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Glenn's Show Prep

David Barton weighs in on Friday's Supreme Court gay marriage decision

June 26, 2015
Wilson

Writer

In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of gay marriage, Glenn spent the majority of Friday's radio show speaking with experts about the impact of the decision on people who believe in traditional marriage. David Barton doesn't have a lot of confidence that religious liberty and freedom of conscience will be safe given the political atmosphere and the activist courts.He also thinks there is zero chance conservatives will be able to pass a constitutional amendment to preserve traditional marriage. So what happens next?

GLENN: David Barton is with us now. Hello, David.

DAVID: Hey, guys.

GLENN: We just talked to the Liberty Institute. And we felt pretty good about what they were saying about the -- the Supreme Court, all nine justices stood up for religious liberty. Do you have comfort on that?

DAVID: No. I don't.

GLENN: Okay.

DAVID: Anymore than I have comfort on the fact that the Hobby Lobby decision where the Court came out emphatically and said you have a right to conscience, that court after court after court said, well, that's for abortifacient. You don't have the right for conscience for marriage.

So I've watched as we've had very emphatic rulings from the Court, and lower courts just refuse to do anything with it. And below that, lower officials do the same thing.

I mean, we still have -- we have 8-0 ruling by the US Supreme Court you can have all sorts of religious activities in schools, and yet we have principals across the nation saying, wait a minute, kid. You can't say "God" at graduation, et cetera.

So I don't have much confidence in that. But there's really a fundamental question that I think has to be asked at some point. And it deals with the nature of the judiciary itself.

And that is: At what point are we going to go back to saying, you know, we have to allow elected officials to make policy, rather than the courts? Because for the last five sessions, we've watched the Court increasingly make grander and more bold statements on what they should do.

And reading Kennedy's decision this morning, I felt like I was listening to a televangelist at 2 o'clock in the morning somewhere. I mean, that kind of rhetorical language, that kind of apologetic language is pretty unbelievable coming out of a court.

And so at some point, we'll have to get back to fundamental decisions of, okay, the Constitution doesn't allow judges to do this. So what will we do as a result? And that's a whole different discussion. But I'm not that secure on religious liberties. And I think you'll see that through the NDOs and through the things that will happen at the city level, that there won't be much protection for religious liberty.

GLENN: Okay. So I'm back to completely depressed. David, what do we do now? What do you recommend that the average person does this weekend?

DAVID: Well, at some point, and it's what you've already been talking about. At some point, you have to have standalone courage and stand up and say, you know what, the rest of the world may be going off the cliff, but I'm not.

And let me tell you, this is a wrong decision. And this is why. And at this point, if we just get in the boat and decide to float with the current, we'll be done with this. This to me is very much like what happened with the fugitive slave law in the 1850s, where that you had one side that said, hey, the Court's ruled. You know, this is a done deal. Congress has spoken on this. And other people said, no, they may have spoken, but they said the wrong thing.

And it really started turning things back in a right direction. But you had the Dred Scott decision and everything else that goes with it. Yeah, the Court ruled, but they ruled in a bad direction for the country and a bad direction for the Constitution.

I really did appreciate what Roberts said. He said, if you want to celebrate gay marriage, do it. But don't celebrate the Constitution because the Constitution had nothing to do with this ruling today.

And at some point, I think we're -- where we were with Dred Scott where we said, you know, the Constitution had nothing to do with this ruling. This was judicial activism, and we'll have to get back at some point to living by a document that we swore to uphold. So I think that's what we do right now, as we start raising our voice and saying, you know, that may be the Court, but I'm not going over the cliff with everybody else. I won't get in this rowboat and go over the Niagara Falls. I'm not going to float that direction. I'm going to swim upstream. I think we'll find quickly that we're not as upstream as we think we are.

GLENN: Governor Walker just announced that he is adding to his platform now that one of his main things is that he will pass a marriage is between a man and a woman amendment in the Constitution. That's what he'll push for as president of the United States. Do you think that's wise? What do you think of that politically speaking?

DAVID: Politically, it's not going to happen. You need two-thirds of the Senate go with it. There's no way you'll get 25 percent of Democrats join 100 percent of Republicans. Politically, that's a dead issue. It will not go anywhere. A constitutional amendment. The only thing that will make a constitutional amendment go -- I have congressman in Congress years ago who told me something 25 years ago. They said, Congress only sees the light when it feels the heat. And unless Democrats still feel the heat from black pastors and Hispanics and others that are so much more pro marriage than even whites are, unless they feel that kind of heat, there's no chance of a constitutional amendment going, nor is there a chance that you would get three-fourths of the states to ratify it. I think we can pretty quickly name 13 states that would refuse to ratify, and that would keep it from becoming policy. So, you know, that's a great piece of rhetoric. But policy-wise, we're back to, how long do we want nine elected people to have the majority vote to tell 330 million people what their policies will be?

PAT: If you can't get it done and the case you laid out pretty convincingly, David, suggests he can't, I don't think it is a great piece of rhetoric. Because that will hurt him with the electorate.

STU: But maybe not in the primary.

DAVID: Yeah, I don't think it will hurt him as much as we think. Because what will happen -- I mean, we're seeing polling right now. You would never recognize right now that 81 percent of the nation says that the issue of gay marriage should not be allowed to infringe on the rights of conscience. Now, that's what 81 percent believe. But we have dozens, if not hundreds of accounts across the nation, whereby public policy we're doing that. And what happens is, people aren't being told about rights of conscience. They're being told about equality and everybody should have the right to love who they want to and marriage is something -- that's great.

GLENN: That's where France went wrong.

DAVID: That's right. And it depends on how you frame the rhetoric. And so I think that people have a sense of, yeah, I prefer traditional marriage, but I think everybody should have the right to do what they want to do. So in that sense, I don't think what Walker does is going to hurt him, particularly with a primary vote where he's struggling with a dozen other guys to come out with a position -- I don't think it will hurt him much. I think if someone turns his rhetoric into an anti-equality position, then it hurts him. But just to say it the way you said, I don't think it will hurt him politically.

GLENN: David, thank you very much. Could you just give me a little quick hit on how you think this is affected by 8/28 and what we're planning to doing there.

DAVID: Well, 8/28 essentially it's coming back to the individual. And where we are today is one of the frustrations that Americans have. We look at the Court and say, I wish they would have done it different. There's nothing I can do. Great. That's fine. But the American Revolution was not won because we watched George Washington. It was won because people in their local communities said, you know, I'll defend my town. I'll defend -- I'll stand up against the British when they come here. I'll be Naphtali Daggett out on the hillside, one man taking on 200 -- excuse me -- one man taking on 2500 British in the battle of New Haven. I'll be that guy on the hillside that will take on 2500.

And that's what 8/28 will be. It's time for us to have the force of convictions to stand up in our local areas, talk in our own families, talk in our own churches, talk in our own communities, talk to our own school boards and start letting our voice be heard at a level where it will be heard. And I think that's one of the great things that has to happen. And that's always been the movement in America that's turned America in the right direction. Is when the grassroots starts bubbling up from the bottom, not coming down from the top at the Supreme Court.

GLENN: David, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

DAVID: Bless you guys.

GLENN: Bless you too. David Barton. President of Wall Builders. You know, we should call him Dr. Barton. You know, he has his PhD I think in history and education. Too many people just dismiss him as -- as -- you know, oh, just some guy who thinks he knows history. No, he has his doctorate in education and he's a brilliant, brilliant man.

The double standard behind the White House outrage

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A new Monroe Doctrine? Trump quietly redraws the Western map

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.