Sam Brownback

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise today to offer congratulations to two great Kansans, Bob and Orlene Thomas. On May 18, 1961 Bob and Orlene met in a chapel in Kansas and joined each other in Holy matrimony. In the 40 years that have followed, their little family has grown to include three children, who have grown to bless Bob and Orlene with five beautiful grandchildren. It is my understanding that the happy couple will be joined this weekend by their family to celebrate their 40th anniversary. It is no secret to my colleagues that I believe marriage is the most sacred and important institution in society today. Bob and Orlene's marriage marks an example for all of how to preserve that institution. They have lived through richer and poorer. They have had good times and bad. They have witnessed both sickness and health. Through all of it, armed with their love for one another and the support of their family, Bob and Orlene have persisted. I congratulate this great Kansas couple on their 40th wedding anniversary and wish them continued happiness for many years to come.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise today to address the issue of embryonic stem cell research and cloning. The two issues are inexplicably tied together. I want to discuss this in the narrow context of Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and cloning. The two are tied together in what is currently being discussed. They take an embryo, raise it to a certain age, kill the embryo, take the stem cell out of the embryo--the young stem cells inside that are reproducing on a rapid basis--and use those in research, or use those for human development and in the capacity of making other organs in the future. The next step will be to take the Presiding Officer's DNA material, my DNA material, the Official Reporter's DNA material, or the DNA material of some of the new interns, take it out, and put it into an embryo that has been denuclized, take that DNA material, put it into the embryo, and start the growth that is again taking place so you will have a cloned individual. That is an individual who has exactly the same DNA as somebody else. Scientists grow it to a certain age, kill the embryo, and take those stem cells from that embryo to be used to make an organ, or make brain cells, or make something else. These two topics are tied together. It is a gate which shouldn't open. Initially, I think we need to talk about Federal funding in Congress. We need to discuss the issue raised regarding Federal funding of destructive embryonic research. My position is that federally funded human embryonic stem cell research is illegal, it is immoral, and it is unnecessary for where we are and what we know today. We have other solutions that are legal, ethical, moral, and superior to where we are going with these Federal funds today regarding embryonic stem cell research and cloning. The issue of destructive embryo research has come into better focus over the past few weeks as the new administration prepares to take definitive action on the Clinton-era guidelines which call the destruction of human embryos for the purposes of subsequent federal funding for the cells that have been derived through the process of embryo destruction. Currently, we say, OK. You can't destroy the embryo, but you can use what is taken from the destruction of that embryo. It would be like saying of the Presiding Officer, you can't kill him, but you can take his heart, you can take his lungs and brain, and his eyes out. And, if you get those, even though somebody kills him, that is OK. Well, that doesn't seem to be right to most of us. It certainly doesn't seem to be right to me, nor the Presiding Officer. Yet that is what is being proposed, and currently taking what applies under the Clinton-era guidelines which call for the destruction of human embryos for the purpose of subsequent Federal funding for the cells that have been derived from the process of embryo destruction. During the Presidential campaign, then Governor Bush stated, in response to a questionnaire, ``I oppose using Federal funds to perform fetal tissue research from induced abortions. Taxpayer funds should not underwrite research that involves the destruction of live human embryos.'' Later, after assuming the Presidency, his spokesman, Ari Fleischer, stated that the President, ``would oppose federally funded research for experimentation on embryonic stem cells that require live human embryos to be discarded or destroyed.'' I would like to applaud the President for his bold and principled stand in defense of the most innocent human life. It has never been, and it will never be, acceptable to kill one person for the benefit of another--no matter how big, or how promising the purported benefit. Few issues make this point as clearly as the issue of destructive embryo research. As my colleagues are well aware, Congress outlawed federal funding for harmful embryo research in 1996 and has maintained that prohibition ever since. The ban is broad-based and specific; funds cannot be used for ``research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.'' The intent of Congress is clear--if a research project requires the destruction of human embryos no federal funds should be used for that project. The NIH, during the Clinton administration, published guidelines that sought to circumvent this language. At the time, several of my colleagues, and myself, sent a letter to the NIH stating our opposition to the guidelines. It read, in part, Despite their title, the NIH guidelines do not regulate stem cell research. Rather, they regulate the means by which researchers may obtain and destroy live human embryos in order to receive Federal funds for subsequent stem cell research. Clearly, the destruction of human embryos is an integral part of the contemplated research, in violation of the law. That is simply because to get embryonic stem cells you have to kill the embryo. You kill an embryo to ``harvest'' stem cells and use them. This is destructive human embryonic research. The letter that I cited was signed by, among others, Senators Trent Lott, Don Nickles, John McCain, Michael DeWine, and John Ashcroft. I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, in order to provide the justification for the NIH guidelines, the Department of Health and Human Services wrote a legal opinion reviewing the ban just mentioned above and whether or not Federal money could be used to conduct research on so- called human pluripotent stem cells that had been derived from an embryo. My conclusion--and that of many of my colleagues--is that this research is illegal. it is illegal for this reason: the deliberate killing of a human embryo is an essential component of the contemplated research; and without the destruction of the embryo the proposed research would be impossible, which brings us to a discussion of the morality of this research. Recently there was a bill introduced, the Stem Cell Research Act of 2001, seemingly based on the NBAC recommendations, which seeks to allow Federal funding for researchers to kill living human embryos. Under this bill federal researchers would be allowed to obtain their own supply of living human embryos, which they would then be allowed to kill for research purposes. The very act of harvesting cells from live human embryos results in the death of the embryo. Therefore, if enacted, this bill would result in the deliberate destruction of human embryos--human life in its most infant stage. This bill even violates current Federal policy on fetal tissue, which allows harvesting of tissue only after an abortion was performed for other reasons and the unborn child is already dead. Under this bill, the Federal Government will use tax dollars to kill live embryos for the immediate and direct purpose of using their parts for research. Is that something that we want to do? I don't think so. Taxpayer funding of this research is problematic for a variety of reasons. First among those concerns is that if Congress were to approve this bill, it would officially declare for the first time in our Nation's history that Government may exploit and destroy human life for its own, or somebody else's purposes. We don't want to go there. Human embryonic stem cell research is also unnecessary. I think there is a point that is lost to many in the broader debate about when human life begins. Where should we protect it, and how do we protect? But the point is that human embryonic stem cell research, and, thus, cloning, is also unnecessary. There are legitimate areas of research which are showing more promise than embryonic stem cell research, areas which do not create moral and ethical difficulties. In the past, Congress has increased funding for NIH. New advances in adult stem cell research, being reported almost weekly, show more promise than destructive embryo research, and I believe should receive a significant increase in funding. The Presiding Officer, myself, and everyone else in the room have stem cells within us. It has been a discovery within the past couple of years. These stem cells reproduce other cells within our body. We have them in our fat tissue, our bones, and our brain. These are cells that can now be taken out, grown, and they have multiple actions of other material, other tissue they can replace. It is very exciting and very promising. It does not have the ethical problems of killing another life and does not have the immune rejection problems like taking DNA material from another life and putting it into someone else. It is our own DNA. It is our own material, and it is showing great promise. I want to read some of the significant advances that have taken place in recent times in adult stem cell research, which I strongly support, and I support our increasing funding in a substantial way for adult stem cell research. Research has shown the pluripotent nature of adult stem cells. In other words, they can have a multitude of options. Research shows the ability of a single adult bone marrow stem cell to repopulate the bone marrow, forming functional marrow and blood cells, and also differentiating into functional cells of liver, lung, gastrointestinal tract--esophagus, stomach, intestine, colon--and skin, with indications it could also form functional heart and skeletal muscle. The evidence shows the stem cells home to sites of tissue damage. In other words, these stem cells can go to the place where the damage is and start to reproduce and build up the damaged material. This was a May 4, 2001, study that was just released on this pluripotent nature of adult stem cells. Adult stem cells can repair cardiac damage. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine found adult bone marrow stem cells could form functional heart muscle and blood vessels in mice which had heart damage. They note their results demonstrate the potential of adult bone marrow stem cells for heart repair and suggest a therapeutic strategy that eventually could benefit patients with heart attacks. The results also suggest that circulating stem cells may naturally contribute to repair of tissues. Also, scientists at Duke University Medical Center showed that adult stem cells from a liver could transform into heart tissue when injected into mice. They say, ``Recent evidence suggests that adult-derived stem cells, like their embryonic counterparts, are pluripotent. . . .'' They have a multitude of options of this stem cell conforming into bone, heart, and other types of tissue, and ``these results demonstrate adult liver-derived stem cells respond to the tissue microenvironment. . . .'' In other words, what is the environment that the tissue is placed into, and that is what it is responding to and developing. Researchers at New York Medical College report results that show regeneration of heart muscle is possible after heart attack, possibly from heart adult stem cell. I have several others I want to read, but one in particular I think is interesting is that scientists have found stem cells in our fat. So now we can take fat stem cells, of which we do not have a shortage in America, and those adult stem cells can be derived and made into other types of cells and grown. A new report shows umbilical cord blood can provide effective treatment of various blood disorders in adults. It had previously been assumed that there were too few stem cells in cord blood to treat adults and only children were treated. The results of this study show that cord blood stem cells can proliferate extensively and provide sufficient numbers of cells for adult treatments. My point is we do not have to destroy another life to have the great success of stem cell work. We can take it out of our own bodies. We can take it out of our own fat and be able to grow these things, and we do not need to go down the route of what is called therapeutic cloning, to which destructive embryonic stem-cell research is going to lead. In the future, people are going to say they want embryonic stem cells, but what they really want is to be able to clone you, to clone another individual, take that DNA material from you, from me, from somebody in this room, destroy a young human embryo, put the DNA material in there, start this to reproducing for a while, kill that embryo, take the stem cells out, and work with those because they are exact copies of the DNA from us. We do not want to open this door of going the route of cloning, and that is where this is leading. Mr. President, that is why today I have spoken out on this topic. We should not be going this route. We do not need to go this route. It is illegal for us currently to go this route. I ask that we stop. This is a view that I believe the President shares. In fact, in a letter written to the Culture of Life Foundation, President Bush states: I oppose Federal funding for stem-cell research that involves destroying living human embryos. I ask unanimous consent that the President's letter be printed in the Record.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I fully anticipate that President Bush will settle the issue of Federal funding of embryonic stem cell research within the context of the existing embryo research ban in the very near future, and I hope we take up the issue of cloning and ban it. It is a place we should not and do not need to go. I applaud the President in advance for his defense, for his clear statement on cloning, as well, and his defense of the most innocent human life. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, I think some of the reasons the Senator from California is raising may be valid to the point that this should pass 100-0. If this is not seen as a particularly contentious issue, if it is something that is going to happen and it is agreed to anyway, I hope we will all support the Boy Scouts. This is, indeed, about the Boy Scouts, and it is important to that organization that has 23 million members worldwide. I think it would be a good statement of support to them. This issue is about the Boy Scouts and there are legitimate issues that have been raised. I think we can tighten the language; if some people are concerned about the expansiveness of ``youth group,'' make it just about the Boy Scouts and pass it 100-0.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I have a couple comments I would like to make regarding this amendment. We have talked in the abstract on this issue of: Will the Boy Scouts have to sue to get into schools or will they not? There have been some allegations made. Several Members have said this is not the case. I want to put a real case in front of us. On January 11, 2001, the News & Observer reported that the Chapel Hill-Carroboro school board voted to give Scouts until June to either go against the rule of their organization or lose their sponsorship and meeting places in schools. That was January of this year. That school board says: By June, you either change--go against the Boy Scouts organization--or lose your privileges to get into the schools. We have two different proposals in front of us: the Helms amendment that was adopted and the Boxer amendment that is being proposed. Under the Helms amendment that was adopted, the school board in this district would be the one that would have to say: This is why we are blocking the Boy Scouts from being in this school. This is what we are doing. And if they don't, if they don't have the rationale, then they are going to lose their Federal funding. Under the Boxer amendment, which is basically the current law, the Boy Scouts have to sue to say: We have a right to be in this school. That is the law today. The Boxer amendment just basically renews the law as it is currently today. The Boy Scouts would have to sue to say: Look, we are not going to go against our Federal charter, and we still want into the school. This is current law, what this school district did. The Boxer amendment basically puts forward current law again. So the Boy Scouts would have to hire a bunch of lawyers to go against the school district--in this situation as well as in hundreds of thousands of situations across the country--to get into the school. That is a real live case. That is an example of what we are talking about. The Boxer amendment does not cure that. On the other hand, the Helms amendment that was adopted--by a very tight vote, a close vote--would say that the Department of Education goes to the Chapel Hill School District and says: Why are you blocking the Boy Scouts? And if you are going to continue down this road, we are going to pull Federal funding. So then it is on the school districts, in that particular case, to defend as to why they are blocking the Boy Scouts or they will get their Federal funding pulled. The Boy Scouts have an access to be able to get in. They have a tool to be able to get there. On the other side, they have to fight their way through court. And for those who are saying: You are dreaming up cases, here is an example: I read five others when I took the floor earlier. There are more that I could read. The simple point of this is, thankfully, the amendment is being changed some, so it is not all organizations--skinheads and others, but the fact of it is, who are you going to put the burden on, on the school district or are you going to put it on the Boy Scouts? The Boxer amendment puts it on the Boy Scouts. The Helms amendment puts it on the school district. I hope we will all say we want the Boy Scouts in the schools. We don't want to charge them a bunch of money to get there. We don't want to charge undue fees. We don't want to charge them more to be able to get into the schools. That is the point. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Boxer amendment, if they support the Boy Scouts and keeping them from having to spend a lot of money just to get into the schools, places where they presently deserve to be.

Mr. BROWNBACK. OK. So you would insert that language? You would strike the language ``any other youth group'' and instead insert those in section 36?

Mr. BROWNBACK. I just want to understand.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Reserving the right to object.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, I rise in opposition to this amendment, and I wish to express some concerns regarding it. We just adopted an amendment which I think addressed the issue at the core, and that was concerning the treatment of the Boy Scouts of America. The Boy Scouts of America, as many people know, has been recently pursued by a number of organizations saying they were not going to allow them to participate and use public schools for Boy Scout meetings. That was the direction of the amendment on which we worked. I will point out what some of the organizations and schools are pursuing with the Boy Scouts. They are saying: Look, we do not want to allow them to have access to our schools. We do not want to allow them to meet. Listen to some of these examples: On May 11, 2001, the Associated Press reported the Iowa City School Board voted to prohibit the Boy Scouts of America from distributing any information in schools because of the Scouts membership criteria. Greg Shields, the national spokesman for Boy Scouts of America, said: We simply ask to be treated the same way as any other private organization . . . [and] that our free speech and right to assemble be respected just as we respect those rights of others. On February 8, 2001, the Asbury Park Press reported that the State of New Jersey was considering a rule change that would bar school districts from renting space to the Boy Scouts because of their position on homosexuality. On February 7, 2001, the Arizona Republic reported that the Sunnyside School District in Tucson decided to charge the Boy Scouts of America fees to use school facilities, even though no other groups have to pay fees. The ACLU executive director said: While Boy Scouts, atheists, Nazis, even satanists have the right to express their views, Government should not use public money to promote them. On January 28, 2001, the Boston Globe reported that the Acton School Committee in Massachusetts decided to prevent the Boy Scouts from distributing literature at school, even though other groups can do so. Defending its actions, Acton School Committee cited Massachusetts law which says schools cannot sponsor the Boy Scouts. On January 14, 2001, the New York Times reported that New York's Chappaqua School District officials were able to coerce two local Boy Scout troops to sign a document that denounced the national policies of the Boy Scouts of America as a condition for allowing these troops access to school property. I have several more pages of examples. The reason I wanted to point these out is to show what the problem is, and that is, the Boy Scouts are being threatened to have access to public schools denied. That is the reason for the amendment. That was the reason for the Helms amendment. The Boy Scouts is a 90-year-old organization with millions of members in the country. My guess is a fair number of Members of this body were Boy Scouts or their children are Boy Scouts. Senator Nelson of Nebraska was an Eagle Scout. Senator Smith of Oregon was an Eagle Scout. Senator Enzi's son was an Eagle Scout. Senator Landrieu's family members were Eagle Scouts. My point in saying this is here is an organization that has been next to God and country and mom and apple pie for as long as we can think of, and it is being pursued. It is being pursued, being castigated. The ACLU executive director mentioned the Boy Scouts in the same sentence as atheists, Nazis, and satanists. They are trying to categorize them in a dark category, a negative category, and all they want to do is do a good deed daily. That is their motto. They are being pursued. What did we do? What was the response this body voted on by a bare margin of victory? This body said we are not going to tolerate them being pursued or kept out of school buildings. We said in this amendment: If you are going to try to keep them out of school buildings, then we are going to review the Federal funding for you because we so strongly believe in this organization--90 years old, basic value training, character training in which many people in this body participated. The Senator from California then proposes an additional amendment apparently trying to address much of the same topic. In that amendment, she puts forward: No public elementary school, public secondary school, local educational agency, or State educational agency, may deny equal access to meet after school in designated open forum to any youth group, including the Boy Scouts of America, based on that group's favorable or unfavorable viewpoint concerning sexual orientation. She is trying to cover it. The problem is it does not cover it. It does not cover this for the Boy Scouts. It does not have any enforcement mechanism for the Boy Scouts. They are going to have to go into court with this language the same as they would right now to try to get access to public schools in school districts across the country that are trying to deny them access. What we did instead was flip the burden. We flipped it to the school districts, saying: If you are going to deny the Boy Scouts, you are going to have to state why and clearly to the Federal educational agency if you are going to continue to get Federal funds. We put the onus and burden on the school districts in the Helms amendment, which is the proper and appropriate place to put it, instead of draining these private coffers of the Boy Scouts of America to pursue lawsuit after lawsuit in various jurisdictions to simply get access to public schools. What do you want to do? The Boxer amendment, while on its face would look fine, puts the burden back on the Boy Scouts. It says the Boy Scouts are going to have to go to court to get access. You have this law, yes; you have the Supreme Court ruling; but you are going to have to go to court and spend thousands and, at the end of the day, millions of dollars to get access to public schools for the Boy Scouts of America. Let's deny apple pie access to public schools next. They are going to make the Boy Scouts spend millions of dollars to get in and have a meeting at the public school. That is not appropriate. That is not the right place, to put this burden on the Boy Scouts. They raise private moneys to do character education and do what all of us laud, I believe, in this body. I believe all of us laud the Boy Scouts and what they are after and what they are doing. Maybe that is not the case. Maybe some do not. I hope everybody supports the Boy Scouts. This is not the right way to go. The Boxer amendment puts the burden back on the Boy Scouts to spend millions of dollars to fight their way into public schools. We should not do that. We do not need to do that. I would rather the Boy Scouts spend millions of dollars on camping, doing things as a scouting troop, as my son did when he was a part of the Boy Scouts, as some of the Eagle Scouts here did. I would rather they buy campgrounds and land to explore and take care of underprivileged youth, as Boy Scouts do across the country. I would rather they take underprivileged youth from inner cities as part of the Boy Scouts, take them to the countryside and camp and spend millions of dollars doing that rather than millions of dollars in court simply to gain access to the public educational institutions in our country for which we provide substantial funding. That is why this amendment is flawed and should fail and why I oppose this amendment. I urge my colleagues to oppose and vote against this amendment because we are shifting the burden back to the Boy Scouts and making them fight their way into the public schools. We really do not need to do that. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I appreciate that. I rise in support of the amendment. This is one that should pass 100-0. Hearing some of the comments on both sides of the aisle, I am not sure I understand why there should be any opposition to it. I will read the applicable part of the amendment. It is on page 2. It says to any State educational agency, if a school, or schools served by the agency, denies equal access or a fair opportunity to meet or discriminates against any group affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America or any other youth group that wishes to conduct a meeting within that designated open forum--and that is where the language is being worked on right now--on the basis of the membership or leadership criteria of the Boy Scouts, their funding is limited. As the Senator from North Carolina pointed out, most of these never get to that point. The Department of Education looks at it, investigates. It is worked out at the local school district level. This all gets worked out. The operative point here is that if the Boy Scouts are going to be discriminated against, you are going to go into a process of being reviewed on your Federal funding. Is this a legitimate concern? Some have raised the point this is not a legitimate concern. Let's look at the headlines. In the year following the decision of the Supreme Court, the Boy Scouts v. Dale, which affirmed the Scouts' right of free association--that is the issue here, right of free association, in the Constitution; it has been a raging storm. The New York Times has compared the Scouts to a hate group. Robert Scheer of the Los Angeles Times characterizes Scouts as engaged in hateful politics. They have been accused of bigotry. Activists groups have expressed being appalled at some of the Scouts' positions. Unfortunately, many school districts have responded to the controversy by attempting to discriminate against the Boy Scouts. This is a point I am reiterating from the Senator from Wyoming, a former Eagle Scout. I, unfortunately, was not an Eagle Scout. We didn't have the Boy Scouts in Parker, KS. I wish we had. My son was in the Boy Scouts. It is a great organization. Some of the school districts have followed on after this sort of hyperbole and rhetoric regarding the Boy Scouts and they have started to respond. Listen to what is happening. In Seattle, the home State of the Presiding Officer, from the Seattle Union Record: Safe Schools Coalition Asks for Restricted Access for Seattle Scouts. From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: Broward School Board to Review Scouts' Lease. From the Detroit News: Plymouth Schools to Vote on Ban on Scout Meetings. This is an active issue against the Boy Scouts of America. People are saying the Boy Scouts is a good organization: we like the Boy Scouts, are part of the Boy Scouts, continue to be a part of the Boy Scouts; we should let them have public access. If you think this is an insignificant amendment, vote for it 100-0 then. Unfortunately, the school districts' response to this controversy is based on what other people are saying about the Boy Scouts of America and not what the Boy Scouts are doing or saying. In Kansas, we have a tradition and a thought that is appropriate to bring here; that is, that you take people at their word. Rather than attempting to characterize the nature of the Boy Scouts as an organization or offering just my opinions on that, I think we ought to let them speak for themselves. We talk a lot on the floor about character, the need for character, the need for that in this country. Everybody would agree we need character. We need to bring back those fundamental principles that this country was built upon. Are the Boy Scouts a part of that? First and foremost, consider the question of whether or not Scouts are a hate group, as some have alleged. It is important to go back to the roots of this 90-year-old organization, look at the values upon which they exist. Let's consider their oath the Senator from Oregon was citing, which I think is so beautiful. It is something we all ought to memorize as U.S. Senators and others: On my honor I will do my best To do my duty to God and my country ``In God we trust,'' above the halls of the Senate, major door through which we walk. And to obey the Scout law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight. As a parent of five, I like that. I think that is pretty good. I think that is pretty good character education. I don't see anything hateful in it. However, the oath does refer to the Scout laws. Maybe we need to look to see if this is a hate group or not. In the Scout group, they call for trustworthiness. A Scout tells the truth, keeps his promises. Honesty is part of his code of conduct. People can depend on him. A Scout is loyal. A Scout is true to his family, Scout leaders, friends, school, and Nation. A Scout is helpful. A Scout is concerned about other people. He does things willingly for others without pay or reward. That is a nice notion to bring back. A Scout is friendly. A Scout is a friend to all. He is a brother to other Scouts. He seeks to understand others. He respects those with ideas and customs other than his own. A Scout is courteous. A Scout is polite to everyone, regardless of age or position. He knows good manners make it easier for people to get along together. A Scout is kind. A Scout understands there is strength in being gentle. He treats others as he wants to be treated. He does not hurt or kill harmless things without reason. A Scout is obedient. A Scout follows the rules of his family, school, and troop. He follows the rules of the school. He obeys the laws of his community and country. If he thinks these rules and laws are unfair, he tries to have them changed in an orderly manner rather than disobeying them. A Scout is cheerful. A Scout looks for the bright side of things. He cheerfully does tasks that come his way. He tries to make others happy. They may be being tasked on that one at this point in time. A Scout is thrifty. A Scout works to pay his way and to help others. He saves for unforeseen needs. He protects and conserves natural resources. He carefully uses time and property. A Scout is brave. A Scout can face danger, even if he is afraid. He has the courage to stand for what he thinks is right, even if others laugh at or threaten him. And they are being threatened today. A Scout is clean. A Scout keeps his body and mind fit and clean. He goes around with those who believe in living by these same ideals. He helps keep his home and community clean. He helps keep his home and community clean. A Scout is reverent toward God and faithful in his religious duties. Listen to this one. He respects the beliefs of others. I don't see any hate espoused there. In fact, quite the contrary, the Scout law advocates respecting the beliefs of others. Yet the Scouts' beliefs are not being respected here and they are being singled out for discrimination, and some are even alleging they are discriminatory. Helping others is part of it, as are being gentle and treating others with respect. That is part of their core values. Considering all of the violent and hateful influences which our children are exposed to on an hourly basis, I find it supremely ironic that school boards are so concerned with the influence of an organization whose slogan is ``do a good turn daily.'' Looking at the Scouts' founding principles may not be enough to clear the record. Perhaps it is better to take them at their word regarding the particular issue of this debate--their stand on having homosexual leaders. The question I believe many school boards in the country are asking is, Are the Boy Scouts of America a homophobic organization? To which I would aggressively respond: No. No, they are not. Even in their own creed they say ``respect for diversity.'' I want to put in a quote the Boy Scouts forwarded: The Boy Scouts of America respects the rights of people in groups who hold values that differ from those encompassed in the Scout Oath and Law, and the Boy Scouts of America makes no effort to deny the rights of those whose views differ to hold their attitudes or opinions. That is what the Boy Scouts say and do themselves. Scouts come from all walks of life. They are exposed to diversity in Scouting that they may not otherwise experience. I know from my work with the Scouts, it is a diverse group. It gives a lot of opportunity to a lot of kids. The Boy Scouts of America aim to allow youth to live and learn as children and enjoy Scouting without immersing them in the politics of the day. I think this last quote from the Boy Scouts is particularly appropriate. In truth, this debate is not about the Scouts--it is about the politics of the day into which the Scouts have been swept. They have had this motto, and they have had these views and they have been an organization 90 years. As far as the politics of banning one of the oldest and most noble youth organizations in this country from public property, we cannot, should not, and we must not let this happen. I call on all of my colleagues in the Senate to pass this worthy amendment. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I ask unanimous consent for 1 minute before my colleague from Minnesota speaks.

Mr. BROWNBACK. That is correct. We will maintain the same flow of people as under the unanimous consent request.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Can the Senator do it afterwards?

Mr. BROWNBACK. That is correct.

Mr. BROWNBACK. We are attempting to restrict it.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Yes, there is.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I am not prepared to enter into a time agreement.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, I renew my unanimous consent request that I put forward. I ask that the Democrats who are in turn speaking will not speak for more than 15 minutes in the unanimous consent request I put forward.

Mr. BROWNBACK. We are working with the primary sponsor of the amendment to get a further definition and clarity on that so that we can directly respond to the appropriate question of the Senator from West Virginia. We will do that as soon as possible.

Mr. BROWNBACK. If the Senator will yield for a response to that.

Mr. BROWNBACK. There would be no objection on my part if the Senator from Illinois is OK with that.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Spencer Stelljes, an intern in my office, be granted floor privileges during the remainder of the debate.