Ep.48: Resisting Regression - Pride, IVF, and Birth Control

# Satanists Nextdoor
# Ep.48: Resisting Regression - Pride, IVF, and Birth Control

[Lilin Lavin]
Welcome dear listeners to Satanist Next Door. We're your hosts, Lilin Lavin and Tommy Lavin. Whether you're an open-minded curious onlooker or a fellow Satanist seeking camaraderie, our goal is to share our personal experiences and delve into the intricate tapestry of Satanism in our daily lives, occasionally inviting other guests to share their unique perspectives, leaving no pentagram unturned.

We'll explore how our beliefs shape our views on society, dive into struggles and triumphs we've encountered, and reveal the humanity that unites us all. So grab your favorite chalice and join us on this captivating journey. Satanist Next Door is ready to peel back the curtain and offer you a glimpse into our world, one captivating episode at a time.

[Tommy Lavin]
Hello and welcome to another episode of Satanist Next Door. So we've got all sorts of stuff to talk about tonight because, well, Christian nationalists have been making progress. Or what's the opposite of progress?

They're bringing us backwards. They're making progress in their minds, but dragging us backwards by their progress. It makes sense out of that word.

[Lilin Lavin]
Before we go into that, we had told you guys back when we first started this podcast, our very initial episode was during Pride Month. Happy Pride Month to everyone. We had told everyone we put up a pride flag and we've had it up for over a year now.

And we finally got our HOA notice that it was not in compliance with the flag code. So we will be addressing that with our HOA. Most likely they're going to put us in a position where they're just going to fine us to death.

So in the event that we have to remove it, we already have a fantastic backup plan where we have found lots of lovely LGBTQIA supportive decorations. And apparently you can have religious displays in your doorway. So I hope they're happy with wonderful satanic displays in my doorway.

Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
I mean, we could have kept it with just a single flag.

[Lilin Lavin]
My one flag is about to multiply into a multitude of cool little yard displays and garden flags. There's these really cool garden gnomes that are just LGBTQIA colors of all kinds. So it's going to be a giant vomit of really awesome stuff in my yard because my flag multiplied.

You fed it after midnight and now it got wet. It did. It's like a gremlin.

And in Texas, I'm sure this happens in other places, you can have curb numbers on your curb painted on there. So I'm going to go ahead and josh that up with some awesome pride colors. And I found wonderful address numbers that I'm going to put over my garage that are also pride themed.

So what was just one little tiny, not tiny, it was three by five. It was a single flag though. It's one beautiful flag that has been proudly flying at my home.

Well, two, because one weathered and aged as they do. So we're on our second pride flag now, but because they wanted to go ahead and declare war it out. So I will now be going ahead and putting up many things that are within my right to do.

And we'll see how that goes. Because if they want to play, I'm more than happy to play.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yep. Read through all the deed restrictions and said, okay, well, and I'll also be taking pictures around the neighborhood of all the other flags that are still up that are not the American flag.

[Lilin Lavin]
Because if you don't uniformly enforce a code, then it sort of loses its validity. However, again, in Texas, HOAs have a ridiculous amount of power. And I believe they can do $200 a day fines.

It's 250.

[Tommy Lavin]
Okay.

[Lilin Lavin]
$250 a day is what the fine can become seven days to quote unquote, rectify the issue. Yes. So, but I will not be putting up any other flag.

I will instead be putting up some really cool garden flags because apparently those are acceptable and some really neat decor.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Little gnomes and yeah, numbers and all that sort of stuff.

[Lilin Lavin]
It will be pride everywhere.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. So two can play at that game. Absolutely.

[Lilin Lavin]
So that's, that's our fun update. I'm sad and angry about the flag. I do feel like we will somehow slip through the media, the discriminatory HOA that during pride month wanted to go ahead and discriminate.

[Tommy Lavin]
Make a point. Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
Now I can't guarantee they're going to go anywhere with that, but it's worth trying and at least putting out some off beds about how draconian Texas is. And on that note, we have some other updates.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. So, you know, obviously we've, we've covered the abortion topic a lot and we've covered what the Supreme court said and what the Christian nationalists have basically been telling everybody we're going to do, we're going to do, we're going to do. For some reason, either don't believe them or whatnot.

And it's more than just a women's rights issue. Because, you know, things like IVF that is used by the LGBTQIA community, you know, and, and today they, they, you know, they tried to codify IVF and that one failed because again, as Christian nationalists have kind of taken over one of the parties, that party voted against it and they couldn't get over the 60 vote threshold that they would need in order to break a filibuster. Right.

So if you thought Alabama Supreme court was just kind of fucking around and oops, no, they didn't really mean that. They meant it really, really, really meant it.

[Lilin Lavin]
And my hope is because IVF is utilized by many people for multitude of reasons, as is surrogacy, which I do believe will be one of the other things on their radar. They haven't definitively signaled past some passing comments, but it has been mentioned.

[Tommy Lavin]
Right.

[Lilin Lavin]
Which is where IVF, I think they have a very specific agenda when it comes to the sort of family nuclear family.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
Right. And so they've definitely signaled that things like IVF are counterintuitive to the plan where there's a man, a woman and kids, and they're all in one family and that family remains regardless of what, and to reinforce that remains regardless of what they're also signaling a very strong desire to remove no fault divorce, citing that it is destroying the fabric of our country and families and that no fault divorce is really penalizing men unfairly.

Yes. Yes.

[Tommy Lavin]
Boo hoo. You know, so yeah, IVF was the big one today. And about a week ago, um, they also tried to codify birth control access to basic contraception of any kind.

Um, and that one also failed surprisingly with the same, basically the same amount of people in the same people that voted against IVF voted against regressive. Yeah. Voted against, um, contraception and, um, you know, but at the same time won't allow abortions in half of the United States.

So you can't, you're supposed to protect yourself against getting pregnant if you have sex, but we won't protect contraception.

[Lilin Lavin]
This is ridiculous because in a state like, let's just say Texas, where I happen to know some of the things I can't speak to some of the intimate details of other States. Cause I don't live there and I'm not actively talking to people going through things, but here it's difficult to get on chip. If you're even under the income bracket is difficult to get on Medicaid, Medicare, any kind of protections that help you provide for your self during pregnancy or a child.

Once it's been born, it is difficult to get contraception. Now. Uh, I know someone that recently had a baby and wanted to go ahead and get on birth control.

They told their doctor, Hey, I want to get on birth control. I don't want to get pregnant again right now. And the doctor said, abstinence is a good option.

This person is married. I'm pretty sure their husband's not going to go, you know, they're right. We should just go ahead and not have sex again, unless we're planning on having more kids.

That is just not feasible. Yeah. So here we are.

That was, that's not a made up conversation. That's an actual conversation that happened. And I just was floored.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
That's not medical. That's not sound medical advice.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. So if for some reason you you've been in never, never land and you didn't believe the things that the Christian nationalists alt-right, whatever you want to call them, have been saying that they're going to do, they wrote about it in project 2025 when they overturned Roe.

[Lilin Lavin]
Honestly, they wrote about it initially in project blitz, which was another project before that. But they've been writing about this for as long as I can remember in some way, shape or form. Even when you go back to what it really was, was the segregatory issue from Reagan.

And even before that. So we can argue this that and the other, but right now we find ourselves in a position where we're seeing it live in action.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And honestly, I, my, my feelings on this are are mixed that they did this. I think it's a good thing that they showed their hand now, because they were going to do this anyways.

And I think it's a good thing they showed their hand now before the election, because now people know what the fuck they're going to do. There is no, well, maybe not. Or Bill said, or Ted said this, well, Ted can sell it, say whatever the fuck he wants on paper.

But when he voted, Ted voted against, you know, codifying this and their excuses. Well, this is already, you know, this is already, you know, set in stone by the Supreme Court.

[Lilin Lavin]
We saw that.

[Tommy Lavin]
What else was before?

[Lilin Lavin]
Let me, let me think.

[Tommy Lavin]
Something comes to mind.

[Lilin Lavin]
I believe during confirmation hearings.

[Tommy Lavin]
Was it Roe? Oh yeah, it was Roe that, that was cited during the confirmation. Yeah.

That was cited.

[Lilin Lavin]
We'll never mess with that. It's already decided law. Yeah.

It's already decided law.

[Tommy Lavin]
So, so yeah, the whole bullshit about, well, we voted no because it's decided law by the Supreme Court. It doesn't hold water anymore.

[Lilin Lavin]
You know, my favorite is still that they quoted a known witch hunter in that whole thing. So yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
Say, and somebody had the nerve to me. They, they, they were with, when it came to the birth control thing, they were like, well, you could just go down to the store and buy birth control. And I was like, and a couple of years ago, you could just make an, uh, uh, you know, you can, you can call up your doctor and make an appointment and have an abortion.

You can't do that anymore. So it doesn't take them long once they strike this shit down to remove.

[Lilin Lavin]
The issue being, and you know, I'm conflicted because a positive, they said that the abortion medication necessary for a medical abortion is protected. So you go to stood, stand behind that. Not because they were worried about the best interest of the people that are utilizing that, but because I feel, and other people I've heard express the same sentiment that are protecting the drug companies, bottom line.

So I feel like that's protected, uh, birth control, you know, I wonder about that.

[Tommy Lavin]
So the, the medical one is really interesting. If, uh, Cavanaugh wrote it and I haven't read all the way through it, not a fan of Cavanaugh, but they put some poison pills in there. So right now they have the open case, basically saying, you know, if somebody comes to the hospital and they're dying, they're, they're bleeding out because of an abortion as a doctor, you have to treat them.

And there's some doctors that are saying, well, no, we're suing. And I think it's an Idaho. We're suing the state of Idaho because we don't feel like we should have to help them because that would, we would be participating in an abortion.

So there was some language in there around that, basically signaling that, okay, well, we're going to leave these drugs as it is, because like you said, I think the pharmaceuticals had a hand in that, but if something happens because of it, a doctor doesn't have to help. So there there's, there's a couple of poison pills in this, and I want to read through them more in depth before I go more into that on the, on the, on the podcast, but I do know there's a couple of poison pills in this. So, although it, it seems like good news and, and in some ways it is good news that they, they left it, but the way they wrote up the decision has some really disturbing shit in it.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. Speaking of disturbing shit, a new case out of Texas brought by none other than our very favorite attorney general, Ken Paxton, if you can't tell that sarcasm, it absolutely is. For the state of Texas, Ken Paxton to university of Texas, Austin professors broadly challenging the US department of education's interpretation of title nine federal law that prohibits sexual discrimination in education set to go in late this summer.

And the title nine guidelines essentially say pregnancy or related conditions, related conditions being abortion, pregnancy, things like that, protect you from being penalized unfairly for grades or employment, absences, employment. So they decided these two we'll call them professors, but I have to say the behavior really makes me question the actual ethical use of the title because intelligence would be necessary. And I find this to be the opposite of intelligent.

The, the case essentially in the headlines is saying these two plaintiffs will not comply with the guidance that they're saying non-binary gender pronouns and cross-dressing. They, they quoted it, this is their own words, cross-dressing teaching assistants and notably students who seek abortions, they, they will not protect them. So I don't know how they'll know about the abortion stuff because you can be sick or you can, you know, have other things.

So I'm curious how they're planning to enforce that other than, you know, the non-binary thing pisses me off because they won't use they, they won't. Yeah. And look, that is not something that's new.

The use of they as a plural or singular is used widely and has been for longer than this argument has been happening. So that is a ridiculous argument, but they're stating that, I said, and they'll, they'll refuse to excuse a student's class absence. They won't pose grading penalties if the absence is related to a quote unquote elective abortion, meaning that they apparently didn't need it.

And now I would argue that anyone that chooses to do it needed it. So to impose your belief of what their need is, is again, an egregious overstep of your importance in other people's lives. And then they go on to talk about blah, blah, blah, what an elective abortion means to them, which I don't really care about.

And then they talk about how they also want to deny employment. They want to impose, we already know a loss of medical license. They want to utilize civil lawsuits to go after people that protect and aid those that want to seek abortion care.

And now the denial of education would be a new way of trying to force this dystopian reality where you have no right to decide what you will and will not allow for your body.

[Tommy Lavin]
They're basically going to fail female students.

[Lilin Lavin]
Oh, but not just that. And yeah, not just that failing the students is awful on its own. And now they also want to remove any teaching assistant possibilities.

Now they say if they've signaled any support for it, or they've aided someone again, I don't know how they're aware of this. And now this is a question, this is something I really have a very big concern. What if other students are saying that they don't like a particular assistant?

So they heard them talking to someone about this. How are they validating these particular claims? But that's the type of shit that's going to happen.

I mean, it's why the witch hunter BS, I'm not going to call him sir, because you get a title for a reason. But Hale, who was cited, you know, that's the same sort of crap. They created a social environment where people turn on people that were seen as outside of the norms of society at that time, they label them as witches, which is something they're still do to this day.

And this is a new way of doing exactly that. So now we're going to utilize insert a witch hunt with abortion hunt. It's the same exact thing.

[Tommy Lavin]
Well, I mean, so I guess the one bit of call a good news in Texas is that, you know, we we did another episode about these, these sort of invisible abortion highway walls that they were trying to put up. And somehow they're going to know if you're driving through the city to get an abortion. Well, Amarillo basically said, No, we're not going to do an abortion travel ban, which actually kind of surprised me because Amarillo is up in the panhandle and a little bit of a college town as well.

[Lilin Lavin]
So keeping in mind, it is right by some of the more Lubbock's more of a college town than there is. Yeah, there is a student population.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
But it is the main highway to get right now, Texas, keeping in mind, they cannot impose an enforcement on someone traveling across state lines, there is a constitutional protection that is yes, still in place that prevents you from being persecuted, prosecuted, no, you'll get persecuted. You can't be prosecuted for doing this at this point in time, because what they're doing is trying to go after people that are helping you travel, or places that are helping you along the way, or gosh, the gas station attendant, the Uber driver, McDonald's person, the French fries, you know, so I mean, essentially, they're trying to scare tactic people into not getting the help that they want and need.

These things are really civil suits, there's a whole lot of difficulty proving damage, they haven't, to my knowledge, pulled one through yet, because there just isn't the merit there. It just really isn't. So it's frivolous, at best.

So why does all this have to do anything with Satanism? Well, gosh, I hate to even try to state just the the many numerous, there is not a tenant of my belief system as a TST Satanist, with a satanic temple, but even as a Satanist in general, you know, I see issues, but you could just go through them. One should strive to act with compassion, empathy with, you know, with accordance with reason.

Well, compassion, empathy means that people should be able to get the care they need to preserve their physical and psychological health, it means that they should be able to get IVF if they want to seek pregnancy, and it means that they should be able to decide whether or not they identify a certain way and how they present themselves. So we've got those things covered there, you can go with the struggle for justice is ongoing. Well, here we are going against, you know, laws and institutions that do not make sense and the necessary pursuit, which should prevail, justice should prevail in these favor, and one's body's inviolable.

Well, here we go. That one's pretty basic. You know, own will alone, meaning whatever it is they want to do as a consenting adult, they have the right to make those choices.

You can go into freedom of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. Yeah, abortion might be offensive to you. It does not mean that people don't have the right to seek the care that they want to willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedom of another is a forego one's own.

Well, there you go. You don't get to sit there and go after people and then say that you have certain rights. You don't because you just told other people they don't.

So in my opinion, that's an interpretation. These are not solid. These are my perspective.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, these are Yeah, then that's what the tenets are.

[Lilin Lavin]
They're, you know, guidelines, they're not commandments that you can use like a baseball bat hit somebody over the head, but they are based on my intellectual interpretation, you know, you could apply these beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world, meaning these are healthcare options. These are fertility options. These are contraceptive options.

These are, you know, identity related care options. These are things that we scientifically know have a reason, purpose and definite place in society.

[Tommy Lavin]
Are you trying to say that IVF is a scientific thing? Yeah. And I also believe the earth is in fact round.

So you know, ma'am, it says specifically in the Bible, a dome, a dome over the earth, it is because domes are flat. It is flat with a dome over it.

[Lilin Lavin]
There was a video. And if you haven't seen it, it's running around out there where someone literally states that a dome is in fact flat. So there's a lot of problems with that statement.

And yeah, because in the Bible, yeah, I don't, I don't remember reading about the super dome in the Bible, but sure.

[Tommy Lavin]
I'm sure it's in there.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. And so yeah, don't distort scientific facts to fit your own beliefs. People are fallible.

If one makes a mistake, it should do the best to rectify it. Well, look, look, pregnancy without it being a desired outcome could be seen as a mistake. It could be seen as something that they want to rectify through abortion.

And the ability to take away people's rights is a mistake. I think sitting there saying that you can utilize biblical based legal reasoning to take away people's rights is a mistake. And they should really rectify it and resolve the harm that they've caused because of it.

You could put this in so many different ways, you know, telling people what their gender is, because they believe a certain sort of whatever the heck, and that they don't have a right to be who they truly are, is definitely a mistake. And they should rectify the harm they're causing. So this goes on and on and on.

And then the last one, of course, being every tenant's a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility and action and thought spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over written or spoken word. And the laws that we're looking at are definitely those written and spoken words that really should not be taking the rights away from other individuals to make choices for themselves. How many times do I have to say this?

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And so this is just what's happened in the last two weeks.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, it's sort of sped up. And I don't know if that signals that they're worried that they won't be able to win. I don't know if they're not even considering, you know, and when I say they, I mean, the more extremist religious people that are trying to push things through, through elections and on ballots, and all the ridiculous things that they're trying to do.

I don't mean a specific party, it just happens to be that there's a group that are aligned with a certain kind of party that seem to be behind that.

[Tommy Lavin]
Well, I think the move to make them vote on codification was a smart move. Because without that, you know, these senators, they say, well, look right here, I made, I made a statement that it says, I am for contraception, I am for IVF. Well, sir, why didn't you vote for it then?

Well, it doesn't need to be voted for because the Supreme Court has already given president. Yes, sir. And they did the row as well.

So why don't you vote to codify it if you actually believe in it? And that's then when it kind of really shows where they're at. And so, you know, I, I truly believe if you are running for office or something, put your fucking cards on the table.

Yeah, what is it that you believe in? What is it you're gonna do? What do you stand for?

What are you trying to advance?

[Lilin Lavin]
What are your personal or private or paid for agendas? Because let's be honest, we know people like Tim Dunn are very invested in a lot of these politicians and definitely helping to push these things forward.

[Tommy Lavin]
So, you know, I'm done billion oil billionaire in Texas that is just dumping money into Christian nationalists, private religious schools, religious indoctrination, all kinds of different Yeah, I mean, their entire goal is to get rid of public schools, at least starting in Texas.

[Lilin Lavin]
Well, it's not just Texas, because we're starting, well, Florida already is seeing because of the school choice, which I firmly feel is definitely rooted in the segregation movement. And it is definitely trying to cause issues where people are then segregated, not just by religion, but by race and by all these other things. And it causes a disparity in the education people are able to get.

And of course, who suffers people in certain income brackets, people of certain ethnic backgrounds, people like they have a very specific agenda. And it's the one that we are all very aware of that some people wear special white sheets to push. So that being said, we're all aware of the kind of negativity that they're trying to pursue.

So in that vein, another lovely Texas thing, and because so goes Texas, so goes most of the US, unfortunately, yeah, more than 80% of the state's registered voters currently cast their ballot anywhere in a county that they reside on election day. And this is so that it provides voter access, which you would think if you are someone that wants a free and fair election, you want to give people as much access as possible, right? Yeah, so apparently not.

The Texas GOP is now pushing to get rid of countywide polling places and it's growing interest from state lawmakers, the Republican legislation, it put it on its priority for next year, the election officials are warning that if legislators scrap the state countywide voting program, they will struggle to pull off the changes that would be required beginning with increasing their numbers of polling places, paying for hard to find additional locations and recruiting and paying workers to staff them.

So in other words, it's going to create, they won't have enough people, they won't have enough places, they'll be disenfranchising their own voters, which they will then say, well, no, it's not us. We're just trying to secure like really safe elections, guys.

[Tommy Lavin]
So people might say, well, what's the big deal? Because if you live in a county, you just, you know, you drive to whatever county location. And sure, if I live in, you know, BFE in Texas, and there's one highway and a couple other roads, that's not a big deal.

But take a city like Houston, you can work on one side of the county and live on the other side. And it could take you two hours to get from one side to the other in traffic. And so a lot of people, they're getting out of work on the day, because as a nation, we don't give people the day off to vote.

You know, and so a lot of people go to the voting place nearest their work, because they walk out of work, and they go, and they vote.

[Lilin Lavin]
It's even more nefarious than that, because we're talking about areas like Lubbock County. Yeah, it's not just the bigger cities. We're talking about 96 counties that currently allow voters to cast their ballot anywhere, anywhere in the county on election day.

And what will happen is about 15 million people, 15 million registered voters will be essentially disenfranchised. So if you accidentally go and cast your ballot in your non assigned precinct, because now they've had this big county wide thing, they didn't have to worry about whether or not they were assigned to a specific precinct. Precincts are incredibly small areas within the greater district.

So if you don't go to the correct precinct, and you mistakenly go to the wrong site, you get a provisional ballot. Now, why does that matter? Provisional ballots don't guarantee that they're counted.

So this is a very, you know, you think, well, I'm just still getting a ballot. I'm still casting a vote. No, you are not.

Under this change, if you cast a provisional ballot, because you went to the wrong precinct, and you went to the wrong area, you may not get a vote at all.

[Tommy Lavin]
Well, I mean, last time, last election, Kim Daxton threw out 2 million votes. Which I still don't really see people talking about. But okay, fine.

Right. This will just give them more power to throw out more votes.

[Lilin Lavin]
And they've already talked about the fact that they're not using the standard voting accountability system. They've already talked about the fact that they're not going to use the same voting machines because they were proven not to be.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, they they went into the whole conspiracy theory sort of shit. And they were actually able to get it at a state level. So this is the fucked up part about states like Texas, where the people don't actually get to vote on the issues that you know, it's the legislators that vote for us.

And I'm putting for us in quotes, because, for example, abortion, never once was abortion ever, ever on any sort of state voting for for people to be able to vote. And they all say, well, bring it to the states and let the states vote on it. Our legislators voted for us, we didn't vote.

By default, you voted by voting for a legislator that you know, blah, blah, blah.

[Lilin Lavin]
But no, the vote setter model that we have now was actually championed by a Republican in the state of Texas that won bipartisan support back in 2006. And so just looking at the shift we've seen since then to now, you know, because this individual wanted to make sure that there was the ability for people to participate regardless of where they were, and to ensure that there was tools necessary to get out these ballots. And you know, that bill, it passed unanimously, as far as I understand.

Yeah, it was it was a unanimous vote. It was to allow people to vote to allow people to back in 2006. It was initially sent in in 2005.

It was it was supported by Republicans back when I guess they were that's back when they were Republicans.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Rhinos now is what they're, they're called.

[Lilin Lavin]
You know, it was it was something that they felt was important enough to champion and it and it worked. And now we're at a place where they're saying that they want to minimize people's opportunity.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, so this, I mean, this, again, is why it's so important to talk about these issues. Because whether you want to recognize it or not, whether you believe it or not, whether, whether you care or not, the Christian nationalists are pushing through to make this country into a theocracy. That is their goal.

And they're chipping away at all these laws here and there, here and there, here and there. And unfortunately, a lot of the other side is too busy arguing amongst themselves about ridiculous things about stupid shit, in order to, you know, and they're not paying attention.

[Lilin Lavin]
The state of Louisiana right now and other states, but I know, specifically, Louisiana is in such a horrible shape when it comes to care during pregnancy. And for people that are in the process of childbirth, that doctors are flat out refusing to take care of them when they show up at the hospital to give birth. Can you imagine the scenario where you're actually in a hospital and the doctors will not help you?

[Tommy Lavin]
So on top of Louisiana, you know, we were just talking about how the Supreme Court upheld, you know, the, the, the more I forgot the name of the medication. Yeah. Yeah.

In Louisiana, those are controlled substances, right? So you get caught with those you go to jail, like as if you were carrying around cocaine or heroin. Lovely.

Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
But that leaves people in states like Texas and states like Louisiana with these crisis pregnancy centers. And folks, let me tell you something. You think you're going there for any kind of crisis management?

They are not medical facilities. They cannot provide you medical care. Nope.

They can provide you a healthy dose of misinformation and they're not HIPAA compliant. So any information you share with these people can be shared elsewhere. I feel like it's important to let people know what they're getting into.

So when you go there and you talk about feeling like you might not want to continue your pregnancy, they have the right and ability to report that. So, um, you know, again, look at your options, dwindling, look at the reality about IVF, look at the things that are happening. But on the same coin that is dirty and picked out of the mud, you know, there are some shiny bits.

So we see sort of areas like Amarillo pushing back and saying, no, we're not going to join in on this ridiculous, invisible wall where we're going to psychically know if somebody's coming through the city to have an abortion. That's what I think about that. These people are so beyond ridiculous.

And I just think people need to understand when you go out and you cast your ballot, make sure that you're thinking about the greater community, your family, your future, the future of people that you care about. I say this over and over again, but it just is the way it is. If you have certain beliefs and you feel like people deserve certain freedoms and rights, then make sure that you're addressing that when you go out and you make these decisions, because it doesn't just affect you.

It affects the future. I forget where it was, but they said something like generations 10 years ago affected generations now. And in 10 years, the decisions we make will affect that generation.

[Tommy Lavin]
Oh, yeah, the this election coming up is going to affect people for at least the next 50 years.

[Lilin Lavin]
Well, yeah, I mean, it's just the cycle children perpetuating children could really wreak havoc globally. We're already seeing it the issues they say it's Trumpism is a globally spreading and I hate to give that adult any extra credit because he doesn't deserve credit at all for anything other than being one of the biggest failures and disappointments in politics of my lifetime.

[Tommy Lavin]
Christian nationalism is spreading worldwide. You know, it's just nationalism of their own country, but it's still wrapped up. It's the same.

[Lilin Lavin]
I don't even think it's Christian nationalism, because some of the areas you're seeing in Europe are being proper propaganda pushes from places like Russia. And of course, they have every incentive because they've always stated for the longest time and not to get into conspiratorial nonsense that we don't even have to ever fire a shot. You know, you put the right kind of mentality out in the world and you're gonna see a country collapse on its own.

And I hate to say there's merit to it. But look around, we can't even have disagreements with each other without turning into a giant moral panic within and people pointing fingers at everybody and nobody listening to anybody. So we see these things actually taking real time.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. I mean, the IVF one was was really surprised. Not surprising.

I shouldn't say really surprising to me. It was surprising because there are so many evangelicals that use IVF.

[Lilin Lavin]
Apparently, they didn't read Project 2025 because they clearly stated that these kind of things should only happen by you know, husband and wife or the adoption of the unfortunate child in a home that they don't think is adequate.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, but but that one surprised me a little bit that they showed their hands this early.

[Lilin Lavin]
Well, you said it was an intelligent decision to push it by the democratic individuals who did sponsor it.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, it was intelligent. And you know, last week, they pushed the contraception to force their hands. This week, they pushed the IVF be curious to see what they push over the next few months.

[Lilin Lavin]
Here we are just trying to codify things in case things were to go in a direction that would take away more rights. We all know that there's a strong chance. I'm not gonna say it's a probability because I don't want to think that way.

But there is a chance that things end up in a more negative situation where more rights end up being lost. I mean, we had Trump out there saying the other day, that the state's banning abortion are beautiful watching watching it happen is beautiful. I mean, the man doesn't know how to speak to save his life.

But he's very clearly wavering every which way to try to appease everybody. And he's just a vindictive, ugly little man. So it's just horror, horrible, in my opinion, that someone like that would be a candidate.

Now, you vote for whoever you want. But I find it abhorrent that an individual like that, I don't care what party he was representing. An individual like that would even make it that far.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. I mean, again, it kind of shows where our society is at now. And it shows, you know, what was that?

What was that movie God and Country?

[Lilin Lavin]
Fantastic movie.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, actually very documentary documentary. Yeah, I highly recommend it if you haven't watched it. Because it does show in the thing that it shows so clearly is the difference between Christians, like actual Christians and Christian nationalism.

And there is a distinct difference between the two. There are Christians that I can actually work with. There are Christians that I can be like, look, we've got differences of opinion, as far as you know, what happens when you die and all that sort of stuff.

But we see eye to eye on certain things. And so we can work together on that, you know, at least I can. And if, you know, and some of them are open to working with other people that they're like, Okay, cool.

Yeah, we have differences of this, but faith and religion doesn't believe belong in the government. So we're on the same side with this, because this other shit doesn't belong in the government either. These are personal religious beliefs that are being pushed into law.

And they don't religion does not belong into law. So there are Christians that you can actually legislators, even Christian legislators that I can actually work with. There's one in Texas, I forgot his name off the top of my head.

I share some of his stuff on Twitter. But then there's Christian nationalism. And that is what we are fighting.

We are we are fighting against Christian nationalism, which is making inroads into taking our rights away. I mean, it doesn't matter who you are, unless you are a white male, Christian nationalists, they're already tired of hearing the soundbites.

[Lilin Lavin]
But it was very, very clear when a certain SCOTUS justice was having a private conversation, where it was recorded that they really have no issue enforcing religious theocracy on people through law and reasserting what was never actually asserted, but their false claim that they're reasserting this country as a Christian nation. Before it belonged to anybody here, it belonged to people of many faiths. And it doesn't belong to a faith.

It belongs to a society of people that hopefully can get past this ridiculousness and learn how to work together for the benefit of society as a whole, because there's a whole lot more things going on than just this petty ridiculousness. People are still dealing with healthcare discrepancies, living discrepancies, job discrepancies, healthcare in general is abysmal here. Psychological issues abound.

It's not just Texas. There's just so many people that cannot get the adequate care that they need. And we're not saying that there are so, you know, there's people of varying degrees of mental health issue.

And when they're not able to get care at an early stage for these things, then it just becomes progressively worse. And it creates a self perpetuating cycle, and the state is perpetuating it. So you know, until we start recognizing these issues, or you know, the issue of people trying to get a basic education so that they can provide a better income and having a ridiculous interest bearing loan that is just ridiculously impossible to sustain.

I mean, you have people paying interest for 20 years or more, and not even making a dent in the original loan for an education that they need to get certain jobs. This is not a sustainable model. And you know, you can argue all day long that people shouldn't just get things but you're benefiting society to provide basic things like low cost healthcare, mental health coverage, education, childcare, early learning programs, food security, you know, just wait, wait, wait, hold on.

[Tommy Lavin]
Hold on. Yeah. You mean we have to feed the kids that were forced to come into this world?

[Lilin Lavin]
If you live in a state where the politicians get free lunches, but the students don't, there's a problem.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. So yeah, I know we kind of, yeah, I tangentialized. We sort of veered off and back.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, we've missed everybody. And then, you know, the world continued to do its thing. And we're like, Whoa, we missed out on a lot of stuff.

So we had to kind of catch up. But the light at the end of this flaming tunnel is that people are pushing back on it, you hear a lot more being spoken out loud, you hear a lot more people that are saying the things that people don't want to say the ugly truth of the matter is we have an extremism problem here. And we need to call it out, recognize it for what it is, and do everything that we can within our power legally, appropriately to push back against it.

Because we have the numbers, we just have to have the ability to care enough to make a difference.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. I mean, I say constantly on social media, but smart.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, I don't care what party your affiliation is. I don't care any of those things. What I care about is are you doing the things that you supposedly align with?

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, vote like your rights and possibly your life depends on it, because it just actually might. And if it's not you, it's somebody you love. And I guarantee you, everybody will be touched by, you know, these things as they go through.

[Lilin Lavin]
It's already happening. I mean, we see people that now are infertile because of these things. We see people that are in awful situations because of the just ridiculous backwards laws that people are pushing unnecessarily.

So, you know, just be smart, do your research, fully understand what you're getting into, and consider what kind of world you're leaving behind or what kind of world you're walking into and do the right thing.

[Tommy Lavin]
That's hard. I don't know why, but it seems to me.

[Lilin Lavin]
All right. Well, many, many happy wishes to me on my wonderful decorating of my front yard. I will try to share some images at some point.

But unfortunately, my beautiful flag will probably have to come down. We're going to try to appeal it, but I cannot guarantee it will make any difference. But that's okay.

I will make one, you know, regular sized flag turn into many small flags. And I think I saw some really cute garden gnomes with some really cool hats. And yeah, I'm gonna make the most of it.

So they want to play. I'm ready and willing. Yeah, let's play ball.

[Tommy Lavin]
And with that.

[Lilin Lavin]
Good morning. Good afternoon. And good night, wherever you may be.