Don Garner - Texas Faith and Freedom Coalition Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Six, twenty three, our time here in Houston's Morning News.
Texas senators are weighing religious protections for public school employees.
It's still in committee. I'm not sure if it's going
to make it out of committee, but I know our
next guest testified in front of this committee. His name
is Don Garner at the Texas Faith and Freedom Coalition.
I guess the concern, Don, is whether or not public

(00:22):
school employees are being prohibited from being able to at
least follow their religious teachings or their belief system by
some of the policies that have been implemented by schools.
For example, let's start with the pronoun thing he him her,
you know, wanting to use a different name than their
biological name that may be an opposite sex name. That

(00:45):
obviously makes a lot of employees in public schools uncomfortable
because it may go against their religious teachings.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Right, Yeah, And there are other reasons as well, But naturally,
I think for many people that's a primary reason is
simply that it goes against They have a moral or
religious objection to it. But you know, you can also
just talk about the ethical objection aside from any religious

(01:15):
belief about the matter, and that is that a teacher is.
They have to maintain their credibility. They're there to teach
our kids. Kids are to respect what teachers have to say.
And if the things they're saying are patently falls that is,
calling someone by a gender that clearly is not their

(01:35):
actual gender, that's that's a problem. But there are also
practical considerations, because the question can be asked to some
of these folks how many genders are there, and depending
on your source, it can be any number, and these
kinds of things. I mean not to be unkind by
reducing this to a cultural fad, but this does seem

(02:00):
to be one of those things that sort of pops
up for a while and people react in different ways,
and then we move on as a culture. But what's
going to be next that we're going to require teachers
to do? And it just adds to the complexity of
their job.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
And I think you're very right in calling a cultural
fat at this point, at least, it seems to have
grown to that point. And you know what, if you're
a teacher, you don't need to necessarily object just for
religious reasons. It might not have anything to do with
religion at all. You just may look at this as
a difference between right and wrong, and you don't want
to participate.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
In the wrong exactly exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
So, if the Texas legislature comes up with a bill,
is it going to be sort of a religious exemption
bill do you think? Or is it going to be
more all encompassing. In other words, if you're a public
school employee, you should not have to necessarily follow the
edict of your school if they're participating in these types
of programs.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Simply seeks to protect school district employees and volunteers from
having to to jump through these hoops these again, these
kind of cultural fads to somehow keep up with these
things and to act accordingly. They can simply behave as
they always have and as people naturally do, and that
is to refer to people by you know, using pronouns

(03:21):
that are consistent with their biological sex. That's all it
seeks to do.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, Are they are they also taking up the prayer
and schools as is another possible things? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (03:31):
There are. There are in fact several bills that I think,
you know, go at this in different ways and and
I think seek to establish prayer and schools at different levels.
I suppose you could say of involvement participation. But the
bill I think that I testified on just a few

(03:52):
days ago was a bill that seeks It's a Senate
Bill nine sixty five Senator Tam Parker that seeks to
code of the right of school employees to engage in
religious speech or prayer well and duty. It simply protects that.
It codifies a right established in the case that many
people in in America became aware of just a few

(04:13):
years ago with a high school football coach, Kennedy, who
had a practice of kneeling in prayer after a football game.
And you know, it kind of began as nothing, and
then it got more and more attention, and finally he
was in fact fired for it. But they took the
course at the court the courts, they took it to
the courts, went all the way to the Supreme Courts,

(04:34):
and his freedom to pray, to kneel in prayer, he
didn't compel others, he didn't try to force others to participate.
Many did voluntarily, and he was careful to make sure
that it was well.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
That being the case having already been to the Supreme Court,
and the Supreme Court designing on the issue, does the
state need to codify this in some way? It's god
have already been handled as.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
I think, well, I think that the Supreme Court case
would warn people off from trying to bring these kind
of suits in a frivolous way. But I think it's
worthwhile to go ahead and just put this in statute,
and that's what the bills see.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Gray, sir, thank you. Good to hear from you this morning.
I appreciate it. Don Garner, Texas Faith and Freedom Coalition