Religious liberty is more than just the freedom to worship—it’s the foundation of every other right we hold dear. In this episode, Jenny Beth sits down with Kelly Shackelford, President, CEO, and Chief Counsel of First Liberty Institute, to expose how threats to religious freedom impact free speech, parental rights, and more. From major victories at the U.S. Supreme Court to defending a five-year-old punished for praying at school, Kelly shares real cases that show why protecting faith in the public square matters now more than ever. Discover how you can take action in your own community—and why doing so is essential to preserving our Republic.
Religious liberty is more than just the freedom to worship—it’s the foundation of every other right we hold dear. In this episode, Jenny Beth sits down with Kelly Shackelford, President, CEO, and Chief Counsel of First Liberty Institute, to expose how threats to religious freedom impact free speech, parental rights, and more. From major victories at the U.S. Supreme Court to defending a five-year-old punished for praying at school, Kelly shares real cases that show why protecting faith in the public square matters now more than ever. Discover how you can take action in your own community—and why doing so is essential to preserving our Republic.
X/Twitter: @_KShackelford | @1stLiberty | @jennybethm
Website: https://firstliberty.org/
Kelly Shackelford (00:00):
The one thing that a totalitarian regime will never allow our citizen to hold an allegiance to one higher than the government. So whenever that type of power structure comes in, the first flashpoint will always be religious freedom. And if you lose there, you'll lose everything else.
Narrator (00:16):
Keeping our Republic is on the line and it requires Patriots with great passion, dedication, and eternal vigilance to preserve our freedoms. Jenny Beth Martin is the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. She's an author, a filmmaker, and one of time magazine's most influential people in the world. But the title she is most proud of is Mom to Her Boy, girl Twins. She has been at the forefront fighting to protect America's core principles for more than a decade. Welcome to the Jenny Beth Show.
Jenny Beth Martin (00:48):
Today we're joined by one of my good friends, Kelly Chafer, who heads up First Liberty Institute. I'm really excited to share with you the work that his organization does and the projects that he has, and then also how you can work to expand freedom and liberty in your own area because of the work he has done at the Supreme Court. Kelly, thanks so much for being with us today.
Kelly Shackelford (01:11):
Oh, it's fun to do that. Jenny Beth, really, really appreciate you having me.
Jenny Beth Martin (01:15):
So Kelly, tell everyone a little bit about what First Liberty Institute does because I know a lot of our listeners are not going to be familiar with it.
Kelly Shackelford (01:24):
First Liberty is the largest nonprofit legal group in the country that all we do is religious freedom. So let's say you're a five-year-old girl, your name is Gabriela Perez, and you're caught praying over your meal and you're a poor family. You live outside of Orlando, you can't exactly go pull a bunch of money out of the bank and go hire a team of lawyers. So we come in, we bring the best litigators in the country, they all donate their time free of charge so that when Gabriela wins her case, which she did, it's just not just a win for Gabriela, it protects. It's a precedent that protects all of our kids and our grandkids. So we do that all across the country. We had 417 legal matters last year. We have like 107 right now in litigation all across the country, all the way from the Supreme Court down to the lower courts. And so we will lose our freedoms if we're not willing to stand for 'em, and that's what we're doing all across the country.
Jenny Beth Martin (02:21):
And I want to come back to Gabriela in just a minute. One of the things that you and I work closely on in the last five years or so, we've known each other for a long time, but then when COVID happened and the lockdowns happened, I directed many people to your website because of the religious exemption to the vaccine mandates, whether it was from their employers or their school. You had great work on your website for what people could do to practice their religion in that manner. And then, pardon me. And then you also have information on your website about how people can get their churches involved in voter registration and the things that they are and are not allowed to do when it comes to elections. So that's another place where we often are directing people to be engaged, to be able to expand their rights and exercise their rights in a way that our organization just is not equipped to teach people about. So we really appreciate that about your group.
Kelly Shackelford (03:25):
Well, thanks a lot. Yeah, the COVID was a great example. A lot of times Jenny Beth people, let's say they're not religious and they say, well, why should I care about religious freedom? And we try to help 'em understand it's much bigger than about your particular religion or non-religious beliefs. Our founders called this the first freedom because they understood if you lose this freedom, you'll lose all of your freedoms, you'll lose your property rights, you'll lose your free speech, you'll lose it all. And the best reason I can describe why that's the case is the one thing that a totalitarian regime will never allow our citizen to hold an allegiance to one higher than the government. So whenever that type of power structure comes in, the first flashpoint will always be religious freedom. And if you lose there, you'll lose everything else. COVID was a great example of that.
Kelly Shackelford (04:14):
What happens when governors, mayors, county commissioners got power they'd never had? What was the flashpoint in court? It wasn't business rights. I mean, you would think it would be. It wasn't. It was churches and synagogues being shut down and we won every COVID case that we filed in the country. But the interesting thing to me was everywhere we won, within two weeks, the businesses were opened. And that's why this is so important to you. No matter what your religious background is, this is about all of your freedoms. Religious freedom is what's going to tell you where you're going and whether you're going to lose everything else. People from other countries can tell you that. We have them come to us all the time and say, I saw this in my country. They took down their religious symbols a month later. We all lost our political freedom. So it is really important for people no matter what their beliefs are,
Jenny Beth Martin (05:10):
And I appreciate the work that you do on that. And your organization is very disciplined. You don't do the entire first Amendment, you stick to religious freedom specifically, but because you have that narrow niche, you're able to really accomplish quite a lot.
Kelly Shackelford (05:29):
It's been amazing. I mean, I never even dreamed when I started the group 36 years ago that we would have one case at the Supreme Court. We've had nine wins in the last six years. So it's amazing. And this is how our country was founded. I mean, people came here for this kind of freedom. And so we're getting back to the basics really in these battles that we're in and we're winning. And one of the things that I know we might not spend a lot of time on, but of the things we were committed to really when Trump came in the first time we saw these judicial seats open and we were like, this is probably the greatest thing we can do in addition to our cases for religious liberty, is help make sure we have really great judges going on to the court. And we now have the most extensive judicial vetting operation in the country.
Kelly Shackelford (06:19):
We have more data on the judge choices because we want, when the judges are being picked, we want good information to be there so that everybody knows the decision. We're not going to tell 'em what their decision should be, but we're going to provide them really good information so that we hopefully, and we did last time, get great people who are going to follow the Constitution. And when you do that, that starts changing all the areas, all the decisions, not just religious freedom. It affects every one of your rights, whether it's Second Amendment, fourth Amendment, fifth Amendment, you name it.
Jenny Beth Martin (06:53):
That is amazing and I'm so glad that you're working on that aspect as well. So what happened with Gabriela?
Kelly Shackelford (07:01):
Well, Gabriela was a five-year-old in her school and there was actually the most precious video at the beginning of her lawsuit. She was caught praying over a meal. You can't pray at school, you're not allowed to do that is what they said. And so she went home and told her parents and they said, well, Gabriela, what did you say back? And this is all on video. She said, I told them it is good to pray at my school. And I thought, good for her. That little, she's a future patriot standing up for our freedoms. And it was a privilege to represent them. And again, all free of charge. We had litigators from around the country at some of the most powerful law firms. They join us, they give their time, and we won. And Gabriela got to go back and pray. They apologized to her family. And again, that sets a precedent, which then this doesn't happen to other people. It doesn't happen to your kids, your grandkids, and that's why we do what we do.
Jenny Beth Martin (08:03):
That is absolutely amazing and I'm so glad you're able to do that for her. But then you're protecting the rights of all kids around the country to be able to pray if they want to before they eat a meal at school.
Kelly Shackelford (08:16):
And we're having to do the same thing for parents right now at school. We've got cases that are just horrible violations of parental rights that we're winning and showing you can't do that. I mean, we're having to defend pastors who are feeding people who are starving or pastors who are letting people in out of the freezing cold. They're literally being criminally prosecuted in cities across America. It's things that people can't believe. We've got a pastor right now, Jeannie Beth in Bryan Ohio, where it gets negative degrees in the winter, who has been sentenced to jail for 60 days because he refused to keep the doors of his church locked when there were people outside freezing when it was negative 20 windshield. I mean, this is a conviction that we are now having to appeal. Now, I'm very thankful, not only are we right on the law, but the attorney general of Ohio, when we showed him what was happening, had him visit this church, the people they were serving, I mean with tears in his eyes, he looked at us and said, I'm with you from now on.
Kelly Shackelford (09:25):
So he's now with us against this city which has been persecuting this pastor, but we're on appeal. They're not backing down. So these freedoms that we really value and find so precious, they'll be taken away if people aren't willing to stand for 'em. And we have cases all across the country. I mean, every day that show. And I mentioned the COVID thing you asked about earlier, a lot of people probably heard about the Navy Seals case. That was our case where if they'd have had their way, we would've lost about 50 to 60,000 military families, our best people. But because we took that lawsuit, we knew we couldn't represent 50,000 people. So we picked the seals because we thought they're the tip of the spear. We did that litigation, we got an injunction, we got that converted into a class action, and really by the end, we saved a lot of people, some of our very best from being lost from the military. It would've been a huge shot in the gut to our country. And so it affects all kinds of issues. Religious freedom is our founding principle, and it affects the military. It affects your kids at school, it affects your rights as parents, and it affects all the other freedoms as I mentioned earlier as well.
Jenny Beth Martin (10:43):
So do you have any cases right now that are pending before the Supreme Court or any of the other courts that are of special interest?
Kelly Shackelford (10:51):
Yeah, we've got three at the Supreme Court right now we're waiting to hear on. One is, I don't want to get too technical, so I'll try to be real simple with it, but there was a guy who would go to his park and when people would gather, he'd go around and talk to him and he would maybe offer him a brochure or something with regard to his faith. Well, the city didn't like that, so they actually passed the law creating a free speech zone in a little small area in the corner of the park that he wasn't allowed to go outside of and talk to anybody, which is just a slight violation of the First Amendment. So he was standing there, there's all these other people, and he was like, I just can't do this. I got to leave the zone and talk to people.
Kelly Shackelford (11:36):
So they issued him a ticket, a fine. And so he's in court and he's like, okay, I want to challenge this constitutionally. They say, well, there's this precedent that you can't challenge it until your criminal case is over. And he says, okay, I'll just pay this fine, do a nolo contender that I'm not saying I'm guilty or innocent and then I'll challenge it. Well, he did that and then they said, well, now you can't bring a lawsuit because there's this case law Supreme Court case called Buck versus Vallejo that says if you've been convicted of something and you're in jail, then you can't bring a lawsuit to say it was unconstitutional. And so it's like there's no way for him to oppose this. So we've had lots of groups across the country file and say, look, you've got to correct this takes away the right of any citizen to bring a lawsuit for violation of their first Amendment rights, and it has a huge impact.
Kelly Shackelford (12:29):
I'm hoping they'll take that one. The other one that's probably the most well known is the Cambridge Christian Case. We have, this is in Florida, there was a state championship football game with two Christian schools. The stadium, which was being controlled by the Florida High School Association Sports Association refused to allow them to have a prayer before their own game. This is the same stadium by the way, that 40 years earlier had Billy Graham revivals, but now two Christian schools are not allowed to pray. And the rationale that they gave is they said, well, since it's a government microphone, then this is really government speech. So understand the danger of this kind of an approach. This means that, well, a public park, you're on government property there. I guess you can't speak on a sidewalk. I guess you can't speak. So the government just everything gets all of your private free speech rights get converted into government speech and the government can decide what it wants to say.
Kelly Shackelford (13:35):
Well, this is a massive eradication of your First Amendment freedoms. So that case, and again at the Federal Court of Appeals there, they ruled the wrong way. And so this is now, it's at the Supreme Court and a lot, I think we've got 22 different outside groups that are, which is a huge number to ever file at this stage are saying, you've got to take this case. So those are two of them. And then tons of other cases across the country in all areas. We just won a really important decision on parental rights out of California. There you had a situation, and this is hard to believe, but the teachers are being trained not to tell their parents what they were doing. This is in the training, and what they did is they had fifth graders were forced to read a book to kindergartners asking them to question their gender.
Kelly Shackelford (14:30):
And when a couple of these kids found out these are fifth grade boys, they went home to their parents. They said, I'm really uncomfortable with this. And their parents, well, of course you are. So the parents go to the school and they say, number one, you should be notifying the parents if you're doing anything like this. Number two, we need our children to opt out and have a religious exemption because you can't ask them to do things that violate their faith. The school district's response was, you have no right to notice and we don't give exemptions because you're not inclusive and you need to learn it. We need to force you to learn it. Well, again, this is California. This is not a conservative judge. We just want a federal decision saying this violates parental rights. The parents do have a right to notice, and they do have a right to exempt their children from things like this that violate their faith. So really important case, it's still going on, but we just won that injunction, which was fairly amazing, especially out of California.
Jenny Beth Martin (15:27):
That really is amazing. And the more I hear about these curriculums in elementary and middle school, and of course in high school, the more I think the entire curriculum should be completely online and available to the parents to see. There should be transparency in it. The lesson plans should be transparent. Parents should know what's happening inside that classroom. If our children are going to be in that classroom for six to eight hours a day, we need to know what's being put in their brains so we know whether we're actually okay with it or not. You know about that because the kids came home and talked about it. What about the things we don't know about because they're not being transparent.
Kelly Shackelford (16:08):
That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And look, the way it's supposed to work in our system is the local control makes the decision about the curriculum. So you don't need a federal judge or the federal government or anybody else telling you what the curriculum should be, but the school board ultimately does, and they're responsible and people can vote on that. But even if you've got a morally poor school district that is pushing really bad things for your children, you still have a right. Even though they are doing this curriculum, you don't write, you have a right to say, well, that might be fine with you, but that violates our beliefs, our faith, what we teach our kids, we have a right to opt our children out. That's the way it's supposed to be. Our children are not children in the state. Their children are the parents. This is a huge distinction from us in communist or socialist countries where they think children are children of the state and it's amazing. But there are these intermediary institutions between government and the citizen that are really crucial things like the church or the synagogues or the religious institutions, things like the rights of parents. These are really a hindrance if you want to control people from the government directly to the people, these intermediary institutions. And that's why they're so important and why you see those attacks occurring.
Jenny Beth Martin (17:35):
That's right. And as parents, you can do all that you possibly can to make sure you're helping guard your children's hearts and their minds, but you can't think of everything, especially when the left is just left is just so insidious. Who would've thought that your kids would be reading to a bunch of kindergartners and they'd be reading and asking questions about gender identity? It's not something you would've even thought to warn your kids about yet. Now everyone listening better be warning their kids about that.
Kelly Shackelford (18:07):
Yeah, absolutely. And look, we have just, I know Jenny Beth, you mentioned earlier that in elections we have a resource that's online for what can your church do? And just laying out the law, there's a lot of fear there. We do that on every subject. So what are your rights in the military? What are your rights as a parent at school? What are your rights as a teacher at school? I mean, we have a horrible case right now that's probably one of the more well-known around the country. It's a teacher, a 30 year teacher, Marisol Castro, and at their station, if you look, they have desk and wall space right around their desk. They have all kinds of personal items there, a Yoda, they could put up an LGBT flag, whatever. But this woman is incredibly under persecution because she has a cross. It's not even a big cross, and she's had it there for over 10 years.
Kelly Shackelford (19:00):
But now the school came to her and said, look, we'll let you keep the cross as long as you hang it under your desk. And she did that for 24 hours and was so convicted and felt so horrible that she came back weeping the next day, apologizing to God and saying, I will never do this again. And she put that cross right back up. They walked her out of the school like a criminal. They put her in some other building, and this is just a blatant violation of the first amendment of free speech, a free exercise of religion. I mean, we just had a big victory two and a half years ago at the Supreme Court on this, the Coach Kennedy case where he went down to say a prayer after the game just by himself at a knee, and they fired him, and the Supreme Court said, that is unconstitutional.
Kelly Shackelford (19:52):
They said, well, kids will see him like that matters, right? I mean, it doesn't seem to matter if they're very crazy, left wing, nutty stuff or dressed up, but somehow if you think a person might be religious, that's all of a sudden a violation. And so that's what they're trying here is, well, this is a teacher. Somebody might see 'em and see that they're religious, and we're like, well, welcome to America where people have their own beliefs and we don't take away their freedoms. There's a famous Supreme Court case called Tinker from 55 years ago, I guess now that says neither teachers nor students lose their first amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate, and that's what this case is about. So whatever those issues are, I just want people religious freedom in the workplace. If you wonder what are my rights? We have materials on all that. Lay out what those basics are. And you were talking about during COVID, we put up a what are your rights when it comes to getting exemption from these sort of mandatory vaccines? Well, there's all kinds of federal laws that provide for exemptions as well as the Constitution, and we try to lay those out so that people know what their rights are and they don't lose them because they're not aware.
Jenny Beth Martin (21:08):
That's right. And that's what you have to do, and I appreciate the fact that you do that so much. This is just a personal anecdote. When my children were small, when they were in kindergarten and first, second, third grade, I remember they got something about, we saw what was going to be happening in December and there was going to be something about Kwanza, and I sent a note in saying, absolutely not. My children don't celebrate Kwanza. We're not, do not give them any coloring pages or anything about that. Then a few months later, earth Day came up, and we didn't prep our children for this exactly, but apparently they were saying something about Earth Day. And my daughter, who is especially back then, she was not very outspoken. She was a bit more shy and a bit of an introvert. She just went up to the teacher and she said, we don't worship the Earth.
Jenny Beth Martin (22:08):
I'm not allowed to do this. The teacher didn't know what to do, so she let my children not do it because of the way that my daughter worded it. But it was true. We had taught them we don't worship the earth, worship we worship God. But if you haven't taught your kids and haven't thought of every single scenario, then you could wind up in the situation like the kids that you're helping defend. I have a quick question about the ones from Florida with the prayer. Is this prayer from the microphone before the game or was it with the But in the United States Congress and right now as we're filming this, I'm just a couple of blocks away from Congress. They have a chaplain in Congress. Yes, they do. And at the inauguration they have prayers and at many state capitols around the country, they open the legislative session with prayers. So I don't understand how they could say, well, you can't pray from this microphone because it would be government, but in other government microphones, it's okay,
Kelly Shackelford (23:16):
Just wrong. It's a wrong decision. I'm surprised that the Court of appeals would uphold it, and they did. And so that's why we're at the Supreme Court, and I'll tell you the panel that did this at the Federal Court of Appeals included some people that were supposed to be conservative, and it shows you how important it is to pick good judges. So you just got to be vigilant. You got to, and again, this case, if they wonder what it's called, and by the way, Jenny Beth, people can go to our website, you just spell out first liberty.org. They can read or look at any of these cases. They can read the briefs, they can look at. Usually there's a video, not in all cases, but in a lot of 'em. And so first liberty.org is a great place to get it, but this case is sitting at the Supreme Court and we'll see what they decide as to whether they take it along with the other case I mentioned the Olier case, and then we have another case almost there. It'll be there within about three weeks about some Amish people who they're trying to refuse to allow them an exemption from the vaccine. Well, of course, that's just a horrible violation of their faith, but so far the First Amendment doesn't seem to matter, and they've lost all the way up through the Federal Court of Appeals, and we're hopeful that we can get that corrected at the Supreme Court.
Jenny Beth Martin (24:42):
Well, I am very hopeful about that as well. Now, Kelly, you've done so much work and have been able to protect rights and have rights explained from the court. Are there things that people can do in their own local communities because of the work that you've done?
Kelly Shackelford (25:01):
Absolutely. One of the huge victories about two years ago, we won three cases at the Supreme Court over about 13 months, and they were huge precedent. They really changed. One of 'em overturned a 50 year case. One of them overturned a 47 year case. I mean, one of 'em restored freedom in the workplace, which is really important. But the case I would mention that really opens up things for people to do in their community was the Coach Kennedy case again, all Coach did is after the game, go to a knee and thank God for the privilege of Coach and the young men that he got to coach. And most people know that yes, he was fired and that we won at the US Supreme Court, which we did. What they don't know is there was a precedent there and it was called the Lemon Case.
Kelly Shackelford (25:49):
It was 50 years old. It had been cited over 7,000 times to sort of strike down religious expression in public. If people wonder, why are we not allowed to have an activity scene at Christmas or a menorah at Hanukkah out on a government loan, why is that like banned? Why are we putting 10 Commandments monuments in the closet and why all this panic about religious expression in public? None of that's in the constitution. The founders would be appalled. It's because of this Lemon case. Again, it was cited over 7,000 times in that last 50 years. Well, in Kennedy, they reversed it. They said Lemon is over. So guess what? Everywhere that they took across down in your community, it can go back up. Everywhere they push the 10 Commandments in the closet, you can bring it back out. Every little community, every county, every city when it comes to Hanukkah or Christmas, they can put up a religious display, they can put up an activity scene.
Kelly Shackelford (26:52):
This is something everybody can do in their own. One of my lawyers came to me right after we won. He's fairly aggressive, and he said, I need $20 million. And I said, excuse me. He said, I need $20 million. We've just overturned 7,000 citations. We've got to go into every community. We've got to open reopen all these cases. I'm going to need a lot of staff. I said to him, no, we don't need a penny. All we have to do is tell people and they can do this in their own community. We started an effort, it's called Restoring Faith in America. We have a person on staff even that focuses on this full time, and it's amazing what's happening, including in states like yours in Georgia. She's now been working over the past number of months. They're putting up historical documents all over the state. Right now, you've probably seen this including 10 Commandments.
Kelly Shackelford (27:41):
Patriot Mobile is paying for the cost of 'em, and we're helping facilitate all that. And this is happening across the country. There are all kinds of ways that people can do these type of things and nobody can stop them. It's legal, and it's just a matter of the local community saying, yeah, we want to do this. And so if people have any questions, they can reach out to us. And we have our person that leads our Restoring Faith in America project has created what she calls Faith Blazers, which is people that are willing to do things that lead things in their community, and they're just giving them every month mentioning another thing they can do because of the new freedoms and the new cases that have opened up.
Jenny Beth Martin (28:22):
Oh, that's amazing. Well, we'll make sure that when we post this that we put a link to that in the description. So now we have to make sure that we get that done, and then also that we send an email out to our list and let our people know about it because it's such a great resource and there are people who will care very much about this.
Kelly Shackelford (28:43):
Absolutely. I mean, it's one of those things, Jenny Beth, where if we win, there's sort of two dangers that number one, do people know we've won? Because it doesn't help if people aren't sure that they even have the freedoms that they have. We lose our freedoms that way. But number two, if we know and we don't do anything with them, we lose 'em that way too. And so there are lots of people that were pushed the envelope to see if they can take away your freedoms, and this is an opportunity in a real positive way to bring that back to your community. I mean, we have really suffered as a country because they kind of push religion out of the public sphere. I mean, when you don't have that, you've got a very different atmosphere. You've got the kind of outrageous sort of Marxist kind of things that we've been seeing. But man, what makes America great is the vibrancy of the diversity of religion, but the fact of religion that there is higher, that we're responsible to, that our freedoms come from God and nobody can take them away. These are really what America is about. And as people restore that in their community, they change their community really, and they bring us back to who we really are as a country
Jenny Beth Martin (29:56):
That is exciting and also inspiring. So I hope that people take more action listening to you describe what they can do in their local community. And oftentimes it's so easy to get frustrated with all the bad things that are happening in the country. And even with President Trump being president, we still see things that are happening that really upset us. But this is something for us to take a step back and go, these are things we can celebrate and these are things that we can then go and take action on at a local level.
Kelly Shackelford (30:31):
The one way we refer to it is seems like we're always on defense a lot. This is where you can go on offense and the great thing is you've already won. It's just a matter if you're willing to do it. It's like our troops have sort of blown out the enemy and there's all this ground we can take if we're just willing to walk and take the ground, and that's where we are. So it's an opportunity to get on offense, change your community for good and the laws behind you.
Jenny Beth Martin (30:59):
That's great. Now, shifting gears just a little bit. You've been appointed to a new commission or That's right. Tell people about that. It's with President Trump, correct?
Kelly Shackelford (31:11):
Yeah. The president for the first time, nobody's done this before, created a commission on religious liberty. People have heard maybe we've had a committee or a commission that actually focused on international religious liberty because of a lot of things that go around the world, but we've never had one that focused on things in the United States. But after the last four years with, I mean people being put in jail for prey outside of abortion clinic and all these, there were a lot of attacks on freedoms and COVID and everything that we've seen. The president thought, we need a commission to study this, to look at this, to have hearings. And it's unique. I looked at the law and actually talked to the DOJ about this. Our literal job on the commission is to report to no one, not to the DOJ, not to an agency. Our job, and this is in the law, is our job is to do two things to give advice and recommendations directly to the president of the United States on this.
Kelly Shackelford (32:13):
So our first hearing is on Monday, June 16th, and we're going to start holding hearings on things like parental rights and what's going on with people's religious freedoms on that healthcare like we talked about in those kinds of issues. The military, all these, I mean schools, you name it, right? We're going to bring these people out, they're going to testify. People are going to learn what's really happening, and then at end of this process, we are going to make real specific recommendations to the president on things he can do that will make a long-term difference in advancing religious freedom for all Americans. And so it's exciting. It's never been done, and we plan to have an impact by the end of this. And he has told us our due date to get these to him our July 4th of next year, which is exactly the 250th year anniversary. Perfect timing.
Jenny Beth Martin (33:06):
That is perfect timing. I really think that that is amazing. I'm so glad that you're doing that. So Kelly, where can people go to get more information about the work that you're doing and that First Liberty is doing?
Kelly Shackelford (33:17):
The easiest thing to do is go to just spell it out first liberty.org, first liberty.org. And then I would even encourage people, if you scroll down just a little bit, you'll find something that says Be an insider. And that is we have about six to 700,000 people that have said, I want that. We don't send it to anybody who doesn't want it, but it's hard to keep up with all the stuff that's going on, all the attacks, all the victories, and this way every Friday you'll get an email that'll have the four or five biggest things going on in the country that would affect either the judges or religious freedom. And it's important because if you know, you can share that with other people, and the more people know about the victories we're winning, over 90% of our cases have for 26 years in a row. It encourages people when they know their freedoms to live those out. And the Tea Party Patriots are the type of people who are the leaders for the others in their community. And I would love them to know and be encouraged and then encourage others so that they can walk in their constitutional rights and really make a difference.
Jenny Beth Martin (34:29):
Okay. That's great. So we'll make sure that people understand. Go to first liberty.org and then scroll down and become an insider so you can learn more about the work that you are doing and then look on your website for all those guides that tell people how they can exercise their first Amendment rights.
Kelly Shackelford (34:49):
Absolutely, absolutely. And the biggest thing of all, if they have a problem, if some government official is trying to intimidate them in any way or even in the workplace, they can always call and we could tell them confidentially, what are their rights? What are their options? And it doesn't mean you call us. You're definitely going to have a lawsuit. I mean, our job is to give you your options, and then if you have to end up in a lawsuit because of something that's going on like this little five-year-old girl, then so be it. But you at least need to know what your options are, what your rights are, what your freedoms are.
Jenny Beth Martin (35:24):
Very good. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Kelly. I really appreciate it.
Kelly Shackelford (35:28):
It's always great to be with you, Jenny Beth.
Narrator (35:30):
The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin, produced by Kevin Han and by Luke Livingston. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots action. For more information, visit tea party patriots.org.
Jenny Beth Martin (35:50):
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