David Barton weighs in on Friday's Supreme Court gay marriage decision

In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of gay marriage, Glenn spent the majority of Friday's radio show speaking with experts about the impact of the decision on people who believe in traditional marriage. David Barton doesn't have a lot of confidence that religious liberty and freedom of conscience will be safe given the political atmosphere and the activist courts.He also thinks there is zero chance conservatives will be able to pass a constitutional amendment to preserve traditional marriage. So what happens next?

GLENN: David Barton is with us now. Hello, David.

DAVID: Hey, guys.

GLENN: We just talked to the Liberty Institute. And we felt pretty good about what they were saying about the -- the Supreme Court, all nine justices stood up for religious liberty. Do you have comfort on that?

DAVID: No. I don't.

GLENN: Okay.

DAVID: Anymore than I have comfort on the fact that the Hobby Lobby decision where the Court came out emphatically and said you have a right to conscience, that court after court after court said, well, that's for abortifacient. You don't have the right for conscience for marriage.

So I've watched as we've had very emphatic rulings from the Court, and lower courts just refuse to do anything with it. And below that, lower officials do the same thing.

I mean, we still have -- we have 8-0 ruling by the US Supreme Court you can have all sorts of religious activities in schools, and yet we have principals across the nation saying, wait a minute, kid. You can't say "God" at graduation, et cetera.

So I don't have much confidence in that. But there's really a fundamental question that I think has to be asked at some point. And it deals with the nature of the judiciary itself.

And that is: At what point are we going to go back to saying, you know, we have to allow elected officials to make policy, rather than the courts? Because for the last five sessions, we've watched the Court increasingly make grander and more bold statements on what they should do.

And reading Kennedy's decision this morning, I felt like I was listening to a televangelist at 2 o'clock in the morning somewhere. I mean, that kind of rhetorical language, that kind of apologetic language is pretty unbelievable coming out of a court.

And so at some point, we'll have to get back to fundamental decisions of, okay, the Constitution doesn't allow judges to do this. So what will we do as a result? And that's a whole different discussion. But I'm not that secure on religious liberties. And I think you'll see that through the NDOs and through the things that will happen at the city level, that there won't be much protection for religious liberty.

GLENN: Okay. So I'm back to completely depressed. David, what do we do now? What do you recommend that the average person does this weekend?

DAVID: Well, at some point, and it's what you've already been talking about. At some point, you have to have standalone courage and stand up and say, you know what, the rest of the world may be going off the cliff, but I'm not.

And let me tell you, this is a wrong decision. And this is why. And at this point, if we just get in the boat and decide to float with the current, we'll be done with this. This to me is very much like what happened with the fugitive slave law in the 1850s, where that you had one side that said, hey, the Court's ruled. You know, this is a done deal. Congress has spoken on this. And other people said, no, they may have spoken, but they said the wrong thing.

And it really started turning things back in a right direction. But you had the Dred Scott decision and everything else that goes with it. Yeah, the Court ruled, but they ruled in a bad direction for the country and a bad direction for the Constitution.

I really did appreciate what Roberts said. He said, if you want to celebrate gay marriage, do it. But don't celebrate the Constitution because the Constitution had nothing to do with this ruling today.

And at some point, I think we're -- where we were with Dred Scott where we said, you know, the Constitution had nothing to do with this ruling. This was judicial activism, and we'll have to get back at some point to living by a document that we swore to uphold. So I think that's what we do right now, as we start raising our voice and saying, you know, that may be the Court, but I'm not going over the cliff with everybody else. I won't get in this rowboat and go over the Niagara Falls. I'm not going to float that direction. I'm going to swim upstream. I think we'll find quickly that we're not as upstream as we think we are.

GLENN: Governor Walker just announced that he is adding to his platform now that one of his main things is that he will pass a marriage is between a man and a woman amendment in the Constitution. That's what he'll push for as president of the United States. Do you think that's wise? What do you think of that politically speaking?

DAVID: Politically, it's not going to happen. You need two-thirds of the Senate go with it. There's no way you'll get 25 percent of Democrats join 100 percent of Republicans. Politically, that's a dead issue. It will not go anywhere. A constitutional amendment. The only thing that will make a constitutional amendment go -- I have congressman in Congress years ago who told me something 25 years ago. They said, Congress only sees the light when it feels the heat. And unless Democrats still feel the heat from black pastors and Hispanics and others that are so much more pro marriage than even whites are, unless they feel that kind of heat, there's no chance of a constitutional amendment going, nor is there a chance that you would get three-fourths of the states to ratify it. I think we can pretty quickly name 13 states that would refuse to ratify, and that would keep it from becoming policy. So, you know, that's a great piece of rhetoric. But policy-wise, we're back to, how long do we want nine elected people to have the majority vote to tell 330 million people what their policies will be?

PAT: If you can't get it done and the case you laid out pretty convincingly, David, suggests he can't, I don't think it is a great piece of rhetoric. Because that will hurt him with the electorate.

STU: But maybe not in the primary.

DAVID: Yeah, I don't think it will hurt him as much as we think. Because what will happen -- I mean, we're seeing polling right now. You would never recognize right now that 81 percent of the nation says that the issue of gay marriage should not be allowed to infringe on the rights of conscience. Now, that's what 81 percent believe. But we have dozens, if not hundreds of accounts across the nation, whereby public policy we're doing that. And what happens is, people aren't being told about rights of conscience. They're being told about equality and everybody should have the right to love who they want to and marriage is something -- that's great.

GLENN: That's where France went wrong.

DAVID: That's right. And it depends on how you frame the rhetoric. And so I think that people have a sense of, yeah, I prefer traditional marriage, but I think everybody should have the right to do what they want to do. So in that sense, I don't think what Walker does is going to hurt him, particularly with a primary vote where he's struggling with a dozen other guys to come out with a position -- I don't think it will hurt him much. I think if someone turns his rhetoric into an anti-equality position, then it hurts him. But just to say it the way you said, I don't think it will hurt him politically.

GLENN: David, thank you very much. Could you just give me a little quick hit on how you think this is affected by 8/28 and what we're planning to doing there.

DAVID: Well, 8/28 essentially it's coming back to the individual. And where we are today is one of the frustrations that Americans have. We look at the Court and say, I wish they would have done it different. There's nothing I can do. Great. That's fine. But the American Revolution was not won because we watched George Washington. It was won because people in their local communities said, you know, I'll defend my town. I'll defend -- I'll stand up against the British when they come here. I'll be Naphtali Daggett out on the hillside, one man taking on 200 -- excuse me -- one man taking on 2500 British in the battle of New Haven. I'll be that guy on the hillside that will take on 2500.

And that's what 8/28 will be. It's time for us to have the force of convictions to stand up in our local areas, talk in our own families, talk in our own churches, talk in our own communities, talk to our own school boards and start letting our voice be heard at a level where it will be heard. And I think that's one of the great things that has to happen. And that's always been the movement in America that's turned America in the right direction. Is when the grassroots starts bubbling up from the bottom, not coming down from the top at the Supreme Court.

GLENN: David, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

DAVID: Bless you guys.

GLENN: Bless you too. David Barton. President of Wall Builders. You know, we should call him Dr. Barton. You know, he has his PhD I think in history and education. Too many people just dismiss him as -- as -- you know, oh, just some guy who thinks he knows history. No, he has his doctorate in education and he's a brilliant, brilliant man.

A nation unravels when its shared culture is the first thing to go

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Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

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Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Shocking: AI-written country song tops charts, sparks soul debate

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A machine can imitate heartbreak well enough to top the charts, but it cannot carry grief, choose courage, or hear the whisper that calls human beings to something higher.

The No. 1 country song in America right now was not written in Nashville or Texas or even L.A. It came from code. “Walk My Walk,” the AI-generated single by the AI artist Breaking Rust, hit the top spot on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart, and if you listen to it without knowing that fact, you would swear a real singer lived the pain he is describing.

Except there is no “he.” There is no lived experience. There is no soul behind the voice dominating the country music charts.

If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

I will admit it: I enjoy some AI music. Some of it is very good. And that leaves us with a question that is no longer science fiction. If a machine can fake being human this well, what does it mean to be human?

A new world of artificial experience

This is not just about one song. We are walking straight into a technological moment that will reshape everyday life.

Elon Musk said recently that we may not even have phones in five years. Instead, we will carry a small device that listens, anticipates, and creates — a personal AI agent that knows what we want to hear before we ask. It will make the music, the news, the podcasts, the stories. We already live in digital bubbles. Soon, those bubbles might become our own private worlds.

If an algorithm can write a hit country song about hardship and perseverance without a shred of actual experience, then the deeper question becomes unavoidable: If a machine can imitate the soul, then what is the soul?

What machines can never do

A machine can produce, and soon it may produce better than we can. It can calculate faster than any human mind. It can rearrange the notes and words of a thousand human songs into something that sounds real enough to fool millions.

But it cannot care. It cannot love. It cannot choose right and wrong. It cannot forgive because it cannot be hurt. It cannot stand between a child and danger. It cannot walk through sorrow.

A machine can imitate the sound of suffering. It cannot suffer.

The difference is the soul. The divine spark. The thing God breathed into man that no code will ever have. Only humans can take pain and let it grow into compassion. Only humans can take fear and turn it into courage. Only humans can rebuild their lives after losing everything. Only humans hear the whisper inside, the divine voice that says, “Live for something greater.”

We are building artificial minds. We are not building artificial life.

Questions that define us

And as these artificial minds grow sharper, as their tools become more convincing, the right response is not panic. It is to ask the oldest and most important questions.

Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of freedom? What is worth defending? What is worth sacrificing for?

That answer is not found in a lab or a server rack. It is found in that mysterious place inside each of us where reason meets faith, where suffering becomes wisdom, where God reminds us we are more than flesh and more than thought. We are not accidents. We are not circuits. We are not replaceable.

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The miracle machines can never copy

Being human is not about what we can produce. Machines will outproduce us. That is not the question. Being human is about what we can choose. We can choose to love even when it costs us something. We can choose to sacrifice when it is not easy. We can choose to tell the truth when the world rewards lies. We can choose to stand when everyone else bows. We can create because something inside us will not rest until we do.

An AI content generator can borrow our melodies, echo our stories, and dress itself up like a human soul, but it cannot carry grief across a lifetime. It cannot forgive an enemy. It cannot experience wonder. It cannot look at a broken world and say, “I am going to build again.”

The age of machines is rising. And if we do not know who we are, we will shrink. But if we use this moment to remember what makes us human, it will help us to become better, because the one thing no algorithm will ever recreate is the miracle that we exist at all — the miracle of the human soul.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Is Socialism seducing a lost generation?

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A generation that’s lost faith in capitalism is turning to the oldest lie on earth: equality through control.

Something is breaking in America’s young people. You can feel it in every headline, every grocery bill, every young voice quietly asking if the American dream still means anything at all.

For many, the promise of America — work hard, build something that lasts, and give the next generation a better start — feels like it no longer exists. Home ownership and stability have become luxuries for a fortunate few.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them.

In that vacuum of hope, a new promise has begun to rise — one that sounds compassionate, equal, and fair. The promise of socialism.

The appeal of a broken dream

When the American dream becomes a checklist of things few can afford — a home, a car, two children, even a little peace — disappointment quickly turns to resentment. The average first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old. Debt lasts longer than marriages. The cost of living rises faster than opportunity.

For a generation that has never seen the system truly work, capitalism feels like a rigged game built to protect those already at the top.

That is where socialism finds its audience. It presents itself as fairness for the forgotten and justice for the disillusioned. It speaks softly at first, offering equality, compassion, and control disguised as care.

We are seeing that illusion play out now in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani — an open socialist — has won a major political victory. The same ideology that once hid behind euphemisms now campaigns openly throughout America’s once-great cities. And for many who feel left behind, it sounds like salvation.

But what socialism calls fairness is submission dressed as virtue. What it calls order is obedience. Once the system begins to replace personal responsibility with collective dependence, the erosion of liberty is only a matter of time.

The bridge that never ends

Socialism is not a destination; it is a bridge. Karl Marx described it as the necessary transition to communism — the scaffolding that builds the total state. Under socialism, people are taught to obey. Under communism, they forget that any other options exist.

History tells the story clearly. Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba — each promised equality and delivered misery. One hundred million lives were lost, not because socialism failed, but because it succeeded at what it was designed to do: make the state supreme and the individual expendable.

Today’s advocates insist their version will be different — democratic, modern, and kind. They often cite Sweden as an example, but Sweden’s prosperity was never born of socialism. It grew out of capitalism, self-reliance, and a shared moral culture. Now that system is cracking under the weight of bureaucracy and division.

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The real issue is not economic but moral. Socialism begins with a lie about human nature — that people exist for the collective and that the collective knows better than the individual.

This lie is contrary to the truths on which America was founded — that rights come not from government’s authority, but from God’s. Once government replaces that authority, compassion becomes control, and freedom becomes permission.

What young America deserves

Young Americans have many reasons to be frustrated. They were told to study, work hard, and follow the rules — and many did, only to find the goalposts moved again and again. But tearing down the entire house does not make it fairer; it only leaves everyone standing in the rubble.

Capitalism is not a perfect system. It is flawed because people are flawed, but it remains the only system that rewards creativity and effort rather than punishing them. The answer is not revolution but renewal — moral, cultural, and spiritual.

It means restoring honesty to markets, integrity to government, and faith to the heart of our nation. A people who forsake God will always turn to government for salvation, and that road always ends in dependency and decay.

Freedom demands something of us. It requires faith, discipline, and courage. It expects citizens to govern themselves before others govern them. That is the truth this generation deserves to hear again — that liberty is not a gift from the state but a calling from God.

Socialism always begins with promises and ends with permission. It tells you what to drive, what to say, what to believe, all in the name of fairness. But real fairness is not everyone sharing the same chains — it is everyone having the same chance.

The American dream was never about guarantees. It was about the right to try, to fail, and try again. That freedom built the most prosperous nation in history, and it can do so again if we remember that liberty is not a handout but a duty.

Socialism does not offer salvation. It requires subservience.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Rage isn’t conservatism — THIS is what true patriots stand for

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Conservatism is not about rage or nostalgia. It’s about moral clarity, national renewal, and guarding the principles that built America’s freedom.

Our movement is at a crossroads, and the question before us is simple: What does it mean to be a conservative in America today?

For years, we have been told what we are against — against the left, against wokeism, against decline. But opposition alone does not define a movement, and it certainly does not define a moral vision.

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

The media, as usual, are eager to supply their own answer. The New York Times recently suggested that Nick Fuentes represents the “future” of conservatism. That’s nonsense — a distortion of both truth and tradition. Fuentes and those like him do not represent American conservatism. They represent its counterfeit.

Real conservatism is not rage. It is reverence. It does not treat the past as a museum, but as a teacher. America’s founders asked us to preserve their principles and improve upon their practice. That means understanding what we are conserving — a living covenant, not a relic.

Conservatism as stewardship

In 2025, conservatism means stewardship — of a nation, a culture, and a moral inheritance too precious to abandon. To conserve is not to freeze history. It is to stand guard over what is essential. We are custodians of an experiment in liberty that rests on the belief that rights come not from kings or Congress, but from the Creator.

That belief built this country. It will be what saves it. The Constitution is a covenant between generations. Conservatism is the duty to keep that covenant alive — to preserve what works, correct what fails, and pass on both wisdom and freedom to those who come next.

Economics, culture, and morality are inseparable. Debt is not only fiscal; it is moral. Spending what belongs to the unborn is theft. Dependence is not compassion; it is weakness parading as virtue. A society that trades responsibility for comfort teaches citizens how to live as slaves.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom; it is chaos. A culture that mocks faith cannot defend liberty, and a nation that rejects truth cannot sustain justice. Conservatism must again become the moral compass of a disoriented people, reminding America that liberty survives only when anchored to virtue.

Rebuilding what is broken

We cannot define ourselves by what we oppose. We must build families, communities, and institutions that endure. Government is broken because education is broken, and education is broken because we abandoned the formation of the mind and the soul. The work ahead is competence, not cynicism.

Conservatives should embrace innovation and technology while rejecting the chaos of Silicon Valley. Progress must not come at the expense of principle. Technology must strengthen people, not replace them. Artificial intelligence should remain a servant, never a master. The true strength of a nation is not measured by data or bureaucracy, but by the quiet webs of family, faith, and service that hold communities together. When Washington falters — and it will — those neighborhoods must stand.

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This is the real work of conservatism: to conserve what is good and true and to reform what has decayed. It is not about slogans; it is about stewardship — the patient labor of building a civilization that remembers what it stands for.

A creed for the rising generation

We are not here to cling to the past or wallow in grievance. We are not the movement of rage. We are the movement of reason and hope.

For the rising generation, conservatism cannot be nostalgia. It must be more than a memory of 9/11 or admiration for a Reagan era they never lived through. Many young Americans did not experience those moments — and they should not have to in order to grasp the lessons they taught and the truths they embodied. The next chapter is not about preserving relics but renewing purpose. It must speak to conviction, not cynicism; to moral clarity, not despair.

Young people are searching for meaning in a culture that mocks truth and empties life of purpose. Conservatism should be the moral compass that reminds them freedom is responsibility and that faith, family, and moral courage remain the surest rebellions against hopelessness.

To be a conservative in 2025 is to defend the enduring principles of American liberty while stewarding the culture, the economy, and the spirit of a free people. It is to stand for truth when truth is unfashionable and to guard moral order when the world celebrates chaos.

We are not merely holding the torch. We are relighting it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.