You Can't Legislate Out Evil: HSLDA's Ralph Rodriguez on NJ's Homeschool Bills and What Parents Must Do

 Welcome to another episode of the Carpefeide Podcast where if the shoe fits you wear it and if the truth hurts you bear it. I am Justin Gruber and I am Jesse Gruber and today we hope you will seize the faith. Hey everybody welcome to episode 240 of the Carpefeide Podcast. It's good to be here with you Jesse. Live it in person. I wish I could say the same Justin. I wish I could say the same. Boy isn't that the truth. Well we did miss you guys last week. We hope we enjoyed the the sermon audio from Ephesians. Which you can find at miss your day churches website or church miss your day church wherever you have a podcast. Perhaps where you're listening to this podcast right now. Yeah. Well there are more miss your day churches than there are a copy of you to podcast. That is true. You're looking for the blue and white M.D. Circle A and J.com. Yes miss your day. Yes miss your day. Tell them the website. That's good enough. Okay. Okay. We have a special guest on the night so tonight we're going to make law fun again which I'm told it already is fun. I was corrected. But there's some things happening in our state which I'm sure we'll recap the story that's kind of bringing this to bring it to a crux at least so that we can get you some information on it but there's going to be some home school questions. Some public policy questions happening in New Jersey around a very tragic story that's recently happened. And tonight our guest is Ralph Rodriguez who works with the HSLA. That's right. Nope. Nope. HSLDA. D.A. I forgot the D. You did. Well I'm a failure. Ralph welcome on to the Carbafide podcast. Thank you Justin. Thank you Jesse. Good to be here. Actually the D is very important in our name. It's pretty much a lot of what we do but yeah. Home school legal defense association. That's he it is. You say it and of course. Of course there's a D. I'm an idiot. That's just true. But you all know that. Yes. Or listeners do know that. So Ralph when it comes to the HSLDA. I was like I got the D in there. When it comes to that. What's your what's your role in interacting with the defense in the HSLDA. Yeah. So there's two primary roles that I have where membership organization. And so we have almost a hundred thousand members nationwide by God's grace. And in my five states of responsibility which are New York New Jersey Connecticut New Hampshire and Vermont. If any of our members are going through a legal issue mostly with their local school district. Be it discrimination be it. My rights are being kind of trampled on. They'll come to us via their membership portal and then I'll try to answer their questions as best as I can. I'm licensed only in New York state. So you know thanks to get a little tricky when we talk about the actual practice of law. But if we're just giving legal information or how to homeschool or how to navigate something. Then you know we could do that pretty fairly easily depending on the issue. Then the next prong would be public policy which is obviously what we're going to talk about in a bit. But any legislative or regulatory proposals in the states. You know we try to make sure that we're involved as much as we can be. Not only in the legislatures but also media social media in the public square just you know making sure that bad legislation has stopped. And also sometimes promoting good legislation. I appreciate that. Now New Jersey is kind of an interesting state because there is very little regulation right now today. This on the date of recording. There's very little regulation that actually stands in the way of a family wanting to homeschool which is. If you all if you know anything about New Jersey. Absolutely insane. So but but our legislators are attempting to change that. Do you how familiar are you with the two or three bills that have been proposed in the past. You know you're so do you want to do you are you familiar with them. Do you want to break them down. Yeah there's there's a few of them a couple of redundant ones. So having to do with registration and notice. But I should say I don't know how surprising it is that New Jersey is is fairly free right I mean wasn't there that line in Hamilton everything is legal in New Jersey. So homeschooling being one of them. I know the play just came out a few years ago but Alexander Hamilton lived quite a few years ago. Yeah a little bit do do do I we should I don't know if we can still do do but they mean New Jersey anyway. Well there you go sorry I brought it up all right now that's fine this is what we want. So yeah I mean because there's virtually no regulation on the books as you said. You know legislatures have been wanting to say okay we need to modernize the new New Jersey homeschool laws and really what it all the New Jersey homeschool law currently says is that students can receive equivalent instruction elsewhere than at public school. That's really what authorizes homeschooling in the state of New Jersey and if you look at our heat map on intrasl. The a.org you'll see that New Jersey is one of I think currently 13 states with no notice requirements that means you don't have to tell the local public school district that you are homeschooling. And that's kind of like your your most basic form of regulation just informing noticing that the public school that you're making this educational choice. So that's one of the bills I think it's been I think there's two iterations of it right now. And then really the most egregious one there's two levels I would say there's one in which yet you have to give notice but then also you know portfolios, curriculum reports very similar to what New York currently has and New York New York is one of the most yes New York is read on your heat map we're looking at it right now. Yeah you got like we did not want to move from green to red you got half of the red states that's rough. And then you got two of the three of them. All right, we're off well Connecticut can educate remains to be seen we're hoping to they're still great reverse aside on what happened through some measures. But yeah, I mean New York keeps me plenty busy and so that that would definitely you know turn New Jersey into red. You know just by making it very regulated on a curriculum basis and you know just educational matters. But then as I was saying the most egregious one I think out there is this general health and wellness check bill that was floated last term. And now it's back I think it was filed pretty promptly in January. And this just author it would authorize a public school official to conduct a health and wellness check in the home of a homeschool child. And it isn't really saying anything more than that it's pretty vague and that's one of the problems with it. And so I don't know if you want to just follow up some questions or see what the ins and outs of what that would be. Yeah, one of the one of the things that I saw it might have been through HSLDA is the vagueness of that law. Why would why would a vague law be more problematic wouldn't a vague law allow for more freedoms. What's the issue with the vague law? Well, vagueness leads to varying interpretations and misinterpretations. I mean, first of all, you see it's a public school official. So does that mean a nurse, a doctor, a social worker, a janitor? Right. Like who is this public official going to be? And you know, what are their credentials? Why are they conducting a check? And what is what is the health and wellness check anyway? You know, is it mental health? Is it physical health? You know, and who's the arbiter of what all of that means? Who's going to say that my child as well and your child is not? Or maybe you have two children that are well and three or not, right? So, I mean, the lack of standards, the lack of attention to what is actually going to be looked at. So, I mean, that's all, you know, the problem with the vagueness, but moreover, you pass a statute that says, okay, school districts are authorized to do this. And then inevitably you're going to get regulations on that statute. And that's where, you know, the vagueness leads to more specific problems because invariably you would have certain school districts who would go out of their way to make sure that, you know, every single thing that they want within the meaning of that statute comes to fruition. And so, you would have varying degrees of enforcement across the state, depending on certain events. And it's funny because you're saying this was filed back in January, I believe you said probably early in the years. But what's really kind of thrust all of this into the foreground in a way in which they're trying to leverage it. What is it? Never let a good tragedy go to waste? Isn't that the, the, the, there was a crisis crisis crisis. Yeah, that's right. You're right. Yep, it's from yep. Anyway, I know where it's from now. I remember it doesn't matter. There was a tragic murder due to abuse of a nine year old locally, real close to us about in South Jersey, not more than, than 15, 20 minutes away from from where we are currently recording of a nine year old, who's, whether or not there were actually homeschooling that they did not attend the local public school. And thereby are being put into the category of other school or homeschooled and the parents were abusive. And that is essentially what killed this nine year old girl, Maya Thomas. And it's a, it's a definite obvious tragedy of abuse, a parental abuse, which is just some of the sickest evil that we can, we can contemplate. So this tragedy happens. And now all of a sudden there's a renewed vigor on behalf of legislators to, to reign in what they see as a potential, they sent us freedom that homeschoolers have as if for some reason this abuse happened because the child wasn't in public school because we know that no child is ever abused in a public school system. That never, that never have no, that never have. Regardless, this is a case of evil parents. This is like anytime a gun is used in a tragedy. It's the guns fall and not the central heart of man. But, but the fact that this, this has been on the table since January and they're now leveraging a crisis to fuel public engagement. Is that something that you've seen more commonly in states that have been relatively lacks with with homeschool schooling? Absolutely. I mean, it just happened in Connecticut earlier this year. There were about three high profile cases of abuse. And again, the facts are messy in terms of whether these were actually homeschooled kids. You can make an argument that each of them or not Connecticut was very similar to what New Jersey currently is where the regulation was just very simple. And there was a motivated legislature to use those tragedies to leverage conversations within the political process. And you know, they had the political will they had the numbers on their side to pass the law to pass the bill and you know, the governor eventually signed it into law. But yeah, that's definitely a new tactic. Unfortunately, we see it in even highly regulars regulated states like New York, a senator is currently trying to promote even stronger regulations for New York homeschool families because there was a abuse case upstate New York. And so it's it's happening everywhere whether it's highly regulated or not. And it's kind of this new frontier of homeschool freedom, you know, back in the 80s and 90s, it was, you know, are they really getting educated and then it was the socialization questions aren't homeschool kids weird and you know, they don't talk to people. And now it's this the safety issue where, you know, child abuse is at the forefront of everybody's minds when it comes to homeschool families. Yeah, and I mean the response from the homeschool and community in New Jersey that I've seen was almost on day one of what happened to this, which I thought was really good because the homeschool and community is appalled that this happened. They're saying that like no, like that's not what homeschooling is. Home schooling isn't abuse. It's quite the opposite. It's quite the opposite by intention. Yeah. And so the homeschooling community doesn't want to be presumed guilty of things that would lead to all of this crazy ridiculous legislation, which in my opinion, I don't know what your opinion is, but in my opinion, even the most mildest of the bill, the three bills that you talked about is still too much. I don't I don't feel like I don't need to report what what that I'm homeschooling. I don't want anybody know I'm homeschooling. We're chill. We're long. Stop telling people then if you don't want people to know. I'm there. But but but I mean that's that's my level of protection of what I'm doing. I mean, we could be honest though homeschooling is kind of like CrossFit, right? Like what you mean somebody that does CrossFit and you know they've done CrossFit because within the first five minutes of meeting them, they tell you that they do CrossFit. You're all the night. No, it's a catch is now. No, I just thought that you get random injuries injuries from joking your body around. In your way. Oh, yeah, I'm going to right. Yeah. I have a lot of kids. How are they going to school? Are we homeschool? Yeah, we homeschool. We homeschool our kids. That's what we do. We homeschool live. Yeah. I feel like I feel like what the legislature is trying to do because I feel like I know that homeschool data, right, is difficult to compile because of its multifaceted and so. Kind of stratified regulations so that the data is kind of weird to collect but you know from the data that I look into this every now and then but the data that I see. Shows better emotional intelligence in homeschoolers shows you know par or greater test scores than public schoolers. And I just don't want people that have a lower standard than me telling me that I'm doing a good or bad job. I just feel like that's. I feel like I should be telling them that they're doing a good or bad job. Yeah, I mean, as you said, I'm part or better. I think that's, you know, the. The stance that we've taken based on the data that's out there. It just shows that the homeschool kids are all right. And as you said, you know, for a family to take and you know this better, you, your homeschooling six, right. For a family to take an active role in their children's education shows that precisely the opposite of a criminal intent. You know, they they want to not only cherish and love their children but foster their education better them, you know, take that personal active role in, you know, what they're learning and how they're going to set themselves up for the future. And so, yeah, I mean, I call it the Godlike complex of legislators where, you know, and you mentioned the whole gun control issue that it's that and it could be other issues where, you know, something happens. So we need to pass a law to make sure that this never happens again. And I think even they're not all that cynical to believe that's actually the case. You know, they probably just have a caucus or a constituency that they have to answer to. But, you know, that's a very generous. That's a very generous reading of their intent. Ralph, that's a very generous reading of their. I just I just can't believe that, you know, one one would actually believe that these things would would be preventable because you you pass the law. Yeah, because no one breaks the speed limit, right? Right, right. Yeah, I don't know if we're I'm definitely not your guy to get to like stayed nature and. Yeah, that's really what we're talking about here. That's what, you know, you know, if somebody has endeavored to do harm to their child. They're going to do it at. 7 p.m. on a Thursday or 11 a.m. on a Monday, right? I mean, that's just the unfortunate reality of of the evil hearts that are within all of us, right apart from Christ, you know, we are all we're all depressed. So, but anyway, you didn't you didn't call me on for a theological point of view. Oh, no, we all go to theology here down with the old points of view. I want I want people helping other people to have a thoroughly theological point of view. So I really, really appreciate you. But yeah, I mean, our secular legislators, all they have is making new laws because they don't have that fundamental understanding of the evil and wickedness of human hearts that Christians do. So, you know, that's that's all they have. So, you know, I just looked this up the other day. I googled, you know, how many laws I gave it my zip code. I said, how many laws and regulations am I subject to from the federal level to the local level in my township. And literally the first paragraph said, people have tried to track this and honestly, they just stopped tracking trying to track it because it's impossible to know, but it's millions. But so we have millions of regulations and laws that were beholden to that we don't even know about that honestly, most legislators don't even know about. And yet, we still have the evil of human of the human hearts. Like you can't legislate your way out of the evil of human hearts. It's just not something that's realistic in our fallen world. But so when we're looking at these, but I think even even taking that further. Sorry, Justin. Nope. Go right ahead. Just taking it further, just to bring it back to the policy arguments. If you look at all the risk factors for child abuse repeatedly, you'll see studies that show that education choices not among any of them. You know, it's not whether you're in a private school, public school, home school, micro school, pod learning. And none of that comes into the stratosphere of risk factors. One of them, a pretty prominent one, is an unrelated adult living in the home. And unfortunately, that's what happened with the case of my autonomous her stepfather was also a resident and charged with with the allegations. And so, you know, I mean, legislators will just continue to ignore that, unfortunately, in the states that these bills are being brought up. But I mean, it's a really important fact to recognize that school at what say school choice education choice is not is not the risk factor. When I look at it, when I specifically see this particular case as being some sort of what they're trying to make in a some sort of like touch, touchstone moment to push forward this kind of legislation. It's a criminal case. We're talking about a criminal, we're talking about criminal abuse. And then they're attaching it into the education world. And then I see them trying to press forward with a registry where you have to register with your local district. And immediately it feels like anytime they want to try to do like a national gun registry, it immediately feels like what you're trying to do is organize a list of people that you can you can more accurately monitor. It immediately feels like you're immediately infringing on to a person's privacy, like immediately. And how I understand well the difference between the federal, the Constitution, right? And then inside of our federation of states, the states rights. Yes, you've watched Hamilton. How does this? Yeah, Hamilton took me. When you're, when we're looking at this, is there an interaction with what is both constitutionally viable and then what, what is then state regulated? Is there an interaction there where there's an overreach in any of this? And is that ever been pushed or pressed for in the legal structures? That's a great question. I would say that there's, it is multifaceted by nature. So you're dealing with the fundamental rights of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children. And that's black letter law from the Supreme Court Pierce versus Society of Sisters. That's 1923. And you've had the Supreme Court repeated. You know, throughout the century, most recently in the Mahmoud case that deals with religious education. And so, you know, that is, okay, you have fundamental rights of parents and you have parental rights, a big buzzword these days. And it's kind of like those bundle of sticks that is available to parents, but it's never really been clearly defined. And you know, you have all this case law, both federally and on the state level, that's just kind of in a, it's in a piecemeal, you know, putting together the bundle of sticks of parental rights. So you have that going on. It's very different from an enumerated right, right, like the Bill of Rights freedom of speech, freedom of religion. It kind of had to be teased out by this Supreme Court through history and tradition and, you know, just common sense, which is, I guess, not so common, right. But also, you know, what's been done through the ages. And so you have that much assurant. Parents have the fond amounts of rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children. But education is intimately within the police power of the several states. So I guess we still do have a department of education in the federal bureaucracy at technical sense. Yeah, I mean, Linda McMahon was going to take a chair to it or something and just, I don't know, rest a little way. So you have that right, you have the federal bureaucracy, but by and large, states are to regulate education. And so that's why, you know, once again, we have this heat map at hcell.org. We have, you know, a team of attorneys who work in the individual states because it's the individual states who are laying down their individual homeschool laws. And my dude, not every state has a statute. Some are just regulations. That's what New York has. Some just have case law, which I think that's Massachusetts. And so there's no rhyme or reason in terms of what a state has done historically, you know, to authorize homeschooling, if you will. So we have to look at all these 50 stories and see, you know, how it progressed pretty much in the 80s and 90s. And so yeah, there is that tension. And there is that overlap with the federal and the state apparatus, you know, kind of working hand in hand. So you could say in the case of Connecticut, well, that's unconstitutional, right? I mean, you know, that's, that's whatever was past there is infringing upon my, my fundamental right to direct the education of my child. But then you have to ask OK, but then what do you do about that? And there's just technical reasons why we haven't been able to sue on constitutional grounds. You need standing, you need a client, you need the law to actually be enforced and it doesn't go into enforcement until July of 2027. So, you know, we get people all the time on our social media page is saying, well, why does an H cell, the issue, why isn't this unconstitutional, doesn't this violate the federal constitution? And so I hope I, I pay into picture there of, you know, how it's so multifaceted and, you know, it's just not as clear cut as other disciplines and the law might be. And I think we've, we've, everyone's become a little more intimate with the legal process largely since COVID. COVID made us notice a lot of things. Everybody had kind of noticed a lot of things. Everybody got a medical degree and a lot of degrees. It was kind of crazy. And so the obvious, the obvious reality of having someone that does have legal standing and having the right case, it's not just any case, it's the right case that can establish the fundamental God given freedoms that are being infringed is always important. And you said you, you actually worked. And now I'm, I'm never goes somewhere where you don't remember what you're going to say. Alive spending. Thank you. You worked with the Alive stiffening freedom. Again, they have, I'm sure in those areas. Again, the choosing of the right case to best, to best establish your legal point, your legal precedent point that you're trying to establish is key. In, in New Jersey, let's say, let's say they were to pass the public policy of the, of the health and wellness checks. What could, what could a homeschool fam, well, first of all, I mean, the first thing you can expect is that whatever it is, it won't be done well. We can know that, like, what doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what the state tries to do. Right from the government. I'm here to help you. Yeah. It, it's not going to be done well. They don't do anything. Well, what, what would that look like? Have you seen that in any other states? What does that look like for a, a homeschool family in that anticipatory way? It's totally unprecedented. I would like to get into the mind. I don't know if I would like to get into the mind, but it would, it would be interesting to figure out what, what really went into the, the thinking of the folks who drafted the bill or thought it out. So you're telling me California doesn't even have something like this? I think California has it. I'll have to talk to my colleague, Will Astrada, who actually, you know, had New Jersey before I did. He's like, I need to get out of this place. It's going to go downhill real fast. Go look Ralph. Well, you've got four other states. Why don't you, why don't you take that over? There you go. You know, he has Pennsylvania, which is also read on our maps. Yeah, it is. Yeah, I mean, it's unprecedented. It doesn't, it doesn't pass a smell test, right? Like it's just, it's weird. It's not even, it goes beyond constitutional issues. It goes beyond legal issues. It's just weird. Right. So, you know, I even state the size to do something nobody else is doing. Why are you going to make something up? Why are you going to make something else up? It's like why? Well, California's light blue on this map. We're going to go from, you know what, if this, if this, if this, if this regulation passes, I want our state to be colored black. It's okay. It's weird. The worst. Fair enough. I hate the state. I don't think Cobbswood would be happy with that, but I would. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that, you know what, make it white so that it disappears into the past. This is a state that you never went to move to. If you were going to school, you know, honestly, that's the worst answer you could have given. I was hoping that you were like, well, this happened in some other, in your life, where the only one, bro. Nope, this, if this passed, it's no one knows what this could possibly look like. Before I, before I transition to, I don't know where you were going or if you had any other places. No, he answered my question in a very sad way. I very sad, very sad, very bad. I want, before I ask kind of what should, what should people in our state that are concerned about this do? I want to ask for, for people listening to our podcast or even people in New Jersey that are. Maybe not homeschooling or don't have kids and they're like, okay, whatever, this bill, whatever, why should it, can you think of any reasons of how these bills might affect other people that who aren't necessarily homeschooling? I'm thinking of things like, well, if they're going to send somebody to my house to check in on my kids, they're going to have to pay for that, right? So like, does this bill affect just the average citizen as well? Maybe perhaps in a smaller way, but like, why should other people care about this bill? These bills? Yeah, I mean, I don't want to get too cynical, but I don't know how much people are going to care about the fiscal lack of responsibility on, on the state. So, I mean, I would just say that homeschooling, so when, let's, let's bring it back to what they're trying to do, right? They're trying to protect kids allegedly. They're trying to prevent these cases from occurring. So you're going after a tiny subset of the children who are educated in the state. Now it could be a very large amount, but nobody knows, right? Because there's no, there's no requirement for registration. And we want to keep it that way. Exactly. But the point is, and we've been having this discussion among the team, when they're trying to quote unquote protect these kids or, you know, the kids are falling through the cracks, we have to make sure that they're, you know, look that or whatever. They're thinking too small. They're, you know, they're, their sites are on such a myopic part of what's going on in the state. And, you know, you're, okay, you're, you're really just going to make homeschooled families upset because these are law abiding citizens anyway. So, you know, it's just, it's just odd. So it's a, to be responsive to your question. I would say that the homeschool community needs to get the word out that I hate some melodramatic, but like if they come for us, right? But it's true. If, if you allow a petty tyrant to regulate a part of society that really shouldn't be regulated, then what's stopping him from being emboldened to do the next thing the next time around. And that's why to keep it in the homeschool conversation. That's specifically why, you know, it wouldn't be prudent for the homeschool community to say, okay, notice is fine. If you just want notice, we'll give it to you. And it's, it's small. It's, compared to everything else out there. It's, it's not that bad. Well, once again, it's a petty tyrant. So, you know, is he going to stop at just that? Maybe this year, but, but not right never, but definitely not next year. And he's just going to keep coming back for more until he has it all. So, you know, that, that's really what's at stake. I mean, there's an ideological battle that were up against that people just flat out do not like homeschooling. They believe it's, it's the state's job. They to educate the children. They believe it's our children. Right. You know, and, and so for anybody, if you're not a homeschooler, but you are somebody who values freedom and you're somebody who values, you know, the ability to educate your child not in the public school system, you should absolutely care about these things because, you know, homeschooling is just a subset of that freedom. It sure is. Um, you're in the hailed. Do you, are you saying going to, there's just so many things, just the reality. I'm just thinking from marketing perspective, we get really mad at tyranny, by the way. We get really mad at it. I won't, I only want one tyrant. And that's God. Um, it's pretty fun. It's the only one that loves us. God of tyrant. It's the only one that loves us. He needs a definition of standard. But never, never, never. Never. And Tyrant. Correct. The, we told Ralph this was a Christian podcast like from a market. So Ralph, how do you feel about the enemy? The, there's only one righteous law. It's the post show. So welcome to company, feed after dark. The, we still should do that. That should not do that. The, from marketing perspective, the reality is they want to step inside of homeschooling. But when they do that, what they really want to step inside is the home. Right. Like that's the part that is, should be the emphasis of what New Jersey is trying to do. They're now, they're trying to make one less step for them to step inside of. Anyone's home where they can say whatever they want about what you have chosen to do, chosen to do, whether or not you've chosen the right paint or whether or not you have enough outlets or whether or not you keep your air conditioner on the right temperature. Um, that it's one more step. And so the emphasis in this whole process, especially with something like visitations. I don't know what it is. Like what we want to call that exactly. But especially with visitation. I have, I have other way worse words for it than that. Oh, yeah, you went mild. It's, it's just one more, it's just one more step where they're not just talking about homeschoolers. They're talking about inside of your home. That's where homeschooling takes place. And so what they're going to be doing is moving into the home. One step closer into anyone's home. And if you don't see that as a problem, then I don't know, you, you, you, you're a weird relationship with the government. You really do love Daddy State like a lot. Well, yeah, I mean, the CPS work is a big part of what we do with our member contact work. So, you know, New York, a CPS investigation can be triggered by a late quarterly report. I see it all the time. And, you know, it's, it's a huge force moment violation. It's a basic human decency violation. But, you know, so we deal with that a lot all over the country. We have a 24 hour hotline dedicated to our members being able to call in and saying, I think that the CPS is coming. I need help. Or, you know, and I've dealt with good social workers, I, you know, and people who are just decent and they're not trying to middle and somebody's home and life. But by and large, you have your crusaders who also don't like homeschooling in there. There's an ideological bent. And so, yeah, this is, I didn't even talk about the Fourth Amendment implications for the health and wellness check because that is just, you know, allowing government to search and and seize your home on the basis of just general suspicion that homeschool families are in need of health and wellness checks. Again, whatever that means. And so, you know, there would be multiple ways to hopefully challenge it. I'm not as smart as my wonderful colleague, Peter Kay, I won't try to say his last name. These are general counsel and head litigator and he would be looking at ways to, to definitely should it pass. Obviously going to pray and work that it doesn't. But, you know, look at ways to challenge it. Speaking of praying and working. Yes. Shall we transition to the, where the rubber meets the road? Action items. Buy more guns. No. Well, that's for any time, anybody, any time, any states. There's a reason it's a, there's a reason if any fathers knew that, you know, we should probably let these people have weapons. We, we needed them once. They may be standing in the Supreme Court. It's really just kind of hacking away at all these, they're really protecting that, that two way recently. I can hear them out here. Anyway, that's another completely other topic. Cool. All right. Getting away news. That's all getting away from the homeschool and acting it directly to gun legislation. Let's pull that back. Squirrel. We live in New Jersey. My kids are in private at Prima Christian education. We want to, also private Christian education. For now. We always, like our view on education is anything but the state. Like, and, and depending on what you choose to do with your child depends on how much you, like, homeschooling families have to interact directly with the material they're teaching their, their kids, because they're the one teaching their kids. And all you're doing is increasing the barriers you have to jump through because no parent, every parent should be involved with information being taught to their kids. So depending on what you choose, you're just choosing which level of interaction through the barriers you want to have, because all parents should know whether kids are learning how their kids are being taught. What's being said to their children all the time, whether you're saying it directly as the parent or whether a teacher's doing it, you're just increasing your work on the barrier end. Even if you think you're saving time someplace, you're still having to invest that time to be a good parent involved with your child's education. So I'm, I'm also concerned about these things. I look at this as one step away from them wanting to know every private Christian family that's getting private Christian, right? Like, it's right there. Like, it's not a far leap if this is how far we're pushing it on homeschooling for any private education. What can we be doing as parents that are, are desiring for institutions like homeschooling, like where you're a parent that loves your child and want to educate them. How do we help to protect this or speak out against this in a way that you think would be effective? Yeah, great question. I'll have to lead up to because you know, you, you filled in the gaps what I said earlier that everybody should be paying attention to this, even if you're not a homeschool family. Definitely go to hcell.org sign up for our email alerts. And I don't just say that as tongue in cheek like, you know, company, company line, where we try to be on top of it as much as possible when something comes out or send out an alert. If something is moving in the committee or elsewhere in the legislature, we try to let you guys know, you know, so that talking points can be gathered so that folks can contact their legislatures. Right now that this specific bill, I believe it's s741. I memorized 5468 for Connecticut and it was just the worst combination of numbers. So hopefully I don't have to memorize these for New Jersey as intimately, but so it's in a weird place because obviously there's public eyes on it right now. And he's made it a priority because of what happened with Maya. But it's still just before committee. And obviously there are a lot of other priorities for Trenton. That's one of the reasons why this is on the back burner. But the minute we see something, you know, we're going to alert our membership anybody on our email list. Hey, we see that there's a committee hearing. This is what we want you to do. We want you to go to the capital. We want you to take these three talking points with you. We want you to contact your senator, your assembly person. And you know, just make sure that your voices are heard. You know, we had tremendous. Tremendous outpouring of people coming to the capital and Connecticut. And obviously it didn't go the way we wanted it to, but I mean, there. There's a 19 hour committee hearing for the bill. I testified at 530 in the morning after coming back home and logging out to zoom and. And testifying so there there was just a tremendous support and opposition for the bill. So we would want to see the same thing. And one of our partners New Jersey home school freedom association has already met with senator burst of cell. He's from district three. So I don't know if that means something to anybody listening. If he's your senator, then definitely give him a call and let him know. We have our talking points on the on the website right now into the bill. Just pretty simple things that we've already talked about. You got to stay engaged on that level. It's what it's in part what happens last term. It's why it never went through a vote out of the committee. It was first an education committee and then they put it in health. And then, you know, it expired at the end of the year. And it's also what happened in Illinois. You know, there was a pretty bad bill there too. And people just flooded the capital. So that, you know, old school. Just school house stuff still works. Doesn't always work as we said Connecticut, but it definitely works. It's definitely a bad community of pick on right like. Yeah, we're pretty passionate people. It's just that it's also a parent's that have chosen to homeschool their kids. Meaning they would definitely utilize it as a homeschool teaching moment to go to the capital. It's a real trip. Like, you've picked on people that are purposefully using their time and would then invest that time, which they have in abundance to then make your legislative workplace their home. So like, well, yeah, also that. And there's just also the availability, right? Right. You know, sorry, Johnny, we can't go to the capital. You have a science test today. You know, there's none. There's none of that. So, you know, it's not like they're not going to show up. Listen, the biggest barrier to be shown up at the capital is where to park my 12 passenger van. That's all I'm saying. We're coming. It's funny because I'm over here. Like, I was over here. One of the things that kind of kicked in for homeschool families was just during COVID, the level of vaccination that homeschool families were receiving in New Jersey. And that kicked off a firestorm. So then like, I'm defending the reality of like, no, my kids aren't actually homeschooled. And some of my kids have received vaccines. And I will defend to the death, the right of these parents not to choose to vaccinate or they don't want to vaccinate their kids. Like, this is not a question. Like, you don't get to tell people what they're going to have to stick inside their bodies. It's just not a thing. And that was, that mobilized very quickly inside the homeschool community. So I would definitely see a level of activity and engagement from our homeschool community in New Jersey on this as well. So one of the things we haven't done, which we should definitely do, how do families that are maybe hearing the acronym HSLDA for the first time? How do they connect with you guys and what exactly does that entail? Yeah. So super easy, HSLDA.org. You'll get information on how to join the membership. It's a quick application, you know, just like anything else that you would join. You're typically asked if you have an active legal situation in which, you know, we would want to handle your application with, with more care than, you know, if you're just joining for fun. And the fee is really nominal. I mean, it's $15 a month or $150 for the year. So a lifetime membership option, $15, $1500. And that covers your whole family for life. So, you know, if you just want to repopulate the year, then, and you have a lot of homeschool kiddos, then, you know, that would, that would really go a long way for you guys. Will it cover my children's children's cause? It's not a, it's not transferable, Jesse. You, you and your household. I'm a, a, a, r, p. All right. Multigener relational living your resume. Eight. But, um, no, I, I just, if you think about legal costs, um, and if I think about, I'm not, I just want to think about legal costs. No, nobody wants to think about legal costs, but they're there. You know, I just, I can't say enough about, uh, the colleagues that I get to work with, uh, just top notch people, uh, but also top notch attorneys. Um, and, you know, we just, we really care about the cause where all homeschool families, um, some of them were, some of my colleagues were homeschooled themselves. Um, and, you know, we have a personal stake in, in making sure homeschool freedom is preserved and protected and, uh, and goes farther, um, than it is currently. Um, and so that, that's the membership option. But if there's any, you know, financial hardship, then we definitely want to know about that as well. We have a compassion program, um, specifically for, um, you know, folks who experience a death in their family. Um, and, you know, the mom wants this little homeschool, but, you know, she might be dealing with some difficulties financially. Uh, we have that going on, um, if there's a litigation opportunity and the family is not a member, then we're certainly not going to, you know, say, no, we would all, whether, whether somebody's a member or not, we would always have to make an individualized determination. Um, like you mentioned earlier, good cases, um, and good facts, uh, just to advance the cause to advance homeschool freedom with, you know, in whatever state of this. Um, and so, you know, litigation is, it was a big part of what Mike Ferris and Mike Smith did when, when HSL, I was getting started in the 80s. Um, but we still do some litigation, we're appropriate, um, and, you know, it's very important to the mission. Um, so yeah, uh, that, that's pretty much that, um, if anybody has question, if they don't want to, you know, apply right away, you can certainly call and somebody would be happy to speak with you as well. This might be a homeschool nerdy question. So like, I, I subscribe to heritage defense. How does HSLDA differ from heritage defense? If you, if you know the answer to that question, I'm kind of going off the cuff here. I'm, I'm actually, I don't know the answers to the question fully. Um, HSLDA deals specifically with homeschool issues, right? Specifically homeschool issues. Okay. I think, yeah, I think, I think I know the answer to this question, but I didn't know if you could clarify, but that's okay. I think, um, I watched the podcast with somebody. I forget if it was HSLDA or heritage defense, and they asked that question. I think heritage defense just kind of answers, like general, CPS showed up at my door. What do I do? Type thing? And I think HSLDA is more specific to homeschooling. Um, I was curious for my own self to describe it. Yeah, for my own self. I mean, you could also say, like, you know, with the religious liberty firms out there. Um, no, there's a few. ADF happens to be the largest, but they're not the only player in the game. You have Beckett. You have first liberty. You have the ACLJ is still out there. So, there's opportunity for, you know, freedom-loving organizations and attorney specifically to come alongside people. Yeah, I'll tell you, Ralph, if these, if I'm looking at the timeline right now on the, on the website for Senate bill 3910. And right now it is still in Senate committee. The second this moves any farther. I'm just signing up for everything. I'm just signing up for a redone is here. Not on a care. I'm calling everybody. Well, don't be too late, Jesse. No, no, no. Yeah. I can probably get like an AI bot to like constantly monitor this page and like text me. Once a, if you see the red circle move, sign up for each of the LDA and this and this and this dear quad kind of like kind of like sneaker botting, making sure you get the new kicks. Oh, man. I saw an exit that people are doing that for the new iPhone. Oh, my word. That's stupid. It says stupid. And it's sometimes as a culture, boy, do we deserve everything we get to do what I just described is way, way more important than the latest. I thought. So that's why you that's why you have to tell people about your good ideas because you're using the AI to Yes, to spend money on things take dominion. That's what we do. Even over AI. When we're when we're fighting the war, we want AI to be on our side. You have to treat it right. You know what? And this is where Ralph's like, we should have probably ended this, you know, now. I've got other things to do. Oh, man. Well, I think I think we got to cover everything that we needed that we needed to cover. I did want to just circle back to this this news story just so that people understand how like what's actually happening with this. So this this poor girl, Maya Thomas, she was nine year old. I love that at the end of the podcast, you'd like to circle back to the news story. Well, I just wanted to I wanted to make it connect a little bit better. Okay. We touched on it, but I feel like we never actually got to like any of the details, which I'm not going to get into because they are horrific. But basically this this girl and I think she hit I think she had a sister for your old sibling. But they were they were somewhere else. They came to New Jersey for the stepfather or whatever. And then they at one 15 at one 10 in the morning. Okay. On a Tuesday, they called 911 saying that Maya got struck by a car. I don't know what nine year old is out anywhere near vehicles at one 10 in the morning. I just want to say that. So the police responded. They took it a Cooper. She was pronounced she was pronounced dead later that day. But the healthcare workers found, you know, evidence that this was not merely a vehicular injury. And so thank God they were able to report an escalate that. But but they're using but but basically when when this when Maya and her mom moved to New Jersey, they never enrolled in a public school. And so that's where this homeschool narrative is is being overplayed by our politicians, which really it's not shocking that they do that. It's not shocking to me that they do that at all. But the reality is that abuse is not homeschooling. Abuse isn't a front to God. These people should be tried, charged. And if found guilty, executed under God's law. We know that that will not happen in New Jersey at all because we just tend to find a way to do everything that God says not to do in our state. But but they're using this situation to to play up and dramatize a homeschooling issue, but the issue guys is not homeschooling. It is the wickedness of man's heart in the heart of the stepfather. And I would say even to some extent the mother for allowing all of this to even take place. It's clearly a messed up situation that ended so tragically. But but this isn't a homeschool situation. This is an abuse and murder case. It's not a homeschool case. So I just wanted to kind of just fill people in. I would recommend not Googling it. It's it's so tragic and awful. And it makes my stomach turn. It should make the stomach of any Christian or anybody interested in justice turn. And then it should also make us sick that legislators would use this poor girl to come down on a on a general population of law-biting citizens that just love liberty and enjoy using that liberty as we still have it. So that was it. That was it. That's all I was going to run down on that. Was that okay? Yeah, it's fine. I mean, you don't need to don't look it up the case. If you if you can imagine that they thought the only way to hide their murder of their child was to say that they were hit by a car. That just lets you know how bad the abuse was. It was it was bad. So it was bad enough to try to hide it. Right. Which is a wickedness in and of itself. Gosh dang now I'm getting even more agree. Yeah, but like you got all three of us we want we want the criminal justice system to be intense pursuing justice in this case. Like this is an evil. What what we don't need is the criminal justice system deciding to come into our homes and tell us whether or not we are able to parent our children. And that's that's the absolute ridiculous reality of how to see turvy they will take a crisis to flip it on its head. Yeah, it's obviously the parents. Well, I think to that point, Justin. Yeah, to that point, if I could respond to the. Keeping things within their proper context. Yeah, there's bills out there that'll. Suppose if a parent has in fact been. Convicted of a crime in the past, say 20 years ago. You did something and you were convicted and you served your time or whatever. But now you turned your life around. You have a family of kids. There are there are legislators out there saying. If you have any offense and I think this has actually been. Consolid in New York. You can't homeschool. And so that's actually once again putting the playing field in the. You're going in the wrong playing field there. Because. There's been no. A adjudication on whether somebody can be a parent. And so that's the only way. And so that's the only way. The mental rates have not been taken away. And you could be with them on weekends and go to Disney World with them and. You know, have Sunday dinner with them. You can't teach them social studies on Tuesday. So it's it's. It's a misplaced. Concept. If you will, because we're looking at the criminal law and criminal penalties. And so that's the only way. Or education consequence on it. So, you know, a lot of these bills are going to be floated out there. Just don't make sense. And it's, you know, part of our job to help control that narrative. And not just in the legislatures and in front of, you know, those hearings. But also in in the court of public opinion as well. That makes me so gosh darn angry. You said that you told me that that's even a consideration. Yeah, it's one of the things that are considering New Jersey. They've been talking about the criminal, any criminal activity you can't go to school. I've never heard this. Well, you should just google things. Now I don't want to. That's so stupid. You know how stupid that is. Doesn't it feel like the presumption of guilt though? It's a presumption of guilt. It's a presumption of. Oh my gosh. It's presuming that. Well, moreover, moreover of the judge never presumed that you can't be apparent. Right. There's going to be some things that actually, um, okay, if you murder somebody, you're going to be away for 25 plus years. And you're probably not going to have kids in that time anyway. Or if you did have kids, they're going to be grown. So they're not going to be in the school system. So certain things take care of themselves already. Um, but as a part of your sentencing, the judge never contemplated. You cannot, you know, be around your children because it probably wasn't. And, uh, a crime that that dealt with, you know, matters related to children. Um, so once again, you can be apparent in every other which way you just can't homeschool. That's, and that's what's being floated out there. That's pretty dumb. Yeah. Does it make any sense? I would call. Never mind. I would call my self. You're making. I would be angry. I would call my senator every time my kid needs to. I would call my senator every time my kid asks a question. That's how annoying I would be about that. Oh, I'm sorry. I can't homeschool. So I need you to come here and instruct him how to, uh, toast a bagel. That's out. Eddie, I would. Mr. Nockross, are you available to come help my child? Ty is shoes. He'd like you to instruct him. I know I can't instruct my child. Can't instruct him. So I really need you to step in here. Daddy. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to mention. I didn't mean Nockross. Please don't kill me. Oh, yeah. Please don't kill me. We're uncancellable. But if he kills you then this podcast is kind of over. So. Oh, my gosh. I don't know if that joke lands with you Ralph. I don't know if you know the Nockross name well enough. Okay. It's that's it. No, sorry. Yeah. He's one of our. He's kind of gross. Anyway, like most of our reps. Yeah. From the state that gave you. What was that guy's name? I don't even remember him now. Bobman and Bobman and Dennis and Cory Booker. Oh, my gosh. I forgot about him. And you're in New York. So you understand what it's like. Well, I was in Jersey for four years. Yeah. Well, my wise you were to not be in New Jersey anymore. How did the dumbest people get to be politicians? It's really amazing. Oh, my God. That's amazing. Again, a whole other podcast topic. Did you see, did you take a look at the truth rising documentary that. The Colson Center put out? I did. No. You Google this. Where are you? Yeah. So, yeah, definitely write that down. So that focused on the family in the Colson Center for Christian World. Do you? There's just at some point one of the one of the speakers. He says we're just. We're. I think he said like we're led by stupid leaders or something like that. And everything is stupid. And there's a point to all of everything that he was saying. Obviously, but that's just. That made me think a bit. Austin Oskiness. I do like Oz. I like hearing him talk. I'm John Stone Street. I don't know who he is. Is that Dylan? He's the president of the Colson Center. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I don't feel like we need. We need to do this while Ralph's here. I'm like, you can look at that. I needed to get on my tab or also, I'd never remember. Okay. Good for enough. Yeah. Definitely watch it. Ralph, I appreciate your time tonight. Is there is there anything else that you feel like we need to. Did we not ask any questions? Is there something we're missing? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But I think I'm not asking any question. Is there something we're missing? I think we we painted a pretty clear picture. I just I would I would say, you know, not to be redundant, but folks need to take it seriously. You know, don't think that it can't come to my state. It's already at your in your state. But don't think that it can't go anywhere. left of the legislature's session to your session New Jersey. So yeah, thanks Kimu pretty quickly and just be really vigilant about it. And they're all the scoffier in people. Let's keep it in prayer. That God would would protect our homeschool freedom, protect our freedom. And yeah, let's do our civic jobs as well. Yes, and amen. And we are thankful for HSLDA and the work that they do to keep us informed and ready to move. So I'll definitely be signing up for those those emails as I hope every single one of our listeners does as well. Because if you don't homeschool, somebody you know and love might. And that's important to love them well. This is true. And even if you don't love them, but you're related to them, you still have to care. Anyway, oh, were you referencing yourself those terrible? You didn't get that. I did. Wow, you're slow. It must be homeschooled. The Ralph, I wasn't homeschooled. No, you know, I know you want to do. I was. Yes. Ralph, I appreciate your time so much. And and we're just grateful for what you're doing with HSLDA and and we're grateful to be able to connect with you. And hopefully we never have to talk to you again and people in New Jersey rise up and people in our state house stop being stupid. Good luck on that one. Yeah, that one's there you go. Well, thank you guys. It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me on. Absolutely. Absolutely. And as we like to say at the end of every podcast, we hope you Christian this day would seize the faith.