Ernest Istook

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, let me begin with the highest words of praise for the chief Democratic cosponsor of this legislation, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop). I have the highest, highest opinion of his courage, his commitment, his dedication, his efforts. I know it has been a difficult experience, some of the experiences which the gentleman has gone through on this, and I appreciate his efforts to try to make sure that this legislation is in the best possible form. As we all know, we are part of the process that includes consideration of the constitutional amendment not only by the House but by the Senate, and we go through a perfecting process, trying to listen at every stage, trying to learn from that. When I began efforts on this amendment about 4 years ago, we frequently had meetings with 40 or 50 people at a time to try to get a multitude of opinions, and some did not necessarily support the effort. I met with them privately. I met with people who were adamantly in favor of the status quo and did not want anything done. I still met with them. I even went to the national convention of the group which has financed and pushed so many of these lawsuits. It is a kind of an offshoot of the ACLU called Americans United for Separation of Church and State. I accepted an invitation they were gracious enough to extend to speak to them at their national convention. It was not exactly a friendly reception. But we have all sought to listen and learn, and the lesson ought to be that we ought to understand to be tolerant. As the Supreme Court justices who dissented from these decisions said, if we will listen to one another, we will develop not just a tolerance but an affection for each other's faith, rather than trying to conceal the fact that there are some differences. Justice Potter Stewart dissented from the original school prayer cases, saying you cannot conceal the fact that there are differences, and if you try to conceal it and keep it out of the schools, all you will do is make the problem worse. And the problem has become worse, with people saying, I have a right to shut you up because I do not like the way you may pray or maybe I do not like prayer at all. Now, the amendments of the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop), I do not favor them, but I told the Committee on Rules and everyone for years, I support his right to offer those and make sure important issues are addressed. I believe that we should do what every State in the Union does, which is have an expressed reference to God in the Constitution. In 42 of the 50 States, they do not say ``creator,'' they do not say ``supreme ruler of the universe,'' they say either ``God'' or ``Almighty God,'' and I think that it is proper and in tune with the best traditions of this country to say the same thing. There is no functional difference between this and the language of the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop), but I do think there is an important thing that resonates with the American people. Regarding the language should government benefits be denied to someone on account of religion, should they? We already have Supreme Court decisions that permit it. But the Supreme Court has been going back and forth on it. We have hundreds of millions of dollars each year that go into social service programs run by churches, including over $1 billion a year to Catholic Charities, USA. We have Pell grants, student loans and GI benefits that go not only to public universities and colleges but also to church ones, whether it be the university where I attended, Baylor University, or Georgetown or Notre Dame or Southern Methodist or whatever it might be. This is nothing new or different. We are not talking about funding religious activity. But there have been a series of court attacks, and the court's rulings have been one of these precarious 5-4, and this time 5-4 in favor of it, and we wanted to preserve that, lest the court go off and say, we are going to start saying if your group is connected with a religion you are disqualified from any sort of Federal benefit program. So I know that it invites people to try to claim that we are financing churches, which is not the case whatsoever. We are not requiring any money to go to any group. We are just saying if the government funds some activity for some public purpose, then you do not disqualify somebody from participating just because they may be related to church. It might be useful to look at the cover story of Newsweek Magazine this week, which is about this very thing, how groups fighting crime, fighting drugs, fighting teenage pregnancy have such higher success rates if they are based in churches and they are faith-based. We want those programs to be able to continue, because they are good and because they work, and they work so much better because they appeal to values. That is why some people, perhaps, are afraid of prayer in school, because they say, my goodness, the idea of talking about values is threatening. Sure, parents ought to be talking about it. But do we say that parents, you do your job at home and, by the way, we are going to take your child away for most of the day and put him in school, where they do not have the possibility of the same influences and the same values that you taught at home? That is the captive audience; not the ``captive audience'' so-called of someone who says, ``I do not want to hear a prayer; therefore, these court decisions give me the right to make you stop it.'' What has happened to our society as that has happened? Look at the guns, the knives, the drugs, the teenage pregnancies in public schools, and you tell me we do not need to make sure that values are repeated every time we can? And you cannot separate them. You cannot separate them from the moral basis, and you cannot separate a moral basis from a religious basis. Government should never insist, never, never, never, never, never, that people have a particular faith or they be compelled to pray, and this amendment makes sure they never will. But it stops the practice of government interfering and silencing people. Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to present this. I urge Members, with or without the Bishop amendments, to vote for the Religious Freedom Amendment.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, we are closing the debate on general debate, but we will have a further discussion about a proposed amendment in just a moment. I think it is very important that we keep in mind, Mr. Speaker, that I have heard many people say, we do not want majority rule. That raises a lot of questions in people's minds, because most of the Supreme Court decisions which will be corrected by the Religious Freedom Amendment were decided by the narrowest of all possible margins, 5 to 4 on the Supreme Court. But they refused to correct it. They have refused to fix it. So I guess they do not want the majority of Americans to rule, they only want the slimmest possible majority on the Supreme Court to dictate and say that, in today's era of political correctness, there is not much worse than having somebody offer a prayer if there is someone else in the room that does not want to hear it. What a false standard. It is not just about freedom of religion, it is about free speech. If we cannot say something to a group unless everybody there agrees with us, we do not have free speech. And if we are told that we cannot offer a prayer when we are on government property, and that is everywhere today, then we do not have the right to pray and we do not have religious freedom, if we only have it when we are in a confined area, selected for us by the U.S. Supreme Court. We are not advocating government interfere with religion. We are advocating that government stop interfering with religion and stop dumping on the constitutional rights. Now, I heard the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) say, how will the Court understand this any better than the first amendment? Because we have taken the same structure and said, do not have an official religion, but this is what the people's rights are. And we have spelled out what is permitted. And I noticed, maybe it was a Freudian slip, the gentleman read the first part of the first amendment, ``Congress will make no law respecting the establishment of a religion,'' and he entirely left out the next phrase, ``or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'' Because that is what the Supreme Court has done. They have left out the second part of the first amendment. They have only focused on there cannot be an establishment of religion; and having a prayer in school is the same thing, the same thing as having an officially chosen church for people in the country; and they leave out the next part of the first amendment that says we cannot not prohibit the free exercise of religion. They are so scared that somebody will be offended that they forget that they have offended almost everybody in the process. How about the people that want to be able to pray in a group? The Lord taught us not only to pray in private and singly but also to pray together. And if my colleagues do not believe that, read the Sermon on the Mount and see where He prayed with multitudes, not just singly or in private. Mr. Speaker, we believe in traditions of prayer that are both private and public. They are both good. They are both positive. They are both what should be protected by the Constitution of the United States of America. The Supreme Court has wrongly said we are only going to protect it when it is private or in secret and nobody else knows about it. We want to be able to come together. Come let us reason together. Come let us pray together. As four Justices in many of those 5-4 decisions wrote, nothing, absolutely nothing is so inclined to foster among religious believers of various faiths a toleration, no, an affection for one another, than voluntarily joining in prayer together. Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas and White. That is the standard we seek to apply.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I think it is time to restore some perspective on what we are discussing and what we are not. This is the text of the Religious Freedom Amendment. ``To secure the people's right to acknowledge God according to the dictates of conscience: Neither the United States nor any State shall establish any official religion, but the people's right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage or traditions on public property, including schools, shall not be infringed. Neither the United States nor any State shall require any person to join in prayer or other religious activity, prescribe school prayers, discriminate against religion, or deny equal access to a benefit on account of religion.'' That is what is at issue before us, and people that do not like it seem to fall into, they say, one of two categories. Either those who say there is no problem or those who say, well, there is just no solution. Those who say there is no problem, I have gotten very tired of hearing people say, oh, they already have prayers in school; because we have got math tests, we have got prayer in school; or because we do have Bible clubs that are permitted to meet on school grounds. Ladies and gentlemen, read the law. Read what the Supreme Court said. They are permitted to meet on school grounds before school or after school. They are not permitted to meet during instructional time like any other student club is: Spanish club, chess club, Future Teachers of America, whatever it may be. They can meet during a recess. They can meet during a lunch time. They can meet during a study hall. But not a faith-based club. Read the Supreme Court decision on the equal access law. Maybe some are still doing it; they are practicing civil disobedience, and more power to them, because, perhaps, the ACLU and the other groups that oppose this amendment have not gotten around to filing suit there yet. That is why we still have some prayer in different environments. They have not yet filed all the suits. Someone mentioned football game prayer. Great. I think it is fine. They are suing in West Virginia to stop it. Look at Ohio, with the ACLU suing to stop the use of the State motto, which is ``With God, all things are possible.'' I mean, they are coming down on it right and left all over the country. Do you say there is no problem, or do you say, well, there is no solution? To those who say maybe there is a problem but this is not the way to go about it, get your heads out of the sand. What are you doing about it? I could not believe I heard one Member earlier say that, yes, we have a problem but we already have the right to do the same things that this says, so just fight for it. If they seek to punish us, just protest and fight. What are they saying? Do they or do they not respect a court opinion even if they disagree with it? Are they saying that the solution is for people to go out there and fight against what the Supreme Court has said, or use the orderly process set up by the Constitution to fix it when the Supreme Court has gone astray and has twisted and distorted the beautiful, plain, simple words of the First Amendment? That is what we are trying to do, use the peaceful process to resolve the disputes. If my colleagues say, well, yes, there is a problem but we ought to do something about it, then what is their solution, and why are they not helping us? I have heard persons say there is a problem but we do not want this amendment. Those persons have not done diddly to help with this effort. Vote for the RFA.

Mr. ISTOOK. Madam Speaker, I rise not only on behalf of myself but over 150 Members of this body who are cosponsors of the Religious Freedom Amendment because we are tired of seeing what the Supreme Court has done to change the first amendment. We cherish the first amendment of the United States of America. It has been attacked and twisted and warped by the U.S. Supreme Court. For some people who say, oh, all these problems can just be corrected with a phone call, before I even talk about some of the Supreme Court decisions, let me tell my colleagues the story of Zacharia Hood, a first grader in Medford, New Jersey. He was told, because they had a reading contest in school, you get to read the story you want to, to class. He said great. He said, I want to read this story about two brothers that reunited after being apart. He wanted to read the story of the reunion of Jacob and Esau from his copy of the Beginners Bible. The story does not even mention the word God. But his teacher said, oh, horrors. We have been told there is separation of church and State. You cannot read it. This disappointed six-year-old told his parents, and they tried making these phone calls. No good. They tried going to the school and the school board. No good. They said, this is an infringement on religious liberty; we are going to exercise our right in court. The Federal judge, just a few months ago, said, oh, no, under all these cases from the U.S. Supreme Court, the schools can tell us we cannot read a story from the Beginners Bible no matter what it says or does not say; that, rather than the first amendment, all they pay attention to is what somebody said. Oh, it is separation of church and State. What does that mean? As the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady) said, it has been condemned, using that phrase as a substitute for what the Constitution really says and was meant to say. The Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, the one that is sitting right over there in the Supreme Court chambers right now, has said that is wayward. That is wrong. That diverts people from knowing what the Constitution really is and what it is supposed to be. Yet, that Supreme Court, with him dissenting and with a number of other judges dissenting, has embarked upon a pattern of attacking people and saying, if we are trying to express a prayer, same way we started Congress, but if we are trying to express a prayer on public property, we are going to be limited. We are going to be restricted. Other things, hey, do what we want. They protected Nazi Swastikas on public property. They have protected burning crosses. Supreme Court decisions. But in 1962, they said, even when it is voluntary, for children during the school day to pray together is against the Constitution. In 1980, they said, if the 10 Commandments is posted on the wall of a school, it is unconstitutional, because students might read them and might obey them. Imagine, in an era when guns, knives, and drugs are common in public schools, we are told the 10 Commandments is not welcome if not permitted. In 1985, the law from the State of Alabama said we can have a moment of silence; and one of the many purposes to which you can apply this, if we choose, is silent prayer. The Supreme Court said, nope, that is unconstitutional to permit silent prayer. In 1992, they said, to have a minister, in this case it was a Jewish Rabbi, to come and speak at a school graduation was unconstitutional because there might be some students there that would disagree with the prayer, and they would not want to be expected to be respectful with something with which they disagree. That is what the Supreme Court said; fortunately, not all of them. What we are doing today in the Religious Freedom Amendment is taking what the justices who disagreed with the rest of them, taking what Supreme Court justices said ought to be the policy, what the intent was of the Founding Fathers, and we have put that into the Religious Freedom Amendment. As in several of these cases I have cited, they were 5/4 decisions. One of them was the graduation prayer case. I want to read what four Supreme Court justices wrote about prayer in this case, which was Lee v. Weisman (1992). Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, White, and Thomas wrote this about the proper interpretation of the first amendment, had the Supreme Court not gone awry. They said, ``Nothing, absolutely nothing, is so inclined to foster among religious believers of various faiths a toleration, no, an affection for one another than voluntarily joining in prayer together to the God whom they all worship and seek. Needless to say, no one should be compelled to do that. But it is a shame to deprive our public culture of the opportunity and, indeed, the encouragement for people to do it voluntarily. The Baptist or Catholic who heard and joined in the simple and inspiring prayers of Rabbi Gutterman was inoculated from religious bigotry and prejudice in a manner that cannot be replicated. To deprive our society of that important unifying mechanism in order to spare the nonbeliever what seems to be the minimal inconvenience of standing or even sitting in respectful nonparticipation is senseless.'' That is what we say in the Religious Freedom Amendment: It is senseless to say that everyone else must be censored and silenced because someone chooses to be intolerant. Prayer is not divisive. Prayer is unifying. What is divisive is for people to teach that we should not respect the prayer of another person or that we should not respect prayer in general. If you teach your children that, shame on you. But if we want people to be united, give them the chance to come together and express things positively. The Religious Freedom Amendment does that. No compulsion. Government cannot dictate anything. Government cannot say we must pray. Government cannot tell us what our prayer must be. But government has to get out of the censorship business. The Pledge of Allegiance is the proper standard. The Supreme Court has ruled, in the late 1940s, no one can be compelled to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I agree. But they did not permit someone who did not want to say it to censor and stop the rest of the students in that classroom who did want to join together. That is the proper standard for prayer in public schools. If we want to do it, it is permitted. If we do not want to, we do not have to. But we do not have the right to shut people up and censor them just because we choose to be thin-skinned and intolerant when someone else is trying to express their faith. I urge support of this amendment.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I want to make sure that everyone understands, the amendment that is offered by the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop), which is very worthy of consideration, actually has two different topics that are addressed in it. I believe under the Rules of the House that it is proper to request a division when it comes time to vote so we will have separate vote on the first issue and then a separate vote on the second one. I want to make a parliamentary inquiry if that is correct and if it is at this time or a later time that I need to make the request for the division.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, if the President were to say that there are grave problems within the Executive Branch, we would be wise to listen. If the Speaker were to say that there are grave problems within the Congress, we would be wise to listen. If the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court said there were problems with what that Court was doing, we would be wise to listen. Mr. Speaker, the Chief Justice has said so. The rulings of the Supreme Court over the last 36 years have used the first amendment not to protect freedom of religion but to attack it; to say that rather than freedom of religion, it is freedom from religion. I am proud to say that Chief Justice William Rehnquist, as well as many other justices, has been a steady voice in dissenting from what the other justices have done. He has been a steady voice in saying that the Court is going in the wrong direction; that it is undermining our religious liberty, rather than protecting it. Because in 1962 the court began an attack that says, well, if you are on public property, other people have a right to censor you if you want to pray or otherwise express your religion. That is not freedom of religion. That is not even free speech. As so many Supreme Court justices have said over the years in dissent, their brethren have gone the wrong way. It is incumbent upon us, Mr. Speaker, because the Supreme Court has not corrected it, it is incumbent upon us to correct it, through the only way that works. No presidential guideline makes any difference when the Supreme Court claims something is unconstitutional. No regulation can make a difference. No statute can make a difference. The only remedy left to us is the one that was established within the Constitution itself, for a constitutional amendment. Previously, for example, the 13th amendment was one of a number of amendments that have been adopted when the Supreme Court went in the wrong direction. When the Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott decision that neither the Congress nor the States could put an end to slavery, we passed the 13th amendment. After that terrible bloody Civil War, we put an end to slavery, but it took a constitutional amendment to do it, and we followed the process that has been established to correct things when the Supreme Court goes in the wrong direction. That is what we are doing today, because the Supreme Court in 1962 ruled that even when it was voluntary, if it was during the school day, children could not come together and say a prayer together. They ruled in 1980 that the Ten Commandments could not be posted on the wall of a public school, because the Supreme Court said children might read them and obey them. Well, in an era when we have guns and knives and drugs in school, maybe the Ten Commandments and prayer would not be as bad. In 1985, the Supreme Court took a law from the State of Alabama that made a moment of silence permissible and said, no, that is unconstitutional because it permits silent prayer. In 1992, the Supreme Court ruled that a prayer offered in this case by a Jewish Rabbi at a graduation ceremony was unconstitutional because, they said, it is wrong to expect children to be respectful of something with which they might disagree. Since when, Mr. Speaker, are we teaching our children disrespect, rather than respect? As a number of Supreme Court justices have said in dissenting from these decisions, and many of them were the narrowest decisions, 5-4 margins, as a number of them have indicated, the way to unite people is to bring them together in prayer, not to isolate one another and claim that prayer in school is somehow a threat, rather than a unifying force. It should never be mandatory, Mr. Speaker, but it should be permitted.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. I might mention, because I have read comments from different city officials and the city of Republic, and they make the point that that is meant to be an emblem of religion, the principles of religion generally as opposed to saying it has to be any one particular faith. Indeed, I asked the Congressional Research Service to look at this for me. They gave me information today that, actually, the symbol of a fish has been used for thousands of years around the world, even before Christianity has been used for a thousand of years, even before the life of Christ as a religious symbol. They indicated it had been used in China, in India, in Egypt, in Greece, in Rome in Scandinavia, in the Mideast, even before Jesus Christ was born.

Mr. ISTOOK. I thank the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Dickey). I appreciate, Mr. Speaker, the many Members who have joined together in supporting this amendment, because the American people have never accepted what the Supreme Court has done in taking the First Amendment, which is meant to protect religion, as a shield for freedom of religion, and instead they have used it as a weapon, as a sword against religious freedom, saying that, you know, you have enough chance to speak freely about your religion in private, or maybe at church or other places, and you do not need to be able to do so if you are present on public property. Yet our children are required to be at school, because we want them to be educated. We want to have a society that is self-sufficient and self-reliant, and that means an educated population. But why do we say that during the time when you are required by law to be at school, you are also required by law to be isolated from normal religious activity, things as simple and common and ordinary and as positive as a prayer, the simple prayer of a child of faith and hope at the start of the day? And if children want to join together and have a prayer, let them do so. To say that we believe in religious diversity means that we recognize there will be different prayers offered. The Religious Freedom Amendment carefully makes sure that we do not have government officials composing a prayer or insisting that a prayer must be said or insisting that anybody must take part in a prayer. There is an express prohibition against that. But yet there is the freedom, the opportunity, the ability for people to join in prayer together. I think that it is a sad day to read, as I read in one newspaper recently, can you imagine a newspaper editorial writer actually wrote, ``Freedom to pray should stop at the schoolhouse door.'' I read that in the Arizona republic, in an editorial that they wrote just in this last week. They said ``Freedom to pray should stop at the schoolhouse door.'' Now, what else are we going to say? Does that newspaper want freedom of the press to stop at the schoolhouse door? Do they want to say that newspapers should be banned in public schools because, after all, they may bring in ideas that not everyone likes? They may bring in some things that are controversial. They may bring in things that make some people uncomfortable. They may bring in, along with the news and information of the day, they may bring in some negative influences too. Do we say, therefore, that the bad outweighs the good and we should not have free speech? No. We have free speech because we believe that most speech is good, that most ideas are reasonably presented, and if that means that sometimes there is a price to pay, that we let someone with an unpopular idea have the respect for their ideas, just as respect is given to good ideas, then we understand that. I heard a Member of this House, Mr. Speaker, in the last week take to the floor and say that, well, he was concerned that supposedly what we are doing is opening the door for unpopular groups or cults, or even a group such as a satanic group, to come into schools. Well, Mr. Speaker, this does not open the door for just anybody to come into school. The schoolhouse door is open for children, for those who have a right to be there. This amendment does nothing to invite other people in. But if we believe in the right to pray, his opinion was that you will only have negative influences and you will only have negative prayers, or at least that is all that he seems to hear. But, Mr. Speaker, in my lifetime, in my lifetime, it is almost never that I have ever heard in public or private a prayer that is anything other than a positive experience; and if in order to hear millions of positive prayers, do we say that we are going to suppress them just because once in a very extremely isolated incident there may be someone who uses that same freedom to say something that almost all of us would not like, do we therefore ban prayers in public schools? I think not. Besides which, if you want to look at the negative influences in school, you will have many people that will tell you, you have already got the devil in public schools, because they will point to the rates of crime, they will point to the rates of violence, they will point to drug use, they will point to alcohol, they will point to gangs, they will point to teenage pregnancies. And do not tell me that you do not have devilish influences in public schools. But yet what the Supreme Court does is not to keep out that type of influence, but to keep out the good, godly, positive, uplifting, spiritual prayers and influences. That is what has happened. It is the sanitizing of that which is good, and leaving only that which is base or suspect or negative. That is what happens when you try to remove the positive religious influences from a society. Government does not have the job of telling us what to believe or that we must believe anything about religion, but it also should not have the job of censoring those who want to simply recognize their religious heritage or religion or to offer a simple prayer, who have a right to be in public schools, that are required by law to be in public school. And the ones who want to pray are the true captive audience in our public schools, because they are not permitted to do what is normal and good. We have prayer to open sessions of this House. We have prayers to open sessions of State legislatures and city councils, chamber of commerce meetings, Kiwanis Club meetings, Rotary Club meetings and a vast number of organizations and groups within our society, because they know it is something that is powerful, something that is good, something that is part of the common bond that brings us together and puts the accent on what we share, not only how we are different. I think it is useful to understand, as a Supreme Court justice wrote, that you do not isolate children from the understanding that, yes, there are different ways that people go about these things. There are different ways in which people may offer the prayer. There are different faiths. And if you believe in diversity, you do not believe in isolating children from that knowledge, until suddenly they are adult and say oh, this is an adult topic. Now you are ready to handle it. No, this is a topic that starts at our very earliest age, and is something that brings with it the values and traditions and beliefs of the United States of America itself. Mr. Speaker, it was a sad day when organizations such as the ACLU persuaded the Supreme Court to distort the First Amendment, and we have had a number of sad days since then where they have continued to distort it, to use it not to promote religious freedom, but to use it as a weapon against religion. So I find there are some myths that are out there. There is a myth, some say, oh, the amendment is not really needed. We do not need a religious freedom amendment; we have the First Amendment already. Mr. Speaker, if we were talking about the First Amendment as understood by the Founding Fathers, I think we would all agree, because then we would not have the warping of it from the courts. But as I mentioned before, in 1962 the court struck down not only mandatory, but also voluntarily, prayers by students together in public schools. In 1980 they said the Ten Commandments have to come down. In 1985 they said it is unconstitutional to have a moment of silence. In 1992 they said a prayer at a school graduation was unconstitutional. What we have left is not neutrality towards religion. It is negative. Yes, school Bible clubs may exist, but they are under restrictions that do not apply to other school clubs. The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, William Rehnquist, in Wallace v. Jaffree talked about how people throw around, rather than the language of the First Amendment, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, they throw around instead a catch-phrase which they call separation of church and State. But I find what they mean by it and what different people mean will vastly vary. Because, you see, Mr. Speaker, we have people that believe that as government has grown, it is in every aspect of our society today. It is larger than it ever has been before. As government has grown, if the rule is separation of church and State, where government goes religion cannot be. Where government enters religion must exit. If they say separation of church and State is the guideline, then that means as government grows, religion must shrink. Let me tell my colleagues what the Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote about it. This was in that moment of silence case, Wallace v. Jaffree. The Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, William Rehnquist, said the use of the term separation of church and State has caused what he called ``a mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intention of the drafters of the Bill of Rights. A metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging what should be, frankly and explicitly, abandoned.'' That is the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, I am not proposing that we abandon the proper interpretation, but it has been twisted and distorted and used as a weapon against religion. Then we have another myth that somehow government would declare an official faith, that supposedly that is what people want with the Religious Freedom Amendment. Not so. That is why we expressly have the language in it to reiterate what the First Amendment already says, because we are not replacing it; we are only putting this to lay alongside it. But the Religious Freedom Amendment also says, ``Neither the United States nor any State shall establish any official religion.'' Then we have the myth that, oh, society is more diverse. Nonsense. There were many different religions in the days of the Founding Fathers. There are many different religions today. If they say, well, some people do not want to hear the prayer, what they are really saying is that the most intolerant persons in our society are now told that they can stifle the rest of us. Not because there is anything wrong with what people are saying in a prayer or about their religion, but because some people are so intolerant, they do not want to hear it. We hear them say things like, oh, it makes me feel bad, or I feel like I do not belong. Mr. Speaker, all of us at one time or another in our lives feel like we may not belong. But part of life is learning that we do belong, and that we believe in things that are common, and the Religious Freedom Amendment restates what we have in common. Then we have the myth that religion belongs only in the home. Can we imagine if the Founding Fathers had written that we will have freedom of religion only in our homes and no place else; that as government grew and government property was everywhere, that we could not have freedom of religion if we were standing on government property? Whether it be standing in this Chamber of the House of Representatives, or standing in a schoolroom or in a classroom, to say that religious freedom stops when one goes into the schoolhouse, as this newspaper in Arizona said, is not the American way. It is not what we believe as Americans. And yet, the Supreme Court has been adopting that philosophy of saying the First Amendment is meant to protect from religion rather than to protect religion. Mr. Speaker, it is the first time that this House, since 1971, will have a vote on a school prayer amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the first time. It has been 27 years; that is far too long. The amendment has been through a number of hearings that were held all over the country by the Committee on the Judiciary over the last 2 or 3 years. It has been approved by the Subcommittee on the Constitution. It has been approved by the Committee on the Judiciary. It is supported by a multitude of religious and faith-based groups, because they believe that religious liberty indeed has been threatened in the United States of America by the Supreme Court decisions, which will be corrected by the Religious Freedom Amendment. Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer two documents for the Record. One is a newspaper article from the Human Events publication that was published this week, an article I authored regarding the Religious Freedom Amendment. Also, I will provide to the Clerk, as well, a copy of a document that was written by the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. I would like to offer both of those to appear in the Record following my remarks. Mr. Speaker, I know that we cannot discuss everything about this amendment this evening, and we are continuing to discuss it. But I want to commend the attention of every Member of this body and anyone else who is interested in it that we do have a Web site that talks about much of this. That is, religiousfreedom.house.gov., and I hope that people will take a look at that because, Mr. Speaker, the American people need to tell their Member of Congress now that they want and expect their support for the Religious Freedom Amendment, we are approximately 3 weeks away from the vote the first week in June, to say that once again in the schools of America, government will not insist that it happen, but we will permit students who want to engage in prayer in public school to be able to do so, whether it be a public school or a graduation or a football game, to give that freedom once more that has been taken away by these decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Speaker, I urge all who are hearing or watching this evening to contact their Member of Congress and tell them, we need you to support the Religious Freedom Amendment. Mr. Speaker, the material previously referred to is as follows: Fact Sheet on the RFA [The following is from a recent publication by the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention] The Religious Freedom Amendment (RFA) is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution. The language of the amendment is as follows: ``To secure the people's right to acknowledge God according to the dictates of conscience. Neither the United States nor any State shall establish any official religion, but the people's right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage or traditions on public property, including schools, shall not be infringed. Neither the United States nor any State shall require any person to join in prayer or other religious activity, prescribe school prayers, discriminate against religion, or deny equal access to a benefit on account of religion.'' What the Religious Freedom Amendment Would and Would Not Do: It WOULD correct years of judicial misinterpretation of the establishment clause. It WOULD NOT revoke the establishment clause. It WOULD reverse many of the restrictions the courts have placed upon the free exercise of religion, on government property in general, and public schools in particular. It WOULD NOT permit government-sponsored religion or proselytizing. It WOULD allow greater freedom for students who wish to pray. It WOULD NOT ``require'' prayer in public schools. It WOULD require government to treat all religions fairly. It WOULD NOT permit preference for one religion or sect over another. It WOULD advance belief in religious freedom. It WOULD NOT advance any particular religious belief. It WOULD give greater protection to individuals against government intrusion. It WOULD NOT create any new right for government. It WOULD guarantee that no person be discriminated against on account of religion. It WOULD NOT require than any person be given special status on account of religion. It WOULD require equal access to all people regardless of religion. It WOULD NOT require unreasonable access to government facilities. It WOULD protect the liberty of conscience of all people. It WOULD NOT protect only the liberty of people of a majority faith, or of a minority faith, or of no faith. Why do we need a constitutional amendment? ``We have given the courts more than 30 years to get this issue right, and they have persisted in not doing so. Legislative remedies would in all probability be overturned by the present federal judiciary. It is time for the people to give the courts further instructions . . . by the means provided by our founders, namely amending the Constitution. We must . . . constitutionally guarantee the free exercise of public school students and all citizens. We do not ask for, and do not want, government's help in expressing our beliefs or acknowledging our religious heritage. The most and best government can do is guarantee a level playing field and then stay off the field.''

Mr. ISTOOK. Let me just make a quick reference. I know there is another member that would like to get involved in this. We look at our currency, and this is the back of the one dollar bill, it says, of course, ``in God we trust.'' A lot of people do not notice something else. If you look here in this circle of the Great Seal of the United States, on the front side of it you have the eagle, and above its head is a cluster of 13 stars. But look at the pattern in which those stars are arranged. It is a Star of David, the symbol of another faith, Judaism. Are we to say that the Great Seal of the United States of America is unconstitutional because it includes an emblem of the Jewish faith? I do not think so. I think that that shows, again, a recognition and what should be an acceptance of many different faiths, but you do it by permitting, not by excluding. I would like to yield to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Dickey).

Mr. ISTOOK. Yes.

Mr. ISTOOK. But there is no perfect symbol. There will always be, to any symbol, some people who object, saying I do not like that. In the case of Edmond, Oklahoma, I thought it was an outrageous comment, but they had a person saying, well, every time I see the city seal on a police car or something, it makes me feel like a second-class citizen. So what the courts did was they elevated this subjective approach, the fact that somebody felt bad maybe because they were thin-skinned or sensitive or maybe they had had some unfortunate incidents in their life, but because somebody felt bad, it trumped the constitutional rights of free speech and free expression and freedom of religion of everybody else. That is the problem with the court decisions. They say unless it is unanimous, unless everybody agrees on some religious expression, you cannot have it, and maybe not even then. Well, you do not expect that of anything else. Why use the first amendment as a weapon against religion, which is what the courts are doing, saying that you do not have freedom of expression of religion, that it is supposedly creating a freedom from hearing about religion on behalf of people that do not want to hear it.

Mr. ISTOOK. They took off the cross and left a blank spot.

Mr. ISTOOK. Yes. Mr. Speaker, what the gentleman has is a copy of the city seal which had been adopted a number of years ago by Edmond, Oklahoma, which is in my congressional district. You can see a multiple number of emblems on it. You see at the top some oil derricks and a locomotive. You see on the left the tower from the University of Central Oklahoma, which is located there. On the bottom, you have a covered wagon in 1899 from the Land Run of 1899. You have a pair of hands above that, collapsed in friendship. Then to the right of that, you have a cross as a symbol of the community's great religious faith. Unfortunately, a lawsuit was brought, and, ultimately, when it got to the Supreme Court, the ruling of the Supreme Court said the cross has got to go. It was a great shock to a great many people, because they did not mean that as an expression to say that you have to be of one faith or another faith, but they did want to say that religious worship is a vital part of the lives of people in the community. It is part of the tradition or heritage or beliefs of the community, as we mention, of course, in the religious freedom amendment. Edmond is not alone. Still, Ohio has had to take a Bible off of its city seal. You had a case in Eugene, Oregon where a cross, large cross had to be taken down from public property; one where the Supreme Court ruled last year that a cross, which it stood for almost 70 years in a public park in San Francisco, had to come down. You have a similar case in Hawaii. All over the place. Anything that involves a religious symbol on public property is coming down. In part, that somewhat begs the issue of, well, how far do you want to go in knocking down religious symbols. You mention, of course, that on our currency we have ``In God we trust.'' You look right behind you and above the Speaker's head, and we have it here in the House Chamber, ``In God we trust.'' You have States with mottos like that. In Ohio, their State motto is ``With God, all things are possible.'' The ACLU is suing them right now to have them stop using the State motto in Ohio. It is one of all sorts of cases against prayer in public places and football games and on other occasions. But when you say that because a symbol has religious value to some people, therefore it has to be considered suspect and stricken down. I mean, let us look at what the Supreme Court has done. They have struck down the cross. But the same Supreme Court in 1977 said a Nazi swastika, a symbol of hate, was protected for display at a public march on public streets in Skokie, Illinois, in a community that had many Jewish survivors of the Nazi Holocaust, the effort to exterminate Jews. A symbol of hate the Supreme Court said was protected. They backed that up in 1992, striking down a hate crimes law because it was against things such as Nazi swastikas or burning crosses. If you carry on with those, I mean how far do you want to go? A beetle is an ancient Egyptian religious emblem. Eagle feathers are considered sacred to many American Indians. You have other occasions. Things that are considered sacred to one religion, do we say because it is sacred to some religion, that therefore it cannot be displayed on public property? I know that you are going through this right now in your district in a community in Missouri.

Mr. ISTOOK. Yes.

Mr. ISTOOK. That is correct.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, this evening I think it is important that we talk about one of the very first liberties, one of the very first freedoms of the United States of America, something which motivated people to cross the ocean hundreds of years ago in some very small and leaky ships. I am talking about people such as those who first came to Jamestown, those who were the Puritans and pilgrims who were motivated to come to the United States, in large part because they wanted a land of religious freedom. They wanted a land where everyone was free to worship or not worship according to the dictates of their own conscience and not be compelled by the government to give obeisance to any particular faith but certainly to have the freedom without intimidation, whether in private or in public, to express their faith in God. I bring this to the attention of the House tonight, Mr. Speaker, because this is a liberty that is the first one enshrined in our Bill of Rights and yet which is jeopardized by a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions that basically go back to 1962, decisions that are decisions that discriminate against those who wish to pray at public school, against school prayer. Voluntary school prayer even is not permitted in the same way that free speech and free religion should permit it. It is restricted at public school graduations. The Ten Commandments, the U.S. Supreme Court has said, are unconstitutional if someone tries to display them in a schoolhouse. They have struck down nativity scenes and not only Christian emblems but, for example, a Jewish menorah whose display at a county courthouse was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, even though, Mr. Speaker, we open sessions of this House with prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag and we are in a Chamber which has many religious symbols, in a building which has many religious symbols, in a place which has many religious symbols. But the U.S. Supreme Court has been ruling that those are taboo, they are off limits, they are unconstitutional if they are involved in a public place such as in the school or a courthouse or many other public forums. It is because of those threats, Mr. Speaker, that over 150 Members of this body have banded together as sponsors of the religious freedom amendment, a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution upon which we will be voting in this House of Representatives in approximately 3 weeks from now, because it is about time that we correct what the U.S. Supreme Court has done. Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer for the Record, and I will give it to the Clerk in a minute, a very simple fact sheet about the religious freedom amendment. Mr. Speaker, this particular sheet is from a recent publication by the Ethics of Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, one of the great number of religious groups in this country who are supporting this amendment. The religious freedom amendment reads, very simply and very straightforward. It is as follows: ``To secure the people's right to acknowledge God, according to the dictates of conscience: Neither the United States, nor any State, shall establish any official religion, but the people's rights to pray and to recognize the religious beliefs, heritage, or traditions on public property, including schools, shall not be infringed. Neither the United States nor any State shall require any person to join in prayer or other religious activity, prescribe school prayers, discriminate against religion, or deny equal access to a benefit on account of religion.'' That is the text of the proposed religious freedom amendment, upon which we will be voting shortly, to correct the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court which have pushed our country in the wrong direction, not in a direction of neutrality, but in a direction of hostility towards religion. And reading from the facts sheet of the Southern Baptist Convention Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, what the religious freedom amendment would and would not do: It would correct years of judicial misinterpretation of the establishment clause. It would not revoke the establishment clause. It would reverse many of the restrictions that courts have placed upon the free exercise of religion on government property in general and public schools in particular. It would not permit government- sponsored religion or proselytizing. It would allow greater freedom for students who wish to pray. It would not require prayer in public schools. It would require government to treat all religions fairly. It would not permit preference for one religion or sect over another. It would advance belief in religious freedom. It would not advance any particular religious belief. It would give greater protection to individuals against government intrusion. It would not create any new right for government. It would guarantee that no person be discriminated against on account of religion. It would not require that any person be given special status on account of religion. It would require equal access to all people, regardless of religion. It would not require unreasonable access to government facilities. It would protect the liberty of conscience of all people. It would not protect only the liberty of people of a majority faith or of a minority faith or of no faith. That is a good succinct summary, because, Mr. Speaker, it is hard to be brief about the many problems that have come from these Supreme Court decisions. It was 1962 when the Supreme Court said that even when it is totally voluntary by students, they cannot come together during school time in public school to have a prayer together. And yet, Mr. Speaker, I am so pleased that so many millions of Americans have at least done as much as they could, forming different Bible clubs and huddles of groups, like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, that meet before school and after school and do everything that they are permitted to do, but they are not permitted the same freedom and the same rights that apply to other school clubs in our public schools. It was later, it was in 1980, that the U.S. Supreme Court, in the Stone v. Graham case said, you cannot display the Ten Commandments on the wall of the school because, as they wrote, ``Students might read them and they might obey them.'' Now, Mr. Speaker, if there is anything that would be good for the students in public schools to obey today, it would be the Ten Commandments. And yet, Mr. Speaker, that is what they take down, whether it be on the walls of the school or on the walls of a courthouse. And yet we have the image of Moses looking straight upon us, Mr. Speaker, directly across from us on the walls of this House of Representatives; and his image is there because of the Ten Commandments. It was followed by other Supreme Court decisions. It was 1985 that they had maybe the most outrageous decision of all, the Wallace v. Jaffrey case. The State of Alabama had a law that said we can at least have a moment of public silence in public schools. And the U.S. Supreme Court said, no, we cannot have a moment of silence; that is unconstitutional, because students could use it for silent prayer. And it was a 5-4 decision. It could have gone so easily the other way. But it prompted the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, William Rehnquist, to say this about what the Supreme Court did with prayer in public schools. Justice Rehnquist wrote in Wallace v. Jaffrey, ``George Washington himself, at the request of the very Congress which passed the Bill of Rights, proclaimed a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God. History must judge whether it was the father of this country in 1789 or a majority of the court today which has strayed from the meaning of the establishment clause.'' The Supreme Court was not satisfied with that. They had the decision, I believe the correct year was 1990, that held that a nativity scene and a Jewish menorah on display at a county courthouse in Pennsylvania, were unconstitutional because they said they were not balanced with non-religious emblems, such as Santa Claus or Rudolph or Frosty the Snowman. And yet the same Supreme Court has never said you cannot have Rudolph unless you balance him with Baby Jesus or a Jewish menorah, or whatever it might be. The Supreme Court has gone the wrong direction. And then 1992, the graduation prayer case, a Jewish rabbi invited to offer a prayer at a public school graduation in Rhode Island was told afterwards that was unconstitutional because there are some students who might not want to be respectful. Now, Mr. Speaker, since when have we said we do not want to teach students to be respectful in public schools? Since when have we said that whether we agree or disagree with something, we ought to at least have the courtesy to be able to listen to it and to take something that is intended to be positive without blowing up and literally making a Federal case out of it? Because Mr. Speaker, the intolerance is not on the part of someone who wants to be able to offer a prayer in a public setting. The intolerance, unfortunately, is on those who want to stifle and censor that prayer. Mr. Speaker, the religious freedom amendment follows the mechanism established by the Founding Fathers to correct these and other distortions of our religious freedom that the first amendment has been twisted into saying when it does not really say that. But the Supreme Court has found it there, and it is our job to fix it and to correct it. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt).

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Certainly, Mr. Speaker, I think that it is interesting that, of course, people are concerned that we do not use the pressure or influence of government to try to tell them what their faith or what their religion should be. And, of course, government might act through Congress, it might act through a school board, it might act through a principal or a teacher. The key there is to make sure that we reinforce the prohibition on government acting to compel anyone to be engaged in any particular religious activity. I think the best way that we can focus upon that is by looking at the text of the Religious Freedom Amendment, which is the proposed constitutional amendment. Let me share it. I think the text itself helps to answer your questions. The text of the Religious Freedom Amendment, which is House Joint Resolution 78, reads as follows: To secure the people's right to acknowledge God according to the dictates of conscience, neither the United States nor any State shall establish any official religion. But the people's right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage or traditions on public property, including schools, shall not be infringed. Neither the United States nor any State shall require any person to join in prayer or other religious activity, prescribe school prayers, discriminate against religion, or deny equal access to a benefit on account of religion. So we have, several places in the amendment, placed language meant to safeguard. For example, we have the language, ``according to the dictates of conscience,'' which parallels language that is found in a number of State constitutions, to make it clear that the rights of an individual conscience remain inviolate. We do not want to step upon anyone's. We have the requirement that we do not require any person to join in prayer or any other religious activity, and we do not have a government prescription that a prayer must occur, nor what the content should be. So it really goes back to the principle that is followed in schools in so many other ways, and that is, they provide students an opportunity to take turns so that it is not just one type of prayer or one particular faith's way of saying a prayer that is heard, but different people will have their opportunities on different occasions.

Mr. ISTOOK. Yes. This would not permit government to tell them that they must pray, it would not permit government to tell them what the content of the prayer would be; but absolutely correct, I say to the gentleman, it would permit students to initiate prayer as part of their school day when they start it. Or it might be the school assembly or it might be a football game or graduation or some other school activity. The point is, it would be a permitted activity, but never compulsory.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I believe it is 3 years. Well, closer to 4 now, the gentleman is correct.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I will if the gentleman will let me make one point first, and that is simply the point to which I am building, that we have to do something about it. We are going to be having a vote in this House in a month on doing something about it, and it is called the Religious Freedom Amendment, to make it possible for students to have prayer in public schools, to make it possible for the Ten Commandments to be displayed, to make it possible to have holiday displays, recognizing the religious traditions or heritage or beliefs of the people, and to correct the abuses of our first amendment, the beautiful language of the first amendment which has been corrupted by the Supreme Court. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. ISTOOK. Okay.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the House and other citizens about a major issue which we will have on the floor of this body in 1 month. Mr. Speaker, we have a great reverence and respect in the United States of America, and properly so, for the Constitution that was assembled and ratified by the States some 200 years ago, and the very first liberty that was put in the Bill of Rights, added to the original Constitution, is religious freedom. The first amendment begins, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, and with those plain simple words the Founding Fathers intended to establish two basic simple concepts. First, that this land would not have any official church so designated by an act of the Federal Government; secondly, that we would have the maximum of religious liberty in the United States of America. Why did so many people come to this country if not seeking a land where they could freely exercise their religious beliefs and where they could exercise it right next to someone who might have some differences of faith but who would have not only a tolerance but a respect for those differences; who would say to one another, you may have your belief and I may have mine, and we believe that all men have a God- given right to acknowledge God according to the dictates of their own conscience; worship who, where, or how they may, and we respect that right, and we are not offended by the fact that someone may have a differing religious belief. But, Mr. Speaker, it started 36 years ago that the Supreme Court took that very plain and simple language, that very plain and simple meaning, and they started to twist it, they started to distort it, they started to make misdirected rulings and basically said that if you are on public property, like a school, if you are on public property and you engage in an act of prayer or other religious expression, that that is the same as if this Congress had said that we are going to select for the American people what their faith must be. They said basically that an individual or a group of people coming together when they are on public property is the same as telling people what their beliefs must be as establishing a national church, an official religion. They are not the same thing at all. But in 1962 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that even when, even when students voluntarily choose to recite a prayer together, even when there was no compulsion that was involved, that was unconstitutional. And so began the controversy that has continued for a generation over voluntary prayer in public schools. It has gotten so bad, Mr. Speaker, that the add-on decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court just made it worse. For example, in 1985, and Mr. Speaker, this was a decision that came from your home State of Alabama; the State of Alabama had passed a law that said, well, the Supreme Court says we cannot have vocal prayers by groups of students in public school, but we will permit students to have a moment of silence. A moment of silence was permitted by the Alabama law, and in 1985 the United States Supreme Court, just across the street from the Capitol building over here, the United States Supreme Court said permitting a moment of silence was unconstitutional because it could be used by students for silent prayer. Now I thought the Constitution at least guaranteed the right to remain silent, but not if you are using that silence in a school to offer a prayer. That was the U.S. Supreme Court. That is part of the warped rulings that have so twisted the first amendment that people cannot recognize the results that are achieved under it. In 1992 they said if it is at a public school graduation, if there is a prayer there, that was unconstitutional because, and this case was from Rhode Island and it was a rabbi that was asked to offer the prayer, but because students were expected to be respectful of the prayer, just as they were expected to be respectful of the other things that occurred during the graduation. Because they were expected to be respectful, the Supreme Court said, oh, no, having a prayer at graduation of school; my goodness, that too is unconstitutional because some students might think that just by being silent, others may think that they are joining in the prayer. And therefore to protect them, no matter what the majority wants, no matter how it steps upon and stomps upon the beliefs and the wishes of other people engaging in free exercise of religion and free speech, the U.S. Supreme Court said the prayer at that graduation was unconstitutional. And there have been other decisions. In 1980, out of Kentucky, the Supreme Court ruled that to permit the Ten Commandments to be posted in a public school was unconstitutional. Now, Mr. Speaker, I know the Ten Commandments are the basis of our laws. They are the starting point for the laws not only in the U.S.A. but in so much of the entire world, and they are common to many different cultures and to different faiths. But the U.S. Supreme Court said they cannot be put on the wall of a public school. And yet here in this House Chamber I see right before me, right before my eyes as I face the opposite wall, Mr. Speaker, is the large bas-relief, the image, of Moses, the great law giver, the one who brought the stone tablets down from Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments written with the finger of God. The walls of the Supreme Court have the Ten Commandments depicted upon them. We open sessions of this Congress, Mr. Speaker, with prayer. The U.S. Supreme Court opens with ``God save the United States and this honorable Court.'' And we have right above your head, Mr. Speaker, the words that we find on currency in America, ``In God We Trust.'' And do you know that is under attack? There are people who want to take that off currency. And let us take the State of Ohio. Ohio has a State motto, and it is kind of akin to ours, of ``In God We Trust.'' Theirs is, ``With God All Things Are Possible.'' They are being sued right now, Mr. Speaker, to stop that from happening. They are being sued by those who say, oh, you cannot say with God all things are possible in a public setting that involves public property, such as the grounds of the State capital of Ohio or anyplace else where they may want to put their State motto. And the ACLU is suing in West Virginia to stop prayers at high school football games, and we have communities all over the country that have different suits pending. For example, I was reading one today, a community near Kansas City, Missouri, and in that community one of the emblems on their city seal is a fish, and the ACLU is saying oh, my goodness, that is one of the emblems of the Christian faith, so let us have it taken off. Where will this intolerance stop? When will it end? When will the faith of the American people be able to be expressed freely? When will the Supreme Court stop things such as this and their rulings against nativity scenes, menorahs? Just came down a number of years ago, came out of Pennsylvania, at the courthouse there, I believe it was Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, and they had, among different holiday displays they had a nativity scene, they had a Jewish menorah, they had other things, too. But the Supreme Court said it is possible to look at that nativity scene and see it by itself and not notice the other secular emblems that might be on display. And they said if you have a display such as that, you have to balance it with Santa Claus, plastic reindeer, Frosty the Snowman. It is what we call the plastic reindeer test, except now the courts, they had a Federal court ruling in New Jersey just this last December saying, well, even though you have balanced a nativity scene with other secular emblems, Santa, Frosty, and so forth, no, the nativity scene still must go because it is too powerful, and it is more powerful than the secular emblems. I am tired of all that. I am tired of that and so many other cases that I can describe, whether it be from the Supreme Court, the Federal appellate courts or the Federal courts, or whether it be the intimidation that it creates where schools say, my goodness, we have got to really, really stay away from anything, even if it is legal, because we do not want to get sued and we do not want to have these huge legal bills. And every year, and it is about this time that probably there are letters going out again that the ACLU and their fellow believers, I guess, send out letters to schools saying, ``Don't you dare have a prayer at your graduation unless you want to be sued.'' I remember the case in Texas, in Galveston, at I believe it was Santa Fe or Santa Fe Ball High School at Galveston where a Federal judge told them, ``Well, because of another court ruling, I'll let you have a prayer at graduation if the students insist on it, but I will have a U.S. marshal there, and that U.S. marshal will arrest anyone if they mention the name of Jesus Christ as part of that prayer.'' He said that on the record. There is a transcript of it that the Federal judge said that. Mr. Speaker, I have to come back to the gentleman's home State of Alabama. Alabama is suffering under an order from a Federal judge right now that was issued last year from Judge Ira Dement, and Judge Dement's order has really taken things to a new height. I want to share some of the words that Judge Dement has written in a ruling that was issued just a few months ago, as requested by people who wanted to stop prayer that they were still having in some schools in Alabama in different settings. And this is what Judge Dement's order says: He said, The schools there are permanently enjoined from ``permitting prayers, biblical and scriptural readings and other presentations or activities of a religious nature at all school- sponsored or school-initiated assemblies and events, including, but not limited to, sporting events, regardless of whether the activity takes place during instructional time, regardless of whether attendance is compulsory or noncompulsory, and regardless of whether the speaker or presenter is a student, school official, or nonschool person.'' Regardless of the circumstances, at any time, whether it is during class time or not class time, whether it is on the school grounds or off the school grounds, whether one has to be there as a student or one does not have to be there as a student, if there is a prayer from anyone, the judge said, they are going to answer to him. Mr. Speaker, he is not kidding. He has, at the expense of the school system, hired monitors to patrol the school and the hallways, and they have had student after student after student after student be expelled because they do not believe a Federal judge should have that much control over their freedom of speech and their freedom of religion. And if a group of students want to get together and they want to have a prayer, then why is it that only the opinion of the one that does not like it is the one that counts; and the opinions of those who want to have a prayer, their opinions are ignored? Mr. Speaker, in addition to prayer, we start sessions of this House with the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court made a proper ruling in relation to the Pledge of Allegiance. The case came out of West Virginia. The Supreme Court said, no student can be compelled to say the Pledge of Allegiance, but they did not give a student that did not like it the right to stop their classmates or censor their classmates who wanted to say it. Mr. Speaker, that is the standard we ought to be applying to school prayer. Nobody should be forced to participate, of course not. But that does not give them the right to show their intolerance by trying to censor their classmates that may want to say it.

Mr. ISTOOK. But we are at a key position, because this amendment has been approved by the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, and approved by the House Committee on the Judiciary. That is the first time a committee of this House has ever approved an amendment on voluntary school prayer. Only one other time, in 1971, did we have a vote in this body on such a proposal, and that was done with a mechanism that bypassed the committee process. So even though, as the gentleman correctly notes, the Constitution establishes a deliberately difficult process for any constitutional amendment, we have come through the necessary stages to bring it to a vote in this House. And it will be the first vote in this body since 1971. And that is something that, frankly, ought to embarrass the many Congresses that have met year after year since then. Because if we look at public opinion polls since 1962, consistently three-fourths of the American people say we want a constitutional amendment to make it possible to have voluntary prayer in public schools again. Not compulsory, but not with the kind of restrictions they put on efforts to have prayer in public schools today. So it is long overdue for this body to act. And I want to make note, too, that this is what has happened before, when the U.S. Supreme Court went in one direction and the Congress and the American people said it is the wrong direction. The most prominent of the constitutional amendments that have been adopted to correct the Supreme Court was the 13th amendment to abolish slavery, because the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision had said Congress and the States do not have the power and do not have the right to abolish slavery. That took a constitutional amendment. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time and the opportunity this evening to address this important issue to restore the full range of religious freedom that the Founding Fathers intended; that the first amendment in its simple terms was meant to represent before it was twisted, unfortunately, by the court decisions. And I certainly look forward to the vote that we will be having in this House in a month, and I hope that the citizens who are represented by the Members of this Congress will talk to the Members of this Congress and tell them that they need to be supporting the religious freedom amendment.

Mr. ISTOOK. Our intent is first to have the House vote, which will create the incentive for the Senate vote. And there are multiple Members of the Senate who are potential principal sponsors in the other body.