwarded over 4,500 tips related to Kavanaugh to the White House without investigating them and key witnesses were not interviewed. The report suggests that investigation was influenced by political motivations to shield Kavanaugh from deeper scrutiny. What does this say about our system in which we vet

Supreme Court justices if this sort of thing can happen during one of these confirmation processes? As we talked a few weeks ago with Senator Wyden's proposal, that was critiqued for trying to raise reform of the Supreme Court. And part of Senator Wyden's complaint was that this nomination process has been broken. It is performative for those seeking the position of Supreme Court justice to come in and claim they cannot comment on cases and to

that be very limited in how they'll respond. It's become more of show for senators to grandstand by asking the kinds of questions that they think will be kind of gotcha questions. And we don't get the information we really need. It also speaks to the power of the White House. Remember this happened in the last administration of this Republican nominee. He now has the immunity case of Trump v. United States that says,

He can use the FBI not just as a defensive tool to take away the 4,500 tips and not investigate, but to maybe even use it as an offensive weapon to go after his enemies. We really need reform because we're going to be facing an executive with even more authority. But it is so troubling that 4,500 people came forward with information. Now, some of that might've been fraudulent. Some of that might've just been made up.

But that's what the FBI is trained to do, to go through those tips and find the valuable ones that we, the people, should understand about a potential justice who's getting appointed for life. This is from Talking Points Memo. DeSantis threatening jail time for running abortion rights ads in Florida. The state of Florida, in response to a pro-choice ballot initiative aimed at restoring Roe protections, if it receives 60 % of the vote,

To prevent this, the state is spending tax dollars to campaign against the amendment and shockingly is threatening criminal charges against employees of stations that air their ads supporting the initiative. The ads claim that the six week abortion ban endangers women with medical needs. assertion, Florida disputes despite the law's ambiguity. Doctors fearing persecution hesitate to act under the law's exceptions.

The state is using the law meant to prevent public health nuisances to justify the threat of criminal prosecution, which is seen as an attempt to use the state's power to suppress political speech. So we have seen doctors step away from this sort of thing in other places too. We saw in Idaho, doctors not wanting to perform emergency abortions and sending people on helicopters into different states because they were afraid of the ramifications. We've seen it in other states too.

where the doctors are afraid of these ramifications and they won't, Texas recently, happened in Texas too, where the doctors just won't do what is essentially the medically correct thing to do in a bad situation and the person can die or almost die because we're not willing to bend the rules or these rules are so strict that these doctors are sort of pinned down. All that being said,

to have the state work its way in here without even consulting, it feels like what the will of the people feels like really a really, really horrible place for Florida to be in. See, so we've had deaths. We've just recently heard of Ample Nicole Thurman. I believe she's a mother of a six-year-old who doctors were undecided whether they could risk their own criminal punishment and she did not get the medical care. That's the public health crisis that- Yeah.

doctors, well-trained doctors, experts in their field are being paralyzed and offering the healthcare that's needed in this situation. We have to be wary that is Governor DeSantis already giving us a warning of what a government will be like under a regime proposed by the authoritarian running for president in the Republican party? It could be a glimpse into what's to come.

Governor DeSantis doing us a favor to say we're a nation that was born in the promise of a free press. And that always was thought of an idea that someone could articulate a position in an editorial analysis of news and not face the threat of the king coming in and cutting off their head or throwing them into the Tower of London. And now the governor of Florida is sending his police officers not to the person making the ad, but to the press that's publishing the ad.

Doesn't that just shock all of us who believe that a democracy flourishes with ideas and the power of the governor to threaten criminal behavior? It's easy to say, yes, I'd be bold, but just think about that person at a local radio station that they're just selling ads and they get an ad from an institution that's trying to argue about how a vote should turn out in the next election. And they just put it in it.

7 a.m. on the morning drive time. And next thing you know, the police officers carting them off to jail. It's easy to be bold and it's easy to stand up to that sort of thing when you have a tremendous amount of privilege. But we often expect people who don't have that kind of privilege to have that kind of steadfastness. And that's not that's not the case. Right. We expect in some ways we're expecting, though, this worker who just is a worker. They just do they're just doing a job for a living. They're not an idealist.

They're just there and then to threaten them with something as horrible as a big fine or a jail time, et cetera, that's enough to soften and to weaken their resolve and think, well, this isn't worth my time for doing it. And it's specifically aimed at people who aren't going to fight it like that. They're not aiming it like you suggest at the people who are creating it. They're aiming it at the people who are playing it.

so that they can scare those people off and they never have to contend with the people who created it. And nor am I suggesting that the people creating it should be threatened either. I'm not saying I'm not either, but they're even going to the source. this point, at this point, but once you start sending your police officers after a point of view that really kind of fabricated here to make this a public health crisis, we're having a public debate about the right way to give medical care.

If you're trying to limit that debate, then it's going to skew how we get an answer. This is from the Washington Post. Trump wages campaign against real time fact checks. So Donald Trump has attempted to undermine fact checking, particularly in interviews and debates. His campaign has pressured networks and journalists to avoid real time fact checking, even threatening to back out of interviews such as if such practices are used.

This tactic has played out in multiple high level situations, including a debate where Trump's team objected to fact checks during a live broadcast. Trump's resistance to fact checking aligns with his long standing pattern to spread misinformation, which is central to his political message. His team claims that he is unfairly targeted, but fact checkers emphasize that Trump misstates the truth significantly more than his political opponents.

This is something that really should shock people. The fact that someone is going to say out loud, I don't want to have to contend with facts, should shock everyone, especially someone who we really need to trust in an office. We really need to have as much trust as possible with someone who is in such a position of power over us.

for them to say, I don't want to have to deal with facts. Essentially saying, I want carte blanche to lie. And if you can't, you really can't give them that. That's a horrible thing for us to give to politicians. And I think the only thing I've ever heard from people on the other side when they are contended with this is that they say, well, they're not actually fact checking. They're lying. Is that's their defense is that they're saying that the people who are fact checking are actually lying.

because we live in a world where there are two alternate realities. There's a reality for one political party and a reality for another, and those two never meet. I have to ask the question, if you're running for office and you don't want to have fact checking, what are you afraid of? What are you hiding from? Apparently at one of the events in the last week, the mics went off or there was a medical emergency and the...

Republican nominee just says, well, we don't need questions, do we? Right. And these are questions from his allies, his friends, his supporters. And he would rather dance than answer questions. Sure. The heartbeat of democracy is how will you lead our nation? How will you be our representative? How will you speak for us in a world community that's being threatened by war and climate change and disease and poverty?

and injustice and you won't let us find out if you'll be a truth teller. What are you afraid of? What I how could I even vote when you're telling me don't check my facts? And what and what I think is missed is that they do fact check other people. They do fact check other people in real time and they say things they do fact check other politicians, be they Republican or Democrat, and they and they fact check them and they give them those

in real time objections to what they're saying. They say something and they say, wait, wait, wait, hold on, you said this or hold on, that actually isn't true. This many millions of people didn't vote fraudulently or whatever it is the claim is. And they will bring up and make them pause and make them say, okay, let me try to address exactly what you said. But with Trump, he just violently does not agree with.

with reality when someone brings reality up, he says, no, that's not true. And they'll say, like, I saw it multiple times this week. He's made claims where someone says someone had asked him at the economic forum, you know, they're saying that your your tariff policies are going to add $4,000 to the average Americans bill every year if you put on these tariffs. And he just answered no. And the person said, it's simple math. This isn't

This isn't something you can argue with. You can't argue with this. This is literally what's going to happen if you impose these tariffs. So the problem is, that he's just saying, he just won't admit no matter what it is, he won't admit to something he doesn't want to be true. But the question, Cecil, is us as the electorate, what do we need? And it's bigger than citizen Trump, right? J.D. Vance asked not to be fact-checked when he was spreading lies about Haitians,

Governor DeSantis says, we don't want the facts of doctors saying that they are constrained by a current law that keeps them from providing proper medical care. Remember, this is fact-checking. It's not theory-checking. I can tell you I have a theory of how immigration laws should be implemented and how it would best serve both our national security interests as well as asylum seekers coming to our gates.

I have can have a concept of a plan is what you're saying. Yes, and we could debate that and you can say where you believe what I'm saying is correct. But we're fact checking here. The Washington Post, that same article said that during his presidency, he made 30,573 false or misleading claims, about an average of 21 false claims a day during his entire presidency. you can debate and say, let me look at those. If I'm the electorate and I want information,

I can go check the Washington Post and see if their facts are correct. But like you said, it's simple math sometimes. It's events that happened. You can have the mayor of Springfield, Ohio say the allegations about Haitians are not accurate. That's a fact we can check. But the question is not what he, Mr. Trump, believes it. And it's more than it's Mr. Vance, it's Governor DeSantis. It's we need to say how we make decisions.

And for me, if someone says, don't fact check me, or I won't go on your news story because you'll ask me questions that can be checked. What are you hiding? Or maybe you don't have anything there. Are you the wizard of Oz? It's nothing behind the cloak. Nothing behind that curtain. Yes. And again, democracy thrives on disagreement that leads to discussion, that leads to decisions.

Yeah. And if you take the facts out of that, it falls apart. I also think there is a level of fragility to Trump that you just don't see in many people. I recall his misstep years ago. He had misspoke. They had asked him what I don't know exactly what the question was, but it was something like what states are in the hurricane's path. And Donald Trump misspoke and he said Alabama. He had said

Alabama was in the the hurricanes path, but Alabama, think it might've been Alabama, could have been Mississippi. I'm not sure exactly which, which state it was, but he had said this state and a bunch of other states. And they said, well, wait, the national weather service didn't list Alabama or Mississippi. And he said, they, well, it is in that. And he came to a press conference with a, a map of where that hurricane was going to go. And he had taken black Sharpie.

and he had circled an area in the place where he had said the hurricane would go. Instead of just saying, I'm sorry, I misspoke, that's my fault. He had to double, then triple, then quadruple down on a false narrative that he had seeded because he was too fragile to just admit that he was wrong one single time about literally.

Essentially nothing. I mean, he could have in a moment when they questioned him on it said, you know what? That's my fault. I misspoke. I got a lot going on. I'm a president the United States and I happen to be busy. I'm sorry I misspoke. It's so easy to get out of that as a normal person, but he's so fragile that he couldn't actually say he was wrong. So Craig, the election is creeping up on us. We are slowly inching towards inevitability here.

How do you feel about the whole thing? As I said earlier, I want us to start thinking about what do we want the United States of America to be? Can this election tell us of who we want to be as a people, who we the people want to tell the world we are? And I have two thoughts I want to end with, if you bear with me, Cecil, but I was reading recently Donald Shriver's book, Honest Patriots. Shriver's book is trying to say, how do we be patriots in this nation?

and acknowledged some of the wrongdoing of this nation. And he quotes Dr. Alex Burbain, who was the deputy chair of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Committee when they went through the struggle of overcoming the tragedy of apartheid and were trying to build a new South Africa. And Dr. Burbain said, quote, in the days when it was bleakest in South Africa, when apartheid ruled, they turned to the United States as Congress and members of the House and the Senate for

statements in opposition to apartheid when combined with what he knew about the civil rights movement he said this always filled me with admiration for the United States as a leader in democracy and human rights, but now today This was a few years back, but it's it I think it's still relevant today if South Africa were in crisis I'm not sure I would turn to the USA Everywhere I travel people look to America not for freedom and justice and human rights, but rather for abuse of power

America must find itself and use its enormous resources so that it has to be strong, fair, and compassionate. If it does, its leadership will be rewarded. But if it fails, the whole world will fail with it. This election is not necessarily about people, individuals. We've talked a lot about our whole purpose of today's podcast was how do we look at the election as a whole and encourage debate.

this election poses that question. Can we be a strong and compassionate nation and lead and seeking freedom, justice and human rights? Or do we simply want to be strong and abusive of power? So here's my challenge. we have a theme song to lawful assembly and we, we, we post that on our webpage, but I want to read a couple of the words, but we're going to play the song because I want to encourage people to get out and vote for the kind of nation.

that is compassionate, can be strong and compassionate, can fight for human rights and justice. So we invite you to listen to the theme song in full, but first hear some of Matt Ante-Tiller's words and use them. Put them on your earbuds. And when you're knocking on doors to get people to vote or you're trying to encourage family members to vote or to get into the lawful assembly debate about what our country could be, don't let your voices fade away. Don't let your choices go astray.

Don't let greed obscure the sun. Don't let creation come undone. Don't let fear lock your door. Don't let deceit win the war. Do not forget what love is for. Don't let your voices fade away. Cecil and my friends, we have an opportunity next two weeks to be compassionate, work for justice and human rights. Don't let your voices fade away. We're going to have a Gaston next week where we talk about pernicious polarization.

It's a professor who studies this and it is a really really interesting conversation and it really does fit With today's political climate and I think you're really gonna enjoy it that's gonna be playing next week But we're gonna leave you with our song today our theme song and here it is in its entirety