OSA National Conference - Afternoon Session II

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Plea to legislatures!

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All right. I'm no longer the last speaker, so I'm going to try to be quick and not boring, and unfortunately
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I'm very monotone, and I can be boring, so anyway, so like you heard,
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I'm Joseph Silk from Oklahoma. I spent six years in the state senate, me and my wife
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Kimberly have nine kiddos. Two of them came with me. We usually travel together as a group, but Arizona's a long way from Oklahoma, so that's where we're at.
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And so now I am, I'm doing Liberty Rising Institute full time, which our goal is really to get into churches and educate people and try to do that mobilization aspect that Zach was just talking about.
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So as we go through here, a lot of this you're going to know, and I'm going to run through the first part, because I want you to know this presentation is what
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I give at churches, and as we know, a lot of churches are a little bit defunct, and so we have to kind of start from a ground level here and kind of build up on it, and I know with this group, you guys are going to know a lot of this, and so I'm going to kind of rush through that, but I do want to hit it real quickly, because my wife always tells me, hey, stop assuming that everybody in the audience is already at this level on this issue, and I'm going to try not to do that, because I know there's a lot of people watching online as well.
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So we're going to talk about six things real briefly. Biblical truths regarding abortion, number two, constitutional realities of abortion, three, the church's duty, four, exposing the misguided pro -life strategy, five, the paradigm shift to abolishing abortion, and six, how to effectively engage your legislature.
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We're going to spend the most of the time on number six. We're going to run through the other ones real quick, just in case.
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So biblical truths regarding abortion, I'm just going to read some scripture, because I think it's always good to come back to it.
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Just read it, refresh it, refresh us, and never forget about it. So Psalms 139, 13 through 16, for you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb.
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I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
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My friend was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.
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All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Then Psalm 127, three through four, behold children our heritage from the
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Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward like arrows in the hands of a warrior, children born in one's youth.
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Psalms 2210, from birth I was cast on you, from my mother's womb you have been my
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God. So we see, and we all know this, when you're in the womb, you're already an image of God.
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God knew you as you were being created, as you were being formed. And then we move into abortion,
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Isaiah 10 .1, woe to those who enact unjust decrees and draft oppressive legislation.
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And then Proverbs 6, 16 through 17, there are six things the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him, haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood.
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So clearly, abortion, highly unbiblical. And so anybody who is, it's just good to come back and refresh us on that and just remember those things.
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Constitutional realities of abortion, Declaration of Independence, our founding document, which is not the
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Constitution, but it is still very valuable. We hold these truths to be self -evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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That to secure these rights, governments are an institute among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.
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Fourteenth Amendment of the U .S. Constitution, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.
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And then also, in most states, most state constitutions also have a right to life. In Oklahoma, we have it in two sections.
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And so really, what we need to remember and understand is no branch of government has legal authority to authorize the willful, targeted killing of innocent children.
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It is not only unconstitutional in our country, it's also immoral and a direct violation of human rights, regardless of what the
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Supreme Court says. So we need to remember those things. So what is the Church's duty? So we've looked at them real quickly, and again,
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I'm flying through this because I want to focus on the last part. The Church's duty, we've covered the biblical side of things, the constitutional side of things.
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Psalms 82, three through four, give justice to the weak and the fatherless, maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute, rescue the weak and the needy, deliver them from the hands of the wicked.
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Proverbs 24, 11 through 12, rescue those who are being taken away to death, hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter, if you say, behold, we did not know these things, does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
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Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?
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And then Proverbs 28, 1, the righteous are as bold as a lion, Ecclesiastes 3, 1, 3, 7, and 8, for everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to keep silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
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So clearly, biblically, the church's duty, the individual Christian's duty is to understand we live in a time where we must go out, speak boldly, and go and rescue those being led away to death.
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That is our duty. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who's a German theologian, he died in the Flossenberg concentration camp, once said, silence in the face of evil is itself evil,
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God will not hold us guiltless not to speak is to speak, not to act is to act. We are not to simply bandage the wounds of the victims of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.
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So those are the things that obviously I spend a little bit more time on when I'm speaking to newcomers, to people who have been on the sidelines, but it's good to refresh.
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And then you guys know most of this as well, exposing the misguided pro -life strategy. The pro -life establishment, we know for a long time, they have only supported legislation and authored and offered to the legislature legislation that really just says when, where, and how you can kill your baby.
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And we all know this. These are unjust laws. They champion things like the heartbeat bill, the ultrasound bill, waiting period bill, informed consent,
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Down syndrome, pain capable bill, you can kill your baby this way but not this way. Resolutions and now the latest thing is constitutional amendments, which is also very dangerous, that was proposed in Oklahoma.
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Our constitution already guarantees people a right to life two places. Don't fiddle with the constitution.
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It is not a good idea. Just uphold it, including the U .S. Constitution. Constitutional amendments are a very bad idea.
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So again, for anybody listening online who's new to this, all of those ideas that I just said are championed by the pro -life community and you've probably heard about them.
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They're all bad ideas. Those bills are very unjust and they do much more harm than good.
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But again, I know that we all know this. So decades of this unjust compromising policies have resulted in over 63 million abortions nationwide, 5 ,000 in Oklahoma.
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It would be insanity to continue to get behind this legislation. And then as we know, the pro -life establishment has a very cozy relationship with pro -life legislators at the expense of thousands of innocent lives.
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So pro -life organizations give them very easy bills to pass like, oh, it's an ultrasound bill.
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And then they pass the bill, it's an easy deal, no pushback. They go and they campaign, see how pro -life
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I am. They didn't save one child. So that is, I know that's super, super fast, but that's where we're at.
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Paradigm shift abolition, most of you guys know this as well. Abolition defines life beginning at moment of fertilization, upholds the
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U .S. Constitution by providing equal protection to all unborn children by criminalizing abortion, charges doctors to uphold their
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Hippocratic oath and exhaust all their medical resources for both mother and child, and states that any conflicting court opinion, executive order, or legislation is unconstitutional and void.
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So just as our ancestors abolished slavery long ago, we've got to be the generation that stands up and abolishes abortion.
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All objections to abolition can very easily be dismantled with sound logic, moral and legal, and medical proof.
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So that was, I know that was like really fast, you probably didn't hear anything, but I'm pretty sure most of you know it.
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If you were listening online, I hope it may have, you know, started some wheels thinking if you hadn't turned about it.
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So now I'll get into really what I was charged to talk about, and that is, you know, engaging your legislature.
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So there's three things I want you to remember as we go through this, and I will be brief. Number one,
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Roe v. Wade is irrelevant to ending abortion. I still talk to people, man, if we could just overturn Roe v. Wade, it's completely irrelevant.
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It doesn't matter. Abortion is legal because the state legislatures have allowed it to be legal.
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So in Oklahoma, the most pro -life state in the union, if Roe v. Wade was overturned today, abortion would still go on without a hitch in Oklahoma because of pro -life organizing.
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The bills that we have that we call pro -life, they're actually not. So until the church mobilizes and demands that abortion be immediately ended, that's what we need.
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We don't need it. Roe v. Wade, it doesn't matter if it's ever overturned. I don't think it ever will be. It doesn't have to be.
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The states can end it anyway. Number two is nothing is more politically powerful than educated, passionate, organized, and engaged constituents.
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Nothing can replace the power of an influential voter, politically speaking. So from here on out, I'm going to be kind of leaning on some of my experience dealing with senators holding office for the past six years.
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A lot of people downplay, they're like, well, we're not going to go talk to our senators.
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It's not going to do any good. But it absolutely does. And some people are more politically thinking, like, we just need a majority of abolitionists in our state legislature.
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You're probably never going to have that. You probably won't. I just talked to a guy the other day, he's like, man, do you think we'll ever get a majority of abolitionists?
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Probably not. And it doesn't matter. We don't, that doesn't really even need to be the goal. Because let's just be honest, the caliber of most people who run for office is very low.
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They're just, and I say that because we've killed six to three million babies and nobody's doing anything about it.
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So if you're holding a position of authority and you haven't done anything about it, I don't think very highly of you. So that's the proof there.
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And the reason that voters and educated constituents are so powerful is most state, well, many state legislative races come down to a couple hundred votes.
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When I left office last year, the guy who replaced me won by 23 votes. 23 votes.
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And legislators know that. So if you have a few churches in your district that are passionate about this and they're calling you out on your inaction, that's dangerous for them.
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Kind of like Zach was just talking about being politically feared. That's what they don't want. That's why it is so important to be mobilized and to actually get involved.
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And the majority of the time, whatever section of the society cries the loudest is usually the one that changes laws.
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So a good example of that, Republican -controlled state legislature in Oklahoma, we're not going to raise taxes, right?
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2017, the teachers walked out and they had like 25 ,000 to 30 ,000 teachers show up at the
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Capitol for a week. And the legislature, the conservative, no -tax legislature, they raised almost half a billion dollars in taxes for a teacher pay raise.
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Just like that. In a week. People of Oklahoma didn't want it because they had already voted no on some state questions.
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But they did it anyway. Because you had a small sect of society that screamed really loud.
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So keep that in mind as well. And there is, and going back to that being very powerful as a voter, as a constituent, there's kind of an ongoing debate among the abolitionists.
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Do we need an abolitionist governor? Do we need the majority of abolitionist legislature? Or do we need to change culture?
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And I will tell you this, spending six years in the state senate, I would much rather, much rather, and I think it's probably more probable to actually abolish abortion if you have 3 % of a state that is actually active.
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If I could pick one of those things, if I could have an abolitionist governor, an abolitionist legislature, or 3 % of a population that's active, give me 3 % of the population.
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Because that's what's going to make the legislature do something. You're going to force them to do it and then you're going to force the governor to sign it.
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That's the way it works. So I agree with Zach's 3 % stuff. And I've already talked about the teaching example.
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So number three, the third thing to remember when you come in here, or when we go through this, in as little as 15 minutes per day and a couple hours per month, you can be a key player in abolishing abortion.
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When you talk about getting involved in politics, a lot of people are like, I don't have time to do that.
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We've got regular jobs. We've got this and this. 15 minutes a week, a couple hours a month.
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Can you give that to this cause? Because if you can, I promise you, you will make an impact on your state legislator.
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Because I was there. And that little amount of time can actually make a big difference. All right. So let's get into it.
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How to effectively engage your legislator. Number one, get educated.
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So you need to know your stuff. You need to start researching material. There's plenty of material about abolitionism, about the difference between typical pro -life bills that aren't really pro -life and abolition.
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You can sign up for their emails, follow them on social media. You can do all that kind of stuff and get educated. Because it's kind of funny.
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There was an alcohol bill back several years ago. And all of these beer joints, like these alcohol stores, liquor stores, whatever you want to call them, were calling me saying, don't pass that bill.
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Don't pass that bill. I don't really get into that. I don't care. I didn't really know a whole lot about it. So I asked them. I said, why? Why is this a bad bill?
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And they're like, well, I don't know. The organization just sent out a mass email.
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Nobody could tell me why it was a bad bill. So you've got to know your stuff. So don't just start saying this, this, this.
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You've got to be able to, you know, very intelligently present your case.
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So get educated. You need to host a get -together specifically to discuss abolition among your circle of influence, whether it be your church, your
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Sunday school, Bible study, homeschool group, play date group. It doesn't matter who it is.
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Begin to host specific meetings. Have a dinner with the guys.
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Homeschool moms. Get together. Talk about what you can do here. And then tell them about, are we going to actually get involved here?
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Because it doesn't matter who you are. Everybody in this room and everybody listening online has a circle of influence.
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And even people, a lot of people who are very passionate and involved and do things, they've never even had a get -together at their house to talk about it.
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They've never even brought it up to their Bible study. They've never asked their pastor to talk about it. So step number one, get educated and educate your circle of influence.
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I cannot tell you the amount of places that I go and they're like, man, we're passionate. We want to do something. Have you done that? No. Start there.
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Because when you do that, you're going to move into number two and you're going to build a team.
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Because when you start educating your circle of influence, you're going to find the people who are going to be passionate with you and who are going to do something.
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So now you're going to build your team. So now that you have your five or six people who are passionate and want to do something with you, you need to set up follow -up meetings and you need to go over some more in -depth abolition stuff.
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What are the excuses? What are they going to say? So on and so forth. And then you're going to need to strategize how do you engage.
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Who's going to call the legislature? Who's going to set up the meeting? Where's the meeting going to be? Are we going to go to the capitol? Are we going to meet on the weekend over coffee?
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Strategize. It needs to be planned. If you're going to start a business, are you just going to be like, well,
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I'm going to go put a sign up in the yard and start a business? No. You're going to have a plan.
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You're going to have a strategy. You're going to be educated. You're going to look at all kinds of different things before you ever execute what you're doing.
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And if we're engaging this issue with our magistrates, our state legislature, you better be planned.
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And you better have a team. And a lot of people are like, well, I don't even know why I would need to engage the legislature because they're not going to do anything.
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Well, if you're thinking that, of course they're not. Because they're never going to end abortion on their own.
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Not until the people tell them to do it in a very specific and strategic manner.
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And right now, at this point in our history, our best option to end abortion in our state is the state legislature.
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That is the best option that we have. That is why it is so vital that we engage the state legislature.
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So again, I can't tell you how many people, they want to do something. They've never talked to their
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Bible study group about it. And then they've never, so therefore they don't have a team. So they're just spinning their wheels.
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So once you build your team and your team's a little bit more educated, you are going to move into engaging your legislature, your elected legislature.
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So many people have no idea who their state senator is. So many people have no idea who their state representative is.
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You will not be effective in the political realm if you don't know those things, period.
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That's just all there is to it. And I'll say this, and some people get very offended about this because they've given a lot to this movement.
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If your state senator and state representative do not know you by name, you have not done enough in the political realm to end abortion.
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It's just the truth. That means you have not engaged in a specific, strong way to mobilize your circle of influence on to the legislature.
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So engaging your legislature, begin to build a relationship with them.
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I know people who have done this, and it's a beautiful thing to see. They call and set up a meeting.
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It's going to take several phone calls. You're going to call them, you're going to email them, and you're going to say, hey, can we meet?
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Meet over dinner, over lunch, over coffee, tons of different options. You can go to the capital, you can go to their office, you can wait till they come back to the district.
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You need to meet with them. And you need to start that process very quickly, because it sometimes takes a couple weeks.
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Once you do that, it's going to be a good introductory style meeting.
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They probably don't know you. They should know you, but they don't. You probably have never talked to them face to face.
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So you need to introduce yourself. Here's who you are. Here's where you live. Here's where your family lives. You're a voter in their district.
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You kind of want to know what they're passionate about. Is it low taxes? Is it Second Amendment stuff?
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Whatever it is, you're getting to know this guy. You're building a relationship with him.
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Now, let me tell you this. Don't flatter them, ever. Don't go in as a smooth, slick talking politician where you're building them up because they have a title.
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But it does need to be cordial and friendly, because they may not have any idea.
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So build a relationship with them. At that very first meeting, give them information about abolitionism, or about, hey,
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I know this is what we've been doing with the pro -life establishment. It's really bad that we've been doing that.
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Let's go this way. Here's some information. And then drop it.
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And then leave. Because I'll say this. The majority of legislators, and this is not me talking good about them, because I usually just slam them hard, most of them have never heard of it.
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So just know that. Most of, at least give them one chance to review the material and assume they don't know about it.
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Now, if they have, it's a different approach, obviously. But if you're just now starting this, assume they don't.
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And then schedule a follow -up meeting with them. Here's some information. Here's what me and my family or my church are passionate about.
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Here's some information. If you just look it over, and then I'll follow up with you later. And then give them a couple weeks.
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And then call and email again to schedule a follow -up meeting. I know this sounds doggingly boring.
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And it is. It's not fun. Schedule a follow -up meeting. Same thing. Is it over coffee when they come home?
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Is it at their office? Be kind of flexible, right? Do whatever you need to do to have a follow -up meeting with them.
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And say, hey, so did you look at it? And then start teaching them about what's going on.
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Now, that and then that's when the consistent pressure comes in. So now you have to be a thorn in their side.
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Now they should know you by name because they're getting a call every week. They're getting an email every week from not only you, but from who?
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Your team, the team from your church, the team from your Bible study, whatever, the team from your recreational soccer league, whatever it is.
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Whoever the few people are that are part of your team, they need to be getting consistent emails from them.
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Consistent pressure. This is not a quick thing. You've got to be dedicated and in it for the long haul.
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And then you start pushing. Now, in Oklahoma, legislators have already began to accept abolition.
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And what I mean by that is when constituents are doing this that I'm talking about, they've gotten educated.
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They've built a lobbying team. And now they're consistently pushing their legislator. Now their legislators are like, oh, yeah, absolutely.
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Next year, we're going to do that. They're going. And over the next few years, in all these states that have authored abolition legislation, they're going to begin to accept it.
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What they're really doing is just slowballing it. They're dragging their feet. Be ready for that. Don't allow them to do it.
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Just because you go to their office and they say, yeah, I'm for it, if that bill hits the floor, I'm going to vote for it, don't back off.
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You continue to call them. You want them to co -author the bill or author the bill. Because as a sitting officeholder, that's what they should do.
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So don't let them say, oh, yeah, I'm for it. And then, ah, I'm done. I did everything that I heard about at the
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OSA conference. No. Keep it on. Keep the pressure on. And if they don't, and I'll say this.
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So a lot of people are like, that's not going to be effective. That's not true. It is. So in 2020,
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Senate Bill 13, which many of you knew about, after pushing abolition bills for five years, they would not give it a committee hearing.
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I made a motion on the Senate floor to bypass committee and bring it straight to the floor to make it eligible to be heard.
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It wasn't even a vote on the bill, right? And it was completely legal. It was within the rules and everything.
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Four out of 48 Oklahoma State senators voted for that motion to go ahead and make that.
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All the other ones opposed it. And I'll say this. I voted for it, naturally.
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Another guy voted for it, which he would. And then the other two, the only reason they voted for it is because of active constituents.
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One of them was a pastor. He was in that guy's office multiple times that week.
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The morning of, I went by, because I was lobbying the bill, and he was literally in tears.
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The senator was in tears because of the immense pressure that he got pushed on by one pastor in his district.
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One. So imagine if there was a couple of churches with lobbying teams. Imagine. The other guy who voted for it,
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I know some people in the district, kind of a well -known lawyer. I text him. I said, hey, I'm going to make this motion.
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I need your senator to vote for this. He said, I'll call him right now, and he will. One constituent. So if it wouldn't have been for this constituent pressure, that bill, which didn't pass, it would have had half of the votes.
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So this is effective. Money can't replace this. Nothing can replace mobilized, engaged constituents.
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And when I mean constituents, I mean you're talking to your legislator and your senator. Who cares about all the other ones?
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Don't even talk to them. Because they're not going to listen to you. They don't care you're not a voter. That's all they care about. They care about voters and getting re -elected.
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Now, once they slowball you, the big deal is, what do you do? Now, start here, obviously.
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Go through these steps. All of these steps are on our brochures and our material outside.
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So when you leave, pick them up, go through them. It's going to take you a couple months to do this.
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Start there. Now, once they probably won't get behind this, then they need to be replaced.
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They need to be replaced. Again, are we ever going to have a majority of abolitionists in state legislatures?
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Probably not. Doesn't matter. We just need a handful of them. We just need a handful of them. They need to be replaced.
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So start looking. Are you going to run for office? Do you know somebody who can run for office?
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Is it going to be multiple people that are going to run for the same office to split the vote, to force a runoff?
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That's fine, too. Do that. But we've got to start getting principled people in office.
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Because I'll say this, it's going to be much easier to get abolitionists elected than to change the existing legislature to become abolitionists.
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It will. So go ahead and have that in the back of your mind. And I'll say this also. In Oklahoma, a lot of people are like, well, we can't really be effective.
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In Oklahoma, in 2020, three incumbent state senators were beat.
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And a lot of that was due because of their inaction on abolition legislation. Not all of them were replaced by abolitionists, but they lost enough support where they did not win again.
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And this all happened real quick. So saying that, your legislators have to know you by name.
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They have to know you by name. So review in closing, we went real quick, biblical perspective on abortion, constitutional perspective on abortion, the church's duty, the misguided pro -life strategy, the paradigm shift to abolitionism.
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And now you have steps that you have to do. It's not really an option.
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You have to do it. You have to leave this conference. And when you go home, you have to do it. You have to do these things. And again, if you didn't write them down, there's a whole stack of brochures out there that have them detailed.
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Do this, do this, do this. Because see, abortion's going to be abolished. That's the way it's going. It will.
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We're going to abolish it in this nation. And so the question that you have to ask yourselves, I ask people who haven't been in the fight, what are you going to be able to say that your part in it was when it is?
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But I'm asking you guys, were you as effective as you possibly could be?
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Because as we know, in James 4 .17, whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for him, it is sin.
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So the question that I'll leave with you is, what are you going to do now? Thank you guys.