KATY FAUST - Fighting for Kids: A Christian Mom Plans to Destroy Gay Marriage

Katie Faust is the founder and president of Them Before Us, a global movement defending children's right to their mother and father. In this conversation she reveals her bold plan to overturn gay marriage through the courts by focusing on children's rights rather than adult perspectives. The episode explores how marriage redefinition has created a legal framework that commodifies children through surrogacy, IVF, and intent-based parenthood. Katie also discusses her controversial "one tool" for evaluating family decisions and her surprising work as a Christian matchmaker.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

1. Either adults do the hard thing or children do the hard thing in every family situation
2. Gay marriage legally weakened every parent's claim to their own biological children
3. No-fault divorce was the original redefinition of marriage that prioritized adult happiness over children
4. IVF and surrogacy create mass production and commodification of children through intent-based parenthood
5. Natural rights exist pre-government, require no provision, and everyone gets equal measure
6. Christians historically protected children first, then dealt with adult comfort second

CONNECT WITH KATY FAUST

• https://thembeforeus.com/
• https://thembeforeus.substack.com/
• https://x.com/advo_katy
• https://x.com/ThemBeforeUs

Mentioned in this episode:

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Episode Transcript

(00:56):
Foreign.

(01:16):
Hello, and welcome to the WillSpencer Podcast.
This is a weekly interviewshow where I sit down and talk with
authors, thought leaders andinfluencers who have help us understand
our changing world.
New episodes release every Friday.
My guest this week is Katie Foust.
Katie is the founder andpresident of Them Before Us, a global
movement defending children'sright to their mother and father.
She publishes, speaks andtestifies widely on why marriage

(01:39):
and family are matters ofjustice for children.
Her articles have appeared inNewsweek, USA Today, the Federalist,
Public Discourse, WorldMagazine, the Daily Signal, the Washington
examiner, the American Mind,and the American Conservative.
She.
She is on the advisory boardfor the alliance for Responsible
Citizenship.
She helped design the teenedition of Canavox, which studies

(02:00):
sex, marriage andrelationships from a natural law
perspective.
She and her husband areraising their four children in Seattle.
Katie Faust, welcome to theWill Spencer Podcast.
Great to be with you.
I trust that we're going tohave a lot of fun here today.
I'm looking forward to it.
I've been looking forward tothis conversation because what I've
seen of your work, the talkthat you gave that you sent to me
and your work with them beforeus is very bold and very inspiring

(02:23):
and very needed, especially inregards to regard to the news coming
out of Minneapolis today.
Oh, are you talking about the shooting?
Yes, I am.
Yeah, I have.
I have been in meetings allday, so I haven't seen but two dead,
17 injured, possibletransgender identified shooter.
Is that all?
That's what I've seen.
Is that right?
Yeah.
Not just possible identified,literally identified with the, with

(02:45):
the shooter, having drawingsin his manifesto of being demon possessed
and all kinds of hatefulspeech towards every group that you
can imagine.
So it's, it's quite shocking today.
Yeah.
That's just awful.
Yeah.
But it gets back to the pointof the need of them, them before
us, which is the purpose ofyour organization, prioritizing children

(03:06):
over parents.
And maybe you can talk alittle bit about that organization,
its mission and how it got started.
Yeah.
The idea is them, the childrencome before us, the adults, and there's
a bit of education to be doneon the front end of that.
You know, I'm not saying achild's preferred, like transgender
pronouns come before theparental rights.
I'm not saying that.

(03:27):
I'm not saying that the childand their demand for another piece
of chocolate cake comes first.
I'm saying children havefundamental rights, especially in
the marriage and family space.
They have a right to life, andthey also have a right to the two
people responsible for their existence.
And unfortunately, those twofundamental natural rights are very
often sidelined so that adultdesires, adult identity, adult affirmation,

(03:51):
adult priorities can takecenter stage.
And when we elevate adultdesire to that place of highest status,
it's always children'sfundamental natural rights that suffer.
So when we're talking aboutthis world of marriage and family,
there's a lot of competinginterests and sometimes claims of
competing rights.
And in those kinds of cases, Isay no.

(04:13):
The rights of the child, theobjective, fundamental natural rights
of the child, and have got tobe prioritized because if they're
not, children are victimized.
And that's simply not an option.
If you want to say that youlive in a just society, say more.
About what the natural rightsof a child are.
So we spell this out in ourfirst book, then before Us why We
Need a Global Children'sRights Movement.

(04:35):
My co author, Stacey Manningand I, we're not natural lawyers.
We're moms from Seattle.
Neither of us have degreesthat would lead us to the place where
we would be considered natural lawyers.
But I did get the best, Ithink, natural lawy to write the
foreword for that book.
Professor ROBERT GEORGE and sowhat we do is we kind of read and
understood natural rights as aphilosophy, and then we boiled it

(04:59):
down into something that's alittle more accessible to the normie
mom and dad out there.
But one of the challenges thatwe have, not just in the marriage
and family debate, but theentire cultural landscape, is sort
of this rights talk, whereanything an adult really wants is
conveniently framed as a right.
You know, I have a right tohousing, I have a right to government
funded healthcare.

(05:20):
I have a right to birth control.
I have a right to choose.
I have a right to marry, Ihave a right to parenthood.
So a lot of those rightsclaims are not actually rights.
They might be important,they're probably commodities, but
they're not natural rights.
So Stacy and I sort of createdthis formula to understand what is
and is not a natural right.
I'll just give it to you real fast.

(05:41):
Number one, a natural rightexists pre government.
It's not something thegovernment provides, it's something
the government protects.
Number two, nobody has toprovide it to you.
If it has to be bottled, likedug up from the ground, bottled,
labeled, shift and put on ashelf, it's not a natural right.
And a natural right issomething that everyone has in equal
measure.
So if it can vary in degrees,like a GED versus a PhD or a dorm

(06:04):
room versus Mar a Lago, it'snot a natural right.
So you can look at things likea right to life exists pre government,
no one has to provide it for you.
Everyone gets the same amount.
One, you can look at your ownrelationship to your mother and father.
Nobody has to provide it for you.
If you exist, your mother andfather exist.
Government doesn't create it.

(06:25):
And that's a really bigproblem we have now because government
is now starting to createlegal structures of parents that
are outside of thisfundamental natural right.
And we can talk more about that.
But if you exist, your motherand father also exist, you have a
fundamental natural right to them.
And I have the same amount ofparent as you do, Will.
And as your listeners,everybody has two parent.

(06:46):
You have a father and a mother.
You genetically come from aman and a woman.
And it is to those adults towhich you have a fundamental natural
right.
So I understand that the termchildren's rights can trigger especially
some people on the right whounderstand that that label has been
used to smuggle in an awfullot of child destroying ideologies.

(07:07):
They're using it improperlyand I'm not.
Yes, and thank you forclarifying that.
I don't mean that childrenhave a right to choose their gender.
That's not what I mean at all.
But downstream from this ideaof parental rights to make choices
for their own independentdesires, you get the sexual revolution,
you get abortion, you getsingle families.
Downstream from that, you getthe kind of situations that we experience

(07:29):
today.
So as you begin to bring thisidea, or as you have taken this idea
out into both liberal andconservative spaces, what has the
reaction been?
Widespread hate, I'd saymassive, triggering, total fallout,
horrible meltdowns.
And generally the people inthe Christian conservative world
are like, oh, this is ahelpful framing.

(07:51):
Oh, it's more easy for me totalk to my neighbor who disagrees
when I'm appealing to auniversal authority of natural law
or social science, or thestories of kids that have been impacted
by this versus trying to throwdown a Bible verse.
So for the most part, like ourfirst book, then before us, they
wanted to put it under areligious imprint.
And I was like, nope, there'sno Bible, there's no scripture, there's

(08:12):
nothing in this verse that is religious.
This is simply a toolkit foranybody that wants to defend the
fundamental rights of thechild against all different kinds
of family makeover scenarios,whether it's the redefinition of
marriage, widespread divorce,reproductive technologies, the promotion
of modern families, thenormalizing of polygamy or cohabitation,
adult centric Adoption,commercial surrogacy.

(08:34):
This is just a handbook forhow to defend children in all of
those different conversations.
But it is Christians, it isreligious Americans and actually
religious people worldwidethat have found it to be really helpful
because they already know whatthey believe about mothers and fathers
and marriage and sex and gender.

(08:55):
It's been harder for them toexplain why they believe it and why
it is so good for kids.
So that is one reason why wesort of took that tact when it came
to expressing this position of ours.
Yeah.
The average believer todaywill have a far better understand
time understanding natural lawarguments than they will presuppositionalist

(09:17):
arguments.
Yeah.
So what's an example of someof the tools you provide to the readers
via that book to believers?
One tool.
We give you one tool.
Okay, one tool.
There you go.
The one tool is.
Look at whatever question isbefore you examine the headlines
coming across.
Think about the personaldecision you're facing in your own

(09:39):
marriage or the person that isseeking counsel from you and ask
the question, who is doing thehard thing in this scenario?
Because in the world ofmarriage and family, somebody will
do the hard thing.
In the case of a strugglingmarriage where there is some challenge
between husband and wife,either the mother and father will
do hard things, findaccountability, get therapy, work

(10:00):
it out, or the children willdo hard things by growing up in split
homes, having new partners andspouses, stepchildren, half siblings,
coming in and out of theirhome, and then very often develop
two different personalitiesfrom living in two completely different
worlds.
Someone's going to do the hardthing there.
Is it the kids or is it theadult somebody that's struggling

(10:21):
with infertility?
Who's going to do the hardthing there?
Is it going to be the husbandand wife who figure out how to resolve
the underlying fertilityissues using things like restorative
reproductive medicine?
Or is it going to be thechildren who are created en masse
in a laboratory and 14 out of16 are going to lose their right
to life because they were thewrong sex, they were surplus, they

(10:43):
didn't make it through thegenetic screening process.
Someone will do the hard thing.
The adults or the kids in anunplanned pregnancy situation, who's
going to do the hard thing?
Is it going to be the twopeople responsible for the creation
of the child?
Or will the child do the hardthing by losing their right to life?
If somebody experiences samesex attraction, who's going to do
the hard thing?
Is it going to be the childwho loses their mother or father

(11:05):
to join the family that meetsthe adult's romantic attractions?
Or will it be the same sexattracted adult who forms their family
around the child's right to beknown and loved by both their mother
and father every day?
So that is, this is.
It's very simple.
In every marriage and familysituation, either the adults will
do the hard thing or thechildren will do the hard thing.

(11:28):
A just society will empathizewith adults who are struggling.
But draw a far, draw a hardred line in the sand.
Saying, just because you havethe feelings does not mean children
should be victimized so youcan have what you want.
I love it.
This is a scorcher.
I imagine that you light somehair on fire with ideas like this.

(11:49):
I am not popular withprogressives, but I have Christians
who get up and walk out of mytalks, who yell from the crowd if
I'm speaking in small groups.
So.
And that's the problem withthis child centric worldview.

(12:10):
The problem with putting thembefore us is no adult gets a pass.
Yeah.
Every adult at some point hasto decide, is it them or is it us?
And saying it's us, it's weare the ones that are going to sacrifice.
That is such a countercultural message.
Not even we can always sort offind a carve out for ourselves.

(12:33):
You know, we can find a carve out.
Well, I'm not anti abortion.
I really want a baby.
My husband and I would bewonderful parents.
IVF is the only way that wecan have a child.
And my doctor told me to make12 embryos.
And now it's like, I've gotthree healthy children, I've got
six in storage.
But it's like, I mean, I wasmeant to be a mom.

(12:54):
We can always find a carve outfor ourselves.
And so this is a confrontingmessage, to be honest.
And a lot of times when I amrailing against children going home
with gay parents who have notbeen vetted, who are not genetically
related, who are traffickedacross borders, most people on the
right are like, hell yeah.
And then I say, and also thesweet Christian heterosexual couple

(13:18):
that is perusing the egg donorcatalog is also victimizing the child.
And they're like, screw you.
So that's the thing.
This is an indiscriminate message.
Everybody, single, married,gay, straight, fertile and infertile,
atheist and Christian, has tosay, is it them or is it us?
And a just society says, it's us.

(13:40):
We're the ones that are going to.
Sacrifice equal weights and measures.
Absolutely.
And of course, Christianitywas the world religion that spoke
the most powerfully about therights of children, particularly
with regard to access to their Savior.
Suffer not the little childrento come unto me.
That was a revolutionary,radical message in Rome of the day,
and we seem to forget that italso applies to children today.

(14:04):
Let's have a little chat aboutthe Christian's responsibility to
the child.
Let's do it.
Because this idea that sufferthe little children come to me, that
we welcome children, is pairedwith this acknowledgment that our
Savior came not as an infant,but as an embryo, grew gestationally

(14:24):
in his mother's womb, wasborn, went through all the different
stages of development.
He's the one that we worshipand that dignified children in a
way that most other culturesand most other religions did not.
The Roman world that thechurch was born into in many cases
did not even consider childrento be fully human until they could
walk and talk.
Therefore, we could victimizethem, we could expose them, we could

(14:46):
assault them, we couldobjectify them, we could sell them.
And this humanizingperspective of children, that they
are also the imago dei,regardless of their ability, regardless
of their age, and then thestern warning that God himself would
leverage extreme corporalpunishment on us if we were to mistreat

(15:06):
or cause one of these littleones to stumble meant that not just
the first century Christians,but Christians all across the world,
in every country where theyset foot had a different kind of
relationship with children.
You will not find Christianinfluence in any country in any century
that did not do two piss offadults and protect children.

(15:28):
You had missionaries in prettymuch every country starting orphanages
for unwanted disabled children.
You have, in almost everycountry, Christians confronting both
infanticide and abortion.
You've got Christianmissionaries that played a critical
role, the dominant role inending foot binding.
In China, you've got Christian missionaries.
Mary Sesler in Ethiopia, Ithink it was, who rescued twins.

(15:51):
Because in that society therewas a thought that if there were
twins, one of them was demonpossessed so they'd kill both of
them.
You had Christians in the 18thcentury in the UK enacting child
labor laws so that children,street children, poor children, were
not, you know, making shoes orweaving in looms in factories for
14 hours a day.
There's a direct relationshipbetween a genuine Christian faith

(16:15):
and child protection.
And we have gotten to thisbizarre place in our culture today
where we think that theChristian's primary relationship
with the culture is to bewelcoming and affirming of adults.
False.
A Christian's relationshipwith the culture has got to begin
with justice for children.
And in matters of Marriage,family and reproductive technologies.

(16:35):
This is where their rights arebeing violated.
And the church has got tostand up and speak up.
As you deliver this message,you speak to crowds, you write articles.
But as you deliver thismessage in person, particularly to
women, what is the response inmore intimate situations, less public
spectators.

(16:55):
I'm actually very nice in private.
That's because there's twodifferent roles here.
When you're talking aboutpolicy, policy is not concerned with
empathy.
Policy is primarily a justice matter.
So when you're debating thedefinition of marriage, the goal
is not national therapy forhow gay people have suffered.

(17:18):
When you're discussing ivf,the goal is not, oh, I'm so sad that
you have suffered three miscarriages.
Okay?
When you're talking policy,policy is about justice.
That is your primary aim.
And when you're talking.
So there's a different role tobe played when it's your friend who
is coming to you, who'sdealing with a difficult marriage

(17:41):
or getting through a divorceand then trying to figure out how
to deal with her ex husband,who's a.
Who is a genuine narcissist,versus the variety of husbands who
are just accused of beingnarcissists so that our wives can
get alimony and an easy escape.
There's a difference betweenshouldering the load of a woman with
an unplanned pregnancy.
What is your role as a friend there?
It is empathy.

(18:01):
It is compassion.
And you do want to be in my.
I would strive to be.
You tell me everything.
I am here to help you.
I'm going to bear your burden.
I am going to say, don't touchthe kids, but I'm not there to adjudicate.
And this is a problem.
We have crosswired on thesetwo roles.
We have taken the friend roleand we've applied it to policy.

(18:22):
Right.
And we've said, we're going tomake policy the vehicle of empathy
and compassion wrong.
That just gets you injustice.
And we can also be wrong whenwe take justice and we apply it to
our personal relationships andsay, my job here is to adjudicate
rather than compassion and empathy.
And so there is a place forboth, but you can't get them mixed

(18:44):
up with one another.
And the problem is we've hadtoo much empathy and compassion for
the wrong victims in policy matters.
Instead of properlyidentifying the victims, which are
always children, and thenadvancing justice on their behalf.
What a great distinction aboutwhen to apply justice and when to
apply empathy, in which sphere?
And of course, how we'vemisapplied them in the wrong spheres.

(19:06):
And I didn't mean to suggestthat you weren't nice.
It was more along the lines ofthe impression.
Is there?
Oh, sure.
No, I just.
Everyone's like, oh, my gosh,you must be a truth teller.
I'm like, no.
I actually had a situationthis morning where a friend, a dear
friend, one of my oldestfriend, misread something on my website
and said, how dare you?
How could you lie about yourchildhood and your backstory?

(19:30):
And I had an absolute panic.
And I was like, oh, my gosh,what have I said?
Maybe somebody misconstrued ortook my words out of context.
And I was.
I was like, the heart was elevated.
I'm like, I want to keep the peace.
I want the relationships.
I am.
I am a shepherdess at heart.
Thankfully, it was all a misunderstanding.
We got it cleared up really fast.
The whole truth teller thinghad to grow into that.

(19:52):
Oh, sure.
The only reason I do isbecause very real children are being
victimized, and there wasnobody in these spaces speaking up
on their behalf.
But it is a understandablemisconception that I throw bombs
for a living.
Well, I do it for a living.
I just don't do it in all ofmy personal relationships.
Yes.
And you said the word that Iwas going to use, which is a shepherd's

(20:12):
heart.
And I think one of thechallenges that all Christians who
are engaged in politicsexperience today is the dual role
between truth teller in thepublic square.
A prophet, let's say, versus apriest or a shepherd or a ministerial
role to someone in person.
And so as you talk to women inperson in a kind and genuine and

(20:36):
loving way, but you show themthe errors in their worldview that
impact their lives directly.
I was wrong about this, this,this, and this.
What is that like?
Because that's a conversationthat many male pastors won'.
Today.
Well, first of all, you haveto tell the truth.
And a lot of the reasons whywomen come to me is because.
So let me.
Let me back up and talk aboutthis a little bit differently.

(20:58):
Yeah.
There's so much crookednesstaking place in our relationships,
whether it's our friendships,our dating relationships, our marriage
relationships.
Then there's so many crookedideas about parenting or our relationship
to our children or what therole of sex is, the connection between
sex, marriage, and babies.
I mean, there's just so muchdistortion happening on all of those
different topics.

(21:19):
So the one thing that we tryto do at them before us, and I would
encourage pastors to do, isyou have to show people the straight
stick.
So this is DL Moody said, youdon't know how crooked a stick is
until you lay a straight sticknext to it.
Sometimes people don't evenknow that IVF is a crooked stick.
That IVF is going to lead youto commodify, discard, and donate

(21:41):
your children to research.
A lot of people don't knowthat there's harms when you divorce
their father, not because he'sbeing abusive, but because he's just
not doing 50% of the housework.
And the kids would be happy ifyou are happy.
So a lot of this is you havegot to lay down the straight stick
and tell the truth becausepeople don't even know what's straight

(22:02):
and what's crooked anymore.
There's crookedness everywhere.
So lay down the straight stick.
And then very often the onesthat are receptive to that message
will go, you know, O, S H I T,like, I don't know if I can swear
on this podcast, sometimesit's the right word.
They'll go, I have victimized children.
I have hurt my children.

(22:23):
I'm about to make it difficultto sit.
I'm about to do somethingterrible to my children.
And they come to you.
And then you don't take thatstraight stick and hit them.
Right.
You listen.
Because they've been impacted by.
They're, I would say, Godawarded ability to recognize that
they have put us before themand then walk with them through the

(22:44):
process of seeing what doesthem before us look like in your
life.
Yeah.
And that, that's the questionthat I was getting at, is that moment
of realization like, oh, wow,I have done, or I am about to do
this.
And I imagine there's probablyquite a bit of grief.
I imagine that women feelquite a bit of grief once they see
the bad worldviews thatthey've inherited from the women,

(23:05):
mothers, friends, society thatthey trusted.
It's like, no, it wascompletely wrong about all of this.
Yeah.
Incredible regret.
Incredible regret when yourealize those six children that supposedly
weren't viable, that theydiscarded or donated to research,
that those were your fullchildren and that a lot of times
that testing is totallygarbage and, you know, or guilt over

(23:32):
breaking up your children'sfamily because you were told, you
know, kids are resilient, butnow one of them is, you know, hooked
on drugs and the other one hasregressed so significantly that they're
a 12 year old, but they'rewetting their bed again.
You know, it's.
There is a lot of recognitionof the pain that these decisions

(23:54):
have caused and Actually, Godblessed the people that recognize
it because the onlyalternative is for them to never
recognize it.
And then their child has toprocess and mourn in total isolation.
Isolation.
Do you find differentreactions from men confronting with
these ideas?
I don't interact as much with men.
We definitely have the stories.

(24:14):
One of the things we do atthem before us is we have a story
bank of children who haveexperienced mother or father loss.
Because that's our primarygoal, is we want to be a voice piece
for the kids because they, youknow, any adult can go out and share
their story of, you know,growing up gay and being closetive
and desperately wanting a family.
And now, finally, he's beenable to become a dad through surrogacy.

(24:36):
Everybody will listen to that story.
He'll get on the first frontpage of USA Today, you know, whatever.
Like the woman who desperatelywants a baby, and she went through
seven different rounds of ivf,and now she finally has a child.
I mean, these people canpublish anywhere they want.
They garner all kinds ofsympathy that they want the child
who was acquired through surrogacy.

(24:56):
They're gonna have a reallyhard time telling their story without
completely alienating the twopeople to whom they're totally dependent.
The child who was raisedthrough ivf, whether a sperm donor
or not, who then criticizes orfeels loss or survivor's guilt around
it.
They're gonna have a hard timesharing their story because all of
these.
When the kids speak out,they're at risk of losing their primary

(25:21):
relationships.
So one of the things that wedo is we have a story bank of kids
who can share from their perspective.
I verify their identity.
I often encourage them towrite under a pseudonym so they can
be totally honest.
So in there, we get lots ofmen and women because obviously,
both men and women havesuffered from family breakdown through
divorce, abandonment,reproductive technologies, or because

(25:43):
they have an LGBTQ parent.
But in terms of the parentsthat come to us with regret, I probably
am connected to more women.
But there are some men too,and many of them do see the harm
that it has brought on their children.
And when you do that, when youhave the courage to see, can wreck

(26:03):
you.
You know, it can wreck you.
Thankfully, there's sometimespathway forward to seek to mitigate
the loss and repair the relationship.
But it doesn't happen withouta lot of humility and, I think a
lot of pain, kind ofrecognizing I have brought this upon
you.
So from your position, sort ofmaybe at or beyond the bleeding edge

(26:26):
of this conversation, are youseeing signs of hope that maybe American
might have the instinct tobegin turning, or at least certain
parts of American culture.
Not culture at large.
In terms of like, right now,the dominant messages are us before
them in almost every sphere.
Entertainment, government,media, legislation, technology.

(26:52):
Most of it is driven by howcan the adults get what they want
at the expense of whatchildren need.
However, there is definitely agrowing awareness that IVF and surrogacy
are processes that commodifyand harm children.
That is something that's new.
You know, when I started doingthis and officially started my organization

(27:14):
in 2018, 2019, even 2020,there was no major pro life organizations
that were talking about IVF or surrogacy.
Now almost all of them are.

(28:40):
And so at least theconservative pro life world has started
to wake up to at least some ofthis being problematic.
On the topic of marriage,which from a them before us perspective
is a matter of justice forchildren, a marriage might be a private
relationship.
It might be something whereyou see adult romantic fulfillment.

(29:02):
But from a public interestperspective, marriage is the only
relationship that unites thetwo people to whom children have
a natural right.
It is plan A for childdevelopment, child protection and
identity consolation and formation.
And so when we redefinedmarriage, we threw the entire solar
system of marriage and familylaw into total chaos in a way that

(29:25):
has realigned the legalconception of the parent child relationship
into something that was prepolitical and untouchable and a natural
right to now conceiving ofthat relationship not as something
that is preeminent in law, butrather something that can be state
constructed and state assigned.

(29:46):
And so on that topic.
And I think, because what waspresented to us 10 years ago as well,
this is just what happens inthe privacy of our bedroom or how
does my gay marriage affectanybody else kind of thing.
Now we're like, well, it seemsto be affecting the children who
are being acquired bypredators through commercial surrogacy
and then going home with themto other countries where we won't

(30:07):
ever be able to track their whereabouts.
I mean, that kind of feelslike it's affecting someone else.
So on the topic of marriage,on the topic of awareness of reproductive
technologies, I think thatwe're seeing some engagement and
some hope.
On the topic of marriage, Ithink that we've already seen a decline
in support, especially amongRepublicans for gay marriage over

(30:29):
the last couple years.
It's dropped from a high of51% down to, I think we're at 44%.
And that's good.
That is good because gaymarriage was one of the greatest
injustices Leveraged againstchildren, probably in the history
of our nation, probably sinceRoe versus Wade.
One of my favorite speakers,influencers, authors on this topic

(30:53):
is a man named Jeff Schaefferof New St. Andrews, the Hale Institute.
And he talks about thedownstream effects of Obergefell.
I'm laughing because I was ona call with him 15 minutes ago.
Were you really?
Yeah, he's my legal advisor.
And spearheading the legalportion of our effort to challenge
Obergefell.
But keep going, because I lovehearing other people try to say what

(31:15):
Jeff Schaeffer says.
Go ahead.
Oh, no, I'm not gonna try.
No, I love it.
I wouldn't even begin to try.
However, he does speak on thistopic so movingly.
And to talk about thedownstream legal effects of the way
Obergefell reframes marriage.
Maybe we could talk about thatfor a moment, because that's a message
I would love to communicatefrom him, but I just can't do it
justice the way that he does.

(31:37):
Yeah, nobody can do it justicethe way he does.
I spend a lot of timelistening to Jeff and then trying
to figure out how can Itranslate that so that I can understand
it and other people canunderstand it.
But so, spoiler, my nonprofit,then before us is spearheading a
coalition to challenge gay marriage.
And it is going to have athree prong approach.

(31:59):
One of them is a legalstrategy, a judicial strategy that
actually has the possibilityof success.
And so far, nobody, noorganization has even tried this
yet.
Why?
Because everybody does it wrong.
Not to say we're the only onesthat get it, but everybody else does
it wrong.
They all look at it from theadult's perspective.
No more.
We're looking at this from thechild's perspective.

(32:20):
And so Jeff is heading up mylegal team to create that judicial
pathway for success.
But it's not enough to justchange the law.
We have to change public opinion.
So I am going to let all theinfluencers decide.
Everybody in my coalition getsto decide what they say about their

(32:40):
involvement and when.
But basically, I havepersonalities at every major conservative
media outlet on board with this.
We are all going to change theway we talk about marriage.
It's not.
It's not a sacred institution.
It is, but we're not talkingabout it that way.
It's not a state's rights issue.

(33:01):
It's not a matter of adult bonds.
It is justice for children.
And we're gonna change the wayeverybody thinks and talks about
this.
And then I also have a churchteam that is gonna develop curriculum
so that Christians do Exactlywhat you and I were just talking
about will understand thattheir heritage is child protection.
That if they want to join intothe great cloud of witnesses of those

(33:21):
who have gone before them,they have to stand up and protect
kids in every way.
They're being victimized, butit's not foot binding and it's not
female genital mutilation inthe traditional sense here it is
marriage and family andparenthood issues where they're being
victimized.
So that's what we're doing.
Like we are going to retakemarriage on behalf of children.
And no one has tried this for10 years, but we're going to do.

(33:44):
It well, praise God.
I think that's a brilliantapproach to it because justice for
children is the sort of thingthat you can say to somebody and
they don't really have theoption of going like, eh, I don't
really care.
I mean, they can.
I mean, I don't recommend it.
I don't recommend it.
But there is particularly likeJeff Schaefer's breakdown of the
Dave Rubin conversation withJordan Peterson, you know, and all
that that follows legallyfrom, well, if we define marriage

(34:06):
this way, then it means X andY and Z and this for personhood and
children and, and thedevastation that that will continue
to have on, on the family.
So.
And that's something that Ithink touches everybody quite deeply
these days.
Well, if it was only thechildren who were being raised and
purchased and sold and madeintentionally motherless or fatherless,

(34:27):
I wish that that was enough toget people to engage on this issue.
But we're all driven by selfinterest and there is a temptation
to say, well, it's not my kid.
But Jeff Schaeffer makesclear, and I'm going to talk about
in my NATCON speech, which Ithink has already happened, if this
airs when you say it's goingto air, I make the connection that

(34:49):
this is not just about otherpeople's children.
It's not just about the kidswho lose their mother or father.
Like Jeff Schaeffer pointsout, if gay marriage is legal reality,
it requires the downgrading ofthe preeminence of the biological
bond between parents and children.
And so that means that yourown relationship, my relationship,

(35:10):
I've got four kids.
One is adopted.
My relationship with the threebiological kids is weaker now than
it was 10 years ago.
My adopted relationship wassort of recognized through another
pathway, but now that pathwayis being obliterated in the name
of adult interest, an adultright to acquire an unrelated child.

(35:31):
And so I hope thatcommunicating gay Marriage actually
weakened and is on its waycomplete to completely eroding your
own claim to your own natural children.
I hope that will be enough forpeople to go, okay, maybe I wasn't
going to engage because thatchild is made intentionally fatherless
because they're being raisedby a single woman or a double woman

(35:53):
or triple women or a singleman or a double man or triple couple.
You know, throuple.
But if they're coming for mykids, maybe I am going to say something
about it now.
Well, especially because youlive in Washington.
Isn't Washington one of thestates where they can take your kid
under a certain age if theyclaim some transgender identity?
And you don't want to knowsomething like that.
Bonkers.

(36:13):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's absolutely nuts out here.
I've had friends who have kidswith mental health crises or who
were starting to dabble in oradopt LGBTQ identity, and they're
like, thanks for letting us know.
And a month later, they'reliving in Idaho.
Because there is a reallylegitimate threat to your own claim
to your own children,especially after the age of 13.

(36:36):
Was it Hillary Clinton whosaid, it takes a village to raise
a child?
Which was sort of pointing inthat direction long before anyone
knew what she meant.
Really?
Most of the cultural battlesthat we are facing today, the transgender
stuff, the gay marriage stuff,the commercial surrogacy stuff, even
the sex ed stuff, those areall manifestations of one foundational

(37:00):
question.
And that question is, to whomdo children belong?
To whom do they belong?
And the government's answeris, they belong to us.
They belong to teachers, theybelong to activists, they belong
to doctors.
They belong to whoever thesurrogacy contract has assigned them
to.
But that is not the right answer.
Children belong to their ownmother and to their own father.

(37:21):
It's on that basis that wehave parental rights.
But it's also on that basisthat we say children can't be commodified,
distributed, and sold likecommon objects.
So we have to get down to thequestion of is there something special
about the natural parent child relationship?
If you answer that question,you get the right answer to whether
or not a child can emancipatethemselves at the age of 13 and head

(37:43):
down to an LGBTQ safe houseand get testosterone from Planned
Parenthood.
Oh, frightening.
Frightening.

(40:33):
The idea that's coming up forme is that it's around the issue
of no fault divorce.
I'm gonna sneeze in a second.
I'm gonna try not to do it.
But so around the issue of,like, that a Woman and I think this
was from your natcon talk, wasit perhaps last year?
I remember watching that talk.
I'm not sure if it was from natcon.
But the idea that a child hasa right to their father and you can't

(40:54):
just divorce, you know, dadfor whatever reason, does this apply
to that subject as well?
No fault divorce was theoriginal redefinition of marriage
that you've actually seen anoverhaul of marriage and family in
the cultural space, the legalspace and the technological space.
And when you wanna talk aboutthe unraveling of the family in the

(41:15):
legal space, it was no faultdivorce that did that first.
And so yes, no fault divorcetotally undermines children's right
to their mother and father.
And usually it's the noncustodial parent that sees the most
erosion in theiracknowledgement relationship with
access to the child.
And there's about 40% of caseswill children won't see their non

(41:37):
custodial parent, their fatherever again after two years.
I mean oftentimes a no faultdivorce doesn't mean splitting time
between mom and dad's house.
50 50.
It often means losing arelationship with dad altogether.
So this is an egregious violation.
It hur children.
There was a just a huge studythat came out a couple weeks ago
that said that divorce is anincreased risk of like 60% teen parenthood,

(41:59):
which we knew about.
Like a 40% increased chance ofcriminality, which we knew about.
Like those two things arealmost the predictable result of
father loss or father absence,but a 45% more likely of early death
when your parents divorce.
This is such a shock to achild's system, it actually shortens

(42:20):
the telomeres, the end caps oftheir chromosomes.
Divorce impacts children atevery cell of their body and it's
harmful to them.
But it harmed our concept of marriage.
Because what is marriage?
Why is marriage so differentfrom every other adult relationship?
Three things.
Number one, it is monogamous.
There's only supposed to beone of each and every.

(42:43):
Obviously we're kind of on theprecipice of normalizing polygamous,
right?
Polyamory group love that'smaking, you know, that's now moving
into the marriage and family space.
But we already through gaymarriage removed the complementarity
that it should be a man and awoman, that there is a complement
between the genders.
But the first one that was togo was the permanence.

(43:05):
The idea that I'm gonna committo you all my life.
What man has joined together,let no one separate, okay?
Till death do us part, as thevows say.
So we'd stripped that in 1969when California passed no fault divorce
for the first time.
And then every state in theunion followed suit.
And that communicated thatinstead of there needing to be somebody
at fault for breaking marriagethrough adultery, abandonment, addiction,

(43:27):
abuse, now you could end themarriage for no reason.
Nobody needed to be at fault.
And what that did is it said,marriage is no longer an institution
centered around creating andraising children.
Now it's a vehicle of adult fulfillment.
Now if you're unhappy, it cancease to be a marriage.
And then the gays were like,oh, well, if it's just about happiness,
married to somebody else ofthe same sex makes me happy.

(43:48):
And the polygamists are like,oh, if it's just about happiness,
married to four other peoplemakes me happy.
So you actually don't getmarriage as an institution centered
around the well being ofchildren until you address no fault
divorce.
Amazing.
I mean, you, you touched on itright there.
Like, I think that's an ideathat lives inside so many different
people's heads, that marriageis about personal fulfillment, adult

(44:10):
happiness.
And the idea that marriagecould be about something so much
more and so different fromthat, about covenants, about commitments,
you know, that is almostanathema to our culture today, that
anything could be consideredbinding on the individual that transcends
them.
It's a very us before them idea.
Right.
This institution exists for me.

(44:31):
If I'm fulfilled, then I get it.
If I'm unfulfilled, I can toss it.
And that is the problem withredefining marriage in the divorce
space or the same sex marriage space.
It exalts adult desire aboveeverything else.
And when adult desire is king,children will always be the required
sacrifice.
Amen.

(44:51):
That's literally the teachingof history.
Literally the teaching ofhistory, whether it be Aztec temples
or abortion clinics, as thememe goes.
So you mentioned your natcontalk coming up, which would be in
about a week, I suppose.
So at the time when this airs,you will have given the speech.
I hear a rumor that you'regonna be throwing some bombs from
the stage, lighting the roomon fire.
Do you want to talk a littlebit about that speech and let people

(45:12):
know what at this point theywould have missed?
Yes.
I don't know.
At this point, it's up on thethen Before Us substack.
So if you want to go, you canread the speech at our Then Before
Us substack.
Subscribe, because there willbe more to come.
But what I'm doing is I'mconnecting the dots for people that
they're not sure that thesethings should be connected.

(45:33):
So the first thing I'm goingto do in that speech is outlined
a few headline grabbingstories that a lot of you guys are
probably aware of.
For example, the 21 childrenwho were removed from the California
home where the two CCP ChineseCommunist Party members were raising
these children, 15 of whichwere under the age of three, all
of which were created through surrogacy.

(45:55):
And they had some kind of likereception desk at the front of the
house where people would comeand go all through the day.
And the child, the childrenwere removed from the home because
one of the babies like a twomonth old was seen at the hospital
because the nanny was likeshaking the baby and they went in
and they discovered this, thisheron harem like situation of infants

(46:15):
in this home.
So that was a story that, yes,this hit, that hit the headlines
in July.
So I'm going to give thatshare that story.
And then I'm going to say gaymarriage did that.
Then I'm going to share thestory of the 74 year old man also
in California who had createda cage like structure in his upstairs
loft to contain his 2s 6 yearold sons conceived through IVF born

(46:40):
through a surrogate who hadthe children removed from his home.
And I'm going to say gaymarriage did that.
And then I'm going to describea situation in Arkansas where two
women had a child throughanonymous sperm donor and then demanded
and got from the Supreme Courtthe ability to erase the child's

(47:01):
biological father from thechild's birth certificate.
In essence saying that thischild doesn't have a father and the
state endorsed that level oflying will say gay marriage did that.
And then I'm going to talkabout the situation where a lot of
people saw the two gay menkissing their surrogate born child
every month of the child'sfirst year as the child grew.

(47:22):
And then it came out that oneof those men was a convicted sex
offender.
And I am going to say gaymarriage did that.
Now how can gay marriage beresponsible for children created
through a heterosexual foreigncouple, a single retiree, two lesbian
women and two gay men?

(47:42):
How can gay marriage have doneall of that?
And it's because marriage, thedefinition of marriage historically,
not just in our country, butall across most countries.
But certainly we got itthrough our common law tradition
from England.
Like pre colonial times,marriage functions as the sun at
the center of a constellationof marriage and family laws.

(48:07):
And when you swap out aprocreative life giving understanding
of marriage at the center ofthe universe.
And you put in a definition ofthe family that's non procreative,
centered around the identityof the adults.
The entire cosmos has torealign and you can no longer have

(48:28):
bigoted ideas like infertilitysimply being something that affects
heterosexuals.
Now you have to haveinfertility that can affect single
people or same sex couples sothat insurance agencies have to pay
for the manufacturing ofmotherless or fatherless children
in the name of equality.
Now you can't have words likemother and father in parenthood laws

(48:53):
because that feels like hate speech.
So you have to genderneutralize everything.
Now you can't have laws thatrecognize that there's only two legitimate
pathways to acquire avulnerable biology because they came
from your body, or adoptionbecause you proved that you weren't
going to abuse the kid.
No, no, no.

(49:14):
Biology is quitediscriminatory when it comes to same
sex adults.
And adoption feels like a realimposition because heterosexual couples
don't have to adopt if theywant to take their child home from
the hospital.
So we've created new path forparenthood called intent based parenthood.
And that is if you canassemble sperm, egg and womb and

(49:36):
you have a valid contract andyou intend to parent the child, you
get the baby.
So you put all of those thingstogether and it's a free for all.
Anybody can get a baby, massproduce them, give them to foreign
nationals, single, double,triple adults, sex offenders, non
sex offenders, who cares?
Nobody looks, nobody scrutinizes.

(49:58):
That's not part of the process anymore.
The whole point of replacingthe procreative son at the middle
of marriage and family is tode demote all of these other understandings
of marriage and family thatwe've had away from this natural
family structure towards astate constructed family that completely

(50:19):
disregards biology and theprotectiveness of adoption.
And, and now it's anything anadult really, really wants, can pay
for and has a valid contractfor and they get the kid.
So this is just the beginning.
If we do not get marriageright, we're only going to see more
terrible examples of childrenbeing acquired, designed, destroyed

(50:40):
and commodified.
I cannot wait to hear this talk.
I'm fired up just listening to you.
I mean really like the clarityin that perspective is something
that's going to be sittingwith me throughout the day.
I'm curious.
This might be a bit of adiversion, but I think not.
I'm curious about your origin story.
The passion behind all of thisis truly remarkable.

(51:02):
And I'm curious about thecircumstances that led you to discover
this passion and take up this cause.
Well, like I said, I'mactually very nice and I like to
keep the peace and I don'tlike conflict.
I mean, even the thing thathappened earlier today with the friend
who misread something that Iposted, like.
Like, it was like a half hourago that I finally started to calm

(51:24):
down.
So this is.
This is not something that Iwould have chosen for myself, but
it was the.
It was when marriage came toWashington State in 2012, that was
right after Barack Obamaevolved on the topic of marriage,
where he ran in 2008 as atraditional marriage supporter.
Then he ran in 2012 as atraditional marriage supporter.

(51:46):
And then after he got intooffice the second time, he decided
actually gay marriage.
Yes.
And then I felt like it was afull court press on behalf of the
media pushing towardsnormalizing gay marriage and demonizing
people that, you know, beforethat, before they had the president
on their side, it was morelike, here's a legitimate disagreement
by two different camps.

(52:08):
Once they had the president,it was like, here's the good side,
here's the evil Nazis on theother side.
So, you know, and obviouslyyou're all gay hating, homophobic
bigots, which, which, numberone, is offensive to all of us because
everybody.
I talk to a lot of Christians,I'm like, in even I'm an evangelical
world central.
Okay?
I know the people that supporttraditional marriage.

(52:30):
All of us have gay family and friends.
All of us love those gayfamily and friends.
I have friends who cared fortheir dying brother who had AIDS
in his home for eight years,and he supports traditional marriage.
Don't go telling me that wehate gay people, you absolute manipulative
liars.
But the other thing is, is mymom is in a relationship with her
partner.
They've been together for 40 years.

(52:51):
And I love them.
I'm very close to them.
So it was very, like, personal.
Like, please shut up.
But the other thing, this wasthe real thing to normalize gay marriage,
to push this agenda, they hadto promote the idea that kids with
two moms or two dads fared nodifferent, that they love it, that
they're happy.
And I'm like, okay, I,obviously, my mom is in a gay relationship.

(53:15):
I love her.
She's.
She's the best mom.
She's.
Honestly, Will, I'm sorry,She's a better mom than your mom
was.
Like, she's a great woman.
Probably.
Yeah.
I don't know your backstory, maybe.
I just like, touched on thesensitive Spot.
But like, the idea that, like,two random men could have acquired
me as a baby and it would havezero impact on my identity and development

(53:36):
and ability to.
To see myself as a wife and mother.
I mean, ridiculous.
So I.
And here's the other thing.
I had been working with kidsfor a couple decades in youth ministry,
in adoption.
I had never met a kid who losttheir mother or father, who, at minimum
were not curious.
But most of the time it wasthis gaping wound that they could

(53:58):
barely talk about withouttheir chin quivering.
And so that was it.
Like, you're pushing a.
Kids don't care if they havetwo moms.
That means they've lost their father.
You're telling me kids have,except don't care if they've lost
their father.
You absolute lying.
Like, you know, politicizingthese, these.
The most intimate wounds thatchildren experience.

(54:18):
So the short answer is I'm.
I'm doing this because of rage.
I just got really, reallyangry that nobody was formally defending
children in conversationsfirst about marriage, the definition
of marriage.
But then I realized there'snobody articulating a child defense
position in divorceconversations or reproductive technologies

(54:39):
or questions about sperm andegg donation or even, even adult
centric adoption.
Like, there's problems in theleft and the right thinking that
adoption is for adults ratherthan adoption being a child centric
process.
So that was it.
I just thank God for thehundreds of organizations defending
children's right to life inmatters of abortion.

(55:00):
We're trying to do that samekind of thing on this side of the
womb.
I imagine that it hitsdifferent coming from a woman than
it would from a man as well.
I think men are concerned withtheir sets of issues.
Justice.
Not that you're not concernedwith justice, but advocating for
the position for childrencomes across different in the voice
of woman than I think it wouldfrom a man.

(55:21):
And the passion and enthusiasmmakes a lot of sense now to see the
lie that, no, it doesn'taffect children.
They're fine.
Like, that's been known.
That's not true.
Since the 1970s.
Perhaps you're familiar withthe work of Dr. Warren Farrell, who
wrote the book.
Another friend of yours, I imagine.
Yeah, we're both actually onthe advisory board for Jordan Peterson's

(55:42):
new project, the alliance forResponsible Citizenship.
So we've had some good conversations.
I really appreciate Will andhis work.
Yes.
So he and I met.
Warren, Warren.
Warren Farrell.
Yeah.
So, yeah, he.
He and I met as part of thedocumentary I was producing on this,
the Rebirth of Masculinitymovement, which has Gone off the
rails since then, but themovement itself has.
But in his book the BoyCrisis, he talks about how he was

(56:05):
on the national, the board ofthe National Organization of Women.
They were talking about nofault divorce.
He's like, look, it's havingall of these effects on children.
We need to push back on nofault divorce because it's impacting
the children.
And the feminists at the timewere like, yeah, no, full speed ahead.
And that was when he decidedto leave that board and go the direction
he did.
So back in the 70s, it wasknown that divorce impacted kids

(56:27):
negatively.
And so they're still saying,you know, with surrogacy and all
these other things, there'sno, there's no impact on children.
It's a sociological miracle.
I always tell people that,like anytime you're not studying,
for example, same sex parenting.
Sociologists agree thatbiological parents advantage children
in ways that unrelated adultsdo not.

(56:49):
That losing your mother orfather to death, divorce, abandonment
or reproductive technology hasnegative impacts.
That an unrelated adultsharing living spaces with children
diminishes outcomes, and thatmothers and fathers offer distinct
and complementary benefits to children.
Those are things thatsociologists all agree on and have

(57:12):
for the last several decades.
But then, miraculously, whenyou study same sex parenting, none
of that matters anymore.
So it's like we know what weknow until the ideological capture
comes along and spins it intosomething that's a little more politically
palatable, but absolutely goesagainst kind of the fundamental natures
of what is self evident abouthuman children.

(57:34):
I think I saw a tweet or aretweet of yours.
Was it from Josh Moore, who'spart of them before us?
Josh Wood.
Wood, yes.
About two parent privilege, something.
So talk a little bit aboutthat tweet which I just saw today.
Yeah.
Melissa Kearney wrote a book,I think last year called the Two
parent Privilege.
And the reason why it got alot of attention is she's not on

(57:54):
the right.
She's an economist.
I think she's more progressive.
But even she had to say thewhole myth about single mothers is
absolutely wrong.
There is a privilege to havingtwo parent homes.
And I've read the book, it'sright back there behind me.
But the problem with that isit's not a two parent home that advantages

(58:16):
children.
She's looking at it from aneconomic perspective where she's
saying, look to.
There's more resources, bothin terms of financial and in terms
of time for the child.
But what she's doing is sortof a subprime mortgage Switcheroo
where she says two parentfamily and she's really relying on
data that says no.
The married biological motherand father advantage children in

(58:39):
those ways.
But she calls it two parentbecause if she were to say married
biological mother and father,she'd be in.
She already has a hard timedefending this position among her
circles.
You know, when you're ontalking to Bari Weiss at honestly
about the two parentprivilege, you're not really going
to talk about the marriedbiological mother and father framework.

(59:00):
But all of her data about theadvantages, about the privilege comes
from married biological motherand father.
But she's sort of smuggling inother two parent homes and saying
that that's reflected in the data.
It's not because children, forexample, who are raised by a mother
and her new husband overall donot fare as well as children raised

(59:24):
by their own mother and father.
There are heroic step parentsout there.
There are men and women whoare stepping into the gap to fill
the space of a negligentbiological mother or father.
They can be acknowledged, theyshould be encouraged, they should
be championed.
But if you want to create asystem wide society wide framework
for a privilege, it's notgoing to come any two will not do.

(59:48):
It's only a child's marriedbiological mother and father that
on a population wide basis isgoing to create that kind of privilege.
I suppose you also know thework of Cary Gress.
You know, and there are a lotof women that are discovering things
that have been known for along time and they come across this
information, the two parentprivilege, like no, what you're actually
looking at is marriedbiological mothers and fathers.

(01:00:09):
Very controversial.
Carrie Gress encounters someof this information as well.
Perhaps you know her work.
Work.
Is she the one that wrote theOrigins of Gender book?
She wrote the book the End of.
End of Women.
End of Women, End of Women.
Yes, I know of her.
Haven't read it, but yeah, Imean it's a very common thing where
it's like you have thesepresuppositions about the way the
world's supposed to work andthen you go look at the data and

(01:00:30):
you find, nope.
It is actually true thatmarried biological parents who stay
married and work it outthrough the challenges are the best
environment for growingchildren, all things being equal.
And so I can understand whythe author of the book that you mentioned,
the two parent privilegesprivilege, would feel very controversial
in her progressive circles tobe talking about these ideas.
Yeah, it's unpopular, it's,you know, good for her because I,

(01:00:52):
I do think that it was A sheis taking some heat, especially from
her social circle.
But honestly, saying childrenneed two parents is a coward's way
of talking about the family.
Like, name it.
Oh, you know, wow.
Yeah, it is.
Like, because then you cansay, well, kids are, you know, just
fine with two dads or twomoms, and that's just not it.

(01:01:12):
Like, children will alwayslose something growing up in that
household.
So, no, if you want to beclear, it is going to take a little
more spine and tell the truth.
Say what marriage is.
It's not any two.
You know, the model of familythat distinctly benefits children
is the two people responsiblefor their existence, united for life,

(01:01:35):
raising the child together.
All this helps me understandmuch better how I first encountered
your work, which was through,I think, a singles matchmaking service.
I heard about that, like, aweek or two before you and I started
chatting on X.
Like, oh, perfect.
It's the same person.
Is that.
Is that still going?
Because I. I know a lot of menthat are very interested in it.
Okay, you can send me the men,because I have a deep, deep bench

(01:01:59):
of incredible women,especially in their 30s and early
40s, who are not, like, girlbossing it up and, like, like, I'm
gonna totally bypass myreproductive years.
There's just women whothought, I really wanna be a wife
and mom, and it's nothappening, so I'll just apply myself
while I wait.
And then they waited andwaited and waited and waited.
So, yeah, the matchmakingservice is still happening.

(01:02:21):
I'm learning a lot through it.
In terms of all these people,I mean, I say this is for the purpose
of dating and marriage, and Iwill take you if you're very serious
about.
You know, I always saycharacter and worldview are the thing
that we're going to lead with here.
Hotness.
We're just not leading with hotness.

(01:02:42):
But it's interesting becauseI'm learning a lot about why people
are still single.
And some of that is becauseyou kind of need to cast the net
wide.
There are so many people thatsay, well, she's a dog person, and
I'm not a dog person, so Idon't think it's gonna work.
And I'm like, let me explainto you what's happening here.
Okay, you gave me a profile,and I delivered somebody to you who.

(01:03:06):
Who is an 8 out of 10 ofeverything that you're looking for.
But you're saying that youcan't even go on three dates because
that's my requirement.
If I match you, I'm asking forthree Dates.
I say, I'm not asking you toget engaged or get married.
I'm asking, is there enoughalignment here for you to go on three
dates?
And it's interesting becausesome people will say, well, he likes

(01:03:28):
to travel and I don't like to travel.
Or, he's an extrovert, and Idon't think I can be with an extrovert.
And I'm like, think about themarried couples that you know, how
many of them have completealignment in their hobbies or their
personality styles?
Let me check.
None of them.
Because sometimes you don'tknow what you want.
Sometimes you're gonna put awish list together.
And I think it should be highon the worldview, alignment and character.

(01:03:52):
But on all those other things,preferences, personalities, hobbies,
the truth is, you might likeit, or it's okay for you to not go
on every hike with him.
It's okay.
But it's.
I think that probably theconsumer mindset has gotten people
to the point where they won'teven say yes to a date unless it
matches every single one oftheir criteria.

(01:04:14):
So I've found that some ofwhat I'm doing is matchmaking, and
a lot of what I'm doing iscoaching, which I never kind of thought
I would be in that.
I thought, you're desperate toget married.
You're desperate to get married.
He's wonderful.
She's wonderful.
And I'm still having toconvince you to pick up the phone.
It's just crazy to me.
Listeners can't hear, but I'mnodding my head off right now because

(01:04:36):
I was so wondering how thatwould go.
Because on the side of workingwith men, that's what I've discovered.
It's like, yes, I hear thatyou say that you want to be married
and you're doing all thesethings, but as we start talking,
I discover, well, these badideas and this perspective and this
immaturity, and all this islike, you think that you're ready
to be married, but I don'tthink that you actually are.

(01:04:57):
And the only conclusion thatI've really, really come to is that,
like, I think people say theywant to be married, but deep down
inside, they genuinely fearthe commitment.
And so they'll look for any out.
And then they can say, but I'm trying.
It's just the environment.
It's like, well, I'm not sosure about that.
There are a lot of challenges.
Like, the dating landscapealone is crap.

(01:05:20):
But then, like, our vision ofwhat dating should look like is crazy.
Like.
Like, first of All a lot ofpeople have said, well, I'm not gonna
date until I know the personI'm gonna get married to or courting
or whatever.
I'm like, garbage, garbage.
Go on lots of dates.
That's right.
Bring back casual dating.
Like, that's my thing is,like, I require three dates in my
service because I'm like,number one, you don't know what you

(01:05:42):
like.
And number two, you probablydon't know who you are.
And number three, dating is a skill.
And none of y' all have been practicing.
Like, you don't just drop intothat and you're automatically great
at dating.
It's actually something thatyou need to practice.
And that's not the kind ofthing where you're not using.
You're actually building a skill.
You're gonna be better at it.
When you do meet Mr.
Right or Mrs.

(01:06:02):
Right, they're going tobenefit from learning about themselves
in the dating process.
And I've had a couple peoplethat have started dating, and they're
like, I don't know.
But by the end, they're like,oh, my gosh.
I actually really like that.
He's super into, like, philosophy.
And I thought, well, I'm not aphilosophy person, but it actually
has given us a lot to talk about.
I'm like, yes, yes.

(01:06:22):
You don't know what you likeuntil you practice.
So anyway, I. I feel bad forthe people that are looking to be
married.
And then here's the other big problem.
You do not have all theoptions out there.
You should not choose from thepool of people that you think you
want to be with.
You need to choose from thepool of people you could actually

(01:06:44):
get.
So I'm so.
I mean, like, I just want tobe really blunt here.
Like, buddy, if you're a 5 ona scale of 1 to 10, and you think
that you're going to get a 10who's 10 years younger than you,
you know, with an hourglassfigure and you're £250 and not from
lifting.
I'm sorry.
So it's like, either get to bethe person that can pull the person

(01:07:07):
that you want, or you need tochange how you think about who you're
going to get.
I mean, like, a lot of it'sjust being really blunt with people.
I've told young women, you're beautiful.
You're beautiful in the senseof, like, incredible personality.
You love the Lord.
You need to lose £30.
Amazing.
So anyway, I mean, like, it'sthat shepherdess side, but there's

(01:07:29):
a lot of coaching.
I didn't think it was going tobe coaching.
I thought it was like, here'ssomebody that's perfectly aligned
with what you want.
Ding.
We're done here.
But it's just so muchconvincing going on, it's crazy.
Absolutely.
You know, Doug Wilson has acouple books.
Get the guy and get the girl.
Be the man.
The kind of woman that youwould want to marry, would want to
marry, and vice versa, Be thekind of woman that the kind of man
you would want to marry wouldwant to marry.

(01:07:50):
It's a convoluted phrase, butthe idea is, picture the man that
you want.
What would he want?
Become that person if you can.
And if you can't, then youcan't get that guy or that girl.
It's pretty simple.
Yeah, but it's like in theworld of, like, AI girlfriends and,
you know, endless swiping, youcan live in that fantasy until you're
past your childbearing years,and that's a really big problem.

(01:08:11):
So it sounds like you've donequite a bit of coaching across everything
that you do, whether it beworldview coaching or dating coaching.
Did you expect to get here?
I don't know.
Probably not.
Well, that's so much more mynatural lane than culture warrioring.
Like, my husband was a pastor.
We've been in ministry for 30 years.
Like, I.
All I want to do is, like,bear your burden and read scripture

(01:08:33):
with you and pray with you andif you allow me, let me give you
some biblical direction onwhatever you find yourself, that
to me, I don't have to work at.
At all.
Going into hostile spaces andthrowing bombs.
I had to grow into that.
Oh, wow.
You had to put on the suit ofarmor and gear up for battle.

(01:08:57):
Yeah.
Well, praise God.
I'm very grateful for yourwork both on and off the field.
This has been an exciting,embracing and educational conversation.
I wanted to learn something.
I did.
You give me a lot to thinkabout, particularly the empathy and
justice distinction.
I'm going to be thinking aboutthat for the day along with much
else.
And I'm sure I speak for manyof my listeners.
What can we do to support you?
Where can we go to find outmore about you and what you do?

(01:09:19):
You should totally come tothem before us and subscribe to our
substack.
So if you go to substack,Google them or look, look at.
Search for them before us.
We are really working to equip people.
You will be able to stayupdated on our campaign to challenge
gay marriage.
We can use your support on that.
We are a small, you know,small outlet, very plucky, leading

(01:09:41):
almost every major nationalorganization and conservative platform
on this topic.
And so we do need to scale upto meet the demand.
So if you are in a place tosupport us financially, I will war
for children on your behalf.
And if you want my opinionsabout everything, you can go to X
Advokaty and you'll get moreopinions than you wanted to hear

(01:10:05):
from me.
Well, that's what X is for.
Yeah.
Well, thank you so much foryour time and for all your work.
Again, Katie, this has been wonderful.
May God bless your speech at NatClon.
I'm looking forward to listening.
Thank you.
Thanks for letting me speak toyou and your audience today.

(01:10:31):
Sa.