Submit your questions to MailBox Monday.

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Pat Roy served at the Institute for Creation Research for 12 years as the Director of Broadcast Media. It was during this time at ICR that he and his wife created the Jonathan Park audio dramas, a creation-based audio drama heard by millions around the world. They recently created a new audio drama called, Time Chroniclers. Pat has served as Director at Genesis Apologetics. He has traveled the nation speaking to hundreds of audiences, of all ages, about the importance of trusting God’s Word. 

Kyle Justice: Emmy nominated producer Kyle Justice began producing television projects as a teenager, which led him to work for and produce programming for major cable networks such as The Family Channel, ESPN, and National Geographic. In 1997 he partnered with Ken Ham at Answers in Genesis to produce the first creation kids show, “The X-Nilo Show”. This eventually led to him establishing Awesome Science Media, a prolific producer of creation science media used by homeschool families and aired throughout the world. Kyle is the homeschool dad of eight kids and married to Dawn since 1991.

Connect with Pat and Kyle: “Faith On The Edge” | The Creation Guys

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Don’t Miss These!

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TRANSCRIPTION:

Hey everybody. This is Heidi St. John. Welcome to the podcast. Today is Friday, November 15th. This is Meet My Friend Friday. It’s episode number 845. I’ve got a real treat for you guys here at the podcast today. Two of my favorite guys here at the Firmly Planted Family Homeschool Resource Center are here today, and we’re going to talk about a theory that some of you guys think actually isn’t gaining traction in the culture, but it is. That is the issue of flat Earth. 

Stick around. I think you’re going to be encouraged.

All right, so lots of things going on in the culture right now and we’re going to address some of them today, but before I jump into that one, I’ll let you guys know where I’m going to be next. Thanks for everybody who came out for the speaking season. I’m winding down to a close. I’ve got one more event before the end of the year. I will be at Godspeak Calvary Chapel on Friday, December the 6th for their women’s event there. Come on out and see me if you’re anywhere in the area. Kind of cool. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. These guys- I mean who doesn’t want to go to California in the winter time? Right? So that’s where I’ll be if you’re looking for me. And so you can check it out. More information at heidistjohn.com/events. After that, I’m going to take some time off for Christmas. You’re welcome. And then we come back and I will be keynoting the FPEA Family Cruise. So we’re going to be going to the Caribbean. So if you guys haven’t found out more information about that, you can find that out at heidistjohn.com/events. I’m pretty sure that the cruise for FPEA is sold out, but I’m told that there are a couple more rooms at a regular rate. So just let us know you’re coming, and we’ll put you in with a group. So we’ll find out more about that.

I’ll be at the DFW winter summit on the 24th of January and again on the 31st of January. So, busy season for me coming up. You can find out where I will be at heidistjohn.com/events. Thanks for listening to the podcast today. I’m excited you guys are here because I’m going to do something I haven’t done before, and that is talk about the issue of flat Earth.

My friends, Pat Roy and Kyle Justice are here in the studio with me today. Pat served at the Institute for Creation Research for 12 years as the director of broadcast media. And during his time at the ICR he and his wife created an audio series that you guys are going to be familiar with, Jonathon Park, which was a creation based audio drama heard by literally millions around the world, including my kids. Pat’s someone of a legend around here at Firmly Planted, and he recently created a new audio drama called Time Chroniclers. So we’ll link back to that in the show notes today. Pat has served as director at Genesis Apologetics and traveled the nation speaking to hundreds of audiences of all ages about the importance of trusting God’s word.

I let Kyle into the studio today on a whim. Kyle is an Emmy nominated producer. Kyle Justice began producing television projects as a teenager. Some of you guys have teens that are interested in producing and being coming producers. I am always telling you, “Dude, let them go for it,” because we want to fold our kids where they’re bent. I think Kyle’s a great example of that. This led him to work for and produce programming for major cable networks such as The Family Channel, ESPN, and National Geographic. In 1997, he partnered with my friend Ken Ham at Answers in Genesis, to produce the first creation kid show called The X-Nilo Show. I didn’t know you did that. I watched that. We’ll get back to you. This eventually led him to establishing Awesome Science Media, a prolific producer of creation science media, used by homeschool families and aired throughout the world. Kyle is a homeschool dad of eight kids and married to his beautiful wife Dawn since 1991. Guys, welcome to the podcast.

[Kyle] Wow.

[Pat] Yeah. Thanks for having us here.

[Kyle] Yeah, that was a great intro.

[Pat] No kidding, thank you.

[Heidi] It’s almost like you wrote it yourself.

[Pat] Almost.

[Heidi] Almost. You guys, I’m excited that you’re here. So lots of stuff going on with you. You guys are out there getting it done. You’re what I like to call here at the podcast, we call it #offthebench. Off the bench and onto the battlefield and you guys are kind of in the middle of what can only be described I think, as a cultural battle. So I’m going to intro it this way. So my audience is used to me talking about controversial subjects. I actually love controversy because I feel like speaking truth into controversy actually sheds light on it, rather than just saying there’s a controversy. I say, let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about it from the position of the word of God, which you guys are doing. One of the things we started talking about here about four years ago was the topic of transgenderism.

I remember saying, “Oh, this will never… This is never going to take root in the culture. People are smarter than that”. No, they’re not. No, they’re not. And transgender is now of course, a force in the culture, largely because I think the church was silent and they thought like I did, “Oh, come on. Like no one’s going to believe this. Men can’t change into women, vice versa”. But I was wrong. And one of the… A similar topic is this issue of flat Earth. I heard about this right around four and a half years ago. I can’t remember where Jay and I were, but I met a woman at a homeschool conference. I was there with my friend Jay Wile, and he had a booth sort of behind me. You guys know Jay, sort of the… He is a physicist, right?

He’s a rocket scientist. I’m always like, what are you a rocket sci- oh nevermind. Yes you are. And this woman came up to me and I’m talking to her about what I’m passionate about, which is faith and culture. And she said, “what do you think about flat Earth?” And I started laughing and I was like, “Oh.” She wasn’t laughing, and I said, “Wait a minute, like you’re asking me for real?” And she said, “Yeah.” She said, “I really want to know.” And she began talking about her husband and basically it sounded almost cultish to me the way she was describing it. So I did my friend Jay Wile a favor, and I was like, hang on, I got someone you need to meet. So I took her, because I can’t answer this woman’s questions. I haven’t studied this thing.

All I wanted to say was, have you ever been in an airplane? Which I said to her, and she had this weird answer for me being in an airplane and how that did not- the curvature that I saw wasn’t actually right. And I thought, I can’t do this. So I took her over to Jay Wile and I said, Jay, I want you to meet my new friend and blah, blah, blah. I said, I can’t remember, let’s say her name is Mandy, for the sake of the discussion. I said, “Mandy”, I literally said this- in hindsight, maybe it wasn’t the right call, but I said, “Mandy, tell Dr. Wile what he’s won.”

And she kind of looked at me like, “what do you mean?” I said, “I’m so sorry. Tell him what you just told me”. And so she started saying, “Well, Heidi and I were just discussing the issue of flat Earth.” And Jay looked at me like, “are you for real right now?” And I was like, “Oh look at the time, I got to go.” And I left her there, right, to which this day, every time he sees me now out on the road, he’s just like, dude, you still owe me dinner. And he’s right.

But you guys deal with this issue all the time. And I guess the first one, the first thing I want to ask you, cause I know that my audience is like, “What? Is this really a thing? Is this really an issue?”

[Kyle] Well, I first started hearing about it through Dr. Danny Faulkner who works for Answers in Genesis, and he kept doing these posts on flat Earth. And I’m like, he’s joking. I think. April 1st came out last year or the year before, and he was all over it, and I’m like, is this for real or not? So, I called him up and he goes, yeah, it’s for real. And he’s even working on a book on it and selling. I’m like, I’m doing all these documentaries, and Pat and I had been working together on some other projects. It’s like, “Pat, maybe we should do a documentary on this.”

[Pat] Right. And at first it sounded like a really interesting topic, but the further we’ve gotten into this, the deeper the rabbit hole goes.

[Heidi] It’s terrifying.

[Pat] It really is and Heidi, I’ve become convinced that this is another distraction that is calling Christian men away from being fathers and being husbands and getting out the gospel. Because we have gotten emails from wives who say, I am desperate. My husband has pulled us out of church. We no longer read the scriptures except for to prove that the Earth is flat. He no longer interfaces with the children and he no longer talks to people about Christ, but now he’s a missionary of flat Earth. We’ve also heard of a church that has split over this issue and so we have gotten all kinds of messages from all kinds of people.

Heidi actually, I think about it this way. If I was say, trying to distract men from doing what they’re really called to, I would come up with an issue that doesn’t really matter and make it seem like it’s the most important thing on Earth. And that’s what we found, what the flat Earth movement is those that are convinced that the Earth is flat. They believe that it is the most important thing and that is how they spend all of their time— is trying to convince others that the Earth is flat.

[Heidi] Isn’t that amazing? It seems to me that we are very, I mean this was from Genesis. We are a very easily deceived people, right? I mean you can hear Satan whispering in Eve’s ear, :you won’t surely die, it’s not that. God didn’t mean it. Did God really say:- and God really did say. So, when you guys see how this is affecting Christian families and you see how it’s affecting the world around you, your response has been to say, “Oh no, we’re going to show you, let’s actually take this up from a scientific standpoint,” which is largely what Answers in Genesis been doing all this time saying, listen, the Bible can actually stand up to your criticism. Let’s have the conversation and you guys have found a really unique way to do that. How did you come up with this idea, and sort of where is it taking you?

[Kyle] Well, it’s interesting because it seems like there’s two camps in the flat Earth movement. There’s the secular flat Earth movement, and then there’s the biblical, flat Earth movement. I mean, Heidi you said, “Hey, let’s show them the scriptures, it would make sense,” but there’s a whole camp of Christians that are using the scriptures to prove that the Earth is flat.

[Heidi] That’s the lady at my booth, she was quoting scriptures to me and I was like, okay, I don’t even know what to do with you now.

[Kyle] And I mean all over history you have different groups that are quoting scriptures to prove their little points and so on. And so what we have really had to do when we looked at the documentary and what did we have to present in it was, gee, I think we have to go after, not just the scientific side first, but the biblical whole model of what verses are they using? And then did they really work?

[Heidi] So we’re talking about this to a lot of people who have never heard of flat- they’re like, uh-uh, it’s kind of a big deal though. Like if you were to get on the Internet and start searching the flat Earth theories- and I saw a guy in the airport, before the show aired, I was telling you guys, I used to think, Oh, this will never catch on. Just like the lie of transgenders, and which it really is a lie, right? That we’ve just believed. And I saw a guy in the airport not too long ago and he had- yes, the Earth is flat. Asked me why, and I was like, I’m not touching that with a ten foot pole.

Then I think what you guys are doing is so cool because what you’re saying is, we need to engage. As Christians, we need to understand the argument, right? And be able to engage and the Bible says that we’re supposed to be able to give an answer for the hope that lies within us. And what you’re doing is you’re equipping Christians to engage in this discussion with an answer. And so, where do we start? You’re saying it’s relevant. Pat why do you say it’s relevant? Why should people care about this issue?

[Pat] Well, Heidi I think that there are more people converting to the idea of the flat Earth than any other time in history. I think it’s really affecting churches. I think most churches, from what I’ve seen, most of them have never even heard of this, right? People just disappear from their congregations and they don’t know why. Or, the other response is, well, that’s ridiculous. That’ll never catch on.

[Heidi] That was me. Are you making fun of me right now, Pat? You making fun of me on my own podcast?

[Pat] There you go.

[Heidi] Back it up there, brother.

[Kyle] Never, never.

[Pat] So I think those are the ways. And so, either they’re ignoring it or they think it’s ridiculous. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people are converting to this idea that the Earth is flat, and I just think it’s a dangerous idea. I think it’s having a huge impact on families and churches and nobody even really realizes it’s an issue.

[Heidi] Well, why should we care? I mean, you’re saying it’s a dangerous idea. And I’m like, who cares? So they think the Earth is flat, why do I care?.

[Pat] Well, again, I think the shape of the Earth really doesn’t matter, right? It really doesn’t matter. But what does matter is the fruits that we see from it. And again, we’re getting emails from wives whose husbands have completely pulled them out of church. We’ve gotten emails from churches that have said that they have split. We’re just seeing negative fruits from all of this. And my goodness, Heidi, once you get involved in the flat Earth, it seems like it consumes these people, and then all of a sudden they’re not out sharing the gospel anymore.

[Kyle] And not just in the U.S., too. I’ve heard Latin America, it’s spreading like wildfire there, too. So you know, it’s going around the world.

[Pat] Around the world.

[Heidi] What look what just happened! There are flat Earthers all around the globe.

[Pat] We actually, in our documentary went out on the streets. And I’ve got a clip with me where we actually went out onto the streets and talk to people about what they thought about the flat Earth.

[Heidi] So this is your documentary, your new one, Faith on the Edge, right? And this is a sampling of you guys talking to ordinary people about what they think. Let’s hear it.

CLIP:

[Pat] Okay. So Kyle, we’ve heard that this idea is really popular, but I would like to hear what people are actually thinking.

[Kyle] Let’s take it to the street.

[Pat] Many people these days are starting to believe that the Earth is flat. What do you think about that?

Person 1: That’s still a thing?

Person 2: It’s round, just keeps going around and around and around, man.

Person 3: It looks pretty flat to me, but I think it’s round. Saturn’s round, Jupiter round. Everything else is round.

Person 4: I was actually reading something the other day that said, the Earth is in a donut shape.

[Pat] And the moon is a coffee, right?

Person 4: You never know, it could be flat.

Person 5: I think that it’s whatever they tell us.

[Kyle] Okay, whatever they tell us so… But there’s some people that say round, some that say flat. What do you think?

Person 5: I think unless we actually go out there and explore it for ourselves, there’s no way that we can actually know what it is.

Person 6: No, I don’t think the Earth is flat.

[Pat] You think it’s round?

Person 6: Yeah, I guess- yeah, you’re right. I guess it’s round.

[Pat] Really? I just convinced you just like that?

Person 7: There’s a lot of compelling evidence that, the possibility that the Earth is flat. While in other cases the Earth is actually around, and the Bible doesn’t really talk about the Earth being round.

[Pat] What shape do you think the Earth is?

Person 8: Triangle? I feel like that’d be a tough sell.

[Pat] You think it’d be a- I bet it’s not as tough as you would think it would be.

Person 9: I don’t know. I think the Earth is definitely round. For people that believe the Earth is flat, maybe that’s true.

[Kyle] It wouldn’t be the two different shapes at the same time though. Is that what you’re saying?

Person 9: I don’t know. I mean our personal beliefs create our realities I guess, so I think it can kind of be both at the same time.

[Kyle] So do you know anybody who does believe in the flat Earth?

Person 9: Yes. One of my good friends is a flat Earther, yes.

Person 10: No, I don’t have any friends.

Person 11: Tons of boys at my school.

Person 12: Yeah, definitely.

Person 13: There’s people who say they do. I think it’s definitely a cultural trend.

Person 14: Kind of caught me by surprise when I found out, but yeah.

[Kyle] Why did they become so passionate about it, it almost seems like they become evangelists of the Flat Earth.

Person 15: It’s like it’s an anti kind of movement.

Person 16: A lot of people now are just starting to identify in an idea or a party versus themselves.

Person 17: Those people need to find hobbies.

[Kyle] Maybe that is their hobby. Just using your own observations, why do you think the Earth is round?

Person 18: Well, I can… Got me right there.

Person 19: Why the Earth is round… It’s very hard to explain that. I don’t…

Person 18: My own senses. Nothing I’ve been told.

Person 20: I would say just from the pull of gravity and then also you look at the day night cycle to the rest of the world.

Person 24: Until they show evidence, that’s when I will actually start looking into it.

Person 21: But he’s saying the same thing about people who believe that the Earth is round. We’ve been given these facts.

Person 22: To say that the Earth is flat is basically rejecting all of the scientific evidence that we’ve compiled.

[Kyle] Why do you think that young, younger people are the ones that are having a harder time accepting these things?

Person 23: Where do you look next for young people to be upset? Kind of overthrow the man, overthrow the machine, is going to be at the government. And I think that’s where a lot of these tensions and these questions kind of raise from.

[Kyle] Well, Pat that was really fascinating to learn what everyday people are thinking about the flat Earth.

[Pat] It was interesting that some of them were actually questioning the shape of the Earth. And then almost all of them had friends or family that believed that the Earth was flat. And then it was also interesting that they couldn’t defend their own observable facts on why the Earth is round.

[Kyle] That’s fascinating. My favorite guy was the guy who said “whatever your truth is, that’s what the Earth is shaped.”

[Pat] That was really interesting to me.

END CLIP

[Heidi] All right, so you’ve got a pretty good smattering of people there with kind of differing ideas and differing opinions. I thought it was really interesting that when you say, well, why do you say that the Earth is round? Some we’re like— “uhhh”. I mean if somebody asked me why the Earth is round, I’ll just be like, cause I saw a picture of it.

[Pat] But those were all faked by NASA.

[Heidi] I heard that.

[Kyle] Now, Heidi what’s interesting is when I go out to speak now on general creation topics, not even talking about the flat Earth, but just talk about scientific evidence for creation. I now will ask the audience, how many of you either believe the Earth is flat, or know somebody personally that does believe that the Earth is flat? And about a third of the hands go up, nowadays.

[Heidi] That’s crazy town. I mean it seems crazy to me. I was thinking about this as I’m listening to these people, I’m all for being open minded, right. That’s a big thing. Tolerance, open-minded. It’s like we’ve gotten so open-minded that our brains have fallen out. And I was thinking that really what’s happening0 and this is kind of where I’d like to sort of segue this conversation a little bit.

And I heard you talking about these women are writing you, and they’re saying their husbands are leaving their families, they’re pulling their kids out of church. They’re basically worshiping at the idol— of the altar of flat Earth right now. And it seems like a distraction. But I wrote in my notes it seems to me that evangelism for anything else is really idolatry. We can do this in the homeschool movement, right? I mean I can sit here, Pat, you and I have had this discussion, over the last couple of years for sure. People that we have seen that worshiped homeschooling. And homeschooling is the answer and homeschooling this, and homeschooling that. If we’re not turning people back toward Jesus, then it doesn’t really matter what we’re saying. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if the Earth is round or the Earth is flat. These guys, if they don’t have the gospel, they’re going to Hell. And that’s the bottom line.

[Pat] Well, I would say for the Christian flat Earth movement, I think most of them are actually Christians who have trusted Christ the savior. I just feel like they’re distracted. And so I want to say very clearly, I don’t think the flat Earth is a salvation issue. But what I do think is it’s a distraction issue. I think it’s taking people away from the gospel, from their wives, from their children, from their families, from their churches. That’s what I think is happening.

[Kyle] You think about Pilgrim’s Progress and how, Christians, that these different groups would get distracted in these towns and stuff, and not go the path that God has for them.

[Heidi] He’s on his way to the Celestial City but he forgot. He forgot!

[Kyle] And I’ve compared the flat Earth to that type of thing. Where these men, and training their families onto the next generation to serve and love the Lord. It’s not happening now because of the flat Earth.

[Heidi] And when you guys meet people who like me, I’m going to kind of swing it back around to this because I always feel like whenever I address topics like this with an audience that’s feeling already overwhelmed, right? There’s so many problems like Heidi, do you have to talk about one more thing? Next week I’m just going to have somebody come on and we’re going to talk about how to bake gingerbread cookies, all right? That’ll be the next thing we do because we don’t have to argue about it, or wonder if the gingerbread is actually real or if it’s flat or not. You can add more baking powder and it’ll be a little rounder or…

[Kyle] You believe gingerbread is flat?

[Heidi] But so here’s my thing. How can we encourage, cause we’re going to run out of time for today’s show. I’m going to bring you guys back because I want to talk about the scientific problems with the flat Earth theory. I want our listeners to really hear the science behind it, but I’d like to leave them today with an understanding of why this matters to them and is there a reason for them to engage in the conversation, to where if they encounter somebody that believes this, they will have an answer because it rather than just say, here’s another big problem for you guys, I want to give them kind of hope. Really that’s what you’re doing. That’s what your new documentary Faith on the Edge is about. You guys have been out there, you’re doing the research for us. Thank you very much. Doing the research for us, so that we can get a better of the issue at hand. Right? Was that the motivation behind the documentary?

[Kyle] Well, we began talking about this right at the beginning, because we realized that usually flat Earthers are so committed that you don’t often see them come back out of believing in the flat Earth again. So we said, well, what is the purpose of our documentary? Is it to try and turn flat Earthers back into round Earthers? Well, no, not really. I think more what our calling has been with this is to try and educate people. So if they are a wife, or children or whatever, they understand the issues. But I think most importantly of all, it’s to stop people from going to the flat Earth in the first place. We feel like if we can give them the evidence ahead of time, that when they’re confronted with it, that they already understand what the issues are, and already understand why the flat Earth is not a valid position.

[Pat] I think so many of the— what how many verses? Like 200 references to the flat Earth, the flat Earthers.

[Kyle] Right and hopefully in our next episode we can talk about those because that’s really the commitment of a lot of flat Earthers is they believe that the biblical positions says that the Earth is flat. And so I think we need to kind of address that a little bit and show why that…

[Pat] And the thing is we wanted to help other Christians who run into this, these verses that are being used. Really what the context of the passage is. So they’re not sitting there going, “Oh wow, it does say that.”

[Heidi] Right, so they’re not confused.

[Pat] And then they begin to question. So, we’re doing some apologetics at the same time. And that was a big goal, especially the first half of the documentary.

[Heidi] And the Christian Church really doesn’t see this as an issue right now. I mean I don’t hear churches talking about this. I don’t feel like I kind of feel like it’s going to slap them upside the head. Frankly, like the transgenderism issue. And when I wrote Becoming MomStrong two years ago, a lot of what I was saying, the premise behind that was, this generation of parents is dealing with questions that previous generations didn’t even see coming. And so part of the reason why I want to have you guys on the show is to say, get ready cause this question is coming. You are going to get asked it. Somebody at some point is going to say, “Hey, I believe blah, blah, blah,” which really a lie from the enemy, right? And it is I think a source of distraction, but also it takes away from the creator. And, and we do this. I mean this is the enemy, right? Over time, just distracting us with different things. And so in that regard, it really does matter.

One more thing before I wrap the show up for today. When someone says to you, let’s say just a mom or a dad is listening. I know there’s a lot of men listening to this today, and they’re like, “what? This isn’t really a thing.” Why should they care about this issue? Why should it matter to the average person who’s like, “I don’t know if I’m ever going to even be and why should I care one way or the other?”

[Pat] Well, I think you’re definitely, if you haven’t already, you’re going to encounter somebody who believes in the flat Earth. It has become so common now. Everybody is going to run into somebody who believes it.

[Kyle] And their kids, a lot of their kids are running into this. And we’re hearing about kids asking their parents, “Hey, what about this? So, how do I interpret what they’re saying?” And the parents often don’t have the answers. And so we want to prepare parents to be able, when their kids have questions, they’ll be able to say, “oh yeah, here’s the context and here’s the science of behind it”. So we’re providing tools for parents to be able to talk to the kids about this.

[Heidi] And so really what you’re helping parents do is to get ahead of it, to get out ahead of it. And I love that. I’m going to read from the back of your new DVD that just cause- is it out available for people right now?

[Kyle] Came out last March.

[Heidi] Fantastic. So it says on the back, it says there’s a new wave of Christians converting to a belief in the flat Earth and it’s having a serious impact on our world. Are you equipped to give biblical and scientific answers to questions that will inevitably come from family and friends? And you guys have some really great guests on this with you. Dr. Charlie Duke. You said he was Capcom for Apollo 11 and an astronaut for Apollo 16, he’s on here?

[Pat] Yes.

[Kyle] Yes.

[Heidi] Wow. What was that like?

[Kyle] You were on the moon, what do you think, round or flat? You’re going to be surprised by the answer.

[Pat] He was great. I interviewed him. He was awesome.

[Heidi] Oh, that’s fantastic. So you got a really great a range of guests on here speaking to this issue. It’s a fascinating topic and I’d love it, would you guys come back next Friday and we can finish this conversation?

[Pat] We’d love to.

[Kyle] We’d love to do that.

[Heidi] All right. We’ll plan it. We’re going to come back next Friday. This is too much for one show and so I’d like these guys to come back next Friday. My friends Pat Roy and Kyle Justice here, talking about the flat Earth and why it should matter to you. And what is the answer that you can give. Thanks for listening everybody. Stay faithful and I’ll see you back here on Monday.

Write to Heidi:
Heidi St. John
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Support this ministry by donating through E-giving. You can also send donations to: 1100 NE34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

 

Submit your questions to MailBox Monday.

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Don’t Miss These!

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TRANSCRIPTION:

Hey, everybody, this is Heidi St. John. The public school system in Battle Ground, Washington has thrown out requirements that teach sex education. We got a lot to talk about, everybody. 

Stick around. I think you’re going to be encouraged. 

All right. So wow. Where do I even begin? First of all, today is Monday, November the 4th. It’s been one week since my little town in Battle Ground, Washington issued a shot that’s been heard around the world in the fight against comprehensive sex education. Today is the day that I normally talk about your questions, and I’m going to address some of them today, but I really want to bring you up to date on what is happening in the fight against comprehensive sex education.

First of all, it’s really important for listeners to understand what we are talking about when we say comprehensive sex education. A lot of you don’t know what comprehensive sex education is. You’ve never heard of it before. You think, “Well, who cares? Our kids should have sex education.” It’s so interesting to me because most of my listeners, and I think this is true for 90% of those of you who are listening to me, when you think of sex ed in school, you think of the birds and the bees, we’re teaching kids how their bodies work, what puberty is, how babies are made, about avoiding STDs, about AIDS, but comprehensive sex education is a whole new deal. It goes far beyond sex ed. It is a dangerous assault on the health and innocence of our children. This is from the American College of Pediatricians. And as a mother myself, I have been watching with a fair degree of frustration and horror, really, at what is happening in our schools.

So I began to get involved in the fight against comprehensive sex education, even though my kids are not in the public school. And you could say, “Why would you want to do that? Why do you care? Your kids are not in the public school.” Listen, here’s why I care. Are you ready? I care because these kids are tomorrow’s lawmakers. These kids are tomorrow’s grandparents. They are tomorrow’s nurses, and teachers, and doctors, and attorneys, and judges. They really are. And we need to be very, very concerned and very interested in what they’re being taught in school and who is pushing the agenda that our children really are suffering under, and they really are suffering. 

So there’s a couple things you need to know, and I’m going to go into comprehensive sex education today because … especially if you live in Battle Ground. Listen, if you live in Battle Ground, Washington, for the love of all things, stop reading The Colombian and start doing your homework because the news is not talking about what comprehensive sex ed is. What they’re doing is they’re talking about the Battle Ground school district saying that there’s no longer a sex ed requirement in high school. 

So let me back up and tell you how we got to that point. So first of all, LGBTQ activists have successfully created a highly sexualized culture with devastating results. The answer to that is not more and earlier sexualization, as comprehensive sex education believes in promotes.

And by the way, you guys, CSE, which is the, the short term for a comprehensive sex education … So I’m going to say CSE from here on out so you’ll know what I’m talking about. CSE is in an open, committed relationship with Planned Parenthood, who by the way stands to profit greatly by offering students unfettered access to abortion without parental knowledge or consent. Do you want, let’s say, a political operative teaching your child anything at school? No, because it’s a political organization. And the fact that Planned Parenthood is deeply invested in CSE should be a shot across the bow for any parent. It’s an indicator as to the intent of CSE, which is to sexualize our children and promote dangerous sexual themes to underage students. You guys, this is alarming.

Just so you know, parents, if you’ve got a 10-year-old or an 8-year-old listening to this today, I’m going to use some terminology that’s in CSE so that you can understand what I’m talking about. So I’ve had several people, because I was at the meeting in Battle Ground on Monday, and we prayed over this, you guys, fasting and praying. We knew we were up against a lot, and so we went to the Lord and we basically said, “Lord, you’re the best father that there is. Please come to the defense of your children. Please come to the defense of your children.”

You guys, childhood is confusing enough without introducing controversial sexual topics that even adults can’t agree on. And our children are precious, and we have lost sight of that. Instead of seeing our children as precious, we have begun to experiment with them, and CSE is a massive experiment because we have been duped into thinking that the sex ed that we currently have in our schools is out of touch and won’t work. But guess what, you guys? Our biology hasn’t changed. Babies are still made the same way. Boys are still born with boy parts. Girls are still born with girl parts.

And listen, you guys, if you’re not off the bench and into this battle, can I just encourage you? Now is the time. Now is the time. Comprehensive sex education is teaching our children that their gender is fluid, that it’s a social construct. This is placing an entire generation at risk of unproven hormone therapy and radical surgical intervention. In fact, we are living in the culture right now where the most extreme 1% of our population is seeking to dictate national social policy to the other 99%.

Our children are precious. Sex is precious. And Battle Ground, Washington parents sent that message loud and clear last Monday night when we showed up in droves and begged the board of directors of the Battle Ground public school to please do not do this to our children. Do not require comprehensive sex ed. Now, the board is saying, “Well, it doesn’t matter because Olympia is going to mandate it.” Well, they very well might try, but we’re not going down without a fight. 

You see, here’s the bottom line. Doesn’t matter where you are. If you guys just Google comprehensive sex education, I will almost promise you, if it’s not in your school, they’re pushing for it right now. And this is not the sex ed that you remember it, and so I want you not to be, when they come and say, “Our kids need sex ed,” “Well, great. I agree. Absolutely. Let’s give our kids sex ed,” which frankly I don’t know why the parents aren’t doing it. Oh, I know why. Because we’re using the public school system as a babysitter. That’s why. The schools have become so used to us doing this the parents over time now are being systematically denied their most fundamental rights to the detriment of our children and our society. And last Monday night, we said loud and clear that parents want a voice in their children’s education. 

Parents should be in the driver’s seat of sex education. They should not cede this precious responsibility to the radicals who wrote comprehensive sex education. We want to decide who shapes the sexual viewpoint and ideologies of our children. The schools have gone from teaching kids about sex to telling them how to have sex. And if you don’t believe me, all you got to do is read a couple of pages from CSE, particularly FLASH. I’m going to get to your questions in a little bit because a lot of you are asking me questions, and I’m going to give you sort of the code names for comprehensive sex education.

But for example, CSE is undermining parental authority. In lesson three, page three it says, “Call your local family planning clinic to acquire brochures and learn if pregnancy testing is confidential for minors in your state.”

In lesson three on pregnancy, it states, “Confidential services include birth control, condoms, emergency contraceptive pregnancy tests, STD and HIV tests, abortion, and adoption— all confidential. Your parents don’t need to know.” They list the pros and cons of condom use. You guys know what one of the big cons was? Wait for it. Wait for it. Parents can find them. They literally say that in the so-called curriculum. 

In lesson 10 on page eight, it says, “Give information about where teens can get birth control in your community, including whether it’s confidential and free.” This word confidential is just a code for we’re not going to tell your parents.

Lesson 13, where to get tested worksheet. Here’s the first question. Is my appointment confidential? For example, does a teen need a parent’s permission to get tested? Over, and over, and over again, they drive a wedge between parents and their children. They say parents should not be involved in their children. Hey, parents, you sit down and take a seat on the side. We can take it from here. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, parents, you uneducated, backward people. 

Listen, we’re not anti sex ed. I’m going to keep saying it over again. We are anti radicalized sex ed, which is what CSE is. And every parent listening to this should be fighting with everything that’s in them. We want our kids to see sex as precious, not as a casual thing that they can engage in because it leads to all manner of heartache, both spiritually and physically. And every grownup listening to this knows that I’m right, even the people who are pushing this ridiculous ideology. 

You see, CSE views sex as little more than one casual encounter after another. Get pregnant? No problem. Have an abortion. We’ll tell you how to do it without your parents ever knowing that you’re fooling around. If you’re concerned you’re not going to know about all the sexual options you have, no problem. Here’s a tutorial in how to use a female condom for anal sex. You guys, that’s in the curriculum.

So don’t write me and tell me how much of a prude I am and how I don’t want our kids to be educated. I don’t want my kids to be radicalized. That’s what I don’t want because comprehensive sex education will teach your kids about anal sex, but they won’t tell them the drawbacks. They won’t tell them about the tissue in this particular part of your body that wasn’t built for that. It’s appalling, it’s dangerous, and it’s not in the best interest of our kids.

I heard on Monday night that they want CSE in our schools because the LGBTQ community is being bullied. All right. Can I just be real for a second? Bullying is not unique to the LGBTQ community. Don’t believe me. Slap a Trump sticker on your car and drive into Portland and let me know how that goes for you. Bullies are everywhere, and I would argue that those who are pushing CSE in the schools against the will and wishes of the parents are the real bullies. Do I sound upset? It’s because I am.

In Seattle, Washington, OSPI did a survey in the Puget Sound area, the most liberal area of Washington state, and 58% of parents surveyed said, “We do not want this in our schools.” But guess what? They don’t actually care about their surveys because they’re doing it anyway. If 58% of parents in the most liberal part of Washington state say, “No, we don’t want CSE,” and they’re doing it anyway, do you think they give one wit about what you guys think in little tiny Battle Ground or Hockinson, Washington or Aurora, Colorado or Tampa, Florida or Richmond, Virginia? They don’t care.

I’m all about solutions for bullying, but CSE is no solution. Bullying is not limited to LGBTQ kids. In fact, I have seen firsthand how conservatives, Christians, and faith-based communities are the target of repeated bullying. You guys should see in my inbox right now. I’m being called backward, ignorant, uneducated, a bigot. It goes on, and on, and on. 

You know why we got bullies in our schools? Because we took the Bible out. That’s why. Because we stop talking about kindness. We stop talking about preciousness and the preciousness of other people. We stopped teaching morality that God created sex for marriage between a man and a woman. 

And this is not about … Listen, I have friends who are gay. And actually, I have friends who are gay who hate that this is being pushed to children because they know how backward it is. We should be kind to each other. You bring me the kid that’s bullying that kid who says he’s gay or transgendered. He needs to go out to the woodshed with the rest of the bullies. Bullying is wrong no matter who you’re bullying or for whatever reason, but we have got to start standing up to this and saying, “Not on my watch.” These are our kids. These are our kids.

We have engaged in the public school system in an untested social experiment, and the preliminary test results are in, you guys. They’re all over the culture, and they’re not good. We saw evidence here in Washington state that since the introduction of CSE teen pregnancy is up, not down. Why? Because we’re creating a culture of promiscuity. STDs are up. Rapid onset gender dysphoria is happening at an alarming rate. Suicide is up. You guys, this is not just about the bodies of our kids. It’s about their hearts and their souls, and parents have an obligation to protect children from sexual activists, and that’s exactly what CSE is.

I think it’s important for parents in Washington state to understand that a Democrat-controlled education in Olympia who failed to push CSE, which by the way is also part of the United Nations agenda … If that doesn’t make your skin crawl, I don’t know what will. They failed to push CSE through in the form of SB 5395 this year because me and a couple hundred of my closest friends went up there and said, “Oh no, no. They’re going to attempt to do it again. They’re going to attempt to make it state law in 2020, and thereby they will take away all options from citizens. You guys have got to get involved. This cannot become state law anywhere, not just here in Washington, but it must not be mandated anywhere.”

This is incredibly dangerous for children, and we need you to be talking about comprehensive sex education and all the different names that it goes by. So if you hear things like FLASH, run for your life. If you hear My Future-My Choice, run for your life. It’s Perfectly Normal, get out. Rights, Respect, Responsibility, same thing. Over, and over, and over again, the All-In-One curriculum, which is supported by UNESCO, there are so many national and international materials that are CSE and parents don’t know what they are, and I want to just encourage you right now. Like I’ve said before, this is not just happening in little a Battle Ground, Washington. It’s happening all over the world. 

Couple of names of some of the supplemental CSE materials, here you go, the G-Spot show, info for teens, dry humping saves lives. I’m really sorry to have to say this stuff on here, you guys, but this is what’s going on. I had a woman say to me today, “Why do you have to talk about this stuff on your podcast?” Because it’s happening and people don’t want us to talk about it, and that’s absolutely why it continues to happen. We want to go back to our little Christian bubble and just expect that everybody will leave us alone, except for that’s not what’s happening. CSE is one of the greatest assaults on the health and innocence of our children that I have ever seen. Because unlike the sex education that you and I grew up with, this is highly explicit. It promotes promiscuity and high-risk sexual behaviors to children, and it promotes them as healthy and normal.

And from what I have read, and I have read the CSE programs, it has almost an obsessive focus on teaching children how to obtain sexual pleasure in various ways. And yet ironically, the CSE programs are anything but comprehensive. They fail to teach children about the emotional pitfalls of the activities that they are promoting. They fail to teach children about the psychological and physical health risks of promiscuity. You see, the ultimate goal of CSE is to change the sexual and gender norms of society, which is why CSE could be more accurately called abortion, promiscuity, and LGBT rights education because that’s what it is. 

I’m going to link back to some things today that I really hope you’ll watch. There’s a video that opened my eyes to the dangerous ideology that is pushing CSE in partnership with GLSEN and many gay rights organizations and Planned Parenthood who has dumped who knows how many millions of dollars into this. But, there’s a video called The War on Children. If you haven’t seen it yet, stop what you’re doing tonight. Get your husband, get your wife, sit down, open up your computer, and watch it. It will make you weep, and hopefully you’ll get off the bench. 

I keep telling parents, right here in Hockinson, Washington, basically, the school board there passed it. Didn’t even mention it to the parents. They’re not giving parents a voice. Battle Ground gave their parents a voice, and we overwhelmingly said, “No, no, no, no, no.” And I woke up to headlines the next day that were absolutely startling. Battle Ground public school eliminates sex ed requirement, all over. The Associated Press picked it up. We’ve been reviewing this stuff for a year, and here’s what the paper says. “The lessons which were to be taught in grades 9 to 12 were to include materials from the Centers for Disease Control Prevention, Positive Prevention PLUS, the district’s high school health textbook called Essential Health, and Family Life and Sexual Health, also known as,” wait for it, “FLASH.”

Battle Ground Public Schools halted its planning adoption of the sex ed curriculum in 2018 after pressure from families. Then they didn’t listen to us and brought it back. They tried to change it up. They tried to put … They give us the stinky, awful, horrible indoctrination of a sex ed curriculum, and then they put lipstick on it, took a couple things out, and sent it right back. And parents again overwhelmingly said no. No.

According to Seattle, this is what FLASH is going to prepare your students for. Are you ready? To successfully navigate puberty, to abstain from sex … to use condoms and birth control when they do have sex, to confirm consent before engaging, to report sexual abuse and assault, to communicate with their families about sexual health and dating, to make decisions that minimize risk to their sexual health, and to seek medical care in order to take care of their reproductive health, which they should add in secrecy if at all possible. It’s disgusting.

And by the way, when they say that they encourage students to abstain from sex, I just want to read something to you. I’m going to read to you what I read to the board of directors in Battle Ground the other night so you guys can understand why parents said no to this. Listen, this is a script, okay? So this is what … If your kids are listening, please turn this off and come back later. I’m going to give you a second. You’ve had your second. Turn it off. 

What’s funny is this is the sex ed that they are saying that they’re going to teach our children. And I’m telling you, don’t even let your kids listen to this because that’s how bad it is. And yet they want it in every school in the nation, all right? So here is the script. Are you ready? This is the teacher talking. “Today we are going to discuss abstinence. Can someone define abstinence for me?” Now it says in parentheses, “Allow students to give their own definition of abstinence and then validate their ideas.” Okay. All right. Okay. I’m going to keep going. 

“People have a lot of personal definitions of abstinence. The definition we are going to use in this class is that abstinence means not having oral, anal, or vaginal sex. Oral sex is when one person’s mouth goes on another person’s genitals. Anal sex … ” and it goes on to describe it in great detail, right? Then they say, “Vaginal sex is when a penis goes in a vagina.” Okay. 

“The reason we are including all these types of sex in our definition of abstinence is because abstinence is a 100% effective way to not get pregnant or catch an STD. Some people can get STDs from oral, anal, and vaginal sex and can get pregnant from vaginal sex. So we are going to include all these types of sex in our definition of abstinence.” Well, you know what? Thank you very much. 

I mean, there are so they are so obsessed with anal sex in this curriculum it’s unbelievable. And they actually don’t … They never describe, because I looked for it. They never described what makes it dangerous. 

I had a woman write to me and she said, “Just because you think this is icky doesn’t mean people shouldn’t do it.” Wrong. I don’t think my body was made that way. I think if you’re going to tell kids this is an okay …  Can you guys imagine your 14-year-old daughter sitting in class getting this kind of information without actually telling her this part of your body was not made for this, and these are the reasons why it could hurt you? No, they’re not doing that. It makes me a hundred different kinds of angry. 

I wonder what Jesus would be doing if he was walking the streets right now or if he was at the Battle Ground School Board meeting last week. I would like to say thank you to the Battle Ground School Board, by the way, who actually said, “You know what? No, we’re just going to say no to comprehensives sex education and not make it a requirement in the Battle Ground schools.” It was a very brave thing to do. 

And the response of Planned Parenthood has been swift and severe. They are organizing efforts to canvas our area with materials that will falsely promote what CSE is. They’re all over this. Why? Because Planned Parenthood stands to profit from promiscuous teens who get pregnant out of wedlock and want an abortion in secret while their parents don’t know. It’s disgusting.

And I’m so sorry to be spending my whole podcast on this today, but I had at least three of you ask me about it and ask me if this is something they should be worried about. I’m getting all kinds of names. I really want to give you guys information, and I don’t have time today. I’m going to actually come back on Wednesday. We’re doing a change up here with what we’re going to be talking about on Wednesdays, and so I’m going to have more time to answer your questions on Wednesdays, more time to bring more guests even on the program. And we’re going to keep it real for you because I think you need to understand what’s going on. 

But before I go today, I just want to tell you what the Bible says, because I had a lot of you writing me telling me that you’re afraid. A lot of you are writing me asking me questions about terminology that you never heard of. Here’s the big one, social-emotional learning curriculum. If this is in your school, run for your life. It’s a whole new terminology, but write it down. Social-emotional learning curriculum. It is everywhere. It’s everywhere. And like most of the stuff that you see right now, it’s an agenda. It’s an agenda. Second Step, run for your life. They’re not teaching your kids sex ed anymore. They don’t even know how to do it. 

But I want to encourage you because I had so many of you write to me and say that you’re afraid. Listen, this is no time for fear. I had one woman say, “We don’t need to do anything. We just need to pray.” Well, that’s not what Joshua. That’s not what Esther … Can you imagine if Esther just prayed and then she didn’t actually go before the king? What if Esther was like, “Okay, Lord, I trust you, but I’m going to stay right here and you tell Xerxes what to do.” No, that’s not what she did. That’s not what Joshua did. That’s not what Noah did. That’s not what the apostle Paul did. That’s not what Timothy did. In fact, Paul instructing Timothy, because I’m sure Timothy had seen a lot with his own two eyes, right? Paul’s like, “Hey, listen, Timothy, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and a sound mind.”

In John 14:27, Jesus said, “Peace is what I leave with you. It is my own peace I give to you. I don’t give it as the world does, so do not be worried and upset. Do not be afraid.” Psalm 56:3, “When I’m afraid, I put my trust in you.” Philippians 4:6-7, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God, and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

What the Lord did in Battle Ground Washington the other night, you guys, was a miracle. It was a miracle that parents in the tiny town of Battle Ground, of which I am privileged to be a part of, could stand up for our children and watch God answer our prayers. And it’s not over yet. It’s not over by a long shot, but it was very encouraging. I saw a pastor from a Slavic church get up in front of the school board and say that he had been given the responsibility of shepherding over 700 children in his church. And he said, “If you pass this, I will have no choice but to tell the parents in my church they need to pull their children out of these schools.” And you know what? I’m going to take that a step further and say I think it’s already time. 

The schools are showing us every single day that they are going to kowtow to this wicked, evil sexual agenda, and it is wrong for our children. It is wrong before the Lord of heaven’s armies. God said it was better for you to have a millstone hung around your neck and be thrown into the sea than to cause even one of his children to stumble. And that’s what we’re doing.

So pray with me, you guys. And in fact, I know I’ve gone a couple minutes over. I’m going to pray about this today, and then I’m going to come back on Wednesday, let you know what we’re doing for the new agenda, and answer a few of your questions.

Father, I thank you for the fact that you have said that you will never leave us and you will never forsake us. Thank you that we read in the Psalms that even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we do not need to fear evil because you are with us. Your rod and your staff, they comfort us. Lord, thank you that in Joshua 1:9 you said, “Don’t be afraid. Be strong and courageous. Don’t be discouraged because the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Lord, I pray that you would give us courage and boldness. I pray, Lord, that we would get off the bench and onto the battlefield, that we protect these children. Lord, I pray that you would move us from a place of complacency, move us from a place of fear, move us out of our churches and into the culture, and help us to do it with grace, and with boldness, and with love. 

Father, I pray that you’d help us to share your message far and wide because we know that ultimately that is the answer, that you are the answer, Lord, that you bring healing, and hope, and forgiveness of sin, and we thank you for that. Help us, Lord, not to be afraid. Help us to take courage. We love you, Lord, and we lift your name high. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Thanks for listening today, everybody. I really appreciate you leaving reviews over at iTunes. That helps us very much. And also, if you have not done it, leave a review for Becoming MomStrong. I am actually working on a 365-day devotional right now. Please pray for me. Turns out that’s a big project. It’s a big one. 

There’s been a lot of stuff going on. Some of you guys are following me on social media and so you know that my family has been involved in some difficult things lately. We appreciate your prayers. At some point, I will be able to talk to you about it. But in the meantime, I thank you for praying. I want to let you guys know, in case anybody’s worried, I don’t have cancer. Nobody’s dying in my family. My marriage is fine. My kids are fine. We’re going through some pretty deep water. And like I said, at some point I’ll be able to talk to you about it. But in the meantime, we had this thing in the ’70s that I loved. It was called an unspoken prayer request, and certainly that’s what we are asking for right now, is for your prayers just to lift up my husband and myself and the ministry that we run here at the Firmly Planted Homeschool Resource Center.

Also want to let you guys know that I’m looking forward to getting your Christmas cards. And if you are able at all to support our ministry financially, we would greatly appreciate it. You can send your Christmas cards, and your pictures, and your correspondence to us here at Firmly Planted Family, 11100 Northeast 34th Circle, Vancouver, Washington, 98682.

We’re going to continue talking about what’s going on in the culture, and we’re making a shift, like I told you before, we’re making a shift in the Bible study. Some really awesome things happening. Today is the first day of the Bible study for MomStrong International. We’re going to be talking about contentment today, and I want to invite you guys to join me over at MomStrong International for the Bible study. 

If you purchased a monthly Bible study membership, be sure to join me at my Facebook group. It’s called MomStrong International Bible Study Members for weekly teaching and conversation. So I’m going to keep you guys updated on things happening in our life in ministry there. It’s easier for me to hop on there and do that. So if you’ve got questions about MomStrong International or the community of women there, please contact Kay Orr at Kay@heidistjohn.com and she’ll help get you started.

So remember, I’m over there at least once a week at least teaching the Bible study. This time we’re talking about contentment, especially important as we come up to the holiday season and being grateful and content with what we have. And honestly, you guys, contentment is a huge thing in the culture right now. You’re not content being a girl? Here, you can be a boy. God wants us to be content, and He teaches us in His word how to do it. 

So hop on over to MomStrong International. The brand new Bible study begins today. Join me. Sign up for the Bible study, and then we’ll put you in the members only Bible study group on Facebook at MomStrong International Bible Study Members Official, all right? If you guys got any questions, shout out to Kay, my girl Kay at kay@heidistjohn.com. Also, if you’re interested in booking me to speak for the 2021 season and late in 2020, or if you’d like to host my women’s conference Faith that Speaks, please reach out to Melissa, another one of my staff members, melissa@heidistjohn.com and she’ll get you the information that you need. Thank you so much for listening, everybody. Have a great day, and I’ll see you back here on Wednesday. 

Write to Heidi:
Heidi St. John
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Support this ministry by donating through E-giving. You can also send donations to: 1100 NE34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

 

Submit your questions to MailBox Monday.

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Charissa Hatten is the Executive Director of Oregonians for Medical Freedom, a financial professional, wife and mother of two elementary age boys. She experienced firsthand the need to support families and freedoms in our state when Oregon experienced an overreaching vaccine mandate proposed bill in 2019. Her history of working with families in Washington, California, Iowa and Oregon along with taking international service trips to Africa, Ukraine and Mexico has enabled her to work with diverse groups of people and fight to maintain personal freedoms.  She is now involved in the passionate cause of raising awareness and advocating for informed consent, parental rights and medical freedom in the state of Oregon.

Connect with Charissa Hatten: Website | Facebook | Twitter

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TRANSCRIPTION:

[Heidi] Hey everybody, this is Heidi St. John. Welcome to the podcast. Today is Friday, November 1st. This is episode number 839, this is meet my friend Friday. You guys know I love to have people who are off the bench and onto the battlefield, and today’s guest is doing just that. Her name is Charissa Hatten, she is the executive director of Oregonians for Medical Freedom. We’re going to be talking about a very controversial subject today, vaccines and forced mandates from the government. 

Stick around, I think you’re going to be encouraged.

All right, so lots of stuff going on in the culture right now. I want to remind you guys of a couple of things. We are just now starting a brand new scripture writing challenge, it begins today. Every single month, we do a scripture writing challenge at HeidiStJohn.com, and you can download that for free. And then I want to encourage you to jump into the Bible study. A brand new Bible study will start on Monday, they start the first Monday of every month. What we’re trying to do is encourage you to get into God’s word. The Bible studies and the scripture writing challenge can be found at MomStrongInternational.com, and we want to hear from you.

Also, if you guys have show ideas or questions that you would like answered at the show, please go to my website, HeidiStJohn.com/MailboxMonday and you can submit your questions and your show ideas. We really want to hear from you. This show is actually in response to several questions that I have been getting at the podcast over the last year and a half as we have seen the government slowly intruding on the rights of parents. I was introduced to Charissa from a mutual friend, and I’m telling you what, I love the fire that is in this woman to get off the bench and onto the battlefield. We’re going to talk about a relatively controversial topic today. My hope is that you will listen with an open heart and open hands and really ask the Lord what you should do.

Charissa is the executive director of Oregonians for Medical Freedom. Yes, there are sane people in Oregon. And she is a financial professional, a wife, and a mother of two elementary school aged boys. She experienced firsthand the need to support families and freedoms in our state when Oregon experienced an overreaching vaccine mandate proposed bill in 2019. You guys heard me talk about that on the podcast. Her history of working with families in Washington, California, Iowa, and Oregon, along with taking international service trips to Africa, Ukraine, and Mexico has enabled her to work with diverse groups of people and fight to maintain personal freedoms. She is now involved in the passionate cause of raising awareness and advocating for informed consent, parental rights, and medical freedom in the state of Oregon. Charissa, welcome to the show.

[Charissa] Thank you so much. And I just want to start off to say that I never thought I would be, quote-unquote, “qualified” to be helping a state activist organization. You would have asked me a year ago, “Do you see yourself as an activist walking into your state capital, meeting with senators and representatives and telling them how their legislation is affecting your family?” I would never, never have imagined it. In fact, I was in my mom bubble. A year ago, I was safe and sound, I was doing my job, both of my boys were in school. I have a first grader and a fifth grader. My husband is a school teacher. We were living life and just-

[Heidi] Doing your thing.

[Charissa] Doing my thing, just enjoying the ignorance of not knowing what was going on in politics and what was going on in my state. All of a sudden, in March, during the session in Oregon, a bill dropped and it was a vaccine mandate taking away exemption and leaving only medical exemptions. The thing about a medical exemption in Oregon is, a doctor not only has to approve them, but the state has to approve them, so-

[Heidi] We love it when the state gets involved.

[Charissa] Yeah, so they had their hand in it, so that takes away a parent’s ability to make a decision for their child, a medical decision for their child, which threw me, like, out of the roof. I was like, “How can this really be happening?” My first reaction was, “We’ve got to leave this state.”

[Heidi] Mm-hmm. A lot of people are doing that.

[Charissa] I wanted to leave the state. My husband and I were looking, “Where do we move? Where do we move?” And honestly, I just had what I would call as an awakening, and out of me came a call. Literally, a large voice that just said, “Not on my watch.”

[Charissa] Not on my watch is this going to happen. And you’re not going to kick me out of my state and you’re not going to take-

[Heidi] That’s right, preach! I love this woman.

[Charissa] You’re not going to take over my household, and you’re not going to come in and tell me what I have to put into my kids. They’re not your kids. Because you know who has to live with my kids day after day? It’s me. Not you. And if my kids are injured by vaccines, I have to live with it, not you. I have to pay the bills, not you. So get out of my house, get out of my life, and get out of my state. I mean, that’s how mad I was, and as you can tell, I’m very passionate. As soon as that fire was lit, I just … I was calling people, I got in touch with people in the capital that were a staffer, and I’m like, “What do I do to get the attention-“

[Heidi] You know what? I think people forget, they work for you.

[Charissa] Yes.

[Heidi] They work for you. You’re not here at the behest of the government. The government is here to work for you, and what has happened in the last five years, ten years, 15 years, and we’re certainly seeing our kids are being taught this, is that we are to bow down to the government. And that’s not actually how it works.

[Charissa] And it’s been a slow-

[Heidi] Slow pace, mm-hmm.

[Charissa] It’s been a slow sleep that we have all taken, thinking, “Well, government’s going to take care of us.” That’s the mindset that we all have.

[Heidi] Yes. And if you’re a socialist, that’s what you want.

[Charissa] Right.

[Heidi] Yeah.

[Charissa] And it’s-

[Heidi] Are you a socialist?

[Charissa] No, I am not a socialist.

[Heidi] Just checking. Just checking, because we’re going to have words.

[Charissa] Quite the opposite. It’s called taking responsibility.

[Heidi] Hello.

[Charissa] We take up our rights and responsibilities as citizens in America.

[Charissa] So yeah, I basically started just in central Oregon, getting together with other moms. We started doing Facebook lives, we started literally chasing down our representatives and senators in their public forums, questioning on them of what gave them the right. What gives them the right to come and tell us what we’re supposed to do, what medical decisions we’re supposed to make for our kids, and I’m telling you, I guess, I’ve heard … I haven’t been able to hear from all the other states, but Oregon made quite an impact on their legislators. We’d stop up their meetings, we slowed down things so bad for them at the capital, they could not do business. So many parents were upset about this.

[Heidi] Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that’s what needs to happen. I feel like a large part, like you and I were just talking about before the show, a large part of what I feel my responsibility is is to steward the platform that the Lord has given me, and it burns inside of me to just say to these parents, “Get off the bench.”

[Heidi] If ordinary … Because you would consider yourself to be just a, quote, “ordinary” mom, right? Ordinary parents have got to engage in the fight to take away our freedom, because we’re having our freedom threatened on 100 different levels right now. I just had Kevin Sorbo on the show two weeks ago on a Friday, and he was saying, “Listen, we’ve got politicians right now, hello, who want to take away your Second Amendment freedom, and we have a right that is guaranteed to us under our Constitution to defend ourselves.”

[Heidi] And really, what they’re doing in taking away medical freedom is, they’re also removing your right to defend yourself. You should be able to make these choices. And like you and I have said, to me, this is not about vaccines. This is about, where does the government get to come in and tell an individual citizen what they can and cannot do with their own body.

[Charissa] Yes, yes, yes. And see, that’s why after World War II, the Nuremberg code was written. It was basically written to give us the right to say, “We do not have to subject our bodies to experimentation, to any coerced medical procedures,” and vaccines are a medical procedure. Something is being injected in our body. And so, we have basically, since World War II said, “You cannot experiment, and you cannot coerce people to do medical procedures as a government.”

That is a basic medical right, a basic bodily autonomy freedom that, as Americans, we have. And we have to stand up right now and basically stand in our right, or it will be taken away from us.

[Heidi] Well, I think something that you said, and I want to camp on it for just a second … Your reaction was like a lot of our reactions, when we realized, “Oh my goodness, look what’s happening. We need to move.” But I know that I said the same thing to my husband that I’m just hearing you say, and I thought, “I love it here. I love the Pacific Northwest. I love the beauty of this place.” I was born in Portland and raised in the Pacific Northwest, and I got to thinking, “You are not going to push me out of my home. I’m not going to run.”

I would much rather stand and fight, and fight for the freedom of my grandchildren and fight for the freedom of my children than be bullied and pushed out of the place that I love. I think this is an important message for parents to hear, you don’t have to be bullied out of your … Because what’s going to happen is, they’re just going to bully the people behind you. So we’ve got to stop thinking just about right now and about me, we’ve got to be thinking generations from now.

[Charissa] Right. Right. And I think we’re all going to feel, if it’s not this issue, there’s going to be an issue in the upcoming next years, I would say ten years, where something is going to demand that we get off the bench. For me, I always thought it would be my faith. I thought they’d come for my Bible first. But they came for my body. They came for our bodies, medical freedom. That got me off the bench. I hope that more of us rise up and it’s not, we don’t wait til legislation comes that’s going to infringe upon one of the things we hold dear. But that isn’t the driving force, we stand up now because it’s happening fast, it’s happening swift, and we have got to wake up.

[Heidi] So, talk to the ordinary parents, like me, who are listening to this, and they’re all around the country, because this podcast goes out around the world, and I know this isn’t just happening in Oregon. It’s happening all over the country. Who’s behind this push?

[Charissa] So, essentially, we wonder, is it the politicians? Do they really want everybody to be vaccinated? Is that the whole thing? Why all of a sudden does everybody need to be vaccinated? And one of the things we have to understand about politics is, there are lobbyists that go into every state capital building or federal capital building. They are paid thousands, thousands, and thousands and thousands upon dollars to represent pharmaceutical companies that are making over $60 billion a year on pharmaceutical products from Americans. This is insane. It is about the money. There’s only, if you look at percentages of school children that are missing one or more vaccines, it’s maybe two to four percent of the school attending children in a state. Why do you go after two to four percent of children?

It’s really because the threat of people exempting out of pharmaceutical product and saying, “That’s not for me,” they lose money. These billion dollar industries lose money. And that’s just … Our economy, unfortunately, in America is funded by a billion dollar pharmaceutical industry. They’re walking the halls, they’re selling the ideas, and they’re writing our bills.

[Heidi] And actually, this is happening not just with regard to pharmaceuticals. This is happening with regard to education. I mean, I was talking to a lady on an airplane the other day, because I live on airplanes, talking to a lady on an airplane the other day about what’s happening with our education system, and saying, “You know, my husband and I have been lobbying in Washington, DC every chance we get for the last ten years.” And we will go maybe once a year, or once every two years. There are people who are full time there, and they are trying to get homeschooling illegal. I know because I’ve met them. I know because I’ve talked to them in senator’s offices, sat across the table from people who would like to see people like me illegal in this country. They don’t want me to have the right to teach my children as I see fit, because there are many people in this country, and I think parents need to understand this, and they’re powerful people who believe that children are a ward of the state. They believe that the state should have authority over children, and they demonstrate that every day by what they teach our children in school.

It’s happening right here in Battleground, Washington, where the vast majority of parents are showing up to school board meetings. So 90% of the parents, you know … A room is filled with people, and 90% of them are saying, “Please do not pass comprehensive sex education,” and they’re being ignored, because the voices of these activists and the voice of the lobbyists carry with them a threat of pulling funding. It really does come down to money, and people need to understand what is underneath it. And also, you know, we feel like the little guy, but have you ever seen what an ant can do? The damage ants can do, when there’s 4,000 of them in a particular spot in your house? And I feel like we need to know that there is power in numbers and in getting off the bench and getting involved. The very first thing you do is just to educate yourself. You’ve got to understand what’s going on.

So the parent that has their head in the sand that says … And I think that’s kind of how you were saying your story, you were just kind of blissfully ignorant, and you don’t want to … Because who wants to fight? I mean really, we’ve got families to raise. They’re counting on our silence. They know that we’re working, they know that we’re busy, they know that we like our softball games and our movie nights, and this is a huge inconvenience, so we should just be honest about it. This is work for you. You’ve spent hundreds of hours, I’m sure now, at the front of this, but it’s because you see what’s going on and it’s because you decided to get off the bench and you started by educating yourself.

So if a parent’s listening to this, and they’re like, “Is that really real?” Where do you send them? Where can they start to get information about what’s happening?

[Charissa] There is a National Vaccine Information Center website, it’s NVIC Advocacy. They are able to, you can sign up, sign in, sign up and get alerts on what’s happening in your state regarding medical freedom. That’s how I was alerted, and then from there I was able to get connected to our state organization, which is Oregonians for Medical Freedom, which now I am leading the board on that. That was the best way I … So that’s NVIC.org.

[Heidi] Okay. And I’ll link back to all these things in the show notes.

[Charissa] Great, great. Yeah, and they’ve been around for many years, and they are putting information out that can both educate you and connect you on what’s happening in your state and on the federal level regarding medical freedom issues.

[Heidi] So, you don’t have to be in Oregon, right? This is a national website. And can they also direct people to local organizations, so if somebody is listening to this and they’re in North Carolina, is that where they go to find information about what’s happening in their state?

[Charissa] That would not be on that website. What the best way to do is just Google medical freedoms and your state, or medical choice or health choice. Most states have an established non-profit organization that is educating people on the vaccine risk side. If you can’t find that, by all means go to our website, OregoniansForMedicalFreedom.com and you can fill out the informational e-mail and we can connect you to a state organization if you’re looking for one.

[Heidi] And you just said kind of a buzzword, and I want to go back and talk about it for just a second, because you said these are places that will educate you on the risk that’s involved in vaccines. We know that with every medical procedure, there is always a risk. I have talked about this on the podcast before. You already know my children are vaccinated. I am not anti-vaccine. I’m anti-how they’re doing it now. I don’t like the four billion vaccines that they want our kids to be injected with now, but I also believe that where there is a risk, there should be a choice.

[Charissa] Right.

[Heidi] So we need to acknowledge that there is a risk. Your child can have an adverse reaction to a vaccine. And to really acknowledge what’s in these vaccines. I mean, we’re learning now that there’s aborted fetal tissue in vaccines, and when I first heard that, I was like, “That’s not true.” But it is true.

[Charissa] It is true.

[Heidi] It is true, and they’re actually not even hiding it any more, so if you … I mean, a very quick Google search, really, will let you listen to people in the vaccine industry who are like, “I don’t even care.”

[Heidi] They’re saying this. I called my friend Elizabeth Johnston, the Activist Mommy, and was talking on the phone with her about this, because her husband is a physician. And I said, “Is this really happening? Is this real?” And she said, “Yeah, it is.” And a lot of people don’t like to talk about that.

[Heidi] And so, it’s important, to me this is not about whether or not your child is vaccinated. This issue matters to me, and my children are vaccinated, and it matters to me because the state has no authority.

[Charissa] Right.

[Heidi] They really don’t. They have no authority to come in and mandate a decision for a citizen which puts that citizen at risk. So even if the benefit outweighed the risk, the choice should be up to the person who is incurring the risk, not to the government.

[Charissa] Right. And that is what many people have been saying and continue to say. They’re saying, they’re using this big umbrella, like, “Everybody needs to be vaccinated to keep everyone safe.” It’s very interesting because you have to define what safety means. We know that children are getting injured by vaccines. We know, there is no question. You go to VAERS, which is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, and you can see the reported number of adverse effects including death from vaccines. So if we’re going to say there is injury, then what is real safety? Safety is nobody getting injured. I mean, if I want to keep somebody safe, they’re not going to get injured. So in essence, it’s such a false thing to be able to say we’re mandating vaccines to keep everybody safe, because children are getting injured.

[Charissa] Well, they may not be getting measles, but what if they’re getting some other kind of side effect that could be disabling for many years for them? Merck, the actual manufacturer of the MMR, it was just uncovered that pre-licensure studies found that 40% of children receiving the MMR suffered gastrointestinal illnesses within 24 days of the injection, and 55% suffered respiratory illnesses. These are studies now that are being released. We also know that Merck, the same manufacturer of vaccines is in court right now for fraud. They have paid over $35 billion in the last decade for defrauding regulators, bribing doctors, extortion, and lying about their drugs. This on the manufacturers. If the manufacturers are under this much investigation, are being sued, how can we say that their product is 100% safe?

I call it the vaccine religion. Or the vaccine cult is a better way of saying it, because if you say something is safe and effective and say it’s 100% safe and effective, you keep saying it over and over and over again, which is what we hear media saying, which is what we hear some politicians saying, if we say it enough everybody’s going to believe it’s true and everybody’s going to ignore vaccine injury, is going to ignore side effects, and nobody’s going to pay attention to fact.

[Heidi] Mm-hmm. And I think it’s important to say, to me, again, this is going to come back to choice because parents need to be educated when they choose to or not to choose to vaccinate their children. I think I told you this last time, I worked in the medical field for quite a while. My mother is a nurse, and I believe in … Vaccines have done a good thing. I think about the smallpox epidemic. You know, people don’t get smallpox any more. I think there are good things about vaccines, but what we’re learning is that there’s a huge downside to it that we didn’t know before. So to me, reasonable people should be able to look at both sides and we need to be able to choose. It’s the choice, it’s having the choice taken away from us which I find so damaging and so devastating.

And also, whenever you take choice away from people, and you can see this in the free speech debate that’s happening in the culture right now, because now we have something called hate speech. So if someone says something really awful on Twitter, well then, that’s hate speech. Right now i’m not talking about inciting violence, that’s a totally different thing. But just an opinion, that’s maybe an ignorant opinion or even an evil opinion, the answer to hate speech is not less speech, it’s more speech. It’s, “Let’s have a debate and let reasonable thinking people determine what is right.”

We have to be willing to talk about this stuff. I know there’s going to be a lot of people who are going to hear this today and they’re going to be like, “Heidi St. John, I cannot believe … ” You know? But I’m interested in the discussion, and the discussion needs to be had. I have grandchildren coming up. Our daughter’s going to have her third baby here in the springtime, and I’m interested in this discussion because I have children. And we should be interested, we should be having the discussion. I love that you are willing to step out in front of the debate and say, “Listen. Can we talk about what the right is of government?” Because that’s really the position for Oregonians for Medical Freedom. Yes, you are highlighting the risks of vaccines, of which there are many, but you’re also saying, I think the main thing I hear you say is, “The government has no authority, they have no right to come in and make a decision about what we do and don’t do with our bodies.”

[Charissa] Bodily autonomy is a fundamental human right that we all should, by law, be able to maintain. Nobody should ever be able to pressure us into having a medical procedure. I mean, now it’s vaccines, what’s it going to be in ten years?

[Heidi] Mm-hmm. Yeah. I shudder to think.

[Charissa] What medication are they going to force on you, label you and force on you because you don’t fit into society?

[Heidi] Well, we see what’s happening over in the Netherlands where now the euthanasia laws have been expanded to mental distress. And what are we up to, 23 people now who have taken their own lives? Who, I actually believe there’s a lot of coercion going on and these people are saying, “I’m depressed, I’m … ” And they’re young, these are people in their 20s. And again, it’s a lack of respect for human life, it’s a lack of respect for our autonomy as human beings, and if that doesn’t raise the hackles of people listening to this, I don’t know what will.

[Charissa] Right. And it’s really imposing on religious freedom. In fact, in New York, they only have religious exemptions left with medical. Medical exemptions are very hard to get, so the majority use religious. Basically, there is a large Jewish population, Amish, in New York, and they would use religious exemptions for many reasons that even I do, based on the aborted fetal cell in some of the vaccines. One story that about, just blew my mind was that they were driving around with a yellow light on the vehicle with government officials going up to the doors of families of unvaccinated children, so basically making a spectacle in neighborhoods of unvaccinated families, knocking on their doors saying, “Your children can no longer go to school because they don’t have this or this vaccine. They’re not fully vaccinated.”

They passed this law in New York specifically targeting religious groups and the religious exemptions that they were using, and now they’re making a public spectacle of Jewish people, of Amish, and it just boils my blood.

[Heidi] Mm-hmm. Oh, it’s so wrong. It’s so wrong. It’s intimidation. They’re trying to scare them. Shaming them.

[Charissa] It’s bullying, it’s government intimidation, and it’s basically saying, “You’re going to do it our way or we’re going to make a public spectacle of you for believing differently than we do.” And that’s where, as Americans, whether or not we vaccinate or not vaccinate, it’s like, “How much control can we allow the government to have in our lives?” The line has to be drawn somewhere.

[Heidi] That’s right. Well, and the line was drawn. It’s just that now they’re trying to draw a new line.

[Charissa] Right.

[Heidi] This has never been a discussion until recently. Lots of things going on that have just been blowing my mind, and you and I were talking about this a few minutes ago. A couple weekends ago, I was in Lincoln, Nebraska, and they’re having issues in Lincoln as well. I mean, it’s in small town America. People listening to this say, “Oh, no, the drag queens don’t come here.” Yes, they will. “Oh, this isn’t happening in my public school.” Yes, it is. Just because you think that it’s not happening doesn’t mean it’s not at the very beginning, the incubating stages. But believe me, most of us where this is in a full-blown crisis are scratching our heads, going, “When did that start?”

Well, it started ten years ago when we weren’t paying attention. And actually, I think the same thing is true for the fight for medical freedom. It started years ago and we just didn’t understand, we weren’t paying attention. We thought the government had our best interests at heart, and now we’re starting to go, “Maybe the lobbyists are having more power than they should have.” But I wonder, as people listening to this now, sitting there listening to you and you’re telling stories about what happened in New York, I remember that being headline news. We saw pictures of it on the internet, in magazines. And I know that a lot of people just like you, it boils their blood. They’re sitting there listening to it and they just feel helpless. “What can I do?” I maybe can’t do anything, but that’s not true.

So, we know how you got off the bench. How can people who are listening to this get involved in the fight for medical freedom? I think, and this is why I begged the people in Lincoln two weekends ago when I was there. I said, “Listen, I am begging you. Get in front of this. Don’t do what we’re doing in Oregon,” and we’re behind the eight-ball in the Pacific Northwest in a lot of ways right now because we’ve allowed this to get so far, but there are lots of places around the country where they could actually get out in front of it. I think that’s kind of what you’re here to advocate that people do, is get off the bench and get in front of this thing.

[Charissa] Right. What I didn’t realize at the beginning of this when I got involved was how easy it is to build a relationship with your legislators.

[Heidi] You were intimidated.

[Charissa] Yeah. You think it’s some powerful person that is-

[Heidi] Yeah, it’s Oz.

[Charissa] … is sitting in their throne ruling your state. No, unfortunately, that’s …

[Heidi] That’s Kate Brown. Kate Brown in Oregon. Kate, this one’s for you.

[Charissa] They may think that they are, in their mind. But in reality-

[Heidi] That’s the mayor of Portland and the governor of Oregon. You’re welcome.

[Charissa] What I didn’t realize was how easy most of the time it is to get in, because you’re their constituent and they should allow you to come and meet with them. At least make a phone call or e-mail. If there was nothing else that I wish every parent would do, it would be build their relationship with your legislators. Call them. “What are you working on?” We’re coming up on our next session starting in February. You can go and ask them, “What bills are you working on for this next session?”

[Heidi] Yeah, and they need to tell you, because guess what? They work for you.

[Charissa] Yes. And in fact, you as their constituent can propose that they write a bill for you at your request. That’s another freedom that we need to realize that we have.

[Heidi] I did not know that. Charissa’s educating me. I’m looking at Jay like, “Hey, we can write a bill,” and he’s like “Uhh …”

[Charissa] It’s true, you can. You have an idea, you go talk to your legislator. “I have this idea, what do you think about it?” You start to have conversations. That is part of their job, is to legislate for their citizens. Unfortunately, the lobbyists are walking the halls, and that’s what I say, if we build the relationships and take up our legislators’ time, guess what, the lobbyists won’t get in there. We’d be in there. You can see them in district, so you don’t always have to go to your state capital. If there is-

[Heidi] What do you mean, when you say you can see them … So, dumb it down to normal people language. When you say you can see them in district, what do you mean?

[Charissa] All right. So essentially, you vote for your representative or assembly member, depending on what state you live in, in your district, and then you have a senator. So you have two people that are representing you. They will be in your area. They’ll have a town hall. You can go on their website. So first of all, hopefully you’re voting, hopefully you voted in the last election.

[Heidi] Please vote. Please, for the love … Yeah, please vote.

[Charissa] Hopefully you at least know the name of your legislators. You just Google them, they’re on your state legislative website. You can call the number, e-mail them, and they’re in district, depending on how long your session is, they’ll be in your district holding a town hall. Many of them will just meet for coffee with you.

[Heidi] Mm-hmm (affirmative), because they live there.

[Charissa] They have, like, a local coffee shop where they’re like, “Oh yeah, I’ll meet you at … ” You know, Sparrow Bakery is where I always go. So it’s not hard. It takes a little time, but we’re talking about our children. We’re talking about generations. If we don’t do something now, what are our kids going to have to deal with? I don’t want my kids to grow up having to defend something I could have defended.

[Heidi] Yeah, that’s right. And the same thing is true for comprehensive sex education. That’s why Stephanie was here, this homeschool mom who decided to run for school board because she realized, “These are generations. It’s not just my kids.” It’s a whole generation that’s being brought up and indoctrinated to believe things that are not true, and then parents have a responsibility to get out there and fight for our children. That’s what parents do.

[Charissa] It is. And that brings up another point. There’s a lot of committees and boards on your city or county that are very easy to get into and get on, especially if you’re in a smaller community. That’s a great way to get involved and find out what’s going on and impact your local legislation. It’s not that hard, and that’s what I want to say. I work outside the home, I have two boys, I’m married. Even though I’m leading an activist organization right now, before I was doing that, I was … During the session, I was spending a few hours a week just e-mailing and making phone calls. So it doesn’t take a lot of time. I mean, how much time are we spending on Netflix every week? Let’s be honest. Five to ten hours?

[Heidi] Mm-hmm. Yeah. Or Facebook.

[Charissa] Right.

[Heidi] Or all the things. I know I keep hearing people say, “Oh, I don’t have time.” Yes you do have time. This is not an issue of whether or not I have time. It’s an issue of what I prioritize my time with.

[Charissa] It is.

[Heidi] So, we give our time to what we love and what we treasure. And in this nation, we treasure leisure time. We do, and I like it too, I’m not saying it’s wrong. So if you’re watching Netflix right now, I’m not coming down on you with the hammer, but I am saying pay attention to how you’re spending your time. And if this bothers you, then start saying, “Okay, what can I do to get off the bench and onto the battlefield?”

[Heidi] I had Suzanne Gallagher here a couple of weeks ago, she’s the president of Parents Rights in Education. She’s doing a very similar thing that you’re doing for education. So your focus is on medical freedom, her focus is on parental rights in education, but really, this is all a parental rights issue. It really comes down to parental rights and whether or not parents should be in the driver’s seat of their child’s education, of their child’s medical treatment, whatever. The choices that are made for our children should never be made by the government. They should be made by parents, and that’s the stand that we take.

[Charissa] Yeah.

[Heidi] Well, Charissa, it’s been a joy to have you here. I’m thrilled, because I’m getting the opportunity to meet more and more, quote-unquote, “ordinary moms.” There’s nothing ordinary about you, girl, I can tell. Get this girl in front of the legislature and they are going down.

[Charissa] That’s right.

[Heidi] But I love that you saw a problem and you were willing to get off the bench and onto the battlefield. I know that there are a lot of people who are listening now who are going to be encouraged. How can they find out more? I’m looking at, your website is OregoniansForMedicalFreedom.com, and I see a couple of other websites that I’m going to link back to in the show notes. So if you guys are driving, just chill out, you can find all this stuff at HeidiStJohn.com/podcast. This podcast is now transcribed, so you can literally just go to the podcast and click on the transcription, you can read our entire conversation. It will include the links that we have mentioned when we mentioned them. But you also mentioned PhysiciansForInformedConsent.org. What is that site?

[Charissa] They basically have information, they’re a group of doctors that have put together different documents to make sure parents are fully informed especially on the MMR and the possibility of those risks that go along with it. These physicians are very, very passionate about fully informing. That’s another aspect of this we didn’t dive into. Doctors aren’t telling parents the risks. They’re not giving them the vaccine insert, and so this Physicians for Informed Consent are passionate about that. They put out great content and material that you can really educate yourself with.

[Heidi] Again, so that you can choose. The whole point is that you can choose.

[Charissa] So that you can choose.

[Heidi] We should be able to choose, and we’ve got to be informed in order to make what we call an informed decision.

[Charissa] Exactly.

[Heidi] Yeah, that’s right. And then ChildrensHealthDefense.org is …

[Charissa] Yes, ChildrensHealthDefense.org is actually a national organization that is coming to the defense of children relating to many issues, but vaccines is one of them, advocating for vaccine safety studies, because there are not vaccine safety studies that are saying the 72 doses of vaccines are safe for every child. They’re saying vaccines are not one size fits all and demanding that these manufacturers do vaccine safety studies. So Children’s Health Defense is a great resource to educate yourself on.

[Heidi] I love that. So if you guys want more information about this, I’ll link back to these in the show notes today. If you’ve got questions or feedback, you can go to HeidiStJohn.com/MailboxMonday. We will continue this discussion as the months go by, but you guys know, my heart is to see you get off the bench and onto the battlefield and stop sitting on the sidelines. This really is an incredible time in United States history where parental rights are being threatened like never before, and we need to engage.

[Heidi] So, Charissa, thank you so much for coming, it’s just been a pleasure to have you here.

[Charissa] Thank you so much, Heidi.

[Heidi] For more information on Charissa and the Oregonians for Medical Freedom, please visit OregoniansForMedicalFreedom.com or visit me at the show notes, HeidiStJohn.com/podcast. I appreciate you guys listening and I will see you back here on Monday for Mailbox Monday.

Write to [Heidi]
Heidi St. John
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

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