Today, we interview the CEO of First Liberty.
You are going to love what he has to say.
We're going to talk about all kinds of things from vaccine mandates to the freedom to kneel
in prayer.
That's next.
Hey, welcome back to the Barry Farris Show Culture Shift.
Today, we've got a special guest, Kelly Shackelford.
He's a great guy, but he's also the CEO of First Liberty.
Hey, Kelly, we're just going to jump right in.
Thanks for joining us.
I'm glad you're here with us, appreciate it.
So you've got a lot on your plate.
You've got cases from coast to coast.
You've got lots going on.
But why don't you just start out by giving us just a quick little overview of First Liberty.
What are you guys all about?
First Liberty is the largest legal nonprofit in the country that all we do is religious
freedom cases.
So let's say you're Chaplain Calvert, and you've been in the army for 17 years, and
there's this President Trump guy there, and you post something on your personal Facebook
page that says, you know, I really agree with the president on his transgender policy, and
then you cite scripture.
And then the new administration comes in and decides that they're going to end your legal
career, I mean, your military career, because you agreed with the last commander-in-chief,
and because as a chaplain, you expressed a religious belief.
Well, you don't have money to go out and hire, you know, attorneys and teams.
So we come in, represent Chaplain Calvert free of charge, which, you know, we do with
everybody, so that when we win, we don't just win for Chaplain Calvert, we set a precedent
for all of our chaplains, and whether that's your child in school, or your business, or
you name the situation, that's why we do what we do, and we do it free of charge, because
most people can never afford to fight the government and to bring in all the best
litigators in the country, who all donate their time, by the way, on these cases.
Oh, that's outstanding.
So it's the name of your organization is First Liberty, and I'm guessing that's coming
from the First Amendment, the first part of the First Amendment.
Yeah, our founders called religious freedom, our first freedom.
And they did that because they understood if you lose that freedom, you'll lose all
your freedoms.
And it's if you ever look at a totalitarian society, the first flashpoint is always
religious freedom, because they're the citizens that, you know, are actually, you know,
won't bow knee to the government, because they bow knee to one greater than the government.
And that's totalitarianism can never allow that.
So for First Liberty is because it's our first freedom.
It's in the First Amendment.
The first two clauses of the First Amendment are the two religion clauses.
And it's a great name for what we do, which is defending our first freedom, which really
means we're defending all the freedoms because this is where the we and we just saw this
in COVID, right?
Yeah, COVID.
What was the first flashpoint when all of a sudden all these mayors and governors had
all this power they never had?
It was religious freedom.
It was shutting down the churches and synagogues.
So that's, that's why our name is what it is.
It seems like totalitarian regimes are quite afraid of God.
They're not, they don't like to have a higher power than them.
I think that's kind of the, the essence of the issue.
So tell us about some of your big cases.
What is it that you've worked on in the past that's maybe large that some of us would know
about and maybe something that's a little more fresh and current?
Well, you know, there's, there's just a ton of them now.
I mean, I think 11 years ago, we had 48 cases.
Last year we had 321.
So there's a lot, but the ones that people are probably, I mean, heard about more than
others, uh, coach Kennedy case, the coach who got fired for going to a need to say a
silent prayer after the football game, the Bladesburg cross case, the veterans memorial
that is up for almost a hundred years that they tried to tear down because it was a cross
and it was on government property.
And right now, as you started by current, it would probably be the seal team, a case,
the Navy seals.
We represent 40 Navy seals who, uh, they're just really treating horrifically.
I'm talking about, we're talking about court martial, a dishonorable discharge.
They're already punishing their families.
Why?
Because they requested as they're right under the law, an exemption for the vaccine, a
religious exemption, because they have, you know, religious conscience issues, uh, with
regard to the vaccine.
I mean, this should not be happening to people who serve us in the military who are basically
giving their all, uh, shouldn't be happening with anybody, but it certainly shouldn't be
happening with those who have served in such a way.
And then we're going to run off these.
They're trying to get them for financial issues too.
I mean, I heard they were looking at trying to.
take back some of their training expenses.
I mean, that's millions of dollars.
That's nuts.
It's crazy.
Plus we lose these unbelievably talented people
who are already trained and ready to go and committed.
And really this is sort of an ideological purging.
I mean, if you saw this administration,
they talked about sort of purging the military
of quote extremist elements.
It's interesting how the first major purge
seems to be only those with religious beliefs,
with conscience issues.
This is really dangerous what they're trying to do.
And we're, you know, fortunately for those we represent,
the law protects their right to do.
I mean, in the Department of Defense instructions itself,
it guarantees them the right to religious accommodation.
And this is great part of our history in America.
I don't know how many people know about Desmond dogs,
but Desmond was a seventh day Adventist
who didn't believe in carrying a rifle.
It violated his faith.
And so they treated him unbelievably.
They abused him.
They tried to court martial him,
but thank goodness we're a system of laws
in the constitution.
The court martial was unsuccessful
and he stayed in the military.
They figured out a way to accommodate him.
He was a medic who didn't carry a weapon.
The result of having a guy that's different like that was,
if anybody's ever seen the movie, you know, Hacksaw Ridge,
it's the true story of all these people,
just a brutal war, I mean, battle area.
And there sort of was up in the air
and people would, our soldiers would have to kind of
climb down after the big battle.
And Desmond, because of his beliefs, his value for life,
and that's the reason why he wouldn't carry a weapon,
crawled back up there with all these dying American soldiers
and one by one, surrounded by the enemy,
pulled and dragged them and lowered them down through a rope,
ended up saving 70 American lives
and ended up with the Congressional Medal of Honor.
And everybody at the end who persecuted him for his faith,
for being different, thanked him and apologized to him.
That's what America is about,
is we got plenty of room for people with different beliefs.
We can't afford to lose great people.
And so this is a really dangerous thing that they're doing
and it goes against the very history of this country.
Absolutely.
And you know, it seems like that this is not really
a sincere health issue.
If a number of the folks you're representing
have already had COVID, I've seen myself
and I'm not an expert, but I have read for myself
several studies that show that the individual
natural immunity actually is equal to
or better than the vaccine.
And then which vaccine's the best?
And then some of the vaccines don't work as well
for certain types of people as others.
And some of the medical exemptions people are requesting
seem extremely reasonable to me.
And in a normal situation,
you would just think that you could make an accommodation,
especially when you've reached past 90%.
I mean, goodness gracious.
And, you know, the POTUS is bragging
about being past 90% vaccination levels in the military
because he coerced everyone
with threat of loss of livelihood.
And it's just absurd.
So I'm glad you're fighting this for them.
And I think you're doing that really on behalf of
not just people who have a religious belief
that the vaccine is a violation of their beliefs,
but for people who might have some other belief
that could come up someday
that their situation could be violated.
Nobody wants to be forced and coerced into something,
especially something we know so little about.
So thanks for doing that.
Let me ask you this.
Are you guys willing to take that thing
all the way through to the Supreme Court?
We plan to.
Our lead on this case is our general counsel, Mike Berry.
He's actually Lieutenant Colonel Mike Berry.
He's still in the reserves.
Seems like a really sharp guy from what I can tell.
He's the number one military lawyer in the country.
So he's ready to go the full length and we have to.
I mean-
How long would that take?
Like just for our viewers,
most people aren't legal experts.
So you're at the beginning stages here.
How long would it take?
Realistically, can you accelerate things
because livelihoods are at stake?
Yeah, I think there's gonna be some acceleration here
because there's deadlines coming up
at the beginning of November.
They're talking about taking these actions against them.
And then depending upon how all that goes,
it could be what actions they do take,
so I think things will be accelerated,
but it's not unusual.
Like our Coach Kennedy case
that's just landed at the Supreme Court.
It's been going on for seven years.
Wow. So some of these cases really do take a while.
You've got to work your way up through the system.
Sometimes you've got to go up and back down.
I don't think that'll be the case.
At the Coach Kennedy case,
some viewers might not remember since it is seven years ago.
As I recall, he would kneel in prayer
and out of respect for God at the beginning
and maybe at the end of each game.
Is that right? It was after the game.
After the game.
When everybody would go to the center of the field
and kind of, you know, shake hands and all that.
He had a tradition himself,
really a pledge he made to God
that he would go to a knee and for 15 to 20 seconds,
he would thank God for the privilege of coaching
the young men that he got to coach.
And that's what he did for seven years
until the school told him that if he did it again,
he was going to be fired.
It wasn't that kind of,
and I don't remember all the details,
but is that the coach that basically felt like
he sort of had to do that?
He was compelled.
He believed that that was kind of an agreement
he had with God,
that he had basically had a belief and a faith
that God was pleased with that,
that honored him and that was the idea.
He was in the Marines for 20 years
and this is a guy that had a pretty rough background.
And as he was preparing to go to that first job
to be a coach,
he happened to see the movie Facing the Giants,
which is about sort of Christians and coaching
and it just convicted him
and he made a pledge to God.
He said, after every game,
the first thing I'm going to do
when people go in the middle of the field
and slap each other on the back and all that,
the first thing I'm going to do is thank you
for the privilege of coaching these young men.
And so that's what he did.
And they ended up firing him
and then unfortunately for him,
he lives in the Ninth Circuit,
which is out of San Francisco.
So the Ninth Circuit said coaches aren't allowed
to pray in public if anyone can see them.
So I guess that would ban teachers
from bowing their heads over their meals.
I mean, it would,
it'd just be incredible the loss of freedoms
for everybody who works for the government
because you would lose your First Amendment rights.
And that's not the law.
The good news is we went up the first time
to the Supreme Court
and they didn't take it then
because they felt like there needed to be
some more factual development,
but the four more conservative justices
said they were very,
they found the decision below incredibly disturbing.
They really wanted to look at reviewing it
and that was before Amy Coney Barrett joined.
So now that we're on our way back up
with even worse facts than we had before,
I feel really like there's a great likelihood
the court will take this case.
So then what happens to the coach?
I mean, does he get back pay or what happens?
Well, yeah, at that point,
but right now he's out of coaching
for six, seven years, having to wait.
And that's the thing he loves is being with those kids
and everybody loved the coach.
I mean, it's just interesting.
They tried to use against him,
the judges of the Ninth Circuit,
that he was a person of good character
and people liked to follow him.
Like that was a bad thing.
It was bad that people wanted to do what he wanted to do
because it was evangelistic for him to be praying.
That's right.
Even though he never asked anybody to do anything,
he was a great example.
And evidently that was a negative thing.
My favorite was the Ninth Circuit said
that one of the reasons that they were ruling against him
was that for him to do all this was pugilistic,
meaning he fought back.
And what they were saying was he went to the media
and filed a lawsuit.
And it was like, if you read our brief,
you would probably enjoy it in the Supreme Court.
We said, this is a remarkable thought
that our founders would I'm sure be
just incredibly enlightened by
that the government can abuse your First Amendment rights.
But if you respond by speaking out and filing a lawsuit,
well, you're not really worthy of its protection.
Unbelievable.
It's amazing.
So it's gonna be a flashy case, I think,
that the Supreme Court-
And this one's coming up,
you're presenting before the SCOTUS
in the next couple of months, right?
Yes, now that's not Kennedy
because that one we're waiting to see if they take.
Okay.
But on December 8th,
we argue a case of the Supreme Court
that is gonna be a really important case
to the issue of school choice
and Christian or religious schools.
It's out of Maine where they said,
you can pick a school for your kids
and we'll reimburse you as parents
up to the state tuition levels.
And you can pick any private school you want.
And we'll even allow you to pick religious schools.
But if it's a religious school
that's serious about its faith
or teaches anything about worldview
or has any of that stuff in their curriculum,
then we'll take your money from you.
And we're like, you can't do that.
Basically, they're going to decide whether or not you're crossing the line on anything
doctrinal or anything of that nature.
Yes.
Anything.
And they're lying.
They're the arbitrator.
Very quick.
Very quick line to the line is basically, if you mean anything about your faith and
you can't do that, the government can't say, hey, we're we're going to let everybody.
I mean, it should be.
Are you teaching math?
Are you teaching science?
Absolutely.
And that's not what they're doing.
So what this is going to do, Mary, it's really interesting.
There's cases already that because for years they would argue, well, if you have school
choice, you can't include the religious schools.
And the Supreme Court said, no, that's discrimination to to say you can't have the religious schools.
Well, so now the question is, OK, if it's not required to exclude the religious schools,
can they choose not to include the religious schools?
And I think we're going to get a victory.
I mean, we really believe we will.
And if we do what it will establish, it'll sort of be that last nail in the coffin saying
whenever you have school choice, whenever you let parents choose religious schools,
Christian schools must be treated the same.
They must be included as the parents have every right to choose those.
And that'll be a really big thing.
I mean, result, I think, for Christian schools, religious schools across the country.
And I really feel confident that we've got good momentum on this case.
No, that's great.
So let's just shift over to vaccines and vaccine mandates and all that type of thing.
We may have to just go straight to rumble, no offense, because I sometimes get censored
when we say anything about vaccines, even if we read something directly from an epidemiologist.
So what is your view of the big picture on the vaccine mandate battle?
I know you've got this huge case with the Navy, and that's huge, but we've got Southwest
Airlines and you've got a bunch of proud Texans that are saying, even if I want to take the
vaccine, it's none of your business.
And so we've got that.
And then we've also got folks that it's like, even if it is your business, I've got a religious
exemption and we've got others saying, even if it is your business, I've got a medical
exemption, et cetera.
So you come from a place where there's some real vigor to your beliefs.
What do you think is going to happen with Southwest?
United's got a case going forward.
They have a whole bunch of pilots and others that are on board.
I think it's like 2000 total employees going forward.
Delta said, hey, we're going to let you choose.
What do you think is going to happen with this religious exemption?
You've got a toolkit on your website we'll talk about in a minute, but what do you think
is the big picture of what's going on with the vaccine mandate?
And then will we will we win the guys that want freedom or will this be a precursor to
total control and compliance?
What's going to happen?
There's sort of two parts of this.
First, let me talk about something that people have heard a lot about.
But maybe you're a little confused about.
First is what about what the president talked about coming up with this mandate to force
all the companies in the country that have 100 more employees to force mandate, vaccinate
all their employees.
People might think, well, isn't that already in place?
It's not.
He hasn't done anything.
He talked about it in a press conference.
The OSHA regulations have not come out now.
I don't know if that's because they're never going to come out, because if they do come
out, I think they're going to be massively unconstitutional and and I really think they'll
be struck down.
But let's say they do come out with these.
What this is, is OSHA, which is really a federal agency that's supposed to keep the
workplace safe, taking over health care.
And you just I don't think that's going to get very far because health and safety is
not a federal controlled issue.
It is a state issue.
The health and safety power is a state power under the Constitution.
So number one, this is not something that the federal government really has any authority
over.
But let's say the courts allowed them to, even if they did, that type of decision would
have to come through the legislature, not through an edict from the president or an
executive branch official.
And there's just so many other problems.
So real quick before I don't want to interrupt you, but just to make sure people are following
with you.
So right now, as we sit here, all the mandates for United and American Airlines and all these
other big companies and all the things that they're doing are not actually as a result
of a law.
They're a result of a press conference by the president, United States.
Now, if that had there was no executive order there.
I mean, he he has said that everybody who is
a federal contractor, they want to require them.
But again, that's not a law.
So the U.S. employee, the U.S.
government employee.
These are required by executive order.
Here's the executive telling all of you, here's the order.
It's not a law, but it's an executive order.
And that's, but all these companies are just responding out of fear or
compliance or they're in maybe, maybe they want to do federal contracts.
Maybe they have federal contracts and then wanting to comply
with the federal contracts.
Again, it's not that they have to.
And, uh, the executive, an executive order only applies to executive officials.
So in other words, the president has a right to not contradicting law, but
he has a right to, you know, say, Hey, I want the people working for me to do
such and such, as long as that doesn't violate a statute or the constitution
or whatever else, he doesn't, doesn't have any right to tell private industry
how to do why he's trying to go through OSHA and OSHA now that was kind
of clever, if you're, if you're evil, I mean, to kind of go through a
mechanism that can find you that has enforcement power and, you know, they
can come by and say, Hey, your workers comp safety programs, not up to, up
to snuff, you're, you might be in violation here and here and that type
of a thing, but goodness, that's like, uh, that's like the CDC saying
we've decided that landlords can't charge rent anymore.
I mean, it's, it's the same overreach.
I mean, what the heck is going on?
So do you think that if this actually came to a case, it would be viewed by
most judges as something that should be thrown out?
I think so.
And it don't be, I mean, we have lawsuits, they're already drawn up.
They're ready.
I mean, in a moment's notice, we we've got clients we've got, I mean,
OSHA applies to churches.
It applies to ministry.
It applies to everybody.
So think of this.
I mean, really the president is overtaking everything.
Um, and it's just nonsense.
I mean, they're doing this under an emergency, uh, provision.
Well, if it's an emergency, then why is, is it only apply to companies
with more than a hundred employees?
I mean, I don't think you heard what COVID does not affect companies
with less than a hundred employees.
It's a very slippery kind of a virus.
It only goes after people with over a hundred employees or they are with, or,
you know, like in Europe, they accept now with their vaccine passport,
the, um, natural immunity, which I thought was interesting.
They should.
Well, I agree.
It's just factual now.
Let me go to the second though, because I got you off track, but go ahead.
Which is, let's say though, that the court said, Hey, we're going to allow
Biden and OSHA to pass these things, to require all these companies with a
hundred more employees to re to require their employees to get, you know, uh,
vaccinated even then there still are federal laws that protect everybody
who works for a company to have a right to religious accommodation.
That's been in the law since 1964.
So the point is there are almost always a right to a religious
exemption and, or a medical exemption.
And, uh, and that's why we created, you mentioned it earlier, the
religious liberty protection kit for vaccine mandates, um, because
people didn't understand, they didn't know what the rights were.
And so we tried to make it to where.
Even whether you are a person who's in the military, there's a
set of laws that apply there, or you work and your, your employer is the
government, there's a set of laws, constitution set that applies there.
Or even if you're a private employer situation, again, title seven of the
civil rights act of 1964 applies there and all of those situations, you get a
right to religious exemption and religious accommodation, and we even
provided sample exemption requests.
And what we found Barry is that.
Probably 90% of the people that come to us and just follow that
themselves, they get the exemption.
That's great.
Um, sometimes people don't and they push, they, you know, they
kind of try to intimidate them.
We found that when they go back and they push and they don't back down,
they typically get it.
So it's really the smaller scenarios where companies are being abusive.
And in this case, the military, the military has said now a number of times.
And think of this, the law requires them to provide accommodations and they're
required to look at each case individually.
Okay.
That's a requirement as a matter of law.
They made a statement already that said, they're just going to deny all of them.
Yeah.
That's insane.
That's crazy.
Now, before we go, before we go to the military, um, there's a lot of people
out there that still haven't gotten their religious exemption approved.
They have done some rendition of an application.
So if they go to first liberties website, they can click over to where you've got
this whole, um, uh, presentation all laid out for them, and they can go.
and they can pick who they are.
So let's say you're a Protestant Christian,
they can go to that section
and then you have right there for them
the two ways they can have to get a religious exemption.
You know, I'm a Catholic Christian,
I'm gonna come over here and pick maybe similar ways,
but just slightly different wording, et cetera.
And you've got all that already laid out for them
for free on the website right now, right?
It's at firstliberty, you spell out firstliberty.org.
And I will say this though, Barry,
what I'm finding in most people who don't get these,
they're being intimidated out of asking.
Yeah.
They're being told you won't get it
or something will happen.
Or, you know, the other is people are asking,
they're submitting and they're just being denied
and they just let it go.
You don't have to let it go, okay?
Even though we can't represent 10,000 people,
I mean, we're getting thousands of requests.
And so we're trying to take the big cases
like the seals and others that we can set precedent.
But even if you can't find a local attorney
and we just can't help you because of numbers,
the EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
is a federal agency that it explains if you go there,
you can file to say they refuse
to give me my accommodation requests.
And the EEOC can even take up your case for you.
But the point is you're not done.
I mean, follow through, go as far as you can.
What we find, I mean, I'll give you one example.
I've got a doctor who called us.
He said, hey, I'm gonna fill out these forms.
I'm gonna request the exemptions.
I'm at three different hospitals.
And he did.
And he called back out and said, you know,
one of them granted my exemption and the other two didn't.
And he says, so I'm gonna follow through
and I'm gonna push with those other two.
Guess what?
They all granted his exemption.
That's great.
It just takes people pursuing.
In most cases, when people are granting exemptions,
are they also granting an accommodation?
Because like in the case of the United Airlines pilot
that I know, I walked with him through his whole process
and that was horrible.
He got the exemption,
but only after they asked all these
extremely intrusive questions,
acted like they were his pastor.
Like, can you prove you're a Christian
and can you demonstrate, do you have an attestation?
All kinds of what I thought were illegal questions,
very intrusive.
But anyway, he kept pushing back and pushing back
and he did get his exemption.
So that we thought, hey, we won something.
So you got your religious exemption
and then you go to page two and it's like,
but you're not gonna get paid.
You're not gonna have your benefits.
And there's basically no accommodation.
Now, isn't that kind of illegal
to give you a religious exemption
with no accommodation at all?
Yeah, there's two ways they could violate that law.
One is to refuse to, you know,
recognize his exemption right or her exemption right at all.
The other is to say, yeah,
we know that you have a valid religious claim,
but not give them any reasonable accommodation.
And now I'll say this though,
if people are asking for a religious accommodation,
if you can think of a way, your own creativity of a way
to, you know, meet your religious objections,
but also, you know, take away whatever fear they have,
then I think it's great to offer those things.
You bet.
Everything's different.
Like, I mean, one of our people that called us,
it was in a medical company, but they worked from home.
They never saw anybody.
I promised to wear a mask while at home on the Zoom call.
So, but there's lots of ways, you know,
the traditional sort of case in this arena
is the seven day Adventist or the Jewish person
who can't work on the Sabbath.
Right.
And the company schedules them and they say,
hey, I need an accommodation.
If the company can juggle schedules, which they usually can,
they're required to.
And so if you offer them something that is reasonable,
that makes it much more difficult for them to then say,
no, we're not gonna be reasonable.
And I think it puts them in a really bad situation
if you were in a legal battle with them.
No, that's great.
So this has been great.
We could go on forever.
And I think people are very interested in this topic,
but how do we get ahold of you
if somebody wants to support you?
And just tell us just a little bit more about First Liberty
before we sign off for today.
People can just go to firstliberty.org,
just spell it, firstliberty.org.
And the best thing I'd say is there's a deal
that says be an insider where you start getting,
once a week, you'll get an email
and you'll know what's happening.
Because otherwise you're not gonna know about it.
I mean, you're not probably gonna know
when there's a big victory
on any of these issues that we're talking about.
And especially for people, they say, what can I do?
You know, I'm not an attorney.
Well, number one, they can pray
and they're not gonna know about the cases
unless they see them to pray for.
I mean, wouldn't you want to know that Coach Kennedy is having his argument, you know,
and you can pray for the argument tomorrow or whenever it is.
Number two, they can educate others because as we're winning these cases, most people
don't know that we're winning the cases.
So people are scared.
And if you educate more people, they get more bold and standing for their faith and what
they believe.
And then obviously, the last thing is you can support us financially.
We were a nonprofit, so we represent as many people as we can.
And we're kind of a unique combination, because while all the people on our staff are like
top of their law school class, and they specialize in religious liberty, our cases are always
a combination of our people and the best litigators in the country at the most powerful law firms
who are donating their time.
So like, every time we spend about 10,000 on our staff, we get about 60,000 of volunteer
time from the best litigators in the country.
So it's a great team effort, which is why we get so many victories.
And so we're just loving to increase the Army.
So I tell people if they want to come and be a part, we'd love for them to be a part
of really changing the future of the country in a good way.
And they can just go to firstliberty.org to get involved.
That's outstanding, Kelly.
So fantastic.
Well, it's been just great to have you on the show today.
Any of you lawyers out there that have a love for God and a love for country, you might
want to consider getting, you know, seeing if you can reach out to First Liberty yourself.
There might be some real benefit to you long term.
That could be a really good way.
What a great business model, a six to one ratio, and that's a huge bang for the buck.
So thank God for that.
That's fantastic.
Well, thanks again for coming on the show.
We sure appreciate it.
And to your freedom, because if you want to be successful in life, you've got to live
in a free society.
And that's what we're concerned about.
So God bless you.
Until next time.
Hi, I'm David Farah.
Thank you for listening to my dad's podcast, The Barry Farah Show, Culture Shift.
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