Lizzie Marbach on Being Let Go from Ohio Right to Life and the Pro-Life Industry

Conversations That Matter

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00:13

Welcome once again to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris, for a discussion today that I think you're going to find fascinating with Lizzie Marbuck from Ohio.

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She's actually a Christian in Ohio. She runs the or did, I should say, run the communications for the

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Ohio Right to Life. Before that, she was leading a faith coalition for the Ohio GOP, and she's been active in politics for a few years now, since 2020 in an official capacity.

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And she was recently, some of you know this because I referenced it on the podcast, she was recently let go of her position as the communications director for the

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Ohio Right to Life. And what I want to explore with her today, among other things, is why did that happen?

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Because it seemed to follow closely on the heels of a controversy a representative in Ohio, Max Weber, who was upset at something

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Lizzie posted that was pro -Christian. And a lot of people assume there's a connection, but is there?

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So we're going to talk to Lizzie about it, see what's going on. Lizzie, thank you so much for joining me. Yeah, John, thank you so much for having me on.

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I really appreciate it. My pleasure. My pleasure. Let me start here.

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The story has gained some traction, at least in Christian circles. I don't know if it's made waves outside of our circles, but what kind of support are you getting?

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I've really gotten support from a large audience, all the way from Ilhan Omar, where she tweeted out in support of my right to share the gospel on my personal

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Twitter account. And yeah, I've had many different conservative groups reach out and say that they're 100 % in support of what

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I said and that the congressmen definitely shouldn't have responded in that way.

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So what actually happened? I saw the tweet. You put a tweet out there that seemed like it was pretty vanilla, like it was just,

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Jesus is the only way. That's what Christians have always believed. And then that created a firestorm.

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I mean, you weren't thinking that you were going to lose your position before that tweet, I assume. So there is a little bit of background with that.

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So I started with Ohio Right to Life in March of 2022. And when I started with them,

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I made it clear that I am definitely more of the stream of the newer brand of conservatism that you actually talk about quite a bit on the show, where there's this new brand of Christian and conservative, where we're a little bit more brazen.

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We want to actually fight back. We want to actually be bold in our stances and not just embrace the old

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GOP way of being silent and never offending. So I made that clear that that was definitely my more, that was the communication strategy that I wanted to take on, was a more masculine tone, essentially, in our comms.

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And they said that that was fine. And as I started to do that, it definitely was apparent that it was not completely fine.

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There was a tension that was there that was building between my comms strategy and what they were comfortable with.

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And so there was a build up really since the Dobbs decision all the way up until a couple of weeks ago when they did let me go.

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And so before the Max Miller tweet situation had happened, my boss and I, Peter Range, actually did have a discussion where we discussed the possibility of us just parting ways, of us just not being compatible in a working sense with our communication strategy.

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But no decision actually happened at that point. We left the conversation both saying that we would pray about it and and maybe that we could explore the idea after I get back from maternity leave, because I actually am due

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September 24th. My husband and I are due with our first child. Congratulations. Thank you.

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Thank you very much. And yeah, so that's that's where we left the conversation on Tuesday. And then

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Tuesday night was when Max Miller responded to my tweet, whose wife is actually on Ohio Rights Life's board.

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And then two days later, my boss called me and said that the Miller situation has just become too much of a distraction for what we're up against in November and that my social media as a whole is too much and we have to part ways.

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So that's that's everything that that on my side, how I viewed the situation take place.

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And I think I made a mistake and I said, Max, something else. I think it's Max Miller. OK, so Max Miller is the representative there that took issue now.

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So there's so many directions to go here. But one of the things that I saw immediately after this happened is there were

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Christians who jumped to the conclusion, OK, she's being fired for her

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Christianity, which it sounds to me like in part you are, at least for being vocal about your

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Christianity. But there was pushback. I don't remember who it was, but someone within the

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Ohio Right to Life, I guess, was trying to what was a source trying to say that it really had nothing to do with that. So so you can confirm that that's not really accurate, that this did have something to do with it.

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Yes, it did have have something to do with it. Like I said, we we had the discussion before the

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Miller situation even took place about us parting ways. But as far as the time and the manner and the immediacy of it, it definitely played a role in that.

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And even like I said, at the time of my firing in the conversation, which I have record of the

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Miller situation is cited, it's cited as a distraction and then goes into my social media use as a whole.

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See, that's kind of crazy for me. I'm in New York right now as we're recording this. And Ohio, to me, is even though it's a swing state, it's much more conservative.

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And yes, I would think that that would be acceptable, that Ohio voters wouldn't be too offended by something like that.

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But I don't know whether that's Max Miller being out of step or because he did he did have to sort of apologize.

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It wasn't really an apology, but he did have to at least express regret that he had tweeted that at you and and said,

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I think he said that your tweet was the most bigoted tweet or one of the most bigoted tweets he had ever seen.

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And he had to sort of retract that. But but at the same time, you did lose your job.

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So at least on an institutional level, there's what do you attribute that to?

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Is there is it weakness? Is there leftism kind of creeping into even pro -life organizations?

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Where is this coming from? Well, I think that you're correct when you say that Ohio is definitely more conservative, especially more than than New York.

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But even over the past few years, it's become a very red state on the grassroots level.

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And I know that as somebody who's worked in the grassroots very closely, I I'm very aware of what

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Ohio voters want and what they're asking for. However, the Ohio GOP apparatus is not on that level.

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They are very much the quintessential rhino Republicans. I mean, before President Trump, our governor was was

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Kasich, right? Like he's right. He is who has built up our infrastructure in Ohio.

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GOP is is a bunch of his people. And so that's how a lot of people think here in the state of Ohio that actually work in politics.

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And unfortunately, that's permeated even throughout Ohio right to life. Our president,

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Mike Anadakis, was notably close to Governor Kasich. He's the one who actually lobbied

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Governor Kasich to veto the heartbeat bill twice in his capacity as president of Ohio right to life.

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And so our organization is very much affected by that. And so I don't think that it was leftism as much as it was their fear of losing political influence and upsetting

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Congressman Max Miller and all of who he's connected with. His his wife, like I said, sits on our board and her father is a

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U .S. Senate candidate, Bernie Marino. And both Senate candidate Bernie Marino and Congressman Max Miller are very close to President Trump.

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And so they have a lot of influence in the state of Ohio when it comes to politics.

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And so I I don't want to make any assumptions about what they were thinking, but I you definitely have to call into question if if that had a hand in this is

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Max Miller. Is he Jewish? What's his religion? Yes, he is Jewish, Jewish. OK, so so that's why he was offended by Jesus being the only way.

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And that this is something that I think I've talked about a number of times. I'm not the obviously only one to talk about this, but there is this managerial elitism that on the conservative side or the

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Republican side, we see this where they yeah, they aren't like dyed in the wool leftists, but they won't really stop the leftists.

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They're not interested in that. They're interested in kind of maintaining a status quo, smooth sailing, getting along.

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They don't want to be canceled by the left. They're afraid of that. So they respond to pressure from the left in ways they won't respond to pressure from the right.

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And and I want to ask you about this, because in my state where I am right now and I realize there's some people who might be listening to this that are connected to this, but there is a local pro -life organization, the main one actually in my area.

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And my understanding is they tell people when you're doing counseling, you're not allowed to share the gospel.

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Don't don't share about Jesus because and this is actually a Christian pro -life organization, but they're afraid that that's going to distract again what you said, that your social media activity was distracting, that that will distract from their mission to save babies, essentially.

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What do you make of that? Is that a new talking point? Has that been around for a while? Why is it that even

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Christian pro -life orgs have trouble being Christian? Yeah, I think that it's definitely been around for a while.

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I think the point that we're at now is the strongest that it's been held just because as a whole, as a culture as a whole, we're in this post -Christian society.

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But even from the very beginning, we saw the pro -life movement really try to tackle this merely from the stance of reason and science and never bringing up that foundational religious reason to be pro -life.

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And while, you know, you and I can agree that reason and science are great, amazing tools that God has gifted us with, our foundation should always be based on scripture and based on truth, because that's where all truth stems from, is from scripture.

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And so when you completely rip that foundation away and you're trying to teach culture that killing babies is wrong merely on scientific grounds, you're going to come to a place where we recognize that it's a human life.

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If we recognize that abortion is murder, but we're not going to be morally believing that that's wrong because we'll have no problem saying, well, yes, it's murder, but it doesn't matter because my bodily autonomy matters more.

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And so we're going to be faced with that moral question, but have no way to actually answer it because we've taken our foundation out from underneath us, which is the

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Bible. And yes, so the pro -life movement definitely has accepted that false doctrine that we're never supposed to bring up the gospel, we're never supposed to bring up God.

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I remember there was a conversation in one of our board meetings about our mission statement where they wanted to add in, some people wanted to add in the phrase

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God given rights. And all the politicos that are on our board were like, well, no, we can't mention

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God during this time because then it'll just give the left something to talk about and claim that we're just religious fascists that are trying to force our religion.

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And luckily, I will say they lost on that vote. We did end up adding in God given to our mission statement.

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But just the fact that that was even a concern to begin with is just insane. And like you said, it really just highlights that they're so afraid of offending the left, but they have zero fears of offending our base or really going against what conservatives actually want.

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They only fear the left and that's who they want to impress through all of this.

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Well, that sounds like that's who they worship then because who you fear often is that's who you venerate and aspire to and want to please and sacrifice to.

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And it's so disturbing. I'm actually writing an article. Actually, I just finished it. I just finished an article that I'm hoping

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American reformer runs. We'll see. It's kind of edgy. And, you know, but I actually use your example in it because it's all about the conservative response to Nazism and how in the 1950s, you read conservatives and they're critiquing its ideological components.

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They're saying that it's totalitarian. It's basically the same critiques just about they used of the

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Soviets, they used of the Nazis. They didn't say things like, well, if you love your people too much, that makes you a

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Nazi. Right. And the left was doing that, though the left, you know, 1952, Harry Truman is doing this, accusing

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Dwight Eisenhower of being pro -Nazi, even though he defeated the Nazis. And, you know, fast forward to today, the

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Republicans today sound exactly like the Democrats did in the 50s. Like all their villains are somehow tied into fascism or Nazism somehow, whether that's people who are venerate their

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Confederate heritage or at least want to honor that, or it's people who are just like moms for liberty who just don't want their kids groomed or MAGA Republicans.

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Or I mean, there's so many groups now that are now suspected of being fascist that never were before.

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And and it's gotten down. This is the example that I use of you. It's gotten down to the point where it's like if you're just a

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Christian, if you just literally say Jesus is the only way, there's like an assumption that, you know, that's kind of fascist.

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That's kind of like Nazi or something like that. And it's this big boogeyman. How do you move on from that now that you've been given the red letter?

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I mean, do you work for another pro -life organization? Do you like are you blacklisted now from GOP circles?

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What's the future for you? Yeah, that's a good question. I'm not too sure if I'm blacklisted here in the state of Ohio.

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I'm sure to be frank, I'm sure that I am. I'm sure that, you know, the the higher

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Republican Party, any of the state legislators or other organizations in Ohio would be slow to really give me an opportunity.

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I'm not sure. I haven't sought that out yet. But I'm sure that I definitely am blacklisted in some circles, especially among the pro -life circles.

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I've tried to reach out to a few people that are just in other organizations. And it's very clear that there's a distance that's that's happening.

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And so it's sad. But like you said, yeah, if you if you're just a

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Christian who actually has conviction, who actually believes what you claim and you're not just a nominal

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Christian, you are viewed as extreme. You're viewed as as some radical who's crazy and has to be tamed.

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And so it's just it's really sad, even amongst pro -life circles, which the pro -life political world is oftentimes viewed as a more virtuous version of the political world, that there that that's where the real

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Christians go to work in politics. And that's what I thought. Yeah.

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And that's that's definitely not the case at the top. There's plenty of really good

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Christians that are getting involved at the grassroots or even at the lower levels in these organizations.

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But the people that are running the organizations that are making the decisions, a lot of them are very embarrassed of the

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Conversations That Matter podcast. God bless. Why are they there then? That's my question. I mean, they just have a moral,

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I guess, conviction, but it's not rooted in anything really? Yeah.

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I mean, I can't speak to everyone's heart. I know that Ohio Right to Life CEO, Peter Range, he genuinely cares.

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I've had many in -depth conversations with him. And he genuinely cares about the issue. He is

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Catholic, but he is rooted in his faith, why he is against it.

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And he has no qualms with bringing up scripture. But unfortunately he doesn't, he's not the one who makes any kind of legislative decisions.

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He's not the one who's making major decisions for the organization. It's our president, or not mine anymore, but Ohio Right to Life's president,

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Mike Anadakis, who's really doing that. And Mike Anadakis definitely is not rooted in his faith, at least from what

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I can tell from the outside. I prayed for his heart that that would change, and maybe it just hasn't actually shown on the outside yet.

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But yeah, it seems from the outside looking in that he is really just interested in his own political gain, his own political interest.

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And he is willing to really sell out the mission if it means that he can get in closer with a politician.

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I remember there was a couple months back when one of our politicians was trying to bring forth the death penalty.

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And our governor, Mike DeWine, he's very much against the death penalty, but in Ohio, it's legal.

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So he's just essentially paused all executions since he took over as governor.

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And so there was a bill that they wanted to bring forth to end the death penalty, and Mike was was essentially trying to lobby our board to get us to come out against the death penalty so that the legislators would be more inclined to vote for that bill.

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And yeah, so he's he's just done more lobbying work for the actual politicians rather than lobbying to the politicians with the grassroots want, if that makes sense.

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It does make sense. So there's a disconnect, a big disconnect there. That's interesting, because in evangelicalism we've seen over the last,

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I would say, 10 to 15 years, especially obviously it started before that. But you have people like Karen Swallow Pryor and now

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I'm blanking, but Ron Sider was kind of the first guy, I guess, to do this. But even people like David Platt and others trying to take the pro -life movement and say there should be about, you know, 10 or 15 pro -life issues.

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Murdering children is just one of those things. But so is the death penalty.

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Ron Sider thought smoking was part of it and nuclear proliferation. And so they cram all these mostly leftist issues into the pro -life movement.

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So so you're seeing that actually happen, though, in pro -life organizations. Yes, absolutely.

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And it's so frustrating because immediately after Dobbs, our conversation wasn't,

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OK, let's let's get a bill passed to end all abortion. Our conversation was, OK, let's get bills passed that show that we support women.

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That was the focus that a lot of our board members were taking defense. When you when you won when you've won a battle, that's not.

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Yeah, you should be able to capitalize on that and make greater gains. That's that's crazy to me, strategically speaking, at least is the pro -life industry an industry.

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Is it is it I mean, is there a money making component to this? Yes, absolutely.

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There's there are a lot of good faith people that are in the pro -life movement. And so I don't want to say that everyone is seeing it that way, but it absolutely has become an industry, especially at the lobbying level.

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So your organizations that are going to be mainly focused on getting legislation passed has become an industry and not so much a money making industry, you know, in terms of selling things, but an access gaining industry where someone can gain political access and political influence to further their own career.

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And I hate to continue to bring him up, but he's just such such the perfect example of what

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I'm talking about with our president. You know, it's come out that our president is not only a lobbyist for pro -life work, but he's also a lobbyist for medical marijuana.

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And for Petland. And so, I mean, he's very clearly using a lot of this influence to get him other clients and to get him even more political power.

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Now, maybe I'm the last one to know about this. You said Petland? Yes. So I don't know all of the details of it, but I mean,

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I feel like that's kind of conflicting to lobby for puppy mills and also for life work.

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Yeah, I see. Wow. OK. Yeah, that is interesting. It seemed.

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Yeah, it's disturbing, too, I suppose. What organizations I know you mentioned one to me and abortion

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Ohio .com was that organization. But what organizations can you point Christians to? Because I think there are people even in this audience who well -meaning and they give to pro -life organizations, they go to the banquets that pro -life organizations and raffles that they hold.

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And they they hear good things when they attend those those the those particular events.

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And, you know, and I know how it works in politics, like all the people who don't even agree with you. They know how to make a stump speech.

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They know how to make you open your checkbook and write a check to them. You're on the inside, though.

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You've seen how the sausage is made. What organizations should Christians be supporting?

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Well, like you said, and abortion Ohio is probably the best right now. They're the ones who are actually lobbying to bring forth a bill of equal protection in the state of Ohio.

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Another organization that is solid is, I would say, Ohio Christian Alliance. Chris Long is the one who runs the organization, and he sincerely is dedicated to getting

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Christians, Christians and churches involved. And he's spoken up a lot in in these backroom meetings where we're talking about strategy, and he's made it clear that, you know, if we're not doing this right,

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I'm not going to be a part of it. And so I really admire that he's willing to take a stand as well.

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It's it's kind of funny because him and I would always joke about our our meetings that we would go to him.

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Me and another gentleman would always be the ones who would speak up and kind of push back on what's going on.

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And ironically enough, we were also the only Protestants in the room. So, yeah, we we saw some of some of that dynamic.

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But yeah, I would say End Abortion Ohio and Ohio Christian Alliance are definitely the the best.

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If you're somebody younger and you just want to get involved in pro -life work, really in the grassroots level,

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Created Equal is is good. They're the ones who actually show the pictures, who will go out and do sidewalk counseling and will go out to the street and just show the pictures of abortion.

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There has been some question about if they're for or against equal protection bills, so I'm not sure about that.

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But I do know that the people in their organization are are genuine in wanting to bring forth the truth there as well.

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I went to a an event, I suppose you could say, for for Love Life. Have you heard of them? I have not.

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No. OK, maybe they're not in Ohio. I know they're in Tennessee, they're in New York. But I was impressed, at least they're

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Christian and they do some of the sidewalk counseling and they get churches involved in a way that's not too rah -rah political, but is is more focused on prayer and so forth.

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But anyway, that that's an organization that I would feel comfortable, I think, sending people to as well.

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So the timing of this for you, I guess. I don't know if it seems like maybe it was providential because you are going to you're going to be taking care of a baby here soon.

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So you don't need to have the hassle of dealing with these controversies and being involved in the political world.

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I'm assuming, though, at some point you're going to want to get back involved. Do you think you'll be involved in a pro -life setting or a political setting of a different kind?

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I definitely don't think that I'll get back involved in the pro -life movement per se.

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I am somebody who loves working in politics and loves to just really call people to action.

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And so I'd imagine that I would stay involved in the political world in some capacity, but I'm not completely sure how that would look.

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The the reason why I don't think that I would get involved in the pro -life movement as a whole is is just because I I'm having a hard time seeing that there could be any kind of redemption in these pro -life organizations that are actually lobbying for legislation.

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And I don't mean to come off harsh with that, but, you know, I just every every pro -life organization that I thought might be on board with, you know, a bill of equal protection or speaking truthfully, they have have proven that they're more interested in political strategy and political expediency.

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And so I just hesitate with that. I feel like we we really have to tackle this issue from the bottom up, from churches up.

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I think that if we can figure out a way to really get pastors to take the leadership on this, that's how how we're going to be able to really win and make a difference.

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Yeah, it's interesting that there is this battle kind of between the pro -life movement and abortion abolitionists that I guess, for lack of a better term,

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I've I've been on the fence or the sidelines of however you see it, I guess. And it's the difficulty that I've had with some of the more aggressive abolitionist voices,

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I suppose, is that there there does seem to be some gains that are made through incrementalism.

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And in fact, I think it was Doug Wilson had written an article years ago called Smash Mouth Incrementalism or something like that, which was kind of a just like you throw everything at abortion to end it.

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And and I guess I agreed with that. I haven't maybe thought about it as deeply as I could.

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But I'm wondering now if part of the division between these groups is there's a jadedness.

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Like there's people like yourself who have been in these pro -life groups thinking that they're doing something good and then they just don't.

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They see some good, but they don't see the people that run these organizations actually sharing the end goal that you would think that a pro -life organization would have, which is to completely end abortion.

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And so so they end up I mean, I've heard people say more on the abolitionist side that, you know, the whole industry is corrupt and that kind of thing, which, you know,

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I don't know if that's true. But but but that it makes sense to me. I mean, do you see that that there's that people who actually want to see abortion ended, they get discouraged and and then they funnel into other groups that are committed to that or or they just,

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I guess, fall off the map. They're not going to be involved. Yeah, I think there is there's definitely a sense of discouragement and just feeling like there's there's no hope within these these organizations.

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And I think that there's a sense of truth to that, because a lot of the people that are on the bottom or not even on the bottom, they're, you know, at a pretty high level where they have direct access to the the decision making people, they'll try to even just open up these conversations about the abolitionist side of things.

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And they don't want any kind of part of it. And now that we're in a post -Rose society, really, it has been exposed that most of these organizations don't actually share in the same end goal as most grassroots pro -lifers want.

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Most of these organizations, I mean, there is the infamous letter that went out last year in reaction to what took place in Louisiana where they were going to pass a bill of equal protection.

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And 76 pro -life organizations signed signed a letter saying that we do not support this because it would punish the woman.

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And they are completely against. Equal protection, because it would potentially criminalize women that are getting abortion.

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And so because of that, we actually don't share the same end goal, because as as Christians, I mean, we we obviously aren't going to be for any kind of bill of partiality or any kind of end goal that gives immunity to somebody that is taking place in a murder.

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And and so even even for the pro -lifer that is comfortable with incremental goals, but does firmly want that end goal of abolishing all abortion.

32:44

The pro -life organizations don't share that. And and when I say pro -life organizations, again,

32:51

I mean the lobbying organizations, right? They they don't share that that same end goal.

32:56

They they are comfortable with simply just closing abortion clinics, but not doing anything about women who are actually getting abortions on their own.

33:08

And with the pill now, over 50 percent of abortions take place through the pill.

33:14

And with websites like Aid Access or Plan C, you can order the pill as a woman completely legally in a state where abortion is banned.

33:24

So in a state like Texas or or Oklahoma, I you you can go online, order the pill, take it, kill your baby.

33:32

And that's completely legal. There's no legal recourse for that. And but the pro -life politicians in those states are claiming that they've ended all abortion when they very clearly have not.

33:44

And they have no interest in actually tackling that issue. I even brought that up to Mike Ganadakis.

33:50

I laid it out saying, you know, if we don't tackle this, then abortion will never actually end in the state of Ohio.

33:56

And he just shrugged his shoulders and walked away. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, that's horrific.

34:02

One of the things that I've wondered, I would love to get your take on this is pro -life organizations have had this strategy for years of, you know, trying.

34:12

And I think it's valid to try to show that this fetus is actually a baby, right? Scientifically, it's a baby.

34:19

And so once you come to that conclusion, then, of course, you'll be against abortion in Canada right now.

34:25

And I know we're not Canada, but we are following on the tails of Canada. I have heard that euthanasia has just skyrocketed and assisted suicide and that it's protected by law.

34:40

And maybe someone who's Canadian listening can verify that for me. If that's true, though, and I know it's true in in two states in our country as well,

34:48

I believe that that shows me something, because there's no question about whether a grown person is a person, right there.

34:56

If you're pursuing doctor assisted suicide, euthanasia, then that's a person.

35:04

And there's no like it's really just an evil heart at that point. It's just you want to murder.

35:10

And I wondered whether or not that's a pro -life organizations and the whole strategy needs to be rethought a little bit.

35:17

And Christianity would help this to to introduce the idea that actually maybe a lot of these people know what they're doing.

35:24

Like, you know what I mean? Like they're not it's not an ignorance that they're just being suckered into killing their children.

35:33

And and doctors that are participating just don't know it's a baby.

35:38

Like I kind of think they do. I mean, is that your sense, too? What do you what do you think of that?

35:43

Like, should we change our strategy to be more aggressive and to just to point fingers more and to say, no, you're you're being evil?

35:49

Yeah, absolutely. And that's really where the difference in in communication strategy came into play between me and Ohio Right to Life is because I I agree with you that, no, we need to change our strategy because it's not working.

36:03

And what we've done for the past 50 years, I feel like we have had a hand to play in teaching culture that this isn't an actual life or that if it is a life, it's

36:15

OK to take it. You know, when one of one of the critiques that abolitionists often make that does make a lot of sense when you actually think about it is these the law definitely is a tutor.

36:27

And so when you're when you're passing these laws, you're you're saying abortion isn't health care.

36:32

Abortion is killing. But then you're passing laws that are regulating abortion as health care. They're calling it health care.

36:38

And they're saying you can kill the baby before it has a heartbeat or you can kill the baby before it feels pain or before it's viable or any any other kind of arbitrary marker.

36:52

We're passing these laws that are teaching even pro -life supporters that that's when life begins.

36:57

Or even if we're teaching that life begins at conception, we're still teaching that it's

37:03

OK to kill up until that point, even if it is a life. And so I think that we've we've had a hand to play at that.

37:10

And it just kind of goes back to what I was saying in the beginning, where we've ripped away our foundation by taking the

37:15

Bible out of it. The because, of course, if we live in a world that's secular, that's humanist, where we believe that our ancestors, you know, are fish and apes, then, of course, we're we're going to find a way to justify killing a life that's inconvenient to us, whether they're too old or whether they're too too young.

37:39

We're we're going to find a way to justify that because our hearts are deceitfully wicked and we are evil without Christ living within us.

37:50

And so I think that we absolutely, especially now in the world that we live in today in our country, we have to just speak truth boldly and we have to say it in a clear manner.

38:02

Like you said, like, no, that's just evil. That is wrong. That's murder. And we can't dance around that because we've allowed feminism to completely hijack the movement now, where we're we're so afraid of offending any kind of woman, that even if she's as heartless as could be, like we saw a few weeks ago, where some teenager said that she aborted her her baby at like 30 something weeks because she wanted to fit into her jeans.

38:30

Again, like we the the pro -life movement still wants to call that kind of woman a victim because they're so bought into the feminist idea.

38:41

And so, yeah, I think that the only way out of this is through conviction and clarity, and we we have to to speak that.

38:50

Otherwise, we're never going to win on the issue. And I think the response that you get when you say that, because I've said that is that if you don't view them as victims, if you want to criminalize or punish mothers, right, who want to kill their children, then we're going to lose.

39:06

We'll lose bad. It'll be horrible for us. The only winning strategy is to agree with the left that the mothers are our victims no matter what.

39:14

And even if they want to kill their children and that. Yeah, and I guess that it's.

39:23

We shouldn't imply any evil motives to anyone who's involved in that process.

39:31

Yeah, and that just really makes no sense when you when you think about it. First of all, it's been tried and true for the past 50 years, and we're in a worse place now than we were 50 years ago.

39:41

So I mean, just the the, you know, evidence doesn't bear that out.

39:46

It's shown the opposite. But also just I mean, logically, when you think about that, so you're saying that if you beat around the bush, if you don't speak clearly, then people will come to our side more.

39:59

That that doesn't make any sense. It's the people who have conviction, who have the willpower to actually push forth their agenda and push forth what they're actually wanting to get accomplished that end up winning.

40:12

We see that with the left. As crazy as they are, I'll I'll give them this. They have conviction and they're they're not afraid to say unpopular truths and then make them popular.

40:22

They that's what they've done with every single issue. I don't know if you're familiar with with the book after the ball, but Votie Bachum talks talks about it and it concerns the, you know,

40:36

LGBT agenda. And it was a book written. I mean, yeah, so I would definitely look it up.

40:43

Votie Bachum has has a great sermon where he breaks it down. But it's a book that was written in 1989. And when you read it, it reads like a history book.

40:51

But it was a book written by three gay activists that laid out their entire plan and how they're going to take over culture to accept the homosexual agenda.

41:00

What's it called? After the ball. After there's there's an article that they wrote a year before that that's a shorter version that kind of outlines it.

41:11

I forget the name. I'll have to send it to you. OK, but yeah. And and they they lay it out.

41:16

They say in order to tackle this, we have to get, quote, respectable gay people out in in front of culture.

41:24

We have to condemn the church as as bigots and and hateful and homophobes.

41:29

We have to do do this and this and this. And they lay out their plan to aggressively take over culture.

41:37

And it worked. And and Christians in response to that and conservatives in response to that have just laid over.

41:45

And they and we're doing the same thing on the issue of life as well. And so I think that the only way out of this is through conviction and through strength and through masculinity.

41:56

Really, we have to set aside these these soft tones. We have to set aside idolizing feminism, whether it's in a

42:03

Christian manner or worldly manner. We we have to set it aside and we have to allow men to lead. The fact that the pro -life movement even bought into the left's talking points that like, oh, you can't say that because you're a man.

42:15

There are so many interviews that I did purely just because they said, well, you're you're a woman, you should be doing the interview.

42:22

And that's that that's so weak. If if we had more men actually standing up, leading the fight,

42:29

I I feel like that would actually have a greater impact than having, you know, all of the women leading from the front.

42:36

Yeah. Where are the men? That's the big question. You know what? Why? So it's interesting because that's the same thing

42:42

I saw with CRT. Evangelical organizations, conservative organizations, they had to find and there are some very talented and well -spoken people who are minorities who can speak on the issue of BLM and CRT.

42:55

But there were obvious instances of them, you know, needing a minority to say those things to avoid the charge of racism.

43:05

And it sounds like the same things that work here. We need a woman to say these things or we'll get the charge of misogyny.

43:10

And and that's once you do that, it just seems to me you give up truth. You give up that.

43:16

I mean, I guess there may be their strategy to some of this. But like, you know, really, like it's either true or it's not.

43:23

And we want someone who can articulate it. That's that should be the main requirement. And of course,

43:29

I think, as you say, men should be on the forefront of these things because this is war in a sense. This I mean, you're you are a casualty of a political war, even though I know it's politics, but it's it's getting aggressive out there.

43:45

And and they're aggressive towards us. Right. So it doesn't make sense for us to be not aggressive back.

43:53

And and and we have the truth from the word of God. We have something solid to stand on. We have the

43:58

Lord Jesus Christ. We have the gospel. We don't we're not guilt ridden because of our sin.

44:04

We have the truth. We can offer that. I mean, there's so many things that should make us bold. Any final thoughts from you?

44:11

Anything you want to share or place you want to send anyone? Well, just a final thought in response to to what you said is,

44:18

I mean, you you pretty much laid it out perfectly that we're fighting this war on the enemy's premises where we're adopting the left's premises and their starting point and allowing that to define and frame the entire fight and frame the entire argument.

44:37

And that's that's going to lose every single time. That's not strategy. That's just cowardice. And so we we can't allow that.

44:46

We have to get more comfortable with rejecting the left's ideas, beginning with, you know, the the popular notions that we've accepted as a society.

44:56

And I think that's that's with politics as a whole, with culture as a whole, not just on the pro -life issue, but on every issue.

45:03

We we have to not be afraid to reject these common notions that everyone has just kind of accepted and never thought twice about.

45:12

We we have to fight back on those and bring those into question, even at the risk of us sounding, you know, like crazy people that are that are pushing against culture.

45:23

We have to be able to risk that. But with it, with that said, as far as, you know, sending sending people places, like I said, definitely go check out

45:33

EndAbortionOhio .com. They're a great organization and Ohio Christian Alliance. They're they're doing great work as well and can really use our support to to help get churches and pastors engaged.

45:47

Awesome. Awesome. Thank you for that. And thank you for taking the courageous stand that you've taken,

45:53

Lizzie. I appreciate it. Of course. Well, thank you. And your podcast and what you do definitely has helped guide me through that and and give me the the courage that I need.