>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Why do all the trees in Texas lean to the east? Louisiana sucks.

>> Sam Grover: Welcome to the Cross examiner podcast, the Internets courtroom in the case of rationality versus religion. Here, our host uses his experience as both an attorney and an atheist to.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Put religion on trial.

>> Sam Grover: We solemnly swear that it is the most informative, educational, and entertaining jury duty you will ever do. And now it’s time for the cross examiner.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the Cross examiner podcast. I’m your host, the cross Examiner. I am an attorney, I am an atheist, and I am alarmed. I’m alarmed by the rise of christian nationalism in the United States. But more importantly, I’m alarmed by the massive amount of misinformation that’s powering that rise. Today, I’ve got a very special episode. I interviewed Sam Grover. He is the senior counsel for litigation at the Freedom from Religion foundation. He is one of several lawyers in a coalition of groups who is suing the state of Louisiana over their newly enacted, requirement that every public school room contain a display of the ten commandments. Obviously unconstitutional, right? Well, not so fast. The court has changed. They’ve done away with laws that. Excuse me. They’ve done away with tests that have previously found this to be unconstitutional. So, what will this court do now that the rules have changed? Well, let’s find out. Here’s my interview with Sam Grover. So welcome, Sam Grover. Thanks for, coming on the show.

>> Sam Grover: Hey, thanks, Graham, for having me. I’m really excited to be here and to get into it on Louisiana.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Absolutely. So, before we start, raking them over the coals, how about we tell our listeners who you are? I can read off your stats, if you don’t mind. make sure I’m accurate here. You got a BA in philosophy and government back in 2008, and then in 2010, you started to intern for Freedom from Religion foundation. Why don’t you tell our listeners how that came about? And what is FFRF?

>> Sam Grover: Sure. so, that I interned at FFRF in 2010. that was right after my first year of law school at Boston University. I had a wonderful professor there, Jay Wechsler, who, he’s really into state church separation. I had him for a different class, but that doesn’t matter. he had, ah, written this book called Holy Hullabaloos, where he took a tour around the United States, going to the location of different supreme court decisions that had to do with state church separation. And, came to, Wisconsin for the Wisconsin v. Yoder decision. and I went into amish country for that but also visited FFRF, which is based in Madison. so he developed a bit of a relationship with Dan, Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, our co presidents. and, he recommended that I reach out to FFRF. So I owe my entire legal career, to Jay Wechsler.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Wow, that’s amazing. that book hook of traveling to the different sites sounds fascinating. It reminds me of, Sarah Vowell wrote a book called assassination Vacation, where she went on vacation to all the important locations for presidential assassination. So, I’m going to pick that up and read it.

>> Sam Grover: He’s a very funny guy.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Oh, wonderful, wonderful. So then you got your JD, from Boston University, and then you went on to clerk for the Vermont office of legislative counsel. Was that regulatory work?

>> Sam Grover: I was, So I was basically the lawyer for every house and senate member in the state house, drafting legislation that they wanted me to draft. specifically, healthcare, and tax, were the two areas that I was helping out in.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Okay, and then, right after that, you ended up signing up with FFRF, I should say, in 2013, if I believe I.

>> Sam Grover: Yes, that’s right. Yeah. So, FFRF was my second job out of law school, and I’ve been here for over ten years now. Ah.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: As I told Ryan Jane, one of your, coworkers there, you, have the dream job for most lawyers. Like, this is amazing. So you’ve been there, like you said, for over ten years, and you were recently promoted to senior counsel. What does that mean?

>> Sam Grover: Oh, it means that I’ve been here a while. yeah, so, as senior counsel, responsible, for our litigation team, so I have, a big say in which cases we’re taking and why, and sort of developing our legal strategies as we move forward in this era of many trump appointed judges.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: I’m glad you point that out. We’re going to talk about that. So, finally, one more point. I went to your Twitter feed when I was researching, this case, and I saw in your bio you declare you are America’s only atheist church state separation attorney. Who can dunk. There’s gotta be a story there.

>> Sam Grover: Oh, well, I mean, no one has reached out to me on social media to prove me wrong yet, so, as of right now, that remains true.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Right.

>> Sam Grover: And still dunk at the age of 38. So, we’re still going with it. I’m not taking it down.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Okay, that’s the. The gauntlet has been thrown to all other, specifically atheist church state separation attorneys.

>> Sam Grover: Exactly.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Okay.

>> Sam Grover: Yeah, there are a couple other qualifiers there. Yeah.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: All right. Well, why don’t we jump on this case. as I talked in the intro to this show, it’s about Louisiana. Has, the governor has signed a law mandating that the ten commandments be displayed in every public school room in the state of Louisiana. two, pieces of background our users should know a the First Amendment exists, and it has done so since it was ratified in the bill of m rights in 1791. And, that this week, you have, as part of a coalition, you have filed suit against Louisiana. So could you talk about, mechanically, how does that work? you formed a coalition with the ACLU, ACLU of Louisiana, and Americans United for separation of church and state, and also included Simpson, Thatcher Bartlett, a law firm serving as pro bono. So, mechanically, before we get into the analysis of the case, I’m sure my listeners would like to know, how do you manage that? Is it like herding cats, or do people, like, generally fall in line?

>> Sam Grover: sometimes it’s one, sometimes it’s the other. so, I mean, the way the coalition came about is, our legislative team has been tracking this Louisiana bill since it first was introduced, and all the way through its passage in their state house and senate. so, we’ve known about it for a long time, and when it became clear that this one was going to pass, we reached out to our Louisiana members, to see who has kids in public schools, who will be affected by this law, who has concerns, and we got a lot of responses, an overwhelming number of responses. And, Americans united, the aCLu, they were doing something similar, and they were hearing from people, and, we’re in communication with each other, now and again, about these kinds of things all over the country. And, when it was clear that there was a lot of interest in all our organizations for taking a lawsuit on this, that’s when we formed the coalition.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Understood. And, what is your particular role in the coalition? Are you a drafter of the complaint? Are you, doing basically, organizational efforts?

>> Sam Grover: Yeah. so it’s a little bit of everything. so all our organizations were responsible for vetting potential, ah, plaintiffs who reached out to our individual organizations. So I did a lot of plaintiff interviews, and, just prepared potential plaintiffs for what it would mean to be part of a lawsuit, because most people don’t really know, what goes into that. and don’t think about how they’re potentially exposing themselves to being deposed or something like that. So you go into that a little bit. and then in terms of drafting, all our organizations have had a hand in the drafting. There are a couple primary, drafters, within, Simpson Thatcher, and also, the aclu, of Louisiana. that branch, did a more heavy hand in the initial drafting of everything. And then, everyone else has been supplying, what they can. And there’s been a lot of refining, as you can imagine, as we try to decide how to move forward.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Oh, yeah. I mean, that’s the name of the game for, listeners who are not familiar with legal writing. it’s easy to write 800 pages. It’s hard to write ten pages. So I’m sure there’s a lot of decisions to made on how to express a book’s worth of content in a sentence.

>> Sam Grover: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s a lot of consideration that goes into even what claims to bring. Right. Because, you know, this is a brazen constitutional violation, but the constitution has a lot of parts to it, and, you could point to quite a few different ones that this law potentially violates.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Absolutely. And that’s something I think I would like to get into, when we get to that analysis, because that is an interesting decision to make. And I’m assuming, like any other court, you have a limited number of pages.

>> Sam Grover: Yeah. I don’t believe that for the complaint itself, that’s true, but, yeah, you can file an 800 page complaint if you want. but it’s not the best foot to start off with.

>> Sam Grover: So, yes, you try to keep things, as trim as possible. You try to keep, you know, just the actually relevant facts in the actual complaint.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Very, very good point. So now that the suit’s been filed, could you explain the process moving forward for, our listeners? What are the major procedural steps? what are the typical motions? Is there a trial? Will there be witnesses? You talked about depositions. how is. How is evidence introduced? All of those sorts of things.

>> Sam Grover: Yeah. so I believe at this point, as of this recording, all of the, defendants in the lawsuit, save maybe one school district, have been served. Right? So that’s the first thing. You can’t do anything else until they, have been formally served the complaint. So, that’s happened. and now we are, gearing up to file a preliminary injunction. And what that is, it’s a motion for a preliminary injunction. we are asking the court before it actually rules on the case, based on the likelihood of our success, to stop any school district in Louisiana from putting up the ten commandments in classrooms this school year. lawsuits take a long time. they can take years. Right. and this one probably won’t be an exception to that. and so you want to, win at the outset so that this year, our plaintiff’s children, are not seeing the ten commandments in their classrooms.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Absolutely. So, with that request, that motion to enjoin, is that typically indicative if you win on that, is it typically indicative that you’re going to win in the long term? Because I think you mentioned the standard is the judge is thinking, well, based on what I know now, you may be greater than 50% chance you’re going to succeed.

>> Sam Grover: I would guess that. I don’t know for sure if this is true, but I would guess that there is a fairly good correlation, at the district court level, of if you win on the preliminary injunction motion, you also win at the district court. I bet that that, correlation goes away as soon as you’re talking about appeals in the case. and that is the big concern, for our case right now. the district court judge, is faced with a fairly straightforward decision, because we have established supreme court precedent saying that what Louisiana is doing here is blatantly unconstitutional. And the district court, and in theory, the court of appeals, are bound by the supreme court’s decision, in that 1980 case, Stone v. Graham.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Right, right, yeah. And Stone v. Graham, we’ll talk about in a little bit. But that was an eight to one opinion from 1980, I think. so it’s nearly half a century of precedent. that you can basically. Dear court, see Stone v. Graham. Thank you. Like, that’s. Yeah, that’s kind of the argument. Even though your. Your complaint, of course, goes into a lot of details. That’s the argument, correct.

>> Sam Grover: I mean, when you put it like that, I’m wondering why we’ve had so many coalition calls to try to figure out what we’re going to argue.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Right, right.

>> Sam Grover: yes. That is, that, that is one of the bases on. On which we’re moving forward is gotcha.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: So when you do end up going to trial, how is evidence introduced? Because a lot of people, I think they’re familiar with appellate work, where you’ve got a couple of lawyers filing arguments. They’re all arguing over the woulda, shoulda, coulda’s, but you actually do have a trial in constitutional cases. So what does that look like if you’re an outside observer? Most people are familiar with traffic court or suing their neighbor over the fence. So they know how that works. How is this different? And how is this the same?

>> Sam Grover: Yeah, so this is, largely for the most part, I’m talking in generalities. for the most part, this is different than, traffic court or, any civil case, or any criminal case, really. where in most types of cases, you have disagreements over the facts when you conduct a trial, that is for a judge or jury to listen to the evidence that the attorneys present and decide issues of fact. Right. did this person run a red light, or did this, weapon found at the crime scene have fingerprints on it, that belong to whoever?

>> Sam Grover: So that’s what typically happens at a trial. in most, of the cases that I work, in most constitutional cases, there are no issues of fact, usually. and in this case, there probably won’t be any issues of fact that need to be resolved at the trial. Louisiana knows what it’s done. We can see it. It’s, you know, it’s written on paper. and we know what the effect will be. So most likely, there won’t be a trial. Most likely, we will file, what’s called a motion for summary judgment. So this is after, discovery has been conducted, and we’ve been able to present any evidence that we do need to present. a motion for summary judgment says there are no issues of facts that require a trial. So let’s just resolve this. the judge just needs to decide the issues of law, right. How to apply the law to the agreed upon facts.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: That makes sense. So, for things. Excuse me. For things like witnesses. you have, excuse me, plaintiffs. You’ve got 14, plaintiffs. They, are, I assume, going to be deposed. Is that correct?

>> Sam Grover: you know, that is a bit of an open question right now. yeah. So there will be a, discovery process where both sides get to, do interrogatories and conduct depositions, if they so choose. the defendants get to decide whether to depose, our plaintiffs. and, the typical reason why you would do that in a case like this where, the defendants don’t have personalized knowledge of what went into writing the bill, they just have personalized knowledge of how this is going to affect their children. So, the reason to depose them would be to chip away at their standing, their ability to sue and have, a stake in the outcome of the case.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Right. You don’t live here, you don’t have kids, all of those sorts of things.

>> Sam Grover: Exactly. Exactly. Like standing would have been a great reason to throw out the Kennedy v. Bremerton decision because coach Kennedy moved to Florida and never had, a real intention of moving back to Washington and coach football again. right. But like as you said, we have so many plaintiffs, we have nine different plaintiff families. so parents, and their children, they all live in Louisiana. Their kids all go to public schools where the ten commandments will be displayed if this law is allowed to stand. so there’s not really good grounds, for getting the case dismissed for lack of standing. the defense has the right to try. and that will take a lot of attorney time and resources if they choose do that. But even if they found, you know, hypothetically, one of the parents, you know, is, is moving and taking their kid out of state next school year, you know, that’s not going to defeat the case. So, you know, it’s, it’s it’s their call, on whether they want to spend the time and resources, to do that.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: that makes sense. And I assume strategically the, the possibility of plaintiffs dying, moving, all of sort, those sort of things, is part of the reason why you have so many in these sorts of cases, is you dont just want one person necessarily. did that play into this decision here?

>> Sam Grover: I guess so, in a bit of a way, but more so the reason why we have so many plaintiff families is that there are just so many people who are affected negatively by this law. we have, atheist and agnostic parents, and their minor children. We also have christian families and minority religious families. They all take issue with the government telling their children, you know, what to believe, in terms of morality, within the public school setting. so, it’s an issue that affects everyone with children in Louisiana’s public schools. we didn’t want to exclude, any segment of the population from getting to voice their unique concerns with it.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: And that’s a great point. if I recall correctly, four of the plaintiffs are actually reverends, is that correct? I mean, that speaks volumes, doesn’t it?

>> Sam Grover: Yeah, I think it does. religion is meant to be in the private sphere, and the government’s not supposed to interfere with it. you know that Louisiana hasn’t just mandated that the ten Commandments get posted. The state has mandated a specific version of the ten Commandments, that’s going to be posted in every public school classroom if they get their way. And so in addition to commandments like I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me, offending, the morality of atheists and agnostics and minority religious people, you also have, commandments like, don’t, create any graven images, which conflicts with the catholic version of the Ten Commandments.

>> Sam Grover: So, there are a lot of reasons to object to the state getting involved in this sort of religious teaching.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: I totally agree. That was one of the points that really jumped out to me is somebody asked early on, why are there eleven commandments in their list of ten commandments? And it goes into this history of, well, some faith traditions combine the first two, some faith traditions combine the last two. The Catholics don’t like the graven images one. So merely picking one is another layer of lack, of equal protection, violation of the establishment clause, all sorts of things that you could argue. It reminds me of, a while ago, it seems like decades now. I’m not sure when it was when Louisiana tried to make their Bible, the official state book of Louisiana, and it failed in part, in a large part because they couldn’t agree on which one. So all of this sort of speaks to that sort of, I almost picture it as a clown car routine of trying to impose their religion, but running into problems even when they’re dealing with fellow christians.

>> Sam Grover: Absolutely. This is ten commandments by committee, which is why you have a lot of.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Exactly true. So you mentioned the plaintiffs earlier. One of the concerns is sort of coaching them on what to expect to make sure. Are you ready to be in a case like this? do they have anything to be concerned about? I’m reminded of earlier, cases like Jessica Alquist, who was a girl up in Rhode island where she said, hey, my school has a christian prayer on a banner in it. Can you please take it down? That’s against the law. She ended up needing police escorts to school. She, had. After, after the case was decided, a state, representative, Peter Palumbo, spoke on the radio broadcast, everyone, and called her an evil little thing, which raises real concerns about, you, know, for want of a better phrase, stochastic terrorism. You’ve got public officials villainizing and demonizing people who are saying, hey, it is very clear you are breaking the law. Would you please stop breaking the law? And this goon squad comes out to attack people. Here you’ve got, it’s much more of a national issue and it’s much a bigger. There’s a bigger question involved. And you’ve got 14 plaints, which you don’t see them being paraded around on news at this point. Do they have any concerns of what goes into the decision or the, planning for something like this from just a safety perspective?

>> Sam Grover: Yeah, well, first off, I’ve met Jessica, and she’s not evil and doesn’t carry herself like a little person. she’s a very big personality.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: So, powerful and a wonderful speaker, too. I mean, that she turned this into, like, really lit a fire. I mean, she was already fairly focused, on this, but it really lit a fire on her. She turned the phrase into a. Her supporters sold t shirts, evil little thing to raise money, and really turned it right on back on them, which I thought was brilliant.

>> Sam Grover: Yeah. But, Jessica’s, experience with being a plaintiff in a lawsuit like this is not unique. Unfortunately. when, plaintiffs are not anonymous, which is the case in this lawsuit, they definitely, should, be concerned with, their safety and their children’s safety. They need to be, hyper aware that that’s, a real concern. So there are countless examples. we put them, when we do seek anonymity for our plaintiffs. We put a lot of those examples, in our motion, seeking anonymity. people have had, their pets killed and left on their doorstep. they’ve had things thrown at their houses, they’ve been had kids bullied in public school over things like this. and that is a concern here, too. that is one of the reasons, why we have so many plaintiffs. there is a first named plaintiff in the lawsuit, but it’s not like, this challenge is coming from any one person. Right. there’s a large community of people from Louisiana who object to this, and because this is a statewide law that also takes a little bit of, the focus off. It’s not, ah, any one community who’s being affected by this. It’s everyone. Yeah. that, that provides some level of protection and security, but certainly, not enough that you shouldn’t still be hyper vigilant, if you’re a plaintiff in our lawsuit.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Right, right. I will say as a small piece of satisfaction that, state representative Peter Palumbo, who called her an evil little thing, years after that, he was convicted of embezzling over $30,000 from his own campaign, which speaks to, I think, the hypocrisy at play here in his case. In the, the discussion, you just gave us about people who are supposedly defending these christian values are acting like, terrorists. They’re seeking, to silence people through threats or actual, physical violence, which is yet, another demonstration of why this issue and why the first amendment is so important. This is part of the. The rule set that we are, put in place. So this sort of stuff shouldn’t happen or won’t happen.

>> Sam Grover: Yeah, I think that’s very telling. that when it comes to morality, morality isn’t the goal here. morality is a tool. Right. posting the ten Commandments. The goal isn’t to teach kids good morals. the goal is to use religion as a cudgel, to get children to fall in line, to indoctrinate other people’s children with a certain set of beliefs, not just religious, but political as well. and to, well, to, proselytize them, to brainwash them into believing a certain set of things about the founding of our country and who we are as a nation. Right. That’s the goal. And so it doesn’t matter to peter that he’s embezzling money. because, you know, that’s. That’s not the goal. It’s not. The goal isn’t to live a moral life.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: The goal is to. Is to enforce these beliefs on others. And from a politician standpoint, one must always question actual motives from a. My goal is to make my christian followers think that I want to impose these morals when in reality, I’m seeking their votes. So I’m just doing whatever I want. See, for example, certain presidential candidates.

>> Sam Grover: Yeah, yeah.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: All right. So, moving on to the actual claims that you’re making. You mentioned first, amendment, obviously. But there’s two claims you file there, the establishment clause and the free exercise clause. Could you give our listeners a breakdown of the arguments for both and how they’re different?

>> Sam Grover: Sure. so the establishment clause claim is the one that’s probably, most straightforward. This is the government, putting its thumb on the scale in terms of religious favoritism. Right. It’s putting up one sect of Christianity’s. Well, no sect of Christianity’s version of the ten Commandments, but something that approximates one sect of Christianity’s version of the ten Commandments. These are beliefs that are, exclusively christian or Judeo Christian in nature. So they exclude minority religions, they exclude the non religious. and that’s something that our constitution forbids. the government and religion are supposed to remain in their separate spheres, right? So that people are free to believe what they want to believe.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Right? Yeah, I think, I didn’t, I didn’t think about asking this until now, but I think it’s worth saying because this is going to come up in. Already has for the last two years. What do you say to people, who have received misinformation regarding christian nationalism, specifically the argument, and we’ve seen this, time and time again. We’ve seen people like, mAGA supporters and even Trump haters, but pro Christian nationalists say things like the phrase separation of church and state doesn’t exist in the constitution. It’s all lies, or, this is a christian nation and always has been. What’s your response to that?

>> Sam Grover: Yeah, I mean, if you want to talk about the literal text of the constitution, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. Well, that’s literally what the state of Louisiana is doing here. Right. They are making a law respecting an establishment of religion. It doesn’t get more clear cut than that. to the point that the words separation of church and state don’t appear in the constitution. that’s true. most of the rights that people, believe are in the constitution, are in the constitution. But the literal words aren’t there.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Yeah, it doesn’t say, you have a right to a fair trial. Exactly right. But you have a right to a fair trial, because that’s what the words mean.

>> Sam Grover: Yes, exactly. And, the establishment clause was meant to keep religion and government separate. That’s its purpose. And, so that’s what we mean by separation of churches.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Perfect. Perfect. And then on the free exercise clause, that again, first amendment, saying that they shall not deny, people their right to freely exercise their religion. How does that come into play here where the school is proselytizing? By posting this out. What’s your argument for a free exercise case?

>> Sam Grover: Well, undeniably, part of the ability to free, freely exercise your religion is the ability to, raise your children within your own religious traditions. And this is the government interfering with that part of free exercise. by expressly putting something on the wall of the classroom that coerces students into believing a different set of religious beliefs, or, it will influence children, to, in the classroom to be adopting those beliefs, or to adhering to those beliefs in the classroom, over the beliefs that their families instilled.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Or as the majority, said in Graham, to venerate the Ten Commandments. To venerate the concepts in the ten Commandments.

>> Sam Grover: Yeah. Should have pulled the word venerate when I was saying. It’s not in my, day to day vocabulary.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Yeah. Why use a 25 cent word when a $5.01 will do? Right. okay, so, that’s establishment clause for exercise clause. One of my, little horses that I get on sometimes is, a question that I ask of many people is why no equal protection clause claim? And I feel like I should explain that just a little bit. So first amendment is your claims are basically saying, hey, you’re not allowed to establish a religion. You are. You’re supposed to let me exercise my religion freely. You’re nothing. Free exercise. excuse me. the equal protection clause is saying you’re supposed to not differentiate between how you regulate behavior of different groups of citizens based on impermissible distinctions. Things like your religious belief, your race, your national origin, things like that. and correct me where I’m wrong here, but that’s sort of the equal protection claim. And equal protection is what I. Cases like brown versus Board of Education were grounded in where the court said separate but equal. Even if it were not a fiction, even if it was literally true, that you could create a separate society between white and black people, and they were totally equal, the mere drawing of the line is not, the reason for doing it is not mysterious to anyone. And the kids in this system know that the reason that line is drawn is because the white kids don’t like the black kids, not the opposite. And the government drawing the line, is a violation of equal protection. and so I read a paper, entitled, this is a law professor, a couple of law professors wrote a paper entitled, thou shalt use the equal protection clause for religion cases, quote, parentheses, not just the establishment clause. So, that’s me ranting for a while. why no equal protection clause, claim here?

>> Sam Grover: Man, the easy answer is just ask my coalition partners. with a case like this, I agree in general that, equal protection arguments should be raised more often in these types of cases. there are good arguments to be made there. the case law needs to be developed more in that regard. the reason why no equal protection argument here, to the extent that I can get into it, I, think probably the easy answer is just we have such well established case law on the establishment clause issue here. We have Stonegreen v. Graham, 1980, Kentucky. You cannot put the ten commandments in public school classrooms. right. Yeah. so we have that, it’s easy for the district court to rule on that. And hypothetically, the court of appeals should also be bound by that precedent, correct? So this is not the case to be putting in, untested legal theories.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: yeah, and that is a very common, rationale, a very good one, like we said earlier. Dear court c, Stone v. Graham. Have a nice day. now, sort of a strategic question here. This, court, the current supreme court, has demonstrated, a hostility, towards establishment clause cases that they are leaning way in favor of saying, hey, government, employees can do, things that previously, under old tests, might have been found to be unconstitutional, but we’re going to allow it because of history and tradition and things like that. Given their hostility to establishment, cases. would you be able to raise a equal protection claim on appeal, or would you have to introduce it now? And the reason I’m asking is this court obviously going to say, see Stone v. Graham. The appellate court says Stone v. Graham. You get to this supreme court, they might say, historical. Hm. Tradition says, I don’t think they will with Stone v. Graham, but because the test it was decided under is gone, which we’ll get to in a second, they might say, well, we’re going to analyze this under a few other methods. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to make an equal protection clause claim there? Would you be able to raise it on appeal? Or is that just a decision that’s locked in at trial?

>> Sam Grover: No, unfortunately, the arguments that you make at the trial court level are what you are, restricted to on appeal. You can’t raise novel, arguments, novel legal arguments on appeal.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Right. Yeah. And, and the getting back to your point about, hey, this is very clear case law. There’s no, no need to bring up this sort of untested or not untested, but sort of novel approach, on equal protection. In fact, the. The authors of the paper that I mentioned have a list of potential obstacles, and one of them they call landmines of confusion. Basically, novel arguments, risk misunderstandings by judges. I appreciate you getting into this detail, because my listeners, I think, are very interested in that inside decision making process of. There’s a strategy here, and you’re saying, make it simple, make it short, be on point.

>> Sam Grover: Yes. Yeah. And I could, see many, different fact patterns where an equal protection argument would be a lot more appealing than this one than in this case. So, it’s certainly not something that, we’ve ruled out for future cases.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Okay, so let’s talk about Stone v. Graham, this important case. if I understand correctly, the facts of the case, it was basically substantively an identical law in Kentucky, mandating the display of the ten commandments, there were some differences at the edges about payment and. And those sorts of things, but substantively, it was identical. And the supreme Court held in an, eight to one opinion that it was unconstitutional under something called the lemon test, with the sole, lone dissenter being Rehnquist. Do I have those facts right?

>> Sam Grover: Yes. Yeah. So the lemon test is, a way of evaluating claims under the establishment clause. So it’s not, a different law in itself. It’s just how the supreme Court has chosen to evaluate establishment clause claims. So it’s a three pronged test where the court first considers whether there was an impermissible religious purpose behind government action. the second prong is whether the effect of the law has an impermissible religious, effect, such as endorsing religion. and then the third prong is whether there’s excessive government entanglement with religion. So that would be things like government telling a church, who its pastor can be. Something like that.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Right, right. Yeah, I’ve always loved that third one. I think, excessive entanglement is like, you know it when you see it type of reasoning, it’s like it doesn’t really help. Thanks, court. So, Lemon. Lemon came from a case called Lemon Ben v. Kurtzman, 1971. It’s been around for 50 years. Conservative, judges have always hated it, and I think liberals would admit it’s not the best. so it’s been on the decline pretty much since it came out, but, because it tended to favor, I think, establishment cases, that the purpose of this is to establish or is religious in nature. Conservatives really didn’t like it. And, if I understand correctly, the court has not overruled that, has not said it’s bad law. But in, Bremerton, Sotomayor, in her dissent, said, in this case, this is, again, the high school coach praying on the field. sotomayor, in her dissent, said, lemon’s dead.

>> Sam Grover: So, no. the majority, in, the Kennedy v. Bremerton case,

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Oh, okay.

>> Sam Grover: The majority has killed the lemon.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: They said lemon’s gone.

>> Sam Grover: Yes.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Oh, okay. Wow. Okay.

>> Sam Grover: Yeah. So there are other cases, from the past five or so years where the court has said, we’re not going to follow it here and we don’t like it. and this, time, they explicitly said, we’re no longer evaluating establishment clause claims under the lemon test. Instead, we are focusing on history and tradition. Right. So it’s. Does, the law comport to the historical understanding of what the establishment clause meant. Now, frustratingly, in Kennedy v. Bremerton, this is a school case, a public school case, the court announced this history and tradition test, but they only applied that test in order to say how badly they hated Lenin. Right? They didn’t actually then say, okay, we’ve got this new test, history and tradition, and now let’s apply that test to the facts. In Kennedy v. Bremerton, they didn’t do that, which is wild, because there were no public schools at the founding when the establishment clause, was written. District courts are left with no guidance on how to apply this history and tradition test in the context of the public schools.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Right. And in fact, there’s so many questions I have about history and tradition.

>> Sam Grover: Me too.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: I guess my main question, and this is something I’m going to sort of jump to, talking about some of the comments that the courts have made recently about history and tradition. I’m going to actually let me back up and talk about a few other cases that sort of demonstrate historical tradition, even though they were pre Bremerton. So we had Van Orden v. Perry in 2005, longstanding ten commandments monument in Texas was held constitutional, talking about history and tradition. American, Legion v. American Humanist association, rejecting constitutional challenges to a latin crosse erected as a world war one memorial. Again, talking about history and tradition. All of these. These cases were still out there pre Bremerton. Again, I assume because people just didn’t like lemon. so it’s not surprising they went with history and tradition. But the question then comes up, like you said, what do you mean? How do we apply it? And two, my specific question is, which history? The history after the bill was enacted, the history before the legislative language in question was enacted, the history before the first amendment was created, or after? Has, the court clarified any of that?

>> Sam Grover: No. so there are two areas, within, establishment clause case law where the court has applied history and tradition. You noted one of them, which is, religious displays cases. That’s both. The cases you talked about are crosses or religious monuments on public property. and the court now has fairly well established, how it wants to approach those. And if there’s a history of this sort of thing going up in a way that, doesn’t expressly endorse religion, then it’s okay. That’s what the court says. It doesn’t actually work out that way. You know, a huge latin cross in the middle of government property that endorses Christianity. We all know it does. So do the justices but they’re going to pretend that it doesn’t so that they can keep up the cross. That’s the one area you also have, a lot of history and tradition analysis in government, prayer cases. Ernie Chambers, the Nebraska senator, he brought back, he brought, Nebraska’s, prayer. I’ve met him. He’s also very funny. and he’s like the longest running, senator, ah, Nebraska’s unicameral, but he’s the longest running, legislator in Nebraska. He’s termed out twice now and has had to sit out a term and then run again. but he’s a fantastic guy, very, spunky. But anyway, he brought a legal challenge, against opening their sessions with clergy led prayer.

>> Sam Grover: And that’s the other, area where the supreme court has said, we’re going to look at history and tradition and we’re going to say that historically, states have done this and so we’re just going to allow it.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: I’m glad you affirm my understanding, because that’s what I’ve been telling my friends and family for a decade. I think what the court is saying is, eh, ah, we’ve always done it, so it’s okay. Even if we started doing it after the First Amendment was ratified. Like some of these, these monuments were not there and all of that sort of stuff. So it doesn’t even seem to be specific to a particular monument. It seems to be, eh, people generally put up crosses. So we’re gonna let the government do it, even though the entire history of the enactment and debate over the first Amendment argues against it.

>> Sam Grover: Yeah, so, right. So those are the two, examples where you kind of have this loose history and tradition. And the court says, oh, ah, you know, like it’s kind of enough, and really what it amounts to is just a lack of commitment, on the part of justices to do what the establishment clause actually says that what it actually requires, which is no, the government doesn’t get to pander to religious people by putting up monuments to their specific, belief system on public property. And no, you don’t get to bring a bunch of christian chaplains into pray at the start of legislative sessions. but the supreme Court’s allowing that, and it’s very much an open question as to how much further the history and tradition test, will take us in terms of rewriting, the establishment clause. In Kennedy v. Bremerton, the court didn’t go so far as to say history and tradition allows a public school football coach to pray with players on the field. Instead, the supreme Court said, didn’t rewrite the establishment clause. Instead, it rewrote the facts of the case.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Right.

>> Sam Grover: To say this coach wasn’t praying with students. He was doing this by himself, you know, at the 50 yard line with no one else around, which was never the case. You know, there are pictures of him praying with all. With players from both teams, all around him.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Yeah. I think it was sotomayor in her dissent, if I recall correctly. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this. But in her dissent, she includes photographs in her opinion of, basically, gorsuch is lying to you.

>> Sam Grover: Yeah. yeah. And she, you know, she goes on to write a thousand words to go alongside the picture. Yeah, the picture is worth more than that. the picture says it all. This was a, fake case, with manufactured facts.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: And the coach was. Was calling the opposing coach pre game and saying, hey, I’m inviting you to come pray with me after the game. Like, this was not spur of the moment. This was not private on the side as Gorsuch. I mean, so much of it, it’s jaw dropping as to its being counterfactual. Right? It’s just jaw dropping. It’s almost criminal in my mind. Like, forget about the corruption cases of these justices. Let’s look at them actually lying and misrepresenting the facts. And the press, in my mind, really didn’t pick up on that as much as they should have. I mean, that should be like a story every night of this is what gorsuch and the majority said. Let’s roll the tape. Let’s look at what actually happened. He’s lying to you.

>> Sam Grover: Right, right. So then to put together the question that you’ve implied, but maybe haven’t directly asked yet, is. So we have Stone v. Graham in 1980, and, are we hanging our hat on the analysis from Stone v. Graham when Kennedy v. Bremerton decided last year or two years ago? says, you can’t do that anymore. The lemon test is dead.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Which, Which, sorry to interrupt, which, quite frankly, is probably why Texas and Louisiana and other states are starting to do all of this stuff when. When lemon dies, they go, oh, now’s the chance to get all these test cases in front of the supreme Court.

>> Sam Grover: Yeah, well, they’re certainly ramping it up. They never stopped doing it.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Yeah, that’s true.

>> Sam Grover: Louisiana and Florida, these states are always, pandering to their christian base by, proposing legislation like this. Usually the bills don’t get signed by governors because they don’t want lawsuits. but now they’re feeling emboldened to do something that has been blatantly constitutional for almost 50 years. and, yeah, and a lot of that has to do with there being, three Trump appointed justices on the supreme Court and a lot of, really conservative judges on courts of appeals. but, in terms of the legal analysis, we’re not dead in the water just because the lemon test is dead. Stone v. Graham is still good law, because in addition to relying on that lemon, test, it also speaks to the coercive effects of, putting something like the ten commandments in a public school classroom. The supreme Court has long recognized, that the government has coercive influence over students in public schools. Right. you’re mandated to go, there are truancy laws, and the adults who are in the classroom with students have, ah, influence over those kids. I mean, we’ve all been through school, at least to a certain extent, and we all understand what that, coercive pressure is like.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: yeah, you’re sitting in the classroom as a kindergartner or a 6th grader or a high school student. You get bored. You start looking at the pictures on the wall, and every day you’re staring at what is mandated to be a prominent display of the ten commandments.

>> Sam Grover: Right, right. And because it’s on your teacher’s classroom wall, the automatic assumption is, oh, these are my teachers values. Right.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Yeah.

>> Sam Grover: so.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Which is another argument altogether. Like the. I don’t even think you have to get into this, and I don’t think you do in your complaint, but the teachers themselves could object to say, hey, you are making it seem as if I am endorsing this religion.

>> Sam Grover: I’ve heard from several teachers in Louisiana who object to this, and they want to know what they can do as well. they don’t have, a clearly established free speech right to not post things that the state mandates on their classroom walls. So that’s not a claim we’re bringing in this case. But I feel for those teachers.

>> Sam Grover: And the message that it’s sending to students, especially students, who are minority religious, or some other minority status, LGBTQ students who are seeing this on the walls and then thinking, oh, is this teacher an ally? Like, can I go to this teacher with the problems that I’m experiencing, and trust that they’re going to do something in my best interest? can really, it can really hurt student teacher relationships just to have something like this on the walls.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: So I interrupted you. I apologize. What will the court do with Graham now that lemon’s gone?

>> Sam Grover: Yeah. So, fortunately, in addition to having this history and tradition test, the other thing that, all the supreme court justices maybe except Thomas, still believe the establishment clause prohibits is government coercion. Right. The government literally coercing you, into believing or not believing something or doing something that goes against your religious beliefs. and that’s what we have here. So, the court still recognizes the coercive pressure on students in the classroom, that the government exerts, and the government is doing that here. So we have coercion in the bag. Additionally, we will be arguing a lack of history and tradition of the ten commandments in public school classrooms. This has never happened before, except in Kentucky, and it was struck down quickly. But no one in the country does this. No one in the country has ever done this. and also, you really can’t support the claim that, the claim that they make in, the legislative history of this bill, that the Ten Commandments are the founding of our country, that somehow the Ten Commandments are wrapped up in, our history and tradition as a country. because that’s just, on the face of it, false. When you look at the text of the Ten Commandments and compare it to the actual laws, and beliefs in our country.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: yeah, that’s their. I’m taking the other side here. I’m Louisiana, and I want this to get overturned. So, or want Graham to get overturned, or this to be found as distinguished from Graham somehow. so my argument is what you just said, that I have to frame this as. This is a history lesson. This is not religious, in nature. Basically trying to listen to Rehnquist’s dissent in Graham, where Rehnquist says, I believe there is a secular purpose, where the other eight justices said, this is obviously religious in nature, it’s coercive, etcetera. Lindquist says, no, no, no. This is bound up in the history of western law. And if a. And he even has a line in Graham where he says something along the lines of, in fact, any school that doesn’t teach the importance of religion in general to the history of the United States would be a bad school. That’s how far he goes. Like, it’s almost, you know, it would be, deficient or, What’s the word I’m looking for?

>> Sam Grover: Negligence.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Yeah. Negligent. Thank you.

>> Sam Grover: Each religion in the classroom yeah.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Ah, malpractice was the word. You’d be teacher malpractice or school board practice, not to teach about religions, influence and all of that stuff. So on one hand, if I’m Louisiana, I can say, hey, I can teach whatever I want to my students. Like, if Louisiana says we’re going to mandate that every student be taught that there was a farmer that lived in our state 200 years ago, and he had a cow named Bessie, and you’re going to be tested on that. I can teach that. Right. No matter. It can be tiny. Tiny or zero impact on the state, there is just something that I can teach. So is that the argument they’re going to make, or are they going to try to make the ten commandments smaller by saying, it’s just a historical document, it’s not a religious thing? Is that literally what they’re doing?

>> Sam Grover: That is part of what they’re doing, yes. So, first of all, we don’t have a separation between Bessie and government in this country, so you can teach about Bessie. because there’s nothing a literal constitutional amendment saying you can’t.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Okay.

>> Sam Grover: and then also, it’s weird that this is, you know, the one public school lesson that they’re choosing to put on the classroom wall. Right. If that’s the argument. Right. past kindergarten, you don’t usually have, the lessons you’re learning posted onto your classroom wall. You’ve got the number line and the colors. And then after that, it gets a little burdensome to put all of, Moby Dick on the classroom wall. You just don’t. After that.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Yeah, I remember the one poster I had in high school, the one poster I remember looking at time and time again within my german classroom. It was a german seatbelt safety ad that my german teacher was doing, and it was just a guy’s bare chest with a giant bruise across it where the seatbelt was after an accident. And in German, it said, something along the lines of, the bruise is better than the graveyard or something like that. But I sat there and I stared at it, and I remember it to this day. So, yeah, if that’s sitting next to the ten Commandments, somebody going to remember that to that day.

>> Sam Grover: So many questions about your german teacher now and what their motivation was.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: it was a very effective, like, it was very effective in Germany to get people to wear their seatbelts, right. You know, like, the bruise is nothing compared to the death, but it was in German and et cetera. But my point is, I remember it to this day because it was like one of the only posters on any classroom when I was in high school. You’re right, there was nothing. There was just blank walls and talking to a teacher.

>> Sam Grover: But yeah. so to get back to your question, Louisiana is going to get very ahistorical, in the claims they’re making about, why the Ten Commandments are up there. They’re going to say that it’s one of the foundations of law in the United States. They’re going to say that for that reason they needed to be up there, that it influenced the founders, ah, when they were writing the constitution. Which begs the question, why isn’t the constitution the thing you’re putting on the wall? if that’s the whole point, and the Ten Commandments probably did influence the founders in the sense that a lot of them believed in it and tried to adhere to their own personal sects version of the Ten Commandments. I don’t know how well they did. That’s beside the point.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Yeah.

>> Sam Grover: The truth of it is that the Ten Commandments, are almost commandment for commandment, not found in our country’s, founding documents. the two that everyone wants to go to, thou shalt not kill and thou shall not steal. yeah, those are laws, ah, in our society and every other society that has ever existed, including the ones that predate the Bible.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: That’s an ah, argument I made. I did an episode on this law when it first was passed, and that’s one of the arguments I made. I found a 200 page paper by a law professor who went and researched the history of western, law. And is it true that it stems from Moses and the Ten Commandments? We have. The earliest written law we have, as far as I recall, is written in Sumerian. It’s on tablets. It dates to five to 800 years prior to the earliest estimates we have of when the Ten Commandments were created. So half of an eon before then. And they include, don’t kill anybody or we’re going to kill you. Don’t steal stuff or we’re going to kill you. And it says things like, don’t kidnap people, you know, like kind of anti slavery, even though they were still slavers. Like, it has a bunch of stuff in there. So if the argument is this is the source of law, it’s not true. If it’s unique to the Ten Commandments, it’s not true. As I think Ingersoll said in the 18 hundreds, as a famous atheistic attorney, everything that is good in the Ten Commandments is not new, and everything that’s new in the Ten Commandments is bad.

>> Sam Grover: Great. So you saved me a lot of time at. I’m not going to rail against the Ten Commandments and go. Commandment. Commandment versus our constitution, freedom of belief and religion contradicts. I am the Lord thy God. I’ll skip that.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: A good friend of mine has proposed, for, I don’t know, 15 years. He’s like professors in college that are doing, ethics, or even in high school, should do, do constitutional ethics, use the constitution and the bill of rights to teach an ethics class. And I think you’d end up better than if you taught it from the Ten Commandments. But again, we’re getting into bashing the Ten Commandments here.

>> Sam Grover: I absolutely agree with that. So, that is an area where, when we actually get into discovery in this case, that is one thing that we’ll have to do during discovery is, see, what the basis is for the state’s claim that this is historical. Right. Right. And probably the state will end up having to put up some sort of expert to argue that this is a historical document, and probably will have an expert, to contradict theirs. That’s something that, because of the history and tradition test, is becoming a lot more commonplace in establishment clause cases. Is these warring experts talking, about, what the tang, you know? Well, what is the history, the relevant history, when analyzing these sorts of things?

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Yeah. And Louisiana’s framing it that way. Even in the act, they try to frame this as historical. They recite a bunch of. I’m not sure if it was, whereas. But a bunch of, preamble to the actual effective language they included even fake, or false or lies in their own act. They said that. I’m going to read this real quickly. James Madison. This is straight from M. The act that Louisiana passed. James Madison, the fourth president of the United States of America, stated that, quote, we have staked the whole future of our new nation upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the ten Commandments. Close quote, which has been debunked. I mean, I found a case in 1994 where Rush Limbaugh read this on air, and an organization called fairness and accuracy and reporting fair rushed out and said, this has been debunked. Madison’s own authors of his own collection of papers have debunked this. But here we have this Louisiana, representative including it in the act. How does that, is that useful to you?

>> Sam Grover: I mean, certainly doesn’t hurt. Yeah. it’s comical, actually. it’s so two faced. these legislators who are saying, we’re trying to uphold the traditions of our country, and we care about history and kids learning about our nation’s history, and there’s bullshitting. They don’t care about it at all. They’re trying to score cheap political points, and they’re trying to influence other people’s children to believe what they believe. That’s the bottom line.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: If you have a moment, I’m going to play a video that really supports and drives this home. This is a video of the governor signing, the bill and commenting on why we’re doing this. This is Governor Jeff, Landry. And then followed quickly by Representative Dodie Horton, who is the chief sponsor and author of this act, I should call it now. so here’s what they had to say about this. If you want to respect the rule of law, you got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses. What do you hope to, achieve by having the Ten Commandments requirement in classrooms? our students will be able to look up and see that there is.

>> Sam Grover: A moral standard that God set forth.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: For man to live by. There is a moral standard. I want my students to look up and see that there’s a moral standard that God set forth for mankind, for man to live by.

>> Sam Grover: I mean, it doesn’t get much clearer than that.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: And, you talk about this in your complaint. How will this go down with the judges? Does this matter? Or are they sort of like contract law, like the four corners of the bill is all we’re going to consider? Or will they, in fact, listen to this and say, oh, this whole historical thing is just a pretext?

>> Sam Grover: Yeah. So we had, this long period between, when the lemon test was first established and when the lemon test died, were legislators, started having to be more savvy about what they were willing to say in public, because, yeah, legislative history, legislative intent does factor into the lemon test version of the establishment clause. Right. If, there’s a religious purpose behind a laws enactment, then the law is unconstitutional. that’s what the lemon test says. And now that the lemon test is dead, politicians have spent no time at all going back to being completely brazen and saying the quiet part out loud, which is what you have here. So, is it still relevant? Yes, absolutely. it’s no longer, sufficient, to overturn a law, but, it is, it’s still supporting evidence.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: And there’s many. You cite many examples. You have representative Horton saying, it is so important that our children learn what God says is right and what he says is wrong. you have Horton again saying, I am only concerned with our children looking and seeing what God’s law is. You have another representative Taylor saying, a lot of people, their children are not attending churches or whatever. So we need to do something to get the schools to bring people back to where they need to be, presumably churches. And, Wilder saying that the opponents of this bill are, quote, attacking. It’s an attack on Christianity. It goes on and on and on. and you’re just bringing the receipts. You’re putting it right in the complaint, saying, here’s everything they’ve said.

>> Sam Grover: It’s incredible how little they care about being two faced, when it comes to this. They say one thing in the legislative enactment, the whereas sections, and they’re saying to their supporters, what the supporters want to hear.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Yep. Absolutely. So, in the end, if I’m understanding what your prediction is, I guess I have one more question about the case and how it will be, interpreted under Graham. I’m guessing the best result is you win at trial, you win on appeal. And the supreme court just declined cert. Is that what they’re going to do? Or are they going to take it and then say, you still lose, but we’re going to create a new rule?

>> Sam Grover: I mean, the ideal scenario would be that the supreme court just doesn’t touch it, because the supreme court respects that. In 1980, a previous supreme court ruled on this very issue, and it settled law. that would be ideal. If the supreme court takes it, then it will be, so that it can analyze under the history and tradition test, something that has been illegal for almost 50 years. So, we’ll see how it chooses to do that if the time comes.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Okay, well, I really appreciate your time. I have one more question, and that is, this is not the only case that you’re working on at the freedom from religion foundation. The country is sort of hyper focused on it. I’ve seen memes going all over the Internet about it. But what else are you doing currently? What are. What are the cases that are on the horizon? I’ve described you guys before as the soldiers that stand watch on the top of the wall of separation of church and state. What are you seeing that’s coming over the horizon?

>> Sam Grover: Yeah. so, I love working at the freedom from religion foundation because we are, so responsive. so we take in thousands of complaints every year from around the country. People email us, they call us, they fill out our intake form on our website just to say, hey, I live in this small, predominantly christian community. You know, I’m an atheist, or I’m minority, religious, or even I’m christian, and just take issue with the government telling people when and how to pray, something like that. So we take in thousands of complaints. This happened to my kids public school. And mostly, what we do is we write letters, to those government entities, a lot of school boards, things like that. Local, police departments, that put crosses on badges, things like that. And we say, hey, knock it off. This is illegal. Most everything, that we write about gets resolved in that manner. we get so many victories every year on behalf of people in little communities, who just need support from an outside organization who’s going to keep their name out of it, right. so often these people have, to be anonymous in order to keep their relationships in their small town. So that’s the primary thing we do. and I do a lot less of that now. I’m heading our litigation team. So, I’m heading out, heading up the cases where that solution doesn’t work.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: yeah, I mean, even though you guys are reigning champions of whack a mole on first amendment violations, right? That’s what you do. That’s your wheelhouse. Like you said, the angry letter, the threatening letter, the. Hey, persuasive letters don’t always work. So, we see cases like this one. Are there any other big cases like this that you anticipate, coming up, or, is it all quiet on the western front for now?

>> Sam Grover: you know, well, it’s never quiet. there’s always interesting things happening. our caseload right now is mercifully light, which allows us to be nimble and take that next big case when it comes along. we’re actually just wrapping up a case right now that dates back to 2015, or I guess we filed in 2016 against Texas, Governor Greg Abbott, who censored one of our displays in the Texas capitol. just during this interview, we got a ruling from the court that, they have to pay us over $400,000 in attorneys fees and costs, for, that first amendment violation. so, you know, these cases can drag on for a long time. so there’s always things to do there. but, we’re ready to take on more. And, I’m really excited, to get some new cases underway, when necessary. so we’re here. We’re here for the people who, support us or the people who contact us with their local problems. and that’s why I love this organization. It’s where I want to be.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: I will put a link to the FFRF website on, this video and podcast. are there any tips you have for contacting you? Just go to the website, or are there other ways?

>> Sam Grover: The website is the easiest and best way to do it. the form is easy to fill out, and it just has a couple questions with basic information. And, there’s also a link to donate or become a member on there. Membership is criminally cheap. It’s, $40 a, year, I think, which, I’m not a math major, but that’s less than a gym membership. It’s less than $5 a month, which is what you typically, pay a bare minimum subscription service. just being a member, it helps us so much, because we put that in every letter to government entities. We have over 40,000 members across the country. Please listen to us. And that number has, been rising over time, and it gives us more legitimacy, more power to help out the small guy.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: Absolutely. I have, a side gig I have is I am a host for a show called the atheist experience, and it is a weekly call in show where theists and atheists will call in and talk about these sorts of issues. I cannot tell you the number of times that freedom from religion foundation has come up in those discussions. People will call in and say, this is my problem. And the hosts will say, you need to contact FFRF, or people will call in and say, I’ve contacted FFRF, and they wrote a letter, and it solved the problem. even outside of that, the last year when I interviewed Ryan Jane from FFRF, I was talking about it online, and somebody reached out to me and said, my daughter just came home from school, and there’s something called this good news club that she was forced to attend to. I mean, it’s like, just nonstop, like we said, whack a mole. So please, please, please. I gladly pay the $40 a year to be a member. I get all sorts of emails. You get all sorts of insight on their videos. it really helps you stay in touch with what’s going on with, the rise of christian nationalism, as we’ve demonstrated today, the massive amount of misinformation that powers that rise. That’s the tagline of my whole podcast. and how you can help either locally, if it’s happening in your state, or by supporting organizations like yours.

>> Sam Grover: Well, thanks so much, Graham. It’s great having, support, from you and, the people who watch, your content.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: excellent. Excellent. So I will close by saying thank you so much. You’ve been very generous with your time, and hopefully, like your tagline on Twitter says, this case against Louisiana will be another case of you doing a slam dunk.

>> Sam Grover: Slam dunk. Yeah. Thanks, man.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: All right.

>> Sam Grover: Appreciate it.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: All right, have a good one.

>> Sam Grover: You, too. Bye.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: And there you have it. That’s my interview with Sam Grover, the senior counsel for litigation at Freedom from Religion foundation. I am very, very thankful for his time. He was very generous with me. I am also very happy to be a member of FFRF, and I encourage all of you to be the same. As Sam mentioned, it’s $40 a year, and it really helps them keep an eye on the stuff like we see happening in Louisiana. Without them, we would have, fewer lawyers available to play that whack a mole game of keeping these christian nationalists from taking over our country. I’ve put a link to FFRF in the description of this video and podcast and on my website at www.thecrossexaminer.net. also, if you have time and if you’ve enjoyed this content and the interviews I do and the deep dive stuff that I bring to you, please remember that I don’t monetize any of this right now. It’s just my advocacy. It’s something, that I do, that I have a passion for. But you can help by liking, subscribing, commenting, and sharing my videos and podcasts. That way, we get more people watching, and the algorithms will take over, and more and more people will start hearing this information straight from the experts like Sam Grover. So thank you very much for listening today. It really means a lot to me, and I look forward to seeing you next time. Bye bye.

>> Sam Grover: This has been the cross examiner podcast, the Internet’s courtroom in the case of rationality versus religion. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider subscribing.

>> The Cross Examiner/Graham: See you soon.