Kelly Shackelford, CEO of First Liberty Institute, Episode 111
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Since 1997 Kelly Shackelford has been President and CEO of First Liberty Institute, the largest legal firm in the U.S. dedicated exclusively to protecting religious freedom for all Americans. Kelly is a constitutional scholar who has argued before the United States Supreme Court, testified before the U.S. House and Senate, and has won several landmark First Amendment and religious liberty cases. He was recently named one of the 25 greatest Texas lawyers of the past quarter-century by Texas Lawyer and is the recipient of the prestigious William Bentley Ball Award for Life and Religious Freedom Defense for pioneering work protecting religious freedom.
I’m delighted to welcome Kelly to the show to discuss his work at the First Liberty Institute, what they are trying to achieve, and some of the recent cases that they have won in their bid to support religious freedom. He shares his thoughts on why most people don't understand that religious freedom is a massive issue for everyone and why our founders understood that if you lose it, you'll lose all your freedoms. Kelly and I also discuss the difficulty of finding good quality, balanced and truthful information about what is going on in the USA politically today.
“Religious freedom is our first freedom because our founders understood that if you lose it, you'll lose all your freedom.” - Kelly Shackelford
“if you remove religious freedom, unbelievable evil will replace it.” - Kelly Shackelford
“We've got to keep fighting and winning these lawsuits. And that takes people and businesses and individuals standing up, even if it might cost them and all the people we represent I consider heroes because they're doing that.” - Kelly Shackelford
This Week on The Wow Factor:
Why Kelly headed to Texas after completing his law degree at Baylor Law School
What Kelly’s Pastor advised him to do when he was torn between going into ministry or law
Why he turned down many job offers and a substantial salary to join a new nonprofit where he could represent pastors, churches, religious freedoms, and the country’s founding principles
Why we are currently facing such a battle to uphold our religious freedom
Why Kelly thinks that people are so anti-religion at the moment
How we can help business leaders across America recognize and exercise their rights
Kelly shares some of the recent cases that First Liberty Institute has been involved with
Why its time to take a moment to look back at the Constitution, to look back at history and decide how you want the future to look
Kelly Shackelford’s Words of Wisdom:
I've never seen so much darkness around us, but everywhere we're going, there's light — we can make a difference in our lifetimes. We are moving forward positively, and the courts are taking us back to the Constitution. Hopefully, we might be able to look back 10 or 20 years from now and say that we handed down more religious freedom to our children and grandchildren than we had in America.
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