Defending Faith, Family and Freedom Podcast

Gary Bauer: Hi, this is Gary Bauer, Senior Vice President for Public Policy and Culture at the James Dobson Family Institute. Welcome to our podcast, Defending Faith, Family and Freedom. Always glad when you join us. Please tell your friends about us.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed? That's the way I have felt the last couple of days. I don't think I'm by myself. There are all kinds of studies out there. Anxiety levels are sky-high. People can't figure out what's going on. Why are things moving so fast? Why does it seem like I went to bed one night and I got up the next morning and it's a completely different country? To say that things are changing rapidly and not always for the good is kind of an understatement.

I can point to a lot of good things. There are some good things happening economically, even though you wouldn't know it from the media and so forth. But there is also a lot of really disturbing things. Just a few days ago, we had this far-left gentleman in Michigan win the Senate nomination for the Democrat Party. He was supported by self-described communists, socialists, radical Islamists, and all kinds of other people. He got an incredible number of votes, even though the estimates are $35 million was spent to try to stop him. This was the most expensive Senate race in the history of the United States. It's the primary, so he'll be on the ballot in November as the nominee of the Democrat Party. We'll see what happens.

I bring it up because all of a sudden, there are socialists all over the country that are winning elections. The mayor of New York thinks that we're responsible for 9/11. There is a woman running in Wisconsin for governor of the state and her big idea is, "Let's cancel Thanksgiving." She said let's cancel Thanksgiving because it was a colonialist holiday and it deeply hurts people when we celebrate it. I'm thinking, "Am I watching some bad TV series on Netflix? Is this some otherworld sort of thing?" No, it's actually what this lady said.

Every day brings more of these things, and it got me to thinking. Remember a number of years ago, it was probably longer than I think, maybe 20 years ago, there was this fad among young Christians where they started wearing necklaces and bracelets with letters on them. The letters stood for: What Would Jesus Do? We could use a couple of those today. The idea was if you're going through life and you run into a dilemma or a challenge, what would Jesus do? I wish it was a little bit more sophisticated because I think what we really should ask is: what would Jesus have us do?

I was thinking about that this morning when I was listening to some of the news headlines, and another thought crossed my mind. One of the men that tried to model his life after what he thought Jesus would have him do was the founder of the James Dobson Family Institute, James Dobson. I knew him for decades and worked with him. All of his work from the very beginning was built around biblical standards. He was very committed to the idea that he should live his life in a way that would please Jesus, and he was always looking through Scripture to get guidance about what Jesus would want him to do.

I guess I started thinking the question could be made a little bit simpler today, not quite as deep into Scripture. Since James Dobson followed that, what would Jim Dobson do today with all of this stuff going on? What's happening in Michigan and people attacking the Christian foundation of America, anti-American history in the schools, rising crime, and all that? What would Jim Dobson do about it all? Or another way to put it is: what would he want us to do?

As I was thinking about all of this, I came across an interview on Fox News. You know one of the big issues recently has been the transgender issue. Where did that come from? I've been around for a while, folks. I don't remember a few decades ago people walking around going, "I've got one of those boys born in a girl's body," or vice versa. That just didn't happen. Did God get old and start making mistakes? Why all of a sudden are all kinds of people claiming they have a son or daughter and they were born in the wrong body?

Following up on that, we're supposed to change everything we know about reality. If a boy claims he's a girl, we're supposed to call him she. If a boy claims he's a girl, he should be allowed to play on a girl's sports team. I saw this interview on Fox, and it was about a 17-year-old girl who this whole trans argument was impacting directly in a very negative way. She decided to do something about it instead of just sitting there passively and getting slapped around by life. It's a very short interview on Fox, but it's a very good interview. Let's just listen to the beginning of it because it sets the stage.

Ainsley Earhardt: WNBA star Sophie Cunningham is facing backlash for defending girls' sports, but she is also inspiring young female athletes. One of them is 17-year-old Ella Fry, who says she was bullied and harassed after speaking out against her school district's transgender bathroom policy. Ella Fry joins us now and women's sports advocate Riley Gaines. They will be holding a rally for the cause tonight. Good morning to you, ladies.

Good morning. Ella, like Riley, your life changed completely. You didn't intend for all of this, but you just happened to speak at a school board meeting against allowing trans individuals into the women's locker room. It went viral, and you were bullied as a result. Tell us what happened. What were people saying to you for speaking out?

Ella Fry: Well, a couple students from my school put together a hate group, I would call it, on Facebook. They would basically just shame everything I did and Moms for Liberty. There were some teachers that would also participate in the harassment.

Gary Bauer: As you heard, the interview began by referencing Sophie Cunningham. I confess I'm not a fan of women's professional basketball, but it's gotten a lot of attention recently because there are a couple of really good players playing for the WNBA. One of them is this star named Sophie Cunningham. She came out the other day and she said there shouldn't be men claiming they're women allowed to play in women's basketball.

It seems like a pretty run-of-the-mill statement, but she was yelled at. She's been called all kinds of names. A number of coaches in the professional women's basketball league have criticized her for simply saying men shouldn't be in this women's basketball league. Seriously, there are coaches for women's basketball teams that think it would be okay to have men on the basketball team? Then why did they start a women's league? This doesn't make any sense.

But anyway, there's Sophie Cunningham and the inspiration that that provided. The main point of what we just heard was that a 17-year-old girl going to a school, I believe the school is in Wisconsin, the school announced they have one transgender student in the school. It's a boy, and he demands that everybody accept the idea that he is a girl. The school immediately went along with that. This boy claiming he's a girl says, "I am going to use the girls' bathrooms," and the school said that's fine.

This 17-year-old girl went to a school board meeting. She testified about it. She said she shouldn't have to go into a girls' restroom, where you're vulnerable and it's an intimate space, and take the chance she's going to walk in there and see a boy standing there. The school said if you're not broad-minded like the rest of us are, you're the one that should use another bathroom, not that trans girl. They made her use the bathroom in the teachers' lounge.

She was harassed at school. She referred to the group of kids that harassed her as a little hate group. She was even harassed by people that work for the school. She said that when she went into the ladies' room in the teachers' lounge, people that worked at the school and were harassing her online were there in the teachers' lounge harassing her in person. If I were her parents, I'd probably be in jail. Let's listen to the rest of this interview because it's very revealing.

Ainsley Earhardt: And there was one transgender student at your school, right?

Ella Fry: Yep, that wanted to use the female bathrooms instead of the single-stall one.

Ainsley Earhardt: And what did the school say?

Ella Fry: And the school, when we went up and spoke and said we were uncomfortable, they said that if you were uncomfortable, you could use the single-stall restrooms.

Ainsley Earhardt: So then you started using the bathroom in the teacher's lounge, right?

Ella Fry: Yeah, and some of the staff that were harassing me online I would run into on a daily basis there.

Ainsley Earhardt: And Riley, you were planning on going to dental school, and then you were swimming against a trans athlete, and that person was beating everybody's record by a landslide and it wasn't fair to you. So you started speaking out. How did you get involved with Ella?

Riley Gaines: Well, I first saw Ella's video online, and let me tell you, Ella is a heroine. She was a heroine to me, she's a hero to all those little girls in her school and all across the country. What Ella is advocating for, what I'm advocating for, I know what you guys speak about on Fox News, is the bare minimum. We want girls to feel safe in intimate areas of undressing. We want girls to have equal opportunity. We want girls to be able to achieve and succeed in their sport.

It's the bare minimum, yet when you speak about it out loud and when you publicly declare yourself having such opinions, you're demonized for it. You're ostracized for it. We know the playbook at this point, and that's why so many people are silent. Not because they agree with it, not because they think men can get pregnant or that boys need tampons in their bathrooms. They don't think that at all, but they see the treatment that people like Ella receive and they're terrified to say it. It goes back to the whole silent majority thing. Even in the year 2026, there's a level of fear because the other side instills that. They do it through intimidation, and I think even more concerningly, we see them do it oftentimes through violence.

Ainsley Earhardt: And Ella, what was your reaction when you saw Sophie Cunningham when she was speaking out about this?

Ella Fry: I was so excited to see another person with such a platform speak out about a topic that can be controversial. She had so many sponsorships and money on the line, and she did it anyway. A lot of young female athletes, including me, look up to her for that.

Gary Bauer: There's some other people that come into play here. One of them is Riley Gaines. Many of you probably will know the name Riley Gaines. She was a great swimmer. When she was at the University of Kentucky, it looked like she would be winning a lot of awards, but all of a sudden this swimmer came out of nowhere from a school in Pennsylvania. This swimmer was breaking all kinds of records. Riley Gaines hadn't heard of the swimmer. Her coach hadn't heard of the swimmer. They discovered as time went on that the reason they hadn't heard of this incredible women's swimmer is that she was a man, and the man was beating the women in the women's swimming competitions.

Riley Gaines as a college student got involved in that whole battle. In fact, there's a great little story. When she graduated from the University of Kentucky, she was on her way to dental school. She was going to study to be a dental hygienist or a dentist, and she was sitting in her apartment one night and she said that all of a sudden, it was like somebody just spoke to her. She concluded God was telling her, "You're just going to let this whole thing go? You were just cheated out of awards and honors, and you're just going to go on with your life and let every young girl younger than you have to deal with the same thing? If you're not going to stand up about this, who will?"

She altered her entire life, and she's been fighting this trans insanity. She's a friend of our ministry, the James Dobson Family Institute. We've interviewed her. I'd like to have her back on. Because of people like her, as well as that professional female basketball player, this 17-year-old girl was inspired to stand up and be a heroine. Riley Gaines talks about something that people don't want to talk about, but I think it's key to this whole thing. The whole transgender movement is using fear and even the threat of violence to get their way.

I doubt very seriously if three female coaches of three all-women's professional basketball teams really don't know the difference between a man and a woman. I think they were afraid to say, "No, I would never take a man on my team just because he claimed he was a woman." People get fearful, and that's what some of these radical movements count on. This young 17-year-old is a heroine. I absolutely know that Dr. Dobson, if he were with us today, would have her on the radio show as quickly as possible. This young woman could encourage other young women because heroism is contagious, and so is fear. If people see others acting fearfully, they will act fearfully. If people see other people being courageous, they will be courageous too.

This brings me back to the question I found myself asking this morning: what would Dr. Dobson say about what we should be doing right now? What's the proper response to some of the crazy things happening all around us? In our schools, public entertainment, our politics, maybe even in your neighborhood at the local library? We don't have to guess. There's material all over our website. Material to help you raise your children, radio shows, things that Dr. Dobson wrote.

There are also things that we have where he tells us, as he did for his entire life, what we're supposed to do as Christian citizens. How do we deal with things like this? Should it affect the way you vote? Should it affect what you do in your household? What you say to your children about the issue? What are you going to do if a boy tries to go into your girls' bathroom? Should you just sit by and not do anything?

I first thought about going to the book that Dr. Dobson and I wrote called "Children at Risk: Winning the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Your Children." There's a couple of paragraphs where he tells you exactly what we're supposed to do about these sorts of things. Referring to all of you and what you believe, he wrote:

"This is the heritage of faith that thrives within the breast of countless millions around the world. They are the salt of the earth, and without their influence, the social order would quickly degenerate into chaos. And you can believe this: those quiet, godly people care passionately for their children."

And then speaking about the fact that things, even when Dr. Dobson and I wrote this book, were already beginning to go south, he wrote:

"They will not tolerate the destruction of everything they hold dear. I would stake my life on that certainty."

And then in a very brief section called "The Counterattack," he said this:

"If you are among the body of concerned citizens, I urge you not to just sit there. Get out and work for what you believe. Democracy only succeeds when people get involved. Campaign for a position on a local school board. Write your representatives in Washington. Better yet, help elect congressmen and senators who hold to the Judeo-Christian system of values. Picket an abortion clinic."

Dr. Dobson, 20 years ago or more, said picket an abortion clinic. Obviously, if you do that, make sure you're obeying the law. You can't block the entrance. He had no problem with demonstrations. A million people have come to Washington fairly regularly to demonstrate against abortion. When did conservatives and Christians start looking down on demonstrations? As long as they're peaceful, we should do them.

"Picket an abortion clinic. Serve on the hospital lay committee. Take a teacher to dinner. Examine the policies of your local library." I wonder if he was thinking about the drag queen reading hours. He was way ahead of his time. Why was he worried about what was going on at the libraries? Well, there was already junk going on at the libraries.

"Support your neighborhood crisis pregnancy center. Accept a pregnant teenager into your home. Pray for your country every day. Support the work of your church in reaching a lost and dying world for Christ. And by all means, do these things in a spirit of love that would be honoring to the one who sent us."

Isn't that interesting? He gives all these action items first, and then he says pray, too, for your country. Today, a lot of religious leaders are saying, "Oh, these things are terrible. We need to pray about that." Well, yes we do, but we need to act, too. That's why when Dr. Dobson and I wrote the book, he listed the action items first and then reminded you, don't forget to pray.

That's my message for the day. Yes, a lot going on and some really bad trends out there. Sometimes we feel like we're living in a bad episode of the old Twilight Zone. Please, somebody wake me up. But there are millions of us, my friends, and we are called to fear not. We were reminded when Dr. Dobson was with us that as free men and women, there are things we can do because we are still free. Do them. It's the 250th birthday of America. Don't let it slip away from you. Great to be with you today. I'll be back soon. God bless you. Fear not. Go out and save America.